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Story: Marlborough region

Provincial buildings: Picton

Provincial buildings: Picton

In 1859 Marlborough’s capital was established at Picton, where a town had been laid out in 1850 and many runholders had bought town sections. The provincial council buildings are on the right of this picture (with the jail in the centre). Without a road connection to the Wairau – the main centre of population in the province – Picton’s position as the capital was always in doubt, and the council moved to Blenheim in 1865.

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Picton Maritime and Heritage Museum

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How to cite this page

Malcolm McKinnon, Marlborough region – Government, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/32509/provincial-buildings-picton (accessed 24 June 2026).

Story by Malcolm McKinnon, published 9 May 2011, updated 1 November 2016.

Comments

Kerry Griffiths
22 December 2014
It is a common fallacy that Picton lost its title of Capital. What it lost was the Seat of Government to Blenheim in 1864/65. The title of Capital was bestowed by the then Governor General of New Zealand, General Thomas Gore-Browne. That title still holds today regardless of what some incorrect historians have written.