The town they tried to rename
Wairarapa locals didn’t like ‘‘Brownston’’, but the word from the top was that it had to stay, writes Tina White.
Early May 1897, on a site in the Forty Mile Bush: a group of men and women, smallholders on a patch of land struggling to become a town, cluster around their newly built railway station.
Approaching the signboard that reads ‘‘Brownston’’, they grab their brushes, reach into a bucket of tar and spread it thickly over the letters on the board, obliterating them. For good measure, they fling handfuls of feathers on top of the sticky tar.
Why are they doing this? It’s all about a man named Charles William Brown.
Charles, son of English immigrants, was born in Wellington in 1842. At 13, he witnessed the great earthquake of 1855, which knocked down every chimney and raised the harbour’s foreshore.
He married a Miss Copeland in 1866; they would become parents of four sons and two daughters.
In 1884, Charles won a seat on the Hutt County Council, and was appointed to represent the council on the Harbour Board, sitting also as a trustee of the Wellington Hospital Board.
Ten years later, the Forty Mile Bush, a densely forested area stretching from Wairarapa to central Hawke’s Bay, caught his interest.
The Hutt Small Farm Association, of which Charles was a trustee, had bought a fine town-site in the Bush, between Eketahuna and Pahiatua, and called it Brownston in his honour.
The Cyclopedia of New Zealand would note that ‘‘this settlement is
on the line of railway to Woodville . . . a good sale is anticipated’’.
By January of 1894, a railway extension was being built to the planned township. The station would be named Brownston – ‘‘or possibly Hukanui’’.
Meanwhile, an embarrassing family drama caught Charles unawares.
The Woodville Examiner of February 10, 1896, reported that two of Charles’ sons had been arrested for operating an illicit still in the bush on their Hawera property. Police had found the still and plenty of whisky on the premises, ‘‘but not the worm or the copper’’.
The newspaper added that ‘‘several leading settlers offered the necessary sureties for the [court] appearance of the accused, and were rather incensed at seeing the men marched off to the lockup’’.
On February 22, 1896, auctioneers Harcourt and
Company sold 101 sections out of 115 in the new Brownston township at double the price expected. Mr Chapman, the auctioneer, told the Evening Post that on his journey back to Wellington, the remaining 14 sections were snapped up by several residents in Masterton. So settlers moved in and the town began to take shape.
But there was dissension. Many residents felt that, instead of Brownston, the town should have a Ma¯ ori name. The idea gained momentum.
To the reluctant Brownstonians, Hukanui – which translated in approximate English to ‘‘deep frost/ snow’’ – seemed right.
To make their point, they tarred and feathered the Brownston railway station signboard, and vowed to do it again every time the sign was repainted.
The Wairarapa Star of May 11 told readers: ‘‘It is stated that, before leaving the colony, the premier gave instructions that the name of Hukanui, a centre on the railway line between Eketahuna and Pahiatua, was again to be changed to Brownston. The excuse for this is that a promise was made, so it is alleged, by the late Sir Harry Atkinson that the melodious but somewhat plebian name of a certain Mr Brown would be perpetuated. The residents, however, object to Brownston, and they recently held a meeting at which it was decided to adhere to Hukanui. An interesting struggle between public opinion and departmental stratagem is anticipated.’’
The New Zealand Mail on May 13 declared ‘‘that any railway station, village or township in this colony should be called Brownston, Jonesville, Smithborough or Robinsonhough, is worse than stupid when we have the musical Ma¯ ori names at our disposal’’.
Standing their ground, the residents, and Hukanui, won the day.
Through it all, Charles Brown seems to have kept a dignified silence.
The settlement never did become the big important centre some had predicted. Gradually, the sawmills disappeared, trade in the town fell off and the school roll dwindled.
But the dairying industry flourished.
Today the once tarred and feathered signboard is gone, as is the railway station building. Only the platform remains, now used for excursion trains.
Charles William Brown died in 1920, in Petone. His obituary made no mention of
Brownston.