Town Acre Map of Wellington 1841

Click on the 'Zoom to 100%' icon above the magnifying glass to read the town acre numbers clearly. 

Click on the 'Text' button to see a full list of original purchasers and the Town Acre they were allocated.

A Town Acre map covering the original boundaries of Wellington City including the Town Belt. The original version of this map was drawn by William Mein Smith and used to allocate 1100 one-acre blocks which were sold using a ballot system to New Zealand Company investors shortly after the first settlers arrived in 1840. 10% of these blocks were set aside for continued Māori ownership by mana whenua (Te Atiawa). The area covered by the map remained the legal boundary of the City of Wellington until 1903 when the surrounding Melrose Borough amalgamated. The map as shown here was re-drawn in 1927 by Louis Ward and included as an insert in his book Early Wellington (1929) with an associated list showing names of original purchasers with Māori owned land marked as "Native Reserve". To this day some of these town acre numbers continue to be used as part of the legal descriptions of land parcels within the old boundaries of the city.