Taylor Road (Ngāere)

Taylor Road in Ngāere was named after Theodore and Ada Chapman-Taylor who created a farm from a 25-hectare forested block on the road from the 1880s.

Theodore Chapman Mould Taylor was born in Sussex 1845 and Ada Thomas was born in Middlesex in 1848.

Ada Thomas, had a highly educated mother and had herself worked as governess in Holland, teaching languages, classics, music and art and wrote for newspapers. Theodore was an agriculture graduate and quality surveyor with a taste for adventure.

He travelled to Australia in 1866, and visited New Zealand at this time, and then in the early 1870s, spent five years travelling and working through America.

After their marriage in 1877 the couple lived in Bloomsbury, London where they mixed with writers and artists of the times. But Theodore’s thirst for adventure and an economic recession in England in the 1870s, meant the couple decided to emigrate to New Zealand.

Theodore left first in 1879 and family histories record that he walked and worked his way from Wellington to Taranaki where he heard land was for sale in Ngāere. He purchased a heavily forested block just off Mountain Road, cleared a small area and built a simple house. Ada and their two young sons, James and Harold Chapman Taylor arrived a year later.

The couple named their property Rosanagh after Theodore’s father’s birthplace in Ireland and they spent the first decade or so establishing the farm while living in basic conditions.

Theodore acquired the nickname “Gentleman Taylor” due to often wearing a black suit and top hat but apparently, he and Ada quickly learnt the new and varied skills required of settlers establishing farms.

Ada and Theodore went on to have two other children, Bertrum (who died as a 17-year-old) and Evelyn, and built a more substantial home in 1886.

By the 1890s the couple’s children were able to help them on the farm while continuing their education, spearheaded and overseen by Ada.

Ada herself returned to writing and provided regular articles for the New Zealand Farmer and the New Zealand Mail from 1890 as well as local papers, often using the pen name, Excelsior. Many of articles promote women suffrage and dress reform. She wrote her articles once her family was in bed, working from 9pm to 1am. Her name was proudly signed on the 1892 women’s suffrage petition.

After farming for many years second son Harold and his wife Kathleen took over the farm and Theodore and Ada and had a home, known as the “Red House” (because it was painted in red lead, built for them in 1903-04. This house was the first house designed and built by James Chapman-Taylor at the start of his career as famous builder, designer and architect.

James went on to design and build many homes and pieces of furniture and was heavily influenced by the English Arts and Crafts movement. He designed several well-known Taranaki buildings including 'Wilkinson’s Castle' in Pukearuhe and 'Plas Mawr' and 'Tupare' in New Plymouth.

Theodore, Ada and youngest child Evelyn went back to England for the first time in 1903 to reunite with family. They returned a year later but had decided not to return to Ngāere but to settle in Christchurch. 

They lived there until 1915 when they moved again to Hawke’s Bay where James built them a home with extensive gardens in Hastings. Theodore died in 1917.

Ada returned to live in New Plymouth where, in 1940, according to a Taranaki Daily News article, she was residing at the Rahui Boarding House on Weymouth St, from which she liked to take daily walks on the waterfront, aged 91.  She died in 1945 and is buried in Te Henui Cemetery.

When Harold and Kathleen retired from farming they moved into the older house built by Ada and Theodore in 1886 and lived there until they died in the 1960s. 

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.

Books

The Life and Times of James Walter Chapman-Taylor, Judy Siers

The Ngaere Story, Alison Robinson p.77