Lady's Mile (Eltham)

By the 1890s it was fashionable for some of New Zealand’s European immigrants to describe themselves as a ‘Settler’ on official documents. William Finlay of Eltham was one such. Today we can safely assume he earned his living as a farmer. He owned a lot of undeveloped land in Eltham, bordering Conway Road, and the area was known locally as the ‘Finlay Estate’.

In 1896 Finlay wrote to the council requesting roads be developed to give him “access to the back portion of his section.” When he sold some of those sections a few years later, one of the first purchasers was Thomas Jenkins.

Jenkins subsequently offered the land to the Salvation Army, for the purpose of building a boys’ home. The Salvation Army rejected the site, later building on Maata Road and naming the home after Jenkins’ wife.

In 1906 Finlay surveyed his land again, this time to include a road. It was named Lady’s Mile, because the location was close to Eltham and an easy, quiet walk for any lady of the town to promenade.

Today, many people note the road signs on Lady’s Mile have no apostrophes on them. They are also missing on most maps. This is commonplace today, in part because many people don’t understand their use. In this instance however, its absence is particularly egregious.

Not only does the word look ugly, in fact, with no apostrophe, there is no such word. Lady’s Mile in Eltham, originally named to acknowledge the women of the district, is today named for a word that doesn’t exist.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.

Related items:

Taranaki DP310 Sheet 1 (1890), ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)

Taranaki DP2321 Sheet 1 (1906), ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)