Blame it on the demon drink

A crazy night of lighting fires that led to three years in gaol for George Victor Clark did not discourage Ethel Appleton from marrying him in 1927 [1]. He was the son of Elizabeth and John Angus Clark, a mining agent, of Tauranga. His father died when the boy was fourteen and George became a cabinetmaker, then joined the Wellington Infantry Regiment in 1917 where he became a machine gunner.

Wall of Le Quesnoy, scaled by NZ soldiers in October 1918.
Photo: Barry Arabin, private collection; 2003.

George Clark served in the battle to liberate the French citizens in the town of Le Quesnoy, one of the last engagements by New Zealanders in World War One [2]. The German army occupied Le Quesnoy but the town could not be attacked by artillery as there were so many French civilians living there.  It is a walled town in a star-shaped fortress, one of many that Vauban, Louis XIV of France’s military engineer, had designed and built throughout France over 250 years before the Great War. This stalemate meant that Lieutenant Averell led his New Zealand troops up a ladder and over the town wall to liberate Le Quesnoy.

By 1919 George was back cabinetmaking in Tauranga and living with his mother in Edgecumbe Street.  His brother Harold also lived at the same address. 

Towards the end of November 1922, after a day of drinking in hotels in Tauranga, George Victor Clark lit a fire in Tanner Brothers’ Butchery, that was put out by a passing man before the fire brigade arrived. His second fire was lit in Peter Munro’s premises. He then lit some rubbish at the Opera House and also at Whittaker’s, a café. He gathered up some flammable materials and set a fire under the floor of A E Hammond’s timber yard in Willow Street. This fire was extinguished by the Fire Brigade.

A E Hammond's timber yard, Tauranga 1900s. 

Image: Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 99-1140

Constable Skinner arrested Clark who duly appeared before the Magistrates’ Court on a charge of arson, from where he was remanded to the Supreme Court. He wished to make a clean breast of his offences and make a fresh start.  His explanation was that he had been to the pictures then went to his workshop from where he took a box of paper and rubbish, but did not know why. No one had offered him an inducement and the liquor had affected his head: he had been drinking beer in the Tauranga, the Masonic and the Commercial Hotels all afternoon. Witnesses claimed that he was in a dazed condition watching the fires. The Supreme Court sentenced him to three years reformative detention [3].

Fire engine outside Tauranga Fire Station, Durham Street, c. 1927

Image: Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 99-738

This sentence had been established by the Crimes Amendment Act 1910 and was used heavily through the 1920s. Judges could sentence offenders to indeterminate periods of detention for up to 10 years, rather than a fixed term of punitive hard labour. The aim was rehabilitation and individualised treatment of each prisoner [4].

Although many returned servicemen suffered poor mental health on return home due to injury or illness during the War, no witness at Clark’s trial offered this explanation for his misbehaviour. Shell shock or, as we know it now, PTSD, was not always apparent. Clark had a home and work to return to, in contrast to some of the men who found settling down difficult after such a frightening and disturbing period of their lives. There had been a strong support of temperance at the time of the War. Drinking was seen as the driver of poverty, crime and ill health. At the liquor referendum of 1919 it was expected that prohibition would win but the vote of the returning soldiers for continuance saved the status quo.  However, a decision concerning Clark’s behaviour on that critical November day cannot assume any of these factors to be its cause.

A Half-Century of Progress in Fire Fighting:
Interesting Pictures from Tauranga, Bay of Plenty, North Island [5]
Image: Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19280621-44-01

Upon release George Clark returned to his trade as a cabinetmaker, and married, and had four children. Newspapers of the day and the Police Gazette have not recorded any further crimes.  The family had moved to Auckland by 1943 where he worked as a carpenter, and later a caretaker.  He died in 1961.

References

[1] Marriage index, Births, Deaths, Marriages & Citizenship, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

[2] Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph database.

[3] Bay of Plenty Times, 21 November 1922.

[4] McLintock, A. H., 1966: An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, Early Reforms https://teara.govt.nz/en/1966/penal-system/page-2  (accessed 30 July 2026)

[5] Supplement, Auckland Weekly News, 21 June 1928. The full text of the caption reads ”The photographs show the members and equipment of the volunteer fire brigade fifty years ago and at the present time. In the old picture the Captain is Mr D. Asher, who was a member of the Auckland Fire Brigade prior to this. The old engine was used in Auckland before being shipped to Tauranga. It was sent to the scrap heap at Whakatane quite recently.  – R. J. Rendell”