Publish and Be Damned, a talk by Debbie McCauley (3 May 2015)

Tauranga author and librarian Debbie McCauley talked about the three books she has published under the name ‘Mauao Publishing’. One is a family history and the other two are children’s narrative non-fiction, one on the Battle of Gate and the other on the Rena Disaster.

Both children’s book have been nominated in the LIANZA Book Awards for the Elsie Locke non-fiction award. Debbie outlined her journey towards publishing, and then gave some information about how the process was undertaken, and some of the pitfalls to look out for.

Copies of the books may be ordered directly from Debbie McCauley on  (07) 577 7174

Three Tauranga books are Children's Book Awards Finalists (2015)

Mōtītī Blue and the Oil Spill: A Story from the Rena Disaster (2014) by Debbie McCauley

Taratoa and the Code of Conduct: A Story from the Battle of Gate Pā (2014) by Debbie McCauley

The McCauley Family of Katikati, New Zealand: 1876-2012

McCauley Family Reunion (2012) by Debbie McCauley

Author gifts books to Tauranga children, New Zealand Herald

Central TV

Katikati Cemetery Restoration

The Vest Pocket Kodak Camera and 127 Roll Film

While the Katikati Heritage Museum spends a few months in hibernation, we will be showcasing a selection of items from the collection which were photographed and catalogued during the packing up process last year.

Vest Pocket Autographic Kodak camera, 1915-1920
Courtesy of the Katikati Heritage Collection, Ref. 0070

In April 1912 Eastman Kodak Ltd produced a new folding camera, the Vest Pocket Kodak, which used a new 127 format roll film on a metal spool, specifically designed to be a handy, compact alternative to larger folding cameras using 120 film.

Illustration from 1912 Kodak Catalogue

The company's 1912 catalogue, listing it for a price of $6.00, claimed it was:

"... so flat and smooth and small as to go readily into a vest pocket, so carefully made as to be capable of the highest grade of work ..." and "... always ready for action."

Vest Pocket Autographic Kodak camera with leather case, No 1 Portrait attachment lens and spool of 127 format film
Collection of Brett Payne

For another 75 cents the customer received a leather case, while an 8 exposure film cartridge and a portrait attachment lens cost only 20c and 50c respectively.

Illustration from 1915 Kodak Catalogue

Less than three years later, the Vest Pocket Autographic Kodak was introduced, with a feature which allowed the photographer to inscribe a caption on the film negative through a special window on the camera's back.

Soldier during the Great War, April 1915, Willisborough Lees, Kent, England
Photographic print from 127 format film, Collection of Brett Payne

The standard model, constructed of aluminium with a black enamel finish, quickly became popular amongst soldiers serving on the front during the Great War, becoming "the most successful camera of its day," and almost 2 million of them had been sold by the time the pattern was discontinued in 1926.

Baby Brownie (1934-1941) and Brownie 127 (1952-1959) cameras
Courtesy of the Katikati Heritage Collection, Ref. 0074

Use of the 127 format film continued throughout the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s in small, inexpensive soild body box-style cameras such as the Baby Brownie (1934-1941) and the Brownie 127 (1952-1959).  In the 1960s and 1970s, however, it was largely superseded by 126, 110 cartridge and 35 mm formats.

References

127 film, Wikipedia.
Coe, Brian (1978) Cameras: From Daguerreotype to Instant Pictures, Crown Publisher, Inc., p. 104.
Coe, Brian (1988) Kodak Cameras: The First Hundred Years, Hove Foto Books, Hove, East Sussex, p. 168-173.
Gustavson, Todd (2009) Camera: A History of Photography from Daguerreotype to Digital,  Sterling Publishing, Toronto, p. 178-183.
Niederman, Rob & Zahorcak, Milan (2011) The Digitized Kodak Catalog Project, 1886 to 1941, privately published on CD-ROM.

Text by Brett Payne

Tauranga Domain Memorial Gates

Gates undergoing conservation treatment, June-August 2014
Image © copyright and courtesy of Fiona Kean

Over the past year the Tauranga Domain Memorial Gates have undergone extensive conservation work. The project, managed by Allan Sizemore of the Tauranga City Council, was guided by Salmond Reed Architects, who completed a Conservation Plan prior to the work commencing. In their report they stated that the “Tauranga War Memorial Gates are a rare example of brick and early concrete memorial entrance gates surviving in New Zealand dating from the First World War. They have high historical and social significance for Tauranga and they provide an important landmark to a domain that has been an historic recreation area since 1881.”

Domain gates at night
Image © copyright and courtesy of Fiona Kean

The Gates have never looked better and the recent work not only ensures that they will be here in another 100 years, it also acknowledges their importance to our community.  To borrow from Michael King, without question the Tauranga Domain Memorial Gates are a physical reminder of who we are and where we come from. They link us to an event that shaped our culture and our communities and they are imbued with our precious stories that need to be retained and retold.

Sanitation: The Sewers

Front cover of “Register Drainage Systems”, Tauranga, book kept by drainage foreman,
with entries in different hands, c early to mid-20th century
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Library

Recently a very battered book was brought into Tauranga City Libraries’ archives by a Council staff member. It is labelled “Register Drainage System” and dates from the late 19th or early 20th century, with entries made until about the 1950s indicating where maps of the drains could be found. Originally it appears to have been kept by the drainage foreman. The information in it is not easy to decipher, and even John Cuthbert Adams when he was Mayor from 1917 to 1919 had difficulty with it. His 1918 comments are glued into the book, and they show his exasperation with the system.

Workmen laying drains in Wharf Street, Tauranga c 1911-1912
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Library Ref. 99-746

It’s no wonder, as drains and sewers were a vexed question in Tauranga for many years. “Bye-Law No. 1”, promulgated in 1883, specified that anyone allowing “the contents of any watercloset privy or cesspool to overflow or to soak therefrom so as to be offensive” could be fined five pounds. It is doubtful if there were any water closets (flushing lavatories) in Tauranga in 1883, as there was no municipal water supply until 1912. The Star Hotel had a water closet before that date, but the Star had its own well and pump. The more usual arrangement was the night cart, which would collect and dump the contents of household privies during the hours of darkness. Operators, according to the bye-law, had to be registered and have “Night Cart” painted on their carts.

In 1883 a loan of a thousand pounds was proposed to construct a main sewer along the Strand. By 1887 there was a sewer in Spring Street, though it was not very satisfactory: the Borough Engineer had the delightful task of sorting out the “vile and intolerable smell” caused by its outflow taking place at the embankment rather than at low water mark. Things did not quickly improve. In 1892 a letter to the editor of the Bay of Plenty Times complained about the smelly drain on the beach next to the Victoria Wharf being the first thing to greet passengers coming in on the steamer from Auckland. In fact sewer problems persisted into the 20th century, though in 1912, as now, there were those who felt there was no need for the council to spend ratepayers’ money: the night cart would do for many years to come, insisted “Moderation” in a letter to the editor on 8 May. In 1928 the council took out loans to the value of nearly fourteen thousand pounds for sewerage and drainage purposes.

Putting the sewer line through at the bottom of the beach paddock on Mathesons’ farm “Fairview”,
Otumoetai, September 1982
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Library Ref. 05-262

Dealing with human waste is one of the first duties of any community, as the public health issues resulting from failure in this area are potentially catastrophic. According to the 2014 centennial history of the Tauranga Hospital Board there was a typhoid outbreak at Matapihi as late as 1930. It was not until nearly forty years after this that the first stage of a full reticulation and sewage scheme for Tauranga was delivered, with the treatment plant on reclaimed land at Chapel Street being commissioned in 1969 at a cost of $1.6 million. It was expanded and developed in 1978 with a second stage. Effluent is now treated by sophisticated methods including ultra-violet disinfection at the end of the process – an advance which would have been inconceivable in the days of the night-cart man.

Double-page spread from “Register Drainage Systems”, showing J. C. Adams’ comments from 1918
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Library

"This book was kept by the drainage foreman the records being probably copied into a more comple[te] register which so far I have been unable to find.
"The records of measurements are in links and decimals. They read from man-hole to man-hole, starting at the lower and progressing to the higher level. The arrows  ͢͢    indicate the flow of sewerage.
"There are 619 records, presumably of 4” Y junctions into the various sewers many of which are extended to the boundry [sic] line of the adjacent properties – at right angles – But information is lacking as to which of these records refer to Y junctions and which to the connection to the boundry or allotment.
"There are 198 √ ticks to the records which I thought might be a solution and strongly supports the theory of a more complete record but on applying this theory to completely reliable data I find it is incorrect     for proof see Page 88 Devonport Road between the 2nd & 3rd manholes left hand side of road. There are 6 records in the book 4 of these records are correct as to linkage and are complete to the boundry but only two are ticked."
                   "J. C. Adams
                    April 17th 1918"

Sources
Papers Past for newspaper items
History of Chapel Street sewage plant and details of current waste water treatment
Celebrating 100 years of innovation and excellence: Tauranga Hospital 1914-2014.

Family Connections: Fernhill, Crofton and The Elms, by Julie Green

In April 2014 a special trip was made to Wellington to see two old family homes at the invitation of their present owners.  They were 'Fernhill' in Wadestown belonging to the Matthews family for 58 years and 'Crofton' of Ngaio owned by George and Margaret Domett since 1979.  Both are sited on high ground, the Kaiwharawhara Stream and the adjacent Trelissick Park in the Ngaio Gorge between them.

There is a strong family link between these two homes and 'The Elms' in Tauranga where my grandparents Duff and Gertrude Maxwell were the last occupants in the 1990s.

Grandad's grandmother Euphemia Maxwell was widowed in Australia at the age of 36.  She and her four surviving children, Andrew, Edith, Alice and Ebenezer came to New Zealand and stayed with her brother, Alexander Johnston, his wife Amelia and their only child, Fletcher, in Grant Road, Wellington.

A few months later 'Fernhill' was purchased, a cottage and five acre bush clearing at Wadestown.
A private boys grammar school had recently been established at 'Crofton,' a large homestead across the gorge and both Andrew and Ebenezer attended there.  It closed in 1875 with the opening of Wellington College and the advent of free education.

A couple of years later the Berry family, recently arrived from England and consisting of 13 persons, took the house.  Therein lies the second connection with the Maxwell family.

My grandfather's parents Ebenezer and Pattie Berry met there when she was 17 and he 15.  They eventually married in their mid 30s (in Australia) and spent their lives farming in Taranaki, New Zealand.

In the 1880s, Euphemia's sister Christina was living at 'The Elms' in Tauranga.  As the widow of Archdeacon Brown and without children of her own, she left the property to her niece Alice Maxwell in 1887, on the condition that she, her sister Edith and their mother took up residence.  You may read on Page 18 what Euphemia thought of that plan.  Common sense prevailed and it became the family home for the next 100 years.

This is the story of several families linked together by their association with these three homes.

---

Julie Green (née Maxwell) is the great great grand daughter of Euphemia Maxwell.  In 1965 she went to live at 'The Elms' with her maternal grandparents Duff and Gertrude.  She later trained as a nurse and married John Green in The Elms chapel in 1979.  They have five grown children and live in Bethlehem, Tauranga.  Julie really enjoys writing and has learnt a lot from this first attempt at publishing some of her family history.

Contact Julie Green (Email: jjpandt@gmail.com, Phone 07-5767150) for copies of the book, which cost $25.00 (+ $5 p&p).