Editing Napier, New Zealand (section)

===European settlers history===
[[Captain James Cook]] and his crew were the first Europeans to see the future site of Napier when they sailed down the east coast in October 1769. He commented: "On each side of this bluff head is a low, narrow sand or stone beach, between these beaches and the mainland is a pretty large lake of salt water I suppose."<ref name="govt">{{cite web |url=http://www.napier.govt.nz/napier/about/history/ |title=History |work=napier.govt.nz}}</ref> He said the harbour entrance was at the Westshore end of the shingle beach.

After 1830, the site was visited and later settled by European traders, whalers and missionaries. By the 1850s, farmers and hotel-keepers arrived.

[[File:Hasting_Street,_Napier,_1862.jpg|alt=|left|thumb|Hastings Street, 1862]]
[[File:Napier_Barracks_c1864.jpg|alt=|right|thumb|Napier Barracks, {{circa|1864}}]]

The Crown purchased the Ahuriri block (including the site of Napier) in 1851. In 1854 [[Alfred Domett]], a future Prime Minister of New Zealand, was appointed as the Commissioner of Crown Lands and the resident magistrate at the village of Ahuriri. It was decided to place a planned town here, its streets and avenues were laid out, and the new town named for [[Charles James Napier|Sir Charles Napier]], a military leader during the "Battle of Meeanee" fought in the country of [[Sindh]], in the Indian subcontinent. Domett named many streets in Napier to commemorate the colonial era of the [[British India|British Indian Empire]].<ref name="govt" />

Development was generally confined to the hills and to the port area of Ahuriri. In the early years, Napier covered almost exclusively an oblong group of hills (the [[Napier Hill|Scinde Island]]) which was nearly entirely surrounded by the ocean, but from which ran out two single spits, one to the north and one to the south. There was a swamp between the now Hastings Street and Wellesley Road, and the sea extended to Clive Square.

Napier was designated as a [[borough]] in 1874, but the development of the surrounding marshlands and [[Land reclamation|reclamation]] proceeded slowly. Napier was the administrative centre for the [[Hawke's Bay Province]] from 1858 until the abolition of [[Provinces of New Zealand|New Zealand's provincial governments]] in 1876.<ref name="govt"/>