Infants School

Image courtesy of Tauranga Heritage Collection, Ref. 0597/08

This photograph is recorded as having been taken outside the Good Templars Hall in Wharf Street, and is of pupils who attended an Infants School run by Miss Roberts (on the left) and Miss Smith (on the right). It is likely to have been taken in the early 1900s.

The following names are handwritten on the back of the photograph:

Seated on ground (left to right): Salt, Alf Smith or Stewart, Doug McKenzie
Front row: Elsie Wrigley, May Stewart, unknown, Esther Salt, Elsie Copeland, unknown, Millie Copeland
Second row Ida Hine, Hazel Bickers, Tilly Bennett, Emily Thom, Doris Stewart, Connie Humphreys, Lena Thom
Third row: Simpson, Arch Hardy, Ossie Daines, unknown, McDowell, unknown, Charlie Robinson
Fourth row: Baker, Ken Commons, Jack Berridge, George Saveron, Fred Stewart, Percy Thom, Fred Trigg, George Asher

While many of the children would become well known members of our community at least one was killed while serving in the First World War. Kenneth Commons was born in Tauranga 19 September 1894 and enlisted while underage and an engineering student at Auckland University. He was reported missing believed dead at Gallipoli on 8 May 1915.