For the Archives

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 189, 31 October 1927, Page 16

For the Archives

DEVONPORT’S FIRST PETITION FOR STATUS OF BOROUGH HISTORIC PARCHMENT Devonport’s most historic document will soon repose in the borough’s own archives. Mr. Selwyn Mays is to present to the borough council • the venerable yellowing parchment inscribed with the petition dated January 20, 1883, in which householders of the Devonport Highway District pray that the area be constituted a borough. That was the first petition for a change of status and it came into Mr. Mays’s possession through his father, Mr. Oliver Mays, who was first secretary to the highways district. The “village of Devonport” was sold as suburban farms in 1851. At that time the area was governed directly by the Auckland Provincial Council, but it had rudimentary self-government as being part of the Hundred of Pupuke. In 1867, within 27 years of the founding of the town of Auckland, Devonport was advanced to the dignity of a highway district with powers to levy rates “on the value to sell” and an annually elected board. In 1882 the citizens began to wish for extended powers of self-government and the highway board received a petition from 47. ratepayers asking it to have the district converted into a borough. A public meeting to further the scheme was, held on January. 19, 1883, which voted down a resolution “to consider the proposal in four years’ time.” The petition to form a borough was well signed,, the signatures of wellknown pioneers being still legible on the* parchment, - to name only a few, Charles, Bailey, Oliver M;ays, Gerald L. Peacock, G. Vosper,- R. E, R. W. and T. J. Duder, Robert Logan, James Mays, W. Fenton, William Vaile, Edward Bartley, Chas. C. Dacre, S. Tanfield, F. Duder, Lieut.-Colonel Hardwick Smith, I. G. Trevithick, Chas. H. Burgess, Edwin Binney and Arthur Bartley. There are 112 names in all. The Yate of this prayer “To his Excellency the Governor of New Zealand and its Dependencies, May it Please Your Excellency” was a refusal. But a road board was set up, which functioned until June 28, 1886, when the district, having served its apprenticeship in the art of self-government, was granted full local government powers and that which toil and tribulation had accomplished over a period of 20 years became a foundation for the building of modern Devonport. Mr. O. Mays, father of the donor of the parchment, served the district as secretary of the original highway district, later as a member of the board itself. Then he became a member of the road board, the subsequent borough council. He also served as chairman and secretary to the Waitemata County Council, as a member and an official of the hospital board, and on the Auckland Grammar School Board. The petition now to be presented to the borough remained in his possession and passed into the hands of his son.