Clyde Street

This short cul-de-sac off Frankley Road is named after Clyde Gibson Aston.

Clyde Aston was born in Croydon, Surrey in 1881. The family emigrated to New Zealand and settled in Wellington. At the outbreak of World War One he joined the Wellington Mounted Rifles and sailed for Egypt on 13 November 1915.

Like many soldiers, Aston married soon after he returned from the war. Back in Wellington, he married Gladys Tighe from Lower Hutt in 1920.

Over the next thirty years the itinerant Aston lived in a number of North Island towns and cities including Raglan, Auckland, Wellington again, before moving to New Plymouth in the early 1950s. Once here he purchased a block of land on Frankley Road.

When this land was subdivided in 1958, the Taranaki County Council and the New Plymouth City Council agreed to the name Clyde Street at the request of the developer, Ivan Sisarich.

However, correspondence between the County and the City at the time showed it wasn’t plain sailing. There had been an agreement to consult over naming of streets and the county felt it had been left out of discussions. In a letter to the New Plymouth City Council, the County, while agreeing to the name Clyde, rather tersely commented that any further lack of co-operation, “could lead to difficulties in the future”.

The need for such accord came to an end in 1989 when, as part of major local body reforms, the Taranaki County Council was abolished and amalgamated with the newly formed New Plymouth District Council.

After his land was subdivided Clyde Aston shifted back to Wellington. He died on 12 August 1962, aged 81, and was buried at the Karori cemetery.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.