Road Board and County Councils

As with most of our local bodies, those of South Taranaki have yet to enjoy the ‘luxury’ of resources for the preservation, secure storage and professional arrangement of archives. These notes on Kaponga District local body membership are therefore the best that can be put together from our newspaper and directory searches. For its first quarter century the Kaponga District's main local body concern was to get a fair deal from the Waimate Road Board, which came into existence on 18 May 1883. Kapongas first storekeeper did noble service in the early years. When he resigned-Kaponga briefly lost any representation—the board's district was not divided into ridings, and in the by-election Kaponga's E.J. Ellerm lost out to a candidate from elsewhere. However Ellerm succeeded at the next election, there being only five nominations for the five vacancies.

(1) Kaponga residents elected to the Waimate Road Board

	Membership dates
Henry Whitworth Davy	May 1885-July 1887
Edward John Ellerm	May 1888-c. 1891
W.A. McCutchan	c.1891–?
Coxhead (Arthur?)	May 1894–?
F.W. Wilkie	c.1896-April 1904
Robert Gibson	June 1904–April 1905
William Swadling	June 1904-c.1905
Maurice Fitzgerald	May 1905–1906

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(2) Kaponga residents elected to the Hawera County Council

	Membership dates
E.J. Ellerm	c.1890-Dec. 1892
F.W. Wilkie	c.1897-c.1900

(3) Kaponga residents elected to Kaponga Riding of the Eltham County Council (Eltham County formed 1906)

	Membership dates
William Swadling	1906-June 1912 (death)
Maurice Fitzgerald	1906–09
William O'Neill	1909–14
A. Voullaire	1909–11
David Black	1912–?1917