Tuhi Harvey (1908-1990)

Tuhi David Harvey was a giant of a man, not necessarily in stature but in strength and achievement. He was named by and for a Maori Chief and after his father David Harvey an English immigrant carpenter.* According to his eldest daughter Pat, “He was a soft touch for any genuine cause or misfortune, he drove luxury cars and lived in the fast lane.”

The youngest of at least twelve children he, like all his brothers, trained in carpentry and later became a master builder. Married to Maisie, a very young redhead from Taumaranui, they spent a few years in Australia and came home on ten pound tickets with two small children in 1932. Excelling at swimming and rowing he had done a stint as a Bondi Lifesaver.

Tuhi aged 20 as a Bondi Beach Lifesaver in 1930. Harvey Family Image

Sport and shows of his immense strength were a major part of his leisure time: rugby, rowing, golf tennis, and hunting to hounds. He cycled from their home in First Avenue to Mount Maunganui, via the Matapihi rail bridge, to work as a builder during those depression years for 10 ‘bob’ a day ($1). At night he made rowing skiffs and Maisie did lead-lighting to supplement their income.  

In 1938, by the time their third daughter Gaye was aged one, they had moved to a double-storey home in 11th Ave (where the Plaza shopping centre is now located.)  Then in ’42 he joined Harry Smith, a Dunedin bricklayer, in buying Pemberton Bros joinery factory on the Devonport Rd / First Ave Corner. (Tuhi had joined the Hauraki Regiment and trained as a gunner, but men with 4 children did not have to serve overseas, and son David was ‘on the way’ when his call-up came.) By 1949 they had over 100 men on the payroll, one of the Bay’s largest employers.

Smith Harvey Construction Ltd. BOP Year book, 1958
Courtesy of Tauranga Library Heritage & Research

Smith Harvey Construction Ltd. produced prefabricated houses as well as joinery and retail timber supplies. In 1945 they began to source their own timber and mill it themselves, including purchase of all the necessary milling gear and some blocks of bush in Oropi and Pyes Pa. Apparently Tuhi was quite conservative in his milling operations only taking some of the available rimu and tawa from each block. The sawmill was on Anglican church land next to the Mission Cemetery (where the Trinity Wharf Hotel is now) and this business was known as Tuhi Timbers.

They were one of the first local businesses to both export and import timber to and from South America. They were also one of the first three logging operations to export radiata pine to Japan from the Tauranga Wharf on Dive Crescent. All the timber was donated for the Dive Crescent Rowing club building which was built with volunteer labour by the members.

Vessel loading New Zealand pine for export to Australia, Tauranga Wharf, c1956

Around 1950 due to very limited yard space, a large tract of land in Chapel Street was used for the processing and storage of the sawn timber. There it was planed, stacked and dried, and in 1953 a treatment plant was added. Tuhi had pioneered what was known as boron treatment of tawa, thereby making it a durable product, and they churned out mainly weatherboard, tongue and groove flooring and tool handles. His daughter Gaye remembers going with him late in the evenings to change the hoses over as two consignments could be put through the gas treatment chambers in 24 hours. The Devonport Road site housed the office, joinery factory and timber sales.

Treatment plant and yard at Chapel Street

Gaye also informed me that during the 1950s her father owned and ran, in addition to all his other operations, a mill near Barkes Corner named Craven Wood. This fitted in rather neatly with his other business of breeding and racing horses, which in the end became his abiding passion.

Tuhi (on right) and friend hunting. Harvey Family image

Unfortunately due to sheer size Smith Harvey was forced into receivership in 1960, and in 1962 Charlie and Alf Odlin bought them out. In 1986 it was sold to Winstones Ltd who in turn allowed it to go to Fletchers and the mills and yards ceased trading in 1988, due to the government stopping indigenous logging operations.

* Tuhi’s mother Elizabeth Susan Harvey owned several tracts of land including Moturiki Island, next to the main Mount beach, which she sold to ‘the railways’ for the rock to construct the East Coast line.

Sources: Personal interview with Gaye Craig — Tuhi’s daughter
               Notes written by her late older sister Pat
               Article by Ron Lipinski on Tauranga Sawmills in BOP Times 1st Nov, 2006
               Bay of Plenty Yearbooks published by Astra Publicity, Auckland c 1956,1958
               Harvey family images