Pendarves Street, New Plymouth

On 7 April 1775 Edward William Stackhouse was born in Cornwall and was destined to have a street named after him in New Plymouth. The young Stackhouse had a fine education firstly at Harrow and then at Oxford, graduating with a BA in 1797 and MA in 1801. Subsequently he held the office of sub-warden of All Souls' College, Oxford.

Being the offspring of landed gentry, he was in line to inherit a number of estates. So, when his second cousin, Lutrill Wynne, died in 1808 unmarried and with no offspring, Edward inherited the Pendarves estate. In deference to his cousin, he assumed the additional name of Wynne in January 1815 and became E. W. Wynne Stackhouse.  Then in February that year he dropped the Stackhouse label and became known as Edward William Wynne Pendarves.

He was intensely interested in parliamentary process and was part of a group that vigorously agitated for reform in 1831. This resulted in the Parliamentary Reform Act of 1832, which extended the vote to more citizens. It also created new constituencies based on population changes brought about by the growth of cities in the Industrial Revolution.

By all accounts Pendarves was a popular man and became the MP for West Cornwall, with the creation of that constituency in 1832, and held it until his death on 26 June 1853. Pendarves had many interests, but significantly for us he was a director of the Plymouth Company. Therein lies the connection to New Plymouth.

On the register of the Plymouth Company, he is entered as E. W. W. Pendarves esq. He is one of a number of men responsible for funding the settlement of New Plymouth who never actually set foot in the place; an early example of a trans-national developer.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.

Judy Wright

April 2026