Joseph Masters, cooper, community leader, farmer, politician & writer was a self-appointed spokesperson for the Wellington working men, he met with the Governor, Sir George Grey (1812-1898) and requested 25,000 acres in the Wairarapa be set aside specifically for small farm settlement, to enable working class people to purchase land. If suitable land could be found and Maori owners were willing to sell, the Government promised to buy the land and make it available at a reduced price for small farm settlement.
With Te Retimana Te Korou, they were the originators of the Small Farms Association.
The first six European pioneer settlers arrived on foot across the Rimutaka hill with their possessions carried by four bullocks. They made camp (near Cobblestones where a small memorial marks the spot) and set to work building shelters and small cottages. settled in Te Hupenui on 27 March 1854 under the Small Farms Association Settlement Scheme, a group of Wellington and Hutt Valley settlers of small means who were worried that the wealthy were in a position to buy the Wairarapa land that the Government had purchased from tangata whenua. They had persuaded the Government to set aside a portion of land for them. The Association ended up with two pieces of land, one alongside the Waiohine River and the other northern piece alongside the Waipoua River.

Joseph took the lead in the planning and establishment of Greytown, Wairarapa's oldest town and NZ's first planned inland town.
The southern town, Te Hupenui, was renamed Greytown after Governor Grey, a strong supporter of the scheme, while the northern town, Whakaoriori, was renamed Masterton after the scheme's instigator, Joseph Masters.

His bio is taken from Te Ara: Joseph's father, a leather breeches manufacturer, died when Joseph was a child, and his mother was forced to take up employment as a nurse. From an early age Joseph worked in a silk mill, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day. He frequently fell asleep and tumbled off the high stool on which he was perched in order to reach the bobbins. During this time his mother married a wealthy man with a large family. As a factory boy Joseph was considered too humble to associate with them, and went into lodgings. In 1809 and 1810, after being dismissed from his job, Joseph attended school, where the discipline was harsh.

Joseph then went to live with his grandmother at Wilton, but she was too poor to keep him. He found accommodation in stables and washed horses for 6d. on market days. Eventually his uncle, a cooper at Rugby, sent for him. He completed an apprenticeship as a cooper before serving for six years in the Grenadier Guards. He then worked for periods as a Bow Street officer and a gaoler. On 15 January 1826 at Lambeth he married Sarah Bourton.

In his early life Joseph Masters was mindful of his appearance and manners. He later resolved 'to shew to poor friendless boys, similarly situated to myself that by civility, honesty, industry, and sobriety, avoiding gambling, and bad language how they may educate themselves sufficient to be useful, and to raise themselves in the world to a respectable position.' Although he had little formal schooling, he recognised its worth and was keen to see that other working class children were properly educated.

In May 1832 Masters emigrated with his family to Hobart, Tasmania, arriving in September 1832. He worked there as a cooper for a whaling firm. Leaving Tasmania in 1841, he travelled with his family by way of Sydney and the Bay of Islands to Wellington, New Zealand. In 1842 he set up as a ginger-beer manufacturer at Te Aro and then as a cooper on Lambton Quay.

Keenly interested in small-farm settlements, Masters wrote a series of letters to the Wellington Independent under the name 'Working Man'. He suggested that working men 'should unite and purchase a large block of land'. A committee could then be appointed to oversee the survey of the land into blocks of about 30 acres, each with a town allotment. After a public meeting on 19 March 1853 a working men's land association, later known as the Small Farm Association, was formed. Two of the committee, Masters and C. R. Carter, waited on Governor George Grey and requested his assistance. Grey's support led to blocks being made available in Wairarapa from Maori land purchases. Masters accompanied H. H. Jackson to Wairarapa to persuade the Maori to sell.
Sarah Masters, his first wife, died on 12 March 1859. On 5 December that year, at Pauatahanui, near Wellington, he married Sarah Bowler, a widow. There were no children of the marriage. Joseph Masters died on 21 December 1873 and was buried in Masterton, the town which had been named after him.

A leader of vision and courage, Masters had a sincere desire to improve the lot of others. He is generally regarded as the founder of the Small Farm Association, whose aims were achieved largely because of his energy and practical leadership. The Wairarapa settlements which he helped establish were the earliest planned small farm subdivisions in New Zealand. Although the size of unit and terms of occupancy would vary, the same pattern of subdivision was followed by official and private agencies for the next 50 years.

Wairarapa Standard, 24 Dec 1873
The Late Mr MASTERS Information was received in Greytown on Sunday evening of the death of Mr Joseph Masters at his residence near Masterton, after a brief illness, in the 73rd year of his age. As the originator of the Small Farm Association, by the members of which the Greytown and Masterton townships were founded and as an old, active, and useful settler the lamented deceased deserves more than a passing notice at our hands.
Mr Masters was born, we believe, in Derbyshire at about the commencement of the present century and subsequently removed to Warwickshire and was apprenticed to the cooperating trade at the village of Brislow near Rugby. He afterward enlisted in the army and ultimately came out to Tasmania in charge of some convicts. On obtaining his discharge he received the appointment of gaoler to one of Her Majesty's prison in that Colony and subsequently removed with his wife and children to Wellington in which province he has ever since resided.
During the time he lived on Lambton Quay he took an active part in all local and political questions, becoming a wam parizan of Sir George Grey during his first administration of the Government of this Colobt. In 1852 he wrote a series of letters in the Wellington Independent in favor of the Small Farm system and in the following year the Small Farm Association was established of which he was one of the principal office bearers and active members.
In 1853 he was an unsuccessful candidate for a seat in the Provincial Council, but in 1856 he was returned as a member of that body for the Wairarapa. Some time previous to this event, however, the Association founded the two townships of Greytown and Masterton, the one being named after Sir George Grey and the other after Mr Masters in the vicinity of which he has ever since been a settler.
In 1867 he established the Small Farm settlement of Alfredton. In 1865 he was again returned as one of the representatives of this district in the Provincial Council, as he was also in 1869, when his election was unopposed. At the last Provincial election he was one of the unsuccessful candidates and has since lived in retirement.
Mr Masters was twice married, on the second occasion to the widow of the late Mr Joseph Bowler who survives him. He has left only one surviving daughter, wife of B. P. Perry, Esq., of the Taratahi.
There have not been many more useful settlers in the province than the late Mr Masters. His education and talents were far from being anything remarkable, but what he had of either he devoted to the benefit of his fellow settlers and with the happiest results.
His funeral will take place today, when his body will be interred in the Masterton cemetery with Masonic honors.

His burial site is said to be 50 metres from his friend Retimana who is in Plot TKTR, Plan III, Row 4. Death date is an error on Joseph's headstone