The Mae Graham collection

From Tauranga City Library’s archives
A monthly blog about interesting items in our collection

A delightful addition to the digitised Tauranga Archive collections is the Mae (Mary Edith) Graham photographs and papers.

Born in 1909, Mae attended Ōtumoetai School and lived with her family on five acres of land at Brookfield. Her father worked as a blacksmith in Willow Street, Tauranga, then at Ōropi Mill. She later married Joseph Minns Parker, and they share a plaque at the Rose Garden, Pyes Pa Cemetery.

The 1930 booklet for the Coronation Ceremony, lists VIPs, lyrics for ‘Land of Hope and Glory’, Queen of the Carnival (Country Candidate), Miss Marion Wood, and the Citizen’s Candidate ‘Miss May Graham’ - over which someone with a blue pen has corrected ‘May’ to ‘Mae’.

From the Coronation Ceremony booklet
Tauranga City Libraries Ams 382/1/5

Studio portrait of Mae Graham.
Tauranga City Libraries Ams 382/1/2

The somewhat sombre participants photographed for the Order of Grand Procession include Maids of Honour, Page and Flower Girls, Mistress of the Robes, bearing Crown, and Peers and Peeresses alternately bearing the Orb, the Sceptre of the Cross and the Sceptre of the Doves – can you spot Mae in the group?

Tauranga Queen Carnival group portrait. Tauranga City Libraries Ams 382/1/1

Also included in the collection is a photochrom card of the Tauranga Post Office, pre-dating the 1916 extension. The patches of aging look like clouds in the sky, and a bicycle leans against the white picket fencing.

Post Office, Tauranga card. Tauranga City Libraries Ams 382/2/1

Three photograph postcards depict the Strand c.1920s. The third one in in the sequence is taken from the Wharf building, capturing from Wharf to Hamilton Streets, including the Tauranga Hotel and Aards Services.

The Strand, Tauranga, c. 1920s. Tauranga City Libraries Ams 382/2/4

The view from Mauao of Pilot Bay looks a little different in the black and white photograph postcard taken 1939/1940 – no tall Norfolk pines, nor high rise buildings.

Pilot Bay, c. 1939. Tauranga City Libraries Ams 382/2/5

Among the military portraits is a sepia postcard of soldiers relaxing on the grass in front of a tent. Titled "Te Aroha Camp 1917" with the reference number bottom right corner "Marsh (Photo)". Handwritten on the back "First left George Baikie in camp in front of tent opening".

Te Aroha Camp 1917, Marsh postcard. Tauranga City Libraries Ams 382/3/3

Mr Thomas M. Lockhead’s head superimposed on a cartoon waiter’s body is one of two ‘Tauranga notables’ in Mae Graham’s collection.

Mr Lockhead cartoon photo. Tauranga City Libraries Ams 382/3/5

Amongst the miscellaneous booklets and newspaper clippings is a colour photograph of Mae Parker and her brother Harry Graham at the Tauranga District High School reunion in the 1960s. Standing with others who attended between 1900 and 1920.

Tauranga District High School Reunion. Tauranga City Libraries Ams 382/4/3

Visit Pae Korokī to see more digitised images, including photographs of “one of the first planes to land on the Mount beach”. And do get in touch with the Heritage and Research team at Tauranga Libraries if you recognise the names handwritten on the back of the ‘teatime’ photograph - we think it might have been taken around 1917.

Teatime postcard. Tauranga City Libraries Ams 382/3/6

Leita and the Summer of ‘67

From Tauranga City Library’s archives
A monthly blog about interesting items in our collection

“B1164 4/1/67 Leita Lawn & Elizabeth Robertson resting at Soundshell”
Glassine envelope and 120-format cellulose acetate film negative
Bay of Plenty Times/Gifford-Cross Collection, Tauranga City Library

Leita – it was the name scribbled in green pencil on a crumpled glassine envelope that jumped out at me. For the last eighteen months I have been engaged part-time as a contractor, working through boxes of negatives from the Bay of Plenty Times/Gifford-Cross collection in the Tauranga City Library, rehousing the negatives in archival enclosures, transcribing metadata from the envelopes and digitizing the photographs. After digitization and processing, the images eventually appear online as the Gifford-Cross Collection on the Library’s web site Pae Korokī.

After handling many thousands of envelopes one could be forgiven, perhaps, for becoming a little jaded and glossing over much of the content, but this first name is pretty unusual. I’d only ever come across one “Leita” and she was a friend of my brother’s in Zimbabwe, half a world and half a lifetime away. So my eye was drawn to it, and then I saw her surname – “Leita Lawn.” She was married but I also knew her brother, and thus that her maiden name was Lawn. Likewise I was aware that her brother was originally from New Zealand, and had returned here. Could it be the same person?

Leita Lawn & Elizabeth Robertson after a performance at the Tauranga Soundshell, 3 Jan 1967
120-format film negative, Gifford-Cross Collection (Ref. gca-14151), Courtesy of Tauranga Library

To cut a long story short, I got in touch with Leita through my brother, sent her the digitized image, and she confirmed that she was indeed one of the two girls pictured.

“I was one of Max Cryer's first batch of singing children. I'll forward this to Elizabeth and the others. Two years after this my family had settled in what was then Rhodesia. Not long after Max died, I listened online to a radio interview given by someone who was on that tour with us.  Such a blast from the past - like your photo!”

Print from microfilm, Bay of Plenty Times, 4 Jan 1967, Courtesy of Tauranga City Library

A quick look at the Bay of Plenty Times on microfilm at the Library revealed the photograph was one of several taken that day at the Mount 5000 Club talent quest semi-finals at the Tauranga Soundshell. Other acts included the Nicholas Sisters (winners of the second heat, instrumental medley), Bill Swinton (second placed, vocal solo) and David Pearson and Peter McGregor (third, piano accordion and double bass duet).

Town Cryer, LP by Max Cryer and the Children (Leita Lawn, Judy Waite, Elizabeth Robertson, Sonia Carter, Bruce Matthews, Garth Jacobsen, Graeme McMahon, Neil Rowlands) (Spotify)

Max and the children, Auckland, 1966
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections Footprints Ref. 06997

Leita continued:

“I'll attach a photo of us recording that Town Cryer album - one of me looking cross-eyed, Elizabeth just behind me. We only ever did one or two takes - all in one go, sharps and flats included ... I feel sad when I look at Sonya and Graeme in that photo. My mum and I went to Sonya's funeral not a year later after she drowned during a fishing trip with her father and his friend. And then Graeme died just a few years later.”

The caption for the photograph in the Auckland Libraries Heritage Collection includes a reference to the planned tour which would include the appearance in Tauranga:

Entertainer Max Cryer and his group of young singers from Otāhuhu record 'Eidelweiss' for the Zodiac label at Stebbing Recording Studios in Auckland. The soloist at the microphone with Max is Neil Rowlands. The group had been asked to record songs for an LP, 'Town Cryer', after a successful appearance at the TV Festival Review earlier in the year. Future plans included an appearance on the Christmas edition of Revue 66 and a tour of beach carnivals over the New Year holidays. Photograph published in the South Auckland Courier Central Edition, 30 November 1966, p. 26

Max Cryer and the Children on Revue 66, Auckland Town Hall, NZTV, 1966
Photo courtesy of Max Cryer Collection and audioculture.co.nz

Cryer, who died in August last year, recalled to Audioculture in 2017:

“Suddenly everyone wanted to know. We were hired by big department stores, shopping malls, beach carnivals, movie premieres and TV shows. Of course, as time moved, the children grew up and were gradually replaced. But each and every one of them was a cheerful singer, lively but well-behaved not precocious, and never nervous. Over time, we recorded nine albums with hardly ever a studio second take.”

Reunion of Max Cryer and “the children,” Bombay Hills, 2011
(Leita with her hands on Max’s shoulder)
Photo courtesy of Bruce Matthews

“We old ‘children’ from the original group had a lovely reunion with Max about ten years ago at Bruce’s alpaca farm in the Bombay Hills.”

Leita now lives in a Bronte-like cottage in the English North Pennines.

References

Geraden Cann & Glenn McConnell (2021) Max Cryer remembered as ‘showbiz through and through’ after dying at 86, on Stuff, 26 Aug 2021, https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/300392377/max-cryer-remembered-as-showbiz-through-and-through-after-dying-at-86

Gareth Shute (2019) Max Cryer, published on Audioculture, 4 Jul 2019 https://www.audioculture.co.nz/profile/max-cryer

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This archival item has been digitised and will be available to view on Pae Korokī. For more information about this and other items in our collection, visit Pae Korokī or email the Heritage & Research Team: Research@tauranga.govt.nz

Written by Brett Payne, Digitisation Contractor at Tauranga City Library

John Lees Faulkner (1807-1882)

John Lees Faulkner (1807-1882)
Photo Tauranga City Libraries Image Collection, Ref. 00-208

John Lees Faulkner was an early trader, ship builder and farmer and he and his thousands of descendants have left an indelible mark on the fabric of our society.

Because of the digital age in which we now live new information has come to light in recent times. It appears that John was the son of a Nottinghamshire storeman and a seamstress, not a Yorkshire farmer as was previously believed, and that his date of birth was 1807, not 1811. Apprenticed to a shoemaker, in his early teens he was arrested and charged as being an accomplice (i.e.lookout) for two known pick pockets. After spending time in a prison hulk he was transported to New South Wales, Australia on the Princess Royal arriving on the 26th March, 1821. He was set to work in a Port MacQuarie dockyard and taught the art of ship building. His certificate of freedom was dated 22nd October, 1828.

It does not seem to be known how or when he reached New Zealand but the following extract from Papers Past seems to indicate that he may have fathered a child around that time.

The Bay of Plenty Times extract, March 3rd, 1913
Courtesy of Papers Past

After reaching the Bay of Islands he met and began a family with Ruawahine, their son Joseph was baptised in Kororakea (Russell) by Henry Williams in 1835. Several trips were made to Tauranga Moana and they lived for a short time with her people in Maungatapu. They established a trading post and later built their 4 room homestead, Okorore, on her family land near the large Otumoetai Pa.

In 1842 Rev. Alfred Brown at Te Papa Mission Station was pleased to marry them in the chapel at the Te Papa Mission Station and the two families became lifelong friends.

The Faulkners thrived in many senses of the word, John built many small ships and several larger ones and they had at least 13 children.* There were 6 sons, 5 daughters and 2 infants who died. John (Jnr) passed on at 13 and Alfred never married but Joseph, Jarvis, George and Christopher had 31 children between them.

Headstone for Daniel and Jane Sellars, Cliff Road Cemetery, Tauranga
Photo Julie Green

Captains Daniel Sellars and Christopher Faulkner became very involved in local and coastal shipping and the Faulkner family were the tribal trading agents, and flax, pigs, kumara, maize and wheat were exchanged for blankets, clothing, iron tools and farming implements. John Lees owned a four horse threshing machine used by local Maori for over 20 years. In 1860 he was commissioned as the first Tauranga postmaster for 5 pounds annually, a role he had been filling for several years anyway.

Headstone for Faulkner family, Cliff Road Cemetery, Tauranga
Photo Julie Green

Ruawahine’s daughters were Elizabeth Beazley, Maria Maxwell, Jane Sellars, Eliza Bush and Isabella Neighbour. These marriages eventually resulted in another couple of dozen grandchildren. Ruawahine (also so known as Elizabeth at times) died aged 44 in 1855 and was interred in the Mission Cemetery, John Lees died in 1882 aged 75 and is buried there also. He passed on suddenly while resting at his son’s Yorkshire Grey Hotel after a visit to his oldest friend Alfred Brown.

Elizabeth Faulkner who lived to be 91 and was buried in the Tauranga Anglican Cemetery
Photo Tauranga City Libraries Image Collection, Ref. 00-210

In 1857 John L. had married a second time, an old acquaintance from England, 35 year-old Elizabeth Humphries. She produced one more son, John Daniel, who in middle age commenced a ferry service to the Mount. He was tragically killed in 1917 on his boat Farina, but his sons George and Barley and grandson Charlie carried on. Faulkners Ferries were faithful and famous for 60 years and prior to 1960 acted as tugboats for the shipping when required.

Faulkners' store, c. 1920
Photo Tauranga City Libraries Image Collection, Ref. 99-730

Another of John Daniel’s sons, Arthur, set up his own store at 11th Ave (MacDonalds site) in 1921 and this area became known as Faulkners Corner. Arthur’s middle son Eric became Mayor of Tauranga in 1977 and Faulkner Park in Judea is named for him.

The homestead Okorore was moved from Beach Rd to 17th Ave Historic Village in 1990, and is presently in use as an art studio by another descendant, Aroha Matthews. Faulkner’s eldest son Joseph is her great great grandfather and is part of the huge Pirirakau iwi from Te Puna. Joseph’s 6 daughters married into the Tangitu, Bidois, Borell, Heke, Smith and Nicholas families.

Memorial, Cliff Road Cemetery, Tauranga
Photo Julie Green

In 2004/5 there was a reunion and an attempt to break the world record of more than 2,600 descendants in one place together. It is believed that about 800 attended this event.

In March 2020 there is to be another, I wonder how many will be there ...

*I note that there is an extra child recorded on the Tauranga Kete as Porina (Pauline) being born c1855, possibly shortly before the death of Ruawahine in Sept 1855. I assume this may be recent information as she is not recorded in any other sources that I have read.


References

Tauranga 1882-1982 The Centennial of Gazetting Tauranga as a Borough—Alan Bellamy for TCC 1982
Maritime Tauranga-Max Avery 2013. (quotes on page 8 from Faulkner Book by Jackie Lloyd, 2004)
Papers Past — Bay of Plenty Times, March 3rd 1913
Tauranga Historical Society Journal Nos. 16 and 36.
Faulkner File in Heritage and Research Collection, Tauranga City Library.
Jinty Rorke, "Faulkner, John Lees," Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1990.
Te Ara — the Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1f2/faulkner-john-lees
tauranga.kete.net.nz/tauranga_local_history/topics/show/1300 (updated Nov 7th, 2017 by Debbie McCauley)
Informants: Patrick Nicholas, Graham Faulkner, Ngaiiti Faulkner