Petone Firsts

Apart from Petone being the first organised European settlement in NZ, we’re also the home to other NZ firsts…

First police officers – 3 men were appointed as Police as soon as they disembarked from the ship ‘Aurora’
First newspaper – “The New Zealand Gazette” was published on 18 April 1840
First bank – the Union Bank of Australia opened May 1840
First place where Maori and Europeans were buried together before early European settlers established their own cemeteries (at the back of what is now the IBM building on the foreshore)
First horse race – held on Petone beach on 20 October 1842
First concrete dam – built in Korokoro in 1903
First main street to be tar-sealed – Jackson Street in 1905
First state houses – built in Patrick Street in 1906
First electric impulse chiming town clock – installed in an opening ceremony July 1913 on the Petone Municipal Building, corner of Jackson & Bay Streets (it was based on the ‘weighting train’ mechanism newly invented in 1907)
First zebra crossing – on Jackson Street near Richmond Street
First New Zealand-born Victoria Cross recipient – Major William Hardham in 1901 (he was also NZ’s second Victoria Cross recipient after Charles Heaphy. Heaphy actually arrived in Petone on the English scouting ship ‘Tory’ in September 1839).
First rugby game played in the North Island – Hutt Road/Nevis Street, near where Apex Print is now (12 September 1870)
First Anzac Day commemoration attended by the Government – the Anzac Day service at the of Petone railway station’s memorial flagpole in 1916 is the second Anzac Day observance in NZ (we were beaten by one hour!) but the first observance attended by members of the Government including the Prime Minister of the day.

First Anzac Day commemoration — `State houses along Patrick Street`