Sangster Road (Toko)

Sangster Road is a very short, unsealed, no-exit road about 8.5 kilometres east of Stratford and 5.1 kilometres west of Toko. It is accessed from Standish Road and is named after a former mayor of Stratford, George Sangster.  

Although the road appears on the Taranaki Regional Council’s property map and Google maps, it is not marked on Land Information New Zealand’s topographic maps. Nor is it listed on the LINZ Addresses Dataset which is described as the “national authoritative source for physical addresses in New Zealand”.

Enquiries to the Stratford District Council reveal that the road appears to have a somewhat “unofficial status” and that the two properties accessed from Sangster Road actually have Standish Road addresses. However, a regulation green rural road sign points the way to Sangster Road, indicating at the very least an acknowledgement of its existence.   

George Arthur Sangster was born in Scotland in 1857 and immigrated to New Zealand around 1879, settling first on the West Coast of the South Island. He moved to Stratford in the early 1890s, establishing a contracting business with his brother and working on infrastructure projects around the province including building the original bridge over the Pātea River in Stratford.   

Popular and energetic, Sangster was elected to the Stratford Borough Council in 1903 and served as mayor from 1908 to 1910. He was also closely identified with many other public bodies including the Stratford A & P Association and the Scottish Society and held directorships on several local company boards.

George married Ann Ingles in 1890 and the couple went on to have 17 children. The family settled first on East Road (SH 45) adjacent to a hill on the road that would come to be known as Sangster’s Hill. They later moved to a property on Beaconsfield Road, where they raised their large family.

George died on 22 October 1924, aged 65, and his wife Ann died in 1948, aged 79. One son, Colin (Shorty) Sangster was killed in the Second World War but most of their children, especially the women, lived long lives. Elizabeth (known as Ella) died in 1998, aged 105, and the last of the family, Molly Macfarlane, passed away in 2007, aged 93.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.

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