(1834–1907).

Geologist, explorer, scientific administrator.

A new biography of Hector, James appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

James Hector was born in Edinburgh on 16 March 1834, the son of Alexander Hector, conveyancer and Writer to the Signet. After attending Edinburgh Academy and High School, Hector briefly worked in his father's office. Interest in natural science led him to study medicine at Edinburgh University as the only avenue to a scientific career, but he attended extra-curricular lectures in natural science and later assisted the professors of botany (Balfour) and zoology (Edward Forbes, greatest naturalist of his generation).

After graduating M.D. (1856), Hector was selected by Sir R. Murchison as geologist and surgeon to a British Government expedition under the command of Captain John Palliser. Palliser's expedition was to investigate communications in western Canada, to explore unknown country, and to seek practical passes over the Rockies. Two years of adventure and hardship proved Hector an accomplished scientist and intrepid explorer. Kicking Horse Pass, which the Canadian Pacific Railway crosses, was named from his narrow escape from death and is now marked by his monument. After examining Vancouver Island and goldfields and mines elsewhere in western America, Hector returned to receive honours (F.R.S. Edinburgh, and in 1861 the Royal Geographical Society's gold medal) and two offers of appointment – geologist and political agent in Kashmir, and geologist to the Provincial Government of Otago, New Zealand. He accepted the latter.

Hector reached Dunedin in April 1862, bearing letters of introduction from Sir J. D. Hooker to von Haast and Buchanan. He immediately began examining the province and its developing goldfields, westward to Wakatipu, and in 1863 extended his exploration further west, making an arduous journey on foot up the Matukituki River and down the Arawata. Plans for a West Coast expedition by ship having been delayed, he made a dash from Wakatipu up the Von River, across the Mararoa Saddle to the head of the Greenstone, accompanied by N. von Tunzelmann, and following in the steps of McKellar and Gunn. This gave hope of a negotiable pass to a West Coast harbour. In May 1863 Hector left Dunedin in a schooner-rigged yacht Matilda Hayes, calling at Bluff. He explored the Waiau Valley, and rejoined the yacht at Riverton, engaging seven Maoris to accompany the expedition which then visited Stewart Island and the fiords from Preservation Inlet to Milford Sound. Failing to find a pass in the Cleddau, Hector proceeded to the Hollyford and Lake McKerrow. Leaving the yacht, and with two companions, he pushed up the Hollyford and Passburn, across to the Greenstone, and thus to Queenstown. He arrived at Dunedin on 7 October, where his reported discoveries (to some extent anticipated by Alabaster and Caples) were received with public enthusiasm. He rejoined the yacht by the same route and returned to Dunedin in January 1864.

During the heroic phase of his life, Hector was shy and self-conscious, “averse to premature conclusions only partly unfolded”, and his reports on the Otago survey are but brief commentary on the achievement represented by his unpublished geological map. In 1864 he was commissioned to tour the colony to prepare for the New Zealand Industrial Exhibition (Dunedin, 1865), and his success in this task marked a turning point in his career. When the seat of Government moved to Wellington, the Premier, F. A. Weld, late in 1864, established a Geological Survey for the whole of New Zealand and appointed Hector to be Director when his Otago engagement ended. In Wellington, Hector established his Geological Survey (including John Buchanan, botanist and artist; W. Skey, chemist; and R. B. Gore, meteorological assistant) in the Colonial Museum, which was founded as its headquarters, and included the Colonial Laboratory and, later, an observatory. In 1867 the New Zealand Institute Act set up an institute for the advancement of science and art, to which the Colonial Museum and Laboratory were transferred. Hector became Director of the Colonial Museum and Geological Survey and Manager of the Institute, and was recognised as the adviser of the Government on scientific matters of all kinds. The Geological Survey employed some outstanding officers, including Hutton, Cox, McKay, and Park, whose contributions to geology formed an annual volume, Reports of Geological Explorations, with a preface by Hector. The Colonial Museum issued catalogues and manuals of New Zealand plants and animals, and its annual report also dealt with the Colonial Botanic Gardens from 1883 to 1886. The Colonial Laboratory reported on analyses and assays of minerals, ores, and soils. The observatory, forerunner of the Meteorological Office, also provided a time service. The Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, edited by Hector for 35 years, enshrine the researches of New Zealanders in many sciences. Hector acted as a commissioner for the New Zealand court in several overseas exhibitions, and compiled a Handbook of New Zealand, published in four editions (1879–86). He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1866. In 1868 he married Maria Georgiana Monro, daughter of Sir David Monro. In 1870 the Otago Provincial Government unsuccessfully sued him for alleged breach of contract. He was appointed to the first Senate of the University of New Zealand in 1871 and served as Chancellor (1885 to 1903), rendering service to higher education. In 1874 he visited England and U.S.A., was awarded the Lyell Medal by the Geological Society of London, and the Order of the Golden Cross by the German Emperor, and in the following year received the honour of C.M.G. He was created K.C.M.G. in 1887.

Despite his busy public life, Hector maintained an interest in research, and his biological investigations (what he called his “side shows”) resulted in papers on whales, fish, moas, and other birds. His chief contributions to geology are The Outline of New Zealand Geology (1886) prepared for the Indian and Colonial Exhibition, geological maps of New Zealand, papers on glaciation, fossil reptiles, and belemnites. In middle age he showed an inability to concentrate on routine work, with the result that important researches were published merely as abstracts and official reports lay for months in proof awaiting the Director's preface. His dominance in New Zealand science won him critics among his colleagues and, according to Park, his association with successive Governors earned him enemies among Liberal parliamentarians. When the Seddon Government took office (1893), the Geological Survey was transferred to the Mines Department, though Hector remained nominally Director. By the New Zealand Institute Amendment Act 1903, the Institute was reorganised as an independent organisation, and the three institutions that had grown under Hector's management were sundered. Hector retired in 1903 and visited the scenes of his early achievements in Canada in 1904. He died at Lower Hutt on 6 November 1907.

In 38 years of service to the Government, Hector laid the foundations for New Zealand national scientific institutions, including several now grouped in the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, the Meteorological Service, Dominion Museum, and Royal Society of New Zealand. He had a finger in every pie and pursued his versatile interests with energetic drive and grave sincerity, but his activities were diffused so widely that many projects were never finished. His success as a generally tolerant and accessible administrator is amply shown by the record of younger men who served under his direction.

by Charles Alexander Fleming, O.B.E., B.A., D.SC., F.R.S.N.Z., Chief Paleontologist, New Zealand Geological Survey, Lower Hutt.

• Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute, Vol. 54 (1923)
• New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology, Vol. 18 (1937).

This is the largest genus of New Zealand shrubs, containing almost 80 species, many of which hybridise. It is typically a New Zealand genus for there are only about 100 species known. Most of the native ones are endemic though two are found also in South America. Others occur in Australia and New Guinea. The genus was once joined with Veronica which contains many herbs with cosmopolitan distributions, especially some that have become weeds of agriculture. There are no veronicas in New Zealand other than introduced ones. The family to which Hebe belongs is the Scrophulariaceae or snapdragon family, a widespread one containing about 3,000 species.

Hebes vary in life-form from large leafy shrubs to matted plants with whipcord-like branches. In these the leaves are almost reduced to scales which are closely appressed to the stems. The leaves are always opposite and usually entire. The flowers are smallish, mostly white or white tinted with lilac, borne in simple spikes or occasionally in large panicles. Hebes are found in all manner of habitats but are commonest in alpine shrubland, grassland, and fellfield. A number occur in coastal, lowland, and montane shrubland. A few only are inhabitants of forests. Some are confined to certain localities, while others are widespread. As most are propagated readily from cuttings and grow quickly, they are extensively used in horticulture both in New Zealand and overseas.

The widespread lowland species H. salicifolia, in the South and Stewart Islands, and its counterpart, H. stricta, and varieties in the North Island, are probably the best-known species. Both are much-branched shrubs, 6–10 ft in height bearing linear-lanceolate leaves 2–6 in. long. The Maoris used concoctions of these leaves for medicinal purposes. One of the best-known species in horticulture is H. speciosa which is the only one with deeply coloured flowers. These are reddish to violet purple. In nature it is confined to a few places around the North Island coast. It hybridises with remarkable ease, especially with the two above species, to produce a range of forms and flower colours. H. hulkeana is confined to rocky cliffs in Marlborough and North Canterbury but is also widely cultivated because of its large panicles of lavender flowers. It is one of the few tooth-leaved species. The higher altitude species often have smallish, elliptic leaves. H. odora is the best known of these and is a rounded, much-branched shrub about 4 ft tall. The so-called whipcord hebes are striking plants also much used in horticulture. There are over a dozen species of them found on the Volcanic Plateau and along the mountain chains. H. tetragona on the Volcanic Plateau and surrounding mountains is one of these. It is a dense shrub about 3 ft tall with squared branchlets on which the appressed leaves are less than one-twelfth of an inch long.

by Alec Lindsay Poole, M.SC., B.FOR.SC., F.R.S.N.Z., Director-General of Forests, Wellington.

(1820–81).

Artist and explorer.

A new biography of Heaphy, Charles appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Until recently there has been uncertainty about the date of Charles Heaphy's birth. It is now known that he was born in London in 1820, the second son of Thomas Heaphy (1775–1835) and Mary, née Stevenson. His father was a water-colour artist of some note and his elder brother and two sisters were also competent artists. After an artistic tour of Italy with his father, young Heaphy attended a series of art courses for five years. This training was paid for by a firm of London publishers who saw promise in the boy. In 1835 he exhibited some of his water colours at the British Institute. After working for 18 months in the workshops of the London and Birmingham Railway, Heaphy was appointed artist and draughtsman by the New Zealand Company and joined Colonel William Wakefield and the members of the preliminary expedition which sailed for New Zealand in the Tory (q.v.). He travelled with the Tory to Hokianga and Kaipara and, in April 1840, visited the Chatham Islands. Until he joined the preliminary expedition to the Nelson settlement in October 1841, he travelled through Wellington, Wanganui, and Taranaki. During this time he made many of his best-known sketches.

While with the Nelson expedition he shared in the work of reconnoitring the country around Tasman Bay. He has sometimes been blamed for reporting over-optimistically to Captain Arthur Wakefield on the extent and type of the land he found, but the decision to choose Tasman Bay for the settlement was due mainly to other factors. He was sent back to England in November 1841 to report to the Company on its latest settlement and published A Narrative of a Residence in Various Parts of New Zealand. He returned to Nelson in January 1843 and for a time took up farming; but he was soon diverted into exploration.

With William Fox and E. Kehu he set off for the West Coast in February 1846 and went some way down the Buller River, but his most notable feat was his journey with Brunner, which began in March. For five arduous months the party penetrated unexplored country and reached a point on the West Coast 36 miles south of Arahura. After his return in August he was engaged in surveying work around Nelson until May 1848, when Governor George Grey appointed him draughtsman in the Auckland Survey Office.

Here Heaphy took part in survey work until the discovery of gold at Coromandel, when he was appointed Commissioner of the Goldfields. He was at Coromandel from November 1852 until mid-1853. This work was the beginning of his lifelong interest in the Thames goldfields. Soon after his return to Auckland he went with Governor Grey and Bishop Selywn on their visit to Norfolk Island and New Caledonia and submitted plans (which took second prize) for the new Government House at Auckland. He was then appointed District Surveyor under the Auckland Provincial Government at Matakana and in September 1856 he was promoted to Provincial Surveyor. He was associated with Hochstetter in the geological survey of Auckland and with Donald McLean in the Land Purchase Department.

In 1859 he joined the newly formed Auckland Rifle Volunteers as a private and became keenly interested in the volunteer movement. On the outbreak of war in the Waikato in 1863 he volunteered for active service and was commissioned as Lieutenant in August. His knowledge of the country was of great value when he was attached to Colonel Havelock's “Flying Column” in January 1864. On 11 February, when he was at Paterangi, near Te Awamutu, a skirmish occurred during which a party of the 40th Regiment, who were bathing, were fired on. Heaphy showed great bravery in rescuing under fire one of the soldiers who had been wounded. Colonial troops were then ineligible for the Victoria Cross, which this deed merited, but his own application for the award, supported by his commanding officer and the strongest representations from Sir George Grey, at length prevailed on the Imperial authorities to award it to him in 1867. He was the first colonial soldier to receive this decoration.

Heaphy resumed his civilian duties in March 1864 and, until early 1865, was engaged by the General Government to survey the confiscated land in Waikato for the new military settlements at Hamilton, Cambridge, and elsewhere. His activities here were later (1871) subject to inquiry by a royal commission. Although he was found “not guilty” of intentional corruption, he was reprimanded for indiscretion in taking cadets for premiums and in letting contracts to his pupils. He was reappointed Auckland Provincial Surveyor in January 1866.

From June 1867 to October 1869 he represented Parnell in the House of Representatives; in politics he was a provincialist and supported Vogel. Having resigned from the Provincial Surveyorship in September 1868 he was available, on his retirement from the House, for appointment to the newly created post of Commissioner of Native Reserves. No doubt this was a reward for his political support of the Government, but he brought to the task a wealth of experience and was able to introduce something like order into the hitherto chaotic state of the reserves. In 1878 he was appointed Government Insurance Commissioner and Judge of the Native Land Court. Ill health caused him to resign from all his positions in June 1881 and, with his wife, he left for Australia. He died on 3 August 1881 at Brisbane where his grave was rediscovered 80 years later. His wife, whom he married in 1851, was Catherine Letita, daughter of the Rev. John Churton. They had no children.

Heaphy's outstanding characteristic was energy. From his earliest to his latest days he was constantly on the move – tripping around Italy, exploring Westland, surveying Auckland, inspecting the Thames goldfields (where he had a mining lease for a time), and travelling from one end of the island to the other examining Maori reserves. His early independence developed into self reliance and courage, amply demonstrated during his West Coast exploration and the episode at Paterangi. His sturdy demand for the V.C. illustrates his justifiable self-esteem; less justifiable was his resentment at deserved criticism. Still less justifiable were his attacks, in 1875–76, on Sir George Grey whose early protég he had been and to whom he owed more than anyone else the award of the V.C. He was always gay and sociable and had many interests: gardening, dancing, rowing, acclimatisation, and education.

Heaphy is remembered mostly for his neat maps and for his paintings and drawings of the New Zealand scene. These are more than the accurate topographical illustrations the New Zealand Company employed him to produce; the best of them are illuminated by some poetic insight; most of them indicate his struggle to come to grips with the savage landscapes so alien to one brought up in the milieu of the traditional English water colourists. It is very remarkable, however, that so few examples of his art date from later than the mid-1850s – it is impossible to say whether his later drawings were destroyed or whether he lost interest and produced no more or whether some hoard awaits a lucky searcher.

by Michael Wordsworth Standish, M.A. (1920–62), late Dominion Chief Archivist, Wellington.

• N.Z. Company (MSS), Governor-General (MSS), Maori Affairs Department (MSS) (all in National Archives)
• The New Zealand Wars, Cowan, J. (1956)
• Early Travellers in New Zealand, Taylor, N. M. (1959)
• Heaphy Papers, Turnbull Library, Wellington.

(1816–85).

Surveyor and Judge of the Native Land Court.

Theophilus Heale was born in London in 1816, the son of a sugar broker. He received a very good education and went to sea. On 22 January 1840 he arrived at Wellington, in command of the Aurora, bringing the first settlers of the New Zealand Company. In May 1840 the ship became a total loss at Kaipara Harbour, where Heale had gone to collect spars. He spent some time travelling in Northland and, towards the end of the year, before leaving for England, he entered a partnership with Dudley Sinclair. In April 1841, at the first sale of Auckland town sections, Sinclair purchased several for the partnership. While in England Heale published (1842) New Zealand and the New Zealand Company, in which he levelled some pertinent criticisms against the Company's arrangements for the reception of the settlers. He also entered into negotiations, on behalf of the Manukau Land Company, with a Scottish organisation which was prepared to establish the township of Cornwallis on Manukau Harbour. Heale returned to New Zealand bringing with him a steam sawmill, which he erected at Cornwallis. Unfortunately, the settlement project failed and the partnership dissolved. In 1843 Heale paid another visit to England, where he was questioned before the House of Commons Select Committee on New Zealand. From March to December 1845 he served on FitzRoy's Legislative Council. During the same year, in association with Whitaker, he purchased lands at Matakana Harbour, at Waiheke Island and a mining concession at Kawau. The latter was successfully contested before the Privy Council by the Aberdeen Company.

From 1850 to 1855 Heale's movements are obscure but between 1855 and 1860, in partnership with Whitaker, he engaged in copper mining on Great Barrier Island. He also surveyed Whitaker's and Du Moulin's land claims on the island. On 25 January 1860 Heale was returned to the House of Representatives by Auckland Suburbs but was defeated for the Parnell seat later in the year. In September 1861 he became Chief Government Surveyor for the new Province of Southland and, shortly after his arrival at Invercargill, Menzies gave him the additional post of Provincial Engineer. After the Stewart's Island Annexation Act of 1863 was passed, Heale visited the island and reported on its natural resources and potential for systematic colonisation. For a short time in May 1864 he acted as Deputy Superintendent of Southland. In July 1864 he left the province, intending to be absent for a year. During the Southland political upheaval in December 1864, Heale was elected – apparently in absentia – Superintendent of the Province. The election was declared invalid and Heale, who was then fulfilling a survey contract in the Tauranga district, did not return to Invercargill again. Early in 1866 he was defeated by one vote for the Invercargill seat in the House of Representatives. From 1867 until 1876 Heale was Inspector of Native Land Surveys for the colony and Chief Surveyor for Auckland Province, at the same time acting as Paymaster for Surveys. In 1871 he published Principles and Practice of Surveying – a book that shows Heale to have been a most competent mathematician. On 30 April 1877 he was appointed Judge of the Native Land Court, a post for which his knowledge of the Maori language and customs made him eminently suited. He retired in 1880 and visited England, but was reappointed to the Court on 18 April 1882. In 1883 he retired once more and returned to England permanently. Heale died at Orpington, Kent, on 19 May 1885.

In his day Theophilus Heale was noted for the thoroughness of his survey work. S. P. Smith, who succeeded him as Chief Surveyor, considered him to be “the most scientific surveyor in the country”.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

• Cowan Papers, 79 (MSS.), Turnbull Library
• O.L.C. 1267, 1288 (MSS.), National Archives
• Rakiura – a History of Stewart Island, New Zealand, Howard, B. (1940).

(1866–1945).

Entrepreneur and pioneer of the motion-picture industry in New Zealand.

A new biography of Hayward, Henry John appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Henry John Hayward was born to the footlights in Wolverhampton, England, in November 1866. His formal education was scanty. Leaving school after completing his year in the fourth standard, he developed, in the rigid and varied school of experience, qualities of enterprise and self-reliance which were later to stand him in good stead in the hurly-burly of the theatre and the concert stage. He served a thorough apprenticeship on the provincial circuits of England and in London, and at the age of 39 arrived in New Zealand at the head of a theatrical combination known as West's Pictures and the Brescians. This was a family company, comprising three Hayward brothers, with Henry as manager, their three wives, playing as the Three Martinengo Sisters, and five other artists all related to the Haywards. Their repertoire included opera, comic opera, sketches, and concerted singing and orchestral performances. But in addition they introduced the Urban Bioscope, which with its electric arc lamp and non-flick shutter was the precursor of the modern cinematograph, and was hailed as being superior to anything previously seen in New Zealand. In the company when it opened at His Majesty's Theatre, Dunedin, on 10 April 1905, were Henry Hayward, manager and violinist; Charles Flavell Hayward, conductor, and composer and arranger of music; T. J. West, director of films; E. J. Hardy, chief technician; and James Sager, his assistant. After three highly successful tours of New Zealand and Australia, the company split profits and, by agreement, West concentrated on the Australian field and Henry Hayward and his brother Rudall took over the Royal Albert Hall in Auckland, in 1908 founding a moving-picture dynasty which in 1910 became Hayward's Enterprises Ltd., controlling or supplying 32 theatres throughout New Zealand. In the meantime John Fuller and Sons (q.v. Benjamin), of Sydney, had entered the New Zealand circuit with vaudeville and pictures combined, and there began a period of intense rivalry and competition between the two interests. After a few years the rivals reached an understanding, and in 1914 combined their resources to function as New Zealand Picture Supplies Ltd. and Fuller-Hayward Theatres, with 60 theatres valued at £350,000.

Wide travel and extensive reading, allied to a strong background of theatre and music, developed in Henry Hayward at a comparatively early age a consuming interest in his fellow men and with it a liberal and, in many respects, unashamedly radical philosophy. He was a prolific writer on entertainment and stringed instruments, on which he was an accepted authority, and one of his early enthusiasms was a thoroughgoing study and advocacy of the importance of diet and food values. In his later years he was an indefatigable worker in the interests of the New Zealand Rationalist Society, of which he was president for a time and one of the foundation members. He also plunged more and more into the social arena of his day. He was an ardent and articulate opponent of war, organised religion, and all forms of social and racial inequality; yet, despite his zeal, he preserved a wide humanitarianism and spirit of tolerance for which he was deeply respected. The native Liberalism which he brought with him from England, and an abundantly developed social consciousness, led him inevitably into the ranks of the New Zealand Labour Party, in the interests of which he employed all the robust enthusiasm that had brought him success in business.

In 1891, in Wolverhampton, England, Hayward married Louisa Domenica Martinengo, by whom he had one son. He died at his home in Hinemoa Street, Birkenhead, Auckland, on 21 August 1945. Auckland Star, 21 Aug 1945 (Obit).

by Ronald Jones, Journalist and Script Writer, New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, Wellington.

(1832–77).

Goldfields hotelkeeper, blackbirder, and pirate.

A new biography of Hayes, William Henry appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Hayes was born at Cleveland, Ohio, one of three sons of Henry Hayes, a lumberjack and grog-shanty keeper. He was a “close relative” of Rutherford Hayes, who became President of the United States. After little or no education Hayes served in the United States Navy in China, but was dismissed in 1846. Thereafter his movements are doubtful. He “traded” as far afield as Singapore, Sydney, San Francisco, and Calcutta. He married three times. After facing bankruptcy in Adelaide (1858) and Sydney (1860), he sailed the Cincinatti to Otago (September 1862), and there joined the Buckingham family entertainers, following them to Arrowtown, where he married Rosie Buckingham. He opened a hotel, the Prince of Wales (1863), where the “inimitable Thatcher” (q.v.) played. His reputation however, had followed him, and he and Rosie left Arrowtown for Nelson, where she was drowned (19 August 1864). There his ship Black Diamond was seized by Sydney bailiffs. On 26 July 1865, at the Royal Hotel, Christchurch, Hayes married Emily Butler, by whom he had a son and two daughters.

His subsequent career attracted the attention of the British, French, and United States Governments; Hayes, however, proved too elusive. In 1867 he rescued Rev. J Chalmers, a noted missionary whose party had been wrecked at Niue.

It was not long before Bully was again featured in newspaper headlines throughout Australia and New Zealand. Early in March 1869 Hayes' brig Rona, with passengers and cargo, left Huahine, in the Society Islands, for Hawaii and California while his brigantine Samoa left the same port for Apia. Ten days out Rona ran into a storm and sprang a leak. On 2 May the water flooded the pumps and the ship had to be abandoned. After 12 days in open boats, Bully brought his party to Rierson's Island and later to Manihiki where, to his astonishment, he learned that the Samoa had run aground the previous month. The survivors of both ships reached Samoa on 20 August 1869, after a perilous voyage in a boat constructed from timbers salvaged from the brigantine.

In 1875 Hayes sold his schooner to some political escapees at Manila for a good price. When accused of complicity, Hayes claimed his vessel was stolen, due to Government negligence. On this score he eventually won monetary compensation. Hayes was murdered in the Marshall Islands in March 1877, during a mutiny of his own provoking.

His nickname “Bulli” – Samoan for “elusive” or “evasive” – was given him by Dr Rabone, the famous missionary.

Although Hayes had a flair for attracting trouble, which ensured him considerable notoriety during his lifetime, there is little evidence to suggest that his conduct was worse than that of the other trader captains of his day. At that time the Pacific was one of the world's great “frontiers” and Bully Hayes was its Hickok.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

• Early Days in Central Otago, Gilkison, Robt. (1958)
• Hayesiana, Moore (MSS.), Turnbull Library.

The combined population of the Napier and Hastings urban areas reaches the sizable figure of 65,206. The most important distinction between the two cities rests upon Napier's function as a port, though the importance of orcharding and the associated food-processing industries to Hastings, the more differentiated manufacturing structure of Napier, and the strikingly different sites of the two cities confirm one in an impression of two vigorously independent towns. Napier is much the older settlement – at the turn of the century Hastings' population was only half that of Napier's – and, though time may have reduced its relative importance, it has shown no signs of decline. During the period 1955–60 both the number of ships calling at the port and the tonnage handled has increased by somewhat more than a half. A list of cargo outwards constitutes a survey of the region's economy: 54,314 tons of frozen meat, 43,838 tons of wool, 26,540 tons of fresh fruit. The list of inwards cargo by coastal and overseas shipping reveals some of the basic imports required for production: 108,545 tons of manure, 107,954 tons of oil and petroleum products, and 20,391 tons of cement.

During the last decade (1951 – 61) the total population of the region has grown at the same rate as the national population (Hawke's Bay region 24·43 per cent, New Zealand 24·46 per cent), and, expectedly, the rate of growth of the urban population (33·58 per cent) has exceeded the rate of growth of the rural population (11·52 per cent). Hastings, with a 45·37 per cent increase, was the fastest growing centre; Dannevirke, with 18·2 per cent increase, was amongst the slowest. What is particularly impressive is the slight but continued growth of the county population, especially Patangata County, which contains no nucleated settlements of more than 500 persons. Dannevirke and Woodville Counties, however, which contain some of the wetter and more difficult hill country, have experienced continuing declines, as has Wairoa County, despite its large Maori population. With 13,434 Maoris, 11·52 per cent of the total population, Hawke's Bay contains a more than average proportion of Maoris, the majority of whom are located in the coastal regions of Wairoa County and Mahia (4,543) and Wairoa borough (772). The remainder are located in Napier and Hastings and in rural localities of the Heretaunga Plains and adjacent areas, such as Bridge Pa, Omahu, Pakipaki, Te Hauke, and Waimarama.

In the period April 1953 to April 1961 the total labour force grew by 20·13 per cent and those engaged in manufacturing by 36·66 per cent, both rates being well above the national levels. 21·59 per cent of the total labour force are engaged in primary industry, and this underlines the importance of agriculture in the region's economy. Nevertheless, compared with many other predominantly agricultural regions, Hawke's Bay has a relatively high proportion engaged in manufacturing (23·29 per cent). This relationship between manufacturing and agricultural activities is one of the more impressive reasons for anticipating a continued prosperity for the region. In the general lore of the North Island the Hawke's Bay sheep farmers have been selected, not without exaggeration, to typify the affluent element of the farming community. Some of this impression derives from the traditions of the early large runholders, and much of it is confirmed by a visit to any local gymkhana. All this is a tribute to the prosperity of the region, a prosperity enhanced by the background of well kept pastures and the delight of changing seasonal colours. Nevertheless, although attention is rightly focused upon the prosperous and central parts of the region the more marginal conditions prevailing in the peripheral parts should never be forgotten.

by Samuel Harvey Franklin, B.COM.GEOG., M.A.(BIRMINGHAM), Senior Lecturer, Geography Department, Victoria University of Wellington.

• Tutira, Guthrie-Smith, H. (1953)
• New Zealand Geographer, Vol. 15 (1959), “Commercial Orcharding in New Zealand”, Fielding, G. J.
• Ib., Vol. 10 (1954), “The Pastoral Fringe – Hawke's Bay”, Pirie, P. N. D.
• New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Vol. 102 (1961), “Hawke's Bay Hill Country Farm”, Collin, F. H.
• Ib., Vol. 80 (1950), “Farming in New Zealand – Hawke's Bay”, Hill, R. P.
• Ib., Vol. 105 (1962), “Hawke's Bay Coastal Hill Country Sheep Farm”, Jagger, H. J.
• New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics, Vol. 1. (1958), “Geology of the Wakarara Range, Central Hawke's Bay”, Kingsma, J. T.
• New Zealand Geological Survey Bulletin 46 (1953), “The Geology of the Dannevirke Subdivision”, Lillie, A. R.

The frequent comparison of Hawke's Bay with the Wairarapa is inevitable, for both regions are structurally part of the North Island eastern hill country, and stemming from this basic geological unity are many physiographic and even climatic similarities. The western ranges produce a rain-shadow effect on Hawke's Bay which is noted for its low rainfall and large number of sunshine hours. Napier has, after Nelson and Blenheim, the third highest annual average for hours of bright sunshine, 2,320. The mean daily maximum temperature for the whole year averages 64·8F; the mean daily minimum, 48·7F. In January the mean day maximum reaches 73·9F. The average number of rain days is 114, the average annual rainfall being 31·2 in.

In the vicinity of Dannevirke the likeness to the northern Wairarapa is complete. The trend of country is NNE-SSW with the basic pattern of main axial range, “vale”, and eastern hill country. The Ruahine Range reaches an altitude of 3,500 ft in this district. It is bush covered and its slopes fall sharply towards the “vale” which is composed of the alluvium of the Manawatu and its tributaries lying above sedimentary materials. The Manawatu system has dissected the area into a pattern of broad interfluves and deep square-bottomed valleys. Immediately to the east higher ranges composed of Tertiary rocks are found; the Waewaepa (2,500 ft), the Whangai, and the Turiri Ranges obtain an altitude close to 2,000 ft. Further east towards the coast there is a succession of ridges and valleys characteristic of this hill country. In this part of the region the hill country was originally covered with bush and, like most of the bush country, was settled by men with limited capital who engaged in small-scale farming. Now the hill country is farmed in large units for store sheep, for the topography is unsuited for dairy farming and the district as a whole is too inaccessible.

The belt of country at the foot of the Ruahine Range and extending from Woodville in the south to Norsewood in the north is largely dairying country. More than anything else, the excellent black top and wide country roads illustrate the prosperity of the area and suggest the volume of traffic associated with the transportation of milk to the dairy factories. Two factors help to explain the existence of dairying: the higher rainfall (annual average rainfall at Woodville is 50·46 in. and 178 days with rain) and the pattern of small properties arising out of the settlement of the bush. It is noticeable, therefore, that the number of cows in milk per hundred sheep shorn is highest in Woodville County, 4·98, and that the average size of holding, 266 acres, is the lowest for the whole region. Nevertheless, the raising of fat lambs is not an unimportant farming activity.

In the latitude of Waipukurau the Ruahines obtain an altitude of over 5,000 ft, and the eastern hill country is a little lower and the climate a little drier. The principal change occurs in the “vale”, which is now composed of the gravels poured out by the Tukituki system and which appears as a huge extent of flat, imperceptibly sloping land. It is droughty land subjected to strong drying winds, which account for the shelter belts that have broken the vistas of the old Ruataniwha Plains, but, nevertheless, it is excellent fat-lamb country. At Waipukurau and Waipawa the rivers break the escarpment of the Raukawa Range, which stands as a spectacular ridge of limestone (1,374 ft) above Otane and Lake Poukawa, both favoured farming districts. Between the Raukawa and Wakarara Range (highest point 3,307 ft) is a belt of level country over a thousand feet in altitude and intricately dissected by the tributaries of the Waipawa and the Ngaruroro system. This is a rich piece of sheep-farming country containing a number of very attractive and prosperous holdings, rarely visited by tourists, but offering some superb vistas to the north. Like Dannevirke, which is the main marketing centre for the southern districts, Waipawa and Waipukurau, with their important sheep sales, perform the same functions for the surrounding district. In addition, there are a number of smaller settlements, the most important of which is Takapau, acting as local servicing centres for the rural community. Some of them, like Ongaonga and Tikokino, were originally bush settlements and concerned with the timber trade. Others, like Ashley Clinton and Makaretu, had similar origins but now have no nucleated settlement whatsoever.

The most celebrated district of Hawke's Bay, the Heretaunga Plains, is composed of the deposits and gravels of the Tutaekuri, Ngaruroro, and Tukituki Rivers, which, with their varying materials, levels of deposition, and water tables, give rise to a rich complex of soils carrying fat lambs, a great deal of cropping, and, notably, orchards and market gardens. Cropping, especially for the canning and freezing industry, is a largely post-war development, and in the season 1959–60, 5,391 acres of vegetable crops for processing were reported, compared with 1,615 acres for the 1951–52 season. This spectacular development should not obscure the 7,657 acres of chou moellier and the 2,992 acres of rape which are grown for fodder crops, or the production of grass seed (5,449 acres), but none of these activities is as strictly located in the Heretaunga Plains as is the production of vegetables. With 4,801 acres of orchards and market gardens, largely in the vicinity of Hastings, Hawke's Bay ranks as the second region of production in New Zealand. Apples account for approximately two-thirds of the value of production, with peaches and pears tying for second place and apricots coming in third place. Three hundred and eighty-seven acres of vineyard, worked by 15 growers, are located on the lower slopes of the hills near Taradale and Havelock North, and a range of white and red wines is produced.

North of Napier the characteristic features of Hawke's Bay are gradually overwhelmed in a landscape which has more affinities with the East Cape. In the vicinity of Sherenden and Rissington the sweeping and well groomed landscapes of the Hawke's Bay back country are preserved. But beyond Tutira towards the Mohaka River and Waikaremoana, the land is more broken, the soils poor, and the pastures subjected to weed infestation. Access is difficult and the population is either dispersed and lightly settled or concentrated in the coastal regions, especially near to Wairoa. Indicative of the more extensive nature of farming is the average size of holding for Wairoa county, 1,087 acres, and quite significant is the low rate of growth both of the numbers of sheep shorn (3·73 per cent) and of lambs shorn (28·51 per cent) in the period 1951—52 to 1959—60, compared with the respective regional totals of 14·28 per cent and 7140 per cent.

The European settlement of Hawke's Bay reveals many similarities to the settlement of the Wairarapa because, like that region, Hawke's Bay was originally covered partly in dense bush in the south, and partly in scrub and fern and short-tussock grassland in the central and northern parts. Consequently, as in the Wairarapa, the open country was soon exploited by large sheep graziers, especially after 1850, some of the graziers in fact coming from the Wairarapa; whereas the development of the bush lands (the Seventy Mile Bush) was not commenced until the 1870s and only accomplished during the last decade of the nineteenth century. Koch's map of 1874 clearly displays the contrasting development of the two regions. The railway line is shown extending from Napier as far south as the bush line a little beyond Takapau. To the east and west of the line across the Ruataniwha Plains and out to the coast at Blackhead lie the properties of the large graziers. Koch has drawn in the boundaries and named the owners, so that the map reads like a list of Hawke's Bay notables: Bell, Carlyon, McLean, Ormond, Russell, Tiffen, and Williams; in contrast, only three names of property owners appear in the bush country, all located in the vicinity of the Dannevirke clearing. For the most part the bush area stretching from the Ruahines in the west across the region towards Akitio in the east is unoccupied and grossly divided into survey blocks designated only by numbers.

The approximate position of the original bush line is still apparent to the observant traveller. Highway 2, which crosses the level surface of the Takapau Plains to the west of Waipukurau, turns south-westerly as it draws near to the Ruahine Range. The change of direction is accompanied by a change in grade, for the road is forced to climb up and down the valley sides of the Manawatu tributaries which flow across the general direction taken by the highway. The number of indigenous tree types along these valley slopes is conspicuous and the break in country corresponds closely to the original bush line.

Hawke's Bay, however, was more favoured than the Wairarapa in possessing its own port at Napier, which acted both as the provincial capital and as the main economic centre of the whole region. It was not until the 1890s that a rail link was established with the Manawatu and the Wairarapa. Previous to that period the region had been largely isolated from the rest of the North Island by the difficult and poorly developed hill country to the north, by the Ruahine and Kaweka Ranges to the west (the road journey between Napier and Taupo has remained an exciting one even until the present decade) and by the Seventy Mile Bush to the south. Despite its isolation, Hawke's Bay was a prosperous region, its prosperity and the advantages of an early start being illustrated by the fact that by 1878 Napier, with 5,415 persons, was the seventh largest city in the Dominion. By 1896, with a population of 9,231, Napier was ranked fifth.

The Hawke's Bay region, located on the eastern side of the North Island, extends in a direct line from Wairoa in the north to Woodville in the south, a distance of approximately 120 miles. Rarely does the region exceed 40 miles in width. The mountainous country of the Ruahine and Kaweka Ranges forms the western boundary, whilst lower hill country forms the northern limit. The Pacific Ocean lies on the eastern side, and in the vicinity of Hawke Bay the extensive and fertile plains of the Napier-Hastings districts (Heretaunga Plains) extend to the coast, whereas south from Cape Kidnappers the extensive belt of hill country reaches right to the coast. Lower lying land compressed between the Ruahines in the west and the eastern belt of hill country stretches southwards from the Heretaunga Plains towards the Manawatu Gorge, which can be regarded as the southernmost limit of the region. The regional boundaries outlined here correspond closely with the limits of the former Hawke's Bay Province and they include the counties of Wairoa, Hawke's Bay, Waipawa, Waipukurau, Patangata, Dannevirke, and Woodville, which with their interior boroughs and cities form the basic units for the collection of statistics. The figures for Weber County, which has been incorporated with Dannevirke County, are not shown separately, having been included for each year within the Dannevirke County totals. By including the whole of Wairoa County one may have rather exceeded the conventional limits ascribed to the region, but this is of little consequence as the bulk of the county's population resides in the coastal regions which are effectively part of Hawke's Bay. Napier (urban area population 1961, 32,716) and Hastings (urban area population 1961, 32,490) are the principal towns of the region which in 1961 registered a total population of 116,576 (4·82 per cent of the national total), 11·52 per cent of which were classified as Maoris.