55371
The Tilby Farm in Tauranga
SummaryAfter the colonial invasion of Tauranga Moana and the subsequent raupatu, Ōtūmoetai was redistributed to two Māori chiefs. The area, which now includes Matua and 200 acres between Levers Road and the sea, was later sold to Dr. Joseph Henry of the 1st Waikato Regiment, who then sold it to W.J. Douglas in 1893. Douglas developed the farm and built a homestead that would later be used by the Tilby family. He sold the first 32 acres, which included the Matua-iwi Pa site, and divided the farm. Nathaniel Dickey, a horse racing enthusiast, purchased most of the remaining 130 acres in 1896.Main BodyFrom time immemorial Māori have taken pipi from the Wairoa river channel north of Fergusson Park. Near the Point (Kaiarero) in former times there was a cockle bed, harvested by Māori from time to time, as were the pupu on the seaweed, also near the Point, and in the lagoon nearby. A large snail-like shellfish, the pupu has a hare “eye” or operculum which is used for eyes in Māori carving.
Invasions from the North 1820-1833:
In 1820 Matua-Iwi Pa site was occupied by a powerful Ngāpuhi war party from the Bay of Islands, some of them armed with muskets, who threatened Ōtūmoetai Pa. Ngāpuhi under the chief Te Morenga had just destroyed the Ngāi Te Rangi. Pa on Mount Maunganui (Mauao). This was to obtain utu for the killing and eating of his niece by the chief Te Waru and the Ngāi Te Rangiof Tauranga, where the people had no muskets. Te Morenga’s niece had been abducted from Northland by the mutinous crew of the brig Venus in 1806 and put ashore either at Motiti Island or on the mainland nearby.
Out one day to spy on the Ngāpuhi camp at Matuaiwi, probably somewhere on the present Fergusson Park, Te Waru saw Te Morenga coming along on a similar mission. Suddenly springing on Te Morenga, Te Waru bound him and drove him back towards Ōtūmoetai Pa. When near the Pa he unbound his prisoner and invited him to treat him (Te Waru) in the same fashion. Thus Te Waru was taken to Matuaiwi, where Ngāpuhi would have killed him but for the intervention of Te Morenga, who told them how he had been treated by Te Waru. Filled with admiration for such a noble gesture, Ngāpuhi invited Te Waru to make peace.
in 1830, when the Ngāpuhi chiefs Mango and Kakaha sought utu for the death of their father in the 'Girl’s War', they sought it in distant Tauranga. However, their small war party met with a bloody repulse at Maungatapu Pa.
This required another expedition led, in 1831, by the old priest Te Haramiti early in the following year. But it was crushed and all but wiped out by Ngāi Te Rangi, led by Tupaea, and supported by Te Waharoa of Ngati Haua.
The annihilation of the Te Haramiti led expedition demanded yet another utu-seeking foray, this time on a grand scale. between 1832 and 1833, it was led by the chief Titore and supported by others such as Te Morenga, Tohitapu, Wharepoaka and Hone Heke. It took them two months to reach Tauranga. After entering Tauranga harbour at the Katikati entrance they sailed down the harbour in 80 war canoes and boats from Matakana Island with their flags flying (7 March 1832). They landed at Karopua (probably on Rangiwaea Island). Ngāpuhi had now some 600 men under arms, together with uncounted women and children and dogs.
At low tide the invaders exchanged musket fire across the Wairoa river channel, north of the present Fergusson Park, with the Ōtūmoetai people. After midnight on 10 March, Ngāpuhi paddled upstream to a camp near the Mataiwi Pa site. Next day while Ngāpuhi launched attacks on Ōtūmoetai Pa the Rev. Henry Williams, who was trying to stop the fighting, viewed proceedings by telescope from the top of the Pa site. Ngāpuhi now received support from the trader Tapsell, who arrived in the cutter Fairy from Maketu. He offered them all the arms and ammunition they wanted and the support of the Arawa tribe. Henry Williams and the other missionaries sailed for the Bay of Islands on 15 March.
The missionaries were back in Tauranga on 31 March to find Ngāpuhi, having been unsuccessful at Ōtūmoetai, although they used cannon against the Pa, had shifted to Matapihi to attack Maungatapu Pa. In one of the skirmishing attacks on Ōtūmoetai Hone Heke was wounded in the neck and sent home early. Shortage of food, war weariness and lack of success in battle dampened Ngāpuhi’s spirits. Most of them arrived home in their storm battered canoes in early August. Titore remained with 30 men at Maketū to carry on against Ngāiterangi at Te Tumu Pa. He was wounded and back home by 27 November.
Dissatisfied with the utu obtained, Titore was off to Maketū and Tauranga again in February 1833. As the bulk of Ngāpuhi stayed at home this time, he was followed by Te Rarawa from north of the Bay of Islands. About the middle of March they made attacks on Ōtūmoetai Pa apparently from Matuaiwi, but having no success moved to Maketu, where a fragile peace was made about the end of May.
"Kaiarero"
Once when Ngāpuhi invaders were caught in the quicksand near the Point at the northwest corner of Fergusson Park they cried out for food. To this, the Ōtūmoetai people responded contemptuously with: “Kaiarero” (Eat your tongues) by which the Point has since been known to Māori.
From Swamp to Sports Ground
When the Tilby family purchased a 111-acre farm in 1914 it contained the area now known as Fergusson Park, then a swamp covered in manuka, fern, rushes, sweet briar, cabbage trees and wild peaches. The peaches were probably planted in the mid-19th century by Māori from the nearby Ōtūmoetai Pa, who had tried to drain the swamp. They had also cultivated crops of kumara, potatoes, maize and wheat on the higher land.
Ōtūmoetai, including the area now called Matua, was part of the land confiscated from Māori after the battles of Gate Pa and Te Ranga in 1864. Over 200 acres between Levers Road and the sea were granted to two Māori chiefs, who sold them to Dr Joseph Henry of the 1st Waikato Regiment.
An absentee owner from the 1870s, Henry sold in 1893 to W. J. Douglas, who developed the farm and built a homestead later used by the Tilbys. Douglas divided the farm, selling the first 32 acres which included the Matua-iwi Pa site. In 1896 most of the farm, 130 acres, was purchased by Nathaniel Dickey, a horse racing enthusiast and racehorse owner, who developed a horse training track in the centre of the farm. It was probably Dickey who gave the property the inappropriate name of “Arawa”.
In 1914, after a further sale of land on the western boundary, Dickey sold the remaining 111-acre farm to John Tilby and his bachelor brother, William, of Buckland, near Pukekohe. They paid what was called the “ridiculously high price of 50 pounds per acre”, at a time when there was no electric power or telephones in the district. Then, as now, the location was a deciding factor: Graham Lever, who farmed further down the peninsula,
had recommended the farm to the Tilbys as perfectly fulfilling their desire for a place by the sea for fishing and boating.
The Tilby family, including the children Charles, Ivy and Ray, arrived in Tauranga from Auckland on the SS Ngāpuhi on 1st September 1914.
The Tilby farm was a typical mixed farm of the period. It was based on supplying cream to the Tauranga Co-operative Dairy Company on 11th Avenue. Thirty cows were milked by hand until a milking machine was purchased in 1917. The power for this and a separator were supplied by an oil engine for a short time until electricity came to the district. At first, the cows were milked in the old cow bails in the barn, but later the horse stalls building was converted into a milking shed. By 1935 the herd had increased to about 80. Dairying was supplemented by the sale of pigs, together with returns from crops such as maize, oats, potatoes, kumara, mangolds, horse carrots, lucerne hay, rye and cocksfoot grasses, portions of which were consumed on the property. Oats were cut into chaff to feed horses. About 1934 the price of kumara fell so low they were not worth marketing, and could not even be given away because the government would not pay the cost of transport to Auckland. Maize was an important crop until about 1950, when it became unprofitable.
In the early times, the maize crop was picked by Māori from Matakana Island, who camped on the farm, and later by Māori from the mainland. Shelling the maize from the drying crib months afterwards was done by the Tilbys themselves, who also shelled the crops of neighbouring Ōtūmoetai farmers. Helping the Tilbys on the farm at first was the hard-working Rakau Hemo, who lived with his wife and children in two thatched whare at the foot of the cliff in the northwest of the farm.
Boating and yachting enthusiasts, the Tilbys built a boatshed at the northwest corner of the farm called, in their time, Tilby Point, but Kaiarero by the Māori. Early 20th century Catholics at Te Puna jokingly called the Point “The Pope’s Nose”, from the appearance of the land and the proximity of the old Catholic Mission Station at Ōtūmoetai Pa.
The Tilbys gave up dairying in 1961: the last suppliers in Ōtūmoetai, the Dairy Company refused to collect cream from them any longer. On 6 June at a clearing sale on the farm 72 cows and 21 heifers were offered for sale. The dairy herd was replaced by beef cattle, which numbered well over 100 at one time.
In April 1963 the Tilbys deposited a plan for the subdivision of their farm for housing. The first building section, on Levers Road, was sold at the beginning of 1965. Construction of Tilby Drive started on the southwestern side of this section in January 1967. The subdivision of the farm proceeded in stages, with blocks of sections offered for sale at different times until the last was put on the market in 1987.
In 1965 discussion arose over the naming of the “Levers Road” peninsula, the Ōtūmoetai West Ratepayers Association expressed a desire for a “more euphonious” name. Matua was decided on, from the Matua–iwi Pa site on the northwestern shore.
In 1964 the first portion of land from the Tilby farm was sold: some five acres intended for use as a primary school. Matua school opened on 6th September 1965 on the site of the old Tilby homestead, which had been moved to Matua Road.
In 1914 the swamp had to be cleared and drained by hand. The mānuka was put to good use as field tiles. The wooden stems were laid about 50cm deep along the bottom of the drains, followed by mānuka brush to hold the layer of earth placed on top. The land was first cultivated by a swamp plough drawn by four horses. It was then planted for three seasons in maize, after which it was laid down in paspalum grass.
Behind the beach south of the Point, there was a shallow lagoon with mangroves growing in it. Flood gates had been installed to prevent water from coming in, but they have washed away in the cyclone of February 1936. They were replaced a little further south but were rendered inoperable by the 1954 cyclone. The lagoon gradually filled with sand from natural erosion caused by exposure to the prevailing westerly winds.
Having earlier identified this low-lying land for development as a reserve, the Tauranga Borough Council, in March 1961, agreed to purchase about 34 acres for 26,000 pounds to be paid for by installments over 15 years. Spoil from Tilby Drive was later used to complete the reclamation of the lagoon area. Named Fergusson Park after the Governor General of the time Sir Bernard Fergusson, the park is used as a sports ground.
For more detailed information about the Tilby farm see the Journal of the Tauranga Historical Society (June 1982), available at the Tauranga City Library.SourcesTauranga City Council and Historic Places Trust signs, mostly written by Jinty Rorke
Invasions from the North 1820-1833:
In 1820 Matua-Iwi Pa site was occupied by a powerful Ngāpuhi war party from the Bay of Islands, some of them armed with muskets, who threatened Ōtūmoetai Pa. Ngāpuhi under the chief Te Morenga had just destroyed the Ngāi Te Rangi. Pa on Mount Maunganui (Mauao). This was to obtain utu for the killing and eating of his niece by the chief Te Waru and the Ngāi Te Rangiof Tauranga, where the people had no muskets. Te Morenga’s niece had been abducted from Northland by the mutinous crew of the brig Venus in 1806 and put ashore either at Motiti Island or on the mainland nearby.
Out one day to spy on the Ngāpuhi camp at Matuaiwi, probably somewhere on the present Fergusson Park, Te Waru saw Te Morenga coming along on a similar mission. Suddenly springing on Te Morenga, Te Waru bound him and drove him back towards Ōtūmoetai Pa. When near the Pa he unbound his prisoner and invited him to treat him (Te Waru) in the same fashion. Thus Te Waru was taken to Matuaiwi, where Ngāpuhi would have killed him but for the intervention of Te Morenga, who told them how he had been treated by Te Waru. Filled with admiration for such a noble gesture, Ngāpuhi invited Te Waru to make peace.
in 1830, when the Ngāpuhi chiefs Mango and Kakaha sought utu for the death of their father in the 'Girl’s War', they sought it in distant Tauranga. However, their small war party met with a bloody repulse at Maungatapu Pa.
This required another expedition led, in 1831, by the old priest Te Haramiti early in the following year. But it was crushed and all but wiped out by Ngāi Te Rangi, led by Tupaea, and supported by Te Waharoa of Ngati Haua.
The annihilation of the Te Haramiti led expedition demanded yet another utu-seeking foray, this time on a grand scale. between 1832 and 1833, it was led by the chief Titore and supported by others such as Te Morenga, Tohitapu, Wharepoaka and Hone Heke. It took them two months to reach Tauranga. After entering Tauranga harbour at the Katikati entrance they sailed down the harbour in 80 war canoes and boats from Matakana Island with their flags flying (7 March 1832). They landed at Karopua (probably on Rangiwaea Island). Ngāpuhi had now some 600 men under arms, together with uncounted women and children and dogs.
At low tide the invaders exchanged musket fire across the Wairoa river channel, north of the present Fergusson Park, with the Ōtūmoetai people. After midnight on 10 March, Ngāpuhi paddled upstream to a camp near the Mataiwi Pa site. Next day while Ngāpuhi launched attacks on Ōtūmoetai Pa the Rev. Henry Williams, who was trying to stop the fighting, viewed proceedings by telescope from the top of the Pa site. Ngāpuhi now received support from the trader Tapsell, who arrived in the cutter Fairy from Maketu. He offered them all the arms and ammunition they wanted and the support of the Arawa tribe. Henry Williams and the other missionaries sailed for the Bay of Islands on 15 March.
The missionaries were back in Tauranga on 31 March to find Ngāpuhi, having been unsuccessful at Ōtūmoetai, although they used cannon against the Pa, had shifted to Matapihi to attack Maungatapu Pa. In one of the skirmishing attacks on Ōtūmoetai Hone Heke was wounded in the neck and sent home early. Shortage of food, war weariness and lack of success in battle dampened Ngāpuhi’s spirits. Most of them arrived home in their storm battered canoes in early August. Titore remained with 30 men at Maketū to carry on against Ngāiterangi at Te Tumu Pa. He was wounded and back home by 27 November.
Dissatisfied with the utu obtained, Titore was off to Maketū and Tauranga again in February 1833. As the bulk of Ngāpuhi stayed at home this time, he was followed by Te Rarawa from north of the Bay of Islands. About the middle of March they made attacks on Ōtūmoetai Pa apparently from Matuaiwi, but having no success moved to Maketu, where a fragile peace was made about the end of May.
"Kaiarero"
Once when Ngāpuhi invaders were caught in the quicksand near the Point at the northwest corner of Fergusson Park they cried out for food. To this, the Ōtūmoetai people responded contemptuously with: “Kaiarero” (Eat your tongues) by which the Point has since been known to Māori.
From Swamp to Sports Ground
When the Tilby family purchased a 111-acre farm in 1914 it contained the area now known as Fergusson Park, then a swamp covered in manuka, fern, rushes, sweet briar, cabbage trees and wild peaches. The peaches were probably planted in the mid-19th century by Māori from the nearby Ōtūmoetai Pa, who had tried to drain the swamp. They had also cultivated crops of kumara, potatoes, maize and wheat on the higher land.
Ōtūmoetai, including the area now called Matua, was part of the land confiscated from Māori after the battles of Gate Pa and Te Ranga in 1864. Over 200 acres between Levers Road and the sea were granted to two Māori chiefs, who sold them to Dr Joseph Henry of the 1st Waikato Regiment.
An absentee owner from the 1870s, Henry sold in 1893 to W. J. Douglas, who developed the farm and built a homestead later used by the Tilbys. Douglas divided the farm, selling the first 32 acres which included the Matua-iwi Pa site. In 1896 most of the farm, 130 acres, was purchased by Nathaniel Dickey, a horse racing enthusiast and racehorse owner, who developed a horse training track in the centre of the farm. It was probably Dickey who gave the property the inappropriate name of “Arawa”.
In 1914, after a further sale of land on the western boundary, Dickey sold the remaining 111-acre farm to John Tilby and his bachelor brother, William, of Buckland, near Pukekohe. They paid what was called the “ridiculously high price of 50 pounds per acre”, at a time when there was no electric power or telephones in the district. Then, as now, the location was a deciding factor: Graham Lever, who farmed further down the peninsula,
had recommended the farm to the Tilbys as perfectly fulfilling their desire for a place by the sea for fishing and boating.
The Tilby family, including the children Charles, Ivy and Ray, arrived in Tauranga from Auckland on the SS Ngāpuhi on 1st September 1914.
The Tilby farm was a typical mixed farm of the period. It was based on supplying cream to the Tauranga Co-operative Dairy Company on 11th Avenue. Thirty cows were milked by hand until a milking machine was purchased in 1917. The power for this and a separator were supplied by an oil engine for a short time until electricity came to the district. At first, the cows were milked in the old cow bails in the barn, but later the horse stalls building was converted into a milking shed. By 1935 the herd had increased to about 80. Dairying was supplemented by the sale of pigs, together with returns from crops such as maize, oats, potatoes, kumara, mangolds, horse carrots, lucerne hay, rye and cocksfoot grasses, portions of which were consumed on the property. Oats were cut into chaff to feed horses. About 1934 the price of kumara fell so low they were not worth marketing, and could not even be given away because the government would not pay the cost of transport to Auckland. Maize was an important crop until about 1950, when it became unprofitable.
In the early times, the maize crop was picked by Māori from Matakana Island, who camped on the farm, and later by Māori from the mainland. Shelling the maize from the drying crib months afterwards was done by the Tilbys themselves, who also shelled the crops of neighbouring Ōtūmoetai farmers. Helping the Tilbys on the farm at first was the hard-working Rakau Hemo, who lived with his wife and children in two thatched whare at the foot of the cliff in the northwest of the farm.
Boating and yachting enthusiasts, the Tilbys built a boatshed at the northwest corner of the farm called, in their time, Tilby Point, but Kaiarero by the Māori. Early 20th century Catholics at Te Puna jokingly called the Point “The Pope’s Nose”, from the appearance of the land and the proximity of the old Catholic Mission Station at Ōtūmoetai Pa.
The Tilbys gave up dairying in 1961: the last suppliers in Ōtūmoetai, the Dairy Company refused to collect cream from them any longer. On 6 June at a clearing sale on the farm 72 cows and 21 heifers were offered for sale. The dairy herd was replaced by beef cattle, which numbered well over 100 at one time.
In April 1963 the Tilbys deposited a plan for the subdivision of their farm for housing. The first building section, on Levers Road, was sold at the beginning of 1965. Construction of Tilby Drive started on the southwestern side of this section in January 1967. The subdivision of the farm proceeded in stages, with blocks of sections offered for sale at different times until the last was put on the market in 1987.
In 1965 discussion arose over the naming of the “Levers Road” peninsula, the Ōtūmoetai West Ratepayers Association expressed a desire for a “more euphonious” name. Matua was decided on, from the Matua–iwi Pa site on the northwestern shore.
In 1964 the first portion of land from the Tilby farm was sold: some five acres intended for use as a primary school. Matua school opened on 6th September 1965 on the site of the old Tilby homestead, which had been moved to Matua Road.
In 1914 the swamp had to be cleared and drained by hand. The mānuka was put to good use as field tiles. The wooden stems were laid about 50cm deep along the bottom of the drains, followed by mānuka brush to hold the layer of earth placed on top. The land was first cultivated by a swamp plough drawn by four horses. It was then planted for three seasons in maize, after which it was laid down in paspalum grass.
Behind the beach south of the Point, there was a shallow lagoon with mangroves growing in it. Flood gates had been installed to prevent water from coming in, but they have washed away in the cyclone of February 1936. They were replaced a little further south but were rendered inoperable by the 1954 cyclone. The lagoon gradually filled with sand from natural erosion caused by exposure to the prevailing westerly winds.
Having earlier identified this low-lying land for development as a reserve, the Tauranga Borough Council, in March 1961, agreed to purchase about 34 acres for 26,000 pounds to be paid for by installments over 15 years. Spoil from Tilby Drive was later used to complete the reclamation of the lagoon area. Named Fergusson Park after the Governor General of the time Sir Bernard Fergusson, the park is used as a sports ground.
For more detailed information about the Tilby farm see the Journal of the Tauranga Historical Society (June 1982), available at the Tauranga City Library.SourcesTauranga City Council and Historic Places Trust signs, mostly written by Jinty Rorke
Photographs
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Location
Map Address135/Waratah Street,Matua,Tauranga,3110,New ZealandLocationTauranga, New ZealandLatitude/Longitude[1]
Relates To
PlacesThe Traders in Tauranga
Admin
Tauranga City Libraries Staff , The Tilby Farm in Tauranga. Pae Korokī, accessed 12/09/2024, https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/55371
