HISTORY
Papakura War Memorial, 1957.
Courtesy of Bruce and Wilma Madgwick, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections Footprints 07300
Built on rich heritage H
ousing around Papakura, Takanini, Drury and surrounds continues to mushroom with thousands of new homes either underway or in the pipeline for completion in the next few years. While modern apartments, terrace houses and affordable housing together with attractive estates bring new life and wealth to the south, it is timely to remember the district has rich Maori and European settler histories. The name, Papakura is a Maori word believed to have originated from ‘papa’, meaning earth or flat and ‘kura’ meaning red, reflecting the rich, fertile soil upon which the community was founded. The tangata whenua of the area dates back many centuries, before European colonisation and hapu can trace their whakapapa back to the Tainui waka. There was a time when several pa stood across the region including at the western end of the Paerata ridge, while another stood above the plain east of Papakura at Red Hill, strategically placed to control the inner reaches of the harbour and north-south routes east to the Clevedon area. Two other pa sites were at the mouth of Slippery Creek which was associated with settlements and cultivations. The influential Maori presence, includes the Marae at Umupuia in the east (sometimes called Duder’s Beach). That particular Marae is the Mana Whenua Marae of the Ngai Tai iwi of Umpuia and Tamaki Makaurau and it has a unique place in the area’s history. In addition to the land’s cultural and economic value to tangata whenua, the area, particularly further south and 6 – Settling In 2021-2022
Drury Potter and Clayfire Works, 1907. Photo courtesy Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections JTD-22G-00997-2 to the west, has long been in agricultural and horticultural use especially as one draws closer to Bombay and Pukekohe before heading west. Also an early frontier settlement, the first Europeans made their home in these southern reaches of Auckland some 150 years ago under what was then the Waikato Immigration Scheme. Many of those original 4000 immigrants, tempted by the offer of free land, settled in the wider Papakura area and also further south in the Franklin district. They came mostly from the United
