Roads - H, I, J, K - Cambridge Museum

In 1868-70 the road was formed by the Armed Constabulary. It went as far as Tamahere, then branched off around 2,000 acres of Maori Land and came out at Leslie’s Gully on the edge of Hamilton. When the Maori chiefs sold this land to William Graham the road was put straight through.

Gib Watt wanted this main road concreted and experimented with about a chain just outside the Tower Tea Rooms. In 1895 the local newspaper the ‘Waikato Advocate’ reported on a Cambridge Road Board meeting – ‘Cost of road forming and gravelling between Martyn’s gully and the Tamahere church was 15s 3d per chain and Mr C Day said he certainly did not think the job would have been as costly as that.’

HANLIN ROAD

Michael Hanlin served as a private in the 3rd Waikato Militia. He was 5 foot 6 inches tall, an engineer from Glasgow and his land grant was on the town belt. He had worked his way to the diamond fields in South Africa and then the gold fields in New Zealand. He signed up for the Waikato Wars in Dunedin.

He married Susan Swayne and they had three children – William, Alice and Eliza. The daughters left their property to the Resthaven Trust Board to help establish the old people’s rest home on Hamilton Road.

HANNON ROAD

Patrick and Anne Hannon arrived in Cambridge by bullock wagon and on 14 November took over a 50 acre Militia Grant. Patrick died in Australia and Ann ran the farm until one of their sons Richard and his wife Isabelle took over. Their home ‘Tinopai’ was on Peakes Road until a storm one morning blew it down to Hannons Road. So there they stayed. They are up to their fifth generation.

In the Cambridge Cemetery Trustee minutes of 1886 the Hannons Road (at Hautapu) was referred to as ‘Booths Road’. (Benjamin Booth was born in Lincolnshire 1835 and had a government grant in the area that he increased to 150 acres by the 1900’s. He had a son George who farmed at Fencourt and a daughter who married C Roberts.)

The Hannon family has been keen sports people – in particular horse breeding and racing. Richard as president, nursed the Cambridge Trotting Club through some very depressed times.
Hannons Road (now Norwegian Road) at Roto-o-Rangi was also attributed to this family as they had another farm there.

HARBUTTS ROAD (Formerly LIVINGSTONE ROAD)

David ‘Dick’ Ford Livingstone went to Cambridge Primary School from 1902 to 1911 and was farewelled from Cambridge to World War One in May 1915. Regt. No 23/812, ‘Dick’ was with the NZ Rifle Brigade and wounded in Egypt in February 1916. He was successful in the Te Miro ballot of 1920 and farmed section 33.

In 1964 Wilf S Harbutt bought the farm but has since left the district.

HEADS ROAD

This road had been surveyed when Makgill and Middleton cut up the Horahora Estate in 1909. The Head family (Alfred, Ellen and five children) arrived in 1916 and farmed there for 45 years. Mr Alfred Head took over the job as surfaceman for the district from Uriah Stokes and the road was formed by settlers. This was done with a horse scoop, pick and shovel and dealt with a cutting, a creek and making it twelve feet wide with culverts. By an oversight it was 1950 before the Matamata County took it over as a public road.

Alfred was accidentally killed in 1931 and his wife Ellen died 1967 in her 90th year.

HICKEY ROAD

On the Karapiro Settlement map, drawn in 1898 when the estate was cut up, this road was marked as Karapiro Road and ended at the Karapiro Stream.

The first name on the map was William Hickey. He had arrived in Cambridge c1873 from Ireland and was employed on the Walker and Roto-o-Rangi Estates. He and Ellen had a family of 5 sons and 5 daughters. Subsequent owners of the property were Michael and Albert Hickey.

HILLS ROAD

Thomas La Trobe Hill was one of the fourteen returned servicemen from World War One who took up farms in the Horahora area. Access had to be made by cutting through a farm taken up by Cedric Peake.

Thomas was the son of Edward Boucher Hill, one of the first chemists in Cambridge and the grandson of James La Trobe. Thomas married Sylvia Donnellan Tristram who had been a pupil at St Peters convent school.

They had three children – Tristram, David and Vivian. David took over the farm when his parents retired and moved to Mount Maunganui. David married Margaret Joan Jefferies and had ten children and, but for David’s untimely death in 1977, there would still be Hills on Hill’s Road.

HICKS ROAD

There was a track to pa Te Wera a te Atua that developed into a road and was named after Charles Edward, Thomas Alhambra and George Wilfred Hicks.

These three brothers came to Cambridge in 1873 with their parents, Tobias and Annie, and grew up on ‘Trelawney’ – then well known for its ‘Trelawney Cider’.

Charles, on leaving school went to Rotorua. Then in 1900 he returned to Maungatautari and in 1907 married Theodosia Margaret Cooper. They had two sons, Trev and Charles and a daughter Margaret. Charles snr was very keen on sport and had been a bell ringer at St Andrews church.

Thomas, born 1871 and George, born 1875 remained bachelors. They took a keen interest in social and local body affairs serving on numerous committees.
The Maungatautari farm had been part of the Gorton Estate and the Hicks brothers subdivided again, selling up in 1919.

HOGANS ROAD

Thomas and Sarah came to Fencourt in 1938 and as well as running a dairy herd they bred horses at their Fencourt Stud. They also raised a family of three sons and four daughters – Sir Patrick Hogan continuing with horse breeding at his Cambridge Stud.

Thomas died in 1972 and Sarah 1981.

HOOKER ROAD

James Hooker arrived from Taranaki in 1902. He had married Hannah Holloway of New Plymouth and their feeling was that ‘they were going into the wilderness’. The Hooker family has always had a close association with the Methodist church.

At one time part of the road had been called Morgan’s Road by memorandum of the Road Board.

KAIRANGI ROAD

This road had been known as Station Road. Kairangi lies at the head of the farmlands of the Roto-o-Rangi flats. Abandoned by the Maori in 1895 it was incorporated into the development of the Mangapiko Outstation and referred to as ‘Far End Farm’.

Kairangi was one of several blocks developed by people who suffered from the Depression of 1930. The land was a derelict 1,348 acres of scrub and ragwort which was cleared, grassed and subdivided by unemployed men who were given the opportunity of applying for sections.

KELLY ROAD

This was once the eucalyptus tree-lined driveway from Hamilton Road, of Clements Park, a militia grant owned by Archibald Clements. He was the first militiaman to go into business in Cambridge, building a tavern near the river landing and then becoming the second Mayor.
Kelly Road was named after David and Elizabeth Kelly who came to Cambridge from Stratford to farm in 1917.

KITE ROAD

Four generations of Kites have lived at Kaipaki – first Samuel and Sarah. Then their second youngest son Walter James Kite who married Winifred Mary Norris. Their children were Hubert, Sedleigh, Laurence, Wilton, Ona and Douglas.
Sedleigh married Elizabeth Foster and another generation works the farm.

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