The Somerville area is part of the
rohe of
Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki, who descend from the crew of the
Tainui migratory waka, who visited the area around the year 1300. Many Ngāi Tai and
Ngāti Pāoa pā sites, middens and other archaeological sites can be found in the
Mangemangeroa Valley, which was known for
Spiny dogfish found in the estuary. The area was cultivated by Ngāi Tai, and protected by the Tūwakamana Pā at
Cockle Bay. The sale was envisioned as a way to end hostilities in the area, but it is unclear what the chiefs understood or consented to. Māori continued to live in the area, unchanged by this sale. In 1847,
Howick township was established as a defensive outpost for Auckland, by fencibles (retired
British Army soldiers) and their families. Early settlers in the area shot the
kūaka and
huahou found in the creek, and fencible soldier John Nicholas purchased a farm on Somerville Road in 1851. The Somerville family began farming the area in 1863, after Archibald Somerville purchased 103 acres of land from Thomas Brady. The family called their farm Paparoa, after the name for the district, and built a two-storied homestead at the intersection of Howick, Whitford and East Tāmaki roads. In the 19th Century, the Whitford Road bridge across the
Botany Creek was locally known as Cowbridge, after the skeleton of a large cow that was next to the bridge from 1860 to 1900. Originally the Somerville family grew wheat and oats, but by 1931 switched to dairy and sheep farming. The Somerville family cowshed was moved to
Howick Historical Village in 1986. The first showroom for the new Somerville Estate was exhibited in 1990, and in 1994 the
Manukau City Council purchased 22-hectares of the Somerville farm to develop into Mangemangeroa Reserve, which opened in 2000. In the early 1990s, Entrepreneur Kit Wong, inspired by his parents' experiences of isolation living in Auckland, developed Meadowlands, a commercial and restaurant space in Somerville as an area for the
Chinese New Zealander community. By the mid-1990s, significant residential housing had been constructed in the area, and in 1997 Somerville Intermediate School was opened. ==Demographics==