Hulke Crescent

Who today would consider walking a jersey cow from Marton to Bell Block? Well in 1876 William King Hulke did and laid the platform for the dairy industry in Taranaki. The cow named Jenny was a two year old heifer from Lucy, one of the first Jersey imports, and Marquis, a top Channel Island Jersey sire.

With Jenny, William built a model farm on Corbett Road. He won awards for Jenny as the champion milker locally, and in 1883 won a national award for his dairy herd, which was made up of Jenny and her calves.  In 1882 he published a booklet titled "Golden Rules for Butter Making.

William was born to Dutch parents in England in 1819. As a young man he was apprenticed to the Dutch East India Company, but hated his life at sea so much that he came to New Zealand in 1840. He had had experience in flour milling, so, after walking to Whanganui from Wellington (it seems he was fond of long walks), he set up a flour mill there with other settlers.

He came to Taranaki in 1847 and brought the milling machinery with him. Involved in the flour-milling industry for several years, he also married Ann Street in 1854 and bought land at Bell Block which they farmed until the beginning of the Taranaki Wars in 1860.

During the wars he was a signalman at Hua Fort (Bell Block Stockade) and his diaries are now valuable research tools containing many of the signals received throughout the district and forwarded to Marsland Hill.

After this he spent a period in town living in Pendarves Street and running a plant nursery specialising in flax, but in 1876 he sold this to Mr. Courtney and returned to the farm at Bell Block and began his pure-bred Jersey operation, and promoting the dairy industry.

William died in 1908 and is buried at St Lukes in Bell Block. Nearly 50 years later a memorial stone was erected at the foot of the grave by Associated Taranaki Jersey Cattle Clubs for his services to breeding.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.