History and Culture

Photographers [Left] David Duffy, [Middle] HCC, [Right] Geoff Mew - Click for the Hutt City Picture Tour

Hutt City has a special place in the history of early New Zealand European settlement. Petone was the site of the first formalised settlement of the New Zealand Company in 1840, which is celebrated every year as Wellington's Anniversary Day on 22 January (the date of the arrival of the first immigrant ship, the Aurora).

The first European township in Wellington was Britannia, established on the banks of the Hutt River in February 1840. The lower part of the valley was significant in a national context for its concentrated industrial base in the late 19th/early 20thCentury which serviced all of New Zealand.

The Patrick Street Worker's Settlement in Petone was the centre of the Liberal Government's efforts (the first in the country's history) to provide cheap but quality housing for New Zealand's working families. The first of the houses was completed in 1906. In the post-war period Lower Hutt was at the forefront of Modern Movement architecture in New Zealand. Housing and commercial developments in the Hutt Valley enabled some of New Zealand's leading architects to fully explore town planning and functional design, key elements of the Modern Movement.