Matakana Island

Pilot Bay from above, Mauao and Matakana Island
Colour postcard, photographed by Bob Ricketts, Old Grumpy’s Gallery, Mt Maunganui
Collection of Justine Neal

Matakana Island is a mixture of white, sparkling sand, pine forest, farmland and a peaceful harbour. It is the third largest island by area in the North Island and the 15^thlargest within New Zealand waters. The island’s long, white sandy beach is popular with surfers and is also a nesting place for the New Zealand dotterel/tuturiwhatu, a threatened shorebird.

Matakana Island and the Tauranga Harbour from the Bowentown Heads, June 2023
Photograph by Justine Neal

The island is 24 kilometres long and rarely more than 3 kilometres wide. It is New Zealand’s largest barrier island. Its development, together with that of the tombolo (a narrow strip of land, usually made of sand or gravel, that connects an island to the mainland or another island) adjoining Mauao and Bowentown Heads, formed Te Awanui/Tauranga Harbour, a 200 square kilometre estuarine lagoon.

Matakana Island, northern channel and Mauao from the Bowentown Heads, June 2023
Photograph by Justine Neal

The island has been continuously populated for centuries by iwi who are mostly associated with Ngai Te Rangi.

Nine year-old trees, Matakana Island
Unmounted silver gelatin print by unidentified photographer
Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Ams 12/4/5

The island has two distinct parts, 5,000 acres of farm and orchard land on the inner harbour and 10,000 acres of forest covered coastal land.

Wharf at Matakana Island
Unmounted silver gelatin print by unidentified photographer
Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Ams 12/4/4

The 1920’s saw the development of a pine forest through private plantings. In 1949 the first logging crew went into the forest. The first 30 year old plantings were used for the post and poles market. In 1951 Bunn Brothers Ltd. took up the island’s pine milling rights.

S.S. Ngakuta clearing the Tauranga Heads, View from the Mount, c. 1916-1922
Real photo postcard, photographed by John Welsh, published by Frank Duncan & Co. for A.J. Mirrielees, Tauranga
Collection of Justine Neal

My postcard shows part of Matakana Island as a low-lying sand bar in pre-forestry days. The SS Ngakuta was built in 1913 and owned by the Blackball Coal Co. She was designed and equipped as a collier but carried other cargoes including fruit from Pacific Island ports. From 1922 she was leased to the United Steam Ship Co. and purchased outright by them in 1942. She was sold to ship breakers in 1952.

References

Wikipedia

NZ Ship and Marine Society

National Library of New Zealand

Bay of Plenty Regional Council

Seaward’s Hand-coloured Postcards of Mt Maunganui

Coastal Scene, Mount Maunganui, N.Z., c. 1950s-early 1960s
Hand-coloured postcard published by N.S. Seaward, Broad Bay, Dunedin
Image courtesy of Fiona Kean, private collection

Hand-coloured postcards of New Zealand scenic views had been around since the early 1900s, but were overwhelmed by inexpensive collotype-printed cards imported from Bavaria and Saxony. When the supply from Germany dried up on the outbreak of the Great War, hand-coloured real photo postcards were produced in numbers once more, and remained popular for some years after the war had ended.

Ocean Beach, Mount Maunganui, N.Z., c. 1950s-early 1960s
Hand-coloured postcard published by N.S. Seaward, Broad Bay, Dunedin
Image courtesy of Fiona Kean, private collection

After the Second World War, during which there had been a dearth of postcards available for purchase, the National Publicity Studios became the most significant contributor to the market. Along with the increased demand for postcards, there was a resurgence in the popularity of hand-coloured images. It did not take long for other photographers and publishers to join the fray.

Mount Maunganui, N.Z., c. 1950s-early 1960s
Hand-coloured postcard published by N.S. Seaward, Broad Bay, Dunedin
Image courtesy of Fiona Kean, private collection

One of these was Neville Stephen Seaward, whose postcards published from his home base in Broad Bay, Dunedin feature widely in institutional and private collections around the country, and presumably overseas. Seaward was born in Christchurch in 1913, and started photographing scenery with his first camera aged seventeen.

Coastal Scene, Mount Maunganui, N.Z., c. 1950s-early 1960s
Hand-coloured postcard published by N.S. Seaward, Broad Bay, Dunedin
Image courtesy of Fiona Kean, private collection

He married in 1948, moved to Dunedin with his wife Gwen, and three years later they started up a business from their home, printing, publishing and selling postcards of photographic views that he had accumulated.

Coastal Scene, Mount Maunganui, N.Z., c. 1950s-early 1960s
Hand-coloured postcard published by N.S. Seaward, Broad Bay, Dunedin
Image courtesy of Fiona Kean, private collection

At an early stage Neville started making annual trips to Rotorua and elsewhere on the North Island to increase the portfolio of views which were soon in great demand. All of the postcards were printed in black-and-white from their home, and a proportion were hand-coloured with simple watercolour washes. Unfortunately serial numbers were not printed on any of the cards, so there is currently no assessment of the numbers of individual views produced country-wide. 

Mount Maunganui, N.Z., c. 1950s-early 1960s
Hand-coloured postcard published by N.S. Seaward, Broad Bay, Dunedin
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Library’s Pae Korokī, Ref. 99-027

From 1951 onwards he also published several guide books of tourist destinations, illustrated with his own photographs. Colour slide views (probably Kodachrome) were added to the repertoire in 1954, sold loose in the same manner as the postcards, and the business continued to thrive into the 1960s. By the end of that decade, though, production appears to have ceased, probably as a result of increased competition from full colour postcards printed in South-east Asia. After he ceased photography, all of Seaward’s photographic negatives were destroyed.

References

Skinner, Damian (2001) Unpublished notes from interview with Neville Seaward, Modernism Oral History Project, [relates to 3 tapes of oral history interviews at Te Papa Tongarewa, Refs, CA000633/001/0020, 0021, 0022)

Main, William & Jackson, Alan (2005) Wish You Were Here: The Story of New Zealand Postcards, New Zealand Postcard Society Inc., Nelson

Main, William (2007) Send Me a Postcard: New Zealand Postcards and the Stories They Tell, Craig Potton Publishing, Nelson