The Railway Opening Celebrations

Part of Tauranga, taken from the Redoubt, on the day of the Railway opening
Real photo postcard-format print by unidentified photographer
Collection of Justine Neal

March 28^th 1928 dawned bright and sunny and Mr. B.C. Robbins, Secretary of the Railways Celebrations Committee, must have breathed a sigh of relief, as all the months of planning for the big day were about to come to fruition. Apart from the large numbers of local and upcountry residents expected there was an impressive official party including the Prime Minister, the Right Honourable J.G. Coates, arriving by train from Hamilton at 11 am. Months had gone into arranging a programme that would have something for everyone and leave people with memories of an entertaining and exciting day.

All vehicle access would be stopped on the Strand from the Triangle to Harington Street from 9 am to 11 pm. The Strand was to be decorated with coloured streamers and brightly lit electric lamps. All launches along the waterfront were to be lit up, as well as many of the public and private buildings. The fountain near the old wharf was to be set going again. Swimming sports were to be held under electric lights and a concert party would be performing.

Band playing at the opening of the railway, Tauranga, 1928
Copy print by unidentified photographer
Courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. Photo 00-412

The Tauranga Band, the Te Puke Band and the Judea Maori String band had all offered their services. School children would be given a holiday and children from Waihi to Taneatua were to have free train travel to Tauranga. Tickets for the celebratory luncheon were to be sold prior to the event. Children had to bring their own lunches, although hot water, milk and fruit would be provided.

A hangi was to be put down on Devonport Road. Local Maori were to give haka and poi dance exhibitions at the Domain. There would also be stalls there and in the afternoon children’s sports were to be held, with 10 pounds allocated for prizes. The Borough Council had been requested to arrange free picture entertainment for the children at the Town Hall. The public were asked to wear fancy dress with a prize for the best dressed lady and gentleman. There would be a procession of decorated lorries, cars, bicycles, motorbikes and horse drawn vehicles with prizes for the best decorated.

The Strand, Tauranga, from the Redoubt on railway opening day, 1928
Copy print by unidentified photographer
Courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. Photo 00-469

The Tauranga Yacht and Power Boat Club had arranged a race, which would be for the seven-footers only, because of the limited time available. The Tauranga Cycle Club would hold three races during the day. There would be a sprint, a longer race starting at the Tauranga Hotel, along the Strand, then Devonport Road, First Avenue and Cameron Road turning at Eleventh Avenue and back to the starting point. The third race would be an obstacle course, and trophies would be awarded for each race.

Last but not least several sportsmen visiting Tuhua were to be asked to bring swordfish and mako over to Tauranga. These were to be kept in a freezer and on the day of the opening to be brought out and placed on exhibition. Maybe not such a good idea!

Reference

Papers Past, Bay of Plenty Times, March 1928

Art Deco on Edgecumbe Road: Dorothy Willis, an Enterprising Woman

George H.A. Wills
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Library, Pae Korokī Ref. 04-563

While Mr George Wills and his wife Mary were living in Pendarves Street, New Plymouth they had their only child Dorothy Mary on 27 February 1911. George taught at the New Plymouth Boys’ High School at the time. The family moved to Tauranga and he taught at the District High School, then at Greerton Primary School.  George Wills became Head Teacher there from 1921 to 1944. [i]

The first show of enterprise by the seven-year-old Dorothy Wills, later to become a successful architect, was a fundraising effort with her friend Barbara Griffiths in aid of the Patriotic Fund in 1918. The two little girls put on a concert for their mother’s Bridge Club. [ii] During her school days she performed in plays and concerts, encouraged by her father who was himself active in amateur theatre in Tauranga.

Dorothy Willis, from The Free Lance, 30 Mar 1949

Dorothy was educated locally at Tauranga District High School where she successfully obtained the Junior and Senior National Scholarships. After two years at Epsom Girls Grammar School in Auckland she received a bursary, yet was still too young to enrol as a university student.

House at Edgecumbe Road, Tauranga designed by Dorothy for her father George Wills, c. 1936
Photograph by Shirley Arabin, 2023

After a year at home in Tauranga, Dorothy Wills was at last permitted to enrol in the degree of Bachelor of Architecture in 1929, and by 1933 had graduated and taken a position with Mr H L D West, a Tauranga architect. [iii] She was the second woman to graduate with this degree in New Zealand. Her thesis dealt with a modern private hospital of 120 beds. The degree also carried with it the Associate Membership of the Royal Institute of British Architects, [iv] and she became the second woman to register with that professional body.

It was during this period she designed an Art Deco-style house in Edgecumbe Road for her father. It is believed that the house has to date only had three owners, the second being the Mountfort family. Dorothy later worked for the Health Department on hospital projects. [v] In 1936 she left New Zealand to work in Britain, remaining there until 1949. [vi]

Dorothy Wills presented at court
Image from DigitalNZ

Dorothy led a busy social life in London, including being presented at Court in 1937. During the Second World War she worked for the War Office. She evaluated stately homes to assess their suitability to house scientists and other government employees, as they were generally stationed in the country, away from the dangers of the blitz. She also assessed bomb-damaged buildings for the Ministry of Works. She returned to New Zealand in 1949 to care for her aging father. [vii]
 
She moved to the Head Office of the Public Works Department in Wellington. While seconded to the Health Department, she helped Lady Freyberg, wife of the Governor General, to prepare Government House for the proposed visit of King George VI. They started a countrywide project to embroider thirty-eight tapestries of coats of arms of towns for the dining chairs to be used during the event at Government House.

Dorothy Wills married James (Jerry) Coulthard in 1957 and, promoted to Senior Architect, continued to work for the Public Works Department until 1969, after which she moved with her husband to Marlborough. In 1990 she was invited with the architect Michael Fowler to work on the restoration of Saint Mary’s Church, Blenheim. She died in 2007 and bequeathed a large sum to purchase public works of art for Marlborough. [viii]

References

[i] Kennedy, W J. (compiler) Greerton School Centennial Jubilee; souvenir history 1876 -1976.
[ii] Bay of Plenty Times, 23 Apr 1918
[iii] BOPT, 22 Oct 1933
[iv] BOPT, 13 Oct 1934
[v] Cox, Elizabeth (editor) Making Space; a history of New Zealand women in Architecture, 2022, p.50
[vi] Cox, p.60
[vii] Cox, p.103
[viii] Cox, p.104

Sulphur Point

Sulphur Point works, c1910-1924
Collection of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 04-629

On 30 March 1885 the New Zealand Manure and Chemical Company was formed to mine sulphur on Whakaari (White Island) intending to produce both fertiliser and sulphur ore, the latter for export and also to be used in the manufacture of sulphuric acid.

The Spit and Mount, Tauranga, c1909
Postcard from the collection of Justine Neal

A base on the mainland was needed and Tauranga was chosen because of its sheltered harbour and the hilly surrounding countryside providing a convenient market for fertiliser. A site was acquired on the shore of Tauranga Harbour at what came to be known, for obvious reasons, as Sulphur Point. A small superphosphate manufacturing works was built. This plant was demolished in 1910. For the next 70 years various enterprises made use of the Spit including being used as the rubbish dump.

In 1907 George Moore established a fishing and fish drying industry at Sulphur Point and with the help of the Salvation Army a small freezing plant was set up. The Te Ope Fish Supply Company was sold to Sanford Ltd. in 1913.

The Spit and Mount, Tauranga, c1915
Chromolithographic postcard by Mirrielees & McMahon
Collection of Justine Neal

The Tauranga Defence Rifle Club had its rifle range at Sulphur Point and in 1917 Captain J.C. Millar presented to the club a handsome tea set and tray to be shot for by the ladies on the rifle range on March 1^st. The lady who won it was Elva Brain and the silver tea service and tray are on display at the Brain Watkin House along with a photo of Elva beautifully attired in her long white dress and hat.

In 1923 plans were approved for the White Island Chemical Company to construct a wharf at Sulphur Point. They wanted to extend the existing jetty to a maximum of 600 feet in order that larger vessels could load and unload at the wharf at any time.

The Spit and Mauao, undated postcard
Collection of Justine Neal

In 1926 the Sulphur Point Road was metalled to give easier access to the White Island Agricultural Chemical Company’s works. This company became White Island Products and eventually went into liquidation in 1934 with the plant being auctioned on site at Sulphur Point.

In 1942 a permit was issued to the firm of J Kaaklund Ltd. for the establishment of a fish canning works. The build was not smooth sailing as the following report from the Bay of Plenty Times, 15 December 1942 records.

 

“While engaged in placing roofing iron on the building at Sulphur Point, which is to be used as a fish canning factory, yesterday afternoon Mr.J.D.Simpson, of Hairini and Mr. Gordon Decke, of First Avenue, fell twenty feet to the ground.

Mr. Simpson suffered a fractured leg and is a patient in Tauranga Hospital, his condition being satisfactory, while Mr. Decke suffered from shock.

The two men were sitting on a sheet of iron from which they had removed the nails to adjust, when the sheet slid off the roof, carrying Mr. Simpson and Mr. Decke with it.”

Later that year the Public Works Dept. advised that it had recently acquired three sections at Sulphur Point and wished to erect three tents or huts for their staff.

Railway Station on reclaimed land at Sulphur Point, undated
Postcard from Tauranga Heritage Collection, Ref. 0030/11

In 1944 there were plans afoot for Sulphur Point to become an industrial area. Tauranga Harbour Board leased four sections to TeKau Knitwear. Mr. P. Densem said thought needed to be given to the erection of buildings and layout and provision of open spaces so the board could not be blamed for creating slums later on.

The first proposal I can find for reclamation at Sulphur Point is 1937 when a proposal was made to reclaim 5 acres between the railway yards and the shore end of Sulphur Point. This proposal did not go ahead. Eventually land reclamation for Sulphur Point began in ernest in 1965 and by 1990 90 hectares of land had been reclaimed.

References

Island Volcano, W.T.Parham.

Dictionary of New Zealand Biography

Papers Past, Bay of Plenty Times, 3 Mar 1944
Papers Past, Bay of Plenty Times, 7 Feb 1917
Papers Past, Bay of Plenty Times, 15 Dec 1942
Papers Past, Bay of Plenty Times, 9 Apr 1926
Papers Past, Bay of Plenty Times, 29 Sept 1944
Papers Past, Bay of Plenty Times, 3 May 1926
Papers Past, Bay of Plenty Times, 14 Aug 1942

John Mowlem - Tauranga’s Own Big Game Hunter-Fisherman

Guest article by Max Avery

John Mowlem in the 1940s and the big-game reel he designed
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 05-319

From 1926 to 1951 Tauranga was home to retired engineer John Mowlem. The owner of a large property in the Wairarapa, he lived at No. 94 Devonport Rd on the cliff overlooking the railway bridge and moored boats, drawn to the town by the abundance of big game fish in its off-shore waters. He had a workshop on the property and Miss Philomena Lantz kept house for him.

Boating party on Virginia, 1926
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 02-341

Mowlem’s earlier history included playing rugby as an All Black and several big-game shooting safaris in Africa, the trophy heads from which adorned the walls at No. 94. Yet, it was big-game fishing for which he was to become best known. The first marlin taken at Mayor Island were three fish boated by a Colonel Calthorpe on Billy Edwards’ launch in 1922 and Mowlem, learning of this, quickly determined to try the new sport.

Catch of fish by John and friends 1920s or 30s
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 02-339

Soon after settling in Tauranga in 1926, as precise in his approach to his sports as he probably was to his engineering, he became dissatisfied with the existing small-drum single-speed Nottingham big-game fishing reels then in common use. In consultation with veteran angler Arthur Fletcher he contrived a reel with a bigger drum and a narrow spool mounted centrally on the rod, which brought the line in tidily and faster. The prototype was too heavy, but further trials resulted in a fine light reel incorporating fibre and cork washers in a string sprung-steel ball-bearing braking system, which proved most successful, and was widely used.

Mowlem’s bach on Mayor Island 1940s
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 05-317

Obviously a man of substance, Mowlem bought two well-known game launches,(Naomi in 1933 and sold in 1938, and Virginia, sold in 1946) and chartered them with experienced skippers. Ever keen to practise what he preached, he spent a lot of time on Mayor Island and its surrounding waters. He was amply rewarded on January 26, 1932, when he boated a world record 820 pound striped marlin. Mowlem was elected inaugural president of the Tauranga Deep Sea Fishing Club in 1937, after forming the club in association with Mr A.J. Mirrielies. In 1938 he built the first private bach on the island at South East Bay.

Weighing fish at the Big Game Fishing Club’s camp on Mayor Island
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 05-316

Following John Mowlem’s death at the age of 81 in 1951, two doctors established consulting rooms in his house, the walls of which still sported his African trophy heads. Prospective patients sitting in the doctors’ waiting rooms might have wondered whether they had arrived at a veterinarian’s by mistake.

John Mowlem’s living room at 94 Devonport Rd, c1950
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 02-338