After Hulke bought Jenny, there was no way to get her the 250kms to Taranaki from Marton except to walk her there. He put a rope halter round her neck and led her the whole way to his Bell Block farm.
And that's probably what Hulke is most famous for: for introducing the Jersey breed to Taranaki farming, though he did have many more strings to his bow.
He served in the Land Wars of the 1860s and his diaries still provide an insight into the day-to-day duties of a signalman.
He was also heavily involved in New Plymouth's earliest flour milling business.
A cow called Jenny
Jenny turned out to be a fine milk producer and usually won the champion ribbon in the show rings. In 1883, Hulke became the recipient of a prestigious national prize for his herd of Jerseys milkers, made up of Jenny and her calves.
At a time when the English shorthorn had always reigned supreme, Hulke's bovine success led other farmers to take a closer look at the Jersey breed. Soon Jersey herds outranked all others in the district.
By the time the New Zealand Jersey Association formed in 1902, nine of the registrations came from William Hulke's bulls, with nine of the 14 listed cows from Jenny.
William King Hulke turns to milling
But Hulke also knew about flour milling. Born in England in 1819 to Dutch parents, he had been apprenticed as a young man to the East India Company. But he disliked the life at sea so much, he set sail for New Zealand in 1840 at the age of 26.
After walking from the fledgling Wellington (Port Nicholson) to Wanganui he set up a flour mill there to mill flour for fellow settlers.
He moved to Taranaki in 1847, and at the invitation of Josiah Flight and other notable early Taranaki citizens, brought with him all the machinery from his Wanganui mill. It had been idle for some time, due to trouble between Wanganui Pākehā and Māori.
Flour mills abound
Taranaki's first flour mill - the Alpha - already stood on Baines Terrace, powered by a water wheel. Built in 1843, it ground locally grown wheat, supplying all the settlers needs with the excess being shipped to Port Nicholson and on sold.
An early photo of the Alpha Mill in the Huatoki Valley.
Another mill, the Victoria was situated on the Huatoki, near where the river is crossed by Mill Road, with the mill on the north side of the bridge. It was built by White and Gillingham not long after the Alpha. In 1855, it was practically rebuilt.
A site for the new Union mill was marked out on Queen Street, next to the Mangaotuki stream which would turn the waterwheel.
When the Union Mill opened in 1848, the ceremony included a grand fancy dress ball, which went down in history as the first on the west coast and one of the great functions of early New Plymouth. Francis Dillion Bell, and other prominent citizens found their names on the guest list.
The Alpha and the Union
The Union Mill was first owned by a company but eventually it passed into the hands of Mr Sam Oliver who operated it for many years. When he died, it was passed onto Messrs Honeyfield and Read.
Around 1866, along with Messers F. and W. Webster, Hulke built a steam flour mill in Currie Street, known as the Egmont Mill (now The Mill hotel) which was run by Hulke and one of the Websters.
The Egmont Flour mill building in the 1970s. From the Puke Ariki Pictorial Collection.
As well as milling grain, they dealt in bones and grass seed. A sign outside in 1872 proclaimed:
Bones! Bones! Bones!
We will buy your bones.
Or anyone else's bones.
Hulke also built a mill at Tawhiti, near Hāwera.
Another olde mill: The Tawhiti flour mill. From the Puke Ariki Pictorial Collection.
Good while it lasted
Though the Alpha Mill was improved to keep up with the Union Mill, soon there was not enough work for the all the mills in the district. The Alpha closed and Mr Oliver bought Hulke out of the Union.
The 1860s Land Wars brought a pause to wheat production in the district and afterwards it was found that continuous cropping and non-application of fertiliser had ruined the land for growing wheat.
With Taranaki's climate not exacly indusive to growing grain, and with supplies now readily available from elsewhere, farmers turned to dairying.
The Union Mill was declared bankrupt in 1885, and eventually it fell to the Crown Dairy Country, who had brought the land, to dismantle it in 1899 and sell it for scrap, though the old waterwheel would later be used to power a small sawmill.
Land at Bell Block
When the 'Bell Block' opened for settlement in the early 1850s, Hulke bought farm land there. He married Miss Street in 1854 and the couple lived in a cottage they called Hāwetaone.
They farmed until the Land Wars began in 1860, when Hulke and his neighbours were driven off their and made the move back to town for sake of protection and safety.
During the battles, Hulke kept a running account of his time as a signalman at Hua Fort, better known as the Bell Block stockade.
His diaries contain the wording of signals that he received from throughout the district and forwarded to headquarters at Marsland Hill, New Plymouth. They include his own remarks and observations of the war.
A long time after the land wars ended, writer and surveyor W.H.Skinner wrote several articles for the 1908 Taranaki Herald about Hulke's involvement in several incidences, particularly the Puketapu Feud.
In earlier interviews, Hulke recounts how, during the long bloody feud between factions of the Puketapu Hapu over the sale of land to Pākehā, Rāwiri Waiaua entrusted him with a treasured greenstone mere, and the subsequent actions he undertook to keep it hidden.
The Bell Block Stockade, from a panel and wash painting by F.M.Ardern. From the Puke Ariki Pictorial Collection.
A different life in town
After the Hulkes moved to town, William laid out beautiful gardens in Pendarves Street and opened a nursery specifically for the growth and cultivation of New Zealand flax.
He had a flair for propogation and soon became a prominent man in the Taranaki flax industry.
The gardens were soon known as the official New Zealand Flax gardens and the land was leased to the New Zealand Government for five years. The garden covered a third of an hectare and was sold in 1876 to Mr Courtney.
In the nursery, Hulke grew flax for the Botanic Garden in Wellington, and in 1870 sent off seven specimens, examples of which can still be seen today.
When the New Zealand flax commission's Wellington exhibition was held in 1871, most of the items on show had been collected by Hulke from around Taranaki.
One of the skirmishes during the 1860 Land Wars happened right in front of the Hoby house on Wills Road, Bell Block. The Hobys and the Hulkes were farming neighbours. The caption to this photo reads: "Wedding group on the day of marriage of Clara Holby to Mr Berridge, probably 1880." From the Puke Ariki Pictorial Collection.
Back to Bell Block at last
In 1876, William and his wife returned to Bell Block where he started his celebrated model farm on Corbett Road, breeding pure-bred Jersey cattle. In 1882, he published a well recieved booklet called Golden Rules for Butter-making.
Volume I of the New Zealand Jersey Stud book issued in 1886 lists all available breeds, but contains only 11 pedigree Jersey bulls. Volume II, issued three years later, contains a lot more entries and is especially interesting as it lists the bloodlines: Jenny's name is there.
Hulke was a man who saw butterfat in the lush pastures of Taranaki. When he died in 1908 aged 89, he was buried at the little churchyard at St Lukes in Bell Block.
Nearly 50 years after his death, he was honoured by Associated Taranaki Jersey Cattle Clubs who erected a memorial stone at the foot of his grave. Mr Moreland, President of the New Zealand Cattle Breeders Association gave the address.
"It is difficult to pay full justice to Mr Hulke, who had the pioneering spirit so essential in the early days of this country."
Hulke's jersey line went from strength to strength very quickly. Here a well-bred 1950 herd grazes the Lepper farm at Lepperton.