The Stratford Inheritance

Description

The Stratford County Council did not quite survive to attend its centennial scheduled for 1990. Local government reorganisation resulted in the area being merged with the Stratford Borough Council into the Stratford District Council. The new local authority was formed on 1 April 1989, one of the first in New Zealand under the existing reform programme. It could be said that the wheel has turned the full circle, as today the new District Council encompasses much the same area as a century ago prior to the Stratford Borough and Whangamomona County fragmenting in 1898 and 1908.

This publication reveals a district that has seen remarkable changes in almost a century. Dark rain forest has been turned into productive farm lands surrounding an attractive service town. Through the decades, communities have developed and then declined, some of them now almost without trace. The impact of the Depression years, two world wars and more recently centralisation of industries and services have all fashioned the great social changes during the century.

Throughout the research and collation period from 1975 many fascinating stories and anecdotes were recorded. This underlines the fact that the people above all dictated and dominated the district through the years. What of the future for the Stratford district?

Published in 1990.