Carrington Street (Inglewood)

Inglewood’s Carrington Street runs between Brown and Elliot streets. It appears on the very earliest maps of the town and, along with Carrington Street and Carrington Road in New Plymouth, was named after Frederic Alonzo Carrington (1807-1901), a surveyor who left his mark on New Plymouth and the wider Taranaki region.

Carrington selected the location of the town of New Plymouth under the auspices of the Plymouth Company. The son of an army captain who took part in the French Revolutionary Wars, he grew up in Essex and began his career with the Ordnance Survey Department. At the age of 33, he arrived in Wellington with his family on the ship London, reaching Taranaki early in 1841 to begin his work.

Carrington loved the land he surveyed, filled as it was with birdsong and towering trees. While he supported the clearance of fern and flax to make way for new settlements around Taranaki, he grieved the wholesale destruction of the native bush and did his best to forbid the lighting of fires during his surveying missions.

Carrington returned to England in 1844, disillusioned by the treatment he received from the Plymouth Company. But he took rocks from the Sugar Loaves with him, for examination by a geologist in hopes of persuading the government to construct a harbour at the islands. Carrington also amassed an impressive collection of native fauna, canoes, weapons, carvings and timber samples during his travels. He exhibited some of these items in London before returning to New Zealand for good in 1857, even meeting with Prince Albert who enjoyed such colonial curios.

As Government Engineer and Surveyor back in Taranaki, Carrington established roads around the province, including the Moa Block. Sadly, he was unable to be present at the official “christening” of Inglewood on 22 January 1875 while he was the region’s Superintendent so his place at the ceremony on the banks of the Kurapete Stream was taken by his deputy, Arthur Standish.

Carrington married Margaret Gaine in 1833 and the couple had one son and four daughters. Near the end of his long life, he was described in the Cyclopedia of New Zealand as being “ever greeted by old and young with tokens of love and respect.” Frederic Carrington died in his sleep at the age of 93 and is buried in Te Hēnui Cemetery. His headstone describes him as the “Founder of the settlement of Taranaki”.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.