Rawene is a town on the south side of the Hokianga harbour, in Northland, New Zealand.

[7] Rawene started as a timber centre, with a mill and shipyards[8] established in the early 19th century.

[7] Captain James Herd in 1822 had taken out the first shipment of kauri from the Hokianga in his ship Providence.

Starting at Stewart Island / Rakiura,[10] Herd sailed up the east coast eventually rounding North Cape to enter Hokianga - his old stamping ground.

[12] Later it was called "Hokianga Township", and in 1884 it became "Rawene", possibly to identify the post office and telegraph.

[14] Aperahama Taonui, chief of Te Popoto hapū, allegedly operated a school at Rawene in the mid-19th century.

[15] James Reddy Clendon, previously the United States Consul to New Zealand, settled in Rawene in 1862 and served as the local magistrate under the Native Circuit Courts Act until 1867.

[19] On 5 May 1898 120 men marched from Rawene to Waima to deal with the "rebels", but the dispute was settled without them.

[22] Dr George McCall Smith headed the hospital from 1914 to 1948 and developed a unique health-system for the Hokianga.

[23] Dr Smith became a practitioner of "painless childbirth" in the early 1930s, using premedication with the barbiturate Nembutal combined with Hyoscine.

In 1937 a "Commission of Inquiry into Maternity Services" investigated Smith's practice.

Smith fronted up with case notes on his last two hundred patients, and his results could not be bettered anywhere.

[25] This meant that all medical officers in the Hokianga were salaried, and all consultations, pharmaceuticals, investigations and hospital admissions were free.

The results were 55.7% European (Pākehā); 61.4% Māori; 8.2% Pasifika; 2.5% Asian; 0.6% Middle Eastern, Latin American and African New Zealanders (MELAA); and 1.3% other, which includes people giving their ethnicity as "New Zealander".

The results were 55.4% European (Pākehā); 62.3% Māori; 6.2% Pasifika; 1.8% Asian; 0.7% Middle Eastern, Latin American and African New Zealanders (MELAA); and 2.2% other, which includes people giving their ethnicity as "New Zealander".