Talk:List of former territorial authorities in New Zealand

Counties

Would it be practical to somehow link to (or incorporate into this article) the list of pre-1989 Counties at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counties_in_New_Zealand ? I was planning on adding some information on counties I have histories of to that list, but haven't had time to do so yet. Daveosaurus (talk) 08:26, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

My main source also has counties, defunct cities and districts and the three town boards which remained in 1989, I will be adding them all once I've finished with Boroughs. (I found the counties article yesterday and will use it where possible). My main source is 1986 - I believe there were no changes between then and '89, as the review was already under way.

By the way, are you sure all your Invercargill ones were full Boroughs and not "town districts"? dramatic (talk) 10:14, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

According to the book, they are. I know of the following town districts in Southland, but not their exact dates: Nightcaps, c. 1918 - c. 1968; Otautau, ? - c. 1970; Lumsden, ? - c. 1965; Edendale, ? - c. 1973; Wyndham, ? - c. 1978. Invercargill is mentioned as having been a town board prior to 1870 but I don't know if it was of a status comparable to the later Districts. I also have a book on Dunedin City which gives precise dates for most of the suburban boroughs and the one town district that form the Dunedin urban area; next time I have some spare time I will add them if they are not already included. Daveosaurus (talk) 11:28, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Great - I think that the terms were interchangable, in that a town district was managed by a board with a chairman (as opposed to a council with a myor for a borough). I read about a hundred search results from the Otago Witness (at the papers past website) in vain looking for a transition date for Green Island. Given the accuracy of their OCR, the key article might simply not appear in the search results. dramatic (talk) 22:02, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Green Island Borough was proclaimed under the Otago Ordinance on 5th October, 1875, according to "City of Dunedin: A Century of Civic Enterprise" by K C McDonald. I'll try to get information from this book into the article in the next few days (I am very new to Wikipedia and don't quite know whether I'm doing things right; and on a bad connection so it takes me a while to check that a page looks right after I've finished). Later proclamations and amalgamations of counties, cities, boroughs and town districts are likely to be recorded in the New Zealand Gazette if you have access to such archives. I understand there were two types of town district: dependent town district and independent town district; but I do not know how they differed from each other, nor which of the town districts I am aware of was which type. Daveosaurus (talk) 07:41, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

From my reading, a dependent town district had some local governance but many resources came from a neighbouring (often larger) county. Mind you, in the 1881 census there was a county (West Taupo) with a (pakeha) population of 6! I see you have multiple use of refs figured out. dramatic (talk) 08:05, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

The reference I used (a book of aerial photography from 1952) had a short paragraph on town districts so I paraphrased that and tried to make it as clear as possible to the modern reader. As for county populations: up until 1980 there was a county which had a population of about 30! I don't think it ever had a functioning Council. As for references, I just cheated and copied what you did: I think I figured out how to make it work. Thanks for trying to fix my attempts at adding stuff. Daveosaurus (talk) 08:20, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Dates

Daveosaurus, I hope you won't be offended if I convert your full dates to just years. I'm working on the basis that

1. This article is going to get huge as it is.
2. It's easier to read a column that has years only
3. In many cases the reference has the full date, and I will (eventually) add the full date both to the article on the territory in question and to the relevant "year in new Zealand" article.

dramatic (talk) 08:05, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

No worries. I also had some information that overlapped yours (and in one case contradicts quite a bit) which I haven't added. I now have a list of town districts that I can add, but can only show that they were still in existence in 1952. I have another reference that states that only two of them were still in existence by 1986. I might do the work from the first reference some time tonight if I get time. Daveosaurus (talk) 08:25, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Post the conflicting information here. I've already found two errors in the Almanac's list of 1986 entities, and some other sources might use terms loosely. dramatic (talk) 08:44, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I have the following that are either missing or incorrect (normally the former) from the list: Caversham founded 1877. Green Island founded 1875. St. Kilda founded 1875. Dunedin South referred to in McDonald as South Dunedin and founded 1875, amalgamated 1905. West Harbour and Bay Town District still have full dates. Daveosaurus (talk) 09:10, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

fl means "flourishing" - more usually used for biographies where someone's birth and death dates are unknown but they were recorded as active in a certain year. All I had found for Green Island was an election result, but I presumed it wasn't the first election. dramatic (talk) 10:08, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I included that as a "missing" date - I've resigned myself to having to use "fl. 1952" on anything I source from Whites as they only give me one establishment date (Wyndham, in 1882). Daveosaurus (talk) 10:25, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Terminology

Just as a note, I'm using "Amalgamated" for most pre-1989 unions, because these usually occurred by mutual consent, and sometimes with a referendum, but many of the 1989 changes were against the wishes of many people in the towns affected, so "merged" seems more appropriate (suggests external influence).dramatic (talk) 08:44, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the use of "amalgamated" for pre-1989 unions, and "elevated" for status changes. I'd be more inclined to use "incorporated into (name) District/City" for the 1989 restructuring because this wasn't just an amalgmation, it was practically a completely ground-up redesign of local government; I haven't added any boroughs still in existence in 1989 (that I recall anyway). Daveosaurus (talk) 09:14, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Roads boards

It seems that many of our towns or suburbs had a roads or highways board as their first form of local government, in some cases for up to 50 years. Is it worth including a section on these bodies in this list? dramatic (talk) 08:44, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

McDonald says of the Road Boards that their "functions were narrowly circumscribed" and that 95 such Boards were established in 1865-1866 in Otago alone. I take this as an indication that they weren't territorial authorities as such, but were more like single-purpose organisations, such as the old Rabbit Boards, or modern privatised utility providers; and that there would have been a considerable number of them throughout New Zealand. I think that, if any expansion to the scope of this article is warranted, it would be to have the Counties article merged with this one (and tidied up somewhat, either before or after); and perhaps inclusion of the Provinces and the Counties within the Provinces (such as Westland, within Canterbury, before it became a separate Province; or Bruce and Wallace counties within Otago Province, which, from memory, were gazetted but never actually came into being). Daveosaurus (talk) 09:26, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

In that case I might just add a note for the boroughs, etc. which were a roads board for a significant period of time. dramatic (talk) 10:14, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Article Title

It was suggested in the Peer Review that the article title might be changed. I defended "territorial authorities" there as the technically correct name. However, further research shows that "Territorial Authority" only came into currency with the 1988 review and subsequent legislation. The 1974 legislation uses Territorial Local Authority, as does Graham Bush in his definitive book on the history of local government in New Zealand. Here are my views on alternatives:

• Administrative districts sounds like a regionalisation of central government rather than autonomous elected bodies. So does "political subdivisions"
• Municipal (as in Municipal Corporations) was the earlier legal term, but only applies to boroughs, excluding counties.
• Local government bodies or more formally Local government entities sounds reasonable, although we shall have to make it clear that this excludes ad-hoc bodies (which is the rationale behind the word territorial - those bodies with more or less exclusive control of most municipal services).

dramatic (talk) 04:36, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd just call them "local authorities"; a generic enough term for all these different classes of authority. I also think that it would be best to include all local authorities in existence prior to 1989, even those with names identical to modern local authorities (e.g. Whakatane District or Invercargill City), because the post-1989 cities and districts are mostly substantially different to the pre-1989 authorities of the same name. Non-territorial authorities (roads boards, catchment boards, pest destruction boards, etc.) could be mentioned in a brief paragraph explaining the scope of this article, and if and when anyone sees fit to list them in a separate article, that article could be linked to. Daveosaurus (talk) 07:51, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Dropping "List of" from title

Would a better name be Former territorial authorities in New Zealand? The way this article seems to be evolving is that it is not simply a list but several different lists, each with commentary about the history of the various types of former territorial authorities. Rather than simply listing the former teritorial authorities simply as an index, we now have an introductory article that seems to be identifying which other articles discuss which former territorial authority. -- Cameron Dewe (talk) 04:26, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd rather the title stayed as it is. This article is fundamentally still a list, broken into a number of sub-sections, not an in-depth article such as Provinces of New Zealand. Daveosaurus (talk) 05:53, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it is not an in depth article like Provinces of New Zealand. However, it is almost as comprehensive as Territorial authorities of New Zealand, which is also basically one big list but with a little mention on the 1989 local government reforms and a section on the Auckland Governance debate that possibly should be in its own article or one about the formation of the "new" Auckland "supercity". In some respect this article should be included in that one, but I think having a separate article about the Former territorial authorities of New Zealand makes for less clutter in an article abouth the current organisation of local government. The direction that I think this article might evolve into is as a series of tables about the various former territorial authorities, wth some basic facts about when each was created and dissolved and what happened before and after. It would then serve as both an index and a concordance for finding all the articles that discuss the history of each territorial authority. If I was wanting to know what article(s) discussed the way a territorial authority was previously administered as a town, borough, county or province then this is the article I could consult to find the essential facts. If it was just a list it would merely point to an article, or section of an article, that I would then need to read to discover the details now appearing here. While it might still be based on a list or a series of lists at the moment it is rapidly approaching a point where it is more than just a list. I am merely wondering has that point has been reached? -- Cameron Dewe (talk) 11:17, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Scope

After reading parts of Bush's book, I don't think that we should cover the provinces in this article - they are more akin to a devolved form of central government, and belong with the regions and regional councils. Indeed, during the provincial era, there were various attempts at municipal corporations in various towns, largely unsuccessful in the case of Auckland. But the cities of Christchurch and Dunedin were proclaimed during this era, with the formation of municipal councils with a continuous lineage to the current bodies (Although the 1876 act only allowed for boroughs, so the City of Dunedin was duly proclaimed a borough in 1877). dramatic (talk) 04:36, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

The provinces already have their own article anyway. Many boroughs and cities date back to the provincial era. There were also counties in existence during the provincial era, but there was no continuity between them and the post-provincial counties. I know of at least three (Otago Province was divided into Bruce and Wallace Counties, but this was a paper division only which had no practical consequences. A Westland County was created within Canterbury Province, and later became an independent province). These could be mentioned in a separate table. There is also already a Counties in New Zealand article, which I think could be merged here to the benefit of this article (it also has a map - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/New_zealand_counties_1913.jpg - although I've found an error in it already). Daveosaurus (talk) 08:02, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I've thought on this a bit more and decided that at least a short summary of the Provincial era would be useful. I've adapted the table from the Provincial era page so that it fits the visual style of the other tables on this page, and included the animated map from the Provincial page to break the monotony of text somewhat. My next idea is to reorganise the 1876-1989 era somewhat. My suggestion so far is to have: first, Counties; then include the map from the Counties in New Zealand article, then to list municipalities, and then to list the pre-1989 Districts. I haven't decided yet which order to list the municipalities in. Largest to smallest (cities, then boroughs, then town districts) would be to my mind the most sensible order for them to be in, but this means that for municipalities which changed status, they would be listed in reverse chronological order. Thoughts? Daveosaurus (talk) 00:49, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Counties lists merger proposal

Besides the List of Counties in this article, I have come across two other similar lists: List of counties of New Zealand and List of counties of New Zealand (1966). It would make sense if all 3 lists were merged and maintained, consistently, in a single article. It strikes me that this article is the best article to use as it is has the best developed list and explanatory context, so probably needs the least work to effect the merger.

The down side is that it makes this could make this article very large and complex. A alternative but consistent approach would then be to merge each of the different lists into their separate parent articles, but I am not so sure that would be as useful as having everything in one place like it is now. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 04:11, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the proposed merger. I don't think it is necessary to keep the other two lists intact as long as the data they contain is transferred into this article - for example, ensure that, for counties in the List as at 1966, the earliest and latest known referenced date for each county is either side of that year. I'm a bit wary of some of the county names in the other list - for example, I'm almost certain that "Herbert" is actually Mount Herbert county - but that is something that can be tidied up as the data is transferred. Daveosaurus (talk) 05:57, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with that approach and I do think we need to verify how each county is usually named. One thing I did noticed about the List of counties of New Zealand is that many of the county names are confused with localities that have the same or similar name as the county. The other lists seem to at least make this distinction as they list, admittedly many unwritten, articles about the counties, rather than a place administered by the county (or should that be County Council?). I think we need to be careful to disinguish between a the administrative entity and the place(s) (or territory) administered by the entity. Should we also be distinguishing the "Council" (or "Board") of the various cities, towns, boroughs, counties, and provinces from the territories they administer? One is an organised group of people, while the other is an area of land. While I would anticipate only one articles about each entity and its administrated territory because they are likely to be inextricably mixed with each other, should we be talking about articles about X County or X County Council, etc.? - Cameron Dewe (talk) 10:31, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I think that the articles should be about the defined area in the first instance, rather than the Council or Board responsible for it. Agreed that at present I don't think there's any reason to have separate articles for x County and x County Council (or Borough Council, or Town Board). If at any point in the future an article about any such County, Borough or Town becomes large enough to be unwieldy, then would be the time to separate them. A number of the County Councils are unlikely to ever have articles written about them - Fiord County, in fact, never even had a Council (that I am aware of) and some other Counties had very limited administrative infrastructure (I am aware of one county which in the 1960s had its Chambers in someone's house!) The business about county names being linked to notable places within the county might be partly my fault; when first adding data to the article I tried to find something to link each County to. Some Counties are rather obscure and obscurely named; I would honestly struggle to find Weber on a map (I think it's somewhere in southern Hawkes Bay?). I do notice that someone has already been through and converted most of them to the Counties themselves; unfortunately, those articles do not exist, and are therefore red links which I don't really think are as helpful). Daveosaurus (talk) 10:55, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia can only be built one article at a time, and it doesn't need to be perfect right away. While red links are potentially frustrating and possibly not helpful for readers, I don't believe they are harmful. Also, a red link invites readers to write, or at least researching that subject somewhere else. What converts Wikipedia readers into Wikipedians is discovering a gap in Wikipedia and filling it in with what the reader knows. So red links are really useful for editors as it shows where there is a gap in the knowledge of Wikipedia. Seeing we do not have specific articles about a county, city, borough or town or its council or board suggests to me that this is an area to grow Wikipedia. Automatically, and unthinkingly, linking counties to their (supposed) localities masks the knowledge gap, and may be misleading and this will certainly frustrates readers more if the article does not yield the information they are seeking, or worse, yields the wrong information. The thing that really frustrates me is following a link that redirects to somewhere I was not expecting and then discovering that the article there does not mention any of the articles I really needed to read.

For example: We explain how the terms City, Town, Borough and County apply in New Zealand and even refer to those explanations in the article. But though this article discusses former territorial authorities it doesn't explain the term itself, so it should also link to a separate article that explains that a Territorial authority is a term that seems to be specific to New Zealand or at least provide an obvious link to the current list of Territorial authorities of New Zealand which should explain the term. However, it is not explained there either. This knowledge gap is thus masked because the key words are not linked from this article and Territorial authority is then unthinkingly redirected to Territorial authorities of New Zealand and then that article fails to explain the term is specific to New Zealand and how it originated. If an explanation were provided it should lead back to this list, possibly via an article about Territorial local authority being the former term. The fact we even have a knowledge gap is only discussed in passing on this talk page, when the Peer Review suggested a different article title was in order, because they didn't understand a term familiar to New Zealand readers! This is a fundamental knowledge gap that was masked because nobody asked why is there no article for this term? before linking it to another article that did not explain the term.

Now, if you do know of another article that already does, or should, deal with a specific former authority, then a redirect is in order. I would expect an article about a city should also cover the history of it previously being a town or a borough. But rather than linking directly to the city from this article, it should do so via a redirect page named for those historic authorities. Then if someone else writes an article that refers to the historic name, they too will be linked to the article dealing with the history, and so won't be tempted to write a duplicate article about the former authority because one didn't exist. Then, later on, perhaps much later on, someone might be in a position to expand the redirect page into a full article, if that was appropriate. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 13:11, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

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