Val Marino: A Rose by Any Other Name

Val Marino: A Rose by Any Other Name [i]

Plan of Quarter Acre Lots, Tauranga, 1866. Image courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries, Map 20-274

When delving into the past it’s typical to encounter street and suburb names that have disappeared from maps and common use. Tauranga has many examples including The Camp, Emerald Hill and Sellars Street - one of twelve street names all but forgotten when the numbered Avenues was extended in 1956.[ii] Rarer are proposed names which for one reason or another did not find favour, and would have slipped into complete obscurity if it were not for the controversy surrounding them. One such name is Val Marino.

The suggestion that the area known as Quarter Acres should be renamed Val Marino first appeared in the Bay of Plenty Times on the 6 September 1881. Quarter Acres extended from Elizabeth Street to Ninth Avenue and was described as a ‘thriving suburb’ requiring a more ‘aristocratic’ name.[iii] Over the following months it became a recurring refrain that this ‘euphonious’[iv] title should replace the ‘vulgar’ Quarter Acres: “I do not agree with the statement ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’. On the contrary I think there is a great deal in a name, and if the owners of property in Val Marino are sensible, they will at once adopt the new appellation. – I am, &c., BEAU.” [v]

Looking down Cameron Road towards Tauranga Primary School. Tauranga City Libraries, Photo 04-488

Not everyone was convinced and several objections were raised, including concern that the name meant absolutely nothing, or that its meaning – Marine Valley - was an Italian nonsense. One writer suggested it would be horribly mispronounced.[vi] The discussion even went in a political direction with John Butler, who signed himself ‘R.R., &c., of Hussars’, making the obviously tongue-in-cheek suggestion of a third name contender:

“Being quartered here seventeen years from the time when bombshells and bayonets were more plentiful than cauliflowers and new potatoes are now. When tired of beating to quarters we were quartered on a quarter of our share, shewing the liberality of the Government in offering a quarter acre instead of the whole area as promised … it therefore devolves on me to name the place “Phil de Marine” out of respect and regard for our old Colonel Phil [vii] formerly of the Marines, whom we have to thank for our quarter acres not being four times larger”.[viii]

‘The Val Marino Water Supply’ poem. Bay of Plenty Times, 17 February 1882

By 1882 newspaper reports and advertising refer to Val Marino – when mentioned at all - without snide comment and those unconvinced the name would stick placed a bob each way, “Mr Conway, we take it, represents the interests of those who form the Quarter Acres, or Val Marino, representation of the community.” Over the next few years, the name Val Marino simply faded away, being used only a handful of times. In 1932 the Bay of Plenty Times had this to say about the controversy:

“We know there are many who glance through the daily extracts from the Bay of Plenty Times of half a century ago who will have noticed the occasional reference to that part of the town now as then, is generally known as the Quarter Acres and the apparent attempts that were then being made to have it called ‘Val Marino’, attempts, as we now know, that failed. We confess that we feel that is rather a pity as it would undoubtedly be quite a distinctive feature of the town to have a portion of it known by that high-sounding appellation.”[ix]

And what is the area called now? Unofficially ‘The Avenues’ is a contender. Officially, it appears to be Tauranga Central - although finding exactly where Central stops and Tauranga South starts is more difficult than you might think. Finally, it is necessary to acknowledge that several Māori names for this land existed long before any of this Pakeha debate. Amongst a list printed in the 1960s by a Historical Society stalwart, who went by the name Taina, are these names relevant to the area:[x]

Hawaiki – The beach between 5^th and 11^th Avenue East.

Taikau – The area, on both sides of Cameron Road between 5^th and 8^th Avenue.

Taiparirua – The high land between 7^th and 9^th Avenues going onto Devonport Road.

Taiparoro – The higher land between Arundel Street and 6^th Avenue facing onto Devonport Road.

Waiparapara – Extending from 4^th Avenue to 9^th Avenues between Edgecumbe Road and Waikareao.

References

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[i] The title given to a Bay of Plenty Times article published 30 October 1931 recounting the Val Marino saga.

[ii] Stephanie Smith, an expert in street naming, covered this in her story ‘The Snark was a Boojum: Street naming changes in Tauranga.’ http://taurangahistorical.blogspot.com

[iii] This is according to the 1866 map in the Tauranga City Libraries collection titled ‘Plan of Quarter-Acre Lots, Tauranga’.

[iv] Euphonious means ‘pleasing to the ear’.

[v] Bay of Plenty Times, 28 October 1881.

[vi] Bay of Plenty Times, 9 November 1881.

[vii] Colonel Phillip Harington.

[viii] Bay of Plenty Times, 16 November 1881.

[ix] Bay of Plenty Times, 30 October 1931.

[x] Authored by E. L. Adams. “This list of Māori place names has taken some years to collect; the sources of my information have been many and various. Though I have done my best to check on the authenticity of most of them I am aware that there are many ways in which errors may creep in and be perpetuated.”