Edwin Stanley Brookes Jnr (19 May 1840 – 12 August 1904) was a prominent

surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...

in the settlement of

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

during the mid-late 19th century.

Biography

Childhood and emigration

Edwin Stanley Brookes was born on 19 May 1840 in Radford, Nottingham,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. He was the eldest son of the Rev. E. S. Brookes Snr, who was one of the leaders of the Nonconformist Emigration Association and founders of the Albertland Special Settlement at Kaipara,

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

in 1862. Edwin Jnr emigrated aboard the ''Matilda Wattenbach'', arriving in Auckland on 8 September 1862. With Edwin on the Matilda Wattenbach were his two brothers, George Hovey Brookes and Charles Henry Brookes. His parents came later, in 1865, on the 'Caduceus', with the two youngest children. Other siblings came Elizabeth Ann, who was married to Samuel White, and Albert Edward Brookes, who all arrived on the 'Gertrude'.

Surveying

Brookes was immediately appointed to one of the

surveying Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...

parties that laid out the settlement, and after some years experience in the profession was appointed Assistant Surveyor on the

Taranaki Taranaki is a region in the west of New Zealand's North Island. It is named after its main geographical feature, the stratovolcano of Mount Taranaki, also known as Mount Egmont. The main centre is the city of New Plymouth. The New Plymouth Dist ...

Provincial staff in 1873. He spent his time in Taranaki surveying settlements from Inglewood to

Hāwera Hāwera is the second-largest centre in the Taranaki region of New Zealand's North Island, with a population of . It is near the coast of the South Taranaki Bight. The origins of the town lie in a government military base that was established i ...

and the Waimate Plains, working in conjunction with fellow surveyor

Peter Cheal Peter Edward Cheal (1846 – 12 January 1931) was a prominent surveyor in the settlement of New Zealand during the mid and late 19th century. Biography London Peter Edward Cheal was born and educated in London, where he trained as a mining ...

, and also carrying out surveys between Waitara and the Auckland Provincial boundary. In 1877 he introduced the use of the long steel wire for

chaining Chaining is a type of intervention that aims to create associations between behaviors in a behavior chain. A behavior chain is a sequence of behaviors that happen in a particular order where the outcome of the previous step in the chain serves as ...

purposes in place of the cumbersome

Gunter's chain Gunter's chain (also known as Gunter’s measurement) is a distance measuring device used for surveying. It was designed and introduced in 1620 by English clergyman and mathematician Edmund Gunter (1581–1626). It enabled plots of land to be a ...

. He oversaw the cutting of a Meridian line from Waitara southwards for a distance of 42 miles, and the original subdivision of blocks on the eastern side of the mountain. Brookes Road, on the outskirts of Stratford, takes its name from the surveyor. In 1885 Brookes resigned from the Lands and Survey Department and returned to the Albertland settlement. He went on to publish ''Frontier Life in Taranaki'' in 1892, in which he describes his surveying experiences, and particularly the tumultuous events surrounding the Parihaka affair and the subdivision of the Waimate Plains.

Family

Brookes was married twice, firstly to Jane Litchfield in 1870, with whom he had seven children, and secondly Sarah Anne Hine in 1886, with whom he had two children.

Death

Brookes died at Wharehine, Auckland on 12 August 1904.https://www.archway.archives.govt.nz/ViewFullItem.do?code=21442624 Accessed 26.12.2020

References

* Lawn, C. A. (2005)
“The Pioneer Land Surveyors of New Zealand”
* Lawn, C. A. (2005)
“The Pioneer Land Surveyors of New Zealand – Biographical Notes”
Albertland and Districts Museum shipping lists. {{DEFAULTSORT:Brookes, Edwin Stanley Jnr 1840 births 1904 deaths New Zealand surveyors New Zealand memoirists New Zealand male writers People from Nottingham British emigrants to New Zealand 19th-century memoirists