Crowded Century, A – The Daily Telegraph Centennial Number 1971
NAPIER – 100 years ago . . .
Town and around, 1871
Climb on to a buggy for a jaunt through the dusty streets of Napier on the mild summer evening of February 1, 1871.
Starting point: The Post and Telegraph Office at the foot of Shakespeare Road (where the Government Buildings now stand).
It’s the centre of the budding township. Nearby (on the present telephone exchange site) is the two-storeyed Provincial Council Building, administrative centre of the separated Province of Hawke’s Bay, and around it are trim lawns.
Shakespeare Road, silhouetted against the setting sun, has a number of cottages and two hotels, the Settlers’ and the Empire (now Cabana), and a few stores, including the grocery of Mr E. W. Knowles, later to become the sole proprietor of The Daily Telegraph.
Opposite our starting point is the Clarendon Hotel, focal point of much social life and meeting place of the Napier Rifle Club, the 43-member Clarendon Cricket Club, and other institutions.
Inside, the issues of the day – perhaps the appearance of the province’s new daily newspaper – are debated.
A tug on the bridle and off we move. Browning Street heading toward the beach is soon a mere path leading to the Napier Athenaeum standing alone (on the present museum site). On the Marine Parade, construction of the present courthouse is soon to begin. The site is levelled and fenced. The only building on the Marine Parade is the Hawke’s Bay Club.
In Hastings Street, stores line each side of the dusty thoroughfare as far as Tennyson Street. The two-storeyed Bank of New Zealand rises like a sentinel on the site of the present Cathedral fountain.
The original Masonic Hotel (on the present site) offers service “second to none in the province” and the proprietor, Mr S. C. Caulton, in his advertisements describes the locality as “cheerful and salubrious”.
Tennyson Street has the printing office of The Herald and a few other buildings. Emerson Street is little more than a well-used track. The “sunny side” has but half a dozen modest buildings. The premises of Mr Robert Holt, a Lancashire-born joiner, builder and undertaker, are on the site now occupied by Haywrights’ department store.
The fern-clothed hills, almost bare of trees, are dotted with a few homes, Barracks of the departed 65th Regiment remain on the present hospital site. The town’s first Grammar School for Boys is located on the present Central School site (the school building is now the Anglican Ormond Chapel).
The Ahuriri Lagoon almost surrounds Napier. Clive and Havelock North are thriving villages, Hastings is not envisaged among the swamps.
Beyond, pioneer farmers live in near isolation, with few roads and no railway. Waipawa (three hotels) is the largest settlement. The sites of Dannevirke and Norsewood are undisturbed in the Seventy-Mile Bush.
The setting sun casts a red glow on the lagoon stretching to the Poraite hills, broken by a gravel spit fingering its way north to Petane.
Port Ahuriri, with its inner harbour, is a lively shipping and merchants’ centre during the day. There are wool stores, shops, stables and four hotels in the vicinity of the Iron Pot.
Yet as our buggy trundles back to town there is little hint of the transformation man and nature will bring in the century to come . . .
. . . the scene today
The Daily Telegraph Centennial Issue, February 1, 1971
A Crowded Century 1871 – 1971
From Victoriana to the space age. From creaking, sea-lashed sailing ships to the lunar module. A giant’s leap, indeed, and all in the space of The Daily Telegraph’s crowded century.
On Wednesday, February 1, 1871, The Daily Telegraph was born of optimism and faith in the future of Hawke’s Bay, a 12-year-old independent province in the most far-flung colony of Victoria’s Empire.
When the first issues sold (for twopence) to an inquisitive populace, the province stood at the threshold of a telling decade and the most exciting century in man’s history.
The subsequent 10 years produced significant social reforms in New Zealand, lasting public works and a rate of population growth in Hawke’s Bay unequalled to this day.
In the inflationary decade of the 1880s, thousands of Hawke’s Bay settlers came from diverse backgrounds. From Lancashire’s dreary cotton mills. From the bleak crofts of Scotland. From the wealthy homes of rural England. From Scandinavia’s rugged forests. From scholarly public schools and scruffy back streets.
Yet most had a common purpose. They sought fresh air, hard work, their own homes, independence and a less fettered life. They endured sea-tossed weeks, survived disease, hardships and privations to become the backbone of a growing province,
Many Ships
Immigrant ships arrived frequently at Napier in the 1870s. The population of Hawke’s Bay leapt about 7000 to more than 21,000 by the decade’s end. In 1871, the New Zealand Government was offering free passages to selected British immigrants, mainly farm labourers, navvies, mechanics, female servants and dairy maids.
Farm labourers, fed and housed in crude bunk-houses, were paid $1.80 weekly. Sheep musterers earned up to $4 a week in the season. Domestics were lucky to get $1 a week, Skilled men in towns earned more, mechanics getting about $1.20 a day.
A tailored tweed suit cost $7. Oxford laced shoes were 75c. Two-pound loaves of bread were 3c and a pound of farm butter 10c. Eggs sold for about I5c a dozen and a ham for 12c a pound.
On February 1, 1871, Colonial Treasurer and future Prime Minister, Sir Julius Vogel, was overseas, implementing his policy of extensive borrowing for road, rail and telegraph construction in a bid to encourage immigration and land developments.
Going Ahead
The House of Representatives was in the process of an election. The Daily Telegraph’s first issue reported that the Hon. Donald McLean, Minister of Defence and Minister of Native Affairs, was returned unopposed for Hawke’s Bay, and, at a Waipawa meeting, the Hon. John Davies Ormond, who became Minister of Works, was re-elected unopposed for the Clive district.
The province was administered by the Hawke’s Bay Provincial Council, The Superintendent. Mr Ormond, called for tenders for further work on the Napier-Taupo road in his capacity as general Government agent.
In Napier, citizens were urging the provision of public baths – but had to wait another 30 years before they got them. They also sought a bridge to replace the ferry service between the Eastern and Western Spit at Westshore. Wool exports were increasing. A flax industry was prospering. Frozen meat was unheard of.
Overseas, the Crimean War was over but not forgotten. War between England and Russia still threatened. Newspaper editorials feared that beyond a declaration of war with Russia loomed the possibility of war with America which had agreed to harbour Russian vessels. Charles Dickens’ grave had just been completed. Lenin was an infant.
It all seems another age. Other people, other problems. Yet this is our community, our beginning. The crowded century embraces their lives and ours, spans the brave deeds of many yesterdays, the achievements of today and the hopes of tomorrow.
CONTENTS
Pages
1- 5: The early years.
7-19: Places – their names and history.
21-33: People who make a province.
35-59: Hawke’s Bay men and women in action.
49-52: Earthquake disaster.
60-73: The prizes we sought are won; achievements of a century.
75-81: Social order; Government, law, church and education.
82-89: Ourselves.
91-95: From our files.
97-99: Those were the days.
100: Royal visit flashbacks.
Most of the pictures reproduced in this publication are from The Daily Telegraph’s own picture library. They include some submitted by readers for the History in Focus series in 1964. Others are from various sources including the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, and the Hawke’s Bay Art Gallery and Museum whose co-operation has been most valuable. Coloured earthquake pictures are from the Berry family collection, Napier.
Photo caption – An early Hawke’s Bay homestead.
Pages 2 and 3
Voyages of discovery
A new, raw land
Missionaries, adventurous pioneers, whalers and runaway seamen – for the most part a motley incongruous assortment. Rough-hewn men, inspired by a sense of duty, adventure or fear, sought fulfilment, excitement or refuge in a raw land.
These were the first European inhabitants of Hawke’s Bay, the forerunners of our community. Some were transient rogues and opportunists drawn to these shores during the century following James Cook’s voyage of discovery in 1769. But others remained in Hawke’s Bay to contribute to the founding of European settlement.
When Cook sailed across Hawke Bay in mid-October 202 years ago, he saw an untamed land that had altered little for centuries. The intense writhing of the island over long periods of geological evolution had subsided to spasmodic fault movements.
The mountains, valleys and alluvium plains of Hawke’s Bay, where the giant moa once grazed, had long been shaped, clothed and inhabited.
Beech bush, subalpine scrub covered the snow-capped high country. High inland plateaus carried snowgrass, tussock and small scrubby plants. Thick bush, ferns, lakes and swamps supported myriads of native birds. Parrakeets, pigeons, pukekos and tuis abounded.
Long-tailed bats flew where once the earliest Polynesians to come to New Zealand, known as the tangata whenua (people of the land) hunted the moa as a source of food and utensils. There was an abundant, colourful insect life.
The advent of the Maori several centuries before Cook scarcely tilted the balance of nature. The inferior aborigines were either killed or absorbed in intermarriage, Some fairly large areas of forest, burnt by accident or design, turned to fern, and small places were cleared for cultivation of kumera, taro and yam. But the Maori animals, the rat (kiore) and the listless Maori dog, made little change to Hawke’s Bay’s natural flora and fauna.
Apart from the disruption of cannabalistic tribal warfare, Hawke’s Bay existed in tranquil isolation.
Captain Cook, the first European to set eyes on Hawke’s Bay, began the transformation. His pigs multiplied and made steep tracks, the English rats drove away the native variety. With fire and axe, the early European settlers markedly changed the Hawke’s Bay scene and its animal, bird and plant life.
Cook, of course, gave the first English names to the province’s geographical features, Hawke Bay and Cape Kidnappers.
He named the bay after the then First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir Edward Hawke. Cape Kidnappers, then apparently devoid of gannets, was so named after a Maori attempt to kidnap a Tahitian boy, Taiata.
A number of other European explorers followed Cook to then antipodes during the following decades. Of these, the Frenchman, Captain Dumont D’Urville, of the Astrolabe, was deeply impressed with the appearance of Hawke’s Bay.
After passing Bare Island (L the Sterile) [L’elleSterile] which was then occupied by a Maori fortress, and upon entering Hawke Bay, he wrote in his log of February 3, 1827: ” . . . in all New Zealand this part is without doubt the richest and most attractive that has been offered to my gaze”.
The Maoris encountered by Captain Cook in Hawke’s Bay were of the Ngati-Kahungunu tribe. Kahungunu was a descendant of the great voyager, Toi, who, according to legend, landed in New Zealand in the 12th century searching for his lost grandson, Whatonga. The Ngati-Mamoe, Ngai-Tahu and Rangitane were earlier occupiers of Hawke’s Bay, but each in turn was driven out in tribal battles.
The Ngati-Kahungunu also trace their ancestry to the Takatimu canoe of the great Maori migration of 1350, which made landings at Mahia Peninsula and Wairoa. The tribe became the largest and most powerful in the country.
After the period of the explorers and early whalers, the Maori population was thinned by increased tribal hostilities and, by the time European settlement began, most Hawke’s Bay Maoris had retreated to the Mahia Peninsula.
An estimated 12000 Maoris, led by the influential chief, Te Hapuku, had gathered at Mahia, though a few other settlements, mostly small, were still dotted along the coasts and rivers.
A possible visitor to Hawke’s Bay after Cook, was a retired naval officer, Lt. Thomas McDonnell, who had set up a trading station at Hokianga. The theory is based mostly on an admiralty chart of Ahuriri showing the lagoon named McDonnell’s Cove. The theory waits proof.
In 1836 a Northland trader, Mr Joel Samuel Pollack, described Hawke’s Bay as “the most fertile land that can be imagined”. A year later, Thomas Wing, master of the schooner Trent, charted Ahuriri Harbour (which he called “Hau Ridi”) and, by some historians, he is regarded as possibly the first European to set foot in the Napier district.
However, by that time, whaling stations had begun to appear at other points along the Hawke’s Bay coastline. Whakamahia, Moeangiangi, Te Awanga, Clifton and Waimarama were established as whaling stations in the years that followed.
By 1850, whaling had reached its zenith. About 50 boats were operating from the Hawke’s Bay coast, employing some hundreds of men, many of low character.
At the height of the whaling industry, Ahuriri was a noisy centre of taverns and “grog” shops where the whalers, British and American, sought rowdy pleasure to the despair of the missionaries.
Many whalers married Maori women and had half-caste children. But, by 1860, the supply of whales petered out, and the whalers drifted elsewhere.
Missionaries, who struggled against great personal hardship and danger, played an important role in the history of early Hawke’s Bay and in the introduction of European customs to the Maori.
Paradoxically, they strove to teach the Maoris ideals and a way of life extremely different from those followed by most other Europeans in Hawke’s Bay, particularly the drunken, immoral whalers and seamen.
The first missionary in Hawke’s Bay was the Rev. William Williams (later Bishop of Waiapu), who conducted Christian services at Mahia, Wairoa and other parts of Hawke’s Bay in the spring of 1840, 26 years after the Rev. Samuel Marsden brought the first missionaries to New Zealand.
In November 1842, Bishop Selwyn, accompanied by Chief Justice Martin and 30 Maoris, made the first overland journey through Hawke’s Bay, finding to their great joy “a vast area of fertile land”.
Bishop Selwyn, penetrating Hawke’s Bay from the Manawatu, crossed the Takapau plains and described the Heretaunga Plains as “very noble”. He visited Ahuriri where he met the Rev. William Williams for a large service with natives in November 1842.
Continuing his overland journey, Bishop Selwyn reached Wairoa where the Rev. W. E. Dudley had established a mission station. The bishop described it as “a very pretty station with a beautiful river”. Nuhaka he described as a “remarkably nice native settlement with the most civil and intelligent natives”.
Two years later, in December 1844, the Rev. William Colenso with his wife and child established his mission at Waitangi near Clive and the Rev. James Hamlin took over the mission at Wairoa.
Hawke’s Bay’s first visit by a Roman Catholic missionary was in 1841 when Bishop Pompallier celebrated Mass at Mahia. Father Claude Baty, S. M., stayed a year in 1841-42 making converts among the
Photo captions –
A strange and colourful early European visitor to Hawke’s Bay was Barnet Burns (above). According to a pamphlet published in Britain in 1843, he lived on Mahia Peninsula in 1829 and was accepted as a Maori chief. His face was tattooed and he later returned to England where he toured the country as a showman.
Recent archaeological work by Mr T. R. Price, (left) of Hastings, at Poukawa, 13 miles south of Hastings, has thrown new light on the earliest inhabitants of Hawke’s Bay. Various samples, including moa bones chopped or sawn by man, have been discovered and carbon dating indicates the area was inhabited 3000 years ago.
John Greening, known as “Happy Jack”, caught the first whale off Waikokopu, Northern Hawke’s Bay on June 24, 1838. He survived a shipwreck aboard an English man-o’-war in the West Indies to sail out to New Zealand and take up whaling at Mahia.
Large war canoes were among the Maori craft which visited the Endeavour as she sailed into Hawke Bay on Captain Cook’s first voyage of discovery in 1769. Hostile warriors performed hakas and Cook found it necessary to divert their attention by firing wide a series of four-pound cannon shots. Left: a drawing of one of the canoes by Sidney Parkinson, an artist on the Endeavour.
Other craft which visited the Endeavour (below) in Hawke’s Bay included fishing canoes whose occupants traded their catch. Inset: Captain Cook. Previously, New Zealand’s first human inhabitants were considered to have arrived only 900 years ago.
[Advertisement]
Rothmans
KING SIZE
BEST TOBACCO MONEY CAN BUY
There must be a reason why Rothmans is the world’s largest selling – most wanted – King Size Virginia.
It’s simply this: Rothmans extra length, finer filter and the best tobacco money can buy five you true King Size flavour.
Rothmans King Size really satisfies.
World’s largest selling most wanted King Size Virginia
MADE IN NEW ZEALAND, GREAT BRITAIN, AUSTRALIA, HOLLAND, FIJI, SWITZERLAND, MALAYSIA, EIRE, MALTA, SINGAPORE, JAMAICA AND CANADA
WORLD COPYRIGHT
Page 5
WEALTH UNLOCKED
Ngati-Kahungunu at Mahia, and Father John Lampila is said to have converted Maori to Christianity in the Heretaunga district, notably Pakowhai, in October 1844, several weeks before Colenso established his mission at Waitangi.
Eventually, and gradually, Europeans of another category began to appear in Hawke’s Bay – the settler. These were the farmers, tradesmen, businessmen and labourers whose pioneer spirit led them to seek a new life in a far-flung colony.
But European settlement of Hawke’s Bay had an uncertain beginning. Unlike six other earlier provinces of New Zealand, Hawke’s Bay was not founded on an organised basis.
At the outset there were no immigration schemes to bring British pioneers and their families to an already planned city, as was the case of Auckland and Wellington and some other centres.
So land settlement did not get under way in earnest until after 1850 and, during the 1840s, the only European inhabitants of Hawke’s Bay were the shore whalers, the missionaries and a trader or two.
The first European to make a permanent home in Hawke’s Bay was an Austrian naturalist, F.W.C. Sturm. Mystery surrounds his arrival in Hawke’s Bay, but he lived at Nuhaka as early as 1839 and acted as an arbitrator and accountant for the whalers. He later moved to Napier and died at Clive in 1887, aged 84. He was a greatly respected horticulturalist and is remembered in Napier by Sturm’s Gully.
Another early permanent settler was William Edwards, a whaler, He is believed to have settled south of Cape Kidnappers shortly after 1839. He later moved to Tangoio where, in 1849, William Colenso legalised his marriage to a Maori. The missionary recorded that Edwards was “a quiet Englishman who has lived on these shores for nearly 10 years”.
In January 1841, land purchase from the Maoris had a false start. A partner in a number of whaling operations, Mr W. B, “Barney” Rhodes, an influential Yorkshireman, arranged to buy a huge area of Hawke’s Bay land – about half the size of the present province.
He made the arrangements, however, before he knew of the Treaty of Waitangi, and the deal was ruled invalid, though he was given some land in compensation.
Though he never settled in Hawke’s Bay, Rhodes subsequently shared with his brothers, Robert and Joseph, ownership of a number of large Hawke’s Bay sheep stations, including Clive Grange, Rissington and Springhill.
Joseph Rhodes was active in early Hawke’s Bay politics, and he moved the resolution, at a meeting in Napier’s “Golden Fleece” Hotel, on Monday, September 20, 1857, which eventually procured the separation of Hawke’s Bay province from Wellington
A Scot of strong physique, Mr Alexander Alexander is recognised as the first European farmer and businessman in Hawke’s Bay. In 1846, when about 26, he began farming the foothills of Wharerangi and is believed to have opened Napier’s first building, at Ahuriri, where he kept a schooner and traded with Maoris and whalers.
He married a high-ranking Maori in romantic circumstances and years later his daughter married an Australian settler, Mr William Burnett, who eventually became Mayor of Dunedin.
Alexander remained an influential figure in the young Hawke’s Bay settlement till his death on July 25, 1873. His gravestone at Wharerangi reads: Alexander Alexander, born May 20, 1820. Arrived New Zealand May 20, 1840. Died July 25, 1873.
It bears the epitaph: “He was a man, Horatio,”
It was not until 1849 that any definite step was taken to organise the settlement of the district -10 years after the founding of the cities of Auckland and Wellington.
Governor Grey appointed Donald McLean (later Sir Donald) to visit the Ngati-Kahungunu to negotiate the purchase of land. He left Wellington on November 18, 1850, to negotiate with the Maori chiefs, notably Te Hapuku.
McLean returned the following year with £3000 to complete the purchase of large blocks of land. His deals unlocked the wealth of inland Hawke’s Bay. Pioneer homesteads were soon to appear on the isolated hillsides. Sheep in their thousands were soon bound for Hawke’s Bay pastures.
Within six years, a network of more than 30 stations spread across Hawke’s Bay, mainly in the first two blocks purchased by McLean.
Townships germinated at Port Ahuriri and in the country districts. In 1854, Alfred Domett, appointed Hawke’s Bay’s first Commissioner of Crown Lands, named the town of Napier, and, on November 13, 1856, the purchase of Scinde Island (Mataruahou), the site of Napier, was completed, for £50.
People arrived, facilities appeared. The determination for advancement and the regional pride typical of the pioneer New Zealand settler, manifested themselves in the political movement towards separation from Wellington province.
Disgruntled settlers, far from the seat of Wellington based provincial government and, with little voice in it, protested loudly that only a small fraction of money taken from sales of land found its way back for district development.
On November 1, 1858, Hawke’s Bay was proclaimed a province, with Napier its capital and, under the Hawke’s Bay Provincial Council, a wide range of development works was undertaken in the 1860s.
Budding Hawke’s Bay readied itself for a rate of population growth during the 1870s that it has not again achieved.
Photo captions –
Dr T. Hichings, Hawke’s Bay’s first medical man, arrived in 1856 and began work in primitive conditions, In 1859, he was appointed provincial surgeon in charge of the first hospital in Napier, a two-ward building at the corner of Sealy and Harvey Roads.
Ahuriri almost a century ago. The lagoon stretches to the hills, over the site of the present Hawke’s Bay Airport. At right can be seen the masts of sailing vessels and the old Ahuriri Hotel (extreme right) situated on the site of the present Rothmans Tobacco Co. factory. The Westshore bridge (left) ended the ferry era.
Te Hapuku, chief of the Ngati-Kahungunu, whose negotiations with Donald McLean for the sale of large blocks of Hawke’s Bay land led to the peaceful European settlement of Hawke’s Bay.
[Advertisements]
WE ARE INVOLVED IN A $1000,000,000 ENTERPRISE –
SO ARE YOU!
Electricity in the home and factory is very much taken for granted. The flick of a switch and electric power is there, ready to serve our everyday requirements and to turn the wheels of industry.
Behind the Electric Supply Industry in New Zealand there are 12,590 men who work day and night to maintain the supply of electric power and without whom the entire country would grind to a halt.
The product of our enterprise cannot, of course, be seen but the results and the benefits are around us for all to see.
ELECTRICITY – A POWER FOR ADVANCEMENT
HAWKES BAY ELECTRIC
POWER BOARD
Precision machines are vital cogs in the highly tuned gearing of a newspaper
LUDLOW
Composition Machines
Ludlow composition machines constantly perform at peak, turning out crisp type, smoothly, faultlessly. Ludlow machines cut costs and speed production while retaining the precision and flexibility of hand-set composition. More solid, more perfectly formed slugs, cast more efficiently and faster, make for a high quality of type reproduction for the large volume of display, job and miscellaneous type best set by hand. The Ludlow all-slug composition is easier to handle and lock-up – and affords a solid form that’s free from work-ups or pull-out. Any capable compositor can quickly master a Ludlow machine because it’s so simply designed.
The Ludlow system also includes matrix cabinets which contain 20 cases with trays to accommodate ⅞” and 1¼” Ludiow matrices. Available with either right or left hand drawers – all drawers roll out easily on nylon rollers. All-steel, the Ludlow ‘Convertible 20′ Cabinet features a recessed space and quad tray on the slanted top and a positive-control sliding copy holder.
The 20 case ‘Universal’ cabinet offers larger capacity and better arrangement for larger matrices, Optional extras available: space trays, division quad trays, a stick rack, adjustable copy holder and overhead lamp.
ORIGINAL HEIDELBERG
HEIDELBERG LETTERPRESS MACHINES
18″ x 23” sheet size, Letterpress cylinder KSBA
10″ x 15″ sheet size, Platen Model T.
22½” x 32¼” sheet size, Letterpress cylinder SBB.
These three machines operate in the Commercial Printing Department of the Telegraph, and were introduced to the Telegraph’s lineup relatively recently to produce top quality printing jobs, Precision-engineered, reliable machines – Heidelberg is a name renowned in the printing trade throughout the world.
As general suppliers to the graphic arts industry we wish to extend our most sincere congratulations to the Napier Daily Telegraph on the completion of 100 years of successful operation.
A.M. SATTERTHWAITE & CO. LTD
AUCKLAND, PALMERSTON NORTH, WELLINGTON, CHRISTCHURCH, DUNEDIN.
Page 7
Places
Names from far and near . . .
Maoris, explorers, settlers and administrators – diverse sources bestowed the Hawke’s Bay place names which, today, we take for granted.
In many instances the province’s founders were content to retain Maori place names. Many of these survive today – except where too long or too coarse (William Colenso chased at least one Maori name into obsolescence because of it crudity). Other names reflect the associations and the origins of the early European settlers.
In the north, Mahia (which means “indistinct sound”) has roots deep in ancient Maori history. Perhaps it was the first Hawke’s Bay place name, given when Whatonga landed about 1150 A.D.
Wairoa (“long water”) took its name from the Maori pa which existed alongside the river long before European settlement.
Napier remembers Sir Charles John Napier, distinguished British soldier in India, who died shortly before the first District Commissioner, Alfred Domett, arrived to plan and name the settlement in 1854. It is thought Domett was asked to commemorate the Indian campaign by Napier settlers who had served there.
Taradale and Greenmeadows were named when the areas were bought from the Government in 1858, Tara being an early Maori in the area.
Clive, Havelock North, Meeanee continue the British-India association. When Hastings was founded some years later, in 1873, it, too, followed the trend. As an alternative to the embryonic name, “Hicksville”, settlers chose to honour India’s Governor – General, Warren Hastings.
Waipukurau perpetuates the name of a Maori settlement named after a fungus, pukurau, edible when soaked in water (wai). Waipawa, a name bestowed by European settlers, means, in Maori, “dead or stagnant water”, but is locally regarded as meaning “meeting of the waters”.
Norsewood and Dannevirke maintain a link with their Scandinavian founders. Norsewood, like Dannevirke, was settled by Norwegians and Danes who cut a clearing in the Seventy-Mile Bush – hence its name. Dannevirke means “work of the Danes” and is thought to be named after the old fortification at Schleswig, which the Danes lost to Germany in 1864.
The names themselves sketch a story – a story of the development of a province, and its places, by influence from far and near.
Hawke Bay was named by Captain Cook in 1769 in honour of the then First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir Edward (later Lord) Hawke. Cook also named Cape Kidnappers after a Maori attempt to kidnap a Tahitian cabin boy, Taiata, from the Endeavour while the barque was anchored near the headland.
Photo captions –
Alfred Domett
Lord Havelock Lord Clive Sir Charles Napier
Lord Hawke
Lord Hastings
Places
NAPIER – a gift from the sea.
From swampy, unplanned beginnings, Napier grew
Napier – 1971 – stands tall. It’s a shining city of the 1970s, a product of man’s faith and nature’s force.
Napier was flattened and desolated by earthquake and fire exactly 40 years ago this month. Now the population nears 40,000, multi-storeyed buildings soar, a cathedral’s pinnacle reaches symbolically skyward where ruins once covered death and desecration. Swelling, tree-lined suburbs spread where swampland lay.
Napier people overcame the upheaval of New Zealand’s worst natural disaster, and, given thousands of acres of uplifted marshland, planned progress on a scale previously unimagined.
Dressed in the wrappings of terror and destruction, the 1931 earthquake was, for Napier, a gift of the sea. In moments, it released the watery bonds that from the outset had constricted the town’s development.
But, in the earliest days, back in 1854, there were few prospects for the primitive settlement. On limited, shingly terrain, it clung for its existence to the shallow harbour of Ahuriri.
In January 1854, Alfred Domett, brown-eyed poet, administrator and future Premier of New Zealand, foresaw little promise when he settled in a crude shanty on the rocky foreshore (now Napier’s Battery Road).
As Hawke’s Bay’s first District Commissioner, he had been sent to evaluate, plan and name the settlement.
On March 20, 1854, he wrote: “I am inclined to think the principal town of this district can never be at the port itself. There is no wood and no water and the nearest suitable land is some miles distant from the port”.
He concluded that the port was so “singularly defective” that only a subordinate town should be laid out, and the district’s principal town should be sited at Pakowhai.
Domett reported that inhabitants had requested the principal town be called after “the great founder of our Indian Empire, Lord Clive”.
“As it appears that the port town can only be subordinate, I would propose the latter should be named in commemoration of one of our greatest and best Indian captains just dead: Sir Charles John Napier.”
After using the supply of names with Indian associations, Domett gave many Napier Streets their literary nomenclature.
Napier’s early course, then, was unplanned, unorganised. Ahuriri’s earliest inhabitants were the one or two adventurous traders and the whalers, a grog-soaked mob. attracted by the taverns, the excitement and Maori women.
But, during the 1850s, as the whaling industry waned, land settlement got under way in the country. From the sea, the source of Ahuriri’s existence turned inland, to the sheep stations.
By the time Domett arrived, a few men responsible character, the true Hawke’s Bay pioneers, had appeared at Ahuriri. Averse to the noisy rabble of the port, they favoured building sites on the other side of the “elevated mass of hills” which Domett named Scinde Island.
From turmoil, anguish and rubble, it rose again
Early Napier did not take shape until after Domett’s arrival – four years after inland development started, and some 14 years after the establishment of Auckland and Wellington. Unlike other New Zealand provinces, Hawke’s Bay settlement did not begin in a planned city and spread to the country. Rather, it took the other course.
By 1855, about 20 Europeans and their families had settled in the locality. Town sections were offered for £5 and suburban sections for £3. Quarter-acre sections at Ahuriri, then still the trading centre, sold for £30.
Hill allotments brought £30 an acre, At the second sale on February 9, 1856, two quarter-acre sections at the foot of Shakespeare Road, the most desirable location in the town, sold for £100 each.
Despite a pessimistic description in 1850 as “a hopeless, barren spot for a town site”, Napier picked up. The trickle of pioneer immigrants in then 1860s surged during the 1870s and continued as a steady flow.
Mostly working class from Britain’s industrial centres, they were still a diverse lot. The port bustled with ships as immigration stepped up and trade grew. Despite their diversity, immigrants grew together in community interests.
Churches, societies, committees came into existence. Demands for services, food and wares gave Napier its banks, shops, churches, streets and transport.
Napier was administered by the Hawke’s Bay Provincial Council till 1875. Divergent interest of town and country led to the declaration of Napier borough on November 26, 1874, and the first council, with a leading merchant, Mr Robert Stuart as Mayor, first met on February 2, 1875.
The borough’s first electoral roll totalled 493 electors. Town evaluation was £45,000. A rate of 1s was estimated to produce £2000 annually.
The council tackled the problems of water supply, sewerage system and the health hazard of the foul-smelling swamps (where Wellesley Road is now situated).
A road was built to Taradale. A result was the trapping of silt carried by the Tutaekuri. Waterways turned to muddy flats and some, eventually, to dry land.
Taradale district was bought from the Government in 1858 by Messrs Alley and H. S. Tiffen. Mr Alley built the first house, at the Taradale end, in 1860, and Mr Tiffen built at Greenmeadows.
Town sections were first sold at Taradale on April 28, 1873, and it was declared a town district in 1886. First Greenmeadows land sales were held in the 1880s.
None of the local bodies had sufficient money to reclaim the area south of Napier. The challenge was accepted by private enterprise.
In February 1900, Langland and Company, engineers (a syndicate which included Messrs C.D. Kennedy and George Latham) obtained sanction from the Napier Harbour Board to embark on a scheme and in April 1908 the first part of Napier South was put on the market. A total of 120 sections, covering 30 acres, sold for £20,000.
Under the 16-year administration of Mr G. H. Swan – one of a line of well-bearded early Mayors – the Marine Parade was constructed and the wall built to protect properties from high seas. The Edwards Street – Coote Road section was finished by June 1887 at a cost of £8500. Norfolk pines added the distinctive touch in 1890.
In 1924 Napier gaily celebrated its jubilee, but could not sense the approaching disaster which re-shaped the town’s course seven years later.
In the 40 years since Napier rose from the ashes, it has achieved city status (1953), and progressed on many fronts. Under the 15-year administration of Mr Peter Tait the city has enveloped Westshore, Taradale and Greenmeadows and crept across thousands of acres of reclaimed land.
Napier has surmounted disaster. The “hopeless spot” is still growing – and full of hope.
Photo captions –
Flags were set out in this Marine Parade scene early in the century, perhaps to mark the coronation in 1911. Inset: Long – serving Mayor, Mr G. H. Swan, who advocated Marine Parade improvements, including the wall and Norfolk pines.
About 9000 acres were bequeathed when the 1931 earthquake raised tidal swamps around Napier by eight feet, making sites for new suburbs and industrial areas at Onekawa (right) and Ahuriri. Inset: The Mayor during recent city expansion, Mr Peter Tait.
Quaint picket fencing protects young trees in Clive Square during the 1890s. The Main School (left) and the Theatre Royal (right) are prominent buildings at the foot of Milton Road.
[Advertisement]
WE KNOW YOU
Of course we should . . . we’ve grown up together!
Since 1884 when Hastings was a sprawling little village, Roachs have been part of the family. We’ve grown up with the city to become the most progressive departmental store in Hawke’s Bay. We’re part of a larger family too, the United Stores Ltd . . . N.Z.’s largest buying organisation and your assurance of good value and wide selection.
Naturally knowing you means that our emphasis on elegance – in fashion, sports casuals, under fashion, accessories and cosmetics – expresses your special approach to life. And when buying for men or boys, children and teens, or taking care of that important gift with china or practical manchester . . . shopping at Roaches is a pleasure for we are your kind of store. A wonderful relationship from such small beginnings . . .
ROACHS Ltd
HASTINGS
Where Fashion is a Pleasure . . .
Places
SWAMPS gave forth plenty
A century ago only a few scattered settlers and native fowl inhabited the swampy acres where Hastings – Hawke’s Bay’s Prosperous “twin city” – stands today.
In 1871, The Daily Telegraph’s earliest subscribers read how Thomas Tanner offered Heretaunga block land (the best area of the present city) at £4 an acre, and failed to get a buyer.
It wasn’t even news. Everyone knew the acres of swamp, bristling with raupo, scrub and fern, were near useless.
Tanner even offered to give away an acre for every three acres ploughed. One of the few takers was Francis Hicks, a man of foresight, who became the founder of Hastings.
Then, in 1873, came talk of the railway, with its promise of progress and change. On June 7 Hicks offered a 1½-acre site free to the Government on condition the contemplated railway passed through his property.
He cut up 100 acres into town sections around the gift site – and today they comprise the city centre.
Hicks offered 144 sections for sale. Buyers realised the potential of his scheme. Prices reached £56 an acre. The town was born.
Earlier, the first European settlement of the Hastings area took place about 1864. Tanner and William Rich leased the Heretaunga block of about 16,500 acres from the Maoris.
A few years later, a syndicate known as “The Twelve Apostles” bought the block for £1 10s an acre. The syndicate paid £16,000 in cash and the balance was paid on behalf of debts incurred by the Maoris.
The land was cut into 12 portions, but, in fact, there were fewer than 12 members of the syndicate. Most had more than one share. The members were Tanner, J. N. Williams, Capt. W. R. Russell, J. G. Gordon, J. D. Ormond, Purvis Russell and J. B. Brathwaite.
After Hicks’ land sales, houses quickly took shape. The first hotel, the Railway, rose on the site of the present New Grand Hotel. The 22-roomed kauri building served the expanding community well till destroyed by fire.
The railway track reached Hastings in 1874. Drainage schemes worked. Orchards grew. Within 12 years, Hastings outstripped long-established Havelock North. In 1886, it was constituted a borough, and it became a city in 1956.
Men of vision like Hicks have boosted its economy. Two such are the late Mr William Nelson and Sir James Wattie. As early as 1880, Nelson opened a small boiling-down factory at Tomoana. Three years later it was absorbed into Tomoana freezing works and marked the beginning of the freezing industry in the district.
In 1934, James Wattie combed Hastings for backers to launch an undertaking in a small house, around which his factory was built. Now the enterprise is huge and international, a mainstay of the city.
Today, Hastings is a spacious, expanding city of the plains. Its fruit, canned products, agricultural prowess and industrial endeavour are renowned. The swamps have given forth plenty.
But for the man who started it all, Francis Hicks, there is obscurity. Once known as Hicksville, the settlement was soon renamed. In 1938, Hicks Street became Mayfair Avenue. Today, the city’s founder goes largely unremembered.
Left; Heretaunga Street in the 1880s, Inset: The founder of Hastings, Francis Hicks.
[Advertisements]
Congratulations to The Daily Telegraph Co. Ltd. on the Achievement of a Century in business
Our own company now known as Nimon and Sons Ltd., has been established since 1900, and two earlier owners had operated for 20 years before then
Times have changed for us too!
Photo taken 1905. 1901 Horse Bus
Photo taken 1970. 1966 AEC Bus
WE CAN’T HIRE YOU THIS ONE
But we can hire you this underfloor engined A.E.C. Bus with air springing, seating 43 passengers.
FOR YOUR NEXT EXCURSION AWAY, OR SPECIAL TRIP
GO TOGETHER, ARRIVE TOGETHER
PHONE 78133 HASTINGS FOR A QUOTATION OR BETTER STILL CALL AND SEE US AT HAVELOCK NORTH
NIMON & SONS LTD
CONGRATULATIONS to the Daily Telegraph on their Centenary
We are proud to have been their suppliers during those successful years of
LINOTYPE Composing Machines
FAIRCHILD Automatic Tapesetting Equipment
HAMMOND, and ELEKTRO-FUNDITOR Stereotyping Machinery
SUPPLIERS TO THE GRAPHIC ARTS
CARMICHAEL & CO (NZ) LTD
AUCKLAND AND WELLINGTON
Page 13
Places
LEAFY CHARM
Havelock North may be called the town that missed the train but retained its soul.
In 1871, Havelock North was a principal settlement of Hawke’s Bay. A stopping place for travellers between Napier and the south, it possessed two hotels (the Exchange and the Havelock), a new Presbyterian Church, blacksmith, wheelwrights, a school and several stores.
But in 1873 the railway line by-passed the growing settlement and, instead of bringing commercial prosperity to Havelock North, gave birth to the city of Hastings.
The reason for the by-pass of Havelock North is obscure. It may have been reluctance, or apathy, on the part of Havelock runholders, or, as has been more recently suggested, the natural diversion of the Ngaruroro River after the 1867 flood which made the site of Hastings safe for the railway and a station.
Whatever the cause, the absence of rail abruptly changed the course of Havelock North’s development. Instead of becoming, over the past century, a Hawke’s Bay city of the hills, the rival of Napier, it has retained its rural beauty and “village” charm.
For decades, Havelock North remained “the village”. It was not until 1952 that it was declared a borough, with Mr J. J. Nimon as its first Mayor, and its population has steadily increased to 6500 during the past 20 years.
Apart from its fruitgrowing and nearby sheep stations, Havelock North has long held a distinction as a home of learning.
Two long-established girls’ colleges, Woodford House and Iona, draw their pupils from all parts of New Zealand and some of the country’s most notable families.
For many years it was the home of Heretaunga Boys’ School – a school which, some years ago, incorporated Hurworth School at Wanganui, and which now embodies the two under the name of Hereworth.
Commercial and industrial growth may have bypassed Havelock North. Yet otherwise it might well have lost the character that makes it one of New Zealand’s most distinctive boroughs.
Photo captions –
Changes of a century have not chased away Havelock North’s character. Hereworth School pupils today (above) and schoolchildren wending their way homeward almost a century ago in Te Mata Road (below) share the same silvan shade.
A trusty horse bus outside the Post Office in 1911 presents a typical Havelock North scene of bygone days. Horse buses plodded to Hastings for a generation till their owner, Mr J. G. Nimon, replaced them with Studebakers in 1913.
[Advertisement]
1865 – 1971
WINLOVE’S OF CENTRAL HAWKE’S BAY
The late GEORGE WINLOVE (Founder)
The late JOHN WINLOVE (Son of Founder)
GEORGE M. WINLOVE (Director)
Original Premises still standing at Waipukurau.
HARRY M. WINLOVE (Managing Director)
Winloves, who have been associated with the business and community life of Central Hawke’s Bay for 106 years, congratulate the Daily Telegraph on their achievement in serving the Hawke’s Bay province for the past century.
The founder of our organisation, which is still owned and operated by the Winlove family, and was recently joined by the fourth generation, established a business in the best tradition of the pioneers.
Born at Norfolk, England, the late George Winlove arrived in New Zealand about 1860, and served as a dispatch rider on the East Coast, during the Maori Wars.
He commenced the family business in Waipukurau, in 1865.
George earned a high reputation as a building tradesman, and many buildings in Central Hawke’s Bay stand today, as a tribute to his skill and industry.
The family has also been prominent in the community affairs of the district, and two members, the late John Winlove, and his son Harry, have held office as the Mayor of Waipukurau.
Keeping abreast of contemporary trends, the firm entered a period of specialisation about 10 years ago, and has now become the largest stockist of home appliances in Central Hawke’s Bay.
We specialise in –
LEONARD Refrigerators and Freezers –
WASHRITE Washers and Dryers –
MURPHY Radio, Television and Stereo Units –
PYE Radio, Television and Stereo
We specialise in –
NECCHI and HUSQVARNA
Sewing Machines –
HOOVER Appliances –
SHACKLOCK Electric Cookers Heaters, Dish Washers.
WINLOVES your f & p DEALER
GEORGE WINLOVE (Great grandson of Founder)
(Sales and Service)
MRS J. A. FORDE (Accounts)
WALTER SCOTT (Sales and Service)
WINLOVES your f & p DEALER
Page 15
Places
A MODEL THAT GREW
. . . and “towns” that didn’t
A century ago, Waipukurau represented an unusual development in Hawke’s Bay town planning . . . a model village.
Four years earlier, in 1867, the pioneer runholder, H. R. Russell, completed the purchase of the 207- acre Waipukurau pa site and decided to establish a model community.
He built several cottages and leased sections for 99-year terms, mostly to tradesmen and artisans he brought to New Zealand and employed. One of the first “model” residents. was a carpenter, Mr George Winlove, who arrived in 1863 and whose descendant, Mr H. M. Winlove, is a recent Mayor.
Russell planted many trees which beautify the area today and donated sites for churches. He imposed restrictions on employment in the town to provide one blacksmith, one baker, and so on.
The model era ended with the compulsory takeover of the large blocks by the Government in 1900, The breakdown of huge sheep runs into smaller farms opened the way for Waipukurau’s expansion and constitution as a borough in 1912.
Waipawa, 100 years ago, overshadowed the small village of Waipukurau. In 1871, it was the most important and largest centre between Napier and the Manawatu, with three hotels, several stores, a church and a school.
Like Waipukurau, it was not established by the Government but by the local runholder, F. S. Abbott. The first sale of town sections on January 7, 1860, introduced the town as “Abbotsford”, but the name did not stick.
A highpoint in Waipawa history was the 1888 industrial exhibition. With poultry, horticultural shows and brass band contests, it was one of the biggest events produced in the province. Exhibitors from many parts of New Zealand included 21 Auckland industrial firms.
In the past few decades, however, Waipukurau’s growth has outpaced Waipawa’s, at times creating intense rivalry, particularly concerning siting of Government department offices and other institutions.
Yet both remain sturdy, important commercial centres of one of New Zealand’s richest sheep farming districts.
Other embryo Central Hawke’s Bay towns of 100 years ago did not fare so well. By 1871, several towns were laid out and sections sold in places such as Hadley, between Waipawa and Tikokino, Blackhead, Porangahau, Wanstead and Tautane. Wanstead, initially, consisted of 163 town sections – more than Hastings.
But most land sales in these towns were to speculators who had no intention of taking up residence, and the century passed them by.
Photo caption – Waipawa High Street in 1860 (above) when the township was emerging as the most important centre between Napier and Manawatu. Below: The official opening of the first traffic bridge in 1889, a landmark in Waipukurau’s progress.
[Advertisement]
PARTNERS for 68 YEARS!
1903
NEW ZEALAND’S FIRST SELF-PROPELLED PASSENGER BUS.
USED ON THE NAPIER – TARADALE RUN.
1903 Straker Steam Bus arriving at Queen’s Wharf, Wellington.
The HAWKE’S BAY MOTOR CO. LTD. are proud to have been associated with THE DAILY TELEGRAPH over the last 68 years.
During this period we have delivered thousands of “Telegraphs” to shops, out-of-town stores, farmers, roadmen, rabbiters, construction workers and other eager readers residing on our passenger service routes.
1970 A.E.C. 33 – seater luxury coach.
1971
NEW ZEALAND’S FIRST FULLY AIR – CONDITIONED LUXURY COACH USED TODAY ON THE HAWKE’S BAY TO AUCKLAND RUN.
Celebrate by utilising all our travel services for the next 100 years !
Hawke’s Bay Motor Co. Ltd.
NAPIER – HASTINGS – TAUPO – GISBORNE – WAIROA
Page 17
Places
“How’s the bar today?”
The three Rs – river, road and rail – have played vital roles in the development of Wairoa during the past century.
Each has contributed to Wairoa’s position as an important, growing focal point of Northern Hawke’s Bay – and helped banish the bugbear of isolation.
Initially, however, poor access and reluctance to of the Maoris to sell land delayed European settlement in the pre-1871 period. The only Europeans in the district were a handful of whalers, traders and the occasional missionary – daring men willing to face the dangers of isolation and native hostility.
Using the river, traders eventually developed a trade with Napier in flax, fruit and timber. In 1865, the first Crown purchases of land included 4750 acres for a town to be named Clyde – a name that lingered for many years but never replaced Wairoa, the name of the original Maori pa.
In 1871, settlement was just beginning on an organised basis. The Clyde Hotel was five years old. A police station and courthouse had just been built and town sections offered for sale at between £5 and £9 a quarter-acre.
Descriptions of the period stated: “The Marine Parade straggles all over the place, with toe toe to and manuka growing along much of it”. . . “Street alignment exists not” . . . “Scrub covers much of the township” . . . “There is no newspaper”.
Wairoa had a fruit-growing reputation long before the Heretaunga Plains. it possessed many larger orchards but, with the clearing of land and the stocking of the sheep stations, most disappeared.
The unreliability of the river port, which was often made useless by bar conditions, retarded early development. The Wairoa Harbour Board set out in 1872 to improve the port, but failed, and the port was closed in 1939.
Improvements to the Napier-Wairoa road, however, gradually boosted prosperity. Harbour works also began at Waikokopu (25 miles east) in 1924-25, but, with the advent of the Napier-Wairoa railway in 1939, port trade declined and the port was last used in July 1942.
Wairoa has been served by a number of progressive, public-spirited citizens. A forerunner was Mr Joseph Corkill, first Mayor, chairman of the town board and chairman of the harbour board, who, early in the century, was one of Waiora’s most energetic businessmen.
He even found time to form the Wairoa brass band, and was its conductor for many years. In 1896, the band earned fame other than musical for travelling to Napier on horses to take part in the Brunner Relief Fund Campaign.
The journey became known as “Corkill’s Ride” and was quoted as a triumph over the difficulties of travel in the olden days of Wairoa.
Other go-ahead citizens have inherited the Corkill drive and initiative and, in recent years, have kept Wairoa on a steady path of progress.
Photo captions –
Shovels and manpower open the Wairoa River bar in 1911. The state of the bar, which often cut Waiora’s steamer contact with the outside world, was of daily concern till the advent of adequate road and rail links.
The rail era arrived in the late 1930s. Right: At Wairoa station for the opening of the Napier – Wairoa – Waikokopu section on July 1, 1939, the Minister of Railways, Mr D. G. Sullivan (front), the Minister of Works, Mr R. Semple (front right), Sir Apirana Ngata (back row, third from left). Below: A view from North Clyde of the old Wairoa traffic bridge which replaced the ferry.
[Advertisements]
DANNEVIRKE STUD CATTLE
Internationally Acclaimed!
Pedigree cattle from “Mangatoro” Aberdeen Angus stud have repeatedly made headlines since 1936, and have brought distinction to Dannevirke, in New Zealand, as well as overseas.
MULBEN EMBASSY
Mr Donald Grant. established “Mangotoro” from foundation sire, Mulben Embassy, and long before he died in 1967, was recognised in the cattle centres of the world to have few peers in his chosen career.
The success of “Mangatoro” owes much to the long term policies adopted by Mr Grant, not only in breeding, but also in business practice.
Prudent management of the returns from the early sales of progeny, made it possible for Mr Grant to pay the high prices necessary to procure cattle which would continue to improve the blood lines of the stud.
He later saw his judgment vindicated when overseas buyers purchased “Mangatoro” cattle and they were exported to U.S.A., Japan, Australia and Tasmania.
Mr Grant became a frequent visitor to the world famous Aberdeen Angus fairs at Perth, Scotland and it was here that he enriched his stud.
While the purchase of males has always been of major importance, Mr Grant paid particular care when selecting female cattle for the stud.
He maintained that the dam of the sire had a great influence on how that sire would continue to breed.
The fact that some overseas countries have taken more females from “Mangatoro”, than males, shows how well his theories have held up.
“Mangatoro” continues to flourish under the control of Miss Maisie Grant, a daughter of the founder.
The late Mr Donald Grant honoured with life membership by the Aberdeen Angus Associations in Scotland and New Zealand.
FROM
DANNEVIRKE
COME
BRIDGES
THAT
SPAN THE ISLAND…!
MAKERS ALSO OF
GIRDERS
PRESSURE VESSELS
FABRICATED STEEL TANKS
STEAM-O-MATIC STEAM and HOT WATER BOILERS
W. B. Easton Ltd.
STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS
DANNEVIRKE
Page 19
Places
Blond hair, blue eyes
Dannevirke, the principal town of Southern Hawke’s Bay, reaches its own centenary next year – 100 years after 21 hardy Scandinavian families founded the township in the primitive bush clearing.
In the span of a century, the town had endured great initial hardships and passed through a prosperous phase as a sawmilling town, to emerge as a growing servicing centre for an internationally know beef, dairying and sheep farming district.
Originally, the site of Dannevirke lay within the Seventy-Mile Bush on an ancient Maori trail linking Manawatu and Hawke’s Bay. It was bought from the Maoris jointly by the Wellington and Hawke’s Bay Provincial Councils and arrangements were made to open up the thick bush country with assisted immigrants from Scandinavia.
By June 1872, a bridle track linking Napier and Palmerston North had been surveyed by Charles Weber and place in fair condition.
In September 1872, the vessels Hovding and Ballarat arrived at Napier with the pioneer Scandinavians. By October 15, the families occupied sections cut from the bush.
The nearby site of Norsewood was also cleared and settled. But high transport costs, hardships and privations of isolation and bush fires threatened both settlements with abandonment.
” . . . green sward where bush once soared’
The Norsewood pioneer museum established in 1965 provides a glimpse of the harzardous way of life.
Only Government employment schemes on road making, and splitting of railway sleepers, kept the pioneers in work. Yet the settlements survived till road improvements and the advent of the railway in 1884 developed the sawmilling industry with great rapidity in Southern Hawke’s Bay.
Norsewood settlers had striven for years to over come privation – always comforted by the knowledge that the railway would eventually pass through their village, bringing prosperity at last. But for them, the railway never came. It was re-routed six miles east of the settlement. Norsewood settlers grimly worked on to overcome this great setback to their hopes, but never did they forgive the authorities responsible for the decision to by-pass their village.
In the centre of the finest milling bush, Dannevirke – through which the railway did pass – supported more than 20 mills within a few years. It was constituted a borough in 1892 – only 20 years after its establishment.
In the 20th century, bush has made way for pastures. Dannevirke’s economy has changed. Other industry has appeared and, now, beef cattle breeders from overseas visit the town each year to buy stud cattle from the district’s stud farms.
Against the backdrop of the towering Ruahines, the green sward, where the bush once soared, supports some of the country’s finest livestock.
An impressive parade of Aberdeen Angus bulls at a Dannevirke fair.
[Advertisements]
N.Z.T.S.
Formerly Hawke’s Bay Laundry Congratulate
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH on their 100 years of Service to the Public of Hawke’s Bay
We too can dell justly proud of our 62 years of growth and progress in Hawke’s Bay.
WE SERVE . . .
INDUSTRY – COMMERCE – HOTELS
MOTELS – RESTAURANTS
WE SERVE HAWKE’S BAY
We Serve New Zealand!
with INDUSTRIAL GARMENTS, TOWEL AND DUST CONTROL
SERVICE – BED and TABLE LINEN
N.Z.T.S.
N.Z.T. SERVICES (H.B.) LTD.,
Carnegie Road,
Napier.
Phone 36119
P.O. Box 405
(A nation-wide organisation)
Bryant Bros Ltd.
METAL MERCHANTS
SMELTERS and REFINERS
BUYERS of all types of non-ferrous metals and Metal Residues
MANUFACTURERS of the well known Comet Solders and Printing Metals
Made to any specifications required
STOCKS HELD of Ingot Lead, Tin, Gun-Metal, Brass, Aluminium LM. 4-6-12-16
ADDRESS:-
4-8 ARMIDALE STREET, PETONE
Telephone 686-347 – P.O. Box 38222 Petone
Telegrams and Cables, “Comet”
Page 21
People
Old net laid aside
New net goes afishing
The century of The Daily Telegraph has also been the century of the Maori – a century of Maori renaissance.
When The Telegraph began to serve its first readers in 1871, the Maori race throughout New Zealand was at its lowest ebb. An estimated 150,000 to 200,000 population in 1840 had been reduced to a dwindling 40,000 by the advent of the musket and European diseases to which the Maori had little resistance.
By 1871, the deadly conglomeration of inter-tribal warfare, land wars with the European and, particularly. tuberculosis, threatened extinction. The Maori was a dying race.
Inevitably, aspects of the mid-19th century Maori disaster spread to Hawke’s Bay, even though the province’s early Maori-pakeha relationships generally had been good, due to the wisdom of early pioneers like the Rev. William Colenso and Donald McLean, and the Maori chiefs, notably Te Hapuku.
Te Hapuku realised he must prepare his people for life in a new civilisation. and, despite opposition from elders, engaged peaceably in land deals. Consequently. the full bitterness of the Maori wars did not reach Hawke’s Bay.
The biggest threat to pakeha settlers was the hostility of Te Kooti and the marauding Hau Hau fanatics. It culminated in the 1866 Battle of Omarunui, a 1 hour 40 minute engagement in which Hau Hau rebels, whose advance threatened Napier, were routed by the Militia and friendly Maoris including Renata, Tareha, Ihaka and Kopu.
Other degenerative influences. however, had considerable repressive effects on the Maoris in Hawke’s Bay. Having broken the power of Maori chiefs by war in many areas, the Government, in 1871, attempted to hasten the extinction of the race by breaking its culture.
The Native Schools Amendment Act ruled only English would be spoken in schools. In fact, the Government, through the Education Department, declared war on the Maori language.
Yet, in spite of these pressures, the Maori revival began. Maoris never succumbed to the language legislation and, subtly, gained their traditional revenge. They have never elected to Parliament a representative who could not speak Maori.
By the 1901 census, improved medicine and hygiene had halted the downward population trend. By 1920, the Maori was the fastest growing sector of New Zealand’s population. Today, statisticians estimate that, but for the mid-19th century repression, the Maori population would now approach three million – equal to New Zealand’s total population.
The 20th century heralded the emergence of new Maori leadership. Hawke’s Bay, and Te Aute College in particular, figured in the appearance of capable Maori mediators versed in the ways of both races.
These new leaders included Sir James Carroll, son of a Ngati-Kahungunu chieftainess, and the first Bishop of Aotearoa, the Rt. Rev. Frederick Augustus Bennett (father of the present bishop, the Rt. Rev. M. A. Bennett).
From Te Aute College Old Boys’ Association stemmed the influential Young Maori Party, led by Sir Maui Pomare, Sir Apirana Ngata, Sir Peter Buck, the Rev. M. Kohere, Dr T. Wirepa, and others.
These men represented a new breed of Maori – leaders, politicians, scholars. They transplanted new heart into an ailing race. In two world wars and on the sportsfields, the 20th century Maori emerged with honour and confidence.
In the 1960s, the Maori was rediscovered by the educationists, the economists and the statisticians. Reports were produced, new institutions established, including the Maori Education Foundation.
Today, the Maori lives on, holding the riches of tradition, noble ancestry and culture. The problems of a dying race have been overcome. Yet as he moves alongside the pakeha at the workbench and in the suburban street, the Maori faces new problems, further challenges.
But now the Maori race does not stand alone. No longer is New Zealand attempting to shed an unwelcome appendage like a small boy casting off warts. Rather, it is facing up to the challenge of producing a truly multi-racial society, rich in diversity yet equal in opportunity, education, income and welfare.
Ka pu te ruha
The old net is laid aside
Ka hao te rangatahi
The new net goes afishing
Photo captions –
A Urewera chief and daughters at their whare – an old study photographed when problems of survival faced the Maori race.
The Maori of another age. – Top right: The first Bishop of Aotearoa, the late Rt. Rev. F. A. Bennett. Left: Construction worker. Above: Award – winning architect, John Scott, of Hastings, in front of a luxury Havelock North residence which embodies a suggestion of the classical whare design.
[Advertisement]
The “Frank Guy” at anchor at Ahuriri, Williams and Kettle Ltd’s original store on West Quay
Marked in background
FAR AWAY DAYS . . .
. . . A Sincere Tribute . . .
At this Centenary of The Daily Telegraph, we desire to pause, to give thought and due acknowledgement. We would pay homage to the founders of this worthy paper and to the pioneers of our farming industry on which town and country depend . . . our grandparents and great grandparents.
We acknowledge their great labours under constant hardship and frequent adversity, and rejoice in the magnitude of their achievement in so few crowded years.
Determination, enterprise and honest endeavour have made our nation great colonisers and successful pioneers.
It is our sincere hope and wish that we may be able to match their advance by carrying the torch still father, that these traditional characteristics may be handed on by us to our children that they in turn, generations hence, will look back and think of us in terms of grateful affection.
We Recall –
One memorable day in October 1880 a young man full of ambition and dreams, left his relatively secure job to start a business of his own.
In a galvanised iron shed at Port Ahuriri, Napier, leased with his meagre capital, Mr F. W. Williams opened his first office and store.
In July 1885 Mr Williams was joined in partnership by Mr Nathaniel Kettle from Dunedin.
They traded under the title of F. W. Williams and Kettle until July 1, 1891 when the partnership was formed into the limited liability company Williams and Kettle Ltd.
With ten years to our own centenary, we dedicate ourselves to the furtherance of the aims of our founders – honest trading and high emphasis on service to to our clients.
W&K WILLIAMS and KETTLE LTD.
FOUNDED 1880
Mr F. W. WILLIAMS
Founder of Williams and Kettle Limited at Port of Ahuriri, Napier, in 1880.
Mr N. KETTLE
Who joined Mr Williams in partnership in 1885.
Page 23
People
They gave HEART to the hills…
Hawke’s Bay’s pioneer farmers were mostly men who counted their acres before they counted their sheep.
The explanation is their opportunism, A century ago, acquisition of huge tracts of land was not frowned upon. Aggregation was a clean word.
The explorer, the trader, whaler and missionary had lived their lives of adventure and avarice, and, for the most part, had, by 1871, left Hawke’s Bay to the settlers and squatters – men of fixed abode, home and family, spade and plough, sheep and cattle,
Some were rich. Some were not. Some were reckless. Others just plain lucky. History has sorted them into their categories – the opportunists, the diligent, the dedicated.
Flick the clock back 100 years and many pioneers would be found in circumstances that this generation would say were humiliating. Some were in thick bushland where deep-rooted forest lay between impecuniosity and solvency. Others, if tracked down in vast unfenced tracts of fern and scrub, had little to bless them other than good health and high spirits.
In those days Hawke’s Bay was young and green, too. Providence gave it a kind climate and fertile soil. These young men gave it heart.
Even before Donald McLean’s purchase of large blocks of Hawke’s Bay land for the Government in the 1850s, squatters had moved up the coast from the Wairarapa, past Castlepoint, into Hawke’s Bay.
It was illegal under Sir George Grey’s land regulations for private individuals to purchase direct from the Maoris, but many obtained land on lease from the chiefs and toiled uneasily on land of insecure tenure.
The trend began in 1847 when, despite opposition from the missionary, the Rev. William Colenso, Captain James Northwood and Henry Stokes Tiffen succeeded in leasing about 60,000 acres at Pourerere from a chief named Morena.
A flock of 3000 Merino ewes from Australia was driven by Edward Davis and Fred Tiffen through the Wairarapa and up the coast to Pourerere where they arrived on January 30, 1849, to establish the first sheep station in Hawke’s Bay.
After the spring of 1850, Fred Tiffen moved inland and H. S. Tiffen dissolved partnership with Northwood, who apparently took Charles Nairn, once a runaway cabin boy, as a new partner.
In the next few years scores of settlers drove sheep on to Hawke’s Bay land. Impatient and annoyed at Government policy, many obtained illegal leaseholds from Maoris. Others waited to obtain rights to properties from the Government after Crown purchases bad been made.
In other parts of the country there was blood shed because settlers failed to appreciate that, according to Maori lore and custom, the mere exchange of money did not authorise the transfer of land titles. Early settlers in Hawke’s Bay were lucky that Maori chieftain land-owners soon saw the case for updating this technicality.
In 1851, the influential Hawke’s Bay chief, Te Hapuku, who had probably visited the growing township of Wellington, expressed his willingness to part with land, in a letter to the Governor Sir George Grey.
On May 3, 1851, Te Hapuku wrote: “. . . This is from your loving friend who has agreed to give Mr McLean the land for you that you, the Governor, may have the land and send me Europeans for my land as soon as possible at the same time with the payment, that we may have respectable European gentlemen.
“I am annoyed with the low Europeans of this place. Let the people for this place come direct from England, new Europeans to live in our lands . . . let it be a large, large, very large town for me.”
Te Hapuku was always well disposed toward European settlement and refused to join the King movement. Had he been hostile, the whole story of European settlement in Hawke’s Bay would have been different.
There were, however, incidents Involving well-known early pioneers that caused much feeling. Thomas Tanner and a well-known group of settlers, who became knows as “The Twelve Apostles”, were at the centre of a controversy for obtaining leasehold of the greater part of the Heretaunga Plain from Maoris at a time when such action was illegal.
A Parliamentary return of 1864 shows that Tanner, the Rev, Samuel Williams, Captain Russell, J. D. Ormond, T P. Russell, J. B. Brathwaite, J. G. Gordon, J. Gordon and W. Rich had previously leased 20,000 acres at £750 a year. Messrs F. Sutton, J. Watt and J. N. Williams also leased land on the plains.
A Royal Commission in 1878 inquired into the Heretaunga purchase and its report was critical of the actions of some settlers, telling how they induced Maoris to sign sale documents.
Nonetheless, acres, and the acquisition of them, meant activation for Hawke’s Bay in the early decades of European settlement.
Then came the era of subdivision. The breakdown of the huge stations was foreseen by some, including J. D. Ormond, as early as the 1870s. But Hawke’s Bay did not get its first real taste of what pastoral strongholds could expect until April 25, 1901.
On that day the large Hatuma Estate, totalling 25,737 acres, ceased – by law – to be the property of T. Purvis Russell.
Other major subdivisions soon followed, but the break-up of Russell’s domain, which stretched from the Tuki Tuki River at Waipukurau across 15 miles to the east of Kopua, was perhaps the most notable subdivision in the North Island.
Premier Richard John Seddon’s closer settlement enactments forced the sale of Russell’s block of limestone sheep country – the most magnificent in the province. Under Russell’s control the 26,000 acres had grazed about 39,000 sheep and 850 cattle.
Russell’s refusal to sink money into improvements was widely known. The average net earnings of the property were £9536 a year. The Government’s Land for Settlement Act visualised something better. A score of new farmer settlers brought new effort and vigour into the management of those acres.
The story of the subdivisions is a rich chapter in
(Continued overleaf)
Photo caption – Rolling hills of Hawke’s Bay’s coastal country (above) were an inviting prospect for pioneer sheep farmers, including F. J. Tiffen (right) who helped drive 3000 Merino sheep through Wairarapa and up the coast to establish the first Hawke’s Bay sheep station in 1849.
[Advertisement]
THE HAWKE’S BAY FARMERS MEAT CO. LTD
WHAKATU
WHATAKU FREEZING WORKS WAS DESIGNED FOR A KILL OF 1500/2000 SHEEP AND LAMBS PER DAY AND COMMENCE OPERATION IN JANUARY, 1915.
The progress of Hawke’s Bay is illustrated by the Works records:-
For on Day – December 22, 1970 20,197 sheep and lambs
For season 1969/70 79,784 Cattle
2,147,572 Sheep and Lambs
View of a section of the “side boning” floor at Whakatu – The first in New Zealand.
The Meat Industry in New Zealand trades with all parts of the world and provides interesting and remunerative work for all classes of staff including Tradesmen, Clerical Staff, Engineers and Specialists with University Degrees.
There are exciting prospects at all levels for those who wish to join up with an Industry which provides a large part of New Zealand’s overseas income.
Page 25
People
Through surf to ship
the province’s history. It includes the breakup af Colonel J. B. Herrick’s Forest Gate on the Ruataniwha Plain and of J. Harding’s Mount Vernon property, with its strong overtones of feud between Harding, Russell and F. J. Tiffen.
The Stokes brothers were responsible for one of the largest subdivisions, that of Milbourne, which covered 33,000 acres between Waipawa and Maraekakaho. The property adjoined the Maraekakaho Station of R. D. D. McLean and Gwavas, owned by A. S. G. Carlyon. The Napier Public Hospital benefited from one of the Stokes brothers, and one of the wards bears his name.
Gradually the little empires in Hawke’s Bay were carved up. There were the vast holdings of the Rhodes family, and that of Colonel Sir George Whitmore, who boasted that his “farm stretched from the top of the Kawekas to the sea.
The Tuki Tuki block – once a famous station – is now farmed by more than a dozen sheepmen along the Waimarama Road. Mangatoro, first owned by Captain Douglas Hamilton, stretched from Norsewood almost to Woodville and was cut into 22 farms in 1902.
Lesser lights are such names as Fairfield, Mangatarata and Arlington in Central Hawke’s Bay. Mangatarata is a truly historic property adjoining Olrig and Ben Lomond. Mangatarata is perpetuated by the name Gollan. Spencer Gollan was twice golf champion of New Zealand. His father, Donald, won one of the wealthiest men ever to live in Hawke’s Bay.
Gollan’s manager was de Pelichet, who, with J. S. McLeod, was associated in the formation of the mercantile firm which still bears their name.
Government intervention was a spur to subdivision, but there were other incentives. Indeed, many settlers subdivided by choice. One such pioneer was Thomas Lowry, of Okawa, the grandfather of Mr T. C. Lowry and his two brothers, Messrs J. N. and R. H. W. Lowry.
An enigmatic was Algernon Tollemache, who moved behind the scenes in the early period of Hawke’s Bay development and left a string of estates and interests to be administered by Napier solititors, Messrs Cotterill and Humphries.
Photo caption – Wool loading through surf only ceased relatively recently as roading improvements reached the most distant coastal stations. Right: One of the “Twelve Apostles”, Thomas Tanner, whose Riverslea homestead (below) was a showplace of colonial grandeur on the Heretaunga Plains.
Pages 26 and 27
THE LONG WHITE CLOUD
Record of integrity
The period of subdivision on Hawke’s Bay was a major development. But there were other landmarks in the past century. One was the development of the freezing industry.
The Hawke’s Bay pioneer, William Nelson saw that the departure of the Dunedin from Port Chalmers, with the first consignment of export frozen lamb in 1882, would change the face of farming, particularly in Hawke’s Bay.
He was the prime mover in the establishment of the first freezing works at Tomoana on the present site in 1883-84. In 1905, Thomas Borthwick and Sons began operating their own works at Paki Paki. The building was destroyed in the 1931 earthquake and not rebuilt.
The advent of the freezing works synchronised with the advent of the decline of Merino sheep. John Harding, Charles Nairn and J. N. Williams, with others, had already introduce the Romney breed decades earlier, and later breeders, such as Tod, of Otane, improved the breed.
In time, Hawke’s Bay-grown crossbreed wool came to be amongst the most sought after by Bradford Spinners and the Continental Houses. But the freezing industry called for a sheep of a different calibre – representative of the Downland, short-woolled breeds. The Southdown was introduced and has given yeomen service ever since.
In the cattle-raising sphere, farmers like H.B. Stuckey introduced the Herefords, Nairn the Shorthorn, and Handyside, Armstrong and others the Angus. All three breeds flourish still and have created reputations for the stud properties such as Brooklands and Mangatoro.
Page 27
Among the many breeders who achieved success are W. I. Matthews, L. E. Harris, P. S. Plummer, Donald Grant, J. L. Herrick, C. E. Nairn, the Powdrell brothers, M. Knight, W. Philip, John Macfarlane, Andy McGaffin and M. Marshall.
Farming in Hawke’s Bay owes much top the Ormonds, the McLeans, the Tiffens and the string of prominent settlers whose careers are documented in the history books.
But credit accrues too, to the thousands of other settlers who gave themselves to the land. Men and women who did not achieve prominence but, nonetheless, formed the backbone of the province.
These people toiled to tame a bleak environment in the hinterland. Some were gentlefolk who had never peeled a potato before coming to New Zealand, and had not washed a soiled garment or handled a broom.
Their introduction to Hawke’s Bay was a bumpy ride in a bullock wagon over rough terrain, or an uneasy journey on horseback or on foot to lonesome destinations that offered neither comfort nor convenience. Even when the fear of molestation by the Maoris subsided, other trials lay ahead.
Bush had to be felled, land burnt, grassed, fenced and stocked. No shearing machinery in those days, no milking plants. No roads and no regular mails. Stores were ordered in bulk and paid for in debits in the books of stock and station agencies – debits that in lean times kept creditors waiting and gave settlers sleepless nights.
Improved roading, the railway, schools, the rabbit menace, the freezing industry, the South African War, the telephone, the watersiders’ strike of 1913, the great War, the depression, war again…..all these events and developments were reflected in the Hawke’s Bay hills.
The motor car, the machine age, electricity, the 1931 earthquake, the post-war wool boom – the greatest the country has yet known – combined to change the methods and customs of the farming community.
Fast-moving trucks, with huge crates in tow, banished driven stock from many highways. The farm hack followed the draught horse into redundancy as technology produced farm tractors – and a new word, superphosphate.
From the horrors of war came the realisation that the aeroplane had a place on the farm. Thus, in time, every farm had a landing strip. Aircraft adapted for the task spread fertiliser from the sky. The long white cloud settled on the hills and valleys of the province.
Giant discs ploughed the land. Scrubcutters were paid off. Tree-high Manuka succumbed to the blade of the bulldozer. Wastelands became productive.
In 1971, the year 1871 looks remote indeed and the Hawke’s Bay country a different place. Techniques of the bygone era seem clumsy, but how could it be otherwise? In that same span of time the world has come from the flicker of candlelight to the blinding nuclear flash. Ponderous travel by bullock at a few yards a minute contrasts with the space shot reckoned in thousands of miles to the hour.
The Hawke’s Bay landscape has been transformed. The Heretaunga Plain fruitgrower today makes more money from a handful of acres than the squatter of old made from thousands.
Hastings today is the centre of what in 1871 would be considered a cartel for processing fruit and produce. Any one of the Ahuriri woolstores has accommodation that in times gone by would have taken the province’s whole wool clip.
The story of Hawke’s Bay farm settlement is one of change, advancement and the progressive discard of old methods. It all adds up to a record of integrity and as a major industry.
Photo captions –
Amid dusty clamour, a pen of the province’s stock change hands at Stortford Lodge saleyards, a weekly hub of the farming community. Right: Mr L.E. Harris, one of the farmers who has applied modern techniques in farming with outstanding success.
Taming a hostile terrain, an aerial topdressing aircraft buzzes around the steep hills and valleys of the Tutira district. Aerial topdressing, one of the most significant developments in the history of Hawke’s Bay farming, emanated from the technical advances of the Second World War.
Mr P.S. Plummer, of Central Hawke’s Bay, immediate past Dominion president of Federated Farmers and one of the province’s most notable cattle breeders. The long white cloud settled on the hills and valleys of the province.
[Advertisements]
The World knows this Kiwi
Just as the Kiwi symbol of the New Zealand Insurance Company is found all over the world – so too, you’ll see it in Hawke’s Bay. The first office outside Auckland, was established in Napier in 1861 and since that time NZI has been a partner in the progress of the whole district. Backed by its experience, financial strength and international reputation, NZI holds the “Key to Security” for businessmen, farmers, industrialists and householders alike.
For advice, practical assistance and experienced counsel on all insurance matters, see NZI.
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE DAILY TELEGRAPH AS IT CELEBRATES ITS PROUD ANNIVERSARY
First in Insurance
NZI
Manager: N.L. PREBBLE TENNYSON STREET, NAPIER
THE NEW ZEALAND INSURANCE COMPANY
Congratulations to The Daily Telegraph on the occasion of their Centennial Celebrations from the . .
WILLIAMSON JEFFREY
GROUP OF COMPANIES
Manufacturers Stationers – Paper Merchants – Suppliers of Machinery to the Graphic Arts and Packaging Industries
Our products, together with those of our subsidiaries and associated companies – British Eastlight” (Files) “Inca” (Carbon and Typewriter Products) “P.R.D.” (Welded Plastic Products) have made a significant contribution to the progress and economic development of the Bay for more than half this period. We are steadily expanding, developing and moulding our products and services to fill the demands and needs of society and industry as we move to the Year 2000.
Look for the names
WARWICK INCA P.R.D. WILJEF
Page 29
People
LIFE WAS FUN TOO. . .
Settlers breaking in a raw province still had time for fun, tea and romance . . .
TOP: Friendly rivalry at the New Year’s Day picnic at the “Bush” near Waipawa in 1912. For many years the picnic was Central Hawke’s Bay’s most popular fixture, a welcome break from the life of isolation of many families.
RIGHT: The ever popular parish garden party, offering tea, cakes and hats galore.
FAR RIGHT: There was romance too, during those country walks on sunny Sunday afternoons.
BELOW: And there was time, too, for sport. Horse racing soon became a major sporting pastime in Hawke’s Bay and, as early as the 1860s, the three day meetings of the Hawke’s Bay Jockey Club were long-awaited events. The turn-of-the-century scene shows the gaily-dressed crowd at the Hastings racecourse.
[Advertisement]
Great Changes Have Taken Place –
Since Easy Parking in EMERSON STREET, NAPIER in 1980 at the premises of A. SIMMONDS & CO. LTD
Like THE DAILY TELEGRAPH our business has grown through SERVICE and know-how.
PICTURES BELOW DISCLOSE THE PHENOMENAL GROWTH IN THE PAST 100 YEARS.
TOP LEFT: Hastings Street shop in the late 1800s.
CENTRE: In Emerson Street in 1970 with modernised shop.
TOP RIGHT: Hastings shop in Heretaunga Street.
BOTTOM LEFT: Our new Taradale shop in Gloucester Street.
BOTTOM RIGHT: One of the most modern Drive-in Garden Centres opened in Riverbend Road.
WE CELEBRATE WITH THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
A. SIMMONDS & CO LTD
SEED and PRODUCE MERCHANTS
HEAD OFFICE: EMERSON STREET, HASTINGS – GLOUCESTER STREET, TARADALE
A DRIVE-IN GARDEN CENTRE – RIVERBEND ROAD.
Page 31
People
Six of the best
Many notable characters have stepped down the path of Hawke’s Bay history.
Colonialism emphasised certain types of activity and in these fields most top men (and women) emerged. Churchmen, soldiers, explorers laid the way for statesmen, farmers, industrialists. The arts and cultural activities have lacked emphasis but still produced some outstanding figures.
The names are many: Bishop William Williams, first missionary and first Bishop of Waiapu, Archdeacon Henry Williams, Father E. Regnier [Reignier], Mother Mary Joseph Aubert, Bishop F.A. Bennett, first Bishop of Aotearoa, Major-General Sir George Stoddart Whitmore, William Nelson, Sir James Wattie, H. Guthrie-Smith. The list of names linked with achievement seems endless.
The rise of some figures possessed the element of good fortune. Many others would have been outstanding in any era.
Some names are already securely marked on the route of provincial progress, but time and perspective have yet to place most of our contemporaries. On this page: a biographical glimpse of six of the best . . .
William Colenso, the most colourful figure of Hawke’s Bay history, applied an unflagging zeal to varied talents as printer, missionary, explorer, botanist, educationalist and politician.
Yet his uncompromising personality and dictatorial nature robbed him of the affection of his Maori converts, and brought him into conflict on many occasions with his superiors, colleagues and neighbours.
Poignancy pitted his life. His place in history was clouded for some years by his intolerant, irascible character, but his versatile, vigorous and brilliant spirit survived.
Born in Penzance, Colenso was a 23-year old missionary-printer with the Church Missionary Society when he arrived at Paihia in 1834. Ill-equipped, Colenso improvised to produce the first book printed in New Zealand (the epistle to the Philippians and Ephesians, in Maori), other religious publications and the earliest Government proclamations.
Colenso’s authority on Maori subjects and the natural history of New Zealand was unquestioned. He was co-founder (with Sir George Grey) of the New Zealand Society for the Furtherance of Scientific Research, an active member of the New Zealand Institute and founder of the Hawke’s Bay Philosophical Society. He was acting Speaker for a while of the Hawke’s bay Provincial Council, represented Napier in Parliament in 1861, and was inspector of schools in Hawke’s Bay for many years.
Throughout, he retained a religious fervour. As a white-haired but still crusty old gentleman living on Napier’s Colenso Hill, he was re-admitted to the services of the church in 1894, five years before is death.
John Davies Ormond, Superintendent of Hawke’s Bay, Minister of Public Works and member of the Legislative Council, dominated Hawke’s Bay’s early development and figured in national politics for more than half a century.
Born in Wallingford, Berkshire, he came to New Zealand as the 16-year-old protege of Lieutenant-Governor E. J. Eyre in 1848. He left the position of clerk to the Executive Council in the early 1850s to take up a run near Waipukurau and become one of Hawke’s Bay’s first settlers.
Of great mental power, cool and resolute, he entered politics during the move for Hawke’s Bay separation from Wellington and stayed in the political arena for the rest of his life. The alter-ego of Sir Donald McLean, he and McLean virtually ran the province in its early years.
Ormond became the leader of almost every important political and social body in the province, a pioneer industrialist, successful breeder and exhibitor of poultry and sheep, and noted racehorse owner before his death in 1917.
Sir James Carroll (1853-1926), son of Wairoa’s first European farmer and a Maori chieftainess, Tapuke, became the first Maori Prime minister of the Crown, twice Acting Prime Minister, and the right-hand man of Premier Richard John Seddon.
Carroll, who brought up 30 foster children, is regarded as one of the finest speakers the New Zealand Parliament has known. A gem of his picturesque language, on unveiling a memorial to an opponent and friend: “My mind is a hive to which are homing a hundred honeyed memories”
Miss Jerome Spencer, O.B.E., educationalist and daughter of Napier’s third Mayor, Dr W. I. Spencer, earned a niche in New Zealand history when she founded the Country Women’s Institute movement, still the largest organisation for women in the country (more than 1,000 institutes), at Rissington in 1921, and the Townswomen’s Guild movement in Napier after the 1931 earthquake.
Sir Donald McLean, also known as Te Makarini “chief of Hawke’s Bay”, played a significant part in the European occupation of New Zealand, during a lifetime touched with tragedy.
Still a child when his father died, the 19-year-old McLean emigrated from the Hebrides in 1839 to work as a timber agent in New South Wales and New Zealand. He quickly learned to speak Maori, which proved a valuable qualification when appointed Subprotector of Maoris, then land purchase officer, mediator and ultimately Native Minister and Defence Minister.
In 1850, while negotiating the purchase of Hawke’s Bay land, he married Miss Susan Strang, of Wellington, but their tragically brief marriage ended with her death shortly after the birth of their only son, Douglas, in 1852.
McLean himself was critically ill with rheumatic fever during the Maori war crisis in Taranaki when his knowledge, judgment and rapport with the Maoris could have eased trouble.
As a Cabinet Minister, his exercise of personal authority achieved peace, making way for the public works and development of the 1870s. But political attacks, anxiety and ill-health through early hardships led to his death on January 5, 1877.
Sir James Wattie, industrialist, has transformed the economy of the Heretaunga Plains and elsewhere in the past quarter century.
Born in Hawarden, North Canterbury, he moved to Hastings as a boy with his family and, in 1915, went to work as a 13-year old with the Hawke’s Bay Fruit, Produce and Cool Storage Company. After studying accountancy in his spare time, he eventually became manager of Hawke’s Bay Fruitgrowers Ltd and, in 1934, formed J Wattie Canneries Ltd.
His business acumen has guided the firm to international success, yet he has never lost the common touch in the past decade, he has also had popular success as a racehorse owner.
[Advertisements]
IN THE SERVICE OF HAWKE’S BAY
– WESTERMAN’S SPECIAL VALUES –
IN HONOUR of a GREAT OCCASION!
A hundred years ago,
Marauding Hau-Hau bands
Threatened peaceful settlers
in Hawke’s Bay.
There was loss of life and land
Till Whitmore took his stand
And in deciding battle –
Won the day
Life then took more settled form;
“The Daily Telegraph” was born –
To spread the news of life
From day to day.
‘Twas a journal of renown
With lofty hopes for man:
And it functions so
In service still today.
FABRIC SPECIALS OF DISTINCTION
36in. CREASE RESISTANT CREPES, washable tetoron. $1.65 yard
36in. WASHABLE TETORON CREPE, heavyweight, $2.50 yard
54in. CRIMPLINES, in self -coloured jacquard patterns and newest shades. $4.50 yard
45in. PRINTED COTTONS, lovely Eastern designs, cut into 1½ yard dress lengths. $1.99 per length
36in. PLAIN LINENS, smart mix-match checks, in 10 shades. $1.10 yard
36in. PLAIN LINENS, all newest, loveliest shades. From 99c yard
FANCY, HOSIERY, GLOVES, etc.
ELEGANT HANDBAGS in leather and plastic, lovely range, choicest colours. From $6.75
QUALITY KID GLOVES, fawn, tan, navy, white, black. From $6.95 pair
DAINTY SCARVES, Benbow, long square, assorted shades.
60c to $2.25 each
ATTRACTIVE HANDKERCHIEFS, boxed and loose.
Boxed from 75c Loose from 15c
COMFY PANTY HOSE, all sizes and best makes.
From $1.20 pair
HOUSEHOLD SPECIALS
LARGE PRINTED BEACH TOWELS, good driers in knockabout quality, 30in x 60in. $1.35
INDIAN BINNEY TOWELS, in nine fast-dyed colours, absorbent and durable. Size 25in x 48in, hemmed, this will be the last bale. Special $1 each.
PRINTED TOWELLING, figured and floral designs, on good quality 36in. Indian towelling, at 79c each
FOR THE HOME – REAL VALUES
LINEN TABLECLOTH AND NAPKINS SETS, smart checked designs in Autumn and blue/green tones. Usually $4.95
Special price – $3.95 set
LACE TRAY CLOTHS, white vinyl, size 12in x 18in
Special 30c each
PLACE-MATS in fashion colours, durable, washable, fringed and overlocked, size 12in x 18in. Special 59c each
HASTINGS SOUVENIR LINEN TEA TOWELS, in gay, lovely colours. Special – 79c each
KITCHEN TOWELS, in fashion colours and fancy checks, neatly hemmed. Special – 59c each
With Warmest Sentiments from . . .
WESTERMAN’S
(Westerman and Co. Ltd)
THE QUALITY DRAPERS
FAMOUS FOR LOW PRICES
HASTINGS
As we prepared this advertisement in 1970 . . .
It occurred to us that by manipulating the figures in the year 1970 you can come up with 1790, which happens to be the year when one of the first newspapers in London was produced on an all rag content newsprint. Our newsprint, of course, in these days is produced entirely from ground wood pulp. The main source of supply being from Tasman Mills in Kawerau.
The year 1790 and especially the date 17th September has produced an original copy of “The Morning Herald” from which some copies are herewith produced exactly as they appeared then.
If you remember to read ‘S’ where appears to be ‘F’ you should have some interesting reading.
[Newspaper excerpt]
Inserted by B.J. BALL N.Z. Paper Merchants
And Suppliers to the Daily Telegraph for 50 years
Page 33
People
Cutting out the frills
Fashions have frolicked from the fullest frills to the flimsiest of creations. In a century of fickleness, women have daily looked for “something new” – showing more and shedding 19th century modesty on the way.
To male delight the ‘swinging sixties” brought the mini-skirt and blew the fashion world thigh-high. Yet with the maxi-skirt now on the scene, how long will it last?
Top: Frills aplenty at the races nearly a century ago.
Top right: Too daring even for the model to reveal her face, the first harem-skirt in Napier was shown at McGruers Ltd in April 1911 and raised a storm of controversy.
Right: No fears, though, for little Miss Moderns of today as hems get higher and necklines lower. How will the “maxi” and “mini” styles fare by comparison.
HAIRSTYLES TURN A FULL CIRCLE
Men seem just as fickle. Seeking the fashionable hairstyle, the modern male has just put the clock back 100 years.
[Advertisements]
CONGRATULATIONS from ONE HAWKE’S BAY FIRM TO ANOTHER!!
Our modern premises . . .
Now situated on the corner of Pandora Road and West Quay.
After establishment in Waghorne Street in 1895 we moved to these premises in 1967 . . . location map below.
A comprehensive range
Service Free delivery
ELLISON & DUNCAN LTD
WHOLESALE WINE and SPIRIT MERCHANTS
PANDORA ROAD, NAPIER.
P.O. Box 2016, Ahuriri. Telephone 37667 Napier
F. T. WIMBLE
and Co. (N.Z.) Ltd.
The Printers’ Supply House
Congratulate the Daily Telegraph
For a century of valued service to the public of New Zealand and in particular to the subscribers in Hawke’s Bay.
Wimbles have served Printers throughout Australia and New Zealand for over 100 years . . .
We are the leaders in the manufacture of all printing inks and also suppliers of graphic arts equipment.
Pictured are the men who currently service the Hawke’s Bay area.
F.T. WIMBLE & CO. (N.Z.) LTD.
Malcolm Thane,
Branch Manager.
Bob Linde,
Machinery Representative
Jeff Cox,
Technical Manager.
Al Chalmers,
General Representative
Page 35
Action
DEEDS OF COURAGE
Our century embraced horrifying periods of conflict the worst mankind has known.
In the fires of war, Hawke’s Bay men fought, bled and died. On distant deserts, hostile shores, at sea and in the air, they faced the enemy and death with deeds of courage, determination, perseverance.
From the most severe episodes, they emerged with honour and victory.
Hostility against Maori Hau Hau fanatics was virtually a closed chapter when The Daily Telegraph was established in 1871. Three weeks after the first issue of the newspaper appeared, the last detachment of British troops left New Zealand.
A local militia was maintained in the province, and, in 1871, Colonel G. S. Whitmore, of Rissington, a veteran of the Crimean war, was commander, with Lieutenant-Colonels C. Lambert and J. L. Herrick under him. Whitmore emerged as an outstanding soldier of the Maori wars. He was later appointed Minister of Defence and knighted.
There followed a generation of peace rocked only by the Russian “scare” of 1885, and, at the turn of the century, Hawke’s Bay fighting men were ready and willing to join the “Colonials – volunteers in South Africa.
Hawke’s Bay claimed to have sent more men a head of population to the Boer War than any other province – 386 in 10 contingents.
The glory of war in the hey-day of Imperialism was soon muddied in the trenches of France.
New Zealand contributed 10 per cent of its population to the 1914-18 war and 40 per cent of the male population between 20 and 45 saw service.
Thousands of Hawke’s Bay men were among the 100,444 Diggers who served overseas. A member of the well-known military and pioneer Hawke’s Bay family, Major-General Sir Andrew Hamilton Russell, commanded the evacuation of the entire Anzac Force at Gallipoli, and led the New Zealand Division through France to Germany.
General Russell, born at Greenmeadows, returned home with many foreign decorations, served again in the Second World War as Inspector-General of Forces in New Zealand. and died in 1960.
A former Napier High School boy, Percy Valentine Storkey, became one of New Zealand’s few Victoria Cross winners for his “conspicuous bravery, leadership and devotion to duty” when in charge of a platoon in an attack on Hangard Wood, near Villers Bretonneux, on April 7, 1918. Later, he became a New South Wales judge. He died in Britain in 1969.
Photo captions –
Hawke’s Bay’s Major-General Sir Andrew Hamilton Russell commanded the entire Anzac Force in the evacuation of Gallipoli after the historic landing at Anzac Cove depicted above in the Cuneo painting.
Below: Hawke’s Bay farewells its first (troops to serve overseas, the “Colonials” of the South African war of 1899-1901. Crowds cram the Masonic Hotel verandas to watch the proceedings around the band rotunda in front of Napier’s old council chambers.
Lt. P. V. Storkey, V.C.
Maj-Gen. A. H. Russell
[Advertisement]
Read any good trees lately?
You’ve probably read any number of our trees in your lifetime. Every time you pick up a newspaper or magazine the chances are part of Tasman’s paper forest is in your hands.
Back around the year 105 a functionary of the Eastern Han dynasty, Ts’ai Lun, whipped up the world’s first paper from a concoction of macerated tree bark, old fish nets, hemp, rags and stickum. It gained him great favour with the Emperor and the world began its ever-growing demand for paper.
But paper has come a long way since Ta‘ai Lun and his fish net pulp. The use of high speed presses, the enormous demand, and just plain economics have stimulated great technical advances in the industry.
We at Tasman like to think we played a part in all this . . . by pioneering newsprint production in New Zealand to service the people (like the “Daily Telegraph” with its one hundred years of experience) who pioneered our great publishing industry.
The paper industry is growing, changing, developing new and grand ideas for the next one hundred years.
Tasman is growing places, And allied industries, like the ‘Daily Telegraph”, are growing with us.
Tasman
PULP AND PAPER COMPANY LIMITED.
TASMAN PULP AND PAPER COMPANY LIMITED,
Kawerau, New Zealand.
Sole Selling Agents: BOWATER PAPER COMPANY LIMITED,
M.L.C.Building, Queen Street, P.O. Box 5466, Auckland.
Page 37
Action
“Make way for the Digger flag”
“Make way for the Digger flag”, New Zealanders called as H.M.S. Achilles attacked, then trapped and helped force the scuttling of the pride of the German Navy, the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee.
The Battle of the River Plate on December 13, 1939, was the first occasion on which the New Zealand Ensign was hoisted in naval action – and it introduced to New Zealanders at home the realities of the Second World War.
Ordinary Seaman C. F. Marra, of Waipukurau, wounded in the battle, was one of several Hawke’s Bay men among the 321 New Zealanders serving in the Achilles. His was among the first Hawke’s Bay blood spilled in a new war – a war that grew into a new horrifying dimension.
Battles at sea
In the 1939-45 conflict, Hawke’s Bay produced many distinguished navalmen. With bravery and skill they served in craft of many kinds – battleships, motor torpedo-boats and submarines, destroyers and cruisers – and in the Fleet Air Arm.
A notable naval contribution was made by the Herrick family of Hastings, descendants of the Napier militia officer of 100 years ago, Captain T.D. Herrick and Lieutenant-Commander L. E Herrick were both honoured for distinguished service in the Royal Navy and Miss R. Herrick became the first director of the Women’s Royal New Zealand Naval Service in 1942. After the war, Captain Herrick served as assistant Chief of Naval Staff.
By 1944, more than 9000 New Zealanders were serving in the Royal New Zealand Navy or the Royal Navy. Of 573 who died, 451 were with the Royal Navy.
Hawke’s Bay navalmen saw action in the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the North Sea and at Normandy. Around the world, they fought the battles of the sea.
Among the Few
Hawke’s Bay men were among the Few. With Europe in the Nazi grip, the Briitsh Army still recovering from Dunkirk, many Hawke’s Bay airmen in the Royal Air Force helped defend a weak, exposed Britain.
Four New Zealanders commanded fighter squadrons in the Battle of Britain and 95 fought as fighter pilots. Aucklander, Air Vice Marshal Sir Keith Park, played a vital role as commander of 25 squadrons of No. 11 Group.
The outstanding Hawke’s Bay airman was Wairoa born Air Marshal Sir Hector McGregor. In the Battle of Britain, he commanded No. 213 Fighter Squadron with distinction. He went on to a brilliant Royal Air Force career. A member of a well-known Napier family, he retired a few year ago after holding several distinguished posts, including that of Commander-in-Chief R.A.F. Fighter Command.
At least one Hawke’s Bay airman died in action as Hurricanes and Spitfires of the Few harassed and repelled the might of Germany’s Luftwaffe in Britain’s darkest hours.
About 500 New Zealanders flew bombers in action during the war, and many Hawke’s Bay pilots and other airmen served in R.A.F. Bomber Command and in the R.N.Z.A.F. in Europe, the Pacific and elsewhere. A total of 10,950 New Zealand airmen served in Britain alone, more than 6000 in the R.A.F. Casualties were 3285 killed, 138 seriously wounded and 568 captured.
Photo captions –
The scene in the River Plate estuary as the German pocket battleship, Admiral Graf Spee, is scuttled after having been trapped by Allied ships, including H.M.S. Achilles (right) in which a number of Hawke’s Bay navalmen saw their first action of the Second World War. – A.T.L.
Sir Hector McGregor and (right) Hurricanes in formation.
[Advertisement]
1895 – 1971
W. TUCKER Ltd
have grown with the requirements of the WOOL GROWER from the horse and cart age to one of the largest wool scouring plants in New Zealand
We Congratulate the Daily Telegraph on their Service to the Residents of Hawke’s Bay for the past 100 years and extend to them our good wishes for the future
Progress with the Province by
Consigning your Wool
to
W. TUCKER Ltd
COMMISSION WOOL SCOURERS, WHAKATU
MAIN ROAD – CLIVE – Private Bag, Hastings – Telegraphic Address “TUCKWOOL” – Phone CE-895
Page 39
Action
Dust, sweat and cheers
Two out of every three Hawke’s Bay men between 18 years and 45 entered the Services during the Second World War. Most were among the 104,988 New Zealand Army personnel who served abroad.
Their resourcefulness, spirit and aptitude for the outdoor life earned high praise and respect in all theatres of war – the Desert, Europe and the Pacific.
Maoris whose ancestors fought alongside Hawke’s Bay pioneers against the Hau Hau rebels a century earlier joined in action overseas.
Hawke’s Bay tribes, which were represented in the Maori Pioneer Battalion of the 1914-18 war, again contributed skilled officers and men to the 28 (Maori) Battalion of the Second World War.
The Ngati-Kahungunu formed a large section of D Company and went on to serve with distinction.
In the dust and sweat of North Africa, Hawke’s Bay soldiers in the Second New Zealand Division faced Rommel. In Italy, they slogged on to Cassino and beyond.
Many Hawke’s Bay soldiers served in the 22nd and 25th Infantry Battalions, but large numbers also served in the Artillery, the Engineers and the whole range of Army units from the specialised Long Range Desert Group to the medical and educational units.
Throughout the war, New Zealanders at home, particularly many women, added a priceless contribution to the effort.
As hostilities dragged on, more Hawke’s Bay soldiers saw service in the growing New Zealand Third Division in the Pacific. They persevered on the hot beaches and in the jungles of the Pacific till their withdrawal in 1944.
Restive prisoners
When captured, the New Zealander was a restive prisoner. The spirit of escape rose high and often in a number of Hawke’s Bay men. Among them was Sapper Roy Natusch, of Maraekakaho, taken prisoner on April 28, 1941, and who escaped on September 12, 1944 – after nine attempts.
Napier-born Brigadier George Clifton, who died at Taupo in 1970, turned his extraordinary escapades into an exciting book, “The Happy Hunted” He made nine attempts to break from German and Italian hands. Five times he escaped from confinement, and twice he returned to Allied lines.
In more recent decades, Hawke’s Bay fighting men have fought and died with New Zealand forces in South-East Asia, notably in Korea and Vietnam. Against less easily defined enemies, they use equipment, devices and methods their forefathers could not have imagined.
In the conflicts of a century, many of the province’s men and women have endured and triumphed over the hardships and bitterness of war and confinement. Cheering crowds have rejoiced at their return. Their contribution will not easily be forgotten.
Photo captions –
New Zealanders bring down their wounded from a feature at Takrouna, Tunisia, on May 13, 1943. Below: The Prime Minister, Mr Winston Churchill, takes the salute from units of the 28 (Maori) Battalion in Britain. – A.T. L.
Captured Brigadier Clifton (extreme left) meets Rommel (centre) on September 4, 1942. The exposure was found in a German photographer’s camera when he was killed the following month. – A.T.L. 39
Pages 40-41
Action
She’s a beaut!
Our sporting record
It’s been a champion century for Hawke’s Bay sport. Rugby, racing and . . . you name it. You’d be surprised at the champions we’ve produced.
From A to Z in the world of sport (from athletics to Zephyr class yachting), Hawke’s Bay sportsmen have had a go at most things. And in many events we have unearthed a top-notcher – the best in the country, sometimes the best in the British Empire and, on occasions, the world.
It is surprising the province’s record is so good, considering the fragmented sporting system adopted generally in Hawke’s Bay and New Zealand as a whole.
Ventures into the world of professionalism have been few. A bit of professional running in the early years. Rugby League soon faded out. The American system of university “scholarships” and the Communist method of State organisation have been spurned. New Zealanders have opted in favour of amateurism, or at least “shamateurism”, and, more recently, sponsorship.
Mostly, our individuals and teams have been left to their own devices, with relatively few facilities. Yet, they have managed to get to the top through sacrifice, determination and ability.
The American author, Emerson, said nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. In sporting endeavour, with or without “scholarships”, sponsorship, State-controlled coaching, or professionalism, the crucial ingredient is enthusiasm. It is a point that has been proven many times by successful Hawke’s Bay sportsmen.
New Zealand is a sports-conscious country. There can be no doubt about that. You can’t produce Nepias, Sutcliffes, Snells and Halbergs from a small population like ours unless there is a tremendous interest to support achievement.
Hawke’s Bay has taken to sport just as keenly as most other New Zealand regions. As soon as organised settlement got under way in the 1850s and 1860s, rifle shooting, horse races and cricket matches became great occasions.
In the early days, Hawke’s Bay men helped establish a number of sports on a national basis. The inaugural meeting of the New Zealand Racing Conference was held in Hawke’s Bay in 1883. The first New Zealand lawn tennis championships were played in the province in 1886 and the first national surf life-saving competition was swum from the Napier beach in 1915.
Private S. Gree was probably Hawke’s Bay’s first national champion. He was highest scorer in the Queen’s final of the New Zealand rifle Challenge Cup competition way back in 1874. Since then, F. H. James and L. H. Proffitt, of Napier, and more recently M. G. Gordon, of Okawa, have collected the notable title on a number of occasions.
More national champions emerged in 1888 – a good year, it seems, for Hawke’s Bay sporting endeavour. In that year, J. Foster, of Napier, became New Zealand’s first single sculls champion at Wellington. The only other Hawke’s Bay competitor to take the title was W. Turner in 1934, though the Hastings sculler, Tony Bone, has come close in recent years.
In the same season, 1888-89, Hawke’s Bay produced its first national athletics champions. T. W. Lewis became 100 yards sprint champion with a time of 10.6s and F. Ellis won the mile title at the same meeting in 5m 5s.
In the early years, Hawke’s Bay had some smart sprinters. Best was Jack Hempton, a New Zealand representative, who, according to official records, won the national 100 yards title for Hawke’s Bay in 1892 at Christchurch in 9.8s – equalling the world record.
Flashing footsteps of these early athletes have been followed by many national champions from Hawke’s Bay: W. J. Fitzsimmons and P. F. Sharpley in the 1930s, the contemporary sprinter, Craig Daly, miler E. Forne, walker I Driscoll, hurdler J. M. Holland, field men M. Roderick and D. Gilliland and the women, G. Symes, M. Stuart and C. Rivett-Carnac. These are some of the champions. Among them, they collected scores of titles.
Bowls has been a popular sport on Hawke’s Bay’s sunny, well-groomed greens. From the thousands of devotees, there have been many champions. J. A. Engebretson [Engebtretsen], of Napier, won the 1935 national ( Continued overleaf)
Photo captions –
The shield’s back: Hawke’s Bay rugby captain, Kel Tremain, holds the Ranfurly Shield aloft after the 1966 victory over Waikato. A 6-0 win brought the shield back to Hawke’s Bay after 32 years and began a three year era that recalled the proud years of the 1920s.
Tremain’s team produced many gripping moments as it retained the shield in 21 matches and thrilled a total of nearly 500,000 spectators at McLean Park (right). The unforgettable last-minute equalising dropped goal of Blair Furlong, which held Wellington to 12 – 12 in 1967, was an incredible climax. And there were many others.
It all ended in the last defence of 1969. A rampaging Canterbury side won 18-11. This time, Hawke’s Bay’s fighting second-half recovery failed to keep the shield. But fullback Ian Bishop was able to take his shield points tally to 178 – a record in the trophy’s history.
One of New Zealand’s greatest rugby administrators and personalities, Mr Norman McKenzie ( left), who died in 1960, was sole selector of the Hawke’s Bay Rugby team for 20 years and the mainspring of its recordmaking 24 defences of the Ranfurly Shield between 1922 and 1927.
The 1922 Hawke’s Bay Rugby team whose trailblazing performances began the record of 24 successful, consecutive Ranfurly Shield defences, broken ony in 1942 when Auckland retained the shield 3 – 2 against Hawke’s Bay: – Back row ( from left): W. Barclay, J. C. McGregor, C. J. Brownlie, J. A McNab, B. A Grenside, L. A. Miller , L. H. Hingston. Second row: R. L. Dine, S. Gemmell. G. I. Yates, J. H. Scott, N. J. Daley, J. K. Irwin, J. M. Blake, W. R. Irvine. Third row: W. V. Blake, C. S. Findlay (manager), A. Kirkpatrick (captain), H. E. Seed (manager), N. L. Kivell ( vice-captain). Front row: D.H. C. O’Donoghue, U. W. Batchelor, M. Wynn.
Legendary All Black captain of the 1920s, Maurice Brownlie ( above) and spectacular fullback, George Nepia ( left), who, with Kel Tremain and the captain of the shield winning 1934 team, Dick Steere, are a famous foursome from the long list of Hawke’s Bay All Blacks.
[Advertisement]
Well played Daily Telegraph
ROBERT HOLT
Founder of Robert Holt & Sons Ltd., one of Hawke’s Bay’s greatest industries
SCOREBOARD
runs
Daily Telegraph 100
Robert Holt 112
Our centenary was in 1959 and we are delighted to pay tribute to your completion of a century of service.
May we extend to the staff and management our congratulations on past achievements and best wishes for your continued success.
Now heading for our second century we too are playing the game according to the rules, upholding the traditions of honest trading and service to the community!
HOLTS
ROBERT HOLT & SONS LTD
Congratulate
DAILY TELEGRAPH CO., LTD.
NAPIER – HASTINGS – WAIPUKURAU – WAIROA – GISBORNE – OPOTIKI – TAUPO – PAHIATUA
Page 43
Action
IT’S GREAT
singles title and W. D. Bennett, of Hastings, matched this effort three years later. Teams have had their many successes, too, but the womenfolk really set the pace in the 1950s and 1960s. Mrs S. Winstanley and Mrs M. Nichol, of Marewa, won so many national singles, pairs and fours titles that people lost count.
Think of boxing in Hawke’s Bay and you think of the Donovans and Barry Brown. But there were many other champions, particularly in the immediate post-war years when Hawke’s Bay was a top boxing province.
Hastings roller skaters, Merv Wybrott and later Dean Hayes, won world speed titles and Hawke’s Bay artistic skaters have figured at world championships.
Other individuals, unfortunately too many to mention by name, have gained national championships in a host of sports, including canoeing, chess, croquet, cycling, golf, gymnastics, horse jumping, motor racing, motor cycling, shearing, shooting, roller skating, squash, swimming, tennis, weightlifting, wrestling, yachting and even draughts.
Ranfurly Shield exploits overshadow all other achievement in team sports. However, other Hawke’s Bay teams have reached a high level of performance and sustained it. The Freyberg Rose Bowl golf team in the 1960s, the Hawke’s Bay women’s hockey team in the early 1900s and again in the late 1960s, and
(Continued overleaf)
Moments of triumph for English Channel swimmer Keith Hancox, a former Napier boy, and Canadian amateur golf champion, Stuart Jones, of Hastings.
Hancox became the first New Zealander to swim the Channel (in 15 hours 33 minutes), on August 7, 1965. The previous year, he swam Cook Strait in the record time of 9 hours 34 minutes (on February 7).
Jones won the Canadian title in 1968, after having been many times New Zealand amateur champion and winning open tournaments against some of the world’s top professionals. For the past two decades, he has been New Zealand’s outstanding amateur golfer.
Inset right: The 1903 national amateur golf champion, Kurupo Tareha, of Napier.
Tom Lowry, the most colourful New Zealand cricket captain, and Hawke’s Bay’s most famous cricketer. While at Cambridge he played county cricket for Somerset, represented the Gentlemen against the Players, and toured New Zealand with the M.C.C. in 1922.
He returned to New Zealand to be appointed captain of the first team to tour Britain in 1927 and was again captain in 1931 when he scored 101 not out at Lords. He toured again in 1937 as manager and served as president the New Zealand Cricket Council. He also became well-known as a racehorse owner.
Other Hawke’s Bay cricketers who represented New Zealand are batsman H. B. Lusk, who dominated cricket in the province from the 1890s to 1916, E. L. H. Bernau, a fast left-arm bowler who toured with Lowry’s team in 1927, and the contemporary all-rounder, M. J. F. Shrimpton, a stylish batsman.
1963 was a good year for motor sport in Hawke’s Bay, Angus Hyslop (right), of Hastings, was second in the New Zealand Grand Prix and first New Zealander home in an international star-studded field. In the New Zealand T.T. open championship, A. H. Dobbs, the Napier motor cyclist, clinched the title, riding his Manx Norton.
And it’s a women’s world, too!
Among the many women to win national and international recognition are Olympian hurdler, Margaret Stuart, of Hastings (left), hockey international and tennis champion, Mrs Margaret Hiha, winner of The Daily Telegraph’s Sportsman of the Year award in 1968, and Mrs S. Winstanley, of Marewa (right) many times national bowls title winner.
[Advertisements]
1865 1971
GILBERD”S FIRST FOR THIRST SINCE 1865
Its Our Pleasure . . .
To Congratulate
The Daily Telegraph
On Attaining 100 Years of Service to Hawke’s Bay
By Quality and Service we grow!
GILBERD’S
Have Satisfied the thirst of four Generations
Advanced with Hawke’s Bay – Your Fruitee Soft Drink Bottlers
GILBERD & COMPANY LTD
NAPIER – HASTINGS – WAIROA
Good Luck
Daily Telegraph . . .
WELCOME
To The Century Club!
From
GORDON and GOTCH (N.Z.) LTD
AUCKLAND – WELLINGTON – CHRISTCHURCH – DUNEDIN
Established 1853
Page 45
Action
the Hawke’s Bay polo, softball and bowls teams, are good examples.
Other teams have tasted success more briefly. The Hawke’s Bay cricket team first held the Hawke Cup for only one match in 1948, regained it briefly in 1951 and again in 1968-1969. Most fleeting success story concerns the Hawke’s Bay surf life-saving team which won the Nelson Shield when it was first presented in 1915 at Napier but has failed to regain it in 55 years of trying.
Single-minded dedication has taken some Hawke’s Bay men and women to the glistening arenas of the Olympic and Commonwealth Games and they have emerged with honour and medals. Among the medallists: Schoolteacher J. M. Holland, who spent several years in Hawke’s Bay, won the 440 yards silver medal at the Auckland Empire Games in 1950 and a bronze at the Helsinki Olympics of 1952 in the 400 metres hurdles. C. Rivett-Carnac won a bronze in the women’s javelin and J. A. Engebretson a bronze in the bowls four at the Auckland Games. Boxer Paddy Donovan won two Empire Games bronze medals in the lightweight division at Cardiff in 1958 and Perth in 1962. Rona Tong, a Hastings sprinter, collected a bronze at Sydney’s Empire Games in 1938.
Apart from the deeds of local sportsmen, overseas athletes have performed memorably in Hawke’s Bay . . . the great Rugby teams, the Springboks, the Lions . . . the cavalier West Indian and classical English cricketers . . . the soccer stars of Bernard Joy and Tom Finney . . . Olympic gold medallists Bobby Morrow, Kipchoge Keino . . . top swimmers, Murray Rose and Johnny Devitt . . . the world’s golf greats, Bobby Locke, Gary Player.
The names, the memories, seem endless. These have been great performers, and great occasions in Hawke’s Bay sport. The oldtimers, cherishing and perhaps embellishing their memories, may always claim the present champions are not like they used to be. Record books argue the point. But, in any event, it is indisputable that the new century will bring new names onto the sports pages – new heroes to match the deeds of the old.
Like father, like son
Olympic boxer Paddy Donovan (above) followed the battling footsteps of his father, the “fighting fireman” of the 1920s and 1930s, Tommy Donovan (right). Tommy who died in 1968, won the national amateur featherweight championship in 1927 and Paddy won the title in 1954. Tommy turned professional in boxing’s hey-day and, in 1930, before a record 18,000 crowd, scored one of three wins over Pete Sarron, who was subsequently featherweight champion of the world. Paddy won a host of national titles in the 1950s and 1960s and represented New Zealand at Olympic and Commonwealth Games.
A great finish: The 3-1 favourite, Even Stevens, wins the Melbourne Cup in 3m 21 2-5s in 1962 for Hastings owner, Sir James Wattie. Left: Sir James holds high the gold trophy with winning jockey, Les Coles, and trainer, Mr Arch McGregor, on each side and the Governor of Victoria, Sir Dallas Brooks (extreme left).
Three in a row
Hawke’s Bay’s most popular winner of the Melbourne Cup, Even Stevens, completed a treble on the Australian turf scene in 1962 by also winning the Werribee and Caulfield Cups.
The province can claim three other Melbourne Cup winners. In 1916, Sasanof, owned by Messrs W. G. Stead and E.S. Luttrell, of Hastings, scored one of the easiest victories in 3m 27¾s at 12-1.
In 1938, Mrs A. Jamieson, of Napier, was owner of Catalogue which won in 3m 26¾s at 25-1, and in 1955, Toporoa, at 6-1, Won in 3m 28¼s for Mr N, H. MacDonald, of Dannevirke.
But probably the most amazing Hawke’s Bay horse was the steeplechaser, Moifaa, the only New Zealand and the first colonial horse to win the English Grand National, away back in 1904.
Moifaa, bred by, the Ellingham family, of Takapau, by Natater out of Denbigh, won a string of New Zealand classics with as much as 11.5 up. In 1903, he was sold by Mr Alf Ellingham, to prominent Hawke’s Bay sportsman and station owner Mr Spencer Gollan, who created a sensation by shipping Moifaa to England for the Grand National with Hawke’s Bay trainer Mr Jimmy Hickey.
The legend that Moifaa’s ship was wrecked and the horse swam ashore, is not correct. But on March 25, 1904, Moifaa caused a Royal upset by winning the National, the hardest and most famous steeplechase in the world, defeating King Edward VII’s Ambush 2nd, the hot favourite.
Even staid English writers claimed Moifaa was the greatest winner in the history of the race. The King was so impressed he bought Moifaa for 2000 guineas and started him in the Royal colours the next year. Like many another big horse, Moifaa went in the wind and did not race again. King Edward hacked him and rode him on all ceremonial occasions.
In the King’s State funeral cortege through the streets of London, two animals took pride of place ahead of Kaiser Wilhelm and every crowned head of Europe – the King’s white-haired terrier Caesar, and, with a significantly empty saddle, the old horse Moifaa (below), late of Hawke’s Bay.
Boyish-looking southpaw, Barry Brown, of Dannevirke culminated a fine career with a knock-out defeat of Gerald Dreyer, South African holder of the British Empire welterweight championship, in 1953. He became the first New Zealander to win an Empire title in a home ring and was Hawke’s Bay’s first holder of the New Zealand Sportsman of the Year award.
[Advertisement]
My personal congratulations – J. Wattie
After 100 years of steady progress, The Daily Telegraph can be rightly proud of the way it has served the citizens of Hawke’s Bay. The Telegraph was with us when New Zealand was still a colony . . . saw us become a Dominion . . . served us through two World Wars and a Depression . . . kept us up with the news even during Hawke’s Bay’s disastrous earthquake of 1931.
On behalf of my company, sincere congratulations.
J. Wattie Canneries Limited has a long time to go before it can look back on 100 years of service. Nevertheless, in its lifetime, it, too, has had to overcome its share of difficulties.
From a modest beginning 36 years ago when, in its first year of operation, it had a turnover of some $8000, the J. Wattie Canneries Group of Companies has grown to the top bracket of New Zealand enterprises with a turnover of $96,327,000.
It takes a large number of people and a vast quantity of goods and services to produce a sum of this magnitude and the figures below show how this money was used.
OTHER FACTS OF INTEREST CONCERNING THE WATTIE GROUP
(a) Staff. Almost 5000 men and women are directly employed. In addition, there are many thousands who are dependent on the operations of the Wattie Group for their livelihood.
(b) Wages and Salaries paid last year $13,802,000.
(c) Ordinary Shareholders total 20,329 and comprise 10,261 Men
8,800 Women
1,268 Estates & Companies
(d) Export Trade $4,032,912.
(e) Consolidated Tax Paid Profit for the year was 4.25% of turnover or $4,109,688.
HOW THE GROUP’S TURNOVER FOR THE YEAR WAS USED
Payments for materials, services, etc. 59.8%
Wages and Salaries 14.3%
Selling and Distribution expenses 10.2%
Administration and Financial expenses 4.3%
Depreciation of Assets 3.3%
Taxation 3.8%
Dividend to Shareholders 2.1%
Profits retained in the Group 2.2%
100%
Wattie’s
WATTIE CANNERIES LTD. . . . HASTINGS
Page 47
Action
In the arts, a revolution
Television has wrought a cultural revolution in most Hawke’s Bay homes during the last decade of our century.
It has projected its probing eye into the spare time pursuits of the community, beaming a glossy world of culture into our homes – a world of good and bad, in which Bernstein, Olivier and Fonteyn fight for exposure against a mass of questionable light entertainment.
Television has had a significant effect on the hobbies, habits and artistic endeavours of many people. Some doers became mere viewers, but, according to overseas experience this may be merely a phase.
For others, television has served at times as a cultural stimulant. Into our homes have come fresh artists, fresh performances, fresh ideas and techniques some of which, in turn, have been translated and absorbed by local artists performing and working within our own community.
It is inescapable that since its introduction into Hawke’s Bay in 1962, television has become part of the community and, for good or ill, influences our culture.
The days of the strolling minstrels and players, often lovable rogues of pioneer Hawke’s Bay, are long gone. The Edwardian “musical evenings” are memories largely replaced by the advance of communications, recording, radio and television.
Even though the province’s colonial character has generally laid the emphasis elsewhere, some Hawke’s Bay people have made a valuable contribution in the field of art.
In the sphere of literature, the doyen has been H. Guthrie-Smith, whose book “Tutira” the story of a New Zealand sheep station remains a literary classic not only of the life of a pioneer farmer but of the country’s flora and fauna.
T. A. McCormack and the late Rita Angus are Hawke’s Bay artists who figured in New Zealand’s emergent art. McCormack’s landscapes and beautiful watercolour still life painting have been widely acclaimed as a notable contribution to New Zealand art.
Amateur dramatic and musical productions have flourished and waned and flourished again in most Hawke’s Bay centres, at times reaching worthwhile peaks. In lighter vein, the Napier Frivolity Minstrels maintained a remarkable record over 75 years, during which Mr W. Ireland has served the organisation for more than half a century.
In the realm of music, the emphasis professionally has been on teaching. Many able teachers have set and kept a high standard over a long period. The 1871 Hawke’s Bay Directory lists the province’s first “professor of music and singing”, Mr G, Worgan, of Napier, and also a “musician”, Mr Thomas Collins, of Emerson Street.
In 1871, too, brass band concerts were a feature of Napier’s Saturday afternoons as the Volunteer Band (now the Napier City Band) performed on the lawns of the Hawke’s Bay Provincial Council Building, Shakespeare Road.
According to the first issue of The Daily Telegraph, the early performances of the band met with a mixed reception. The Telegraph’s controversial columnist, Towton, noted in his first column: “It seemed to me the Volunteer Band was hardly playing up to its proper form on Saturday last; the selection from ‘Rigoletto’ was one degree worse than a regiment of bagpipes, anything but a pleasing discord.”
In spite of Towtown’s early disparagement, bands men have since served the province well, at times reaching high standards, notably in the 1950s when both pipe and brass bands earned some of the highest national honours.
On the professional scene, many of the world’s most famous artists and entertainers have performed in Hawke’s Bay. Some of them have been financially backed in the province by Napier entrepreneur, Mr J. Fairclough, The Musica Viva, the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation and other agencies.
Famous names may recall fond memories for nostalgic Hawke’s Bay concert-goers – violinist Campoli, pianist Solomon, the vocalists Webster Booth and Anne Zeigler, negro Todd Duncan, Gladys Moncrieff, Fraser Gange, Stanley Holloway, the Vienna Boys’ Choir, the Berlin Chamber Orchestra and other great orchestras, Russian ballerina Pavlova, Roger Livesey and Ursula Jeans, Dame Sybil Thorndyke, Googie Withers and other stars of stage and screen.
The bill reaches back almost a century to when the touring artist was also an adventurer . . . and programmes cost only 1d.
The Forsyte Saga
Millions of male television viewers in many countries fell in love with Napier-born ash blonde, Nyree Dawn Porter (left), for her performance as Irene in the expensive British television production of the classic “The Forsyte Saga” in the late 1960s.
It was a high point in a successful career on television, stage and in films for the glamorous, talented product of amateur theatre in Hawke’s Bay. Nyree (originally “Ngaire”) graduated from amateur drama musical and ballet productions in Napier to the New Zealand Players in the 1950s and arrived in Britain in September 1958 on a three-week trip as New Zealand’s “Miss Cinema”. Her sparkling green eyes have never looked back.
Nyree is probably the most famous of the many Hawke’s Bay expatriates who travelled overseas to attain success in music, the arts, science, technology and other chosen fields.
Photo captions –
H. Guthrie-Smith, outstanding author, naturalist and successful sheep farmer, who died in 19401, feeds a native pigeon at Tutira homestead. Guthrie-Smith spent 58 years at Tutira, and his books on natural history plead the case for conservation of New Zealand native forests, birds, fauna and flora. His works include the classic “Tutira”, one of the very few really first-class books to come out of New Zealand.
The director of the Hawke’s Bay Art Gallery and Museum, Mr J. S. B. Munro, admires one of the gallery’s proud possessions, a landscape of the Havelock North hills by Hawke’s Bay artist T. A. McCormack
AN EXCEPTIONAL RECORD
100 years of faithfully reporting the news of the district is a record to be proud of, and we join in offering The Daily Telegraph our congratulations.
For more than half that time – 58 years to be exact – George Murfitt served the people of Hawke’s Bay while a salesman at Bon Marche Ltd., in Hastings – an exceptional record of loyalty and service to one firm.
Beginning in 1905 as a 12-year old parcel boy, George – he was “George” to everybody – worked with the three generations of the firm’s management – the founder, the late Mr Matthew Johnson, his son-in-law, the late Mr James F. Jones, and more recently, Mr Jones’ four sons, Ross, Stuart, Bryce and Richard.
In his time, George outfitted hundreds of fathers, sons and grandsons. People were his life, and because of this, he loved his job as a salesman. He retired in 1963 and died last year. We miss him. His was the old tradition of service.
Happily, his example follows him. We are thrilled from time to time to receive letters of thanks from customers who have appreciated that “old time service” that little extra that Bon Marche staff seem so happy to give. We want to leave an exceptional record, too !
Pictured: George Murfitt, framed by Tui Hill and Pam Taylor, at the Hastings Blossom Festival Fancy Dress Day in 1961.
[Advertisement]
“We interrupt our congratulations for a message from absent friends . . . ”
Many happy returns
Bonne Anniversaire
Herzliche Glückwünsche zum Geburtstäg
Tanti auguri a voi
Gelukkige verjaardag
CONGRATULATIONS
(You see, its our birthday too)
In congratulating all at the “Telegraph’’ on this Centennial milestone, we’d like to make it a double celebration. Because it’s now over a century ago that Edwards Dunlop first set up in Australia as machinery merchants to the printing industry.
And now we’re entering our second century of growth, as agents for some of the finest international names in the manufacture of printing equipment. With suppliers in France, Holland, West Germany, Sweden, Finland, the U.S.A., England, Italy, Switzerland and Japan, we’re in a position to really ‘deliver the goods’ to the New Zealand printing industry.
Wishing the “Telegraph’’ the best for their second century, we’d like to conclude our congratulations with a commercial . . . the names of just a few of those ‘absent friends’.
Buhrs-Zaandam N.V., Holland.
Zaandam Wrapping Machines
Dutro-Hewson Inc., U.S.A.
Count-o-reyer Counter and Stacker
Graphicart; Switzerland.
Wifag Newspaper Rotary Printing Presses, Stereotyping Equipment.
Insertomatic Newspaper Stuffing Machines.
Roland Offset Presses; West Germany.
Interlino Pty Ltd., Australia
Typesetting Machine Parts.
George Hantscho Co, Inc., U.S.A.
Hantscho Web Offset Presses.
100 YEAR SERVICE TO THE NEWSPAPER INDUSTRY IN N.Z. & AUSTRALIA
ED
Edwards Dunlop
AND COMPANY (N.Z.) LIMITED
MACHINERY MERCHANTS TO THE PRINTING INDUSTRY
6 ROXBURGH STREET, MT. VICTORIA, WELLINGTON, 1, NEW ZEALAND
P.O. BOX 9057. CABLES & TELEGRAMS ‘DUNLOPTION’ TEL 51-673
E DAY SHATTERS A PROVINCE
Fire, fear and fortitude
It was a warm, languid mid-Summer’s day. Holidays over, children had returned to school. Town centres were quiet. Then three minutes of shuddering violence jarred the course of Hawke’s Bay history.
In the worst disaster New Zealand has known, 256 people died. Today – exactly 40 years later – the Hawke’s Bay earthquake of February 3, 1931, remains one of the world’s most severe during the past 200 years.
In Napier, fire swept through the town’s heart, consuming what the earthquake had failed to destroy. A total of 161 people died in the long minutes of terror and torment. Waiapu Cathedral, the Nurses’ Home, Old People’s Home, Technical College and public library collapsed with heavy loss of life.
Hastings was also severely damaged and 93 people died. Havoc stretched from Wairoa (where two people were killed) to Dannevirke and north Wairarapa.
Photographs in this double-page feature, believed to be the first coloured pictures of the earthquake to be published, show:
Top: The blazing Masonic Hotel, with sailors from H.M.S. Veronica in the foreground.
Top right: The old Bank of New Zealand ablaze on the site of the present Cathedral fountain.
Right: Shakespeare Road, with the old Post Office building on the right.
Right centre: Rescuers searching for victims in Hastings Street.
Extreme right: Fire reaches Emerson Street.
Below: The blaze sweeps along Hastings Street.
Below right: The “bank corner” at the top of Emerson Street.
Yet faith endures
Amid death, new hope is born
Top left: Stretcher bearers carry a victim from ruins.
Top right: A baby born amid the desolation a few hours after the earthquake.
Above: Devastated Napier, with Tennyson Street in the foreground.
Below: Dr T. C. Moore’s private hospital on the Marine Parade. Right: Westshore embankment road. Below right: Sailors from vessels sent to Napier during the emergency engaged in demolition work in Herschell Street.
Page 53
Action
Other times of PERIL
If disaster creates opportunity, Hawke’s Bay has not lacked opportunity. In addition to the devastation of earthquake, fire, flood, shipwreck and storm have caused havoc and destruction.
Through history, the stark statistics of tragedy point a wary finger at public holidays in Hawke’s Bay. On a number of occasions they brought disaster. Three such were the Good Friday flood of 1897, the 1938 Anzac Day flood and the Queen’s Birthday flood of 1963. The Anzac Day flood came a few weeks after a freak rainstorm wrecked parts of the East Coast railway and killed 21 men and women at Kopuawhara railway camp.
Fire has struck at many Hawke’s Bay communities. Perhaps the worst, apart from the blaze which accompanied the earthquake of 1931, was the 1886 Napier fire. It destroyed almost the entire business section of the town, including the offices of The Daily Telegraph and The Herald.
Twenty-five offices and shops were destroyed and eight others badly damaged in the fire. It came at Christmas.
Photo captions –
Debris surges across the Mohaka river rabbit bridge on the Napier – Wairoa road during the disastrous Anzac Day flood of 1938. Right: Wreckage of the Northumberland at Petane beach after a terrific gale on May 10, 1887. Passengers and crew escaped but five men aboard a small steamer, the Boojum, drowned when their vessel capsized in breakers while assisting the Northumberland.
The torn, twisted Waitangi railway bridge at Clive after the Good Friday flood of 1897. Several settlers and a team of rescuers were drowned at Clive when the Tutaekuri River broke its banks and flooded almost the entire Heretaunga Plains. The disaster had many sequels in this century, including the flood of Queen’s Birthday, June 3, 1963. That time the river was held by stopbanks and there was no loss of life. But Tangoio and Bay View settlements suffered heavily and floodwaters washed across Napier’s new Onekawa suburb (right), where boats rescued families from their homes.
[Advertisement]
We’re ready for business
“ONE HUNDRED YEARS”
TO A FELLOW PIONEER VETERAN there’s no occasion so stimulating as a centenary. We hasten to be among the first to congratulate our old friend and customer, The Daily Telegraph on the sterling job it has done for this sturdy province.
OUR VALLEYFIELD MILLS IN SCOTLAND have been making fine paper since 1779. Naturally the history of Alex Cowan and Sons in New Zealand cannot go back that far. Our pioneering here started in 1883, just about the time the early “Bay” farmers were laying the foundation for the thriving food, wool and fruit industry which exists today.
MR ANDREW GIVEN, who was sent from Sydney to open our first New Zealand establishment in 1883, died at a ripe old age in 1927. His successor, Mr Alexander Ferguson, pre-deceased him by several years. Our only regret about this day of celebration is that they are not here to take part in an Occasion we know they would have enjoyed to the full.
WITH THE THOUGHT IN MIND of these fine men who laid the foundations of our business in New Zealand we re-emphasise our congratulations to The Daily Telegraph on achievement of its centenary and extend the sincere hope that its life ahead will be equally long and prosperous.
ALEX COWAN & SONS (N.Z.) LIMITED
PAPER MERCHANTS – SUPPLIERS OF GRAPHIC ARTS EQUIPMENT
ENVELOPE MAKERS – Manufacturers of “CLASSIC” STATIONERY
Auckland Wellington Christchurch Dunedin
Page 55
Action
MEN & WOMEN AT WORK
Though primary production continues as the mainstay of Hawke’s Bay wealth, growing emphasis has shifted in recent decades to industrial activity and commercial ventures.
Most of the province’s working men now gain their weekly pay packet not directly from the land but from secondary industries.
Work force in factories increased by 50 per cent in Hawke’s Bay in the 10-year period from 1959. By the end of 1969, a total of 954 registered factories in the province (not including Dannevirke) employed more than 12,450 people, including 2375 women.
Ten years earlier, the province’s factory work force totalled only 8765, including 1502 women.
By the end of the decade, the average worker in the factory, commercial and servicing industries in the Napier industrial district worked 37.4 ordinary hours a week and 3.9 overtime hours for an average of $46 a week.
He worked about the same number of ordinary hours as the average New Zealander in the same category, but one hour more overtime.
Photo captions –
Women represent nearly one – fifth of Hawke’s Bay’s growing work force, and many are deft machine operators like these pictured (above) in a canning factory and (right) in a textile factory.
One of Hawke’s Bay’s most important industries for nearly 90 years has been meat freezing for export, mainly to Britain. Advances in technique are shown in these pictures of the North British Freezing works at Westshore 70 years age (left) and a modern chain (above).
Production of wine was one of Hawke’s Bay’s first secondary industries. It was introduced by French missionaries in 1851. The mission winemakers are pictured (right) at harvest at the Meeanee mission in 1905.
[Advertisements]
Who can help you offer your staff beach houses, world trips & happy retirements?
AMP – largest underwriter of superannuation in New Zealand.
Your staff are important to you. You’ve got a lot invested in them in time and money. So all the more reason for maintaining that investment. Ask your AMP man about a Superannuation plan – give your staff the chance of a happy retirement.
No matter how large or small your company – we have the experience to cope with any aspect of staff superannuation. Talk to your AMP man today about a superannuation plan for your company. A great many New Zealand companies already have.
AMP AUSTRALIAN MUTUAL PROVIDENT SOCIETY
The A.M.P. Society is pleased to be associated with the Daily Telegraph in the provision of staff superannuation and congratulates the company on 100 years of service to the community
AMP
Staff Superannuation
the choice of successful employers
John Dickinson’s welcome The Daily Telegraph to the Centenarian Club
On February 1, 1871, when the first issue of The Daily Telegraph was published, John Dickinson’s had been making fine paper in England for over 40 years. Since 1930, the New Zealand company has been supplying local printers with paper and board of the same high quality, while their Croxley and Basildon Bond brands of stationery have become household words. Their “Three Candlesticks” and “Churston Deckle” writing paper has become the choice of discriminating people throughout the country, and they are now the largest manufacturers of envelopes in New Zealand. They congratulate The Daily Telegraph on their hundred years of progress too, and join them in their aim to continue serving the people of Hawke’s Bay for many years to come.
John Dickinson & Co, (New Zealand) Limited
Croxley House, Wellington
Makers of fine stationery
Page 57
Action
Umbrellas, cigarettes & seafood cocktails . . .
From frozen meat to home appliances . . . fertilisers to seafood cocktail . . . canned peaches to filter cigarettes.
Hawke’s Bay’s working man of the 1970s makes a broad range of manufactured and processed products for the local and export markets.
It is remote indeed from the industrial scene of 1871. Then, Hawke’s Bay’s first industry, whaling, was already virtually extinct. French missionaries were engaged in wine production. A few blacksmiths gave impetus to an engineering industry by fashioning farm implements. Otherwise, Hawke’s Bay’s labour force toiled almost entirely on the land.
Local demands for basic domestic products gave rise to clothing, footwear and furniture manufacture, and the advent of the freezing works in the 1880s laid the foundations for secondary industry.
However, overshadowed by primary production, secondary industry developed slowly. The Husheer family, tobacco pioneers from Germany, founded the National Tobacco Co. Ltd. in Napier in 1923 and spurred New Zealand’s tobacco industry. Sir James Wattie founded his food processing empire in Hastings in 1934. Many ventures failed in the depression of the 1930s, but others survived.
Post-war industrial development led to an awakening to the possibilities of export trade in the 1960s. Boosted by devaluation and the work of trade missions, Hawke’s Bay manufacturers found new markets, particularly in the South Pacific, Australia and Asian countries.
Now Hawke’s Bay products sell in many parts of the globe: Rip-top canned beer in Australia, soap and paint in the Islands, carpet yarn in the United States, canned products in Europe, building hardware in South Africa.
Heavy-duty mowers from Hawke’s Bay cut and roll the classical greens of English parks and golf courses. Stylish Hawke’s Bay umbrellas flick open in the showers of Singapore.
Cities of Napier and Hastings – with more acres awaiting industrial development – form the nucleus of the province’s secondary productivity. Other centres, however, have also developed and sustained manufacturing and processing industries of their own.
Freezing works (Wairoa), ice cream manufacture (Waipukurau), knitwear (Norsewood), concrete production, footwear and clothing manufacture (Dannevirke) are among the activities that keep Hawke’s Bay men (and women) at work.
Diversity seems to be the trend in Hawke’s Bay secondary industry. Among the products, many of which are aimed at export markets, are cigarettes (top picture), seafood cocktails (above) and welding equipment (right).
The return of the logging export trade to the Port of Napier (left) preceded the planning for the establishment of a pulp mill near Napier. Milling is a long-established Hawke’s Bay industry. The scene from another era (above) shows bushmillers at work at Takapau in 1897.
Original digital file
HastingsDC72_ACrowdedCentury1971.pdf
Non-commercial use
This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand (CC BY-NC 3.0 NZ).
Commercial Use
Copyright on this material is owned by Hawke's Bay Today and is not available for commercial use without their consent.Can you help?
The Hawke's Bay Knowledge Bank relies on donations to make this material available. Please consider making a donation towards preserving our local history.
Visit our donations page for more information.
Description
Surnames in this supplement –
Abbott, Alexander, Alley, Alpers, Anderson, Aubert, Averill, Baker, Barker, Barnard, Batchelor, Baty, Beer, Bennett, Bergstein, Bernau, Berry, Blake, Bledisloe, Bolt, Bone, Booth, Borthwick, Brathwaite, Brett, Brooks, Brown, Brownlie, Buck, Canning, Carlyon, Carr, Carroll, Carter, Cato, Caulton, Chambers, Chaplin, Chapman, Christie, Churchill, Clifton, Clive, Colenso, Coles, Collinge, Collins, Conly, Cook, Corkill, Cotterill, Cuff, Cullen, Curling, D’Urville, Daley, Daly, Davis, de Pelichet, Dean, Devitt, Dickens, Dine, Dobbs, Domett, Donovan, Dreyer, Driscoll, Dudley, Duncan, Ebbett, Edwards, Ellingham, Ellis, Engebretsen, Exeter, Eyre, Fairclough, Findlay, Finney, Fitzgerald, Fitzroy, Fitzsimmons, Fletcher, Fonteyn, Forde, Forne, Foster, Fraser, Furkitt, Gange, Geddis, Gemmell, Gibson, Gilliland, Glasgow, Glenny, Gollan, Gordon, Gotz, Graham, Grant, Gree, Greening, Grenside, Grey, Gunn, Guthrie-Smith, Halberg, Haley, Hamilton, Hamlin, Hancox, Hannan, Harding, Harris, Harrison, Haskell, Hastings, Havelock, Hawke, Hayes, Hayhow, Hempton, Herrick, Hickey, Hicks, Higgins, Hiha, Hildreth, Hill, Hingston, Hitchings, Holderness, Holland, Holloway, Holt, Humphries, Hurst, Husheer, Ireland, Irvine, Irwin, James, Jamieson, Jeans, Johnston, Jones, Jull, Kaiwhata, Kawepo, Keino, Kennedy, Kenny, Kereopa, Kettle, King, Kinross, Kirkpatrick, Kitchener, Kivell, Knight, Knowles, Kohere, Lambert, Lampila, Lassen, Latham, Lee, Leigh, Lenin, Lesser, Lewis, Limbrick, Livesey, Lizst, Locke, Lord, Lowry, Lowson, Lucas, Lusk, Luttrell, MacDonald, Macfarlane, Maney, Mardsen, Marra, Marsh, Marshall, Martin, Matthews, McCarthy, McCormack, McCredie, McDonnell, McDougall, McGaffin, McGregor, McKain, McKay, McKenzie, McLean, McNab, Miller, Mills, Moeller, Moncrief, Moody, Moore, Morrow, Munro, Murfitt, Nairn, Napier, Natusch, Nelson, Nepia, Newman, Newton, Ngata, Nichol, Nightingale, Nimon, Northwood, Novello, O’Dongohue, Ogilvie, Olivier, Ormond, Orr, Park, Peacock, Pearse, Pene, Philip, Player, Plummer, Pollack, Pomare, Porter, Powdrell, Preece, Price, Proffitt, Pupu, Rees, Reignier, Revans, Reynolds, Rhodes, Rhodes, Rhodes, Rich, Riddell, Rivett-Carnac, Robjohns, Roderick, Ropata, Rose, Russell, Salthouse, Sarron, Scott, Seddon, Seed, Selwyn, Semple, Shrimpton, Sims, Smith, Snell, Spencer, Spriggs, Stead, Stephenson, Stokes, Storkey, Strang, Street, Stuart, Stuckey, Sturm, Sullivan, Sutcliffe, Sutton, Swan, Symes, Tait, Takamoana, Tanner, Tareha, Taylor, Te Hapuku, Thomas, Thorndyke, Tiffen, Todd, Tollemache, Tomoana, Tong, Tremain, Tucker, Turner, Upton, Van Asch, Vautier, Vigor Brown, Villiers, Vogel, Volkner, Walch, Walker, Ward, Watt, Wattie, Weber, White-Parsons, White, Whitehouse, Whitmore, Wild, Williams, Wing, Winlove, Winstanley, Wirepa, Withers, Woodhouse, Worgan, Wright, Wyan, Wybrott, Yates.
Subjects
Tags
Format of the original
Newspaper supplementDate published
1 February 1971Publisher
The Daily TelepgraphAcknowledgements
Published with permission of Hawke's Bay Today
Accession number
502827Supporters and sponsors
We sincerely thank the following businesses and organisations for their support.
Do you know something about this record?
Please note we cannot verify the accuracy of any information posted by the community.