Eton Place

Stanley Alfred Eaton lived in Taranaki all his life. He had a number of different occupations, but it’s as a landowner that he left a permanent mark on New Plymouth.

He was born in south Taranaki in 1913. In the years before and after World War Two he worked on farms in northern and coastal Taranaki. By the late 1940s he was living in New Plymouth, working as a store man and later in the timber industry. He lived on Ngāmotu Road and, in the 1950s, purchased land in the area.

Before long a boom in new house building was underway to make up for shortages caused by the depression and war years. Eventually the fringes of New Plymouth, and especially Spotswood, were being sub-divided as new roads were laid down. In the mid-1960s, Eaton and other landowners in the area were able to combine their landholdings and sub-divide. This allowed for the extension of Rosendale Avenue to intersect with Ngāmotu Road, near Naumai Place.

There was land aplenty for a short no-exit street off Rosendale Avenue and the first survey plans were done in 1965. Stan Eaton requested it be named after Eton Avenue, in Plymouth, England. It’s not recorded whether Eaton had any historic family links to Plymouth. Perhaps he wanted an eponymous street name? Whatever the situation, Eton Place became another New Plymouth street named with a location in south-west England in mind.

Stan Eaton returned to farming in his later working years, then retired to New Plymouth in the 1970s. He died in 2003, aged 89.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.

Related plan:

Eton Place and Rosendale Avenue Subdivision DP9546, ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)