Moses Spence

Working Bee at Tauranga Hospital, with Moses Spence seated at centre (X), c. 1900s-1910s
Unmounted large format print by unidentified photographer
Tauranga Heritage Collection, Ref. 0435/08

The above image in the Tauranga Heritage Collection depicting a working bee at the Tauranga Hospital, taken early in the 20^th century, intrigued me. A group of men with shovels and a wheelbarrow along with some nurses, all anonymous except for a man marked with an X.  He was Moses Spence and said to be chairman of the hospital board.  This turned out not be entirely accurate: Moses Spence was elected a member, but not chairman of the Bay of Plenty Hospital and Charitable Aid Board in 1911. One cannot imagine a member of our former DHB turning up shovel in hand to do a bit of work about the place.

So, who was Moses Spence? 

Mr Berry outside Moses Spence’s store, Tauranga, c. 1900
Mounted print by unidentified photographer
Collection of Tauranga City Library, Pae Korokī Ref. 01-467

Born in County Armagh, Ireland, Moses Spence joined George Vesey Stewart’s Special Settlers and sailed to New Zealand on the Lady Jocelyn.  It was the only emigrant ship to arrive in the Port of Tauranga and did so in January 1881. Spence drew a farm of 160 acres near Te Puke that he developed and where he persuaded his brother Samuel to join him.  Samuel had emigrated some years before Moses and farmed in the South Island.  Between them the brothers developed several farms including some that had been abandoned by other settlers.

Rev. James Richards in Moses Spence’s gig, c. 1904
Collection of Tauranga City Library, Pae Korokī Ref. 04-460

By 1887 Spence was working for R.C. Roberts, a grain and seed merchant in Tauranga, and the following year opened his own business with partner Phillip Bennet. By the 1890s the partnership dissolved and Spence added to the grain and seed side, selling fertiliser as an agent for Kempthorne Prosser, and selling their flour and bran for the Waimapu Flour Mill.  In 1893 he bought out Carlos Kramer Walters’ share of the Maketu store. He purchased shares in the Herald Gold Mining Company of Whangamata and in the Te Puke Gold Mining Company.

Building Bee at Methodist Church Hall, Tauranga, 1 January 1914
(Moses Spence standing hatless in middle row at far left)
Collection of Tauranga City Library, Pae Korokī Ref. 04-459

Meanwhile he took an active part in the Tauranga Methodist Church, where he sang in their concerts and was involved in building the first Methodist Church on the corner of First Avenue and Devonport Road. In 1897 Moses Spence was elected to the Tauranga Borough Council, then successfully stood for Waimapu Riding of the Tauranga County Council in 1908, and the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board in 1911.  In 1900 he took the first of three trips back to Ireland.

Moses Spence’s gravestone, Tauranga Methodist Cemetery, February 2023
Photographed by Justine Neal

He never married but gave away the daughter of his late brother Samuel when she married in 1918. He moved to Auckland in about 1920 to live near his brother’s family but returned frequently to visit Tauranga for events like the A & P Show. Moses Spence died in Auckland aged 90 in 1942 and was buried in the Tauranga Methodist Cemetery alongside Samuel and Maggie Spence.

Sources

Shearer, Dr. The Hon. Ian, and Wright-StClair, Dr Rex, A Century on Cameron Road. A History of Tauranga Hospital 1914-2014, Tauranga, 2016.

Bay of Plenty Times, Papers Past