John Welsh, Photographer and Impresario

Ocean Beach, The Mount, Tauranga. Mirrielees No. 39. Welsh Photo.
Glass plate negative, Tauranga City Libraries Image Collection

In the Tauranga Library’s collection of glass plates are a series which appear to be the original negatives for a series of postcards published as the Mirrielees Series, well known amongst local deltiologists, which record various scenes and events in and around Tauranga from the late 1910s to 1920s. A.J. Mirrielees was a chemist who arrived in Tauranga from Johnsonville in October 1910, where he purchased R.J. Allely’s pharmaceutical business. He operated first from temporary premises in Devonport Road, then on the Strand, for almost two decades but, although he sold cameras and photographic equipment throughout this period, there is little direct evidence in the local newspapers of his photographic output. A number of the Mirrielees Series postcards, such as this view of people frolicking in the surf at Ocean Beach, Mount Maunganui, also have the inscription “Welsh Photo.”

S.S. Ngakuta clearing the Tauranga Heads, View from the Mount. Mirrielees Series 31.
Glass plate negative, attributed to J. Welsh, Tauranga City Libraries Image Collection

There are other glass plates carrying Mirrielees’ name which, on further research, seem likely to have been taken by Welsh too. So who was the enigmatic Mr Welsh? John Welsh was born in 1891 in California and arrived in New Zealand around 1902, presumably with his family. His first appearance as a photographer was an advertisement in the Te Puke Times from November 1916 until February 1917 announcing his willingness to pay visits “to any part of the District.” His burgeoning career was then interrupted by his service in England and France with the 1st Battalion, Auckland Regiment during the War.

Ocean Beach, Mount Maunganui. Welsh Photo.
Glass plate negative, Tauranga City Libraries Image Collection

Returning home after his discharge in July 1919, Welsh reopened the studio next to McDowell’s Hall, Main Street, Te Puke offering “photography in all its branches,” with “photos of live stock a speciality” as well as picture framing. He operated the Alma Studio from the Alliance Hall, Te Puke from October till December 1920, but it seems unlikely that there was enough business to keep him occupied locally. He took a series of ten views in Katikati in 1921 and 1922, and was on hand when an aeroplane arrived to give joy rides at the Mount in April 1922. He was probably the photographer responsible for No. 48 in the Mirrielees Series, the well known photo of the Peace Monument erected on the summit of Mauao in 1920.

S.S. Maindy Court 7.700 tons & H.M.S. Veronica in Tauranga Harbour (Oct 1922) Welsh Photo
Glass plate negative, Tauranga City Libraries Image Collection

When the S.S. Maindy Court and H.M.S. Veronica paid visits to Tauranga Harbour in October 1922 as a result of significant development of the port, Welsh was on hand to record their arrivals. Then in September 1923 he opened the New Strand Studio in Tauranga, taking portraits on Fridays and Saturdays, specializing in children’s portraits. With his brother Paul he took a lease on the Town Hall in April 1923, operating it as the Cozy Pictures Opera House, presenting films, dances and orchestral entertainment until June 1925, when the business was sold as a going venture to Mr F. Fowler.

View of Mount Railway Workshops from Haymarket Stores. Welsh Photo
Republished as Christmas Greetings card by Frank Duncan & Co., Auckland
Glass plate negative, Tauranga City Libraries Image Collection

The burgeoning Mount railway workshops also merited a series of views in the early 1920s, including some deemed worthy of republication as greetings cards.

John Welsh was a keen cricketer and became a devotee of motorcycle-riding, a pursuit which was accompanied by some misfortune. When he knocked over a pedestrian in Spring Street in 1920, it turned out to be attorney F.W. Shortland, who pursued him vigorously in court. Five years later, in October 1925, he was involved in a collision with another motorcycle on the Te Aroha traffic bridge which luckily resulted in neither serious damage to the bikes or more than light injury to the drivers.

Opening of the Ongatoro (Te Tumu/Kaituna) Cut, Maketu, 3 Nov 1927
Auckland Weekly News, 17 Nov 1927, Photograph by John Welsh
Image courtesy of the Auckland Library Heritage Collection, Ref. AWNS-19271117-37-1

It appears that Welsh may have moved away from Tauranga around this time, and was certainly living in Te Aroha in 1929. He became an intermittent contributor to the Auckland Weekly News, recording local events in widely flung locations around the North Island:

•    Oct 1926 – Consecration of St Mark’s Anglican Church, Te Aroha
•    Dec 1926 – Show at Te Aroha
•    3 Nov 1927 – Opening of the Kaituna Channel, Maketu
•    Nov 1928 – East Coast Railway construction, Waiora-Napier
•    Jan, Jul & Nov 1929 – Hydroelectric scheme construction, Lake Waikaremoana
•    Jan 1930 – Railway Bridge construction, Wairoa & Harbour development, Waikokopu
•    Sep 1931 – Port reconstruction after the earthquake, Napier

John Welsh died at Rocky Bay, Waiheke Island in 1964.

The provenance of the glass plate negatives has been deduced from records in the Tauranga Library collection. They appear to have arrived in the library’s collection in 1975 by former Tauranga chemist Leslie Woods, originally as a loan, but later probably ended up as a donation. Woods had taken over Captain Mirrielees’ pharmacy in 1929, and almost certainly inherited the glass plates along with the business.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to staff at Tauranga Library, including the library’s former Heritage Specialist Stephanie Smith, for facilitating access to the glass plate negatives and helping to unearth information relating to them.

References

Auckland Library Photographers Database http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/dbtw-wpd/photographers/basic_search.htm
Auckland Weekly News, in Auckland Library Heritage Images http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/dbtw-wpd/heritageimages/index.htm
Papers Past (Te Puke Times, Bay of Plenty Times) https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers
Glass Plate Collection, Ngā Wāhi Rangaha, Tauranga Library
Various registers, newspaper cuttings and letters, Tauranga Library vertical files
WWI Nominal Rolls and Service Records, Ancestry.com
The Port of Tauranga, by Barbara Oram, in Tauranga 1882-1982: The Centennial of Gazetting Tauranga as a Borough, Bellamy, A.C. (ed.) (1982), Tauranga City Council, p. 232-238.