UDY STREET

Udy Street, Petone, is named after early Cornish settler Hart Udy. Hart and Jane Udy arrived on the Duke of Roxburgh in 1840 and lived first on the banks of the Hutt River. When flooded out (soon after arriving) they moved to the flax and toi toi cottages of ‘Cornish Row’ but these 16 flax cottages burned down several months later.

Hart worked for Sir Francis Molesworth and built the first house to be made from New Zealand timber. After working for three years in Wellington the family moved to Waiwhetū, where he worked as a carpenter for many years. Hart built St James’ Anglican church in Lower Hutt in 1848 near the Hutt Bridge, and also built several houses in Victoria Street, Petone, assuming it would become the main street of Petone. His houses at numbers 29 and 31 Victoria Street were demolished in the late 1970s and the land is now part of Petone Pak’n’Save carpark.

Hart and family moved in 1853 to newly acquired land in Stokes Valley where he built the first sawmill. They were the first pakeha settlers to live in Stokes Valley. He resided there until 1857, when he took his family to Matarawa (Greytown) where he had access to valuable bush-clad land.

In 1880, Hart and Jane Udy returned to Petone to live in one of the Victoria Street houses he had built. He was a member of the first Petone Town Board, established in 1882. Hart supplied the timber for the Nelson Street, Petone, Wesleyan (Methodist) Church and Edwin Jackson supplied the land. The Nelson Street Church was opened in late 1883.

In 1885, Jane and Hart went back to live in Greytown. Hart died in 1890 (aged 82), after a brief illness caused by inadvertently swallowing a small piece of rabbit bone, and Jane passed in 1896. Hart had 90 direct descendants.