Similarly, the growth of the pastoral industry, on which the economy of the province mainly rests, is shown by a statistical summary:

The rapid increase between 1871 and 1901 would be related to clearing of bush, fern and scrub; a slow growth through 1901–1911 reflects decline in fertility of hill country; and an increase since 1911 would reflect improvement of lowland pastures. The sheep population has since been stable around the 1941 figures, but numbers of cattle on hill country have been increased as a means of improving control of grazing. The first sheep were Merinos, to be gradually crossed with strong-woolled Lincolns which in turn have been replaced by Romneys.

The years of biggest expansion of new farmlands were 1871–1895. Since that time progress has mainly been by way of improving pasture quality on the lower and more accessible country.

by George Jobberns, C.B.E., M.A., D.SC., Emeritus Professor of Geography, University of Canterbury.

• Tutira, Guthrie-Smith, H. (third ed. 1953)
• History of Hawke's Bay, Wilson, J. G., et. al. (1939)
• The Story of Hawke's Bay, Reed, A. H. (1958)
• New Zealand Geographer, Oct 1954, “The Pastoral Fringe in Hawke's Bay”, Pirie, P. N. D.

The following statistical summary shows the steady population growth since 1860:

Thus, of the present total population of the province, more than half are resident in the twin urban areas of Napier and Hastings. Populations of outlying provincial boroughs in 1961 were: Dannevirke, 5,508; Wairoa, 4,403; and Waipukurau, 1,714. A heavy inward migration from other parts of the Dominion was evident from 1880 until 1921, followed by a net loss of people in the two decades 1920–40, with a steady inward movement again since 1945.

Drainage and river control works were essential to development of the plain, and subdivision of local land into small holdings followed in their wake. Hop gardens were established at Riverslea as early as 1884, but it was not till 20 years or so later that the phenomenal development of orchard fruitgrowing got under way. A cannery at Frimley was set up in 1904. Subdivision of larger inland holdings was under way then, too, and more intensive livestock farming with the intensive agriculture on the plain was reflected especially in the growth of Hastings, with plenty of flat land about it to expand. Its saleyards at Stortford Lodge, the biggest in the province, and its meatworks and new showgrounds at Tomoana reflect its present status as a centre of the farming economy.

But it has been the remarkable growth of the canneries set up in 1934 by J. Wattie and Co. that has given Hastings something of a special place in the economy of Hawke's Bay and the country at large. Growing, canning, and merchandising of fruit and vegetables gives employment, directly and indirectly, to many people, and the annual blossom festival is a symbol of the special role of Hastings and the Heretaunga Plain in all this. The attraction of site and location has brought other assorted industrial ventures to it.

The expansion of Napier was more or less restricted by its site, but the built-up area now spreads inland to new suburbs on the plain. It has always had a special function as the only reasonably good port on the east coast. A Harbour Board set up in 1875 faced immediate controversy over building a breakwater; the entrance to the inner harbour of the early days was becoming bar bound and the harbour itself silting up. Construction started in 1887 and, since then, a serviceable harbour has been maintained. With better overland communications, however, the southern section of the province has tended rather to look to the port of Wellington for its outlet.

The twin cities of the productive heart of Hawke's Bay were most grievously stricken by the earthquake of 3 February 1931, when the area about the old Ahuriri Lagoon was raised considerably. Here the main airport of the province has been built.

In the settlement of this country, road and railway meant much more than means of access to and through the bush. The construction work gave the pioneer settlers something to live on while they cleared their sections, and it was along the route that the first village settlement grew. The first of the Hawke's Bay bush settlers came into Norsewood in 1872. Most of them were immigrants recruited from Norway; about the same time a party of Danes was located on a more open patch of country at Dannevirke. In all, some 500 Scandinavians came in 1872 and another 280 in 1873. G. C. Petersen gives a moving account of the life and times of these pioneers who, in a short space of 20 years or so, transformed this country from forest to grassland.

Except for the progressive subdivision of the big runs in the more open country of southern Hawke's Bay, the pattern of settlement has remained much as it was in the later 1870s. Villages located on the railway seem to have made most progress. Today Woodville and Dannevirke are the largest of the provincial towns on land won from the bush; the older Waipukurau and Waipawa arose as centres of sheep-farming country.

The most spectacular episode in the economic history of Hawke's Bay has been the making of the Heretaunga Plain into its agricultural, commercial, and industrial heart, with the twin urban areas of Napier and Hastings carrying more than half the present population of the province: Napier started early as a first point of European settlement; it was not till 1873 that Francis Hicks sold the first town sections on the present site of Hastings. And it was not till 1888 that the new town took the status of a borough, with a total population of 1,504.

The bayhead plain of Hawke's Bay reaches from the mouth of the Esk River to Clifton beyond the mouth of the Tukituki. The Heretaunga Block was that part of it in the vicinity of the Ngaruroro River, originally bought from the Maori owners by a syndicate known as the Twelve Apostles, their title to it being confirmed only after long and acrimonious investigation by a commission in 1873. On higher and drier ground about the bay village settlements, such as Clive and Havelock North, had been established already, but much of the Heretaunga Block was low and swampy and subject to destructive floods. It was part of this swampy ground that Francis Hicks secured from one of the syndicate. Dividing it into town sections he gave one to the Government as a site for a railway station, and thus enticed the projected railway to come his way. This was the beginning of Hastings, first called Hicksville, and later named after Warren Hastings in keeping with other local Hawke's Bay names which were expressive of local interest in India at the time of the Mutiny. The railway duly came through from Napier to Hastings in 1874 and on to Waipawa in 1876.

There was little flat land in the new province of Hawke's Bay. The only extensive lowland leading inland to the Manawatu Gorge from the site of early Napier was by no means all easy country. Access to the southern part was barred by dense forest (for instance, the Seventy Mile Bush) that clothed much of the coastal hills almost to the sea. Much of the wide Heretaunga Plain was an almost impenetrable swamp frequently flooded by the rivers. Nor was access from the sea easy, except to the valley flats about the Wairoa River mouth where a mission station had been founded in the early 1840s, and to the shores of the Ahuriri Lagoon. The site of Napier itself was restricted by a big beach barrier of shingle across the front of the bay and widening about the base of the little isolated upland early known as Scinde Island. Here the infant town of Napier was established. Its recent extension inland was not possible until the modern engineering works of the 1940s brought the lower Ngaruroro and Tutaekuri Rivers under control. The sale of town sections on the future site of Hastings was delayed until 1873.

The lower hill country and basin plains in the middle catchments of the Ngaruroro, Tutaekuri, and Tukituki Rivers were most readily adaptable to sheep farming in the early days; Donald McLean himself became a landowner there in 1863. Road access was the first big problem facing the new provincial government. Settlement of the Seventy Mile Bush in the south was delayed until the 1870s, and the road over the ranges to Taupo by way of the Esk Valley was not opened for wheeled traffic till 1877.

Meanwhile the early settlers in northern Hawke's Bay faced special problems of their own. This was difficult country. In front of the high, steep and almost inaccessible hardrock ranges (the Kaweka and Ahimanawa) lay a broad belt of weak-rock hilly country cut by the deep, narrow channels of the rivers and trimmed off by the sea in long lines of steep cliffs. Though Hawke's Bay had no volcanoes of its own, over all the hills lay a thick mantle of fine pumice spread by eruptions in the Taupo district. Thus original fertility was low and the country was covered in fern, tutu, and manuka scrub, with patches of bush on the ranges and in the gullies. In his classic Tutira, H. Guthrie Smith has left us a detailed account of the trials of the pioneer in breaking in this kind of country.

It was through the 1880s that most rapid progress was made here. As in many other parts of the North Island, the first step was to burn the primitive cover and sow grass seed on the ashes. But the bracken fern came back and resort was had to “crushing” or “grinding” by flocks of unfortunate sheep. As Guthrie Smith himself puts it, “The early years of the run were, in fact, a compromise between murdering the sheep and ‘making’ the country”. But when fern would finally be destroyed, the much more difficult manuka scrub might take possession, to be attacked laboriously in turn by fire or the scrub cutter. The making of grassland out of this kind of country has been a monument to the tenacity of the pioneer sheep men.

Another evil incidental to the clearing of this Hawke's Bay weak-rock (papa) country has been widespread soil erosion. Most spectacular were the effects of the floods in 1938. Here the benefits of modern conservation methods and aerial topdressing with fertiliser have been most obvious. Roading, too, has been more than ordinarily difficult, and the recent completion of the East Coast railway to Wairoa and Gisborne has been a special boon. Most of this country cannot be closely subdivided, but there are smaller farms carrying dairy cattle on some of the flats in the valleys and near the coast, as at Wairoa and Nuhaka. But sheep farming for wool and store sheep is still almost the whole base of the local economy, with increasing use of beef cattle for better pasture control.

Settlement of the south posed totally different problems; the Hawke's Bay section of the Seventy Mile Bush had to be cleared; Waipukurau and Waipawa were already established near the edge of the forest. By 1867 there was a regular coach service from Napier to Waipukurau, but the road through the bush was not in use till 1874, making possible a through trip by coach to Wellington. Though the trip took three days, it brought Napier in closer contact with Wellington than it had yet been. The railway to Waipukurau and Woodville was not completed till 1887.

Except for some shore-based whalers, only about 20 Europeans in all were living in Hawke's Bay by 1850. In 1844 William Colenso, surely the most colourful figure in the history of the province, had founded his mission station near Port Ahuriri. He introduced fruits and grains, and soon the few early traders were buying wheat and maize as well as pigs from the Maoris, about 1,100 of whom lived near the shore of the bay.

The first two blocks of land bought by the Crown (in 1851) were the Waipukurau Block of 279,000 acres and the Ahuriri Block of 265,000 acres, and by 1856 thirty sheep stations had been established, mainly within these two blocks. A few pioneer sheep men had, however, moved in before 1851 leasing land on their own account from the Maoris. Largely through the efforts of Donald McLean, 1,200,000 acres had been bought by the end of 1856, 700,000 acres of it being occupied as runs, with 1,458 acres fenced. Livestock numbers had grown to 130,000 sheep, 3,081 cattle, and 382 horses, and 900 bales of wool were exported; the European population had risen to 980, and William Colenso had some 200 trees, mainly apples and peaches, in his orchard. Te Aute College had been founded by Samuel Williams, and the first road was built to it from Napier in 1857.

It was this handful of settlers who, feeling isolated and neglected by the Wellington Provincial Council, founded a province of their own to manage their own affairs. By the time of the public meeting in Napier in February 1858, when the decision to “secede” from Wellington was taken, the total European population was estimated to have increased to 1,185. So Wellington lost about one-third of its area and nearly 1,200 of its early settlers.

Hawke Bay is a large, rather regularly oval indentation on the east coast of the North Island, its northern end nearly at the thirty-ninth parallel of south latitude, its southern end at 39° 38'. Mahia Peninsula lies at its north-eastern end and Cape Kidnappers at the south. The 100-fathom line marking the edge of the continental shelf lies just within the line joining Mahia and Kidnappers, and the water of the bay gently and steadily shoals from this line to the shore. At a distance of 22 miles off shore from Napier, an area of submarine springs has been mapped and it is believed that these mark the outlet from the notable Heretaunga Artesian Basin in the vicinity of Napier and Hastings at the southern end of the Bay.

From Wairoa to Nuhaka in the north and from Tangoio to Te Awanga in the south are more or less extensive areas of prograded and alluviated coast, but the rest of the coastline, except for the tombolo isthmus of Mahia joining the former island, now Mahia Peninsula, to the mainland, is formed from vertical or nearly vertical cliffs in soft and rapidly eroding upper Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks. From Waihua River mouth, a little to the south of Wairoa, the rocks were all laid down in the Pleistocene which commenced about 3 million years ago. The spectacular coastal section from Te Awanga to Black Reef, which lies about half a mile to the west of Cape Kidnappers, exposes an impressive river delta which existed during the Lower Pleistocene. This has now been uplifted, tilted, and much eroded.

Although small coastal vessels at one time did enter the Wairoa River and a small, purely fishing wharf exists at Waikokopu at the western end of the isthmus of Mahia, the only port on the bay is the artificial Napier Harbour, which for a number of years has been third on the list for tonnage handled in New Zealand. Prior to the Napier earthquake of 1931, Napier Harbour lay within the restricted entrance of the Old Ahuriri Lagoon, but the uplift of 6 ft so markedly altered the conditions that plans for a breakwater harbour, which were even then under discussion, were immediately proceeded with. The inner harbour is now used only by yachts and launches. Until the earthquake of 1931, the Ahuriri Lagoon was an extensive arm of the bay lying behind gravel bars and stretching south-west from Napier to Greenmeadows, south to Awatoto, and north to Bayview. Early in the period of settlement, extensive reclamation had been undertaken in Napier both to the north and south of Scinde Island, and the great bulk of the flat land of Napier was at one time part of the old Ahuriri Lagoon reclamation.

Hawke Bay has an origin in the geological structure of the area; all rocks around it dip into the bay and in consequence it is the focus of the drainage of the district. No fewer than five large rivers flow to its shores, namely, from south to north, the Tukituki, draining the northern Central Ruahine Range; the Ngaruroro, draining the northern end of the Ruahine Range and the eastern slopes of the Kaimanawa Range; the Tutaekuri, draining the Black Birch and Kaweka Ranges; the Mohaka, draining the northern face of the Kaweka Range, the Ahimanawa Range, and the southern end of the Huiarau Range; and the Wairoa, which drains not only the Waikaremoana area but also as far north as Waerengaokuri, a few miles west of Gisborne. The steep cliffs on the western shore of Hawke Bay collapse from time to time in unusual and spectacular dry rockfalls. Although these rockfalls occur normally, there was an unusual number of them at the time of the Napier earthquake when the largest, a few miles south of the mouth of the Mohaka River, “flowed” almost half a mile into Hawke Bay. Even now its remains form a small point.

Prior to European times the shores of Hawke Bay supported a considerable Maori population. The first name mentioned in the legends of settlement of the shore of Hawke Bay was that of Whatonga, who settled at Mahia. The name Hawke Bay was given by Captain Cook after Sir Edward Hawke, First Lord of the Admiralty from 1766 to 1771.

by Thomas Ludovic Grant-Taylor, M.SC., New Zealand Geological Survey, Lower Hutt.

In 1879 Te Whiti intensified his campaign against the alienation of Maori lands, and on 7 June 1879 the Hawera settlers, in some alarm, formed several volunteer regiments. Major Noakes, the officer commanding Patea militia district, visited Hawera where he yielded to the settlers' importunities to issue them with arms. On 21 June 15 Maoris from Kaupokonui crossed the Waingongoro River and began ploughing James Livingston's (1840–1915) lawn. The settlers became very excited and reported the incident to the Premier, Sir George Grey who asked the militia commander to investigate. The settlers, however, interpreted this to mean that the Government doubted the seriousness of the situation and they resolved to take separate action. On 22 June a party of 200 settlers, armed with stockwhips, assembled at Livingston's farm and escorted the Maoris and their ploughs across the river. That night a large public meeting in Hawera resolved to form a defence (vigilante) committee to protect the settlement until troops arrived. Those present pledged themselves to prevent further ploughing and, after passing a few choice pieces of advice to the Premier, the meeting adjourned without, however, having elected the committee.

All that night volunteers patrolled the settlement but no Maoris were seen. Early in the morning of 23 June, ploughmen were again reported at Livingston's farm. The Hawera Cavalry was warned and, on arrival, found 15–20 Maoris at work. These were rounded up at gunpoint and quickly returned across the river. The public meeting resumed in the evening and the chairman read a telegram from Grey which intimated that troops were on the way. On Major Noake's advice the meeting dropped its proposal to set up a defence committee and elected an “ejectment committee” with James Livingston as its “captain”.

No ploughmen crossed the Waingongoro River after the cavalry episode on 23 June; but the Hawera Cavalry, reinforced by 170 armed constables under Major Roberts, patrolled the district and arrested several groups of ploughmen at Normanby. These were tried later in the Resident Magistrate's Court at Hawera. The “Republic” concluded on 10 July 1879, when Livingston, presiding at the inevitable public meeting, read a telegram from Sir George Grey who congratulated all concerned. The meeting immediately disagreed with the Premier's assessment of the district's defence needs and sent a deputation to Wellington to voice their protest.

The “Republic” – a term jocularly applied to it by the Wanganui Herald – was a mildly amusing political extravaganza. Admittedly, it was formed by the settlers in a manner which would have pleased Rousseau. It existed to meet an emergency and lasted only until Government aid reached the district. The “Republic” was a popular movement – a “res publicae” in the classical sense. From the point of view of international law, it could never have received recognition as an independent state because it possessed only a western frontier – the Waingongoro River. During the “Republic's” existence two bloodless “battles” were fought. A defence committee was also formed at Patea, and similar movements were mooted at Carlyle and Waverley.

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

• Tokaora School 50th Anniversary Souvenir Booklet 1907–57
• Patea Mail 11, 25, 28 June
• 2, 5, 9, 12 July 1879;Wanganui Weekly Herald, 28 June 1879.

Hawera is situated on the eastern fringe of the Waimate Plain in South Taranaki and about 2 miles inland from the South Taranaki Bight. The surrounding country is level or gently undulating. The slopes of Mt. Egmont rise within 20 miles north-west and, on the north-east and east, within about 12 miles, the land becomes broken by the outlying hills of the Tarere Range. The New Plymouth – Wanganui sections of the railway and main highway pass through Hawera. By road Eltham is 13 miles north (12 miles by rail) and Patea is 17 miles south-east (18 miles by rail). New Plymouth is 46 miles north-west by road (48 miles by rail).

The main rural activities of the district are dairying and sheep farming. Dairy factories producing mainly cheese are located at Tawhiti (2 miles north-east), Whareroa (2 miles south-east), Tokaora (4 miles west), Mokoia (5 miles southeast), Te Ngutuotemanu (13 miles north-west), Okaiawa (9½ miles north-west), Manutahi (8½ miles south-east), Ohangai (8 miles east), Inaha (8 miles west), Kapuni (about 14 miles northwest), and Normanby (4½ miles north). At Kapuni lactose is manufactured and, in the vicinity, active oil exploration is in progress. The presence of natural gas has been proved. At Normanby there is a cheese factory, a clothing factory, and a sawmill. Hawera is the main trade and distributing centre of South Taranaki. Industrial activities include the manufacture of butter and cheese, lactose, bacon and ham, confectionery, stock foods, joinery and furniture, clothing, coal gas, concrete products, farm equipment and machinery, stainless-steel dairy equipment, motor bodies, and caravans. General engineering, sawmilling, timber treatment, the processing of by-products of boiling-down works, fellmongering, and seed cleaning are also carried on. A milk-treatment station, grain, seed, and produce stores, and stock saleyards are located in the town.

The Hawera district, containing much open country, was comparatively closely settled by Maoris in pre-European times. In 1865 General Sir Duncan Cameron's force entered the district from Manutahi and established redoubts near the Waingongoro River mouth. On 30 December 1865 Major-General Trevor Chute fought his way into the Hawera district from Wanganui and by early January 1866 had established a base on the Tawhiti Stream, near the present town. Chute attacked and captured the strong Otapawa Pa, about 5 miles north-east, on 14 January. On 17 January he began his notable march through dense forests inland from Normanby to New Plymouth. The same year some 50,000 acres of confiscated land south-east and east of the Waingongoro River were opened for military settlement. Townships sprang up at Ohawe Beach, Mokoia, and Kakaramea, and several settlers occupied sections at and near the future town of Hawera. The surveys continued during 1866–67, but work was hampered by continual sniping and ambushing tactics of the Maoris. A redoubt was built on the lower reaches of the Waihi Stream in September 1866 and this became the main military base in South Taranaki. The Hauhaus under Titokowaru, became increasingly violent and a redoubt was built at the ancient pa of Turu-turumokai, 1½ miles north-east of Hawera, in 1866. It was attacked by Hauhaus on 12 July and the commander and several other defenders were killed. Attacks were made on Titokowaru's stronghold of Te Ngutuotemanu on 21 August and 9 September by McDonnell, but without success. The Hauhaus regained control of much of South Taranaki and settlers were withdrawn to Patea. Colonel G. S. Whitmore succeeded McDonnell in command, but it was not until March 1869 that the front was advanced to the Hawera district. A blockhouse was erected in 1870 at Hawera, but was never used for defensive purposes. The township of Hawera grew around the blockhouse in the early 1870s. The railway from New Plymouth reached Hawera on 20 October 1881 and was opened to Foxton on 23 March 1885. In 1882 Hawera was constituted a borough. It is said that the name was formerly Te Hawera and various meanings have been given: “The burnt place”, “the breath of fire”, and “burning plains”, are three of them. The circumstances of the name-giving are obscure because of several differing accounts.

POPULATION: 1951 census, 5,342; 1956 census, 5,620; 1961 census, 7,537. B.N.D. and E.S.D.

Lake Hawea is the most northerly of the glacial lakes in Otago, is some 19 miles long, up to 5 miles wide and is 46 sq. miles in area. It is some 1,133 ft above sea level and 1,285 ft deep. The lake is drained by the Hawea River (2,240 cusec discharge), a short tributary of the Clutha, and is enclosed at its foot by a moraine wall deposited by the glacier that formerly occupied the lake basin. The only large river draining into Lake Hawea is the Hunter River at the head; two smaller tributaries joining the lake from the east are Dingle Burn and Timaru Creek. Most of the 567 sq. miles of drainage area is mountainous with peaks between 6,000–8,000 ft high. About two-thirds of the area is forested, and the remainder in the vicinity of the southern end of the lake is clothed with tussock or, on the lowlands, with pasture.

The lake affords excellent water sports and fishing (brown trout and salmon) and the surrounding countryside carries game such as deer, goats, chamois, quail, chukor, ducks, and geese. The area has a pleasantly dry climate, very warm in summer, and is suitable for walking and mountaineering trips. There are no commercial launch services on the lake. There is a small community of holiday houses around the south end of the lake, and a small hotel near the outlet caters for tourist needs and can be reached by a first-class road which continues northward beyond Hawea through Haast Pass to the west coast. The lake level was recently raised about 50 ft when a small control dam was constructed for water storage for hydro-electric purposes. This promoted an increase in the fish population of the lake.

The lake is named after the early inhabitants of the district, the Hawea sub-tribe which was an offshoot of the Waitahas and, more latterly, of the Ngati Mamoes.

by Bryce Leslie Wood, M.SC., New Zealand Geological Survey, Dunedin.