Birkenhead, New Zealand
Birkenhead is a suburb of Auckland, in northern New Zealand. It is located on the North Shore of the Waitematā Harbour, northwest of the Auckland City Centre. The area has been settled by Tāmaki Māori since at least the 14th century, and is the location of Te Matarae ō Mana, a fortified pā for Te Kawerau ā Maki that overlooked an important seasonal shark fishery. European settlement in Birkenhead began in late the 1840s, and by the late 19th century the area became renowned for strawberry crops. In 1884, the Chelsea Sugar Refinery was constructed in Birkenhead, becoming a major source of income for Birkenhead. The increased population growth led to Birkenhead becoming one of the first boroughs of Auckland in 1888. Birkenhead transitioned from a semi-rural community to suburban Auckland after the opening of the Auckland Harbour Bridge in 1959, becoming a city in 1978. In 1989, Birkenhead City was amalgamated with North Shore City.
Etymology
The name Birkenhead first appears in relation to a land survey conducted by Charles Heaphy in the summer of 1862 and 1863. The origin is unknown, but it possibly stems from the geographical similarities the area has to Birkenhead in North West England, which is on the opposite shore of the River Mersey to Liverpool. Similar locations can be found in Adelaide and Sydney in Australia. A common story explaining the origins of the suburb's name involves land developer Samuel Cochrane choosing the name in memory of his hometown, but this story appears to be apocryphal, as Cochrane was a Londoner and did not have ties to Liverpool. The first mentions in press of Birkenhead were real estate advertisements placed by Samuel Cochrane in June 1863.Geography
The Birkenhead area is primarily uplifted Waitemata Group sandstone, that was deposited on the sea floor during the Early Miocene, between 22 and 16 million years ago. Prior to human settlement, the inland North Shore was a mixed podocarp-broadleaf forest dominated by kauri. Pōhutukawa trees dominated the coastal margins of Birkenhead. Some kauri remnant forest remains in areas around Birkenhead, including Kauri Park, Le Roys Bush, Kauri Point Domain, Kauri Glen and Eskdale Reserve.Highbury is a suburb located within Birkenhead, which refers to the older shopping centre at the junction of Birkenhead Avenue and Mokoia Road. The name Highbury was the name of Thomas Forgham's family residence, that was constructed in early colonial Birkenhead. The name of the house was chosen by English immigrant William Francis Hammond, Forgham's son-in-law, in memory of Highbury, Hammond's parents' townhouse in Highgate, London.
The highest point in the suburb is the hill in eastern Eskdale Reserve, which reaches a height of above sea-level in the neighbouring suburb of Hillcrest.
History
Māori history
Māori settlement of the Auckland Region began around the 13th or 14th centuries. The North Shore was settled by Tāmaki Māori, including people descended from the Tainui migratory canoe and ancestors of figures such as Taikehu and Peretū. Many of the early Tāmaki Māori people of the North Shore identified as Ngā Oho.Boat Rock in the Waitematā Harbour southwest of Birkenhead was a location of great significance to Tāmaki Māori. The rock was the location where Te Arawa chief Kahumatamomoe placed a mauri stone, naming the Waitematā after the mauri stone.
The warrior Maki migrated from the Kāwhia Harbour to his ancestral home in the Auckland Region, likely sometime in the 17th century. Maki conquered and unified many the Tāmaki Māori tribes as Te Kawerau ā Maki, including those of the North Shore. After Maki's death, his sons settled different areas of his lands, creating new hapū. His younger son Maraeariki settled the North Shore and Hibiscus Coast, who based himself at the head of the Ōrewa River. Maraeariki's daughter Kahu succeeded him, and she is the namesake of the North Shore, Te Whenua Roa o Kahu. Many of the iwi of the North Shore, including Ngāti Manuhiri, Ngāti Maraeariki, Ngāti Kahu, Ngāti Poataniwha, Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki and Ngāti Whātua, can trace their lineage to Kahu.
The poor clay soils of the inland forest of the hindered development. Most Māori settlements of the Birkenhead area focused on fishing and harvesting food from the forests. The focal point of Te Kawerau ā Maki on the North Shore was Te Mātārae ō Mana, a headland pā at Kauri Point in modern-day Chatswood, and Rongohau, the kāinga below the cliffs at Kendall Bay. Te Mātārae ō Mana was named after the ancestor Manaoterangi, who was the rangatira of the pā in the mid-18th century, and was likely constructed in the 17th century. The pā was of strategic importance due to its commanding view of the Waitematā Harbour, and its proximity to a renowned tauranga mango, a shark fishery which brought seasonal visitors from across Tāmaki Makurau and the Hauraki Gulf in the summer, including important rangatira such as Kiwi Tāmaki and later Tarahawaiki.
Manaoterangi was a close relative of Tuperiri of the Te Taoū/Ngāti Whātua ragatira Tuperiri, and was married to Waikahuia, the sister of Waiohua paramount chief Kiwi Tāmaki. Because of this, the pā and Mana's people were spared during the conflicts between Te Taoū and Waiohua in the mid-18th century, and at the end of his life, Manaoterangi entrusted his people to Tuperiri and the iwi that grew to become Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei.
By the early 19th century, the eastern headlands the Upper Waitematā Harbour, including along Oruamo or Hellyers Creek were some of the most densely settled areas of the North Shore by Tāmaki Māori. Oruamo or Hellyers Creek was an important transportation node for the North Shore area.
In the latter 18th and early 19th centuries, members of Te Taoū/Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei resided seasonally at Te Mātārae a Mana. During the early 1820s, most Māori of the North Shore fled for the Waikato or Northland due to the threat of war parties during the Musket Wars. Te Mātārae ō Mana and Rongohau were raided and destroyed in a night raid around the year 1823.
When Tāmaki Māori returned in greater numbers to the Auckland Region, Te Mātārae ō Mana and Rongohau were occupied again, until the early 1840s. The shark fishery remained an important location for many decades onwards. In 1844, when Tāmaki Māori held the feast of Remuera, sharks were caught for the event at this fishery, and considerable numbers of Māori fishing boats fished the area as late as the 1860s.
Outside of Te Mātārae ō Mana and Rongohau, other known locations of significance to Tāmaki Māori around Birkenhead include Maunganui or Mangonui was the name of a pā located inland on the Kauri Point ridge, and Ngutuwera, an inland pā where people would stay seasonally, to snare kākā in the wooded vallies of Tāwhiwhikareao. The traditional names for the bays of the area include Wararoa, Onetaunga, Wa Iti o Toroa, Kaiwhanake and Opaketai.
Early European settlement
Birkenhead was a part of the Mahurangi Block, an area purchased by the Crown on 13 April 1841. Land speculators purchased much of the isolated forests of Birkenhead in 1843, and the first permanent settlers arrived in 1849.Major Collings Ann de Jersey Grut emigrated to New Zealand in the 1850s from the Channel Islands, alongside her husband Major Collings de Jersey Grut and brother Charles D'Auvergne. The de Jersey Grut family established a farm and manor near Duck Creek in the 1850s, but struggled to establish a farm. The poor soil led to starvation, and the servants needing to share food with the de Jersey Grut family members, and cattle would often wander off into the bush. The de Jersey Grut family left in 1865, and had their house shipped to Orewa.
Henry James Hawkins, established a fruit orchard in the Birkenhead area in the 1850s. Despite the poor clay soil, Hawkins became a famed horticulturalist, winning prizes for crops such as apples, plums, peas, gooseberries, strawberries. Fruit became a major industry for Birkenhead from the 1860s, notably apples, pears, and two varieties of strawberry, Marguerite and Duke of Edinburgh, which flourished well in clay soils.
Birkenhead was subdivided and promoted as a township from 1863, alongside other settlements such as Allandale and Balmain. Residents of the village survived through subsistence farming, and profited from bountiful seasonal strawberry crops.
In 1879, William Francis Hammond bought at Birkenhead Point, establishing Raven Hill estate, followed by Charles E. Button who established a second grand house at Birkenhead Point in 1883. Hammond, the son of a London auctioneer, was a keen promoter of Birkenhead, surveying the area and promoting Birkenhead subdivisions and estates at auctions, and constructing a bridge across Little Shoal Bay, better connecting the community to Northcote.
Lake Road, connecting Northcote and Birkenhead, was significantly improved in the 1870s, helping development in Birkenhead. This was aided further by the Auckland Harbour Board constructed a wharf in 1882, which was followed by a post office in 1884. The new wharf allowed orchardists in Birkenhead to better transport produce to the Auckland market, further helped by larger orchardists building their own jetties on Oruamo or Hellyers Creek in the north. In 1886, the Birkenhead and Northcote Fruitgrowing Association was formed.
By the 1880s, itinerant gum diggers roamed Birkenhead, searching for kauri gum. Birkenhead residents loathed the gum diggers, who would often destroy roads, orchards and farms in order to locate kauri gum. In response, the Waitemata County Council lobbied the Crown to allow the country more direct control over the gum digging industry.
Chelsea Sugar Refinery and Birkenhead Borough
In 1881, the Australasian Colonial Sugar Refining Company chose Birkenhead for the site of a new sugar refining factory, after founder Edward Knox visited Auckland. The refinery was chosen due to Auckland's relative proximity to the sugarcane plantations of Fiji, and south-eastern Birkenhead was chosen as it was one of the few deep water anchorages of the Waitematā Harbour, and due to its proximity to the fresh water Duck Creek. The factory opened in 1884, and by 1888 had greatly increased production. The factory continues to be the largest single site industrial facility on the North Shore.The establishment of Chelsea Sugar Refinery led to a population explosion in Birkenhead and the surrounding areas, and led to Birkenhead developing into a suburban township. In the mid-1880s, a factory village was constructed adjacent for workers at the factory. Mr Judd, the first customs officer, successfully convinced the Colonial Sugar Refining Company to call both the factory and adjacent company village Chelsea, after his hometown in England.
On 12 April 1888, with only 330 ratepayers living in the area, the Borough of Birkenhead was established as one of the earliest boroughs of Auckland. Birkenhead was one of the largest boroughs of New Zealand in area size, and tensions existed between the township at Highbury and more rural Birkdale. Highbury residents wanted more funding to be put aside for urban projects such as improved footpaths, frustrating rural Birkdale residents, who needed better rural roads, especially during the strawberry harvesting season.
In 1885, the Zion Hill Methodist Church was constructed, becoming a major focal point for social life in Birkenhead. The church visually dominated Birkenhead due to its position on the hill, and was a strong voice for the temperance movement, lobbying against hotels from being established in Birkenhead. The church and Chelsea Sugar Refinery were the two largest influences on life for Birkenhead residents at the turn of the 20th century.