Kawana Mill 1854 Whanganui River

Early Maori‘think big’ project

Many Maori embraced the new opportunities offered in the early days of European settlement in New Zealand by the international economy. They crewed whale ships, worked at whaling stations, grew crops, exported to Australia and also supplied much of early Auckland and Wellington’s meat and building materials. Apart from paying 60 per cent of the North Island’s customs duties by 1856, they also invested in major capital items such as trading schooners and flourmills. As far as investments went, these were usually unproductive. Expensive to buy and to maintain and treated more as symbols of chiefly and tribal mana, the schooners swung at their moorings while waka brought home the bacon. Those that avoided shipwreck would soon succumb to competition for European shipping. But some of the flourmills, which also had a political function as symbols of mana, were more successful, at least around Wanganui. This mill was originally named Kawana Kerei (Governor Grey), in honour of the governor, who donated the millstones. Millwright Peter McWilliam built it in 1854 here at Matahiwi for the Nga Poutama iwi to take advantage of salvageable totara logs lying in the riverbed. The provident Whanganui River also provided transport for Grey’s millstones and the English cast iron machinery and brass bearings, as well as power once the water wheel started turning inside the timber-framed, weatherboarded, three-floored mill house. Miller Richard Pestall was succeeded by his son and the mill ground away spasmodically until 1913 when it was abandoned. Members of the Wanganui Tramping Club kept the site clear of weeds but restoration only began in the mid 1970s when the threat of outsiders removing the water wheel prompted local Jaycees and Historic Places Trust people to act. The wheel and millstones are authentic, as is the miller’s cottage. The mill building is not, because the top storey had been dismantled in the 1930s for the iron and most of the original weatherboard structure had rotted away. Architect Chris Cochran designed this replica. Trust and tramping club volunteers supervised work on the mill, which another ‘kawana’, Sir Keith Holyoake, opened in October 1980.

© 2002 Original text – Gavin McLean.

Further reading: Paul Monin, This Is My Place, Bridget Williams Books, Wellington, 2001.