Tasman Street

Tasman Street is a cul-de-sac that runs off Broadmore Street in Vogeltown. Formed in 1951, it was named after Abel Janszoon Tasman who was the first European to sight Aotearoa, which he named Staten Landt in honour of the parliament in his native Holland. Other streets in the neighbourhood are also named after explorers, including Walter Raleigh and Francis Drake.

Born in the Netherlands around 1603, Tasman took part in anti-smuggling raids and other governmental marine exercises before being employed by the Dutch East India Company in 1634. In 1642 he was commissioned to explore Australia and South America, departing in two ships, the Heemskerck and the Zeehaen, from Batavia (now Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies in August of that year.

Tasman sighted and named Van Dieman’s Land (later renamed Tasmania) in November 1642. He then sailed east and on 13 December caught a glimpse of Ōkārito on the west coast of the South Island. The ships anchored near what is now Abel Tasman National Park and became the first Pākehā to encounter Māori on the evening of 18 December.

After a disastrous incident in a place they dubbed Moordenaers or Murderers Bay (Golden Bay) Tasman and his crew continued along the west coast, celebrating Christmas with a dinner of pork and extra rations of wine. They sailed on up the west coast of the North Island but sadly the weather in Taranaki was so overcast that they missed the magnificent peak of Taranaki Maunga and the Sugar Loaves, all of which were hidden by cloud. But they did make out Cape Egmont which Tasman named Kapp Pieter Boreel, after a fellow employee of the East India Company – it was renamed by Captain James Cook in 1769. Tasman led several more expeditions before his retirement in 1653 and died in Batavia in 1659.

The New Plymouth Repertory Society theatre has been located on the corner of Tasman and Broadmore streets since 1973, when it was known as Repertory House. There is another Tasman Street in Ōpunake and for many years New Plymouth had a Tasman Hotel, converted in the 1990s to the Richmond Estate apartments and still looking out over the Tasman Sea.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.

Related Document

Taranaki DP7072 Tasman Street (1952) - ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)