New Zealand - Hastings - Flaxmere College - Room 7 - 1993 Do you have more information about the school or the people in this photo? Please use the comment section below to share. To search for other photos from this school, please type the schools name in to our search engine. Flaxmere - A township in the Hastings District and outlying suburb of Hastings City - The original European owner of the land was Sir William Russell, for many years of local member of parliament and Leader of the Opposition from 1894 to 1901. Russell called his estate Flaxmere - When Hastings City Council needed to expand, subdivision of the land started in 1963 and in the following year, the area was incorporated into the area held by the (then) city council - Flaxmere was intended to be an upper-middle class subdivision but because land was subdivided into smaller lots it turned into a low income neighbourhood