Waikorire (Pilot Bay)

Waikorire - Pilot Bay, Mount Maunganui. Mirrielees Series 45. Undated
Photograph by A.J. Mirrielees. Photograph published by Frank Duncan & Co., Auckland
Collection of Justine Neal

Waikorire means warm water and is the original name for the area which extends along Pilot Bay at the base of Mauao, where the present camping ground and hot pools are situated.

The history of this area goes back a long way. In 2012 archaeologists from Heritage New Zealand found that when the earliest Polynesian settlers first arrived around 1200-1300 they established a village that stretched along the bay frontage and as far back as what is now Victoria Avenue. Many of the artefacts found related to activities like fishing and canoe construction, such as adzes and fish hooks. Shell middens showed the villagers were mainly eating seafood.

Waikorire - Pilot Bay, Mt Maunganui. Mirrielees Series 40. c1910s-1920s
Postcard published by A.J. Mirrielees, Tauranga
Courtesy of Tauranga Heritage Collection, Ref. 0352-10

Fast forward to 1820 and Ngaiterangi  were living on the northern slopes of Mauao, having forced Ngati Ranginui off Mauao during the battle of Kokowai in the 1700s, were attacked by Ngapuhi. They were led by Te Morenga, who was seeking utu from Te Waru of Ngaiterangi for the killing of his niece Tawaputa in 1806. In 1806 the ship Venus was seized by convicts while in Port Dalrymple, Tasmania and sailed to the Bay of Islands, New Zealand. At Bream Head in Northland the convicts captured, amongst other women, Tawaputa, Te Morenga’s niece. After sailing further down the coast to the Bay of Plenty, the convicts sold Tawaputa to Hukere of Motiti Island. Eventually she was taken to Tauranga by Te Waru where she was killed and eaten.

The taua had landed first on Matakana Island, where they were met by Te Waru who enquired what was  their purpose for being there. Te Morenga explained that they were there to seek utu for the death of Tawaputa. The two chiefs agreed to fight the next day and a battle site was named (notes compiled by Gilbert Mair name the site as Waikorire (Pilot Bay). The next day the two opposing forces met. Te Waru led the initial charge with rakau Maori (traditional weapons), wounding some Ngapuhi, including one chief. Unfortunately his weapons were no match for muskets, and the sight of at least twenty of his men falling instantaneously brought the charge to a stunned halt. The men of Te Waru  fled but Te Morenga held back from the usual furious pursuit; because a Ngapuhi chief had been killed he was satisfied with utu having been taken. Te Morenga tried to contact Te Waru so peace could be made but Te Waru would not surrender.

Waikorire - Tauranga, From Mt Maunganui. Tourist Series 249.
Postcard published by Frank Duncan & Co., Auckland
Collection of Justine Neal

The next day Te Waru and his men left their pa on Mauao and once again advanced towards the Ngapuhi taua. Once again the muskets took a terrible toll on Te Waru and his men, with  over four hundred killed in the ensuing battle and a further two hundred and sixty were taken north as prisoners , Te Waru was one of the few survivors. After his defeat Te Waru  fled into the bush surrounding Tauranga. Ngapuhi were camped at a knoll called Matua-a-Iwi on the Wairoa River which flows into the Tauranga Harbour as three days of victorious feasting took place. Before Te Morenga and his taua left for their journey home a courageous act by Te Waru brought about peace between the two tribes for the following ten years.

In the days after the battle Te Waru had been out scouting towards the Ngaphui camp and had hidden himself in a ngaio tree. A Ngapuhi chief, Te Whareumu happened to wander along the beach and sat himself under the very same tree. Te Waru hurled himself out of the tree, capturing and disarming Te Whareumu. No doubt expecting to be killed Te Whareumu was most surprised when they turned and headed for the Ngapuhi camp. When they neared the camp, in an extreme act of bravery, Te Waru untied Te Whareumu, retuned his weapons and handed over his own.  He then told Te Whareumu  to bind his arms and to take him as a prisoner into the Ngapuhi camp. The young toa in the Ngapuhi camp were keen to inflict the fatal blow that would kill the Ngaiterangi rangatira, but Te Whareumu managed to protect him and call for quiet. When he explained what Te Waru had done the hostility of the Ngapuhi immediately turned to respect. His arms were unbound, he was given back his weapons and reunited with his wife and those of his relatives who had survived. To make up for the loss of other family members Te Morenga presented him with a musket!

Waikorire (Pilot Bay) from the slopes of Mauao, Mount Maunganui. Undated
Postcard. Photographer and Publisher unidentified
Collection of Justine Neal

By the 1850s Waikorire (Pilot Bay) had been abandoned by Maori. From the 1880s it became a popular destination for Tauranga residents, taking steamboat excursions across the harbour and disembarking at the stone wharf at the northern end of the bay.

By the 1930s houses were beginning to multiply and the scrub and sand was turning into neatly ordered sections.

When the wind blows and the sand whispers along Waikorire, I wonder what secrets are being told.

References

The Musket Wars,  by Ron Crosby

An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand

Native Tribes of Tauranga, complied by Captain Gilbert Mair

SunLive, 17 Oct 2013

Within their lifetimes: a 20th Century of Change - part two of two

 From Tauranga City Library’s archives

A monthly blog about interesting items in our collection

Last month we showed you the first part of "Within their lifetimes: a 20th Century of Change". That collection was largely the "Jinty Rorke interviews" and introduced us to old Tauranga hands as they were 20-25 years ago. The project was a collaboration and this second collection, AV 21-003, is made up mostly of the interviews donated by journalist and author Max Avery. 

The interviews are in video format, recorded initially on small Video 8 cassettes but often later copied onto VHS tape and later still from VHS to the new and exciting DVD format. Oftentimes it is these surrogates that have been donated, rather than the original video 8.  It seems appropriate to capture "a 20th century of change" right when the analogue world of magnetic tape, knobs, dials and complicated VCR machines was about to give way to new digital technologies. 

Appropriate, but also problematic. 

DVDs when they first came out were promised to last 100 years, and you can imagine their appeal as a result. Not only was it unnecessary to rewind tapes but they were slim and compact, and shiny. Did I mention shiny?  We now know that eight (8) years, is a more reliable indicator for how long you can trust a DVD. For the few interviews that existed only as a DVD, this posed a challenge. An interview by Jinty with Kate Jones Madill in 2003 sadly, was not recoverable. Another was only recovered by the Library's Heritage and Research Team through a process of stitching together two corrupted DVDs, but corrupted in different places, into one working digital file. Fortunately, most interviews did have their original Video 8 cassette, though quite a few existed as VHS tapes only. 

VHS tapes are often only as "clean" as the VCR players they frequented throughout their working lives. And I know our family VCR player entertained more than one marmite sandwich during its tour of duty.  Turning such tapes into digital files required the Heritage and Research team sending them away to New Zealand Micrographics Services (NZMS) who use well-maintained machines and high-end equipment to make the conversion. Sometimes this involved baking the tapes to clean them from dust and bacteria that might otherwise damage their own players and interfere with the quality of the capture. 

Panasonic AG-7150 Broadcast Player

The ADVC-500 professional video converter, specialized for use with broadcast equipment

Student oven NOT used in any way shape or form

Once captured the picture is scaled, noise reduction applied, and the very large files created are processed through the Heritage and Research team’s digital preservation process. Then a much lighter, quick-loading version is funnelled into Pae Korokī.   Often these versions have had background music muted for copyright reasons. 

AV 21-003: the Max Avery interview, consists of the following.

• Hilton D. Ronald (Chook) Rayment (1914-2000) interviewed by Max Avery, (1997)
• Owen James Morgan (1919-2003) interviewed by Max Avery (1997)
• W.E. Schrader (1921-2009) interviewed by Glenn Pettit (1999)
• Captain D.W.G. Keesing interviewed by Glenn Pettit (1999)
• Pilot Officer Ken Crankshaw (1921-2009) interviewed by Glen Pettit (1999
• Sir Gaven and Lady Isabel Donne interviewed by Glen Pettit (2000)
• Captain D.W.S. Keesing interviewed by Glen Pettit (2000), and here.
• Flight Lieutenant John Worthington and Flying Officer Frederick Friar interviewed by Glenn Pettit (2000)
• John Worthington (1918-2010) interviewed by Max Avery (2001)
• Ronald James Reid, (1918-2014) RNZAF Pilot interviewed by Max Avery (2003)
• John C. Cotter (1912-2008) interviewed by Max Avery in 2004
• Maurice (Snow) Garde-Browne (1924- ) interviewed by Max Avery in 2005
• David S. Cohu (1924-2018) interviewed by Max Avery (2006)
• William E. Lawrence (1912-2010) interviewed by Max Avery (2006)

Finally, tucked away amongst the paperwork was an article by Max Avery on the Tauranga-Mount Maunganui ferry service, which has been reproduced with additional photographs here. 

You can locate AV 21-003 on the library's heritage platform, Pae Korokī, under "Audio Visual", or by clicking here. 

---

For more information about other items in our collection, visit Pae Korokī or email the Heritage & Research Team: Research@tauranga.govt.nz

Written by Harley Couper, Heritage Specialist at Tauranga City Library.

Barrett's Store

Guest article by Max Avery

Barrett’s Store Omokoroa, post-1954
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 06-063

The death of Mrs Freda Elsie Barrett on June 5, 2022  prompted a look back at her family’s link with one of the Tauranga districts best remembered groceries - Barrett’s Store at Whakamarama, once the only commercial enterprise on the highway between Bethlehem and Katikati. The store existed under the Barrett name from 1949 to 1966, and although it was first known as the Omokoroa Store, and carried the names of previous and subsequent owners, most older Tauranga residents remember it as Barrett’s Store. The enterprise had the distinction of two locations, and in its second form became ostensibly the first self-help checkout supermarket with trolleys in New Zealand. Grocery executives from several parts of New Zealand were said to have flown into local top dressing strips to see this American-style innovation in operation.

The original Omokoroa Store, cnr Old Highway/Te Puna Point Rd, western view
Private family collection

The store was first built on the corner of the old Tauranga-Katikati highway and Te Puna Point Road (later becoming Station Rd, Omokoroa Station Rd and finally Barrett Rd and, on the northern side of SH2, Plummer’s Point Rd.) The business was opposite the Tawhitinui Marae and was probably initiated by Ken and Nancy Gordon in 1926. The little motor transport that existed in those years turned off the highway onto Te Puna Point Road as the only way to reach Omokoroa Beach (also known as Crapp’s Point), passing in a cloud of dust in the summer, with mud clogged wheels in the winter. Otherwise only the clip-clop of horses' hooves and the grinding of waggon wheels on the metalled surface disturbed the bucolic peace of what was then known as the Omokoroa Store.

Installation of Plume benzine pumps at Barrett's Store, southern wall
Private family collection

Jack Borrows is said to have bought the store, which included a small living area for the grocer, about 1930. The building was rather oddly sited, close and corner-wise to the road, making it awkward to extend, which is what Mr Borrows was doing when he sold it to Jack and Edna Ewart late in 1939, for Mrs Ewart later described it as “a little and almost new junction store.” The population in the district was by then expanding, and with the store too small to meet the demands made upon it, more extensions began. Later in their tenure a van delivery service, each day to a different area in the Omokoroa-Whakamarama area, was introduced and Plume brand petrol pumps were installed.

Barrett's Store and accomodation, c1940s, northern aspect
Private family collection

When Matthew John (usually known as Jack) and Doris Barrett bought the store on 1 May 1949 it was more associated with Whakamarama than Omokoroa. They arrived from Buckland (between Pukekohe and Tuakau). With three sons, George, Graham and John, and daughter Joan. All helped make Barrett’s Store the service-centre and landmark it became during the next seventeen years. The need for fresh meat was seen early by Jack Barrett, a butcher by trade. Assisted by Graham (Freda Barrett’s husband) he built a butchery adjacent to the store, and Graham became store butcher. George ran the store, until he moved to Auckland in 1957, when John joined the business and took over. Joan distinguished herself by becoming office manager, mastering the cash register-cum-electronic scales at the checkout in the supermarket.

Two houses were built adjacent to the first store on the corner of Te Puna Point Road for George and Graham with help from David Borrell and his sons Billy and Cotty. Early in 1952 Jack (d. 1969) and Doris (d. 1963) moved to a house on the Omokoroa Beach front. At about the same time construction of a new section of State Highway Two from the Te Puna Stream Bridge to Pahoia began. Realising they would be bypassed by the new highway traffic, the Barretts purchased land on the corner of the Te Puna Point Road and the new highway and began the construction of the new supermarket, which incorporated a butchery, hardware, drapery and Mobilgas petrol pumps. Store and highway opened at about the same time,  c. 1953-54. The 470-metre section of the Te Puna Point Road which linked the two highways was renamed Barrett Rd. Enlarged and modernised, the original store building is today residential.

Interior of Barrett's store, Omokoroa, post-1954
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 06-064

For about a decade the name “Barrett” on the shopfront identified the new enterprise, with family continuing the same service to the district, selling a wide range of foodstuffs, household and farming supplies, and then delivering it throughout the area. In October 1966 they sold the retail business, and since then other names have proclaimed its operators. In the early 1990s the Barrett family sold the building, ending a commercial link of more than four decades with the Omokoroa-Whakamarama district.

A Collection of Old Tosh

Newspaper supplements have been described as ‘unashamed collections of old tosh cobbled together to make money for publishers.’ [i]  And they have indeed been used to boost newspaper sales. In the 1890s William Hearst, owner of America’s largest newspaper chain and media company Hearst Communications, put sheet music in his Sunday papers to cash in on the growing interest in popular music.[ii] 

Sheet music printed by W. R. Hearst as a supplement to The Examiner on 16 Feb 1896
Irish Sheet Music Archives

In contrast, newspaper owners such as Alfred Harmsworth believed supplements could enhance a paper’s reputation. In 1908, due to Harmsworth’s popularist and sometimes controversial reputation, concerns were raised regarding his acquisition of The Times. To counter this Harmsworth printed more than 91 supplements focusing on the ‘serious’ subjects of geography and politics.[iii]

Closer to home, subscribers to the Bay of Plenty Times (BOPT) were familiar with the inclusion of supplements having first made their appearance on 9 May 1877 - readers were presented ‘with a gratis supplement containing two maps of the immediate theatre of the War in the East’ (Russo-Turkish War 1877-1878).[iv] In 1879 the new owner, George Vesey Stewart, discontinued the weekly supplement with the promise  that the ‘production of one of a superior character’ would follow.[v] In 1881 a monthly supplement did reappear focusing on local and national politics, news, and opinion - topics close to Stewart’s heart.

The first illustrated supplement in the BOPT was printed in June 1887 – during the appearance of several rival local papers.[vi] The supplement, celebrating Queen Victoria’s Jubilee, consisted of two pages of litho portraits of the royal family:

‘There will be published on Wednesday 22^nd Inst., an Illustrated Supplement to the Bay of Plenty Times. No resident of Tauranga should lose this opportunity of obtaining a permanent memento of the event. Only a limited number will be printed. Send in your orders for the extra copies required’. [vii]

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XV, Issue 2153, 22 June 1887, page 2

With the arrival of a new owner in 1888, supplements designed to promote the district’s businesses and attractions began to appear. Such publicity was desperately needed as the depression of the 1880s hit Tauranga hard. In A History of Tauranga County Evelyn Stokes remarks that despite a shortage of money in the district ‘there was no lack of enterprise’ amongst its inhabitants [viii]. This is reflected in a supplement printed in August 1888 which proclaims, amongst other things, that Tauranga is ‘the paradise of small capitalists’ and ‘the great sanatorium of the Britain of the south.’ 

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XV, Issue 2318, 10 August 1888, Page 3 (Supplement)

In June 1924 the BOPT published a two-section supplement commemorating the opening of the ‘Railway Bridge across Tauranga Harbour and the commencement of a regular train service connecting the Eastern Districts of the Bay of Plenty with the Principal Town’. The twenty-page supplement promoted Tauranga as a great place to live and even included a long list of the town’s wonders. Here is a snippet of what it said the town had to offer. It’s up to you to decide if it is tosh or not!

1. Tauranga harbour has no bar - lowest depth 19 feet at low spring tides.
2. Tauranga has the mildest winter in New Zealand.
3. Tauranga district has fine old Maori fortifications in many places.
4. “Tauranga is the place for you” says every doctor who knows it.
5. Tauranga is the base from which to reach the finest deep-sea fishing grounds in the world.
6. Tauranga is the economical distributing point for the Bay of Plenty.
7. Tauranga has one of the finest town halls outside the cities.
8. Tauranga has a high-pressure supply of the purest water.
9. Tauranga has a good drainage system over the principal portion of the town.
10. Tauranga’s climate is without compare in New Zealand.
11. Tauranga harbour can be entered in all weathers and provides perfect shelter.
12. Tauranga is the only natural East Coast harbour between Auckland and Wellington.
13. Tauranga sends more eggs to market than any other country centre in the province.
14. Tauranga grows lemons better than are grown elsewhere - soil and climate ideal.
15. Tauranga leads New Zealand in electrical development for domestic purposes.
16. Tauranga has ideal beaches for bathing.
17. Tauranga is now connected by railway with the eastern Bay of Plenty districts as far as Whakatane.
18. Tauranga is a picnicker’s paradise - the harbour abounds in attractive camping grounds.
19. Tauranga can be reached by motor car run of a few hours from Waihi, Matamata or Rotorua.
20. Tauranga provides the collector with the best seashells in New Zealand.
21. Tauranga has good game shooting - pheasants, quail, hares, and ducks.
22. Tauranga has surf-bathing equal to the best, and safer.
23. Tauranga has 25 miles of land locked harbour for boating and fishing.
24. Tauranga has an old military cemetery of great historic interest.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LII, Issue 8616, 13 June 1924, Page 7
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries.

---

[i] Alan Geere, Supplements, In Publishing (2010) https://www.inpublishing.co.uk/articles/supplements-1682

[ii] https://irishsheetmusicarchives.com/History/Sunday-Newspaper-Supplements.htm

[iii] Peter O’Connor & Peter Robinson, The Times Supplements, 1910-1917 https://brill.com/fileasset/downloads_products/The_Times_Supplements_background_article.pdf

[iv] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18770509.2.16.1?items_per_page=10&page=3&phrase=2&query=supplement&snippet=true&sort_by=byDA&title=BOPT

[v] Bay of Plenty Times, Volume IX, Issue 927, 21 August 1880, page 2.

[vi] Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 14460, 4 September 1947, page 2.

[vii] Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XV, Issue 2152, 17 June 1887, page 2.

[viii] Evelyn Stokes, A History of Tauranga County, page 259.