Anne Stenhouse

Many years ago I undertook the somewhat laborious task of going through every council minute book since 1882 noting the names of elected mayors and councillors. [i] In the one-hundred and forty-years since the town’s first election, residents of Tauranga have had the opportunity to fill 764 council positions. [ii] It may come as no surprise to learn that women have held only 48 of those positions - this equates to just 6 percent. Indeed, it took forty-four elections before the first woman sat at the council table.

Anne T. Stenhouse, Tauranga's first woman councillor (1944-1950), with Sir Donald Cameron at City Council Conference, c1940s
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Library, Photo 04-159

Mrs Anne T. Stenhouse has the distinction of being the first woman to serve on the Tauranga Borough Council and it is amazing to me that her name is not better known. Born in Invercargill in 1891 to Irish parents, Teresa and John Lopdell, Anne (christened Annie Teresa) went on to become a sole charge teacher in the Otago region until her marriage to James S.J. Stenhouse in 1923. As the wife of a doctor her accepted role was to support her husband’s career and raise their four children. However, Anne’s desire to serve her community is evident as she was elected President of the South Otago Plunket Society and was Commissioner of Girl Guides in that district. [iii]

Photo 07-249 Tauranga District Federation of Women's Institutes. Back left to right: Mrs Pemberton, Mrs Cooper, Mrs NcNaughton, Mrs Stenhouse, Mrs Christie, D. Miller. Front: Betty Francis, Mrs Lloyd, Mrs Paterson (Dominion President), Miss Fielder, Mrs Denniston. Original from Miss E. J. McNaughton. Circa 1940s

After six years in Katikati, and a stay in Tahiti, the Stenhouse family arrived in Tauranga in 1938. Mrs Stenhouse quickly established herself within several local organisations including the Tauranga branch of the Federation of Women’s Institutes to which she was elected President. [iv] During the Second World War she helped to set up a District Committee of the Women’s War Service Auxiliary and was its first ‘Chairman.’ [v]

Postcard view of the Town Hall, corner of Wharf and Willow Streets, Tauranga. The location of the Tauranga Borough Council Offices. Image courtesy of Tauranga Heritage Collection, 0250/09

In September 1943 her view on the role women could play in politics was expressed at a thanksgiving service celebrating women’s franchise held in the Town Hall [vi]:

“Mrs Stenhouse spoke on “The Future.” This was, she said, to be thought of in relation to the tremendous problems arising in regard to the new world order to be established after the war. Women had to take their share in all this implied and their contribution would have to be a worthy one. A rousing call to face the calls that would be made and an idealistic appeal to all women for the vision necessary in planning for the future of generations unborn.” [vii]

A year later, her election to the Tauranga Borough Council provoked little comment. [viii] At the first council meeting held after the election the Bay of Plenty Times reported that new councillors were welcomed by Mayor Wilkinson and ‘particular reference to Cr. Stenhouse to whom went the honour of being the first woman to have ever sat on council.’ [ix] Anne Stenhouse went on to serve for two terms.

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[i] On 15 March 1882 the first Borough Council elections were held in Tauranga. Tauranga City Council holds minute books from 1882 onwards. These are available to the public by contacting the Council.

[ii] This includes additional positions created by resignations and deaths. The number of council positions has also fluctuated over time.

[iii] Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 14516, 10 November 1947, Page 3

[iv] Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 13021, 27 April 1940, Page 6

[v] Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 13255, 4 February 1941, Page 1

[vi] On 19 September 1893 the governor, Lord Glasgow, signed a new Electoral Act into law giving New Zealand women the right to vote. In September 1943 celebrations were held around the country to mark the occasion.

[vii] Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 13264, 30 September 1943, Page 7. It is also important to note that Anne was Vice-President of the Tauranga Branch of the National Party at the time of her election.

[viii] She received 1280 votes making her ‘second on the list of successful candidates’.

[ix] Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 13474, 10 June 1944, Page 2

 

Marie Stewart and TEMCO

(continued from Part 1 published 2 July 2021, by a contributor who wishes to remain anonymous)

"More eggs for housewives" BOPT 20 Aug 1949
Courtesy of Papers Past

During the War years there were serious shortages of many things, and one was eggs for city dwellers. Marie Stewart was one of the initiators of the Tauranga  Co-operative Egg Marketing Society Ltd in 1943. She was assisted and encouraged by an English friend Joyce Laurence (Lorrie) who lived in New Zealand during the war.  Farmer’s wives could bring their baskets of eggs to a rudimentary egg depot near the Railway Bridge on the Strand extension and have them put under a light to check their quality. Any that passed were purchased and went into the pool of eggs to supply American servicemen, hospitals and urban households. At that time eggs were fetching 4d a dozen and often were bartered for other items. Poultry food was also in-ferior and very expensive.

Marie and Lorrie and the 1930 Model A Ford coupe
Image courtesy of Mackersey Family

In most centres these egg pool initiatives were under the wing of the local dairy co-ops but in Tauranga it was very soon set up separately. Marie also gave talks at var-ious meetings of the CWI in the mid 40s on ‘Egg Production.’  Marie sold the stock and plant from Cheriton in Waihi Rd around 1951 due to poultry disease problems, and travelled to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to help her old friend Lorrie on her poultry farm.

In the early 50s a levy of 1d per dozen was imposed by the Tauranga Co-operative Egg Marketing Society Ltd which financed the Society’s new premises. Profits were made, bonuses were paid and the Department of Agriculture began to recommend the area for intending poultry farmers.

Temco advertisement showing new building
Bay of Plenty Year Book, 1955, Astra Publishing
Image courtesy of Julie Green

A new building was opened ten years to the day after the formation of the society, helping business to grow tremendously. They ended up with twenty trucks delivering eggs from Thames to Opotiki and the eastern Waikato. In 1965 a mash plant opened at Mount Maunganui for the manufacture of poultry food, and there were TEMCO (having become the Tauranga Egg Marketing Company) branches in Rotorua, Taupo and Whakatane.

The TEMCO fleet in front of the mash plant at Mt Maunganui, 1960s
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries (Pae Koroki Ref. 02-117)

Many readers will remember the TEMCO processing plant situated on Cameron Road between 16th and 17th Avenue from the 1960s. I believe it was closed in the 1980s and the building was repurposed. Latterly it was an organic food outlet.

Packing eggs at Temco, 1963
Image courtesy of Bay of Plenty Times and Tauranga City Libraries (Pae Koroki, Ref. gca-5360)

By 1964 the city growth had squeezed Marie and her day-old chick enterprise out into the country. She moved operations to Taniwha Place next to the Wairoa River. Her niece Margaret remembers that in earlier times the newly hatched birds were careful-ly packed in octagonal boxes and transported to the Service Car (a forerunner of buses) depot from whence they were distributed rapidly all over the country. Eventually she produced 250,000 chicks annually and some even traveled as far as New Caledonia.

Marion was the first woman to serve on a primary producer board (1969-1973) and was awarded an MBE in 1974 for her services to the poultry industry and other com-munity organisations, such as the Plunket Society and the local Hospital Board.

Miss Stewart (at left) leaving Government house with her MBE
Image courtesy of Mackersey Family

She contributed to the New Zealand Farmer magazine for five decades and in the year of her death was given the poultry industry’s highest award.

Her last book ‘Keeping Chooks, Ducks, Turkeys and Geese?’ was published in 1979, dedicated to “My humble hens that have sent me to many more parts of the world than most are privileged to see.”

References

Anon (1949) “More Eggs for the Housewives,” Special Committee is Appointed, Bay of Plenty Times, Vol 77, Issue 15059, 20 Aug 1949, p20, from Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Anon (1955) Advertisement, Bay of Plenty Year Book, 1955, Astra Publishing
Anon (1962) Beautiful Bounteous Bay of Plenty, Stanton Smith & Co., Wellington, for Tauranga Branch of New Zealand Travel & Holidays Association
Anon (1971) Short History of TEMCO, Journal of the Tauranga Historical Society, No. 43, August 1971, p33-34, courtesy of Pae Koroki https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/23941
Anon (1975) Bay of Plenty Times, 26 Aug 1975
Elizabeth Cox. 'Stewart, Marion Watson', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 2000. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/5s46/stewart-marion-watson (accessed 4 December 2021)
Mackersey family reminiscences

Marion "Marie" Watson Stewart (1898-1983)

This is the first of a two-part series by a contributer who wishes to remain anonymous. It is about an English woman who adopted New Zealand as her home, and was instrumental in establishing an important avicultural enterprise in Tauranga.

Marie Stewart
Photo by Rupert Connell, Tauranga

Marie Stewart was a Birmingham girl who, along with many of the population of industrial England, developed bronchitis as a youngster. She nursed her ailing mother for her final seven years and then made a conscious choice to get into the country air and consequently specialised in raising and managing poultry.

In 1931 she travelled to New Zealand to visit her sister, Kathrine Bell of Townhead Farm, intending to stay for six months, but never used her return ticket. She worked at Massey Agricultural College in Palmerston North for three years as a researcher and lecturer, supplementing her income as a regular columnist for several agricultural papers and authoring three books on poultry keeping.

In the mid-1930s she came to Tauranga to be nearer to her sister and very soon needed to take over the management of the household due to Kathrine’s serious illness following the birth of her second child. To assist her in this unfamiliar role she consulted the Plunket nurse and soon became very involved in the running and support of the Society, a task she took seriously for 45 years.

Marie with niece Margaret and nephew Walter at the Kaimai summit

Once her domestic responsibilities had reduced, Marie turned her energies to purchasing about nine acres of land in Waihi Road, where she set up her own model poultry farm “Cheriton” on the site of the present day The Bayview (formerly Melrose Home and Hospital for the Elderly.)

Marie with a Black Orpington Rooster

She developed a large flock of layers and sent dressed birds to many Rotorua and Taupo Hotels. She won many prizes for her Black Orpingtons. Her birds were housed in sheds and a series of ‘arks’ which could be moved over the ground.

Scene at Cheriton

Marie belonged to a group of women who organised week-long ‘camps’ for selected country girls in the 1930s and she was responsible for the ‘physical jerks’ and a talk on ‘How to budget for buying clothes.’  She was also a member of the Health Stamp Committee which organised sales of stamps and first day covers to raise funds for much needed Health camps for sickly and underprivileged children. Other interests were the Lyceum Club and the Repertory Theatre. She was also a Justice of the Peace for many years.

Scene at Cheriton

During the 1940s she became the County Council’s representative on the Tauranga Hospital Board, a position she held for 33 years.

--- To be continued ---

Sources
Dictionary of Biography of NZ
Papers Past- BOP Times
Interview with niece Margaret
All images courtesy of the Mackersey Family