Batten Road (Okaiawa)

Batten Road runs from Surf Highway 45 towards Ōhawe Beach, beside the Waingongoro River. It was named after Hamilton Batten, an innovative farmer who worked land in the area for more than half a century.

Hamilton Edwards Batten was born in Kent in 1872, the third child and first son of James and Emma Batten. The family immigrated to New Zealand in 1879 and settled in Canterbury where James worked in a shipping office. But in 1890 they made a lifestyle change, moving north to a farm at Ketemarae where their herd of cows supplied milk for the Normanby Dairy Factory.

A decade later, James bought 170 acres of land at Tokaora. Hamilton’s two brothers died young – Stuart drowned in his teens and Leslie was killed in France during the First World War – so he took over this property after his father’s death.

Hamilton was the first farmer in Taranaki to grow lucerne, building two newfangled concrete silos to store the silage. He was only the second farmer in the district to own a tractor and introduced smart stock management techniques including keeping records on milk production that meant he retained the calves of the best cows. Hamilton even constructed his own little power plant which, despite having to be rebuilt after a storm in 1924, provided electricity for his house, cowshed and workshop until the late 1940s. It also powered a kitchen fridge, the first in the neighbourhood.

As well as farming, Hamilton was at one time in charge of the Stratford Electric Light Company’s first hydroelectric scheme at Tariki, director of the Hāwera Gas Company, a founding member of the Tokaora branch of the Farmers’ Union and chairman of Riverdale Dairy Company.

Hamilton was a lifelong bachelor and lived with his unmarried sisters Ida and Hilda until their deaths. They ran their farm together and loved camping, making regular trips around the North Island. Hamilton also sang in the choir of St Mary’s Anglican Church in Hāwera for 60 years.

Hamilton Batten died at home in Tokaora on 2 June 1954. He left everything to Ida, who outlived him by six years, and the pair are buried next to each other at Hāwera Cemetery.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.