APPET I SER
Southland Electrification “The fledgling board purchased five six-seater touring cars for various purposes - but especially for surveying work, as every house had to be accounted for on maps� writes Gay Buckingham in her article on Southland Power. Turn to page 58 for the full story.
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E D I TORIAL
Dear Readers, Early European migration is an underlying theme in this issue. Our leading article follows the adventures of May who sailed from Australia to New Zealand, initially settling in Ashburton and then on to Napier, where she had a profound effect on her family and community. The sailing ship Euterpe brought its fair share emigrants from the “homeland”, as did the SS Napier (a ship noted for its fast 71-day voyage from Glasgow to Port Chalmers), and the published stories demonstrate the hardships endured by these nineteenth century migrants. June Bowen writes in her article, “The water closets proved to be defective and the effluent was carried aloft in buckets up a vertical ladder to be disposed of over the ship’s railings. Three days into the journey it was discovered that the crew had eaten the entire meat rations for the journey…” Imagine! And the likelihood of ever returning after this oft-treacherous voyage to the other side of the world was slim. As the nation marks the 100th and 75th anniversaries of World War I and World War II respectively, we have received numerous war related articles. This issue’s valued contribution from Matt Elliott comes from the unique angle of “soldiers and footballers”. As always we include a sprinkling of shorter pieces purely for enjoyment: Rusty Went Shopping and Election Laughs, contributed by two of our popular authors, meet this criterion admirably. Rae Atkins brings a tale of mystery to the mix, perhaps with another chapter to be added if readers can provide further information. History is ever-evolving. Keep warm as we look forward to an imminent Spring.
Wendy Rhodes, Editor
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ges).
Editor Wendy Rhodes Photographic Scanning Anne Coath
C ON T EN TS
Contents
An Enduring Grandmother Called May
Administration David Rhodes
John Bluck pays a deserving tribute.
Distributed by Gordon and Gotch
An endearing short story from Christopher Moor.
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Rusty Went Shopping
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Akaroa Days, 1936-1942
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Contributors
Meals were regulated at the Bishop house writes John Bishop.
Akaroa Museum Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ Aotea Utanganui Museum Collection of South Taranaki Atkins, Rae Aubin, Paul Barrington, Ernie Billinghurst, Peter Bishop, John Bluck, John Bowen, June Buckingham, Gay Dove, Y. and R. Elliott, Matt Gore Historical Museum Hayes, Neville Keesing, Neil Lakes District Museum McLean, Jennifer Moor, Christopher Nelson Provincial Museum, Pupuri Taonga o Te Tai Ao New Zealand Police Museum Peka, June Petone Library Plummer, Jenifer Simpson, Patricia A. Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries Sneddon. M Southland Museum and Art Gallery, Niho o Te Taniwha Stapleton, Doug Tairawhiti Museum, Te Whare Taonga o te Tairawhiti The Power Company Limited, Invercargill – Archives Tiller, E Vague, John Wairarapa Archives Ward, K.B. Wyndham Museum Opinions: Expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of New Zealand Memories. Accuracy: While every effort has been made to present accurate information, the publishers take no responsibility for errors or omissions. Copyright: All material as presented in New Zealand Memories is copyright to the publishers or the individual contributors as credited.
Cover image: An Egmont County roading accident in about 1915.
Courtesy: Aotea Utanganui Museum Collection of South Taranaki.
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Jenifer Plummer recalls her golden days of childhood.
War Blacks: Soldiers and Footballers
Matt Elliott researches the topic.
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Debutante Balls
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Dunedin society in the 1950s by Paul Aubin.
Cooking Memories from my Childhood From the Regions: Eastland
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A Ship and a Family
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Growing Up in 1950s Green Lane
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Peter Billinghurst traces two lineages. Fond memories from Neil Keesing.
Centrefold: A Pose for the Camera?
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Nelson’s Ship Hotel in about 1889.
Emigrating to New Zealand in Steerage
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Tin Tags
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A fascinating account of 1879 arrivals by June Bowen.
June Peka contributes a collector’s story.
General Election Laughs
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On the Premises
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Railway Mementoes, Collectibles and Antiques
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Thereby Hangs a Mystery
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Matt Elliott offers a timely piece.
Jennifer McLean’s fine article is set in Martinborough. A valuable NZ Railways collection is shared. Rae Atkins unravels an unusual family tale.
From the Regions: Southland
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Mailbox
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Reader’s Response: The Hope and the Glory
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Index and Genealogy List
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Editor’s Choice: These boots are made for walking
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Contributed by the New Zealand Police Museum. ISSN 1173-4159
August/ September 2017
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An Enduring Grandmother Called May By John Bluck
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STORY
E
very family has a standout member; someone whose energy lingers on long after their death, and whose influence is out of all proportion to others. In my family it’s a diminutive grandmother. She died back in 1974, but her story continues to define our lives. It’s a trans Tasman story that straddles two world wars and a catastrophic earthquake, shaped by values that have made New Zealand what it is, at its best. Though most of Mabel Emily Brawn’s story happened in Napier, it began on a farm called Vine Grove outside Ballarat in Australia where fortunes were still being won and lost on the goldfields. Her father Edward’s discovery of a 24 ounce nugget triggered a gold rush all of its own at Spring Hill. The family enjoyed wealth for a while; May remembered her father’s pockets bulging with gold sovereigns. Sadly the riches were drunk away, which led his daughter to take the Temperance pledge at an early age. May, as she was always known, was the youngest of ten (eight surviving) children. Her mother died while May was still a baby and her grandmother, at the age of 73, took over the raising of the children. May quickly developed the qualities that were to shape her life: independence and resourcefulness, resilience and courage, and a vivid imagination. As a girl at Vine Grove, having never seen the sea, she imagined it was like the billowing fields of wheat around her, and gold was a metaphor for her of romance and tragedy. In her dreams the streets of Ballarat were paved with gold. At 18, May left home and discovered the real sea on a turbulent journey. She sailed to Perth where she worked as a milliner, first in the mining town of Kalgoolie, where hats were not best sellers, then back to Perth where her hats won media attention. In particular, her “tegel straw trimmed with daises” drew admiration; it was a hat that she wore to the races while working as a nursemaid for a prominent Jewish family in the city. That little detail also points of things to come: devout religion - an ecumenical spirit in an
age where sectarianism ruled - and a carer’s vocation. By 1908 she settled in Ashburton, following an older sister Ada who had arrived in New Zealand earlier to train as a nurse in Hokitika and had married pioneer farmer, Owen Farrell, at Owen River near Murchison. Another sister Edie also came over to train; New Zealand at that time was the only country to register trained nurses and offer a small salary. May completed three years nursing training at the county hospital in Ashburton, following in the steps of her sisters. Ada, then Edie went on to serve as nurses with the NZ Expeditionary Forces in the Middle East, and were later employed as Plunket nurses in Napier, while sister Annie served with the Australian forces in India. May didn’t follow a military career but became a ward sister in Napier Hospital where she quickly established an impressive reputation. No one was more impressed than a patient called William Norman who had been moved into May’s ward and expected to die there following the amputation of a leg badly crushed in a horse and dray accident when the dray wheels got caught in the newly laid tram lines. May nursed William back to life and they fell in love and married in the Anglican Cathedral. Instead of carrying a bridal bouquet, she walked up the aisle with a prayer book in her hand. Such expressions of religious devotion weren’t unusual at the time. Church had long been at the centre of her life, as it was in William’s family, though loyalties there were divided. His mother Margaret was a devout Irish Catholic and felt compelled to consult the local nuns - who knew May from her hospital work - about the suitability of this Anglican nurse for her son. The nuns’ reply to Margaret was terse and to the point: “You should get on your knees and thank God”. Married life produced four children and full time motherhood for May, with William working for Williams and Kettles in Port Ahuriri and being promoted to Head Storeman in 1929. The family thrived and enjoyed holidays together in a surprisingly wide range of places, given the challenges of travelling
May didn’t follow a military career but became a ward sister in Napier Hospital where she quickly established an impressive reputation. 5
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STO RY
by steamer, train and bus, to everywhere from Waikaremoana to Owen River. Families hosting holidays was commonplace then and all sorts of friends offered hospitality to the Norman crew. The decade to follow, wracked by depression, earthquake and another war, ended that happy time. The 1931 Napier earthquake traumatized William when the Williams and Kettles’ buildings collapsed around him. Two years later, with deteriorating health, he was effectively made redundant though allowed to remain in the company house. He died in 1937 and May was left with four children to raise on her own with little money. She took on work with the Red Cross, teaching first aid in girls’ schools around Hawke’s Bay for a pound a week. Despite her meagre resources, she was determined that her children would all complete their education and that eldest son Edward would go to university, which he did, until the war intervened and he volunteered for the army. Edward went on to become the youngest Lieutenant Colonel in the New Zealand Army, and after a distinguished war career became an Anglican priest and eventually Bishop of Wellington. Eldest daughter Alice trained as a teacher. Anne became a nurse like her mother (then quite unlike her mother, a flight attendant with Australian National Airways, later to become Qantas) and younger brother Alen became a banker after war service. He had tried to enlist in the army, under age, until May intervened very forcefully at the recruiting office. So he joined the Air Force instead. 6
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STORY
“BATCHELOR’S REST HOUSEMAID WANTED URGENT” Two men in a packing case shelter, erected after the 1931 Hawke’s Bay Earthquake. Despite the devastating conditions, a sense of humour lightened the load. Spelling wasn’t a priority. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ. Ref: 135772n
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C UI SI NE
The author with his father and mother in late 1954.
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C U I SI N E
Cooking Memories from My Childhood John Bishop
O
ne inescapable fact influenced every aspect of our domestic life when I was growing up. My father was diagnosed as a type one diabetic when I was four
years old. According to the medical practices of the day this meant that he had to avoid certain foods high in sugar, and seek a balance of protein and carbohydrate in each and every meal. Meals were to be taken at the same time each day – which suited his temperament anyway. He tested his blood sugar three times a day and injected insulin twice a day. Adjustments to food intake took into account his physical work, alcohol consumption, test results and variations in meal times. In practice this meant that he ate meat, or a suitable protein substitute like eggs, three times a day, ate only certain vegetables and avoided others entirely. Broad beans were out. Peas, pumpkin, potatoes, kumara, and parsnip were allowed in regulated quantities. Silver beet, carrots, beans, spinach, cabbage, cauliflower, tomatoes, lettuce and other salad ingredients were all fine. We ate what he could eat. There was always cold meat in the house, which he took in his sandwiches to the office each day – except on Thursdays when he allowed himself a cold meat and salad lunch at a café on Lambton Quay called the Rose Milk Bar – now long gone. Cold meat was generated from a roast on Sunday – typically lamb, but often beef, only occasionally pork, and rarely chicken (which was expensive and served only on special occasions). Usually there was a second dish to generate cold meat during the week – boiled corned beef, meat loaf, stuffed topside. Fish featured from time to time, and I can recall tripe on weekends, but offal was not a staple. Kidneys came in steak and kidney pie, but liver didn’t get across the door, and black pudding was unknown. I can recall wild foods like duck and goose being given to us occasionally, but never crayfish or scallops. Whitebait was a rarity, but my father liked oysters, and they were bought several times in a season and consumed with much pleasure.
Saccharine, the only artificial sweetener available, was used in cooking as a substitute for sugar, and my mother would preserve countless bottles of fruit each season. For my father alone, she’d preserve 30 to 40 kilograms of pears, plus apricots, plums, peaches, and whenever our nectarine tree decided to produce, there’d be some of them too. There were gooseberries from the garden – it was my job to pick them - and tree tomatoes (now called tamarillos) from our tree. My father ate preserved fruit with cream, and either junket or a baked custard almost every night. In the winter there was sago, tapioca and creamed rice, all of which I regarded as wholly vile. My mother and I ate preserved fruit too (ours was done with sugar not saccharine) and in winter there was apple charlotte, and steamed pudding – usually apple or peach. Ice cream was a treat. I took my lunch to primary school each day, although I normally came home once a week. Lunch was sandwiches, usually with meat, sometimes vegemite and lettuce or Chesdale cheese slices. Salmon and shrimp paste came in a little glass jar. It sounded exotic, but was very familiar. (We saved the jars for kitchen use.) I don’t recall jam sandwiches, but I can remember both honey and banana (separately) as fillings when I was very young. One common addition to the lunchbox was mousetraps. They were not to be confused with “cheesies”, a Sunday night staple in the winter consisting of thick slices of bread, topped with tomato, onion and sometimes bacon, and grilled until the overlay of cheese melted. Mousetraps were fingers of twice-baked bread with vegemite and cheese. To make them, my mother would lightly toast several slices of white bread. She’d butter them and spread vegemite evenly and then scatter grated cheese lightly. The bread was then cut into fingers, usually four or five per slice, and baked in a hot oven until crisp and dry. Once cooled they were stored in an airtight tin. I’d get two or three for a mid-morning or afternoon snack. Helping my mother to make mousetraps is, I recall fondly, my earliest culinary experience. n 21
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A Pose for the Camera?
The Ship Hotel in Haven Road at The Port, Nelson City was built in 1861 and enlarged in1865. The following year William Wright was granted the hotel’s first licence. This photograph is dated about 1889 and captures the essence of an early New Zealand port in its heyday. It would be intriguing to know exactly what is happening in this image. Does it mark an occasion, or is it simply a pose for the camera? Please contact the New Zealand Memories’ office if you can clarify. Nelson Provincial Museum Pupuri Taonga o Te Tai Ao Ref: 179313 / 3 (8 x 10 69) Tyree Studio Collection
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Thereby Hangs a Mystery By Rae Atkins (nee Horn)
“A faded studio photograph shows a dapper fellow, immaculately dressed.� 52
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STORY
I
will tell you of little George - George Wilson who became George Wilberforce Wilson, the hypnotist and my great uncle. Born in Auckland 3 April 1884 to Alice and Arthur Wilson, George was in an Industrial school for destitute and neglected children by age two, with his two sisters, Edith and Florence. He also had brothers; one, my grandad, Walter Henry (Harry) was born in Ireland and Archie, born in England before parents Arthur and Alice were shipped out to Auckland on Glenlora in 1875 in a cabin. Not steerage. Maybe there was a reason for a paid fare. Family stories abound. After several more births, Arthur deserted his family in Auckland and went off to the Waikato to look for work. The recession of the 1880s began to bite leaving Alice destitute with no income to tend her family. Arthur was searched for by police in Morrinsville to pay maintenance of 5 shillings per week for each child but was not found there, or at any time. Alice somehow made her way to Sydney, without the children, possibly on Ringarooma in 1885, and once there called herself “Mrs Westlake”. Later she tended Judge Cantor’s two children after his wife’s death where she was known to be kindly and affectionate. Did she ever think of her own children? Found wandering the streets, Walter and Archie were picked up by the authorities and brought before the court. They were then placed in the Kohimarama Industrial School by the sea at Mission Bay; conditions were miserable and life was harsh with an ex army officer in charge. The comment on the boys’ admission, written by the officer who chose to dip his pen in the other ink well and write in red “Mother bad”, revealed that some ways to make a living were not always acceptable. One is not to judge before understanding the difficulties which faced a young mother with no provider or welfare state support, and living a long way from family in England. The sisters, Edith and Florence, together with wee
George were also given up by their mother and placed in the Girls’ Howe Street Industrial School where conditions were kinder and girls were able to look after little George who, although registered to both parents, was deemed illegitimate by the authorities. From these schools the pupils were educated and disciplined and, where possible, boarded out and sent to public schools. Some remained in the Kohimarama institution for a considerable time and had visiting teachers until they were able to walk the distance to Tamaki West School. Outdoor duties included milking cows, scrubbing little pigs and attending vegetable gardens. When of age, Howe Street girls went out to service while boys went to Costley Training Institute in Richmond Road, Ponsonby to learn a trade. In 1909 George was employed as “District Manager” of the Temperance and General Mutual Life Society having been discharged from Costley Training Centre after five years. The cost for each child to stay at the Centre was £25 (pounds) per year. Boys earned £8-10 per year. From that amount they were given sixpence per week pocket money and the rest was banked and given to them as a lump sum when they were discharged. On occasions George stayed in Wanganui with his brother, Harry, now married, and my mother. A little girl adored her uncle and was in awe of him… he was such fun. That is all she remembered of him. From here the mystery begins. On 15 July 1916 he announced in the Observer that he was retiring from Government Life Insurance Department to concentrate on public demand for hypnotic treatment of nervous disorders. Now known as George Wilberforce (“Will by force”) Wilson, Hypnotist. Where he gained this knowledge and who he lived with in those intervening years after leaving Costley is a mystery. Did the families who boarded him recognise he had a gift? Was there a training school, he attended? An advertisement in the New Zealand Herald dated 15 July 1915 states, 53
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E D I TOR’ S
CHOICE
These boots are made for walkin’...
New Zealand Police Museum Collection Ref: 2013/158/1
New Zealand Police Museum Collection Ref: 2016/500/1.
Last year New Zealand Police marked the 75th Anniversary of women in policing. The first intake of women into Police Training at Wellington’s Newtown depot was in June 1941. It took a further eleven years to see a policewoman in uniform. The inset shows the first group of uniformed policewomen. From left: Constables P.M. Law, N. Lankow, L. Pedersen, L. Lawrence, B. Halcrow, E.B. Pearce, P. Lambie, M. White in 1952. Judging by the two policewomen walking past the tugboat Kupe in 1972, uniforms certainly kept in step with current fashion trends.
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