Lably
Skip to content

Karori

Suburb of Wellington City, New Zealand

  • 12 min read
  • 10 chapters

Related on Lably

Through Settler and New Age

Lab · Class 6–12Archaeology & DiscoveryLab · Class 11NodeMCU & IoT

Amenities in Karori include a community garden, a library, a swimming pool, and several church buildings.

History

Origins

The name Karori is a corruption of the Māori phrase te kaha o ngā rore meaning 'the place of many bird snares'. Originally forested, Māori used the Karori area for hunting. It also had tracks crossing it that led to Māori pā on the west coast.

No Māori lived in the area when the first European settlers came to Karori in the 1840s. Settlers bought land from the New Zealand Company, the area was included in their Port Nicholson Block deal. The first settler in Karori, John Yule of Glasgow, cleared 20 acres of forest on his section with his younger brother Moses and advertised its sale in December 1841. By 1845, ten 100-acre sections were being taken up and sub-divided, and Karori boasted 215 inhabitants – 109 of them under the age of 14 years.

In 1845 a group of armed police from Wellington constructed a small fortified post that became known as "The Stockade" in response to fears of attacks from nearby Māori insurgents. While there were no attacks, the stockade was used for a church service and to grind grain. The stockade was located on Mr Chapman's land, about halfway along what is now Marsden Avenue.

The first mental hospital in Wellington was built in 1854. By 1871 it had 23 inmates and was run by untrained staff, which resulted in the first matron and her husband being dismissed in 1872 because of cruelty. In 1873 the asylum moved from Karori to the site of present-day Government House in central Wellington. Karori School took over the asylum site in 1875.

Frederick Mackie in his book Traveller under concern described Karori in the 1850s:

"The walk was highly romantic. The road is cut out of the sides of steep hills covered with forest. The ever-winding road, the steep declivities, the forest above and below you, and the continual murmur of streams concealed in the depths below were very pleasing, as every few yards a new scene and fresh objects were brought to view. In one spot I obtained a view of the harbour, which today was like a bright glassy lake, and beyond it were the lofty ranges of the snow-clad Rimutaka and Tararuas, partly glistening in the sun and partly shrouded in cloud."

Karori gold rush

Karori experienced a gold rush when the valley of the Upper Kaiwharawhara Stream became subject to intensive gold-mining activity between 1869 and 1873. This activity eventually led to the building of the lower Karori Dam (now part of Zealandia) in 1873. At the height of the rush, about 200 men worked the claims, driving shafts and drives up to 500 feet in length into the hills.

Karori remained isolated from the city due to the rough terrain and lack of transportation.

Growth and subdivision

In 1888 a syndicate purchased section 34, which was the closest to town (running from present day Ponsonby Road to Cooper Street). The new owners prepared the land for sale by building roads and naming them after the members of the syndicate and their families, and by running a marketing campaign, including providing free buses from Manners Street and writing poems:

In far-famed New Zealand, the evergreen free land
Most favoured and beautiful Queen of the wave,
Where the sun ever smiling, bad weather beguiling,
Brightly shines on the face of the honest and brave.
Tho' for Europe's bold races there are plenty of places
Adapted as homes for the great and the small,
Yet, for onward progressing and bountiful blessing
There is one whose position is far before all.
So haste where kind Nature's arrayed in her glory,
To pleasant, romantic, suburban Karori.

Sign in to keep reading

9 more chapters are free with a Lably account.

More in From Lably lessons

SakyaOne of four major schools of Tibetan BuddhismChartresPrefecture and commune in Centre-Val de Loire, FranceBiryaniRice-based dish from South AsiaNational day of mourningDay marked by mourning and memorial activitiesSirhindCity in Punjab, IndiaExchequerUK government accounting process