C.F Washer and Sons and Sam Snowden’s Spring Street Service Station (Part 2)

Guest article by John Green (continued from Part 1)

Sam Snowden felt there was room for another motor business in the downtown area and set up on the corner of Durham and Spring Streets (now the site of our first parking building). He was the agent for International and sold trucks and bulldozers as well as benzine (petrol) and other oil products.

Sam Snowden’s Spring St Service Station, 1940s
Collection of Te Ao Mārama Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 03-457

All service stations seemed to sell benzine from multiple manufacturers, eg. Big Tree, Plume, Shell, Texaco, Europa, Atlantic.

The modernised stuccoed Snowden Garage with flat, undated
Black-and-white silver gelatin print (92 x 148mm) by Alf Rendell, Tauranga
Tauranga Heritage Collection Ref. 0181/15, Tauranga Museum

Much later the workshop was extended and a second storey flat was added to the building.  Former employee Alan Jones remembers Sam coming into the workshop on cold days and lighting his forge to warm the place.  We believe the Snowdens (possibly the two sons) also had a car rental business across the road next to their tractor showroom and parts department.

Garage of C.F. Washer Ltd, Willow Street, 1937
Copy negative of mounted print, copied for Bay of Plenty Photo News, No 93, 7 Mar 1970
Collection of Te Ao Mārama Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. pn 6546

Washer’s Garage, Willow Street, c1950s
Black-and-white silver gelatin print (96 x 150mm) by Alf Rendell, Tauranga
Tauranga Heritage Collection Ref. 0186/15, Tauranga Museum

Meanwhile back at Washers expansion was underway, they now had the corner section for the sale of fuel and the side building was the service area. The name was changed to C.F. Washer and Sons and they became distributors for Vauxhall, Bedford and Chevrolet.

The final form of C. F. Washer and Sons, 1970
Black-and-white 35mm-format negative, published in Bay of Plenty Photo News, No 93, 7 Mar 1970
Collection of Te Ao Mārama Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. pn 6534

Their buildings covered many square yards and included a truck workshop on Hamilton Street, lube bay, parts department, showroom and another service centre in the original 1922 building facing Willow Street.

Washer’s Resale Cars, Cameron Road
Copy negative of loose print, copied for Bay of Plenty Photo News, No 93, 7 Mar 1970
Collection of Te Ao Mārama Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. pn 6548

Washers also dealt in used vehicles. If you look closely, you may recognise this building as part of present day Kale Print and a back corner of the Brain Watkins House is visible.

Charlie Washer, September 1964
Black-and-white 120-format negative, publ. Bay of Plenty Times, 30 Sep 1964
Collection of Te Ao Mārama Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. gca-7412

Over the decades a lot of car brands went out of production and many of the oil companies had amalgamated. Boron (additive) was a sales gimmick for Caltex.

Sources

Tauranga 1882-1982 —The Centennial of Gazetting Tauranga as a Borough, Edited by Alan Bellamy. Published by TCC, 1982

Personal memories of the writer and Alan Jones, a former employee of Sam Snowden.

Images

Thanks to Tauranga City Libraries for their amazing collection of images on Pae  Koroki, and to Fiona Kean and the team at the Tauranga Heritage Collection for permission to use two of their images, including those taken by the late Alf Rendell

The Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower Brewery (J. Chocqueel & Co.), Tauranga, 1912-1913
Real photo postcard by unidentified photographer
Collection Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 99-1149

Paris has its Eiffel Tower but how many people know that Tauranga had its own Eiffel Tower, albeit a brewery with French connections. The brewer was Joseph Marie Barthelemy Chocqueel who was born in Bergues, France in 1881, where he learned his trade as a brewer. Joseph was in New Zealand by 1906 to join his older brother Andre, who had settled in the Waikato area. Joseph married Madeleine Marie Demasure on the 24 June 1906 and the couple had three children born during their time in New Zealand. In 1908 both brothers became naturalized New Zealand citizens. Before coming to Tauranga, Joseph had successfully owned the Three Star Brewery in Old Farm Road, Hamilton which he had sold to Edward Cussen in 1910.

On 22 May 1912 Joseph arrived in Tauranga to make arrangements for setting up a new brewery. He had chosen a site at the corner of Durham Street East and Hamilton Street South. Messrs Schreiber and Johanson won the contract for the erection of the brewery premises. The building was to be two storeys high with a ground area of 1200-1400 square feet. Constructed of wood and iron it was to be built on a solid concrete foundation. On 12 June 1912 Joseph wrote to the council applying for an entrance to be made to 34 Durham Street and for the street to be graded and levelled with the front entrance.

“Eiffel Tower Pale Ale” advertisement by J. Chocqueel & Co., Tauranga
Published in the Bay of Plenty Times, 18 September to 2 December 1912
Courtesy of Papers Past

By 23 August 1912 the work had been completed. The building consisted of two main floors, with several small rooms built in tiers above the second floor. On the ground floor there were five rooms: a bottling room, main cellar, bottle washing room, engine room and a coal storage room. The boiler house and office were detached. The second floor was made up of two rooms and twenty-four feet above this floor was the room for the heating vat. This vat was connected to the municipal water supply by pipes and the water was heated by steam pipes connected to the boiler. Pipes took the hot water throughout the whole building.

Directly under the heating vat was the mash tun, a vat in which malt is mashed with temperature-controlled water. After the mash had been treated it was filtered through the perforated bottom of the tun into the boiling vat, twelve feet over the second floor, where the hops were added and boiled. The hot liquid was then moved to a strainer, leading to the refrigerator where the liquid was chilled to the required temperature. Next stop on the journey was the fermenting tun on the second floor where, after a certain period, the beer was drawn off, ready for its final treatment from the brewer in the main cellar. The main cellar was capable of holding two thousand gallons of liquor. The bottling room was fitted with the latest machinery. Next door was the washing room with massive concrete tubs for washing and spraying the bottles.

Birds Eye View, Tauranga, with Eiffel Tower Brewery in foreground (Talma Photo 27)
Real photo postcard published by Michael McMahon (The M. McM. Series)
Collection of Justine Neal

Joseph and his partner Mr C.A. Brabant, who had been the local agent for the Northern Steamship Company and was now to manage the commercial side of the business, declared that the ale and stout brewed at the Eiffel Brewery would be the best table beer brewed in the Dominion. It was made using the old French method without the addition of sugar, glucose or any chemical additive. During September 1912 their first ale and stout went on sale and from there on they advertised regularly in the Bay of Plenty Times.

13 December 1912
“Here’s Luck!” Eiffel Tower Pure Beer. Brewed without chemicals. At all Hotels – Chocqueel and Co. Brewers and Bottlers. Tauranga.

 

14 Mar 1913. Eiffel Tower Beer is Pure Beer.

It is brewed without chemicals of any description.

It is made from the best malt and hops, and lovely mountain water.

It can be drunk at any time and does not give you that gassy, heady feeling.

If you are run down it will do you good.

Eiffel Tower Is Pure Beer.

Chocqueel and Co. Brewers and Bottlers Tauranga.

On March 28, 1913 Mr. J. Brown, auctioneer offered the Eiffel Tower Brewery, including land, plant and stock for sale. Mr. G. A. Brabant bought it for £700. On March 31 1913 a further article pointed out that Chocqueel and Brabant’s partnership had been dissolved. The business would still continue but be known as Tauranga Brewery, Brabant & Co., Brewers and Bottlers. An expert brewer was shortly expected from the South.

On April 7, 1913 the following advertisement appeared in the Bay of Plenty Times:

House and Section For Sale.
Messrs Wilson and Robbin have been favoured with instructions from Mr. Chocqueel (who is leaving the district) to sell as above. Six roomed house and section Cameron Rd; Launch ‘Yvonne’ 24 feet long, 3½ horse power Zealandia engine, sails etc. together with new dinghy. Also: New ‘Brinsmead’ piano. Note – The House and Section can be had on very easy terms. Piano on view at owner’s house.

Sad news was to follow in the Auckland Weekly News on 24 December 1914.

CHOCQUEEL. Killed in action, Mr. Marcel Chocqueel, brother of Andre Chocqueel of Hamilton, at the battle of Betheny on 17 September 1914. Mr. Joseph Chocqueel, formerly a resident of Tauranga and Hamilton is among the missing at the fighting round Diksmuide.

References

Ancestry.com
Papers Past
Tauranga City Library
Auckland Weekly News
Waikato Times, The Dead Tell Tales, 17 November 2014
New Zealand Marriages, 1836-1956

A Trip Down Memory Lane in the Tauranga CBD

Guest article by John Green.

Back in the 1960s I was a schoolboy with a bicycle and loved to explore downtown Tauranga. There were a large number of motor garages, service stations and wreckers, not to mention a blacksmith’s shop, in what we now think of as the CBD. These are the main ones that I remember. In those times all cars were either from the UK or USA. To buy a new car one had to have access to overseas money and there were long waiting lists for new cars.

Maxwell Motors Ltd, Shell Service
Detail of ‘Rose gardens in Strand weeded by Mr W. Jones’, publ. Bay of Plenty Times, 8 October 1964
Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. gca-7522

·         Maxwell Motors, corner Harington Street and The Strand. Agents for Singer, Citroen and Jaguar cars.

·         C.F. Washer, corner of Hamilton Street and Willow Street. Agents for Chevrolet, Vauxhall and Bedford.

Teasey’s Buildings, Devonport Road, Tauranga, 1911
Unidentified photographer
Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 99-1142

·         Teaseys Garage, Lower Devonport Rd, Eastern side.  (Building still there but now shops)

George Mason Motors, cnr Elizabeth/Durham Streets, Tauranga, undated
Unidentified photographer
Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 02-299

·         George Mason Motors, originally in Grey Street then moved to Elizabeth Street/Durham Street corner. (building still there)

·         Dixie Dean’s Motorcycle shop, where Farmers Trading have just built Elizabeth Towers.

·         F.N. Christian’s Garage, firstly in Lower Devonport Rd, later Upper Devonport Rd , west side, Ford  cars, Fordson tractors.  Became Tappenden Motors in 1957.

 

Tauranga Motors, Grey Street, Tauranga, 1950
Unidentified photographer
Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 04-190

·         Acme Motors (later Tauranga Motors), Grey Street, Studebaker cars and Ferguson tractors.

Advertisement from NZ Post Office Telephone Directory, Bay of Plenty & Rotorua Distructs, p25
Collection of John Green

·        Phil Prime had a workshop and car rental business in Grey Street and it went right through to Durham Street.

·       Cameron Motors, Grey Street, specialised in used cars

·       Sam Snowden’s Service Station, cnr Spring Street/Durham Streets, also sold International trucks and tractors

·       Smith’s Scooter House, Durham Street.

There were at least two car wrecking yards, one in Grey Street and the other on Cameron Road opposite St Peters Church. Later the Austin agents Bay Motors was built there.

In the course of this trip down memory lane I have discovered many older images of some of these businesses, and these will form part of a future blog.