Fox Street (Ōpunake)

Fox Street in Ōpunake was named after a politician with a talent for painting.

William Fox (1812-1893) studied law in England before immigrating to New Zealand with his wife Sarah in 1842. He worked as a journalist in Wellington and land agent in Nelson, eventually being elected MP for Whanganui in 1855. Fox became Premier that same year, and again in 1861, 1869 and 1872.

Famed for his fitness, Fox climbed Mount Taranaki in 1890 at the age of 78, to the delight of local newspapers. He also painted many watercolours of the region during his visits to the province, especially when he was a Royal Commissioner investigating Māori land confiscations in the 1880s.

Fox was knighted in 1879 and continued to support the temperance movement and women’s suffrage after his political career. Fox Glacier and Foxton are also named after him.

The Ōpunake Town District was established on 6 May 1882 and Fox Street appeared on maps that same year but was not mentioned in a local paper until 1896 when footpaths were formed.

In 1904 the Opunake Times reported complaints about “water tables in Fox Street… [creating] dangerous traps for pedestrians” and making it “impossible for girls to wheel perambulators along to reach the beach”. The Town Board tried various drainage systems but the water always returned, with the street “so thoroughly soaked” in 1918 that a motor car sank. By 1920 a footbridge made of planks had been erected over what was known as “post office creek” but safety concerns led to the replacement of the wooden bridge with “twelve 3-foot pipes… and a hand rail” in 1931.

The south-eastern end of Fox, near Napier Street, only began to be “settled” in the 1920s, remaining mostly grass until electric streetlights were installed in 1933. The offices of the Opunake Times were located on the street after the Second World War.

Fox Street was judged to be the town’s “most attractive residential area” in November 1979 by the Opunake Businessmen’s Association. Contest convenor David Saric told the Taranaki Daily News that the whole town had been assessed, with prizes also awarded for best residential frontage, best commercial frontage and community effort, a special award given to William Wester for his work planting trees along the clifftop overlooking Ōpunake Beach.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.