Bayly Road

Bayly Road is named after an early mayor of New Plymouth, who owned and farmed land at the seaward end of the current road near Ngāmotu Beach. The farm was called Blagdon, and the land it occupied is traversed by Blagdon Road. Blagdon is a popular name in Dorset and Somerset in England.

William Bayly was a pioneer settler who arrived in New Plymouth on the Amelia Thompson in 1841 with his wife Elizabeth and his brothers, Thomas and James, and their wives. Surveyed in 1842, Bayly Road marked New Plymouth's western boundary and gave access from Ngāmotu Beach to the original highway to the new settlement.

William Bayly was wounded when he fought against the Māori at the Battle of Waireka in March 1860. In 1881 he became New Plymouth's fourth mayor, and served another term from 1886 to 1888. The two-storied house he owned in Strandon became the first boarding hostel for New Plymouth Girls' High School. He owned three butcheries in New Plymouth, selling meat from stock on his properties at Warea, Rahotū and Ōkato and was one of the first directors of the Taranaki Freezing Works Company which erected a building at Moturoa in 1895. In 1901 the province's dairy companies purchased the company and established the Taranaki Producers' Freezing Works Company. 

William Bayly died in July 1902.      

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.