Puriri, New Zealand
Puriri is a small locality on the Hauraki Plains of New Zealand. It lies approximately 14 km south-east of Thames, New Zealand. Puriri was originally a Ngāti Maru settlement, which the Rev. Henry Williams visited in October 1833, when the Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionaries, William Thomas Fairburn, John Alexander Wilson, John Morgan and James Preece established a mission station in the settlement, In 1835 James Stack was appointed to Puriri. However, the missionaries withdrew from the mission that same year as the result of fighting in the Waikato. Fairburn returned to the Puriri Mission at  the end of the fighting. Preece took over the mission in 1834 with the assistance of the Rev. James Hamlin. In 1838 the station was transferred to Parawai (part of the present town of Thames). In 1868 Puriri was the location for an official goldfield during the Thames-Coromandel gold rush. Puriri railway station was to the west of the village from Morrinsville and was open from 1898 to 1951. The former railway is now used by the Hauraki Trail. Education. Puriri School is a coeducational full primary (years 1-8) school with a decile rating of 7 and a  roll of 31. The school celebrated its 80th anniversary in 1961 and its 125th anniversary in 2003. There was an earlier school called Puriri School, which flourished in 1837.