Val Marino: A Rose by Any Other Name [i]
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| 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]
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| 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]
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| ‘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 5th
and 11th Avenue East.
Taikau – The area, on both sides
of Cameron Road between 5th and 8th Avenue.
Taiparirua – The high land
between 7th and 9th Avenues going onto Devonport Road.
Taiparoro – The higher land
between Arundel Street and 6th Avenue facing onto Devonport Road.
Waiparapara – Extending from 4th
Avenue to 9th Avenues between Edgecumbe Road and Waikareao.
References
[i] The title given to a Bay of
Plenty Times article published 30 October 1931 recounting the Val Marino
saga.
[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.”
