Victor Street

The acclaimed horticulturalist Sir Victor Caddy Davies (1887-1977) is in what is likely to be very select company, someone with two New Plymouth streets named after them.

In 1952 a section of Cowling Road was renamed Davies Road, an acknowledgment of his outstanding botanical skills and business success. Ten years later a short new street, little more than 50 metres from the end of Davies Road, also honoured the nurseryman after approval was given for the name Victor Street. 

Records held by New Plymouth District Council reveal that the owner of the land prior to the subdivision was Augusta Wilhelmina Kopke (nee Lehmann) (1880-1983) and the developers were Bryan Benton, Geoffery Fisher and J. McIntyre. Unfortunately, minutes of the Works Committee dated 6 April 1961 merely record acceptance of the name for the street, without further information.

In 1905 Victor Davies signed on as an apprentice with James Duncan, then the owner of a small nursery in Westown. Five years later a partnership agreement between the two men created a company that went on to become the largest exporter and importer of shrubs in Australasia. 

Aerial photographs of upper Westown taken in 1950 reveal the extent of the company’s stamp on the landscape. In an interview with Victor Davies in 1954 it was reported that the nursery had grown to around 100 acres and employed the same number of people at peak times. When the company celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1974, the business had expanded its operation to a Brixton site and more than doubled the number of employees.  

Interviewed again in 1974, Victor explained that although he had stepped away from day-to-day operations, he still did “a lot of botanising for the company”.  He was knighted three years later, shortly before his death, and presented with the insignia and citation by Mayor Denny Sutherland at Taranaki Base Hospital.

As well as the two streets named after Sir Victor Davies himself, a third, Nursery Place, located only a short distance from the company’s former Westown headquarters, celebrates the achievements of Duncan & Davies Ltd.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.

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Taranaki DP8141 Sheet 1 (1957), ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)

Taranaki DP8890 Sheet 1 (1961), ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)