Becoming Cambridge

A military settlement called Camp Cambridge was built by the river in 1864 during the New Zealand Land Wars.  From then onwards, confiscated Maaori land was developed into a Paakehaa town.  Te Kooti Whenua Maaori (the Native Land Court) was especially active at Cambridge in the 1880s and would sit there for months at a time, dealing with land blocks in the southern Waikato.

The town began to grow. Soon there was a school, shops and hotels. The railway arrived and bridges spanned the river joining Cambridge East and West. They were formally joined into a borough in 1958.