About Our City

History of Our City

Orongomai is the old Maori name of the area where Upper Hutt now stands.  It means "the place of Rongomai".  He was an ancestor and patron of the tribes whose ancestors came in the Kurahaupo canoe.  According to their traditions the captain was Whatonga, ancestor of the Ngai Tara and Rangitane tribes.  By his first wife Whatonga had a son, Tara-ika and his descendants, the Ngai Tara, were the first people known to live in the Wellington/ Hutt Valley area and the harbour was named for Tara.

The Ngati Rangi came and were defeated by the Ngati Ira, who in turn were defeated by Tamiti Waka Nene of Ngapuhi and Te Rauparaha of Ngati Toa at Pa-Whakataka across the bank from what is now Te Marua.  Eventually the Taranaki people, Te Atiawa, occupied all of the Hutt Valley shortly before the Europeans came, with villages at Te Hau-Karetu (Maoribank) and Whirinaki (Silverstream).

Early Maori names for the river were Te-Awa-Kairangi and Heretaunga.

Upper Hutt was settled right at the beginning of the European colonisation of Wellington. Richard Barton, its first resident, arrived in 1840 on the "Oriental", the second of what is known as the first four ships.  He made his home at Trentham in 1841 in the area now known as Bartons Bush.  The first town settler was James Brown in 1848.

Upper Hutt was originally part of the Hutt County, constituted in 1877.  On 24 April, 1908, it was proclaimed a Town Board and the first seven Commissioners were farmer G I Benge (first chairman), milkman RH Williams, farmers A Martin and JT Craig, butcher WR Keys, builder J Harrison and painter FH Wilkie.  The first secretary was AJ McCurdy, one of the outstanding characters of local politics in this area.  He became first Mayor when Upper Hutt became a Borough on 26 February, 1926.

On 28 May 1966 it was proclaimed a City.  The northern areas of Rimutaka Riding of Hutt County were brought into the City on 1 April 1973 to give Upper Hutt the second largest land area of any New Zealand city.  It grew in size again on 1 November 1988 when the former Heretaunga-Pinehaven Riding was incorporated upon the abolition of the Hutt County Council.  Exactly a year later the City of Upper Hutt as it is today was constituted with the abolition of the Heretaunga/Pinehaven District Community Council.