Tauranga Historical Society: Three Young Teachers Confess

Side by side in Ada Brain’s Birthday Book, given to her on her 21^st birthday in 1895[1], are the Confessions of her sister Alice and one D W (David William) McNaughton. Although Alice and David did not marry until 22 February 1910[2], “quiet[ly], at the residence of the bride’s parents,” the attraction between them is apparent from even a cursory reading of their responses to the leading questions put forward on pages 292 - 307[3] of Ada’s book.

Alice esteems honesty above all other virtues; David opts for constancy. Alice wants her ideal man to be “true hearted.” David thinks he should be “lighthearted and true.” Alice’s ideal woman is “loving to all” while David sees his ideal as “kind and loving.” And while Alice proudly - and, or so I think, with her tongue in her cheek - puts herself forward as “the most beautiful thing in nature,” David, a few pages on, nominates “A. J. Brain” as his “favourite heroine.” (His hero was “Bruce”, presumably Robert the Bruce. And Alice was indeed pretty. I have been unable to find any images of the young David McNaughton.)

Why did they wait so long before their quiet wedding? Perhaps the clue is in David’s answer to the question, “At what age should a man marry?” – “at 25 if he can support a wife” (he was twenty-five at the time.) Alice, eighteen, thought the age should be “28”, but also stipulated the ability to support a wife. And she gave herself six years to assume the responsibilities of the married state: a woman should marry at “24 if she’s got enough sense.” Even at eighteen she was sensible, disavowing “love at first sight” until eight months had passed. David, more impatient, required six.

Both were teachers. Alice, whose career evidently ceased upon her marriage, rose to become headmistress of Greerton School.

Greerton School, 1900. Teacher, Miss Alice J. Brain
Collection of Brain Watkins House. Image courtesy of Pae Korokī Ref. 04-565

We will leave her there. Mother of five children, her firstborn’s birthday 1911[4], she disappears into domesticity and her husband’s steady rise in his teaching career. David achieved early glory in 1892[5] by passing the examination for the Junior Civil Service examination, coached by a Mr Murphy of the Tauranga High School. That same year, spending the winter playing rugby[6], he worked as probationary pupil teacher at Tauranga’s No.2 School, also known as the Harington Street School, where Mabel Blick and Esther Brain were senior students. Both made entries in Ada’s book.

Teaching was as tough a profession in those days as it is now. Emphasis on professional development (as modern terminology has it) was critical to advancement. David was promoted in 1894 at the Harington Street School[7], and also that year sat an examination in which half the candidates failed. He garnered 585 points[8] out of a possible 1100, (I suspect this means he scraped through with a margin of 35) and (locally) was outdone by two women, Miss Elliott, a colleague at his same school, and Miss Louisa Wilson from Katikati. He may not have been on top of his game for the exam. He was reported as having been ill in the spring of 1894, which occasioned a delay in Miss Elliott’s transfer to Whakatane and the consequent possibility of his meeting with the eligible Miss Brain[9] (eligible to be a replacement teacher, I hasten to say.)

The rest is, as others say, history. Two years after their closely paralleled confessions, David was transferred to Opotiki[10] and, shortly afterwards, as headmaster in Waihi[11]. Carrying his certificate at level D[12], he moved from Waihi to the city as first assistant master at Chapel Street School, Auckland, in 1903[13]. And in 1904 he passed his first year exam in manual training in woodwork[14]. This seems to have provided an impetus to his career and his ability to support a wife: he passed five Class C teaching subjects in 1906[15], and came “visiting relatives” in Tauranga. His confessed fondness for the piano showed up at a 1908 concert in Ramarama[16], where he was one of the two accompanists. Two years later he married Alice.

My other player in Ada’s parlour game, Frederick Koller, seems to have been a racier character than thoughtful, methodical David. His far less earnest responses[17] as a 21-year-old may, however, indicate that there was no second game going on in his life at the time. To twenty-first century minds he seems a bit unreconstructed: his “greatest earthly happiness” was to “lie on my back and smoke with a nice girl to brush away the flies”. His ideal woman was “a true woman” (emphasis his) and he considered “a lovely woman (unpainted)” to be “the most beautiful thing in nature”.

Nonetheless, Fred sounds like fun, and he was bright. Mr Murphy’s coaching secured him tenth place among the candidates examined by the Auckland Education Board in 1893. He loved to perform. He got a safe 687 points[18] in his 1895 Board of Education exam and was mentioned for his part in a farce[19] in aid of a Church of England vicarage in Ellerslie. His game was cricket, not rugby[20] and his daughter Dulcie was fast on her five-year-old feet.[21]

For despite his misgivings about young women - “D- Fool (as a rule)” (he confessed to the same opinion about “the young man of the period”) Fred got married in 1901[22]. Frances Colebrook, born in Gisborne in 1873, was a little older than he, although she outlived him by fifteen years. Neither he nor she met the criteria he offered in Ada’s book. “At what age should a man (and, next, a woman) marry?” he was asked. “Depends on circumstances,” he stated firmly. For a man: 30 years old. The woman: 25. He was 27, she, much the same age. So much for the truth of the confessional.