Winks Road (Manaia)

Winks Road in Manaia was named after a butcher who became a local politician.

John Alexander Winks was born on 4 March 1848 in Greenock, Scotland. His parents Alexander and Jane immigrated to New Zealand with their children in the early 1850s, settling in Rangitikei. John moved to Taranaki in the 1860s and opened a butcher’s shop and bakery in Hāwera, supplying meat and bread to troops during the Taranaki Wars.

John married Mary Amon in 1871 and the newlyweds spent part of their honeymoon driving 24 calves from Bulls to Hāwera, a journey of more than 120 kilometres. Mary gave birth to their first child in the Hāwera blockhouse in 1873. The couple initially lived on Hāwera’s High Street, where the ANZ Bank is now, and had 11 more children. John was often away, leaving Mary to run the store on her own. He took a meat cart to Carlyle (later renamed Pātea) twice a week and regularly travelled into the bush to purchase cattle from local Māori, with whom he was on good terms. He was particularly friendly with Ngāti Ruanui leader Wiremu Hukunui Manaia – for whom the town of Manaia was named – and called one of his sons Walter Manaia in his honour.

Winks served as Chairman of the Hāwera Town Board, Road Board, Borough and County Councils. He was a member of the Normanby School Committee and President of the Egmont Agricultural and Pastoral Association, exhibiting at many A&P shows and judging at others around the region.

John Winks died on 18 November 1904 at the age of 57 and is buried in the Presbyterian area of Hāwera Cemetery alongside his wife. He was praised after his death as a man of “untiring energy and good judgement” who “never made use of his public position for his private ends”.

The railway line from Wellington to New Plymouth once crossed Winks Road, with cows occasionally being struck by trains. The road was home to Richard Smith’s Pioneer Nursery in the 1880s and the Manaia Rifle Club range in the 1890s. In 1905 a drain was constructed underneath the road to connect Waiokura pā to Kapuni stream. The pā had hosted the tangi of Winks’ friend Hukunui Manaia in 1892.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.