Richard Coles Jordan (1838-1919)

Richard Coles Jordan, Mayor of Tauranga 1882-3, 1885-6
Courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries, Ref. Photo 21-1852

This early Tauranga settler lived a reasonably long and rather fruitful life. He came to Te Papa somewhere between 1866 and 1872 and eventually fathered four sons and three daughters. A surveyor by profession, he was engaged by the Town Board as their first engineer to build the Beach Road, now our Strand. In 1873 he was the first to drive a horse and dray over the road to Ohinemutu in Rotorua, and was described as a roading contractor. Following his journey, locals were keen to see the establishment of a mail service on this route. New roads in those days were paved with firstly sand and then shell.

He continued surveying for a living until at least 1874 but was soon owner of a Bond Store and described himself as land agent, auctioneer and stock agent, reputedly the only one of the latter between Katikati and Opotiki. The first Judea sale yards (still operating in the 1980s*) were a venture of his, and he held an initial sale of cattle there in 1876. His residential address in 1880 was “West side of Strand, between Harrington and MacLean Streets.”

17 Oct 1883  Letter from J Mann to Matravers reminding him the longer goods stayed at Jordan [and Sheppards] the more they will be [ruinous]
Courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries, Ref Ams 12/2/7

From 1882 to 1915 Tauranga mayors were elected annually and RC Jordan was the second, following George Vesey Stewart. He held the office for two terms, in 1882 and again in 1885. Due to a fire in his premises he was forced to declare bankruptcy in early 1883, but was soon solvent again. He won the seat back from Thomas Wrigley nearly three years later. He was in office during the Tarawera eruption on the 10th June 1886 and called to Auckland for help for our citizens as he was concerned about the falling ash

16 Oct 1883 Telegram sent to officer in charge Customs, states that Mann’s Warehouse is approved and Jordan’s revoked.
Courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries, Ref Ams 12/2/1

It is important to note that another prominent citizen of Tauranga, also named Jordan, was elected Mayor five times, he was Canon Charles Jordan, vicar of Holy Trinity.

RC was later a member of the County Council representing the Waimapu Riding. He took an interest in the Acclimatisation Society, the Agricultural and Pastoral Society and called for expressions of interest in forming a Young Farmers Group.

Richard’s wife was Kate and they both appear on the ratepayers register for 1908 along with sons Cyril, a storekeeper, and his wife M(….), and Arthur, a surveyor, and his wife Jesse. The following year Cyril owned his father’s plot of land and at least by 1916 it seems that of this Jordan family only he and his wife remained in the area.

There is a small street off the West end of 9th Ave named after one of the Jordan residents, more likely RC.

*Please see post on Judea sale yards by Beth Bowden dated 23 August 2019

Sources

Tauranga 1882-1982, The Centennial of Gazetting Tauranga as a Borough, Edited by A.C Bellamy

Pae Koroki, courtesy Tauranga City libraries:
Tauranga Historical Journal No. 15 1961
Tauranga Rates Books 1907, 1916
Tauranga Street Directory 1880                                          

Geni  Family Tree

Gardenhurst, aka Mullanee

by Shirley Arabin and Julie Green

Mullanee (formerly Gardenhurst), Photograph by Shirley Arabin

Recently I visited the house known as Mullanee and earlier as Gardenhurst.  It stands empty among long grass, and the trunks of old exotic trees that have been chopped down to make way for a new highway.  The doors and windows are boarded up as it awaits its fate of demolition or removal.

The house is a single storied weatherboard building with an iron roof.  It began as a cottage with a single gable and ridge line, with a brick chimney that has survived for at least 140 years. An addition with a matching gable was added at some point and then in the twentieth century further additions provided a kitchen dining area on the west side and a large living room on the east. The complete interior has been modernised, probably in the 1960s, with the interior walls lined with wall board and wallpapered. The only interior features that may have remained unchanged are the interior wooden doors. As well as additions to the house, rooms were also removed and used for other purposes. 

A member of the last family to own the land believed it began its European occupation as a Crown Grant to a militia veteran, but that is an item for further research. This house could well be one of the earliest European houses extant in Tauranga.

Richard Henry Farrar, c.1863-1864, Dublin
Image courtesy of the family

The first mention of Gardenhurst in the newspaper occurred when R H Farrer wrote to the editor concerning the supply of town milk from his dairy farm of that name. He also supplied vegetables to the town. Farrer’s occupancy ended not long after for he died in September 1883 aged 60 years. An Irishman from Queen’s County (since 1922 known as County Laois), who served with the 18^th Royal Irish Regiment, Farrer arrived in New Zealand on the Lady Jocelyn in 1878 with the George Vesey Stewart settlers. Mrs Farrer still resided in Gardenhurst in January 1884 as the newspaper acknowledged that she donated two books to the Mechanics Institute.

By 1885 William V and Charles F Tuthill and J P Whelan were partners in Gardenhurst Farm until William Tuthill withdrew from the partnership the following year.  In June 1889 R C Jordan rented 300 acres from Mr Tuthill, on 150 of which the Maori were to grow wheat. Several stock auctions were held on the property including one of Mr Jordan’s “live and dead stock” in June 1891 when he proposed to move closer to town to live and carry on his businesses. R C Jordan had a varied career in Tauranga as contractor, engineer, surveyor, founder of the Judea saleyards, and Mayor of Tauranga twice.

Plan from Title Deed

In July 1892 Gardenhurst lots 78 and 83 Te Papa comprising 300 acres with an eight-room dwelling went under the hammer of D Lundon, Auctioneer at the Haymarket in Devonport Road. The purchasers were the sons of Mr John Thomas Bull the postmaster who had recently bought Topcroft.  

In 1897 the property changed hands again to a Mr Howard, formerly of Johannesburg and was described as in Omanawa Road. It was during his time that an extensive garden was planted including the exotic trees that have recently been felled. There were oaks, chestnut, cypress, the ginko, camellia, a plum tree, and a huge persimmon.

Photograph by Julie Green

Howard sold the property in 1901 to Charles Turner Wallis previously of Hokianga who called for tenders for alterations to the house immediately. In 1908 Wallis died of typhoid fever at the age of forty-eight, leaving a wife and eight children under fourteen. Mrs Wallis and her sons Roland (Roy) aged fourteen when his father died and Marshall aged nine worked the farm.  Mrs Wallis suffered a significant loss when her milking shed and equipment were destroyed by fire and she was uninsured.  The Council had engaged with Mrs Wallis concerning land to be taken for a road but when she saw the agreement did not include matters verbally suggested she withdrew from the arrangement. Mrs Margaret Wallis died aged 96 in 1957 but after being farmed by Roy and Marshall for many years the property was sold.

Photograph by Julie Green

As a returned soldier from WW2 Samuel William Gilmer, a shepherd from Gisborne qualified for a rehabilitation loan and with that he bought the farm from the Wallis family. Sam and his brother Hugh farmed the land and brought their father, also Hugh up from Gisborne. Marshall Wallis continued to live in the house and the Gilmers lived in a tent for some years. The Gilmers called the property Mullanee after the place in Ireland Mullahanee from where the family originated. In 1967 they built a brick house nearer the road for Hugh senior and that later became the home of his grandson David Gilmer and his family and their horticultural business. Later Sam and David Gilmer swapped houses with the last occupant being Sam’s grandson and his family. After Sam Gilmer gave up dairying Richard (Dick) Smith took over the farm and subdivided parcels of land that have become Westridge Views, Takitimu Toll Road, and New Zealand Transit Agency Waka Kotahi property for highway extension.

Sources:

Bay of Plenty Times through Papers Past. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/

Tauranga 1882-1982 The Centennial of the Gazetting Tauranga as a Borough. Edit. A C Bellamy. TCC 1982

Interview with David Gilmer by Julie Green

Judea Sale Yards, 1950

Guest post by Anne Baker (née Stead)

When I was about 10 years old a Mrs London supplied the refreshments on Sale Days. This was done from a shed by the entrance to Mr Robins’ farm and along his driveway was a row of very tall walnut trees. The water for the tea was boiled on an open fire by the shed doorway and my mother helped with the sandwiches.

When I realised it was a Wednesday and the stock sale was on, I would ‘throw a sickie’ so I could go with her to the sale. The shed had a big drop-down wooden servery facing the stockyards and the teas were served through there to the stock agents, truck drivers and farmers attending the sale. I had to sit under this shelf — out of sight!

Sheep Fair - Judea, Bay of Plenty Times, publ. 24 Jan 1961
Tauranga City Libraries, Gifford-Cross Series, Ref. gca-525

After the sale was over, us kids used to go over to the yards and ride on the sheep — good fun!  — until the truck drivers chased us away. Two truck drivers I remember, Gerald and his son Charlie Bennett, Andersons drivers I think, and stock agents —  Archie Strang and Montgomery (Monty.)

I enjoyed the atmosphere and the sound of the auctioneering sale, especially when a beast escaped. Dogs and men put on ‘quite a circus’ until it was back in the yards.

Annual Heifer Sale, Judea, Bay of Plenty Times, publ. 24 August 1963
Tauranga City Libraries, Gifford-Cross Series, Ref. gca-5381

One day I fell into the sheep dip there, my biggest brother, Ernie, pulled me out. We walked up the road (past Mr Robins’ long boundary hedge that had lovely climbing roses growing through it) to the Judea Store where Mrs Jamieson gave me some of her daughter Peggy’s clothes to wear home. Then I got in BIG TROUBLE.

Mrs Jamieson was Mr London’s sister (he had beehives) and she had a big garden where London Place is now. There was a big fence all round the garden and there lived a big, big tortoise.

Sometimes the stock for the sale was driven down a dirt track from 12th Avenue. Formerly the Kopurerua River ran in a curve alongside the road towards 11th Ave. Later this was filled in by a rubbish dump and the river ran in a straight line to the estuary.

 Editors Note: You may also enjoy Beth Bowden’s previous 2019 post on the Judea Sale Yards

Mayor Lundon, auctioneer, and the Judea Sale Yards

The buying and selling of stock has been a significant enterprise in Tauranga well into the twentieth century.  The writer clearly remembers the excitement of sale day at the Judea stockyards, and is now grateful for the commuters’ corridor (Route J) created, in part, from stock paddocks where weary herds browsed overnight before the short push up and over the hill to be sorted and penned in wooden stockades at the corner of Waihi and Robins Road. Buyers and auctioneers had perches – narrow walkways, really – built as part of the fences so they could view the stock safely from above.  An elaborate system of gates and races, including sloped access ways (“loading races”) funnelled the sold yearlings, steers, heifers, milch cows and sheep into backed-up stock trucks. Unsold stock was the last to leave.

One of the last sales was caught on camera in 1982 [1] by my mother, Shirley Sparks. There was still keen interest in assessing quality, in noting prices, and in talking it over at the tea-table provided by the Women’s Division of Federated Farmers. The nearest pub was miles away, right in town, on the corner of Devonport Road and Spring Street.

A hundred years or so earlier, the Judea Sale Yards were new. Built about 1878 by the enterprising Jordan brothers, this important part of settler infrastructure went through a number of owners, including Messrs Paget and Hulme (1883) and W T Raymond (1899).  In 1889 they were being described proprietorially – “The undersigned will hold his next cattle sale at the Judea Sale Yards....” [2] - by Mr David Lundon, Auctioneer.

David Lundon (and here I am indebted to Debbie McCauley’s account of his life and multifarious activities [3]) had established himself as an auctioneer in 1888. Crucially to our story, he had been elected for the first time as Mayor of Tauranga in 1887, an office he held across three further elections, the last-occurring in 1892. In 1893 he successfully stood as County Chairman [4].

Not only were the Judea Sale Yards still quite new at the time of Mayor Lundon’s assumptions of high office. They were also outside the borough. He himself had business interests within the town as well as beyond it.  In the court case shortly to be described, the hapless County Clerk attested  that letters to the County Chairman were addressed, simply, “D. Lundon, Tauranga” and that Mr Lundon lived about  one and a half miles from the post office, in the County of Tauranga.

In the same case, the Tauranga Town Clerk deposed that, to his knowledge, Mr Lundon had a place of business in the borough, in a place then called the Haymarket, in Devonport Road. Since December 1892, Mr Lundon’s status as a licensed auctioneer [5] had been granted by the Borough Council. This happy arrangement had continued until 1894. But, in 1895, Mr Lundon – now Mayor of the County - sought to renew his auctioneer’s licence with the County Council. The fee for the licence, naturally, would therefore be lost to the Borough and payable to the County. The Borough sued.

The claim was substantial: £40; and was heard on 3 March 1896 before Lieutenant-Colonel Roberts, S.M. The question, which turned on where the would-be auctioneer had his place of business, was complicated not only by the fact that he ran sales at both the Haymarket, at Judea, and elsewhere in the Bay of Plenty; also, the Borough and County Council Chambers were at that time situated under the same roof. The Bay of Plenty Times reported at one stage that “Counsel [Mr Cotter, for the defendant County] and witness [J H McCaw, Town Clerk of Tauranga Borough] here had a long wrangle on the meaning of various words.”  [6]

There were other fine wrangles. Witnesses described more frequent sales at the Haymarket than at other places (Judea, occasionally Katikati and Te Puke), but larger monetary settlements at the Judea sales. Mr J Maxwell, storekeeper, also attested that if he wanted to do business with Mr Lundon he “generally found” him at the Haymarket. Wily Mr Cotter then elicited the information that Mr Maxwell “knew nothing of Mr Lundon’s business in the country as an auctioneer”.

This closed the case for the Borough. Mr Cotter, for the defendant County, took one last throw of the dice. He called Mr Lundon himself to the stand. David Lundon, practised as an auctioneer and politician, gave a dazzling display of portable efficiency: “always carried with him [his] auction book, cheque books, account forms and stamps for the purpose of carrying out the conditions of sale... always cleared up on the day of the sale”; a grasp of figures and percentages; and some special pleading: “[My] residence is in the County of Tauranga... [My] time when not employed as an auctioneer was devoted to other business at the Haymarket.” [Emphasis mine.]

Under cross-examination by the Borough’s counsel Mr Moss, he started well. “Considered Judea his principal place of business for four years and the business had grown enormously.  Took out his licence in 1892-3 and 4 in the Borough because he had not given it sufficient thought, had done wrong in that.”

But Mr Moss pursued the matter. Lundon’s story expanded. “Until [I] left the Mayoralty [of Tauranga Borough] never gave it sufficient thought, took the licence in the Borough as a matter of course.”  (We imagine Mr Cotter’s face falling.)  “In 1895 had no office in Judea, used the hedge as an office, at the other place[s] had an office in the hotels. Took [my] books always to Te Puke or Katikati for sales and afterwards took them back to the Haymarket. At a sale in Judea ... it is quite possible that a dozen [of about 50 purchasers] settled up on the ground but most of the purchasers would send their money by post to the Haymarket... ordinary billheads were marked Devonport Road and Grey Street.” (We imagine Mr Cotter’s face dropping into his hands.)

In a reserved decision, delivered at 10.30 am the following day, the Stipendiary Magistrate found that the usual place of business of the licensee David Lundon was at his auction mart in Devonport Road, Tauranga, and that the Borough Council was the proper authority to receive the license fee.  The County, in addition, had to pay costs of £7 19s 6d.

All photographs by and courtesy of Shirley Sparks.

References

[1]  Friday, 22 January 1982
[2]  https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18891107.2.16.
[3]  http://tauranga.kete.net.nz/katikati_history/images/show/3481-david-lundon-1844-1931
[4]  For an example of the Chairman’s vigourous promotional gestures, see Stokes, A History of  Tauranga County, Dunmore Press 1980, p. 216
[5] The Auctioneers Act 1891 introduced the licensing system
[6]  https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18960304.2.7  All following quotes are from the same source.