Early history The
iwi with mana whenua in Tawa are
Ngāti Toa Rangatira and
Taranaki Whānui. Ngāti Toa Rangatira have had parcels of land in Tawa and Linden returned to them as part of a housing partnership with the
Crown. Though
Māori people had not previously settled in the Tawa valley, they would have passed through it when travelling between the centuries-old established populations at
Porirua and
Te Whanganui a Tara. A Māori track, later developed in the 1840s for the
Old Porirua Road, ran between the two harbours, while another such track ran from Willowbank to the
Horokiwi Ridge and
Petone. As with the rest of Wellington, Tawa was colonised by the
New Zealand Company in the mid-19th century under the direction of
Edward Gibbon Wakefield. The Company claimed to have purchased the land from local Māori - this claim "did not take into account of Maori existing land use, and was further undermined by the New Zealand Company and later by the government." It was divided into 100-acre blocks, providing some of the 100-acre "in the country" blocks that accompanied the one-acre "in town" (i.e., central Wellington) blocks, similar to other Company settlements. Much of the eastern side of the Tawa valley came to be owned by a single family until the demand for housing land overtook the benefits of farming the land. In 1951, a Town District was established covering Tawa and Linden. Within two years this had become Tawa Flat Borough.
Development The development of Tawa, like many population centres, has been strongly tied to the development of transportation networks. It was initially a rural settlement established along the Old Porirua Road. During construction of the road in 1846-47, the road-making soldiers used two stockades, built a kilometre apart from each other, to sleep in and for protection from potential attacks. The initial settlers had to clear the surrounding heavy forests before they could begin building and farming on the land. In 1851 the first church opened, and in 1855 the first school opened, but Tawa remained predominantly rural into the 20th century. While there were early efforts at housing subdivisions, first in 1896 and in 1906 with the establishment of the Tawa Land Company, they failed to attract much interest. Tawa didn't grow significantly until just before
World War II, when it began to lose its semi-rural character. A single-track railway line built by the
Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company connected Tawa to Wellington from September 1885, and to Palmerston North from November 1886. It followed a circuitous route from Wellington via the Ngaio Gorge and
Johnsonville. This line was incorporated into the
New Zealand Railways Department network in December 1908. Tawa's first railway station, Tawa Flat station, opened on 24 September 1885. The station was located on the hillside above the valley floor on what is now Duncan Street, on the straight section of road about 180 metres north of the intersection of Duncan Street with the junction of Tawa Street and Tawa Terrace.
1930s and 40s: The Tawa Flat deviation From June 1937, the double-tracked
Tawa Flat deviation diverted the
North Island Main Trunk railway from
Thorndon through
Kaiwharawhara and two significant new tunnels to the Tawa valley to provide a shorter faster rail route with easier grades and higher speed curves. The new deviation reduced the travel time between Wellington and Tawa by 15 minutes. The old and new routes diverged in Thorndon and merged again north of the present-day
Tawa Railway Station near the front entrance to Tawa College. Part of the old rail route through Tawa, from Tawa Street to Tawa College, became the southern part of Duncan Street while the old railway alignment from Tawa Street to Takapu Road remained as a pleasant walking track. The new deviation provided two new railway stations that opened on 20 June 1937, one at Takapu Road and a new Tawa Flat Railway Station on an island platform built on the valley floor, below and 400 metres north of the old railway station. A crossing loop was provided at Tawa Flat with crossovers north and south of the station to allow trains to terminate at Tawa Flat and return to Wellington or Porirua. A siding was provided to support local businesses. The new Tawa Flat station was equipped with an enclosed waiting room, toilets for men and women, and a stationmaster's office with a ticket sale window opening to the waiting room. A miniature lever frame allowed signals to be locally controlled. Trains between Kaiwharawhara and Tawa ran on
double line automatic signalling. The
tablet system remained in use on the single line section from Tawa to Porirua. With the completion of the deviation, the railway connection between Johnsonville and Tawa was severed on 19 June 1937. The original line from Wellington to Johnsonville was electrified and reopened as the
Johnsonville Branch. The railway line from Tawa to Porirua remained single track with no stations between Tawa and Porirua until the new Linden station opened on 28 July 1940.
Electrification of the North Island Main Trunk was completed from Wellington to Paekakariki in 1940 and a modern automatic signalling system was installed to enable trains to operate at frequent intervals. From 1940, the shorter and faster train service to Wellington using passenger cars hauled by electric locomotives made Tawa a more desirable place to live.
Arohata Women's Prison, located at the southern end of Tawa, was built in 1944 and was originally a women's
borstal. It became a youth prison in 1981 and a women's prison in 1987.
1950s and 60s: improved train service, motorway opening, rapid population growth A much improved, faster, and more frequent, rail service resulted from the Tawa Flat deviation in the late 1930s, electrification of the railway line with an automatic signalling system in 1940, and the arrival of additional electric multiple units in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The first
multiple units operated on the line from 5 September 1949 but electric locomotive-hauled trains continued to operate in peak periods as there were insufficient multiple units until the arrival of the first
Ganz Mavag EM/ET units in 1982. It was now quicker and easier for residents of Tawa to commute to Wellington to work in the central Wellington area. ==Geography==