Manawatu-Wanganui Region - History

History

• Pre-1769 Approximately 3% of Māori lived in the Whanganui Basin and 8% on the Taranaki coast. Coastal Māori garden and gather food but life for Māori further inland is more difficult, relying on hunting and gathering.
• 1820-1840 Ngati Toa and Te Atiawa iwi displace local iwi from their lands.
• 1830 Te Rauparaha (Ngati Toa) lay siege to Putiki Pā in retaliation for an attack on Kapiti Island, sacking the pā and killing its inhabitants.
• 1831 European traders arrive in Wanganui, led by Joe Rowe, supposedly a dealer in preserved heads (moko mokai). A dispute with local Māori leads to the death of three of his party and his own head is cut off and preserved.
• 1840 Edward Jerningham Wakefield (Edward Gibbon Wakefield's son) purchases 40,000 acres (160 km2) of land under dubious circumstances, for the New Zealand Company, including the Wanganui town site. The first European settlers start arriving in Wanganui.
• 1842 The first organised European settlers in Horowhenua arrive at Paiaka.
• 1847 In July the "Battle of St John's Wood" occurs when 400 Māori clash with an equal force of British Regulars.
• 1848 The Crown purchases Wanganui, 80,000 acres (320 km2), 8,000 acres (32 km2) of which are supposed to be set aside as a reserve.
• 1855 Paiaka settlers move closer to the coast at "Foxton", which becomes a port handling flax, timber and agricultural produce.
• 1856 The Wanganui Chronicle is first published.
• 1860s Scandinavians settle in the Tararua District, later founding Eketahuna, Dannevirke, and Norsewood.
• 1865 A battle ensues between the Hau Hau adherents (who were largely upper Whanganui Māori), who want to expel the Pākehā at Wanganui, and the Māori of the lower river.
• 1866 Palmerston North (Te Papai-oea) is founded. It is surrounded by forests with the Manawatu River serving as its only link with the port of Foxton and the outside world.
• 1870s The bush is gradually felled and the Manawatu opened up for European farms and settlement. Former Danish Prime Minister, Bishop Ditlev Gothard Monrad, organises a settlement of Danes near Awapuni.
• 1871 The first sawmill is established at Palmerston North.
• 1872 Wanganui becomes a borough.
• 1875 The Manawatu Times is published for the first time at Palmerston North.
• 1876 A railway opens between Foxton and Palmerston North via Longburn, later named the Foxton Branch. Wellington Province abolished.
• 1877 Palmerston North becomes a borough.
• 1878 A railway line opens between Palmerston North and Wanganui. The first portion later became part of the North Island Main Trunk Railway, between Aramoho and Wanganui the Wanganui Branch, and the rest part of the Marton - New Plymouth Line.
• 1884 The Sanson Tramway, built and operated by the Manawatu County Council, opens to Sanson, New Zealand from the Foxton Branch at Himatangi.
• 1885 Mother Mary Joseph Aubert starts her community of the Daughters of Our Lady of Compassion at Jerusalem, founding a home for Māori orphans, the elderly and infirm. The private Castleciff Railway opens between Wanganui and Castlecliff.
• 1886 The Wellington and Manawatu Railway opens between Wellington and Longburn railway (later the North Island Main Trunk), superseding the Foxton link and ensuring Palmerston North's growth.
• 1889 Levin is founded because of the construction of Wellington & Manawatu Railway
• 1908 The North Island Main Trunk reaches Taumarunui and thence Auckland, opening up the inland districts for development.
• 1906 Levin becomes a borough.
• 1924 Wanganui becomes a city.
• 1930 Palmerston North becomes a city.
• 1939 Ohakea Air Force Station commences operations.
• 1945 The Sanson Tramway closes.
• 1953 New Zealand's worst rail disaster occurs at Tangiwai on the North Island Main Trunk, as the railway bridge collapses because of a lahar flow from the crater lake on Mount Ruapehu. A train with Christmas holiday-makers plunges into the flood, killing 151 people.
• 1956 The private railway between Wanganui and Castlecliff is purchased by the government and incorporated into the national railway network as the Castlecliff Branch.
• 1959 The Foxton Branch railway closes.
• 1960s Famous New Zealand poet James K. Baxter sets up a commune at Jerusalem.
• 1963 Massey University is formed by a merger of a branch of Victoria University (at Palmerston North) with Massey Agricultural College.
• 1991 In formal recognition of its original name the government renames the Wanganui River the Whanganui River.
• 1995 Occupation of Moutoa Gardens (Wanganui) in protest at the slowness of the Waitangi Tribunal claim settlement process and loss of control of the Whanganui River.
• 1995-1996 A series of small eruptions occurs on Mt Ruapehu, throwing ash over a wide area.
• 2004 Sustained heavy rain in February caused the region's worst flooding in over 100 years.