Function at The Elms

Function at The Elms, Collection of The Elms Foundation

This approximately 10 x 12 inch photograph was found a few years back in a box of loose images and documents at The Elms (Te Papa) in Tauranga, while things were being gathered from various storage areas in preparation for transfer to the Tauranga Heritage Collection storage facility. It is not named or attributed to a particular photographer but the location is immediately recognizable to me — the north lawn at The Elms. There is nothing particularly precious about the item but it has fascinated me for several years and various questions arise in my mind.

Exactly what was the occasion, when was it held and why? Who were these people - almost certainly exclusively women? What were they looking at or buying?

We may never know all these things for certain but I would like to put to you a scenario based on a few facts that I know regarding the residents of the property around that period. Please remember this is my supposition only.

I believe it may have been a garden fete held by my great-great-grandmother Euphemia Ballingal Maxwell and her spinster daughters Edith and Alice. They had lived at the Elms since 1887 and were reportedly keen on using the gardens for such events to raise money for charity. Written and photographic evidence shows that they helped support Dr Barnardo’s homes for orphans back in Great Britain, so it would seem reasonable to suggest that this may have been one of those charity fundraising events.

By the style of the hats seen it would seem to be around 1900-1910, and I would hazard a guess that they are items of hand- and machine-made sewing. I have heard that many and frequent sewing bees were held by the women of the Maxwell family as they were keen and skilled needlewomen.

This raises more questions in my mind today as I write. How were the women attending known to my relatives, was it through the church they attended? Or was it advertised in the Bay of Plenty Times? Was the kind person who erected the tent-like structure for shade a paid gardener, or the husband of one to the “committee”?

The possibilities are endless. I even imagine I can identify my great-great-grandmother sitting under the tree to the left of the crowd, chatting to one of her peers.

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