Buller Street sign. Mike Gooch. Word on the Street image collection.
Buller Street sign. Mike Gooch. Word on the Street image collection.
Buller Street is named after Charles Buller MP, a director of the Plymouth Company.
Charles Buller was born in Calcutta in 1806. The son of an employee of the East India Company, Buller grew up in the world of colonial administration. After receiving his education at Harrow, Edinburgh, and a law degree at Cambridge, Buller entered into political life, making a name for himself as a social and political reformer.
Edward Gibbon Wakefield, founder of the New Zealand Company, persuaded the young Buller of the need for more colonies, new horizons in the balmy South Pacific Seas. Together, Buller and Wakefield poured over maps and charts looking at locations for the ideal colony. Wakefield cultivated this relationship carefully as Buller was a young, ambitious MP and a very powerful political lobbyist for the Plymouth Company.
Even though Buller never visited New Zealand his name graces the Buller Gorge, District and River, as well as various locations in Canada – he did visit Canada in 1838.
Charles Buller died from typhus in 1848, a mere 42 years old. He is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery in London while a bust of Charles is in Westminster Abbey.
This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.
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