The story behind the name revealed

Guyton St was named after William Guyton of Liverpool, who arrived in Wanganui in 1841.

Now everyone who walks down Guyton St can read this information - and more - for themselves, thanks to an informative plaque which was yesterday afternoon placed at the corner of Guyton St and Victoria Ave, outside Flight Centre.

The plaque is the first of six in an initial series of the Wanganui Rotary North's Wanganui Street Name Project.

Organiser Don Speirs said he got the idea from a trip to Adelaide, in South Australia, five years ago.

"I was walking across Wakefield St and I saw a plaque set into the footpath, explaining who Edward Gibbon Wakefield was.

"And I thought to myself, no one in Wanganui knows where the names of the main streets come from."

So Rotary North members began to raise funds for the project.

Mr Speirs said information for the plaques was taken from books and from local historians.

He said the council and Mainstreet Wanganui also provided valuable support for the project.

The other five plaques will be placed on Ingestre St, Maria Pl, Taupo Quay, Ridgway St, and Victoria Ave, and will explain the stories behind the names of those streets.

Those plaques will be set in their respective streets in the next couple of weeks.

Mr Speirs said he hoped the next batch of six plaques would be ready in about six months.
 
THE GUYTON STREET STORY...
William Guyton came to Wellington from Liverpool in 1840. At the age of 28 years, he briefly became Mayor of Wellington but then decided to take up land in the Wanganui district as a New Zealand Company settler. In early 1841 he paid five pounds for a fare to Wanganui aboard the 75-ton vessel Jewess. Guyton Street was one of the earliest named streets in the Wanganui settlement.