HISTORY
Howick as it was
Picton Street circa 1900
H
O-ICK as it was pronounced by the early settlers, is named after the Northumberland seat of Earl Grey who was the Secretary of State of the colonies in the 1840s. He was also the instigator of the Fencible scheme. His property in Northumberland was inherited by his eldest son, Viscount Howick and is still the family seat. The tangata-whenua (people of this land) were the Ngai Tai people of Tainui descent. They had lived here for more than 1000 years with pa (fortified villages) at Ohuia Rangi (Pigeon Mountain), Te Waiarohia (Musick Point) and Tuwakamana (Cockle Bay). Maori called Howick Owairoa and the district was called Paparoa. The Howick, Pakuranga and Whitford areas were once part of the Fairburn claim. William Thomas Fairburn, with his wife and family, established a Church Missionary Society Mission Station at Maraetai in 1837. The local Maori insisted they buy the 40,000 acres between the Tamaki and Wairoa Rivers to prevent attack by the Thames and Waikato tribes. In 1840, following the Treaty of Waitangi, the Government took 36,000 acres for the use of the Howick and Otahuhu Fencible settlements. Most of the remaining land was sold to settlers. The Government also paid Maori and returned most of the Wairoa Valley to William Fairburn. Howick was the largest of the four Fencible villages which included Otahuhu, Onehunga, and Panmure. They were planned in 1846 to form a defence chain across the Auckland isthmus. The Howick contingent of soldier veterans from the Imperial Army arrived in the Waitemata Harbour in three ships, the “Sir George Seymour,” the “Minerva”, and the “Sir Robert Sale”. A government brig brought them from Auckland to Howick where they landed on the beach on November 15, 1847. 6 – Settling In 2022-2023
The now famous All Saints Church in Howick was built in readiness for the first Fencibles and held its first service on November 21, 6 days after the soldiers arrived. The first settlers were met with hillsides covered in native grasses and little else. This meant that farming could start immediately but little accessible timber resulted in a lack of firewood. Until the area’s own timber supply was established, Maori supplied firewood from Waiheke Island and peat and cow pats also provided some households with raw energy for heating and cooking. Because of its isolation, Howick grew very slowly and remained a village much longer than Otahuhu, Panmure and Onehunga. Telephone lines were laid in the area in 1909. By 1915, approximately 200 people lived in Howick with 60 registered ratepayers on the borough books. Eleven houses had telephone connections. The village boasted the Catholic Church, All Saints Anglican Church, Hardy’s Haberdashery, the Marine Hotel and the Post Office. In 1922 it had a population of 502 and the village was gazetted as a town district. By 1927 the population had crept up to 545, in 1931 it reached 700 and in 1943 it was 850. In 1925, electric power came to Howick and in 1931 a new concrete road was completed from Panmure. When this road was constructed it broke every rule in the book according to modern roading technology but after more than 40 years was still sound although the concrete portion was too narrow for modern transport needs. It wasn’t until the mid 1960s that Auckland spread, extending through the Pakuranga swamp to join the village with the city. Howick is now a ward of Auckland City and encompasses neighbouring areas such as Bucklands Beach, Pakuranga and Botany.
