Hatuma is 7 km (4.3 mi) south of Waipukurau,[3] in Central Hawke's Bay in the east of the North Island of New Zealand.

[5] In the 1890s controversy raged for over a decade as to whether Woburn estate should be transferred from an absentee run holder to individual farmers.

The change to Hatuma was made, but a historic house and remnants of a railway station are left from those days, as well as a lake of importance for wildlife and a more recent lime quarry to the south.

That refers to its former abundance of fish, fresh water mussels (kākahi), eels, and, in the surrounding kahikatea forest, birds, particularly kēruru.

Between the lake and Wairakai hill many middens, tools, bones, pits, chisels and axes have been found and there were fortified pā at Te Moanairokia, Ohineiwhatūīa, Pukekaihou, Waipukurau, Ruatangaroa, Kaimanaw and Kaitoroa.

Until drainage and sheep and beef farming degraded the lake in the late 1940s, the hapū from Tapairu, Whatarākai, Mataweka and Takapau did regular food-gathering at Hatuma, for tuna, kōkopu, kākahi and kererū.

[7] The lake is a Site of Special Wildlife Interest, as it has about 36% (120) of Hawke's Bay's dabchicks (weweia)[8] and a quarter (10) of its bitterns (matuku).

The lake has longfin and shortfin eels, common bully (toitoi), goldfish, rainbow trout and southern bell frog.

[15] In 2014 100 ha (250 acres) of the lake margin was returned to Heretaunga-Tamatea hapū, when a settlement with the government recognised injustices since the 1840s.

[16] In the late 1840s, local iwi, led by Te Hapuku, invited the Crown to acquire land, hoping to benefit from the sale and the skills of settlers.

They met Donald McLean, the government's land agent, in December 1850 and, on 4 November 1851, he bought the 279,000 acres (113,000 ha) Waipukurau Block for £4,800.

McLean bought at a low price and entered into secret deals, which, in 1857, led to fighting in which a number of rangatira were killed.

It covered 26,655 acres (10,787 ha),[25] extending south from Waipukurau along the whole of the western side of the Ngahape valley, including Marakeke and the Turiri Range of hills[26] to within 4 mi (6.4 km) of Takapau.

[28] Purvis arrived in Wellington from London on the New Zealand Company's 582 ton barque, Prince of Wales, on 3 January 1843,[29] with his first visit to Hatuma in 1847.

[31] Purvis Russell seems to have been at Woburn in 1858,[32] but to have returned to Britain by 1859, for he married Mary Glass Sainsbury in Bath[33][34] on 6 July.

[37] They left again in 1874[38] to live in their large house at Warroch[39] (a mile from Dalqueich, about 30 mi (48 km) north of Edinburgh and close to the Hattonburn family home of their son in law, Henry Montgomery).

[65]In 1874 G G Allan won a £14,100 contract for the 14 mi (23 km) extension of the Napier to Waipukurau railway south to Takapau.

[69] Following pressure from the new settlers and their MP, Charles Hall,[70] Hatuma reopened as a flag station on 1 August 1901.

[75] It was recorded as having fixed signals in 1905 and had a shelter shed, loading bank, latrines and a passing loop for 30 wagons when the station opened.

[87] Hatuma South School opened on 1 October 1906[88] and closed about 1917, probably due to wartime staff shortages.

[97] Hatuma Lime Company was registered on 22 October 1931[98] by a group of Wellington market gardeners looking for a high grade limestone near a railway.

Its quarry on Maharakeke Rd, near the former railway station, has removed over 2 million tonnes of rock for fertiliser, now marketed as Hatuma Dicalcic Phosphate and FuturepHo.