Feilding

Introduction

A multi award winner of the New Zealand’s Most Beautiful Town, Feilding can only be a picture perfect place.  Feilding is blessed with many parks, open spaces, gardens, wide streets and historic buildings.  With a population of approximately 14 000 people, the town is not at all big, but not too small.  The people are very friendly and relaxed, and there is plenty for visitors to see and do. 

History

In 1874 Feilding was the first town to be settled under a private English emigration scheme organized by the Emigrant and Colonists’ Aid Corporation.

It was one of the directors of the Corporation, Colonel (later General) William Henry Adelbert Feilding, who was sent to Australia and New Zealand to buy suitable land for emigrants selected by the Corporation to settle on.  He bought a 106,000 acre block that stretched from the Rangitikei River across to the Manawatu Gorge.  The chairman of the E and C Aid Corporation was the Duke of Manchester and so the land became known as the “Manchester Block”.

Colonel Feilding visited the town named after him several times and also bought land in the Manchester Block.

In the early days, stock sales became the weekly focus and Feilding’s saleyards are still reputed to be among the largest in the Southern Hemisphere.   Today Feilding is Manawatu’s second biggest urban centre, with a population of around 13,000. 

To find out more about the resident agent for the Emigrant and colonists’ Aid Corporation in Feilding and his wife, visit www.dnzb.govt.nz and read the life stories of Arthur and Edith Halcombe.

 

Pictured:  Feilding sales yards, where on February 22, 1907  30,000 sheep were yarded at Feilding – creating a record that was not equalled for the rest of the century:

 

 

 

Governing Body

Manawatu District Council.  Ph 06 323 0000
Mayor of MDC - Ian McKelvie.  Ph 06 323 0000
Liaison Councillor for Feilding - Del Gibb.  Ph 06 323 7570

Community Contacts

Citizens Advice Bureaux (Palmerston North Branch).  Ph 06 357-0647
Feilding Visitor Information Centre.  Ph 323 3318


 

www.feilding.org.nz

 

Related Pages

The Region