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William Mein Smith (also known asKapene Mete;[1] 1798 – 3 January 1869) was a key figure in the settlement ofWellington, New Zealand. As the Surveyor General forEdward Wakefield'sNew Zealand Company atPort Nicholson from 1840 to 1843, he and his team surveyed the town of Wellington, after finding the land on thePetone foreshore unsuitable, laying outthe town belt and other features and making provision for the much debated "tenth" share of the land for localMāori.
Born in 1798 inCape Town, South Africa, he was raised inDevon and theScottish Borders, serving in theRoyal Artillery from 1814 inIreland and thenCanada. There he met his wife, Louisa Bargrave Wallace, who was born in Canada in 1802 as the first child of then First Lieutenant, later General,Peter Margetson Wallace of the Royal Artillery and his partner, later wife, Louisa Turmaine. They married atKingston, Ontario in 1828 and his next posting was toGibraltar, including being part of a diplomatic visit toMarrakesh in 1829–30, followed by appointment to theRoyal Military Academy, Woolwich where he taught as Master of Line Drawing, before being approached to assist Wakefield'sNew Zealand Company in 1839. He and his team of surveyors sailed to New Zealand on the New Zealand Company barqueCuba, arriving on 3 January 1840 in the harbour ofPort Nicholson.[2] His wife and older children arrived two months later.
Town Acre 646, between Tinakori & Grant Roads, later 125 Grant Road, was the residence of William Mein Smith while he lived in Wellington.[3]
He was instrumental in the Wellington colony's early administration, the setting out of the town (including reservation of one tenth for Māori owners), and country acres, and later oversaw work in theManawatū andWhanganui. He was gazetted as a magistrate. He also served on the short-lived (and controversial) Wellington Town Council established by the Company. His name survives today however only indirectly, in Mein Street, Wellington. His other contributions included helping to form the first library, designing the first light at the entrance to the harbour, exploring the route toPorirua and theKāpiti Coast, and founding the Horticultural Society.
Though getting on the wrong side of Colonel Wakefield, the Company's Principal Agent, and being dismissed as Surveyor General from early 1842, when he was replaced without warning bySamuel Charles Brees, he was commissioned to sail down the East Coast of theSouth Island in September 1842 was directed to map the harbours on the South Island's east coast to help locate another site for settlement by the New Zealand Company. He was thus an early visitor to what is nowChristchurch,Akaroa,Port Chalmers andBluff. He still had the opportunity to visit and nameQuail Island inLyttelton Harbour, after crossing thepeninsula on foot, visiting whalers and Māori alike.
Later he surveyed a number of other parts of the lowerNorth Island, including some townships inWairarapa (Featherston andMasterton in particular), the coastline as far north asCastlepoint, and the Taratahi plain. He also spent time in the 1850s seeking a better route through the mountains to Wellington.
He left his first home under what is now Tinakori Hill, Wellington, driving some of the first cattle round the rocky coastline. He was involved in operating a farming venture near Wellington at Terawhiti until 1846. They were among the first half dozen settlers in the valley. There he and Louisa raised their five children. He also carried on surveying and was a local magistrate and politician. He also had close dealings with local Māori, and his image is preserved in one of 13 pou whakairo (carved perimeter posts) that guard the Papawai marae, near Greytown, due to his close association withchiefHamuera Tamahau Mahupuku - so close that the chief adopted the child of one of Captain Mein Smith's descendants.[4]
Smith was a member of theGeneral Legislative Council from 1851 until it was replaced by the later Legislative Council on 28 September 1853.[5] He then represented the Wairarapa electorate on theWellington Provincial Council from 1858 (when he defeatedCharles Borlase[6]) to 1865.[2][7]
Smith produced water colours and sketches of early Wellington and Wairarapa, many of which are held by Wellington'sAlexander Turnbull Library.
He died in Greytown in the Wairarapa in 1869 after a lengthy illness, at his and Revan's home "Brierly" at Woodside. Louisa had died there two years earlier.
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