Thomas Tanner

Thomas Tanner (known as the “Father of Hastings”)
Thomas Tanner was born in Wiltshire, England, probably in 1830, and was baptised at Devizes on 31 July 1831. He was the son of Mary Pontin and her husband, Joseph Tanner, a landowner. After studying medicine briefly, he started work as an analytical Chemist. Thomas Tanner came to New Zealand in 1849 on the Larkins.He made his way up to Wellington and onto Wanganui while aged only 19 years and worked as a cadet on a Wanganui sheep run. There he acquired a knowledge of Maori culture and a Maori version of his name, Tanera.
In 1853 Tanner took up a large run, Milbourne, on the Ruataniwha plains, Hawke's Bay. He promoted horse-racing, and selected the course at Clive for Hawke's Bay's first formal race meeting in 1856. After a few years he returned to England and married Julia Denton daughter of John and Caroline Denton at Hartlepool, Durham, on 5 May 1859. There is little evidence to indicate whether this was an arranged marriage or whether he had made her acquaintance as a teenage boy before leaving England. One suspects there was a connection with the two before he left with his parents and family to move to new Zealand. He returned to New Zealand with Julia. There were to be eight children of the marriage. The couple came out to New Zealand about 1862 on a chartered ship with furniture, books, servants and pedigree animals including a Stallion, pheasants and rabbits.
Tanner took an important step in 1864 when he obtained an illegal lease on the Heretaunga block, then a swamp but today one of the most valuable pieces of land in New Zealand. A few years later Tanner tried to buy the land but was not prepaped to pay what the Maoris wanted. Some years later a syndicate was formed to try and buy the land from the Maori. He divided the land into twelve shares, and, retaining four for himself, distributed the rest among six of his associates: J. N. Williams, A. H. Russell, T. E. Gordon, J. D. Ormond, T. P. Russell and J. B. Braithwaite. These men became known as The Apostles. In 1867 a Crown grant was issued on Heretaunga in the name of 10 Maori owners and Tanner obtained a legal lease. Heretaunga Block was secured by seven people who had 12 shares in the purchase of the land.These people are often referred to as the “Twelve Apostles”. The purchase price was stated to have been about 30s. an acre, and payment was made by £16,000 in cash, with the balance liquidating debts which had been incurred by the Maoris.
Here the first settle was established with apostles building on the land. In 1873 Francis Hicks (one of the syndicate) presented the Government with a section of land for the site of a railway station and decided to lay out 100 acres near this site for a township to be called Hastings. James Boyle later sold some of his land to the government to create the greater Hastings area north & South of Heretaunga Street.
A total of 144 sections were offered, the average price per acre being 56 pounds
Many local people firmly believe that Hastings was originally named Hicksville, after Francis Hicks, who bought a block of land, which now contains the centre of Hastings, from Thomas Tanner. However, this story is apocryphal. The original name of the location which was to become the town centre was Karamu. In 1871, the New Zealand Government decided to route the new railway south of Napier through a notional Karamu junction in the centre of the Heretaunga Plains. This location was on Francis Hicks's land. The decision on the railway route was based largely on two reports by Charles Weber, the provincial engineer and surveyor in charge of the railway. Karamu junction was re-named Hastings in 1873. (On 7 June 1873, the Hawke's Bay Herald reported: "The name of the new town is to be Hastings. We hear it now for the first time.") Exactly who chose the name has been disputed, although Thomas Tanner claimed that it was him (see Hawke's Bay Herald report 1 February 1884) and that the choice was inspired by his reading the trial of Warren Hastings. Warren Hastings was the first Governor-General of Bengal, from 1773 to 1785. He was famously accused of corruption in an impeachment in 1787, but acquitted in 1795..... In any event, the name fitted well with other place names in the district (Napier, Havelock and Clive), which were also named after prominent figures in the history of British India.
Tanner also bought land on the Ahuriri plains, and the Endsleigh and Petane runs.Thomas Tanner settle in Hastings building Riverslea Homestead where he raised his family.

Tanner became established as a dominant figure in Hawke's Bay affairs. He named his 5,332 acre portion of the Heretaunga block Riverslea, and built a 22-roomed mansion there. A landscape gardener was brought from England to lay out the grounds and an architect designed all the buildings, including the stables. The Tanners proceeded to show Hawke's Bay what gracious living was all about. Only one other family could boast gold plate on the table.
When war spread to the East Coast in 1868 and 1869 Tanner raised his own fighting force, the Hawke's Bay and Waipawa Yeoman Cavalry. He was commissioned captain and supplied his men with uniforms, mounts and arms, hiring the Oddfellows Hall in Napier as his private drill hall. The cavalry saw action at Gisborne in 1868 and at Mohaka in 1869.
Tanner was not simply a land speculator: he was committed to the idea of scientific farming. In order to drain and clear his Riverslea estate he needed both labour and capital. First he leased portions of his land and after obtaining the freehold, in 1871 he advertised for sale sections at Karamu. This area became closely settled. After 1873 small farmers subdivided their land into town sections and from the settlement of Karamu grew the town of Hastings. Tanner later called himself the town's father, because he owned the land in the first place, and its godfather, because he chose its name. He bought a section for an Anglican church and he gave land for a school and a public park. He also set aside two sections for a municipal building, for which he guaranteed building costs.
In 1873 the Heretaunga purchase was the subject of a commission of inquiry presided over by C. W. Richmond and F. E. Maning. There was an outcry: Tanner and The Apostles were attacked as instigators of grog mortgages and forced sales. However, fraud charges were not proved. Tanner survived the scandal because of his character and his ability as a businessman. During the inquiry Richmond wrote in his journal, 'I must say I like Tanera: He is no doubt a self confident little man - some might say conceited, but I don't give it that name: he is thoroughly self reliant & avows it'. Settlers in general did not like him but they eagerly followed his lead. Maori continued to co-operate with him even when he was found to have manipulated them because he understood their customs and always worked through the chiefs.
By the late 1870s Tanner's fortunes were on the wane. He had borrowed at high interest to purchase land and, as economic depression deepened, he was forced to subdivide and sell large areas of the Riverslea estate, in 1879, 1885 and 1889. He turned his attention instead to schemes for developing industries. This interest was not new. When leading the Hawke's Bay cavalry into action, he had been given a piece of coal picked up by a trooper at a stream crossing. After the emergency was over he had sent a coal prospector back to the area. He was one of the directors of the Hawke's Bay Goldmining Company which unsuccessfully prospected near Taupo in 1869, and was later, in 1880, a leading investor in the Mohaka Goldmining Company.
Tanner searched for ways of enriching himself and, at the same time, providing opportunities for small farmers. During the 1870s and 1880s he tried sugar-beet and tobacco growing and failed. In 1883 he invested heavily in hop growing and set up a processing plant at Riverslea as an outlet for small hop growers. However, his attempts to ship hops failed and he lost heavily. He set up a syndicate to promote a woollen mill in Hastings in 1887 and gave 6½ acres of land for the project, which did not eventuate. Although these schemes were largely unsuccessful, they illustrated Tanner's energy and his confidence in the potential of Hawke's Bay.
His sense of commitment was reflected also in his involvement in public affairs. He helped found the Hawke's Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Association in 1873 and was a long-standing member of the Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute, the Hawke's Bay Education Board, and numerous other organisations concerned with cultural and social life. A devoted member of the Church of England and a friend of Bishop G. A. Selwyn, he was present at the signing of the Constitution of the Church of the Province of New Zealand. He was the principal benefactor of St Luke's Church in Havelock North, and its vicar's warden and synodsman. Tanner signed the contract and contributed financially to the building of the church. Many of the trees of Hastings and Havelock North were planted by him and the pin oak outside St Luke's Church is known as Tanner's Oak.
Tanner was at various times a member of the Heretaunga Road Board, the Hastings Town Board and the Hastings Borough Council, and was a Hawke's Bay county councillor between 1878 and 1893. He served on the Hawke's Bay Provincial Council from 1867 until 1876 and was member of the House of Representatives for Waipawa from 1887 to 1890. He died at Havelock North on 22 July 1918