Panmure, New Zealand
Panmure is a southern suburb of
Auckland City, in the
North Island of
New Zealand. It is located 11 kilometres southeast of the city centre, close to the western banks of the
Tamaki River and the northern shore of the Panmure Basin (or Kaiahiku). To the north lies the suburb of
Tamaki, and to the west is the cone of
Mount Wellington.
Here is one of the portages between the two harbours, where the Maori would beach their waka (canoes) and drag them overland to the other coast, thus avoiding having to paddle around North Cape.
Located on the Tamaki River, Panmure was favoured by Felton Mathew to be the new Capital of New Zealand. William Hobson, however, decided otherwise and the new town of Auckland arose further to the west along the shores of the Waitamata. Panmure was an important town and port as it was strategically placed on the narrowest part of the
isthmus, and during the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s it became a very busy place. Even after the coming of the railway, Panmure continued as a transport hub, steamers from Auckland enroute to the goldfields in the Coromandel and Firth of Thames would call in here.
Panmure has had a long history as an industrial and residential suburb, and until the
1950s was at the edge of the Auckland urban area. It was only with the replacing of old bridges by more substantial structures in the 1950s that the area of
Pakuranga on the opposing banks of the Tamaki River became a suburban part of Auckland.
The Lively Capital, Auckland 1840-1865. Una Platts. Avon Fine Prints Limited New Zealand 1971.
