History

The Māori who originally settled the Wellington area knew it as Te Upoko o te Ika a Māui, meaning "the head of Māui's fish". Legend recounts that Kupe discovered and explored the district in about the 10th century. The Wellington region was settled by Europeans in 1839. Wellington City became the capital of Wellington Province upon the creation of the province in 1853, until the abolition of provinces in New Zealand in 1876. The city became capital of New Zealand in 1865, the third capital of New Zealand after Auckland and Russell. European settlement began with the arrival of an advance party of the New Zealand Company on the ship Tory, on 20 September 1839, followed by 150 settlers on the Aurora on 22 January 1840. In 1855 the Wairarapa earthquake occurred on a fault line to the north and east of Wellington, which ranked as probably the most powerful earthquake in New Zealand’s history, with an estimated magnitude of at least 8.2 on the Richter scale. Parliament first sat in Wellington on 7 July 1862, but the city did not become the official capital for some time. In November 1863, the Premier, Alfred Domett, moved a resolution before Parliament (in Auckland) that " it has become necessary that the seat of government should be transferred to some suitable locality in Cook Strait." Apparently there was concern that the southern regions, where the goldfields were located, would form a separate colony. Parliament officially sat in Wellington for the first time on 26 July 1865. The population of Wellington was then 4,900.

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