Raglan, New Zealand

Raglan is a small beachside town located west of Hamilton, New Zealand on State Highway 23. It is known for its surfing, and volcanic black sand beaches.

History

The Ngāti Māhanga iwi occupied the area around Raglan in the late 18th century. There are at least 81 archaeological sites in the area, mainly near the coast. Limited radiocarbon dating puts the earliest sites at about 1400AD. The Māori people named the site Whāingaroa. One tradition says that Tainui priest, Rakataura, crossed Whāingaroa on his way to Kāwhia. Another says it was among the places the early Te Arawa explorer, Kahumatamomoe, with his nephew Īhenga, visited on their expedition from Maketū.
The first Europeans to settle in the area, the Rev James and Mary Wallis, Wesleyan missionaries, were embraced and welcomed by local Māori in 1835. European settlement, including large scale conversion of land to pasture, began in the mid-1850s after a large sale of land by Chief Wiremu Neera Te Awaitaia.
The name "Raglan", adopted in 1858, honours Fitzroy Somerset, 1st Lord Raglan, who had commanded the British forces in the Crimean War of 1853–1856.
The Raglan economy initially featured flax and timber exports, followed by farming which remains the mainstay of the area.
Raglan's first coach link to Hamilton began in 1880 and a telegraph wire was put up beside the road in 1884. In 1904 Raglan was linked to Hamilton telephone exchange. Mains electricity came in 1935 and a sewage scheme in 1977.
Tourism and the arts are significant contributors to the current economy. Raglan and District Museum/ Te Whare Taonga o Whāingaroa contains historic artefacts and archives from the region. A new museum building was built in 2011. Additionally, the Raglan and District Museum's online collection can be accessed .

Traffic

A government subsidy was given in 1878, to promote the start of regular steamer services from Manukau Harbour, which took about 8 hours. Until the main road was metalled in 1921, most goods travelled by sea. The wharf remained important until the 1950s, peaking in 1954, with 15,462 tons, handled by 38 ships. One of the problems was the shallow bar at the entrance to the harbour. For example, the Holmburn was stuck there for 26 hours in 1962. However, like other small ports, the main problem was the introduction of the inter-island roll-on roll-off ferries in 1962, with 40 Watersiders Union members made redundant in 1972, though cement volumes increased to a peak of 41,351 tons in 1974. Again the bar was a problem for the larger cement ships and, since John Wilson made the last call on 7 July 1982, the only goods landed at the harbour have been fish from the fishing boats.

Wharves

Until 1874 goods were transferred off the beach below Cliff Street and small boats moored in a boat harbour, cut off from the harbour by construction of a sluice-gate under Wallis Street causeway in about 1918. The new road gave access to a new dairy factory and the wharf opened in 1921. A small wooden jetty and storage shed beside Cliff Street was built in 1874. That was replaced by a stone jetty about to the west in 1881, which remains in place at the foot of the main street. A 250yd wooden pier was built in 1889 to the east at the end of James Street, enabling the larger Northern Steamship vessels to moor in deep water, beside a larger storage shed. Two totara piles remain from that Long Wharf, which was replaced by the current concrete wharf, opened in 1921. The wharf was enlarged for construction of a cement silo for Golden Bay Cement in 1967 and a further silo was built in 1973. Cement was supplied for the construction of Huntly power station and the Kaimai tunnel. A fire destroyed the 1921 shed in 2010. A pontoon was added to the east side of the wharf in 2023 as part of a $2.5m Provincial Growth scheme and steps on the other side, with an additional $3.2m of Better Off funding.

Airfield

The town became the scene of public civil disobedience campaigns in the 1970s. In 1941, during World War II, the New Zealand Government took local ancestral land from indigenous Māori owners to construct a military airfield. When no longer required for defence purposes, part of the land, a block, was not returned to the owners, but instead was transferred to Raglan County Council in 1953 and became the public Raglan golf-course in 1968.
There ensued widespread protest and attempts to reoccupy the land; in 1978, 20 Māori protesters were arrested on the ninth hole of the golf course. The land was eventually returned to the owners. 150 people were involved in the protest.
It became a focus for local job-training and employment programs, as well as for the Māori sovereignty movement. In 2021 the council suggested return of the rest of the land could still "take a number of years". Fencing of the airfield in 2021 halved its width and resulted in a petition to close it.
On August 21, 2022, local councillors unanimously voted to begin the process of returning the airfield land to its original Māori owners.

Local government

Raglan Highway Board existed from 1868 and merged with the Karioi Board between 1888 and 1892. Raglan Town Board started in 1878 and merged with the highways boards into Raglan County Council in 1889. It was re-inaugurated as Raglan Town Board in 1906 and continued until 1938, when the Board again merged into the County Council. In 1954 Raglan became a county township, administered by a committee of 7 under the jurisdiction of the county council. On 26 March 1957 Raglan Town Committee resigned due to the unsympathetic attitude of the council. Within a month more than 100 ratepayers had petitioned the Governor-General to establish a town board. The Local Government Act 1974 brought about Raglan Community Council, which was replaced by Raglan Community Board in 1989, when Waikato District Council was formed.

Demographics

In 1859, the local magistrate, F. D. Fenton, reported the population of Whāingaroa as 424. That was the number shown in the 1858 census for the Ngāti Mahanga population of Raglan. That accords with Ferdinand von Hochstetter's account of his 1859 tour, when he said that the Māori population was estimated at 400 and said that he had been told there were 122 Europeans, including 20 farmer-families. Hochstetter said there were six or eight houses, with a tavern and a store in Raglan and a Māori village and an old pā at Horea on the north shore. Many of the Europeans were evacuated in 1860 and again in 1863, when war threatened and it was said 95 inhabitants remained.
After that, as the graph below shows, Raglan's population recovered slowly until the main road from Hamilton was completely metalled in 1921 and then grew again after completion of tar-sealing in 1961.
The population of the Raglan ward was 4680 in 2006. It had increased to 4920 in 2013.

Raglan covers and had an estimated population of as of with a population density of people per km².
Raglan had a population of 3,717 in the 2023 New Zealand census, an increase of 390 people since the 2018 census, and an increase of 960 people since the 2013 census. There were 1,785 males, 1,917 females and 15 people of other genders in 1,416 dwellings. 3.1% of people identified as LGBTIQ+. The median age was 41.2 years. There were 741 people aged under 15 years, 495 aged 15 to 29, 1,824 aged 30 to 64, and 657 aged 65 or older.
People could identify as more than one ethnicity. The results were 84.6% European ; 24.8% Māori; 2.7% Pasifika; 3.4% Asian; 2.4% Middle Eastern, Latin American and African New Zealanders ; and 2.5% other, which includes people giving their ethnicity as "New Zealander". English was spoken by 96.9%, Māori language by 8.7%, and other languages by 12.3%. No language could be spoken by 2.2%. New Zealand Sign Language was known by 0.5%. The percentage of people born overseas was 23.2, compared with 28.8% nationally.
Religious affiliations were 23.0% Christian, 0.3% Hindu, 0.1% Islam, 1.0% Māori religious beliefs, 0.7% Buddhist, 1.0% New Age, 0.2% Jewish, and 1.7% other religions. People who answered that they had no religion were 65.5%, and 6.8% of people did not answer the census question.
Of those at least 15 years old, 999 people had a bachelor's or higher degree, 1,386 had a post-high school certificate or diploma, and 588 people exclusively held high school qualifications. The median income was $36,600, compared with $41,500 nationally. 369 people earned over $100,000 compared to 12.1% nationally. The employment status of those at least 15 was that 1,353 people were employed full-time, 567 were part-time, and 90 were unemployed.
Growth by about 500 households is expected by 2045 and to 12,500 by 2070, with several new suburbs.
Property prices have risen sharply since 2000, for example by 49.6% from 2014 to 2017 and a further 42% to 2020. That coincides with a decline in the Māori proportion of the population –

	2006	2013	2018
European	72.6	80.9	82.9
Māori	29.7	27.3	26.5
Pacific peoples	3.1	2.9	2.9
Asian	1.1	2.4	2.5
Middle Eastern/Latin American/African	0.2	0.7	1.6
Other ethnicity	8.8	1.3	1.2

By 2018 there were 6 fewer unoccupied private dwellings at 471, but those occupied had increased to 1,275.

Year	Average age	Households	Average income	National average
2001	37.4	1056	$14,200	$18,500
2006	37.8	1068	$18,900	$24,100
2013	39.7	1143	$24,900	$27,900
2018	39.6	1275	$27,200	$31,800

Employment and commuting increased between 2006 and 2013, as shown in this table.

Commuting type	Totals, 2006	Totals, 2013	2018
Live and work in area unit	432	504
Commute out	402	519	477
Commute in	177	282	318
Total people working in area unit	609	786