100 Years of School at Wimbledon
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Upper Wainui, renamed Wimbledon in 1887, looking up the valley towards the school, one mile away. In the foreground is the Hotel, built by Cripps, burnt down c. 1889 and rebuilt by George Cripps. The small building just beyond the Hotel may have been the first post office.
To the right, obscured by the pine tree, is the store built for Robert and Ellen Franklin in 1882. Behind the store is the house and just beyond both the Cripps’ shed.
The big house opposite, known as Wimbledon Hills was the house of Mark Franklin.
A number of smaller homes are visible – all built close to the Wainui Stream.
George Carmichael, bullock driver, lived in the little old cottage still to be seen at the entrance to S.W. Gollan’s woolshed. He sold it to Robert Pope, also a bullock driver, c. 1905
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MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN OF
THE WIMBLEDON SCHOOL CENTENNIAL
COMMITTEE
One hundred years of education is being celebrated in the Wimbledon district this year. Our forefathers in 1891 had the foresight to establish a school in the growing rural community of Wimbledon, the history of which is documented in this book. One hundred years ago, education was just as important as it is today.
Like all other areas of New Zealand, Wimbledon suffered during the two World Wars. To remember those people who had fought and died for our district and country, the cenotaph was built to commemorate World War I, with the War Memorial baths built for World War II.
In the post-World War II era, rural areas grew and schools flourished with higher rolls. This was not to last and a general depopulation of rural areas has occurred, resulting in the Wimbledon School being the only survivor of the three local schools – the others being Te Tree Point and Herbertville.
It is to the credit of the teachers, administrators, school committee and board of trustees that Wimbledon School is thriving in our community today and is well-placed for future years.
I would like to thank our community for the support extended to the school, in the form of committees, working bees, extra curriculum outings and to congratulate pupils on their achievements since leaving Wimbledon School.
S.R. Morgans, Chairman
MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
On behalf of the school board of trustees, I would like to extend a warm welcome to everyone attending this, the Wimbledon School Centennial Reunion.
Around one hundred years ago our district’s forebears gathered together and decided that our district needed a school for their children. One can only wonder in awe at the daunting tasks facing that committee – clearing the site of standing bush, milling the timber, building the school and attracting the services of a teacher.
On reflection our present tasks and problems pale into insignificance.
The school remains vitally important to our community as it obviously was one hundred years ago.
Let us hope that today’s continuing drive for new economies and efficiency leaves us unscathed and permits our school to last another hundred years.
I hope you all have a good time, have a safe journey home and return to our next reunion.
Murray Donald, Board of Trustees
MESSAGE FROM J.A.N. HALFORD C.B.E.
M.B.E. J.P.
It gives me great pleasure to contribute in a small way to the Wimbledon School’s Centennial magazine, as I was the school’s Ward Member on the Hawke’s Bay Education Board for 24 years, until a re-arrangement of boundaries meant that Mr Dal Walker took my place. Later as Chairman of the Hawke’s Bay Education Board I was able to continue my interest in the school, and visit regularly.
In February, 1960, I had the unenviable task of deciding which of the two schools, Herbertville or Wimbledon should remain open, as pupils were transferring from one to the other quite frequently. After consulting with both committees and the Education Board, it was agreed that the Herbertville School would close and the pupils go permanently to Wimbledon. A new classroom had to be added to the school. In 1961 a new schoolhouse was built. In August 1977 six Education Board members and staff and the school committee inspected the large trees which were becoming a problem. These were felled by Mr Jim Bassett with the local community providing assistance with heavy machinery and equipment at no cost to the Education Board.
I would like to wish the Centennial Committee every success with the celebrations. My wife and I know only too well how much work is involved.
I have always had a very friendly relationship with the Wimbledon School Committees over the years and I would like to congratulate them on their school. It is a school of which we can all be proud.
Bert Halford.
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WIMBLEDON
The Wimbledon district is a small one. It extends for about three miles in a radius centred at the village which lies at the intersection of three adjoining valleys. The homes of the earliest settlers were scattered along the valleys and built close to the stream running through them – the Wimbledon and the Angora leading into the Wainui and the Waikapiro [Waikopiro]
First homes were slab huts with roofs of thin, wooden, overlapping tiles.
The nature of the country determined the type of home built by the earliest European settlers. The absence of timber trees along the coastal strip forced the first settlers at Wainui to construct their homes of mud dug from the river bank, while those at Whangaehu and Porangahau built theirs of raupo and other local materials in the fashion of the Maori.
In 1886 when Tautane Block V was offered by the Government as available for settlement, those who took up sections were largely a second generation of settlers. Some were sons and daughters of pioneers and had their roots in the Wairarapa, Wainui or Porangahau.
Almost all who came to settle had close family ties with others.
The relationships are so involved that for this particularly history are best left unexplained.
The village, at that time called Upper Wainui, had been established in 1882 when the store had been built for Robert Franklin and his bride, Ellen Cripps. The village became a family affair with all businesses and properties occupied by Franklins and Cripps.
They were followed by another family group – Taylor, Teychenne and Burgoyne.
Wainui, on the coast, seven miles from Wimbledon, had been settled for more than thirty years. It was a well established village with a hotel, several stores, a post office with a Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, a school, a cemetery, and a hall built to be used as a skating rink.
There was a policeman, a resident doctor, several blacksmiths, stables, a race course and a cricket pitch.
It was there at Cape Turnagain that the small coastal boats called, bringing stores, household and farming goods, and taking away wool and other produce or passengers.
For many years it was the only outlet for such goods and even until the 1930s it was still being used.
Until the Manawatu Gorge was bridged in 1875 there was no route through the centre of the island – and until the clay track was formed through the bush to Dannevirke from the coast in the late 1890s the land route followed the coast from Wellington.
At Wainui travellers on foot or horse, and those with stock, turned inland at the Tautane Ridge – ‘impassable to man’ – and followed the old Maori tracks up Doctor’s Gully and to the north.
A stock inspector’s station had been established at the Waimata and the rabbit fence stretching from the sea along the boundary between the Wairarapa and Hawkes’ Bay to the Ruahine Ranges was already under construction.
Settlers living up the Angora Valley were close to this fence and had regular contact with those involved in the building or the manning of it. They had contact also with those travellers who passed up and down the fence using it as a guide before the bush was cleared and who used the Angora Valley as a thoroughfare when settlement was gradually moving inward towards Te Tree Point and Weber.
Some indication of conditions as they existed in 1888 are reported in ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF NEWSPAPERS IN DANNEVIRKE.
“The latest news received from the Wainui and Tautane Districts describes the main road through the bush as in a most deplorable state. If immediate
Photo caption – Alf Lambert takes wool to Cape Turnagain in 1917.
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action is not taken to repair the damage before the rainy season sets in for good, dray traffic will have to cease entirely as the road, in many places, would be completely impassable. The damages consist mainly of choked culverts throwing the surface water on to the formation and small slips through the cuttings.
In addition five or six bullock drays have been constantly carrying heavy loads of rabbit fence material over the road for the last three months, churning the formation into a perfect quagmire. Horsemen getting their horses bogged is not a rare occurrence. As far as we can hear, corduroying these places would be the only means of making the road passable. And it is urgently necessary that repairs should be effected without delay.
The Tautane settlers are now busy ring-fencing their clearings, burned last season, where the young grass is showing well and which will be left unprotected if the wire cannot be brought on the ground.
A petition signed by all the settlers in Wainui and Tautane is now lying for signatures in the office of the Advocate.
This petition, which we hope will be signed by every settler in and around Dannevirke, points out the great importance to us all of having the road formed right through without delay.
We recommend this question to the attention of our Member”.
Wainui was renamed Herbertville on July 1, 1883.
Tautane Village was renamed Weber on November 4, 1889.
Upper Wainui was renamed Wimbledon on July 1, 1887.
Wimbledon was in the Wainui District.
It wasn’t until about 1895 that a road of sorts was opened and Thomas Maunder Mills, known as Honest Tom, started running a four-horse buggy mail service between Dannevirke and Weber, and at a later date this was extended as far as Herbertville.
It was nothing for Honest Tom to have to cut a track through the fallen timber or make his way round or through fallen slips and washouts. He never knew what to expect as some places along the route, such as Berntsen’s Slip, were notoriously hazardous, giving trouble year after year. Very often it was impossible for the coach to get through.
J. G. Wilson in SOME REMINISCENCES OF DANNEVIRKE wrote:
‘This was one of the most notorious roads in New Zealand for slips and mud, which for miles was up to the horses’ girths.’
Of the stretch from Weber to Wimbledon, he said,
‘The next 16 miles to Wimbledon were far worse. One notorious slip came down every winter for thirty eight years until at last a detour was made.’
Photo caption – The landing place at Cape Turnagain
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The slip at Wimbledon was, of course, the one at Tutu Bend, between the school and the Angora Road. When it came down in those pre-mechanisation days it was a case of ‘all hands and the cook!’ Many a Wimbledon school teacher has served time on the end of a shovel at Tutu Bend.
Life was undoubtedly hard for those who first came to settle at Wimbledon and living conditions were rough and crude.
The edge of the bush, known variously as the 40 mile, 70 mile and 90 mile bush, was marked by the enormous white pine whose stump still stands beyond the Wimbledon Hotel.
New Zealand was in the grips of a severe depression.
Most had laboured for years to accumulate enough money to take up land on their own account and there was little to spare. From their diaries, ledgers and reminiscences we have learned of the dangers faced during the burning and clearing of the bush, the growing of the rape and cocksfoot seed – important income earners before farms were properly stocked – how they laboured for each other, the system of borrowing and lending among neighbours eking out their stores until the arrival of the next coastal boat, and the importance of things that in today’s world seem rather strange.
Carefully kept ledgers detail performances of hens and ducks, eggs laid and eggs hatched and disasters which befell them. The enterprising Taylor White hired out his white cock for service. That it came up to expectations can be judged by the fact that in 1888 it spent time at Job Bond’s, Ridley’s, Mrs Cripps’ and Mrs Sargent’s whom he recorded ‘has paid 1/6d partly for it.’
Len Breakwell, blacksmith, Wainui and later, settler up the Angora Valley, spoke of one neighbour and his hut.
“You could have scraped the dirt off the floor with the spade,” he said.
Another added – “he was dirty alright. The neighbours didn’t know which smelled worse – him or his billy goats!’
Of another bachelor living on the bank of the Wimbledon Stream they said – “The block of butter was always on the table in his hut with the candle in the middle and he worked his way around it!”
“Times were very hard,” said Len, remembering that some settlers took round tobacco tins to his forge to have handles welded and these they used for drinking. And he remembered the day he rode down Sargent’s Hill to be confronted by the body of a man hanging from a tree.
They lived within the law as they knew it – or believed it to be.
One fellow living in the Wainui District stayed in bed for years believing that he was beyond the law while there.
It is said that he even hatched eggs in his bed!
And there are those who declare that he was occasionally ‘caught roaming’ at night.
Others came to live for a time in the empty houses changing their names to avoid the debt collector!
There are tales of babies born before their time – and Mrs Moriarty tearing strips from her long black petticoat to tie the cord.
And Harry Chote, caring and helping in times of crisis, going to the butter factory for the boxes for the babies who died before they could be christened and who were buried at home.
Photo caption – Carol Hopkirk, teacher helps to clear the slip at Tutu Bend.
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THE WIMBLEDON SCHOOL
In early June, 1891, Mr Henry H. Hill, Inspector of Schools, met with some of the settlers at Wimbledon with a view to having a school opened there.
The Herbertville Correspondent who reported this meeting in the Waipawa Mail, on June 8, 1891 also wrote, ‘From Wimbledon, he (Henry Hill) goes through the Weber Bush on his way to Dannevirke.
Ye Gods and little fishes! – if he ever gets there he will never forget it!
He had heard that some ladies had gone through and said that where a woman could go he could surely go, but I am sure you will hear of his trip and the specimens he intends to collect on his way.’
Inspector Hill obviously made a successful journey for on June 17, 1891 he reported to the Hawkes Bay Education Board that the proposed school site at Wimbledon was an excellent one and that the settlers were prepared to clear three acres at one. There were thirty-seven children of school age and seven others would be of school age in six months. The Education Board had reserved 7 acres for a school site on March 8, 1886, after the Tautane Block V was offered by the Government as available for settlement.
The school was one mile from the Wimbledon village established about 10 years previously.
It was opposite the Hales’ homestead at Wimbledon Farm. It was centrally situated for all those pupils who, over the years, would either walk or ride to school from Birch Road East, Willow Valley, the Angora Valley, the village, the inland road leading to Porangahau, Waierua, and other places at Upper Wainui.
Concern for education would not have been uppermost in the minds of those earliest settlers arriving in 1886 to establish a home and farm in such a densely bushed area.
Clearing, burning and establishing pasture were top priorities requiring the labour of as many pairs of hands as were available.
As well, New Zealand was suffering the effects of a severe depression which would last for about twenty years. There was little money available from the Hawkes Bay Education Board for the schools that were being opened.
Their income depended upon the size of the school, while the Board dictated what was considered to be legitimate expenditure: –
‘Repairing school and furniture, keeping the school grounds in order, cleaning, lighting, providing fuel and supplying such appliances as the Committee may deem necessary for education purposes and as the funds at its disposal will allow.’
The establishment of a school was something that required careful consideration. While most early settlers had had only a basic education themselves, they were anxious that their own children should learn to read and write at least. Once the decision to establish a school at Wimbledon was made they gave it their utmost support – the kind that lasted for years and years, – long after the needs of their own families had been met.
At the meeting of the Hawkes Bay Education Board held on August 19, 1891, ‘It was agreed that the tender of Mr Hamblin for a new school at Wimbledon be accepted, £224. It appears that three acres of the site had been cleared of bush and the building begun, when Mr Hamblin complained at the Hawke’s Bay Education Board meeting of December 16, 1891, that the chairman of the Wimbledon School Committee had mislead him as to the price at which he could obtain timber. It was, after discussion agreed, to adopt a suggestion of the architect giving the contractor £10 additional if he finished his contract to the satisfaction of the architect.
On March 16, 1892 at the Hawkes Bay Education Board meeting correspondence was received from Wimbledon relative to the new building which it was alleged ‘was faced in the wrong direction – and the work was scamped.’
(Scamped is an old word meaning scimped [scrimped].)
The architect considered that the building was well placed and that the other matters complained of were being rectified. The Board, not entirely satisfied, decided to make no payment until they had received further explanations from the architect.
The following month, correspondence was received at the Hawkes Bay Education Board meeting of April 21, 1892 from Mr Cochrane, Secretary, Wimbledon School Committee reporting that “the erection of the Wimbledon School building was going on satisfactory.’
Mr R. Lamb, architect, reporting on the Wimbledon School stated – ‘The building is completed and the Clerk of Works reports that the requisite
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alterations have been satisfactory and that the work is being completed in strict accordance with the plans and specifications.’
For many pupils the education that they received in this school would be the total extent of their education.
They entered the school on opening day at whatever age they were at and fitted into the system of the day.
They began school in Primer One, regardless of age, if they had not previously attended school, and they were promoted only when the Inspector considered that all the requirements for promotion had been met. Finally, they gained proficiency in Standard Six if they were deemed academically able.
Henry Hill was the Inspector who served this area for many years. Each year in March he left Napier for the annual inspections that included Porangahau, Wainui and Wimbledon.
At Wimbledon the inspections took place in May of each year.
If the pupil passed it was recorded on his New Zealand Education Department Standard Certificate and signed by the teacher of the day. Children who failed stayed in that class until they were able to meet the requirements of the examination. This often put pressure on both pupils and teacher. Failure often meant that the teacher would be the one to suffer most.
One pupil writing of this experience said: –
‘Mr Henry Hill paid his annual visit. He was a bearded gentleman and rode on horseback. He set examination papers which were completed whilst he was at school. After they were marked we were told whether or not we had passed into the next standard and our promotion was entered on our Certificates.’
Henry Hill had been the first Secretary of the Hawkes’ Bay Education Board (1878-1891) and during this period he had been an Inspector of Schools as well. He continued as an Inspector until 1914.
Photo captions –
The first school built in 1891.
Gazette No. 13, March 11, 1886, H.B. Tautane Block V, Section 17a – 7 acres.
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He was not only an outstanding educationalist but a botanist and conservationist as well, involved in this field with Taylor White of the Angora Valley. He was well respected at Wimbledon and when he died a kowhai tree was planted in his honour in a corner of the school grounds.
A letter from the Hawkes’ Bay Education Board Office, Napier, dated October 21, 1892 is addressed to Mr R. Cochrane, Secretary, School, Committee, Wimbledon. It included a tracing of the scale drawing of the school grounds and is signed by George T. Fannin, Secretary, Hawkes’ Bay Education Board (1891 – 1905).
Robert Lamb, F.R.I.A.S., was responsible for the plan used in the building of the first school at Wimbledon. He was the Hawkes’ Bay Education Board’s chief architect from 1882 – 1909.
Photo caption – WIMBLEDON SCHOOL, 1908
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His plans, including the one used at Wimbledon, won a gold medal at the Melbourne Centennial Exhibition. He received a notice of the award from James Hector of the Colonial Museum in a letter dated “Wellington, 27 February, 1890’.
His granddaughter, Mary W. Retemeyer, wrote telling of his life’s work and his involvement with the Wimbledon School in 1966. A newspaper cutting states: –
“Mr Lamb, architect to the Education Board, forwarded to the Board the plans for types of bush schools for which he received a 1st class award at the Melbourne Exhibition. They are to be sent to the Dunedin Exhibition. There are four drawings illustrating three schools designed by Mr Lamb for the Board and adapted for large or small localities. They have been built at Woodville, Manga-atua, Waerenga-a-hika and elsewhere. The Manga-atua School has a small residence for the teacher under the same roof.”
The Wimbledon School is described by A.W.S. Longley, who came as its teacher in 1908: –
‘The school itself consisted of three rooms – the schoolroom, with the sloping floor, large enough to hold fifty children, and the quarters behind for the teacher to live in.’
It will be noted that the teacher had but two rooms to live in – a bedroom and a living room, and that there was neither a bathroom nor a washhouse, and that the toilet was obviously elsewhere.,
These residences were unbelievably small and appalled Henry Hill who, in his capacity as Inspector, wrote of his concern to the Hawkes’ Bay Education Board on many occasions.
While it might be reasonable to expect that those elected to early Education Boards were well educated people, enthusiastic for their job, this was often not so. Too often they were politically motivated, lacking in educational ability and the understanding of the needs of teachers and pupils in a wide variety of differing situations.
In August 1900 the Wimbledon School Committee decided to approach the Hawkes’ Bay Education Board and ask that an additional room be added to the teacher’s residence. It was six months before a reply was received. This included a plan of suggested alterations of their own and £40 towards the cost. Understandably this caused some anger and a suggestion from Evan Morgans that the Board be written to STRONGLY! The outcome was the acceptance of the Wimbledon School Committee’s original request and a second bedroom was built.
It would be eighteen years before there was a bathroom and a washhouse.
On November 1, 1910 F. W. Butterfield, Committee person, proposed that Mr. Exell, plumber at Herbertville, be asked to give full specifications for the proposed washhouse and bathroom.
Photo caption – Mary Morgans believed to be the first pupil enrolled on opening day.
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WIMBLEDON SCHOOL OPENS
Although almost all early records of the school have been destroyed by earthquake or fire, a newspaper report of the Hawkes’ Bay Education Board meeting held on November 17, 1892 included: –
‘The Wimbledon School opened with twenty pupils’.
The actual opening date would have been at some time between the October and November meetings of the Board.
First day pupils recalled that Miss Isabel Smith was the teacher on opening day.
It is believed that Miss Smith was from Woodville and that she had been Dux of that school in 1886. She was undoubtedly young. This may explain why her name did not appear on the Electoral Rolls until 1896 – the year she also left Wimbledon and Miss Hilda Maria Pedersen became the teacher.
Twenty pupils were enrolled on opening day. It is not absolutely certain who they all were.
Mary Morgans has claimed that she was the first pupil to be enrolled.
Sam Sargent has claimed that he ‘was first to put his foot over the school doorstep.’
Job Bond, Margaret Florence Hales, Amelia Maud Hales, Eli Bond, Richard Bond, Ernest Henry Herbert, Lillian Maria Herbert, and Annie Evelyn Herbert are all known to have been first day pupils.
There were ten others – probably Mark Franklin, Edwin Cripps and Ruby Wylie. There would have been Cochranes, Proffits, and others of the families mentioned, and perhaps some long since forgotten about.
Photo captions –
Miss Elizabeth Moore, lower right, with her sisters. Miss Moore was the teacher for more than two years. c. 1898 – May 1900.
Miss Hilda Maria Pedersen, 1896-1898 (right), with Eva Burgoyne.
Miss Isabel Smith, first teacher at Wimbledon School 1892-1896.
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THE FIRST DECADE – AS THEY HAVE REMEMBERED IT
Two years after the school opened in 1892 there were 19 pupils attending.
Tom Morgans recalled, ‘Some of them were almost adult. The boys wore hob-nailed boots to school.’
Birthdates of some original pupils indicate that they were twelve, fourteen years and often older, while some are known to have been at school when they were seventeen years of age. They were almost as old, and some were as big, as the young women who taught them.
Hilda Herbert recalled the names of families who attended the school in the years between 1892 and 1898: –
Cochrane: – John, Bill, Jim, Jane, Florence, Ellen.
Cripps: – Edwin, Emily (Cissy), Jack, Frank, Mercy, Victor.
Herbert: – Lil, Bill, Gertie, Ethel, Annie, Peter, Hilda.
Kerr: – Bill, Lizzie.
Proffit: – Dave, Ted, Bill, Charlie, Frank, May.
Wylie: – Walter, Joshua, Florence, Essie, Ruby.
Johnson: – Jack, Fred, Charlie, Alf, Len.
Ball: – Dick, Muriel.
Sargent: – Minnie, George, Sam.
Olsen: – Ivy.
Bond: – Eli, Job, Dick, Mary, Gertie, Frank.
Taylor: – Ben, Muriel.
Kelly: – Jack, Kathy, Molly.
Franklin: – Bill, Ford, Edith, Balance.
Wilmot: – Albert.
Grant: – Lizzie, Lena, Bill Ernest.
Hales: – Florence, Amelia (Milly), Charlie, Ralph.
Morgans: – Mary, Thomas.
EARLY FAMILIES
William James Herbert and his wife, Emma Jane, of Herbert’s Mount, with their family in 1895, on Rose’s wedding day.
From left: (standing) Annie, Frank, Lil, Ethel. (sitting) Emma Jane, Rose, William, Harry Chote (bridegroom).
In front: Peter, Hilda, Gertie.
William James Herbert was a Committee person for years.
Arthur, Lillian, Ethel, Annie and Peter were first day pupils.
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The Cripps lived in the house at Wimbledon Hills, now owned by S.W. Gollan.
Before that George Cripps had owned the Hotel and is believed to have been the first publican. When sections in Tautane Block V were made available for settlement, Leah Cripps obtained the section known as Mount William.
Thomas and Adah Taylor with their children, Muriel and Ben, were an extremely musical family, ‘never happier than when producing concerts.’ They had the only piano in the District and they would allow it to be take up to Hales’ woolshed by bullock wagon for concerts, balls and other festivities.
Photo captions –
Emily Cripps, called Cissy, on the right was probably a first day pupil. Mercy was one of the younger children of George and Leah Cripps.
Thomas and Adah Taylor.
The family of Job and Sarah Ann Bond.
Job and Sarah Ann Bond had 11 children – five sons and six daughters – all of whom were pupils at Wimbledon School.
Eli, Job Jnr. and Richard were all probable first day pupils. They lived at Spring Creek.
Standing: Gertie, Mary, Minnie.
Seated: Emily, Ada, Elsie.
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The family of Evan and Eleanor Morgans of Mary’s Vale attended the Wimbledon School. Evan Morgans was a member of the first school committee. His son, Alfred Henry Morgans, acted as Committee Chairman or Commissioner for at least twenty years. Alf’s son W.E. Garth Morgans also served as School Committee Chairman for some years, while Garth’s son, Shaun Rhys Morgans is Chairman of the Wimbledon School Centennial Committee. Other sons of Evan Morgans also served on the School Committee and three generations of their children have attended the school as pupils.
The family of Thomas Charles and Jemima Amelia Hales who lived at Wimbledon Farm, opposite the school. All five children attended the school. Margaret Florence and Amelia Maud were first day pupils.
Since that day four generations of this family have attended Wimbledon School.
Photo captions –
The family of Evan and Eleanor Jane Morgans.
Evan Morgans.
The family of Thomas Charles and Jemima Amelia Hales.
A.H. Morgans with his wife Nance and son Garth.
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FOUR GENERATIONS ATTENDED SCHOOL AT WIMBLEDON – 1891-1991
Amelia Maud Hales with her sister, Gladys Sarah Hales.
Kathleen Maud Longley, daughter of Amelia Maud and Arthur W.S. Longley.
The family of Kathleen Maud and Raymond Augustus Ross. Raymond Lyle, Elaine Maud,
Margaret Ruth, Noeline Lousie, Gwendalyn Mary.
Susan Elizabeth Ross.
The family of Raymond Lyle and Christine May Ross. Susan Elizabeth Ross and Marcus Raymond Ross.
Christine Ross is a member of the new Board of Trustees.
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Eileen Crosse remembered that the family of William James Herbert of Herbert’s Mount had had a tutor – George Edward Lanham, after the family moved to Wimbledon in 1886. Prior to that some of the older children had attended the Herbertville School when it opened in 1885. Before that one at least had attended the settlers’ school built and owned by their grandfather, Joseph Herbert.
Other families in the Wainui District are known to have had tutors for their children too – the Herberts of Farnham and the Speedy’s of Woodbank. Tutors were often remittance men – the sons of well-to-do families sent to the colonies for one reason or another.
They had often had a good education but were unfitted for the hard physical labour required in the development of land. Many of them were alcoholic.
A daughter of Annie Herbert remembered that her mother’s family rode to school on ponies from Herbert’s Mount. ‘My mother was the hard case one in her family. She was ‘the teacher’s pet,’ and if the teacher left the room it was her job to report on anyone who misbehaved. Naturally she used the opportunity to score against her sister, Lil. She couldn’t write her name up on the board fast enough. Then there would be a real spat with Lil threatening to ‘tell Dad’ and a frantic effort by Annie to wipe off the name when it became apparent that the teacher was about to return.’
Mercy Cripps, daughter of George and Leah, (formerly Franklin) wrote: – ‘There were six of us Cripps who went to the school at Wimbledon, but I only went for six months before we moved to Wanganui in 1897.’
Milly Hales remembered the day in 1897 when her mother asked 15 year old Florence, still a schoolgirl, to stoke the kitchen fire. It was not unusual for a ball of gas to build up in the flue of those old stoves and cause a blow-back when the door was opened and air let in. On this particular day the blow-back was worse than usual and the girl’s clothes caught fire. In her panic she ran and was fearfully burnt. Her mother, Jemima Hales, asked Milly to run the mile to the village for help. Because it was a cold July day, Milly grabbed her hat – her flat, navy blue, felt with the ribbons – and ran. At the second bridge the wind whipped it off her head and it was only then, because the ribbons were different, that she realised that she had taken her sister’s hat.
Already completely distraught, the enormity of this affected her so badly that she even spoke of it in her dying hours 86 years later.
At the village Mark Franklin saddled his horse and galloped to Wainui for Doctor Riddell. There was little the doctor could do and the poor girl lingered for three days, singing her old school songs in her delirium.
The early settlers lived with death and disaster.
In the school’s first decade there were twelve deaths at Wimbledon, thirty five for the entire Wainui District. Almost all were those of young children or those caused by accident, drowning or
Miss Gallien, teacher, c. 1898
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self-destruction. Few appear to have died from natural causes.
Milly Hales also remembered the October day in 1901 when every child in the school got the strap.
John Herbert and three companions had been felling bush up the Angora Valley. During the night a severe storm caused a huge matai to crash through the roof of their hut, pinning John Herbert across the chest and causing his death. Taylor White, living nearby, had had a few narrow escapes from falling trees himself and had built a coffin. It stood encased in a box in the corner of his woolshed.
This coffin was ‘borrowed’ to transport Herbert’s body to Herbertville for the inquest and burial.
Miss Olsen, the teacher, warned the children that if they heard anything unusual during the day they were on no account to stand up and look out of the window. Eventually they heard a wagon creaking its way down the road and as it drew level with the school each child rose to its feet and looked out of the window and so, each and every one was punished.
School picnics, concerts of fancy dress parties were highlights of every school year providing for the recreational and cultural needs of adults as well as children.
They involved the entire district and were real social occasions, eagerly looked forward to. Everyone attended, attired in their best. This was not always suitable picnic gear!
If the picnic was held at the end of the school year it served as the prize-giving occasion as well. Prizes were awarded for a number of different reasons: – arithmetic, spelling, dictation, grammar, reading, recitation, diligence, good conduct and school gardens. There were probably other reasons as every child was sure to receive a prize.
Prizes were lovingly kept and many are still treasured.
Photo captions –
Wimbledon School 1897. Miss H. Pedersen, teacher.
Back row: – Charlie Hales, Tom Morgans, Job Bond, Sam Sargent, Victor Cripps, Peter Herbert, Jack Cripps, Albert Cripps.
Second row: – Bill Franklin, Walter Wylie, Ted Cripps, Jos Wylie, Eli Bond, Dick Bond.
Third row: – Mary Morgans, Cissy Cripps, Ethel Herbert, Annie Herbert, Florence Hales, Essie Wylie, Milly Hales, Mary Bond.
Fourth row: – Ralph Hales, Frank Cripps, Ford Franklin, Gertie Herbert.
School picnic, 1908. Miss McDonald, teacher.
Page 18
THE FIRST CHAIRPEOPLE
Photo captions –
‘Thomas Charles Hales and his wife Jemima played a prominent part in the founding of the school. It was largely due to his efforts that there was a school. He was the first Chairman.’ – Tom Grant Memories.
James Groves Speedy bought Waierua in the early 1890s. He was school Chairman from 1900 until 1907 when he left the district. He is possible that he served on the Committee before 1900.
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FROM THE RECORDS
The Hawkes’ Bay Education Board letter to Robert Cochrane, Secretary, Wimbledon School Committee, in November 1892 is the only existing record of Committee until 1900.
Then began the Minute Book, Wimbledon School Committee, April 23, 1900 – April 22, 1932.
The first entry records a householders’ meeting. These meetings, held annually always in April, elected the new School Committee. School Committee meetings were held at the school-house, by which they meant the actual classroom, every second month on the last Saturday at 4.00 pm.
A visiting Committee of two attended to emergent needs at the school.
It is interesting to note that one person always coped with the positions of Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer, and that the deciding factor was obviously education.
Seven people attended the annual householders’ meeting held on April 23, 1900 so that all were proposed, seconded and duly elected as Committee: – James Groves Speedy, Chairman, Thomas Charles Hales, Evan Morgans, Mark Franklin, William James Herbert, David Proffit and Job Bond.
As they were all original settlers at Wimbledon it is probable that they had previously served during the pears for which there are no records.
J.G. Speedy would serve for seven years as Chairman before he left the District. T.C. Hales served for thirteen years without missing a meeting, E. Morgans for four years, D. Proffit, for five years, Mark Franklin for two years, W. J. Herbert for four years and J. Bond for five years. Robert Cochrane had left the district before 1900.
THE SCHOOL COMMITTEES
In that first record of Wimbledon School Committee meetings, 1900–1932, by far the most frequent item of business and the most documented one concerns ‘Outhouses’ and more commonly known as dunnies, dykes and long drops.
Different forms, styles and sites plagued each and every Committee for one reason or another, while the cleaning and cleanliness was continually a cause for concern. Understandably it was the most unpopular of all jobs and one which prompted James Groves Speedy to record: –
‘As Chairman I would like to mention that the best thanks of many committees are due to Mr Hales for so long attending to this rather disagreeable work.’ April 1, 1905.
Living so close was no doubt one of the reasons for T.C. Hales coming to the rescue on so many occasions and promising that he would either ‘see to it’ or ‘dig a hole’.
The list titled ‘Nightsoil Removal’ has sparked off a few coarse reminders of the lore and language of every school playground, regardless of generation. Others of long memory have asked that those whose job it was to cut newspaper or Auckland Weeklies into neat little squares be paid a well deserved tribute.
School cleaning too was a matter which occupied much of School Committee meeting times. Although there is a very long list of those invited to perform the task of ‘sweeping the school, and a good wash out every five weeks,’ there is a very short list of acceptances.
In response to a letter from the Board declining to make a grant of thirty four shillings for the metalling of a path to the outhouses, the Committee decided ‘to write again’, renewing the application and ‘to point out how generous the parents have been in the past in fencing, clearing, grassing and otherwise improving the school grounds – August 31, 1906.
For one hundred years School Committees have continually recorded the generosity of their parents
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and district members which has made their task not only easier but also possible.
Another responsibility of the school committee was to appoint the teacher from a list provided by the Hawkes Bay Education Board. If teachers wished to apply for another position it was usual for them to make their intention known to the Committee and to ask for a testimonial. In 1901, after a request for a testimonial had been received, the Committee decided, after discussion, that ‘we wait until after the examinations before granting Miss Marsh’s request.’ The examination results must have been satisfactory as Miss Marsh duly tendered her resignation, saying she had been appointed to Mokotoku [Makotuku] School. The Committee agreed to accept the resignation and forward it to the Board.
The Committee exercised other powers in regard to the teacher too. They demanded strict observance of the times they must be seen to be in their classrooms, attendance at Church, who their visitors might be, how long they stayed, while courting for females was definitely discouraged.
School Committee meetings were held in the schoolroom with the teacher’s residence attached. Although not invited to attend meetings the teacher was required to furnish a monthly report of attendance and other school matters as well as requests for equipment or other needs. She was also required to be at hand, ready to personally answer queries or complaints, if called upon.
The ordeal of confronting a Committee person, big, Irish, loud and angry, to answer to the question “Who is to blame for a message not being received?” can well be imagined, or apologising profusely and promising never again to close the school on an extremely wet day to a Committee who themselves closed it as they pleased for local sports, bazaars, unexpected events or local deaths.
More understandable were the directives to the teacher ‘To prevent childing leaving the school grounds and to prevent all rough play.’ The fact that the directives were issued on more than one occasion and included stone throwing as well, leads the reader to wonder why parents were not involved in the solution of this problem.
By 1903 the Committee had resolved to ask the Hawkes Bay Education Board ‘to furnish names of male applicants for the position at the school and to mention at the same time the difficulty Wimbledon has experienced in keeping it’s teachers, which is greatly accounted for by the loneliness which any teacher has to endure who has no friend or relative with whom to live’.
They were to have two more lady teachers before William Davidson was appointed in January 1904 – the first male teacher recorded as having taught at Wimbledon in the twelve years since the school opened.
He was followed by A.W.S. Longley who stated “With the ink hardly dry on my Teacher’s Certificate …”. In spite of this, Arthur Longley was an impressive teacher, giving great satisfaction to his committee. However, after his marriage in December 1909, Arthur Longley and his wife bought the Wimbledon Store and when the Board became aware that he was conducting a business as well as teaching, he was asked to resign. They did not encourage this practice in those days. From 1911–1918, due to lack of attendance at meetings and the First World War, school affairs were run by commissioners rather than a Committee. By 1914 “Arthur Longley, as a parent, was in a position to become Commissioner and he continued to serve either in this capacity or as Chairman of the Committee until 19127.
History was made at the Householders’ Meeting in April 1919. For the first time in twenty-eight years women attended the meeting and as well, three offered themselves for election.
Mrs Helen Muriel Pope was elected to the Committee.
It is noticeable that at subsequent Householders’ Meetings many more women attended, but although times were changing, their presence and vote may have lent support for a few, rather than to indicate real concern about being involved.
Mrs Pope served several terms on the Committee and many tributes have been paid to her ability and efficiency.
The immediate task of the 1919 Committee was to organise the Peace Celebration.
Three days were fixed by Parliament as holidays and Wimbledon School children celebrated with a picnic, sports, and a bonfire and fireworks display on the evening of the third day.
As part of the Peace Celebrations a dance was held in Hales’ woolshed on the following Friday, ‘With any profit credited to school funds.’
On July 11, the planting of the memorial trees took place – five oak trees – one for each local boy who had died under arms. Trees were planted on the hillside – walnuts, hazelnuts and oaks in memory of those who had also served their country. Their
Page 21
names are recorded on the pyramid of Cape stones erected on a corner of the school grounds.
Mrs Georgine Marion Greenshields, who had been the teacher for nine years, tendered her resignation. The Committee asked her to stay until the end of the 1919 year.
The end of World War I was also the end of an era at Wimbledon.
It was more than 30 years since the first settlers had made their homes here. Death and old age was taking its toll.
Taylor White had died in 1914 and Mrs Job Bond in 1916. Spring Creek was sold. Wiffen, Carmichael, Johnson, Sargent, Siteman and W.J. Herbert had all moved away. T.C. Hales would die in 1926 and Evan Morgans in 1929. Many of these properties were now in the hands of the sons of T.C. Hales, Evan Morgans, W. Siteman and W.J. Herbert while the school still depended upon those living within the Wimbledon district for its pupils.
Photo caption – Mr and Mrs A. Greenshields.
THE SECOND DECADE
William Kenneth Gollan, settler, interviewed during a school Social Studies project by Stuart Speedy, said: –
“I came to Wimbledon in 1902. There was still a fair amount of bush standing. There was a mill up the Angora owned by Mr Sylvester Martin and two other mills. One was at Hales’ woolshed but had closed down before 1902. The second one was further up Hales’ Creek. It was Olsen’s Mill and worked for years after 1902.”
Ivy Olsen, interviewed, said: –
“I attended Wimbledon School from June 1900 until April 1901. My teacher was Miss Marsh and Mr J. Speedy was the Chairman of the School Committee. I remember it all so well. I was the only child from the mill on Mr T.C. Hales’ place allowed to attend school as there were rivers to cross. There was only one teacher in those days to the big ones had to help teach the little ones.”
Page 22
W.K. Gollan, called Bill, also remembered that in 1902, these families lived at Wimbledon:
“William Herbert was at Herbert’s Mount, W.J.H. Siteman was at Springhill, Alex Ward was at Woodcliffe, Ike (Isaac) Cripps was at Te Toki, and William Perry was at Summer Hill. These properties with the exception of Herbert’s were on Birch Road East.
John Sargent (Snr) was half-way up Sergent’s Hill, Evan Morgans, Henry Wiffen and Job Bond were in the valley, Taylor White and Andrew Johnson were up in the Angora, T.C. Hales was opposite the school, and I was here (in the village at Wimbledon Hills).
The first Hotel had been burnt down before I came. Tommy (Thomas A.A.) Taylor lived round in the house he later sold to Robert Pope and James Groves Speedy was at Waierua Tommy Taylor carted metal for the roads by horse and dray from a shingle pit in the paddock behind the Hotel. He also worked as a carter for all and sundry.
Two bridges from my place was Cochran’s Bridge and before that Cochrane’s Crossing. Robert Cochrane had lived in a small cottage near the crossing but it had either burnt down or been pulled away before I came in 1902.”
Tom Grant, whose father came to Wimbledon as a storekeeper in 1897, remembered that his own school days were over but that his sisters, Lizzie and Lena, and his brothers Bill and Ernest, were pupils at the school.
He and William Davidson, teacher (1904-1907) became friendly through sport and they studied together in the schoolroom at night.
“We took a course of Gregg’s Shorthand by correspondence each week Bill Davidson and I had a session in the schoolroom checking the work sent back from Christchurch as well as completing a further lesson from our text books. We completed the course which came in very useful to me for thirty five years in my vocation as County Clerk – seven years at Te Tree Point and twenty eight years with Waipa County Council in the Waikato.
So much for my studies in the original Wimbledon schoolroom.”
William Davidson, appointed in 1904, stayed for almost four school years. He lived in the school residence with his sister, Ethel known as Dolly, who was his housekeeper. In 1906 Dolly married Rudolph Sturm whose blacksmith’s forge was opposite the Wimbledon Store. They lived in the house at the mouth of the Angora Valley.
Bill Davidson was popular as a sportsman and captained the local football team. When he left Wimbledon in October 1907 his position was filled
Photo caption – The school in 1903. Teacher either Miss Kemp or Miss Simpson.
Page 23
by Miss May McDonald until the appointment of A.W.S. Longley.
Later Bill Davidson and May McDonald were married and ‘went out Ruahine way.’
Wimbledon Football Club about 1905.
Back row: J. Bond, E. (Peter) Herbert, Richard Bond, Sandy Carmichael, W.K. Gollan, G. Sargent.
Middle row: J. Roach, Frank Bond, W. Davidson (Captain), Charles Hales, J. Johnson
Front row: T. Grant, Eli Bond, W. Grant, Jack Cripps
EARTHQUAKE!
There are few locally documented accounts of the natural disasters to which the area has been prone – the earthquakes.
On August 9, 1904 an earthquake, magnitude 7.5, centred off Cape Turnagain, occurred while the children were at school. While there is no record of what happened to Bill Davidson and his pupils, it is known that the chimney was completely demolished – and almost certainly the tanks.
Tom Grant remembered that he was working at the telephone in the store. “When the water started to slop out of the batteries I decided to leave. Just as I leapt the counter down came a whole shelf of toilet sets right where I had been standing!” It was a fairly sobering thought that he had narrowly missed death or injury from falling chamber pots! “What a mess,” said Tom. “Ink and stuff everywhere. We lost a lot of stock and there was no insurance in those days!”
May Speedy of Woodbank wrote: –
“Tuesday was as warm and sunny as can be. We hoped Jim, (James Groves Speedy) would have a happy birthday.” – and she continued to tell of the terrible quake and the devastation that occurred, not only at Woodbank but at Herbertville, Whangaehu, and along the Coast.
A Porangahau schoolboy recalled: –
“Mr Benson, the schoolmaster, told us to keep calm but the blackboards were flying, so I jumped out of the window. They were very high up in those days. The tanks and chimneys were destroyed.” – and he went on to tell of people being in a very distressed state.
Over the years many other big earthquakes centred off the coast have taken place but fortunately few, apart from the 1931 quake which destroyed Napier, have taken place in school hours.
Page 24
AN
INITIATORY GRAMMAR
for the Use of Junior Pupils;
INTENDED AS AN INTRODUCTION TO
THE PRINCIPLES OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR.
BY
JAMES DOUGLAS, Ph.D.,
LATELY HEAD MASTER, GREAT KING STREET SCHOOL, EDINBURGH
Hundred and Twenty-second Edition.
To which is added a Concise Supplementary Treaties on the Analysis of Sentences.
EDINBURGH:
OLIVER AND BOYD, TWEEDDALE COURT.
LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO.
1889.
12 INITIATORY GRAMMAR.
Adjectives are of three kinds – Demonstrative Adjectives, Adjectives of Quality, and Adjectives of Number.
Demonstrative Adjectives show which thing is meant.
Adjectives of Quality show what sort of thing is meant.
Adjectives of Number show how many things are meant.
EXAMPLES. – That box; large figs; six days.
That is a Demonstrative Adjective. Large is an Adjective of Quality. Six is an Adjective of Number.
Exercise XVI.
Point out the Nouns and Adjectives, and tell the class to which each belongs: – A large tiger. Green leaves. Fifty soldiers. A noisy parrot. Cold water. Two fine pictures. A heavy burden Ten white pigeons. An industrious girl. Five strong horses. The boy is honest. Jane has a beautiful flower. This pear is sweet. The horse is a useful animal. Mary is a king and faithful nurse. A fly has six legs and two wings. There are three cherries on that table. This knife is sharp. These children are very playful. We saw several trouts in the stream. The elephant is a sagacious animal.
Exercise XVII.
Point out the Nouns and Adjectives in the first ten lines of the Daily Reading Lesson: –
The principal Demonstrative Adjectives are –
An or a; the, this, that, and yon.
An or a and the are commonly called Articles.
Article means a little joint.
An or a and the are called Articles, because they have no meaning unless when joined to a noun.
INITIATORY GRAMMAR.
An or a is called the Indefinite Article
The is called the Definite Article.
The Indefinite Article refers to objects in general; thus, An apple means any apple; a boy means any boy.
The Definite Article refers to some particular object; thus, The boy means some particular boy.
This points to an object near at hand, that points to an object at a distance ; yon points to an object at a still greater distance.
The plural of This is These. The plural of That is Those.
Exercise XVIII.
Point out the Demonstrative Adjectives, and distinguish between the Definite and the Indefinite Article: – The fox is in the den. James found an egg in this nest. Jane has an orange and a plum. The house stands at the foot of that hill. There is a church near the house. The rose is a beautiful flower. We saw an old tree on the bank of the river. The fruit on these trees is not ripe.
When the Indefinite Article comes before a word beginning with a consonant A is used, and not An; as, A book, a door.
Exercise XIX.
Put the Indefinite Article before the following Nouns: –
– orange. – house. – egg. – tree. – ostrich. – pen. – goose. – eagle. – serpent. – table. – eye. – top. – sheep. – mountain. – ox. – cow. – boy. – oak. – lamb. – ape. – river. – eel. – field. – army.
Comparison of Adjectives.
Adjectives have three degrees of Comparison. The three degrees of Comparison are – the Positive, the Comparative, and the Superlative.
The Positive expresses the simple quality.
School Concert, 1900. Play “Dolly’s Doctor”.
Left to right: Gladys Hales, Muriel Taylor, C. Franklin, Ben Taylor.
Page 25
THE POETICAL WORKS
OF
JOHN KEATS.
With Memoir, Explanatory Notes, etc.
LONDON.
FREDERICK WARNE AND CO.
AND NEW YORK.
Wimbledon School
Christmas 1900
Presented to
Ralph Hales
for Diligence and good Conduct
In the same year Tom Morgans received ‘Young Tom Bowling or The Boys of the British Navy’ – John C. Hutcheson.
In 1904 his reward for passing Std 4 was a copy of ‘Adventures of Captain Hatteras’ by Jules Verne.
Miss Moore (right) and friend c. 1899.
School Fancy Dress Ball, c. 1908.
Page 26
DANNEVIRKE TO HERBERTVILLE COACH
A.W.S. Longley, called Arthur, told of his coming to Wimbledon as teacher: –
“By 1908 the Dannevirke-Herbertville Coaching Company was running six-horse coaches to Herbertville. The company was local and they operated a very fine service. The horses used for the run were being ‘broken in’ – chiefly ponies for hunting – and they were pretty lively.
I will never forget my first trip in the coach. We left Dannevirke early in the morning with a full load – thirteen passengers and the usual load of supplies. Sitting with me on top was Sam Sargent and Miss McLean. They were no springs in the coach and, believe me, the road was rough. Our first stop to change horses was at Limestone Stable near Motea. Horses changed, away we galloped again until around one corner the horses shied at a pile of skins on the side of the road waiting to be picked up on the return journey.
Before I quite realised what was happening the horses had dragged the coach into a deep water table and when we emerged they had bolted, leaving us capsized on the road. No-one was hurt but I remember most vividly one woman passenger inside struggling underneath a fifty-six pound box of butter!
During this commotion Sam Sargent discovered that he had lost his ‘Bun’ hat – the mark of a Dandy in those days! After a bit of a search we got to our feet and discovered that Sam had been sitting on it all along! Not too good for the new Bun hat – or the three pounds of bananas he had put inside for safekeeping!”
Describing Wimbledon as he saw it in 1908, he said: –
“Only twenty years earlier the original settlers had taken up the country. Logs covered the paddocks and every now and then the settlers would burn off what they could. There was no scrub in those days but quite a lot of fern – particularly in the gullies.
The school was well established with thirty-five children – their ages ranging from five years to sixteen years – an unsophisticated bunch of children. Like their parents they lived on oatmeal, mutton and bread, chiefly. Each farm made its own bread, milked its own cows and made its own butter, so that the children never went hungry, and in the years that I was at the school I never saw a poor lunch. The children either walked or rode to school and it was nothing to see about twenty horses waiting in the school paddock for the children to go home at three o’clock.
By 1908 the settlers had largely resolved their financial difficulties and there was a great deal of new house building going on.
The village was much the same as today (1966). The house and store were separate buildings. I joined them and built a billiard room in 1910 and 1911.
There were not many farmhands. Their earnings would have totalled something like one pound to twenty-five shillings per week. They were kept but had to supply their own dogs and horses.”
Describing the mills and millhands, he said:
“Often the wild characters who worked in the mills would come to the Wimbledon Hotel with a cheque for two months’ work and they would ask the Publican to tell them when it ‘was cut’.
In their continual state of drunkenness they were a nuisance and often annoyed the settlers. Many stories could be told about them!”
Arthur Longley married Amelia Maud Hales in his own schoolroom on December 23, 1909. The celebrations which followed included the whole
Photo caption – Dannevirke to Herbertville coach.
Page 27
district and had lasted through Christmas and almost to New Year!
When they returned from their honeymoon there was a surprise ‘Welcome Home’ party in the woolshed organised by James Martin Fisher, Chairman of the School Committee.
As was customary in those days, the evening’s entertainment of music, songs, recitations and humorous sketches was provided by those present.
Joan Siteman recalled:
“My father’s family lived at Spring Hill on Birch Road East. They walked to school through Herbert’s Mount and along the ridge in what is now S.W. Gollan’s property. They had to wear boots and socks to school but at a certain place, where there were hollow logs, they would take them off and leave them until they returned in the afternoon.,
One day they were chased by some wild cattle and were glad to take refuge in the hollow logs! They made the most of it and stayed there nearly all day!
They played truant on other occasions too, spending the day on the hills overlooking the school, keeping an eye on things! When school came out they headed for home. However, this came to a sudden end when the teacher sent a note home with their sister asking that the absences be explained!”
Photo captions –
Olsen’s Mill at Wimbledon Farm, 1889.
A.W.S. Longley wedding. The school is in the background.
Pages 28 and 29
THE FOURTH DECADE 1922 – 1931
By the 1920s the school was experiencing real problems with the one hundred macrocarpa trees purchased in 1900 after the Department of Agriculture had appointed July 18, as Arbor Day and a public holiday. They had asked that the day be more generally observed than in the past. The school children were asked to come to school on this day with any parents who were able to do so and the trees were planted to completely enclose the grounds.
They grew very quickly and they enclosed the grounds, keeping out the sunlight and leaving little playground. The area under the trees would not grow grass even after the lower branches and huge limbs were cut. Along the road fence-line under the trees a clay tennis court was formed. The lines were inch-wide strips of lead held in place with wire pins. The children used it as a play area and it had to be swept frequently, repaired if chipping occurred and any small holes filled.
Finally the Committee contracted Alf Williams to cut the trees in front of the school to let more light in. For many years to follow, Committees would be constantly concerned with those trees.
Miss Whibley who came in 1920 was a much loved teacher. This was evident when she attended the 75th Jubilee. Many tributes were paid to her –
Betty Moriarty, “ … a tall, slender woman whom we all loved. I still remember her dresses … Magyar style with a link chain belt …”
Kathleen Longley, “Elsie and I stayed with Miss Whibley at the schoolhouse after our parents moved to Tawadale. I remember it all so well”.
Hazel Bellman, “One day when we had got all our work right Miss Whibley rewarded Vern and me by letting us out early. Vern was going to teach me to play football, which I thought was wonderful but the senior kids roared with laughter and spoilt it. He became embarrassed and wouldn’t play and so we just walked around the playground.”
Kathleen Longley, “Our school concert was so BIG we couldn’t finish it in one night. We had to come back the next night! What do you think of that?”
Molly Moriarty remembered that they came to live at Wimbledon in the early 1920s. her father was roadman and they lived in the cottage just beyond Mrs Pope’s. At first it was sited down on the flat near the Wainui Stream and sheltered from the wind by the bank. Later it was shifted up near the road as
Photo captions –
Hales Homestead showing the school and trees.
Photo Miss Dorothy Whibley 1920-1922
Back row: Vern Herbert, Eva Longley, Davis Gollan, Francess Whitehead, Ina Herbert, Gollan Grant, Newton Ward.
Middle row: Kathleen Longley, Joan Grant, Lottie Gollan, Doug Gollan, Allan Herbert, Jack Herbert, Elsie Longley
Front row: Tobe Gollan, extreme right.
Page 30
that site was not suitable for her brother – a chronic asthmatic.
“Shortly after we arrived Mrs Pope told us that we must not eat the berries from one particular gooseberry bush. The lady who had lived there before us had buried twin babies there. I will never forget that bush with it’s thick carpet of purple violets below.
If anything went past the school we all used to stand up and look out the window. One day I saw a horse-drawn hearse pass and stop at Hales’. Mrs Jemima Hales and her daughter, Gladys, went out to pay their respects. It was someone they knew from Weber going to Porangahau for burial. It was too long a journey for horses in one day and they had to be spelled and rested, and the journey took several days. My father, as roadman, had to go on ahead making sure that the way was clear.”
Doris Crosse remembered being at school in 1923 and 1924, and riding to school from Te Toki over the old Bridle Track. “Newton Ward, a handsome boy with his blonde good looks, rode from Woodcliffe but not once did we ride together. He was always just ahead or just behind. A bit of good natured teasing had put an end to any desire to be seen together.”
In winter time, if the weather was bad, children had problems getting to school. Many remembered moving closer to the school to stay with friends or relations. For the children of the Angora Valley, with as many as eleven creek crossing to be made, it was an anxious time if heavy rain or flooding occurred during school time. There was one near tragedy when the children attempted to reach home by climbing the hills and one slipped and fell to the foot of a steep bluff.
Photo captions –
School Concerts held in the woolshed show Olga Morgans and Bob Pope at rehearsal.
Miss Whibley coached the highly successful Red Wings Team.
Page 31
THE FIFTH DECADE
The fifth decade was a memorable one for a number of reasons.
Miss Joyce McMurray was the teacher at the school on February 3, 1931. Mr Edgar Hurdsfield, Nature Study Adviser, was visiting. Morning interval had just ended when the huge globe of the world crashed to the floor and the chimney broke off at roof level in the quake which destroyed Napier and lost for us almost all of our early school records.
The second disaster occurred on Saturday, February 25, 1933. It was witnessed by Margaret Longley staying at Wimbledon Farm: –
“I was the first to give the alarm. It was Saturday morning at dipping time. How well I remember the smoke pouring out from under the eaves and later the whole place a blazing inferno. In the months that followed we had school in the play shed and then when winter came we transferred to the Hales’ whare where it was so dark we could hardly see to write!”
The new school was built in July 1933 but there was no longer a teacher’s residence. Many teachers stayed in the small three roomed whare at Mrs Moana Hales, close to the school.
The newly formed Wimbledon-Herbertville C.W.I. were quick to offer support.
March 2, 1933 – ‘The President suggested that we should help in some way towards the Wimbledon School destroyed by fire some days ago. This met with the approval of all’.
April 1933 – ‘Our Bring & Buy’ in aid of the school library fund realised which was most satisfactory.’
August 3, 1933 – Mrs Pope asked if the Institute would make a New Zealand Ensign to replace the one burnt in the fire.
Mr Britten Butcher, appointed as teacher in September 1931, came to Wimbledon from Portland Island. He is remembered by his pupils as a sportsman, clay bird shooter, pig hunter, deer stalker, rugby and tennis player. He fitted very well into the local community. He had a two seater Morris Cowley with a soft hood and lift up boot. To house this gem he built, at his own expense, the lean-to attached to the shelter shed and now used as a woodshed.
During World War 2, Britten Butcher served in the army. He was a Major and during the later stages of the War was Commander of the Field Punishment Centre at Brindisi, Italy. Here he invited one of his former pupils at Wimbledon School to join him on his staff, but the offer was not taken up.
Photo captions –
After the fire only the washhouse remained.
Britten Butcher and his rugby team.
Back row: Theo Herbert, Ralph Longley, Mr B. Butcher, Ian Prebble, Ralph Hales.
Front row: Claude Hales, Mervyn Gollan, Phillip Gollan, Garth Morgans, John Hales.
Page 32
From the earliest settlement sport was an important factor in district life.
In 1889 a Dog Trial Club was formed at Porangahau.
In 1892 a race course was formed at Wainui.
There was the annual District Sports and Picnic.
In the 1880s a hall was built at Wainui for skating. There was a cricket club, a rifle club, and a tennis club. There was boxing and wrestling. There was rugby football. There was fishing.
Photo captions –
Miss Joyce McMurray
1894 Wainui Cricket team.
Beth Morgans – fishing.
Mick Buchanan and McGregor Fergus.
John and Claude Hales.
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Undoubtedly the great winter sport was rugby football.
The East Coast rugby sub-union operated for many years until just before World War 2. Schoolboy teams played the curtain raisers at their District’s senior team matches.
Betty Moriarty remembered that the whole school sat on the stumps of the trees cut down in front of the school to listen to the Jack Dempsey-Gene Tunny fight.
“Old Mr Hales, whom the whole school called ‘Da’, kindly put his radio (a very rare thing in those days) on full blast so that we could all hear.”
A boy remembered that wrestling was a popular sport. “There were some great wrestlers about. Regular contests were held in the Wainui Hall or Alf Morgan’s woolshed. We school kids used to go up there to wrestle. Alf was always the referee.”
And a girl remembered going up the lane to the yards to watch an old horse-breaker breaking in a little black pony, in school time.
Molly Taylor came to the school in 1938. She is remembered as a sportsperson – the top woman tennis player.
Tennis was a really popular sport in the District. There were courts at Pipi Bank, Herbertville Hotel, Tautane, Waierua [Wairua], Willow Valley and Franklin’s.
There were two public courts at Moana Hales’ and a tennis club. There were also two public courts and a tennis club at Te Tree Point. Club members played regularly at Porangahau and went to Wanganui, Dannevirke and Waipawa for matches. The clubs went into recess during the war and it was years before tennis was played again, although it never achieved that earlier enthusiasm and popularity.
NEW ZEALAND EDUCATION DEPARTMENT.
Primary School Certificate.
This is to Certify that
Marie Hales
completed at this School in the year 19[…], a course for Form II.
M.S. Taylor, Head Teacher.
Date: 16 12 […] Wimbledon School.
Photos captions –
1926 Jubilee Race.
c. 1909 Wimbledon Rifle Club.
Weber School v Wimbledon School – early 1930.
Weber. Back row: Thom, Duignan, -, Roly McBeth, Eric Smith, Ken Matheson, -, Bradley.
Wimbledon: Front row: Ralph Longley, Mervyn Gollan, Ian Prebble, Ralph Hales, Phillip Gollan, Garth Morgans, John Hales, Theo Herbert.
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WAR YEARS
In early September, 1939 war was declared. For the children of the fifth decade three-quarters of their school life would be concerned with war.
The ladies of the CWI responded to the announcement by sending mittens and bedsocks to the coastguards high on their lonely post on Cape Turnagain.
Shortly afterwards they were asked to send scarves and balaclavas as well.
In October they suggested that the children of both Herbertville and Wimbledon Schools become a branch of the Junior Red Cross.
Each Tuesday afternoon the ladies held a sewing afternoon in the old red shed which was known as the Institute Rooms. The children of the school were asked to go along to do their bit.
On each of their birthday celebrations in September during those war years they invited the children of the Wimbledon School to their party. It was always an exciting occasion with games outside,
Photo captions –
During World War 2 send-offs to local boys leaving for overseas service were held in the billiard room. Mrs Helen Pope farewells her Grandson Douglas Gollan.
After the War, Douglas Gollan who lost both legs in the infamous Death March became the first double amputee in New Zealand to take up a farm under the Rehabilitation Scheme.
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less exuberant games inside, music, singing, dressing up, and most important of all for children in wartime, party fare.
There were nine children on the roll. Jeanette Hart, daughter of the store-keeper, remembered that she was the only one not related to the rest.
“I don’t think the war touched us much at Wimbledon” she said. “Of course there was rationing but no-one seemed to go short, least of all the children. I can remember knitting peggy squares and striped jerseys for the Junior Red Cross and collecting pine cones to help raise money for the War effort.”
R.J. McKelvey, called Bob, appointed in 1940, brought his young bride, Gladys, to make their first home in the whare at Moana Hales. Writing in 1990, Bob remembers the many kindnesses shown to them during their stay at Wimbledon.
He spent many evenings in the schoolroom coaching Mervyn Gollan and others in specific subjects before their entry into the Air Force. On February 17, 1942 R.J. McKelvey entered in the School Log: “School closed. Special leave. Medical examination for military service in Dannevirke.”
On March 17, 1942: ‘Farewell at school for military service.’
Until the war ended there would be lady teachers at the school – June McNichol, Carol Hopkirk, Pat Donaldson, Joyce Setter and Joy Davidson. Only Carol and Joy stayed for any length of time.
Half a century later Carol remembers four years spent in a friendly community, with children who seemed to want to learn, pleasant school surroundings, being able to ride and explore the district … and after so many men left for war, helping to dig at Tutu Bend, rouseabouting – helping wherever she could. “There was Claude’s old car and going to Herbertville to the beach, but best of all going to that dance at Porangahau where I met Mac.”
For the children at the school there were cases of free apples – big red delicious apples – unable to be exported, steaming cocoa in cold winter months, made with water boiled on the old potbellied stove, and the ensign made by the ladies of the CWI flying so often on its flagpole – too many times at half-mast.
There was the picnic day when the announcement was made that Mervyn Gollan, known as Bob, Flight Sergeant in the Royal NZ Airforce, had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal for skill and bravery in the air. It was an unforgettable few moments. Almost all those assembled to hear this good news had been affected personally by the war.
Boys had been killed or wounded, while others were still under arms. Momentarily each thought of their own, but the joy and pride expressed to the Gollan family was spontaneous, warm, and generous.
Photo captions –
R.J. McKelvey and his school.
Mervyn Gollan
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Up at the school the children played cops and robbers in the macrocarpas, hockey with pine cones on the Knob across the road, and a wonderful acorn game they invented themselves. They swam in the creek and trekked to the bush in the Reserve in the interest of Nature Study.
In spite of war years great changes were taking place in education, largely due to American influence.
Learning was no longer expected to be a desk-bound experience, fitting neatly into time slots on the timetable, and to be all accounted for at the end of each school week.
The playway approach was revolutionising infant departments. Books did not have to conform to a traditional book shape as “Ping – the Little Chinese Duck” and the Angus books proved.
“Copping what was hot” as urged by S. Lockhart, lecturer at Wellington Teachers’ Training College, was far more interesting and fun than the cut and dried weekly lesson from Edgar Hurdsfield’s Nature Study Handbook.
And the jazzed up American version of the traditional Nursery Rhyme and story, such as: –
Little Red Riding Hood
Drifting along with a cheery smile
Tra-la-la-la-lah,
Wearing a cloak that was quite the style!
You like goodies!
I like goodies!
Little Red Riding Hood.
Far from shocking young teachers as intended, it held for them a promise of more exciting change to come!
RIDING TO SCHOOL –
BY JEANETTE HART
When my father, Bill Hart, took over the Wimbledon Store on January 1, 1942, I was presented with a new two-wheeler bike and told I had a month to learn to ride it. Never was a new bike more despised. I hated that bike because the only thing I wanted to ride to school, was a pony. But there was no pony in sight so I knew it was either ride the bike or walk a mile to school. On the dusty road between the store and Gollans I wobbled and fell off, and kicked the wheels and got back on again – until at last my father decided his ten year old daughter was safe to let loose on the road.
Of course he was quite mistaken. Ian Longley was also riding to school that year – on a small fast chestnut pony which I coveted as soon as I saw it. By some coincidence Ian seemed to want two wheels as keenly as I wanted four legs and we soon came to a very satisfactory arrangement. On the way home from school, and well clear of adult eyes, we swapped mounts on the roadside opposite the sports ground – and blissfully rode our chosen steeds from the Second Bridge back to the store.
Ian obviously knew how to handle wheels and I told him that of curse I knew how to ride a horse. This was a lie as the chestnut pony found out when he decided to take off at speed one afternoon and head for home, with Ian pedalling desperately in the rear. I hung on grimly and managed to stay aboard, but I had no idea how to put on the brakes. We approached the store at full throttle where the chestnut came to a slithering halt against the steps of the shop verandah, with me half-way up his neck and the bike nowhere in sight.
After that little episode my father understandably banned any more swaps with the son of his landlord. For more than a year I cadged rides on Top Gollan’s old white pony, Buckle Martin’s big bay hack and on anything else that happened to get hitched to the handle of the petrol pump outside the store. I spent a lot of time hiding in the periwinkle verge opposite the store and watching Bill Gollan’s old, flea-bitten grey take him safely home from the pub, waiting for him to fall off so that I could graciously pick up the reins. It was on Top’s white pony that I first learned to canter properly, pounding up and down under the macrocarpas between the pub and the store.
In 1943 Joyce and Gordon Herbert came to live at Mt Herbert and all their family of seven children rode ponies to Wimbledon School. Les Herbert rode a beautiful dark brown mare called Judy, and
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Ethne, who became my best friend, rode a black gelding with a hogged mane called Billy. Ian Herbert used to double bank one of the twins on Ginger, a dreadful roach-backed old chestnut with a heart of gold. When my father realised how keen and sensible these kids were he finally succumbed and bought me Jimmy, a 23 year old bay gelding of 13.2 hands who had been a station hack on Motueka Station on the Porangahau Road. There was a sigh of relief from the neighbours and at last I was able to join the Herberts and ride to school on a pony.
That year (1944) there were five or six ponies being ridden to Wimbledon School, each day from the Porangahau Road end. We were not allowed saddles, for safety reasons. We rode on sacks and surcingles – the girls in gathered skirts, the boys in shorts – and carried our leather schoolbags slung around the waist and resting behind a knee. We rode past the Hales’ house where Mrs Jemima Hales was sure to be watching out, and let the ponies go for the day in the horse paddock on the hill beside the lane. Bridles and sacks were thrown under the corrugated iron lean-to, beside the girls’ outside loo.
Riding to school in the mornings was serious stuff – we had to get there in time and Jimmy was a devil to catch on the top of the hill behind the store. But coming home was sheer joy – the verges were grazed short by the huge summer mobs being driven in to Dannevirke, the ponies were keen, there were clean cut drains to jump and the wide ford at the Second Bridge to splash through. There was enough good going for a canter on the verge along the flat as far as the rise by Pope’s old cottage and then on to Gollan’s bridge – then a trot up the little hill and a sedate walk down past the bluegums to the store. Best of all, though we didn’t appreciate it at the time, there was rarely any traffic at that time of day.’
The Wimbledon School grounds had always been regarded as being particularly attractive. They were rather English, with the oaks and holly, briar roses, cherries, and bulbs covering the hillside, but it was during Joy Davidson’s term as teacher that it became a real showplace.
Brilliant borders flanked with gleaming white painted stones edged the path. Lawns were immaculate. The school won an award.
A CERTIFICATE OF MERIT FOR SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT
Awarded to Wimbledon School for the year 1947
G A Maddison, Chairman
At the end of the 1947 school year, Joy Davidson married Neil Penlington, school teacher at neighbouring Te Tree Point School.
Photo caption – Joy Davidson’s wedding.
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THE AFTERMATH OF WAR
Great changes occurred in the whole area following World War 2.
Rehabilitation of returned servicemen meant the dividing of some of the older, larger properties. Family farms were in the hands of a third generation. Little farm labour was employed in a new era of mechanisation. The community consisted of younger people establishing themselves in a depressed economy and who were producing another generation of school children.
It took time for them to become of school age.
While roll numbers at the school were adequate for a time, attendance was often poor due to the inevitable childhood epidemics such as whooping cough. The moving away of several families caused real problems. Finally in 1948 the school closed for several months.,
When Polly Morgans became of school age, sufficient numbers would have allowed the re-opening of the school but a new problem emerged – no teacher was available.
Margaret E.R. Morgans, known as Peggy, offered her services expecting this to be a temporary measure. Fresh from boarding school, Peggy had intended spending a year at home before going to Training College. She was to stay at Wimbledon School for two years.
The school closed once more.
DUCKS AND DRAKES KNOCKED ON HEAD
A grave transport problem has arisen for the Hawke’s Bay Education Board in the Wimbledon-Herbertville district, on the coast near Dannevirke. It appears that there are eight children at both places five miles apart, and one teacher, at present living at Wimbledon.
The secretary-manager of the board, Mr P. L. Page, told members this morning that for some years either the teacher or parents concerned had taken the children from one settlement to the other depending on which school was open at the time. Both schools were usable, he said, and if the one at Wimbledon was used too long, parents at Herbertville demanded a change and vice versa.
The chairman, Mr A.A. Sivewright, pointed out that the Wimbledon school was fairly new while the Herbertville school was old and situated near un-drained swampy ground.
The board decided that instead of playing ducks and drakes in future, the Wimbledon school will be used unless the predominance of children is at Herbertville.
Herbertville School open November 9, 1885, closed in October 1960. It had served both it’s own District and that of Wimbledon. Old age finally meant demolition.
Photo caption – Herbertville School
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The pupils went to Herbertville School.
Six months later Wimbledon School re-opened with 8 pupils – only six of whom were on the roll. The teacher was uncertificated and waiting to go to Training College.
Then began what was probably one of the most worrying and upsetting periods in the history of both the Herbertville and Wimbledon Schools.
At times over the next ten years neither community had sufficient numbers to support a school, but if they combined it was possible.
It was understandable that whoever had the majority insisted on having the school in their area. Great pressures were put on both parents and the Hawkes’ Bay Education Board.
Some parents concerned over transport arrangements, preferred to put their children on Correspondence.
Their fears seemed justified when there was an accident. One overloaded car failed to take a bend landing on its hood some feet below the road. Fortunately neither teacher nor pupils suffered injury.
Finally the Board made the decision that amalgamated both schools, with the school at Wimbledon being the place for pupils to attend
WIMBLEDON SCHOOL WAS CLOSED –
February – April 19, 1948.
December – June 19, 1950.
May 4, 1951 – December, 1951.
August 21, 1953 – February 22, 1954.
On October 11, 1960 the amalgamation of the Wimbledon and Herbertville Schools took place. Twenty-seven pupils attended school at Wimbledon.
THE SEVENTH DECADE
The early years of this decade included some periods of attendance at Herbertville School.
In February 1952 the school was closed for four weeks so that the teacher could be married.
Mrs A. Hamilton was appointed relieving teacher for the final term.
In February 1953 the school opened with 15 pupils and Don Barrowman as the new teacher. He was to stay for three years and was popular as a sportsman, representative rugby player and All Black rugby trialist. Events recorded in the school log during that time are the Coronation Ceremony held at the school on May 29, 1953 when the weeping elm was planted and A.W.S. Longley the speaker. A less important event, but far more spectacular one, was on the day ‘the motor mower burst into flames while the lawn was being mown. Fortunately no-one was injured.’
For some time documentation concerning outhouses had given way to the trials and tribulations connected with lawn mowers. There had even been a gala day held ‘in aid of the lawn mower!’
On August 18, 1955, Don recorded:
‘Yesterday afternoon the Committee organised an afternoon during which presentations were made to me in the event of my forthcoming marriage.’
Don and Judy Barrowman lived in the house at Spring Creek.
In 1990 Don wrote:
‘I remember my first night as a married man at Wimbledon. The locals arrived to take me out shooting oppossums [opossums]. Judy wasn’t very impressed but later we had many good laugh over it.
I also remember the Saturday evening when the locals welcomed us to their midst with a surprise dinner party at which I had to carve a roast when I
Photo caption – June Pedersen
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had never done so before.’
Nostalgically he recalled,
‘When I first passed through Wimbledon in the summer of 1947 little did I know that I would return and spend there, the three happiest years of my teaching life. However, before taking up my teaching appointment I again passed through on a cycling tour the following year and in 1949 spent some months at Herbertville working as a builder’s labourer for my father as he worked on the old store at Herbertville changing it to an hotel. During these few months I played rugby for Wainui having been ‘press ganged’ by the rabbiter, Alex McHardy, and met for the first time the Speedy’s and Hales’s.
Late January, 1953, saw me negotiate a flood and slip-ravaged road, via the Waitahora Loop, to be welcomed as the first permanent teacher for some time. The welcome appeared somewhat muted for I think that I was remembered as a fat, rounded adolescent (I was in 1947-49) but four years had changed me. Mick Buchanan, Chairman of the School Committee, had written offering two types of accommodation – be boarded term by term with different families, or live in Hoana Hales’s whare. I chose the latter and came to know a wonderful lady, who was more a mother to me than a landlady. It meant too, that I formed a firm friendship with two people whose support and friendship was always apparent and who became my confidants – Nola and Bill Hales.
It was not long before I came to know everyone in the area quite well. Ken Graham, publican and School Committee member, died suddenly. Mrs Graham had her hands full looking after the linesmen bringing the power through from Weber, so every day at about 4.30 pm I walked the mile to the village and managed the bar until closing time. This lasted until almost the end of the year. (It would be better to leave some of the anecdotes of this period to be embroidered by word-of-mouth rather than put into print!)
“The teacher had arrived and was at the school every day – it was quite some time since this was the norm. He was reasonably fit and intelligent and the children appeared to be happy to go to school. He even made soup and cocoa, with the help of the senior pupils, on the pot-bellied stove when the weather was not the best.
He played rugby for Weber and on joining Phil Speedy in the Bush representative team the monthly “teachers shopping day” was saved up and used in the rugby season.
The senior girls took it in turns to take home his shirts for washing and ironing and Nancy Gollan collected his towels and sheets every week. Occasionally he received gifts of cake and produce.
He enjoyed his teaching for that was all he had to do – there were no behaviour problems. Country children proved to be different from the city sophisticates – “vive la difference”. Teaching at Wimbledon in the years 1953-55 was very different from the high-tech style necessary today. It was largely “chalk and talk” for without electricity there were no computers, videos, television, electric organs, movie projectors, film strip projectors, etc.”
It came as somewhat of a shock to be told by the School Committee that when I returned from holiday in August 1953, I would be teaching at Herbertville. There were more children from there then, so despite my protestations, down I went. Three times this change was made due to the school population shifts and each was made without reference to the controlling Education Board.
As is normal the Education Board arranged for the maintenance of the school and I am sure the Secretary-Manager would have been shocked had he
Photo caption – Don and Judy Barrowman
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known how much turpentine went into the paint, when the buildings were painted in 1954.
I cannot end without reference to the annual school picnic in the school grounds and the magnificent ‘spread’ under the lovely old oak.
For me, my years at Wimbledon were happy and memorable, made more so by the tremendously hospitable people of the two districts served by the school.’
Ross Piper began his duties as teacher in February 1956 and stayed for almost four years. for most of that time he stayed at Spring Hill on Birch Road East with Ray and Kathleen Ross. He drove Ray Ross’s privately owned school bus to school, becoming the first teacher-driver.
He tells of the time he spent at Wimbledon: –
“When I look back over nearly four years’ teaching at Wimbledon School it is tempting to recall only the humorous or dramatic incidents and ignore the days and weeks of apparently unexceptional, but enjoyable, experiences that filled most of the time.
So, after paying tribute to the many ordinary, but nevertheless satisfying, times what stands out as especially memorable?
“The construction of the tennis court in 1959 (The New Zealand Herald got it wrong) changed the sporting life of the school. Not surprisingly, tennis became a welcome option, especially for the older children. A favourite winter game, which became possible on the new hard surface, was hockey played with home-made manuka sticks. The most impressive features of these almost daily contests were the intense competitive spirit evident and the inclusion of all age levels in the teams. Even new entrants made a contribution to the hard-fought games.
Today’s pupils and teachers probably take for granted the provision of electricity and septic draining at the school. In the 1950s the absence of both made a marked impact on life and learning, especially for the teacher. School Committee meetings by candlelight left a lasting impression on my memory. School broadcasts received on a car battery-powered radio and hating water on the potbelly stove for winter cocoa were almost daily events. There were compensations, however. Few school shad grounds as attractive as Wimbledon’s. The Chairman of the Hawke’s Bay Education Board was so impressed by the trees, lawns and the flowering cherry and roses during a visit that he commented at a subsequent Board meeting about “the marvellous atmosphere” around Wimbledon School.
The lack of a swimming pool not only made swimming instruction impossible but also denied a cooling respite to the children during the hot Hawke’s Bay summer days. Through the generosity of Bill and John Hales a pool was made by bulldozing a dam in the nearby stream. The often opaque water would not have passed today’s stringent purity tests but despite this minor drawback, most of the children learned to swim.
Because of the distance and the condition of the road, school trips to town were a rare occurrence. On one occasion, after a visit to the Dannevirke Industrial Fair, the school (all twenty of us) called at the railway station to watch the trains. Some of the younger children had never seen a train. The station master was intrigued to know where we came from and immediately summoned a shunting engine to come to the platform. Riding up and down the Dannevirke railway yards in the engine’s cab became the main talking and writing point for several days.
Another Dannevirke excursion which I remember was when Wimbledon surprised the larger schools by either winning, or at least reaching, the final of the seven aside rugby tournament. We had some fine natural talent in the Hales, Buchanan, Gollan, Ross and Speedy families.
Visits by school inspectors to isolated places were relatively rare. On morning school had hardly begun before Messrs McMahon and Lockhart from the Department of Education were standing on the doorstep, eager to inflict themselves on apprehensive teachers and children. Mr McMahon was to spend the day at Wimbledon, while Mr Lockhart was to pry into the affairs of Herbertville School. Before school I had received a message from the Herbertville teacher that she was unwell and the school would be closed. Mr Lockhart’s reaction to this news demonstrated just how frustrated and angry he felt about having to travel from Napier to Herbertville again on roads which he regarded as “the pits”. As he was being pacified by Mr McMahon and I was hastily closing the classroom door to protect the children from his colourful vocabulary, the Porangahau Vicar, Peter Mann (recently retired Bishop of Dunedin), arrived to take religious instruction. I was anxious not to have two inspectors observing me closely all day. At my best I could probably fool one for some of the time, but two? At my suggestion, therefore, Peter Mann agreed to take Mr Lockhart off my hands by
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inviting him to travel to Ti Tree and Weber where religious instruction was part of the day’s programme also. Late in the afternoon Mr Lockhart returned with tales of teachers who greeted the Vicar warmly, only to pale visibly and grope for a cigarette at the sight of an inspector climbing out of the car.
I have heard teachers who have worked in sole charge schools say that the experience has been the highlight of their teaching lives. Apart from being responsible for a school, usually at an early stage of a career, the chief satisfaction I believe comes from seeing children develop and learn over several years. often the degree of physical and intellectual growth is considerable. Wimbledon has, for that reason, a special place in my teaching reminiscences.”
Chairman praises Wimbledon teacher
The way the teacher at the Wimbledon school had “juggled about” the furniture in the classroom to suit the pupils was the best he had ever seen, the Chairman of the Hawke’s Bay Education Board, Mr W. Smith, said at the meeting yesterday, when he reported on visits to schools in the central Hawke’s Bay area.
“The atmosphere around that school was something to be marvelled at.”
He said a prefabricated classroom would have to be placed there soon, as the school was full.
Mr Smith congratulated the ward member, Mr J.A.N. Halford, on the schools in his district, and the work he was doing.
Mr Halford said he had pleaded before for a district high school at Porangahau.
“We should do something for these bigger boys, who have to go school until they’re 15, and whose parents can’t afford to send them to college.”
Mr Halford said the solution adopted at Norsewood might be satisfactory. At that school a man was employed part-time to build a room at the back of the school where the bigger boys could be taught separately.
Photo caption – The School, 1959. Ross Piper, teacher.
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OF SCHOOL BUSES AND SCHOOL BUS DRIVERS
During the 1950s, in order to transport his own children to school from Birch Road East, Ray Ross had bought a school bus. Other parents along the same route wished to avail themselves of this opportunity to have their children transported to school, so Ray Ross became the first owner-driver and his Morris, the first school bus.
Ross Piper became the first teacher-driver and he was followed by Don Cochrane.
Ray Ross continued his school bus service until 1961 when the amalgamation of the two schools meant that his small bus was no longer suitable. From that time Departmental buses were used. Children no longer rode to school and few, if any, walked.
Since that time there have been many school bus drivers. Lyndsay Buchanan was the first lady to become a Wimbledon School bus driver in the days when it was unusual for ladies to do that job. She drove for ten years between 1967 and 1977. Denise Hales also has a long service record driving the bus between 1981 and 1988.
In all that time there has been no accident and little trouble. Recently the bus driver, attempting to change gear, was somewhat disconcerted when the gear lever came off in her hand!
At one time, when a bus driver could not be found a special meeting decided that ‘parents would drive the bus on a week and week about basis providing they passed medical and passenger driving tests and gained licences.’
Eventually ten people met with the Traffic Officer outside the school one Saturday morning and tests were taken – followed by a working bee at the school – so they said when they arrived home after a very long day!
There are one or two cherished memories of the bus drivers – The School Committee chairman who backed his bus into the War Memorial, demolishing the railings on one side – brilliant in charge of an aeroplane! – decorated in fact.
The school principal whose bus slid into the drain alongside the schoolhouse drive after he had been ‘to collect the mail at the village!’
But best of all, the lady who managed somehow to straddle the railing of the Memorial, with two wheels on one side in the Memorial and two wheels on the other side on the road!
Matt Newland says, “Stories of buses and drivers would be incomplete without mention of the famous or (infamous) ED701. I cannot find any record of when this bus first arrived at Wimbledon School, but once here, it appears that the Department of Education was going to do all it could to make sure it stayed. Constant letters and telephone calls of complaint to the Department, the Departmental Garage and the Education Board brought no reaction. That is, until October 1973, when the emergency door fell off, the hinges having rusted through. Within a matter of weeks ED701 was gone.”
In December 1988, tenders were called for a private contractor to provide the school bus service. In our case the successful tender was A Vander [Van der] Wiel of Eketahuna.
Photo caption – Ray Ross’s school bus.
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THE EIGHTH DECADE
The 1960s are memorable for a number of reasons.
The Wimbledon and Herbertville schools amalgamated on October 11, 1960 when 27 pupils attended at Wimbledon. A week later the roll stood at 30.
When school opened in February 1961 it was with 35 pupils. The new classroom begun in the previous November was ready for use.
Although the school had attained two teacher status, no teacher was available for the position of assistant. In May, Tony Drillien was appointed relieving assistant teacher. In August, Nola Hales was appointed as the assistant mistress, remaining in that position until the school reverted to a sole charge one in 1966.
During that five year period there had been three Head Teachers: –
Michael Lynskey 1961-1962
Peter D’Ath 1963-1965
Kevin Edwards 1965-
During this period electricity was brought to the District. Television came. A teacher’s residence was built on the hill overlooking the school.
It was an exciting time to be in teaching and for those being taught. Changes were taking place in every area of the curriculum. Arvidson’s system meant that children only needed to learn to spell the words they used most frequently. Rote learning of number combinations and tables gave way to understanding developed through the exploration of colour and material. History and geography became social studies, with new emphasis on the family unit which would lead on to Interaction and Cultural Difference. Team teaching became the popular educational approach.
School libraries were being catalogued by Country Library Service. There was a great deal of buying and sharing of educational equipment between the schools of the Coast Road.
Ti Tree Point, Weber and Wimbledon Schools formed new links coming together for Winter Sports, swimming sports, D.A.[D and A – Demonstration and Activities] Days, pet shows and fancy dress balls.
Wimbledon School relinquished its ties with Mangaorapa, Orapa and Wilder Schools with whom they had previously combined for Winter Sports, D.A. Days and tournaments.
This was the era in which the old school picnic gave way to an afternoon prize-giving event with displays of work by the children and afternoon tea. The most memorable of these must surely have been when the Committee of the day decided that –
‘It takes place on the last day of the school year at 3 o’clock after the day’s work was done.’
The school presented plays and Christmas tableaux at the annual Christmas tree function held in the Herbertville Hall, rather than produce a concert, during the 1950s.
During the 1960s and ‘70s music festivals began to take the place of concerts.
Children were asked to write and organise their own material at the end of particular units of work and present it in ways suitable to them. This often meant parents would be invited as audience to their work.
Gymnastic Festivals, Maori Culture Festivals, outdoor education, trips and camps were adding a new dimension to learning.
PLEASE SIR: MAY WE BORROW REX? By Peter D’Ath.
I recall my two years and six months at Wimbledon as being among the happiest in my career. It was my first principalship and I was eager to do well.
The community was warm-hearted and the students a delight to teach. It was a time packed with new experiences. Farming was a prosperous occupation in 1963 and the school had no difficulty in raising funds for the “extras” that made country teaching so attractive. I recall that beside a spacious playing field we owned two hill paddocks which were kept stocked through the generosity of local farmers. Sometimes I was asked to act as shepherd for the school flock, – sometimes I had to be rescued like the time I tried to catch a ewe running around with a tangle of barbed wire in her wool. Cut, scratched and near exhaustion I was suddenly surrounded by sheepdogs. They cornered my prey and I removed the wire. My neighbour, Bill Hales, later said, “I could see you were having some trouble!”
Nicknames were a feature of the community. I learned to associate with the grocer, Denis the Menace; the garage proprietor, Johnny Braise (because he always said “stick a bit o’ braise on it,
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eh?”;) a farmer called Toppy and others I’ve long since forgotten. In the classroom a very talented lad was known only as Muckle, while one of the girls was affectionately referred to as Harpic.
Possibly the highlight of my teaching was our trip to Wellington in 1964. It was one of the most elaborate excursions I have ever undertaken – Standard 2 to Form 2 and we went by train. Hardly any of them had been on a train. We stayed in the People’s Palace. We visited the Prime Minister, our Member at that time, we rode in lifts and played in escalators. I had planned for “education” what we got was a wealth of totally new and unexpected experiences.
Sport and physical education was always a problem area of the curriculum. Our distance from other schools and our limited numbers made it difficult to mount any kind of programme until the School Committee purchased a set of gymnastic equipment. The pupils were so enthusiastic that I fear for a time some aspects of the curriculum were trimmed so that we could go out and practice for iron and bronze badges.
I enjoyed working with my first staff member, Nola Hales. We wanted to see the school make progress. We shared so many enterprises together and we liked to bring the school to its community. One annual event I remember very clearly was our folk dance festival in the Herbertville Hall. We could put on a whole evening of marching displays and folk dances with less than fifty students but what was also very impressive was that all the parents, and most of the community, came to watch.
Where does the title of these reflections have relevance, readers may ask? Often when you reflect on the past it is something trivial that is so powerful a memory. Some of the boys will surely recall Rex.
Rex was a once-in-a-lifetime personality. He loved swimming, retrieving, and women, in that order. I had taught him a party trick; “Go and find the ball”. Wherever we hid a ball Rex would search for it until he found it. The school grounds were surrounded on two sides by quite dense macrocarpa trees which seemed to have an uncanny magnetism for tennis, cricket or any kind of ball. After only the most perfunctory search the students would ask if they could borrow Rex to find the ball. He loved the game and often brought back not only the lost ball but a bonus or two as well.’
Kevin Edwards, known as Chuck, remembers that the Coast Road Schools’ D.A. Day was always an event to look forward to. The previous afternoon the teachers would all travel to Weber to mark out the track and playing areas. It was a long and complicated process getting it right.
Orm Collins, Head Teacher at Te Tree Point, devised a plan to speed up the marking out. He and his pupils spent two school days tying different pieces of coloured wool into a great length of twine.
Photo caption – Vice-Regal visit, 1966. The Governor General Sir Bernard Fergusson.
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Each piece of coloured wool represented a marker around the track and games area. All that was required was to run the twine around in an oval and put the appropriate stakes in where the coloured wool dictated.
It was soon accomplished and pinned down at the starting point. To speed things up even more quickly, David, of the Weber School, brought in his extra sharp mower to cut the track alongside the twine. Halfway down the track there came a great scream … and a cursing … and there was Orm chasing that roaring motor with its great stream of confettied wool and twine blowing behind.
In that recovery room at the top of the Leisure Hour, David discovered that it was quite an expensive experience, calming Orm down and persuading him not to resign from country school teaching!
And no doubt many will recall the D.A. Day at Te Tree Point School when Orm Collins’ pig joined in the kids’ races.
At Easter in 1966 the school celebrated its 75th Jubilee in the school grounds.
Once more big trees were cut back and some removed.
The weeping elm, planted June 2, 1953 to commemorate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, received its frame.
The drive was tarsealed.
During the celebrations a bronze plaque commemorating the event, donated by Mr and Mrs A.W.S. Longley, was ceremoniously unveiled. Later it was housed on a sundial purchased with the money left over from the Jubilee celebrations.
October 1966, Mr Kebba Samba, a Schools’ Supervisor from Ghambia [Gambia], spent two weeks at the school observing organisation methods. During his stay the people of the district did everything possible to give him an experience of typical rural life in New Zealand. When it was time for Mr Samba to leave, a function was organised by the children and a going away gift was presented on their behalf by Simon Speedy. Other children presented books from their parents as well.
On July 12 1966 the Governor General, Sir Bernard Fergusson, and Lady Fergusson, visited Wimbledon School during a tour of Central and Southern Hawke’s Bay.
October 24 1966. Senior pupils from Std 3 to F2 travelled to Dannevirke on Mr G.D. Morgans’ bus to stay for two days as guests of the Dannevirke Rotary Club. This was the first of the annual visits which continued into the late 1980s.
November 11 1967. The Wimbledon War Memorial Pool was used for the first time. No longer would the school children need to swim in the Angora Creek.
In 1968 the roll had increased sufficiently for Miss Jennifer Flynn to be appointed Assistant Mistress.
An unexpected boost to roll numbers were 16 pupils from Te Tree Point School when their school was without a teacher during the first term. These pupils were conveyed from the school and back by Kevin Edwards in a Departmental bus.
Photo caption – Mr Kebba Samba with Kevin Edwards.
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LOOKING BACK
It is 25 years since they came –
Eight decades of them –
Three generations of them –
Spanning seventy-five years in all –
Easter, 1966.
First day pupils, the pupils of the day, teachers, committee members, bus drivers, parents, neighbours and friends of the school, returning to the school of their youth and belonging to take up the threads that bind them, to talk and to remember, exploring again the territory of the past called childhood.
How they talked! And how they remembered!
“Do you remember?” – and “I remember” said again and again.
It wasn’t the pupils of the first decade who had learned of the Moa hunters herding the big birds along the beach from Pipi Bank to Cape Turnagain where, unable to climb the Cape or enter the sea, they became easy prey – or that Captain Cook had named our most prominent physical feature Cape Turnagain and his reasons for doing so. They did know, of course, of the pigs – the Captain Cookers – but it depended whether you were settler or hunter how you viewed that legacy.
They were schooled in different times. They learnt the names of the Kings of England, 1066 and all that, and that as he lay dying Nelson expected that every man would do his duty – for England of course, while his request to Hardy to be kissed was better not talked about!
They remembered the flag flying on the Store on the celebration of Ladysmith Day and that they not only had a holiday in 1900 when General Kruger surrendered in South Africa but that each had received a bronze medal as well.
They remembered the other school holidays: –
Victoria Day, the one in 1901 when the Duke and Duchess of York visited New Zealand, the Coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra when all received a commemorative certificate. Trafalgar Day, Empire Day, the Prince of Wales’ birthday, and Prime Minister Seddon’s death and funeral had all warranted holidays too.
On May 10, 1910 the King died and there was a holiday.
The crowning of his son, George V, was commemorated with the planting of the big oak which grew to dominate the southern end of the playground for many years.
They remembered the other oak trees, five in all, planted on July 11, 1910 during the Peace celebrations. One tree for each of those boys, well versed in the fact that being part of the glorious Empire meant an unhesitating response to the call for arms in times of crisis, and who had paid the supreme price in the Great War.
They remembered the ceremony where people put things in the Memorial before the last plaque was positioned – records of the District and school, photographs and mementos, and that Mrs Pope had put in personal things of her three sons, all dead in the space of six short months.
Later Mrs Pope gave the flagstaff, sited down the path in front of the school, where the time-honoured Monday morning ritual was observed, and they learnt their history and heritage as the flag moved so regularly up and down its pole.
They remembered those other boys who had served and returned, changed forever by the experience – their effort acknowledged by the walnuts and hazelnuts growing on the hillside. They remembered that we had not learned from the futility of it all and that another generation of Wimbledon boys would be required to make the same sacrifices and that anguish and heartache are common to all generations.
For these boys Memorial Baths would be built and their names recorded on the copper plaques at the gate.
They remembered the good times – the old school with its sloping floor and long rows of desks – each desk seating five, the back row occupied by the big ones. The back row boys remembered pinning to the desk the pigtails of the girls who sat in front of them or dipping them into the inkwell for good measure, and that one area of the room – a corner – signified disgrace and punishment. It catered for behavioural problems, inability to learn, or the teacher’s inadequacy on the occasions she didn’t know what to do next. For obvious reasons it was known as ‘The Wimbledon Water Works!’
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They remembered the Magic Lantern shows, the concerts and fancy dress balls held in the woolshed at full moon, so that all might travel home by the light of ‘Paddy’s Lantern!’
The picnics were, without doubt, the event of the school year – Pa Kuku, sportsground or schoolgrounds – digging in the roped off area of the sand for buried treasure, the sack races and tug-of-war! And who would ever forget those trestle tables under the memorial oaks laden with sumptuous food, while Alf Morgans and his brothers tended the fire, cooking their kerosene tins of potatoes and boiling water for tea and dishes.
Tom Morgans was remembered as being the first child born at Wimbledon after the opening of the Block.
His sister, Alice, visited “her” macrocarpa tree as she did on every return visit home. Its massive stump still stands – memorial to far more than a simple Arbor Day planting.
They remembered the years of Depression when money was more scarce than usual. Children often had no boots and only one set of school clothes to last a whole week. These were the days of the pinny which could be reversed when one side became dirty. They were the days when children went home from school, changed, and hung their clothes on their own nail.
Water was often a problem, – the copper, tub and wringer, the push-up wooden prop of the long wire clotheslines the order of the weekly wash day – traditionally Monday.
Out of necessity this was sometimes changed to Saturday when was water did a double duty on family bath night. To have first turn at it was luck indeed! “You would never forget the smell of wash water,” they said, “or it’s soft satiny feel on your skin!”
“To be poor,” said one girl, “didn’t entitle you to be dirty or go unmended! It was a disgrace to have holes in our clothes.” Her face crumpled in laughter. “We wore thick black ribbed stockings to school. On several occasions I developed a hole and was too lazy to mend it. I blacked my leg with boot polish and another time I used ink. It worked quite well until the day the hole either got bigger or shifted a little and a ring of white showed around the blacking. You should have heard the other kids! They gave me hell! I am still embarrassed when I think about it!”
Another girl remembered her poor, red, frozen feet – and the pain. “I remember the absolute joy when Granny bought me a pair of sandshoes. Imagine it! Sandshoes in winter! – but absolute heaven for a bare-footed child!”
And so it went on, each decade having its own particular set of memories as times, methods and attitudes changed.
Arthur Longley remembered the day that William and Eliza Hales of Weber passed by the school in the new car that they had bought in Napier. It was the first to be seen in the District. Arthur’s horse, in the school paddock, was so alarmed that it raced madly around the paddock and dropped dead! Arthur maintained that it wasn’t the car that had frightened his horse to death, but Aunt Eliza’s hat!
Some remembered learning their tables by rote in a monotonous sing-song accompanied by a peculiar astride jumping and arm-flapping movement. They could still demonstrate this until one remembered that boy who thought eleven elevens were eleventy-eleven!
They remembered the neighbouring fowls whose invasion of the school grounds prompted one prankster to tuck heads under wings and after a vigorous wind-up pop them into a tree where they stayed, conned into believing it was night time.
We are unlikely to ever known just WHO DID put the luckless chook down the teacher’s toilet – or the outcome!
Far more predictable was the outcome for the group of the youngest generation, still mystified as to ‘How the teacher knew?’ when the new toilet block, with its recycled corrugated iron screen sporting several nail holes, provided the opportunity for a new game, where ‘to aim high’ had nothing to do with school mottos.
They were convinced that “SOMEBODY must of told!”
Margaret Longley re-lived the trauma of the day Britten Butcher set his underclothes too close to the fire for airing!
For her mother, Milly Hales, joy was in finding the original school bell – an old cowbell – in the ashes, when all had cooled down. It rang as proficiently as before to assemble seventy-five years of pupils to answer the roll at Easter in 1966 – pupils who had come to remember and to share in the nostalgia of hot cocoa boiled on an old school stove, smoking dry dock leaves in acorn pipes, acorn fights, knitting peggy squares in War time, and five kids astride an old white horse, regretting only that time passes all too quickly.
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The Last Two Decades by Matt Newland
“I remember well our first visit to Wimbledon early in 1970; we came via Porangahau and it rained all the way, and the road was certainly worse than it is now. Our first view of the school with its multicoloured flaking paint was a bit off-putting but at least we were both very impressed with the school house.”
Matt had not been the first and certainly not the last to presume that the house across the road from the school was the school house. After being directed up the drive past the school, difficult to see because of trees – there was the school house.
“We were both thinking if the school is in such a state, imagine what the house is likely to be like! Nevertheless we were suitably impressed with the school house when we saw it – fairly new and looking much better than the school.”
“Our arrival in Wimbledon to set up home did not get off to a very good start as we arrived on a Thursday and the district was empty as most people were in Dannevirke at the local sale. We felt too, that our long removal van would not handle the steep drive, but this was no problem to the driver – not only did the van get to the top, but somehow it was even turned. Finding the keys was our next problem – nobody who was home in the district had a clue where they were – so off came an aluminium window and soon we were inside, and the van unloaded. A few days later the keys appeared, in the mail from Rotorua.”
Initially, Matt says that he was intending to stay long enough to complete his country service requirements but the arrival of two young children have provided sufficient reasons and excuses for not leaving and his stay of twenty one years to be the longest serving Principal in the history of the school.
Matt says, “The thinking now is that I will probably leave if the school is closed in the near future, or that I will probably go out in a box feet first. Maybe an early retirement will beat both the above.”
Entries Matt has recorded in the School Log prompt memories.
May 25, 1970. Mr E.M. Newland commenced duties as the Head Teacher. Roll 27.
June 22 1970 Builders began work on the new toilet block. No longer would the children need to make the dash from the classrooms across to the red roofed corrugated outside toilets.
By the time Term III 1970 commenced, vinyl flooring had been laid in all rooms, a new storeroom had been built onto the junior room and the new cloakroom and toilet block was in use. Both the interior and exterior of the school were also being painted.
November 13 1970 Sir Arthur Porritt and Lady Porritt made a vice-regal visit to the school as part of a whirlwind tour of Central and southern Hawkes
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Bay. Memories of the day include Michael Leitch carrying the Governor General’s hat for him; the disappearance of the district’s bouquet into the boot of the vice-regal car to join many others languishing there.
1973 For a time persistent rumours concerned the imminent closure of both Wimbledon and Te Tree Point Schools, and the likely amalgamation of Wimbledon School with Porangahau School. Contact with the Hawkes Bay Education Board soon had the rumours quelled, as they refuted any claims that Wimbledon School was to close.
1974 In mid-June a Standard 4 class from Karori Normal School visited and was hosted in the Wimbledon and Te Tree Point School districts by both schools. The involvement of the district during this visit was impressive and is well recorded on film. Although many of the visiting children had travelled extensively overseas, few had visited a New Zealand farm or had been close to farm animals. Highlights for them were stroking and patting a horse, sheep and the dogs, the stories told by George Watson about his hunting exploits; the hangi prepared mainly by the Watsons, Pukis and the Nikoras.
1974 The school year ended with a Coast Road Schools trip to Camp Kaitawa. The ninth decade will probably be remembered best by its pupils for changes in learning. During this period outdoor education was introduced and enthusiastically adopted by large numbers of schools. In Hawkes Bay Camp Kaitawa was established at Lake Waikaremoana. A campermatic unit based in Dannevirke provided additional support for School Camping programmes. Many Wimbledon pupils will remember sleeping under flapping canvas in the Angora Valley.
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Enthusiasm for the Wimbledon and Herbertville areas as an outdoor area was being shown by many schools from Southern Hawkes Bay and the Wairarapa. It was not uncommon to have schools visit as they used the pool or other facilities.
Over the next decade the log book records the large number of camps or overnight trips made away by the school – Kaitawa, Paraparaumu, Herbertville, Papatawa and Turangi to name a few. There are also records of countless day trips to places such as Napier, Norsewood, Palmerston North, Porangahau and Dannevirke.
The school’s Maori Culture or Tikanga Maori programme is well documented in the log. Visits were made to Porangahau to Te Poho o Kahungunu Whare at the Marae with the Rev. J. Tuhiwai, Vicar of St Michael’s and a regular visitor to the school. Mrs Ani Allen and her Dannevirke High School pupils visited over a period teaching Maori Craft, waiata, poi and introduced us to other aspects of things Maori. A day was held at Herbertville where parents, friends and visitors learned some of the procedures and customs associated with a Marae. Children from the school, supported by the High School group, also participated successfully in the Maori Cultural Festival held in Dannevirke and then stayed on the Aotea Marae.
During May Keith Hay Ltd delivered our new prefabricated, relocatable classroom. The building arrived in a damaged condition as they had underestimated the difficulty of moving a building over the coast road – no floor joists, no spouting or downpipes, and with every window broke. Luckily the building supervisor, Mr G. Faulkner was there when it arrived. The building arrived virtually unannounced. It was seventeen weeks before repairs could be completed and the room became usable.
Coast Road School met at the Weber Hall for a screening of an Australian film “Northern Safari.”
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A very entertaining and enlightening film – one of the best films we have viewed, as a school.
1976 A new venture was a Rugby Tournament organised in Porangahau and catering mainly for the country schools around the Porangahau area. We combined with Weber to field teams and even with Gayleen Jackson playing for us we couldn’t really compete with the bigger school.
1977 The remaining macrocarpas planted in 1900 were felled because it was felt that those in the grounds constituted a danger to the children.
Sporting wise, Hawi Kopua had excelled in all aspects during the years, capping his numerous successes by winning the Champion of Champion trophy at the SHB Country Schools’ Sports and the annual Southern Hawkes Bay crosscountry run.
A highlight of the year was the Mangaoarapa [Mangaorapa] Rugby Tournament. We took the field in our newly purchased royal blue jerseys and performed with distinction. Hidden away in our Senior team was one Joleen Peachey who, suitably attired sporting a short haircut and renamed “Joe” for the day, had performed so well as to be picked for a “representative” game later in the day. Sometime during the match the selector was heard to mutter, “Good God, there’s a girl out there!” I don’t know what he was worrying about really as Joe’s team won 12-nil. Oh yes, and Joe had scored all the points.
Photos captions –
New relocatable classroom.
Mr Newland and Mrs Nola Hales, teachers 1977.
Hawi Kopua, Champion of Champions.
Joleen Peachey, centre middle row. Champion of the Day!
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1980 The year of more water problems, and hopeful solutions. The Board finally supplied tanks and solved the problem.
The log records the introduction of the successful reading programme ERIC, when shared books, books of different shapes, reading charts and many more new approaches became commonplace.
Towards the end of the year an ex-pupil, Hugh Morgans, and three other DSIR scientists visited the school to show and talk about an ammonite fossil they had found locally. The ammonite between 65-200 million years old, at the time of discovery is the largest found in NZ.
1981 The formation of REAP gave access to another valuable resource and the school’s first use of this was an enrichment programme for gifted children. Over the next decade REAP would make an important contribution to the school in providing programmes such as Sciquest [SciQuest], Art and a hands on programme with Macintosh Computers.
Pupils attended regular classes at the Porangahau Craft Cottage where the programme included batik, pottery, enamelled copperware, Woolcraft and patchwork.
June 26 1982. The school was broken into and a radio was the only item stolen. A tidy burglar who removed louvres to get into two of the rooms and then used burning sheets of paper to provide himself with light. Yet again the school could so easily have been burnt to the ground!
1983 Throughout its history the Wimbledon School’s Picnic has been held at many venues and this year while at the Waimata River two Fisheries Officers inspected catches of paua and crayfish. Luckily no-one was prosecuted for taking undersized shellfish but many had to be returned to the sea.
March 14 1985. The passing of the big oak tree in the middle of the school grounds. An overnight storm split the tree and its branches littered the grounds. After the chairman and I had completed cosmetic surgery on the tree there was little left but a bare trunk, so it was decided to cut the tree down.
In mid-November the senior children, teacher and two parents moved to the top of the Angora Valley to set up our tent camp in readiness for the arrival of the rest of the children and parents. The interest in the camp was such that on the Saturday we had more parents and adults present than we had children. A wide range of activities took place, a few planned, but most, informal child-choice with adult supervision, and all only a few kilometres from the school. At the end of the camp many of the adults present were much more appreciative of what this area has to offer. Some memories of the camp were the troubles people had in digging the two “long drops”; the scarcity of flat areas on which to pitch a tent; the bright boy who lost us our milk supply into the creek on the first afternoon; Alan Wilkinson on the papa slopes grabbing children as they slid past him; and the barbecue tea on Saturday evening and the number who came up especially for it.
3 October dawned cloudy and cold for the crosscountry run the school had organised for Southern Hawkes Bay Schools at Burnview. Smooth organisation and great district involvement catered for the 64 teams, 664+ competitors who enjoyed themselves. The course was the only one in Southern Hawkes Bay to include a beach section.
1987 As a change from our usual “Science Involvement” with the DHS (Sciquest) this year saw all the local country schools meet in Dannevirke for a day to practice, rehearse and then present a mini-musical based on the story “Where the Wild Things Are”. Very well received by the children and the audience, and far less time consuming than the usual Music Festival.
1987 This year’s Pet Show at Motea was, as usual, successful with our children presenting 15 pets and doing well in the indoor sections.
Pet Shows have been a feature in the school over the decades. Many of us will remember the pets that escaped, those that we reluctantly locked in a cage for a day, last minute adjustments to the sand saucers and the flowers that needed Mum to help them stay in place. It seems that judges never quite please everyone.
Photo caption – REAP Camp at Motea. Children visited the Coonoor Caves.
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1988 Early in March a Public Meeting was held at the school to discuss the following: – the tennis court; fencing the War Memorial Baths, and setting a date for the School Centennial in 1991. The tennis court was upgraded.
1988 The visit by Warwick Biddel, Hydatids Officer, to speak to the children and show a film on hydatids. Certainly the message was well received by the children but his timing was certainly off as it was pie day, and just before lunch!
The log continues to record many visits by speakers with expertise in subjects such as conservation and geology that are of real interest and importance to those living in the country. It is satisfying to see that the visions of Henry Hill and Taylor White have endured over the years.
1988 A highlight has been the Outdoor Education Day in November when once again we hosted the other five Coast Road Schools. The children enjoyed the kayaking and aqualunging. Parents were impressed by the demonstrations by the Waipukurau Ambulance Officer, Chris McKay and the work of the Police Youth Aid Officer from Palmerston North. Chris McKay also demonstrated the use of the district’s new Furno stretcher.
1989 Kiwisport was introduced to the coast Road Schools. The simplification of rules and active participation are the keys to the programme. The first day, held at Weber, concentrated on Kiwi cricket, athletics, softball and sort tennis, while in June the theme for all was new image rugby. July saw us all together yet again, this time at Waitahora for a day with the emphasis on the winter games.
Log records over the years indicate the difficulty of small schools of fielding a sports team. Often girls were smuggled into the rugby team to make up the numbers. Kiwisport allows all children to participate regardless of size, sex or ability. Now we really can put girls into our Touch Rugby Team.
1989 Bob Sanderson (Art Advisor) visited and taught the children about printing.
The school log records many visits from people in the Advisory Service who have played an important part in introducing new methods and ideas. Many past pupils will remember the excitement of days spent with Bob Sanderson, Eric Hogg (Physical Education), Derek Thompson (Maths), Val Dell (Reading), John Nelson and Ron Piercy (Rural Advisor), and others.
1989 The School Committee was replaced by the Board of Trustees who went about implementing the new ideas contained in the Government’s ‘Tomorrow’s Schools policies. The first task was to prepare budgets and to write a Charter. The first Board of Trustees was:
Murray Donald (Chairman), Christine Ross (Treasurer), Jan Newland (Staff Rep/Secretary), Russell Bee, Lorraine de Visser, Denice Speedy and Matt Newland (Principal).
1990 In February peace and quiet was shattered with the first of our big earthquakes which fortunately came in the early evening. The school was closed for a day to allow the staff to clean up. Over the next few months we had to cope with numerous aftershocks and a second big quake in May.
1990 August. We visited Herbertville for the day, and played indoor games in the Herbertville Hall, followed by a beach clean-up from Cape Turnagain to Pa Kuku. The clean-up resulted in two very full trailers of rubbish which was mainly plastic.
1990 Money raised at a cake and bring and buy stall gave us a grand total in our Atiu School Fund of $363. Already we have sent sports gear to the Cook Island school and a video about our school is being made. The remaining money is to be spent on books for their cyclone-devastated library.
1990 Senior pupils, parents I spent a day in Waipukurau at the Nga Taonga o Tamatea Exhibition. This exhibition of artifacts including those found in our local area were interesting. Who will ever forget the impact of the waka parked outside?
In June 1982 Mr E.N. Halford retired after a remarkable thirty-nine years involvement in
Photo caption – Former pupils judge at the Pet Show
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education. Thirty-one years of continuous service were spent as a member of the Hawkes Bay Education Board – eight of them as Chairman.
As our Ward member for twenty-five years and later as Chairman of the Board, Bert Halford visited Wimbledon on a regular basis.
From Nola Hales, Researcher, Editor.
It has been my privilege and pleasure to compile the history of the Wimbledon School for the centennial celebrations to be held at Easter, 1991.
For some, one hundred years must seem like an eternity, others who will be present at the celebrations have personally known many of the settlers who first took up land at Wimbledon in 1886 and their children who attended the school in its earliest years.
Among those present will be sons and daughters of first day pupils.
For them, memories of events which have occurred during the school’s first hundred years are evergreen.
It is time that the history of the Wimbledon School is recorded. It is still possible to bring together the evidence contained in diaries, ledgers, journals, letters and photographs, while human memory is reasonably reliable.
I am grateful to all those people who have contributed so generously to this history, with either material or their time especially when the manuscript was being readied for print. Your involvement has made the work an exciting experience for me. The only problem has been in how to present so much of interest in a limited space at an affordable price.
Material not used in this presentation will be incorporated into the histories of the Wimbledon and Herbertville districts and family records.
It was fitting that Matt Newland, Principal of Wimbledon School since 1970 should write the history of the school since the 75th jubilee. For this we thank him.
It is hoped that this book will help to remind you of the days of your childhood spent in a playground shared by one hundred years of children and that while you are there once more you will enjoy again those old friendships. Pause awhile to listen and you will be sure to hear those playground echoes of the past –
Ginger, Jerry, Jack and Josh,
Harry, Hairy, Harpic,
Ernie, Essie, Cissy,
Skinny, Sinky, Stinky-Linky, Twit.
Lily, Lizzie, Lottie,
Bobby, Jessie and Old Sour Puss!
Ted, Taffy, Treenie, Top –
Gertie, Peggy, Doodlum, Dunny Brush!
Milly, Molly, Maud and May –
Acky, Eddie, Snow and Nigs,
Dickie, Mickey, Alf and Carrots,
Eenie Beenie, Jock and Florrie
Ray-Ray, Babe and Bill!
and –
SIR! SIR! SIR!
Wimbledon School Committee Chairpeople
Thomas Charles Hales, first Chairperson. No dates available.
1900–1906 James Groves Speedy
1907–1908 George Carmichael
1909–1910 James Martin Fisher
1911–1912 Thomas Charles Hales and T. Siteman Commissioners
1913 Thomas Charles Hales and Rudolph C. Sturm Commissioners
1914–1916 W.S. Longley Commissioner
1917 G.A. Herbert Commissioner
1918 A.W.S. Longley Commissioner
1919–1920 A.W.S. Longley Chairperson
1912 G. Herbert Chairperson
1912–1922 A.W.S. Longley Chairperson
1923–1924 A.W.S. Longley Commissioner
1925–1927 A.W.S. Longley Chairperson
1928–1929 S. Herbert Chairperson
1930 A.H. Morgans Commissioner
Photo caption – Here he is pictured making his last visit to schools, accompanied by others who have been closely associated with our school.
L. to R. – Messrs Charles Bell, Hawkes Bay Education Board General Manager, Harold Beckett, Building inspector and Dal Walker, Ward Member.
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1931–1932 A.H. Morgans Commissioner
1953 R.E.T. Hales Commissioner
1954–1960 W. Longshaw Commissioner
1961–1965 P. Speedy Chairperson
1965–1966 M. Buchanan Chairperson
1967–1969 W.E.G. Morgans Chairperson
1969–1970 M. Buchanan Chairperson
1971–1972 W.E.G. Morgans Chairperson
1973–1975 W. Speedy Chairperson
1976–1981 D. Speedy Chairperson
1981–1982 B. Dornbush Chairperson
1983–1985 B.C. Hales Chairperson
1986–1989 L. McKavanagh Chairperson
Wimbledon School Board of Trustees
1989–1990 M. Donald Chairperson
Wimbledon School Teachers
Miss Isabel Smith 1892-1896
Miss Hilda Maria Pederson 1896-1898
Mrs Fryer, relieving
Miss Elizabeth Moore 1898-1900
Miss Gallien c.1898
Miss L.M. Marsh 1900-1901
Miss Hilda Olsen 1901-1903
Miss Kemp relieving 1903
Miss Simpson relieving 1903
Mr William Davidson 1904-1907
Miss McDonald relieving 1907
Mr A.W.S. Longley 1908-1911
Miss Williams relieving 1911
Mrs Georgina Marion Greenshields 1911-1919
Miss Dorothy Whibley 1920-1922
Miss Bruce relieving 1923
Mr Hingston relieving 1924
Mr Ridgeway relieving 1924
Mr William Erle Rose 1926-1929
Mr Ennerson relieving 1926
Miss W. Joyce McMurray 1929-1931
Mr Edward Britten Butcher 1931-1936
Miss M.S. Taylor 1937-1938
Mr L.G. Davey relieving 1939
Mr R.J. McKelvey 1940-1942
Miss E.J. McNichol relieving 1942
Miss Carol Hopkirk 1942-1945
Miss P.P. Donaldson relieving 1946
Miss Joyce Setter relieving 1946
Miss Joy M. Davidson 1946-1947
Mr C.A. Booth relieving 1947
Miss M.E.R. Morgans, 1947-1948 relieving, uncertificated.
Miss Jeanette Hart relieving 1949, uncertified.
School closed for six months, 1950
Mr K.R. West relieving uncert. 1950
School closed for second and third terms 1951
Miss B. F. June Pedersen 1951
Mr Kevin Dwyer relieving 1951
Miss B.F. June McLeod 1952
Mrs A. Hamilton relieving 1952
Mr Don Barrowman 1953-1955
Mrs N. Hales relieving 1954
During this period the school was at Herbertville for a term and three weeks with Don Barrowman, the teacher.
Mr E. Hooper relieving 1956
Mr Ross Piper 1956-1959
Mr Bruce Hasler relieving 1960
Mr Don Cochrane relieving 1960
The school assumed two-teacher status in 1961
Headteachers
Mr Michael Lynskey 1961-1962
Mr Peter D’Ath 1963-1965
Mr Kevin Edwards 1965-1970
Mr E.M. Newland 1970-???
Assistant Teachers
Mr A. Drillien, relieving 1961
Mrs Nola Hales 1961-1965
Miss Jennifer Flynn 1968-1969
Miss Barbara Lister 1970-??
Miss Wendy Ellingham 1971-1972
Miss C. Williams relieving 1973
Mrs J.K. Newland relieving 1973
Mr B. Tregonning relieving 1974
Mrs Margaret Hales relieving 1974
Mrs Nola Hales 1975-1982
Mrs J.K. Newland relieving 1982
Mrs J.K. Newland relieving 1983 (one term)
Mrs J.K. Newland relieving 1984 (one term)
The school returned to sole-charge status.
Original digital file
TairawhitiMuseum4013-2_Wimbledon.pdf
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Description
[List of names in this title still to be added – HBKB]
Subjects
Business / Organisation
Wimbledon SchoolFormat of the original
Typed bookletDate published
1991Accession number
684761Supporters and sponsors
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