The Old Dairy Company Building

Opening of the Tauranga Dairy Factory, cnr 11th Ave/Devonport Rd, 2 October 1910
Image courtesy of Pae Koroki, Ref. 99-1181

My first view of the Army Hall gave the clue that it had been a dairy factory - the ventilators on the ridge of the roof. New Zealand has many examples of the remnants of old factories as they were not very far apart in the landscape due to transport of milk from farm to factory impeded by poor roads, if any, and the need to have the milk at the factory as quickly as possible for processing.

By the 1880s in the Tauranga district farming was being established and many of the well-known citizens like Lundon, Crump, Mathieson, Brabant and Tollemache began to speak up identifying the need for a factory. Eleventh Avenue, regarded as being on the fringe of the town, importantly had a fresh water. Dairy factories use water to wash the butter and need a reliable supply.

Tauranga Dairy Factory, 1918
Image courtesy of Tauranga Heritage Collection, Ref. 0324/10

In 1883 a meeting established the Tauranga Dairy Company and raised half the capital needed that night. There was a general preference to keep it local and refuse investment from out of the district. Eventually on 1 November 1885 the factory opened. They were not easy years ahead with problems like the difficulty in procuring young pigs to consume the whey, while some farmers wanted to keep the whey to feed the calves. Tauranga people were encouraged to buy the local butter but outsiders were trying to undercut the prices. Arguments arose when the Dairy Company proposed to open a store for their suppliers to purchase farm requirements and the town merchants complained that the Company wanted it both ways – to ask retailers to sell the butter but to undercut them with the sales of other supplies. The Dairy Company sales of bacon and ham remained an important part of the business. Those pigs needed to move on.

In the 1890s, a time of economic depression in New Zealand, the factory closed but reopened in 1900 under the management of Mr McPartland, the successful manager of the Te Puke Dairy Company. The Company paid three pence per gallon of milk to suppliers at this time. Exporting butter was more difficult than meat and it was not until the twentieth century that exporting increased. Britain’s need for food during the First World War created a huge market. A capable and energetic man Charles Macmillan had become the company secretary and saw the company through a period of growth. Macmillan became a Borough Councillor, later the Member of Parliament for the area, and Minister of Agriculture.

Dairy Factory, 1969. Photo by Renwood Studios
Image courtesy of Pae Koroki, Ref. 99-941

The butter factory prospered producing a quality product that won many prizes at shows around the country. In 1932 the meeting of the Tauranga Farmers’ Union revealed that £90,000 had been paid last season to suppliers and the bulk of it spent in Tauranga. In the twentieth century industrial action was a feature with a strong Dairy Factory Workers Union demanding better pay and conditions; the payment to farmers was low; and when things started to improve when War broke out again, there was a shortage of workers and the Dairy Company made representations to exempt some of their employees from War service. Photographs from 1969 show the factory still in business.

Army Hall, 2021. Photo by Shirley Arabin

The Tauranga Cooperative Dairy Company continued to operate from the Eleventh Avenue site through and after the Second World War but more research is required for those years until the building became the Battalion Headquarters of the Hauraki Regiment. This occurred in May 1981 with a move from the old Army Hall in Dive Crescent. The subject of a move had been debated since the 1970s when the City Council favoured demolition and building houses on the land. Bob Owens the Mayor favoured the Army so the new headquarters became known as the Hauraki Army Hall. The building includes a drill hall and the Hauraki Army Museum.

References
Bay of Plenty Times. Papers Past.
Taylor, Richard. Comrades Brave, A History of the Hauraki Regiment. Cosmos Publications, Napier 1998

Recent ANZAC Tradition in Tauranga Moana

Flagpoles, Tutereinga Marae

In April 1995, Howie Wilson says, he and three of his mates found the Anzac Day crowds at the Mount Maunganui RSA too large for their liking. The press of people in the club did not allow for the quiet reflection and exchange of memories that marked the day for him and Lincoln Smith, Perry Smith, and Tapuraka Dickson, all veterans of New Zealand’s campaigns in Malaya, Borneo and Viet Nam. They took themselves off, with a couple of crates of beer, to a retreat within sight of Hairini marae.[1] (This was not a new thing - old soldiers had made it their informal catch-up place as early as the 1980s.)

Marae are places of connection and re-connection, places imbued with meaning. It is not, therefore, surprising that the idea that came to Howie and his former brothers-in-arms on Anzac Day 1995 brought together past and future commemorations and began a new tradition. Five years later, after much korero and organisation, Ngāti Tapu hosted a dawn ceremony at Waikari marae on the Matapihi peninsula.

Howie and Donna planning, Tutereinga Marae

The first Parade Commander was a retired former Regimental Sergeant Major of the Hauraki Battalion, WO Ist Class Ben Morunga. The Hauraki Battalion has proved to be staunch in its support ever since, an acknowledgement of the large proportion of Maori who served in the three South East Asia campaigns. All of the veterans mentioned, except for Howie himself, have now passed on.

This was to be the first in a nineteen-year sequence, interrupted in 2020 when Covid-19 restrictions prevented any but the tiniest of Anzac gatherings.[2] The original plan was to hold the service at Hungahungatoroa, but a tangi intervened and the planning pivoted to nearby Waikari, “which was better, really,” says Howie. “The mist was well down and the contingent just came up out of it.” He was surprised and gratified at the turnout – about 500 people attended, many of them young.

Other marae were not slow to put in their bids as hosts. Over the years, dawn services have been held at nearly every marae in Tauranga Moana, including Hairini of course (in 2019) and Opureroa on Matakana Island. Given that there are 22 of them by my count [3], it was quite some time before Te Puna’s turn came.

This was to have been in 2020, the Covid year. Pirirakau elders were to be sadly disappointed; even sadder, two of the most forceful bidders, Maria Ngatai and Kiritoha Tangitu, had passed away before they could see their home marae, Tutereinga, be the venue for the service.

 “I did form the Tauranga Moana Tumutauenga Returned Services Association Inc [4],”  Howie told me.  “But I never really needed it. The service stays the same each year – only the people change.”  As the ranks of the original 38 members of the society – many of whom had served in the South-east Asian conflicts – dwindled, Howie found Tania Smith standing alongside him. She took on the takohanga in memory of her own dad, Lincoln. And the crowds, especially the presence of young people, got bigger every year.

Tania held the promise to Pirirakau as Covid restrictions relaxed. At the end of March 2021, a small group of planners got their marching orders: the wreath-making, the breakfast menu, the site of the rum station (just outside the marae), the lighting – Howie does not want anything too bright – the Ratana band and the Parade Marshall. Tania wistfully wonders if the kura choir might be coached in time to sing Hikoi kia toa, “but ke te pai if not ...” and the after-party venue (the Te Puna Rugby Club) is sorted. Photos of tipuna for the order of service, and their placement and presentation on the porch of the wharenui, no detail too small:  this will be a big day for Te Puna and Pirirakau are on their mettle.  “Expect the wharekai to  be full,” Tania tells Pirirakau whaea Donna Bidois.

“It’s an honour and a privilege,” Donna responds.

“Each marae has its own wairua,” Howie concludes. The old soldier stands in contemplation in front of the wharenui, flanked by Pirirakau whanau. Suddenly the connections are everywhere – those who are to be remembered, those who are yet to come. Marae are not monuments or memorials, but their power to contain time and memory, for “learned discourse, customary oratory, laughter, nostalgia and sharing sorrow and tears” [5] as the Ngai Te Ahi Trust describes Hairini, means it is no surprise that his idea of aligning military Anzac traditions with Maori tikanga has taken root and flourishes.

References

[1] For a useful description of this marae from interviews with twelve members of the Ngai Te Ahi hapū,  see Teddy, Nikora and Bernard, MAI Rreview, 2008, 1 Article 3; https://www.researchgate.net/publication/33051444_Place_attachment_of_Ngai_Te_Ahi_to_Hairini_Marae
[2] For instance, a few locals waited for dawn outside the near-completed Te Puna Memorial Hall, maintaining social distance.  Elsewhere, people followed public health messages and stood at the end of their driveways at 6 am.
[3] https://maorimaps.com/node/14479
[4] Records of the society, now dissolved, can be found at https://is-register.companiesoffice.govt.nz/
[5] https://www.ngaiteahi.co.nz/rohe/hairini-marae/