is situated in the lower valley of the Shag River, about 5 miles west of Shag Point on the North Otago coastline. North and west the land rises to hills and mountains. The Oamaru-Dunedin main highway and the South Island Main Trunk railway pass through Palmerston. The town is also a junction for a branch railway to Dunback, 8 miles north-west. Palmerston is 36 miles north-east by road from Dunedin (41 miles by rail) and 37 miles south-west by road or rail from Oamaru.

Palmerston is a servicing and distributing centre for a predominantly sheep-farming district. There is some dairy farming. At Goodwood (5 miles south) there is a cheese factory. Lime is quarried at Dunback. Sub-bituminous coal is mined at Shag Point, and the collieries are served by a private railway to Shag Point township (6 miles north-east) on the main line. Industries in Palmerston include general engineering, sawmilling, and cardboard box manufacturing.

Palmerston was within the area opened up for sheep runs in 1852, but portions of the district may have been occupied by pastoralists a year or two earlier. In 1851 Chas. Johnson Pharazyn and Charles James Nairn, who had explored the district, reported to Captain William Cargill of the discovery of auriferous quartz on what was afterwards their Goodwood station. Charles Henry Kettle made the first official exploration of the area in February 1851. In 1855 W. H. Pearson, J. Saunders, and P. Napier travelled up the Shag Valley and reached the Maniototo Plain, and were probably the first to penetrate far into the immediate hinterland. Palmerston came into existence as a camp site in 1862 at the beginning of a route via the Shag Valley to the Kyeburn Valley and the Central Otago gold diggings. The town was surveyed in 1864 and named Palmerston, probably after the British Prime Minister of the day. In 1887 gold discoveries were made in the district northwest and west of Palmerston, and four gold dredges were working on the Shag River upstream from Palmerston in 1899, two continuing to operate until 1904. Other minerals, especially scheelite, have been worked in the district but by 1906 most mining had ceased. A notable resident of the district was Sir John McKenzie whose property was located near Bushey, 3 miles north of Palmerston. Palmerston was created a municipality in 1872 and in 1877 was constituted a borough.

POPULATION: 1951 census, 894; 1956 census, 1,003; 1961 census, 868.

by Brian Newton Davis, M.A., Vicar, St. Philips, Karori West, Wellington and Edward Stewart Dollimore, Research Officer, Department of Lands and Survey, Wellington.

Palliser Bay is a broad embayment on the northern shore of Cook Strait. Its western end is marked by Cape Turakirae and its eastern end by Cape Palliser, the most southerly part of the North Island. The bay is the drowned and partly prograded valley of the Ruamahanga River. During the Pleistocene Ice Ages the sea was lowered perhaps as much as 350 ft, due to the storage of water as ice in the great continental glaciers. Consequently, all rivers flowed out the lower and more distant shore line. In the case of the Ruamahanga River, the shoreline was not far from the present coast and even though rivers were flowing at steeper gradients the Ruamahanga Valley was flooded for a distance of 19 miles from the present shore when the sea rose as the great glaciers melted. A gravel-bar beach was formed, behind which was a single large lake, later divided in two by the deltas of streams from the western part of the Aorangi Mountains. The two lakes now present are Onoke and Wairarapa. On the western side of the bay high terraces, built of debris washed down from the Rimutaka Range (3,000 ft) during the last and previous glaciations, slope down into Lake Onoke and terminate in the south with cliffs up to 150 ft high.

The large active West Wairarapa Fault lies at the east foot of the Rimutaka Range on the western side of Lakes Onoke and Wairarapa and Palliser Bay. The eastern half of Palliser Bay, to the east of Lake Onoke, is backed by Miocene Marine sediments forming cliffs of moderate height. The well-known Putangirua Pinnacles and Kupe's Sail occur in these sediments. The east side of Palliser Bay consists of cliffs cut in greywackes of the Aorangi Range (3,000 ft) of probable Jurassic age.

From the days of early settlement until the 1855 earthquake on the West Wairarapa Fault, a convenient route was either through the Wainuiomata Valley or round the coast from the Hutt Valley, thence along the coast across the gravel bar at Lake Onoke or, when the gravel bar was breached by floods, by way of a ferry based at the small beach resort of Lake Ferry. This early route initially was an easy one, but the 1855 earthquake brought down vast quantities of debris as scree and shingle fans. It consequently became more difficult and, with the development of the more direct inland routes to the north, was finally abandoned.

The beaches of Palliser Bay, from Cape Turakirae to Te Humenga Point 12 miles south-east of Lake Ferry, are all composed of shingle or boulders, except for a short stretch near Wharekauhau Stream 5 miles west of Lake Ferry, where sand and small pebbles make up the beach. From Te Humenga Point to the east for about 2½ miles there is a coastal plain of moderate width and the beaches are sandy. The gravel beach varies in height considerably, but in the more exposed parts is at least 20 ft high from low-water calm sea level to the top of the storm beach. The slope of the gravel beaches is very steep. Surf casting from the shore, particularly near Lake Ferry, is a popular pastime for many people. The very heavy storm seas tend to close the drainage from Lake Ferry and create a flood hazard around the shores of Lakes Onoke and Wairarapa. Because of this flood danger the Catchment Board now maintains an outlet through the gravel bar as part of its flood-control programme.

As Palliser Bay falls within a region notorious for its gales, it is not surprising that it has been the graveyard of many ships. Among these unfortunates were the Zuleika (1,092 tons), which went ashore in 1897 with the loss of 12 lives, and the Ripple (187 tons), lost off Palliser Bay in 1924 with all hands.

On 7 February 1770 Captain Cook gave the name “Palliser” to the south-easternmost promontory of the North Island in honour of his “worthy friend”, Captain, later Rear Admiral, Sir Hugh Palliser. The bay itself does not appear to have been named by Cook; presumably it took its name from the cape.

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

(1897–1943).

Minister of the Crown.

A new biography of Paikea, Paraire Karaka appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Paraire Karaka Paikea was born in 1897 at Otamatea, Kaipara, and was descended from Paikea te Hekeua, a noted chief of the Ngati Whatua tribe. He was educated at St. Stephen's College, Auckland (1906–08), and, afterwards, at Wesley College, Paerata (1909–14), where he was dux in his final year. He served as a minister in the Methodist Church from 1915 until 1925 when he became a Koata (executive) in the Ratana movement. In the following year he was appointed private secretary to T. W. Ratana, and he also edited the movement's official paper, Whetu-marama.

In order to carry out the founder's wish that the movement be represented in Parliament, Paikea unsuccessfully contested the Northern Maori seat at the 1928, 1931, and the 1935 general elections. Early in 1936 he was appointed secretary of the New Zealand Labour Party's Maori Advisory Council, which post he retained until 1938, when he won the Northern Maori constituency. On 21 June 1941 Paikea was appointed Member of the Executive Council representing the Maori race. Although this position had long been regarded as an honorary one and the duties purely consultative, Fraser, then Prime Minister, was greatly impressed by the administrative ability Paikea displayed and by the alacrity with which he could grasp the essential points of any question. Accordingly, when the War Administration was set up, Paikea became Minister in Charge of the Maori War Effort. After discussions with Ngata and other Maori leaders, he set about coordinating the war effort of the separate tribes. Local tribal committees were set up throughout the country – 121 being initiated in the Northern Maori Electorate alone. These kept up the flow of recruits to the Maori Battalion and also arranged for Maori labour to be available for essential industries. After 2 October 1942, when the War Administration was dissolved, Paikea continued to administer this portfolio. He died unexpectedly on 6 April 1943 at Wanganui, while on his way to visit Ratana Pa.

In 1918 Paikea married Hinerute Korekore Paraone. After his death his son, Tapihana Paraire Paikea (1920–63), succeeded him as member for Northern Maori.

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

• N.Z.P.D. Vol. 262, 19 May 1943 (Obit)
• Standard, 15 Apr 1943 (Obit)
• New Zealand Herald, 7 Apr 1943 (Obit).

Pahiatua is situated in a valley drained by the Mangatainoka River and Mangaramarama Creek. The gently undulating valley floor is bounded by the Tararua Range in the west and the Puketoi Range in the east. Pahiatua is 9½ miles south of Woodville by main highway and 51 miles north of Masterton. The Wairarapa Railway passes west of the town, a 1½-mile branch road providing access to the Pahiatua station. The station is 28 miles from Palmerston North via the junction of Woodville.

The fertile land of the valley is used for dairying, mixed farming, and fat-lamb production, with extensive grazing on the outer hills. Pahiatua is a trade and servicing centre for the surrounding district. Industries include cheesemaking, the manufacture of hosiery and clothing, precut furniture, cleansers and polishes. At Mangamutu, 2 miles west, is a plant for prefabricating steel farm buildings, and at Mangatainoka, 2 miles north, a large brewery. Pahiatua is an important livestock market.

The town was formerly within the area of forest called the Forty Mile Bush, which extended north from Mount Bruce, near Masterton. Settlement commenced in 1881 but in 1897, when there was still much timber close to the outskirts, a bush fire swept through Pahiatua destroying practically the whole town. Provision was made in the town design for the railway to pass down the centre of the main street. The line, however, was laid west of the Mangatainoka River and the area reserved for the railway was subsequently turned into lawns and gardens. This accounts for the unusual width of Main Street (3 chains). Pahiatua was constituted a borough on 25 July 1892.

The origin and meaning of the name are obscure.

POPULATION: 1951 census, 2,097; 1956 census, 2,322; 1961 census, 2,577.

by Brian Newton Davis, M.A., Vicar, St. Philips, Karori West, Wellington and Edward Stewart Dollimore, Research Officer, Department of Lands and Survey, Wellington.

(c. 1760–1809).

Ngapuhi chief.

A new biography of Te Pahi appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

In the generation before Marsden's arrival in New Zealand, Te Pahi was a powerful chief of Rangihoua in the Bay of Islands. He was a close relative to Hongi Hika. The stories told by Maoris who had visited Norfolk Island so impressed Te Pahi with the advantages of regular intercourse with Europeans that he decided to make the journey himself should an opportunity offer. About 1805 the New South Wales Government vessel, Lady Nelson, was driven to shelter in Bay of Islands waters. Learning that the ship was bound for Norfolk Island, Te Pahi requested that he and his four sons might be taken there to meet Governor King. Although King had left the island, they were well received by his successor. While they were there, news arrived that King had become Governor of New South Wales and Te Pahi asked to be taken to Sydney to meet him. The party sailed in the Buffalo and, after touching at Tasmania, reached Sydney on 27 November 1805. King made much of Te Pahi and had him as a guest at Government House throughout his visit. When he found Te Pahi was interested in European industries, he showed him everything that might prove of value to him. King was impressed by the chief's determination to learn everything which might be useful to his people and reported that there “were few things of utility which did not engross his attention”. Te Pahi visited Captain Macarthur at Parramatta and had long discussions with Marsden. As a result Marsden, who found Te Pahi possessed of a “clear, strong and competent mind”, determined to extend missionary activities to New Zealand. In the meantime Te Pahi arranged to send a number of Maoris to New South Wales for training as shepherds. Because of the uncertainties of sea travel, King sent his guests back to New Zealand in the Lady Nelson. The party sailed from Sydney on 24 February 1806. Among many other gifts, Te Pahi brought home fruit trees, pigs, goods, fowls, and a small house in frame (prefabricated). This later was erected at the Bay of Islands for the use of Europeans visiting the district.

In 1809, shortly after the Boyd massacre, a party of whalers raided Te Pahi's village and killed him in revenge. The massacre had been perpetrated by Te Puhi, of Whangaroa, but the whalers confused the names and suspected Te Pahi, of Rangihoua. Te Pahi's death delayed Marsden's missionary plans for New Zealand and it was not until Hongi and Ruatara promised the protection which Marsden had hoped to receive from Te Pahi that the way was clear for the mission to be established. In later years Marsden went to great pains to clear Te Pahi's name of complicity in the Boyd affair.

Te Pahi's son, Matara, visited England in 1809 and was presented to George III. Another son, Taua, spent some months at Parramatta with Marsden at the time of Ruatara's visit.

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

• Marsden Letters and Journals, Elder, J. R. ed. (1932).

(?1813–83).

Chief of Ngati Poutama hapu of Wanganui.

A new biography of Te Rangi Paetahi, Mete Kingi appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Mete-Kingi, often referred to as “the General”, is remembered for his part in the “duel” at Moutoa in 1864 between the Maoris of the river and a Hauhau band intent on sacking Wanganui township. With Major Kemp, he took troops to Opotiki to avenge the murder of Volkner and he later campaigned in Taranaki against the Hauhaus and Titokowaru. In later life there was bitter rivalry between Mete-Kingi and Kemp (Keepa te Rangihiwinui).

Mete-Kingi was more a man of peace than a warrior and on several occasions he intervened in disputes that might have flared up into open fighting. While a member of Parliament (he was elected in 1868 as the first representative for Western Maori) he pressed for an amnesty for those who had rebelled against the Government. He worked to reconcile the tribes of the Upper Wanganui with Ngati Maniopoto and the Waikato and, in 1881, visited Parihaka to try to persuade those followers of Te Whiti who came from Wanganui to return to their homes.

On 22 September 1883 Mete-Kingi died at his home in Putiki. His military funeral attracted a great crowd of mourners and onlookers, and a memorial in his honour was later erected in Market Square by the people of Wanganui. From an early age he had declared his allegiance to the Kawana-tanga, the Government, and he served it faithfully for the rest of his life.

by John March Booth, M.A., DIP.ANTHR.(LOND.), Secretary, New Zealand Maori Council, and the Polynesian Society, Wellington.

• Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives, Sess. I, 1884, G. 3
• Defenders of New Zealand, Gudgeon, T. W. (1887)
• The Press (Christchurch), 25 Mar 1903.

Paeroa is situated on undulating country on the northern bank of the Ohinemuri River near its junction with the Waihou River. The Coromandel Range lies immediately to the east and the extensive Hauraki Plain to the west. The town is a road and rail junction where rail routes from Hamilton, Thames, and Tauranga, and four State highways converge. By road Paeroa is 20 miles south of Thames, 13 miles north of Te Aroha, and 83 miles south-east of Auckland.

Paeroa is primarily a farm servicing centre for a closely settled dairying district. Important industries in the town include the manufacture of butter, dried milk and casein, clothing, concrete products, light engineering, and radio assembly. A boiling-down works produces mainly tallow and organic fertiliser. An unusual local activity is the commercial bottling of “Paeroa water” obtained from a warm mineral spring near the town.

There was an early Maori settlement near the present site of the town. Paeroa came into existence as a river port on the Waihou-Ohinemuri river system after the opening of the Ohinemuri gold-field (5 miles south-east). By 1881 a regular passenger and cargo steamship service had been established between Auckland and Paeroa and the importance of the port increased. A shipping service continued until 1947 when it became uneconomic. Gold was discovered at Komata Reefs, 6 miles north-east of Paeroa, in 1891. The initial yields were heavy but by 1901 production had declined considerably; nevertheless, mining continued intermittently with limited success until the early 1930s when all payable gold ore was exhausted. At an early date, flax from the extensive swamp land west of Paeroa was milled in the town. Much of this land has since been reclaimed for dairy farming. Paeroa means “a long low ridge of hills”, apparently a description of the Coromandel Range. At first Paeroa was part of the Thames County. In 1885 it became the Paeroa riding of the Ohinemuri County and on 1 April 1915 was created a borough.

POPULATION: 1951 census, 2,667; 1956 census, 2,856; 1961 census, 3,058.

by Brian Newton Davis, M.A., Vicar, St. Philips, Karori West, Wellington and Edward Stewart Dollimore, Research Officer, Department of Lands and Survey, Wellington.

(1873–1950).

Chief Justice of New Zealand.

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

Michael Myers, the son of Judah Myers and Eve, née Solomon, was born at Motueka on 7 September 1873. The family moved to Wellington in 1879 and Myers was educated at Thorndon School, Wellington, and at Wellington College. He studied law at Canterbury University College and graduated LL.B. in 1896, being admitted as a barrister and solicitor in 1897. In 1899 he became a partner in the firm of Bell, Gully, and Izard, with which he had been associated since leaving college in 1891. He had had a brilliant career at school and university, and amply fulfilled the promise shown then during the 30 years he spent with the Wellington firm. In 1922 he was granted the patent of King's Counsel, and in 1929, after an outstanding career at the Bar, he was appointed Chief Justice on the untimely death of Sir Charles Skerrett. Assisted, no doubt, by his association with such leaders of the Bar as Sir Francis Bell, K.C., and Hugh Gully, Sir Michael Myers became a prominent figure in the Courts almost from the time of his admission, and until the reconstitution of the Crown Law Office in 1910 he appeared in a large number of Crown cases, both criminal and civil. He sat for 17 years as Chief Justice until his retirement in 1946, and died in Wellington, on 8 April 1950, at the age of 77 years.

Sir Michael Myers took his place on the Bench during a difficult period in the social and economic development of the country and held office throughout a time of transition in the history of the law in New Zealand. He was a man of exceptional gifts, and throughout his service at the Bar and on the judiciary he allied to them unbounded energy and tireless industry. He had an acutely analytical mind and, painstaking in method, he possessed in large measure the faculty of sifting relevance from irrelevance and arriving at conclusions with a minimum of delay. He was at all times an indefatigable advocate of the rights, duties, and privileges of the legal profession, and throughout a long life he put all his remarkable equipment at the disposal of the law. His breadth of vision was remarkable and, despite the variety and volume of his duties as Chief Justice, he found time for practical interest in international affairs. He accompanied the Prime Minister, Peter Fraser to the conference of Allied Nations in San Francisco in 1945, which produced the United Nations, and there, hardly less than Fraser himself, he enhanced the name of New Zealand in international councils. He took a prominent part in the framing of the constitution of the International Court of Justice. In 1936 he became the first New Zealand born Judge to sit on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which he always regarded as an invaluable and essential link in the relationship between the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.

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

Dominion, 10 Apr 1950 (Obit).

Also known as the sooty shearwater or titi, the New Zealand muttonbird is Puffinus griseus and belongs to the order of sea birds known as petrels. As a name, “muttonbird” appears to have originated among early European settlers in Australasia and is said to refer to the taste of the flesh. At least as probable is the theory that the name refers to the rather woolly appearance of the downy young.

In New Zealand other petrels are also given the name “muttonbird”. In fact, the sooty shearwater, which is most abundant on the islands about Foveaux Strait, might well be called the southern muttonbird, and the grey-faced petrel, predominant on the islands off the coast of Auckland Province, the northern muttonbird. In Victoria, Tasmania, Bass Strait, and South Australia, the species is the short-tailed shearwater – an occasional visitor to New Zealand seas.

Sooty shearwaters are migrants. During the southern winter they are found in the north Pacific. In September immense numbers fly south along our coasts and the main breeding grounds are reached by the end of this month. After coming ashore in legions, the birds clean out the burrows that have been left vacant from the previous season. In most instances this is done by the same pairs that occupied them during the previous season. A single white egg is laid in each at the end of November.

Breeding grounds are a swarming pandemonium of returning adults at dusk or of outgoing adults at dawn. Hatching begins in mid-January, the first chicks fly by the end of April, and adults begin the return migration at the end of March. The muttonbird season, restricted to Maoris and their families, begins in April and runs into May. Downy or near-flying young are taken by day, or at night by torchlight. About 250,000 chicks are harvested annually and are used for food and as a source of oil and feather down.

by Gordon Roy Williams, B.SC.(HONS.)(SYDNEY), Lecturer in Agricultural Zoology, Lincoln Agricultural College.

(Atrina zelandica).

This large but rather thin and fragile shell, like a half-closed fan, grows to a foot or 18 in. in length. The shell is purplish-black with a metallic lustre and is studded with light-brown, sharp, hollow spines. This shellfish lives at and below low tide, almost completely buried, point downward in mud. Occasionally it has purplish-black pearls.

by Arthur William Baden Powell, Assistant Director, Auckland Institute and Museum.