William Street

William Street in Merrilands appears on a survey office map drawn in the 1880s but it took nearly 100 years for the short road to finally be given a name.

Taranaki County Council files reveal that after numerous requests from property owners to name the short stretch of road, a decision was made on 4 May 1979 to call it William Street.

The name was a tribute to the first European owner of the surrounding land, William Humphries. Humphries arrived in New Plymouth as a young boy aboard the ship Sir Edward Paget in 1851. After serving with the militia during the Taranaki Wars he went on to combine work with the family firm (wine and spirit merchants S.L. Humphries & Co.) as well farming ‘Puketotara’.

Puketotara Estate was advertised for sale in 1909 and was described as “182 acres of first-class land situated on the Old Mangorei Road about two miles from New Plymouth”. The name of the farm acknowledged the name given to one of the native reserves (N.R. 3) noted on the original Crown Grant map for the Paritūtū Survey District. (TDN 3 November 1909)

In 1910 Humphries was badly injured while crossing Devon Street by a wagon loaded with meat. The heavy load was said to have passed over his shoulder and he was also trodden on by the horse. Although he received medical attention almost immediately from Doctor Leatham, his obituary in 1917 (Taranaki Herald 24 September 1917) records that it was an incident from which “he really never recovered”.

In a strange coincidence, the name chosen for this Merrilands street also celebrates the next landowner William Bethell, who bought the farm in 1919 and was still living there when he died in 1953.

At the end of William Street a pathway provides access to Balsom Park and the Waiwhakaiho River. The area was once the site of a quarry, supplying boulders for the extension to the port’s Lee Breakwater. The Taranaki County Council bought the land in 1979 as a recreation reserve, naming it Williams Reserve. In October 1985 the council decided to rename the reserve Balsom Park after a former chairman, Owen Balsom. (Daily News 23 December 1985)

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.

Related plans and documents:

ML241 Plan of Subdivision of Puketotara N.R.3, ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)

Taranaki DP8762 Sheet 1 Puketotara M.R.3, ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)

Taranaki DP10705 Sheet 1 Puketotara M.R.3, ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)

City's secret garden a gem, Glyn Church (Taranaki Daily News 1 June 2012)