Skeet Place

Captain Henry Lufkin Skeet was a surveyor in Napier and Nelson in the early 1860s. In 1864 he recruited a corps of engineers to take part in the Bay of Plenty campaign, and then surveyed the confiscated land at Tauranga.

His wife Harriet died in February 1872, aged 43, leaving him with seven children to care for. Later that year, Henry and his staff were transferred to Taranaki to survey confiscated land in South Taranaki. He became chief surveyor of the Land Purchase Department and died in 1882, aged 47.

The Skeet's son Harry May was trained by his father as a surveyor and joined the Lands and Survey Department at Taranaki in January 1876. Harry worked on many settlement surveys in the region and completed the triangulation survey from Cape Egmont to the boundaries of Wellington and Auckland.

From 1898 to 1901 Harry made the first topographical survey of Mount Taranaki and Egmont National Park.

There is Skeet Ridge and Skeet Slide on the mountain; Skeet Road in South Taranaki and Skeet Place in New Plymouth. Skeet Street was also planned in New Plymouth, but was never formed and officially closed in 1962. It was planned to run from Waiwaka Terrace to the Te Hēnui Stream west of Baring Terrace.

Harry became commissioner of crown lands and chief surveyor for Southland and in January 1910 moved to Auckland as the commissioner and chief surveyor. He was a foundation member of the New Zealand Institute of Surveyors.

He retired in 1923, and died on 8 January 1943, aged 85.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.