This handwritten petition was addressed to the governor, the Marquis of Normanby, in 1877 by residents of Hamilton East and Hamilton West. They formally requested a merger of their two ‘township highway districts’ (settlements based on earlier roads boards) into a single borough (town with a population of less than 20,000). Their petition points out that although Hamilton East and Hamilton West ‘comprise one continuous area’, they are officially part of two separate counties (rural local authority districts) – Waikato and Waipa respectively.