Beazley's Pre-Cut Houses

Construction of Beazley Homes’ admin block, Hull Road, Mt Maunganui, November 1966
120-format film negative, Published in the Bay of Plenty Times, 9 Nov 1966
Collection of Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī photo gca-13802

In 1950 local father and son home builders, Barry and Fred Beazley, began expanding throughout the North Island. By 1961 they were in the South Island and a year later the company Beazley Homes Ltd. came into being with its head office at Hull Road, Mount Maunganui.

Aerial view of Beazley Homes’ yard, Hull Road, Mt Maunganui, c. October 1966
35mm-format film negative, Unpublished Bay of Plenty Times photograph
Collection of Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī photo gcc-11112

They occupied a large block of land which included the timber yard, Mount Timber and Hardware, the truss plant, the moulding shed and the pre-cut division. The main entrance to the yard was off Hull Rd. The company was known for its pre-cut timber frames that could be sent all round New Zealand and the Pacific.

Train load of Beasley [sic] Homes leave Mt Maunganui
Black-and-white postcard (140 x 88 mm), publisher unknown
Tauranga Heritage Collection, Ref. 0039/11

The pre-cut division was staffed with approximately twenty people; one quantity surveyor, three draughtsmen and seventeen others whose job it was to set out the plates and frames, cut the roofs and studs and pack up each completed house lot.  A train came in to the rail siding each day to pick up the wagons loaded with the pre-cut houses. Forty went out each week to franchise builders from Whangarei to Wellington.

Beazley Homes Ltd brochure, c. 1970s
Tauranga Heritage Collection, Ref. 0390/24/1-28

In 1974 all the plans and quantities had to be changed from imperial measurement to metric – a massive job as every measurement on the plans were affected. As a cost saving exercise Beazleys decided to change all inside walls from 4x2 to 3x2 and so all the plans and quantities had to be changed again. After six months it was discovered that 3x2 walls couldn’t keep the studs straight so the plans had to be changed back again.

Beazley Home exhibit at Trades Fair, October 1966
(Detail) 120-format film negative, Published in the Bay of Plenty Times, 11 Oct 1966
Collection of Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī photo gca-13393

The completed houses left Beazleys like giant flat packs and were loaded onto ships at the wharf for the Maldives, Papua New Guinea and Australia. The pre-cut houses sent to Australia were destined for miner’s homes at Mt. Tom Price and a hundred at a time went to Weipa in far north Queensland. One delivery of a hundred arrived there without the kitchens, there was a ‘slight delay’ as the kitchens caught up with the rest of the houses. Hurricane bolts were sent for each corner of the house to prevent the houses from being blown apart during a cyclone.

Pre-built Beazley Homes Ltd. accommodation unit for export market on back of truck, 1977
Fletcher Holdings Archives, Ref. P9006/6

Beazleys sold out to Fletchers in 1973. Pre-cut houses have been replaced by pre-nailed frames and the pre-cut roofs with trusses.

Sources

Fletcher Trust Archives
www.nzherald.co.nz
Pae Korokī Tauranga City Library
Selwyn Neal
Tauranga Heritage Collection

Brain Watkins House Garden Party – A Special Milestone

 

Mr and Mrs B.C. Julian examining a family postcard album on the front steps of Brain Watkins House at the Tauranga Historical Society’s inaugural Garden Party in December 1979
Photograph by the Bay of Plenty Times photographer, published 3 Dec 1979
Courtesy of Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. Photo nzmec-33738

In November the Society hosted visitors to the Brain Watkins House and garden as part of the biennial Bay of Plenty Garden & Art Festival, the second time we have done this instead of our usual Garden Party. What members and visitors alike probably didn’t appreciate was that the occasion happened to be the 45^thanniversary, almost to the day, of our first Garden Party on 1 December 1979.

Willie Watkins and Elva Brain, c. August 1965
Photo Brain Watkins House Collection

The home of Elva Brain and Willie Watkins on the corner of Cameron Road and Elizabeth Street was left to the Society earlier that year as a bequest in Elva’s will and the garden party was an opportunity for members and guests to inspect the house and gardens which are still the Society’s home, and an important focus of our activities. More than 150 members and their guests attended, many in Victorian costumes, including then Mayor Eric Faulkner with his wife Connie, MP for Tauranga, Keith Allen, film and television actress Pat Evison, and visitors from historical societies in Hamilton, Whakatāne and Te Awamutu. We retain strong links with the Whakatāne & District Historical Society in our joint publication of the Historical Review, the Bay of Plenty Journal of History.

Wooden half hull model by Joseph Brain, Brain Watkins House Collection

Guests had an opportunity to view the rooms of the home containing not only the existing furnishings in a setting reminiscent of earlier decades, but also mementoes collected over a century. On display were old family photographs and documents, including Joseph Brain’s will, plans of his engineering projects around Tauranga, early photographs of the house, cups won at sailing regattas and even prizes won by Elva when a schoolgirl.

Elva Brain in the arms of her mother Kate, with her four older sisters, on the steps of their home, c. early 1890s
Carte de visite photograph, Brain Watkins House Collection

Elva was born in 1891 the house which her father Joseph Brain had built a decade earlier, and she lived in it for most of her life. She and her sister Bessie inherited the property when her mother died, and she became the sole owner after her sister died in 1957. The layout of the rooms and their contents have changed little since 1979, the Society choosing to preserve and maintain the look and feel of the early New Zealand home, with all its idiosyncrasies.

Brain Watkins House guides Leslie Goodliffe and Glennis Smith with the Brain family postcard album which featured in the 1979 Garden Party photo, 16 Feb 2025
Photo: Brett Payne

We also look after the more ephemeral contents of the house, such as the postcard album pictured in the photograph. Our conservation plan is currently being updated and our volunteer team not only show visitors around the house, but keep up an ongoing monitoring of the house’s condition. With the assistance of both the Tauranga Heritage Collection and the Tauranga Library’s Archives, the Society is in the process of conserving and digitising many of the house’s artifacts, and ensuring that they are cared for in the most appropriate physical and environmental conditions.

Exciting donation of natural history illustrations to Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries

 From Tauranga City Library’s archives

Small in stature and slight of frame; Arnold Henfrey Watson led a demanding outdoor life. New Plymouth born in 1882, he moved to Australia for a few years, droving in New South Wales and later in Tasmania, where his grandparents resided. Returning to New Zealand, he took up farming in Shannon, bush-felling in Hawkes Bay, and shepherding on large stations in the Gisborne region. He and his brother Spencer broke in a large block of undeveloped land in the Pongakawa Valley, Te Puke. They felled a rimu and built a homestead from split slabs and shingles, far from the nearest road and neighbour. A keen observer of the natural world he had a love of sketching and painting what he observed.

With the onset of World War I, he travelled to the Rotorua recruiting office to enlist, where he was drafted into the Auckland Mounted Rifles before being transferred to the 15th NZ Company of Imperial Camel Corps in Egypt and Palestine. During his service, he participated in key campaigns across the Sinai and Palestine regions, secretly documenting the landscapes and wildlife through sketches in a series of diaries, against army regulations. Some of his illustrations made their way into the ‘Kia Ora Coo-ee’, the magazine produced in Cairo for ANZAC troops in the Middle East. Stumpy, the camel assigned to him, featured in at least one of these. These diaries make up part of Ams 294 and until recently were the only artistic records we had of his. 

Arnold aboard Stumpy, Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 11-168

The passionate natural historian he was, he continued to capture detailed watercolours of insects, spiders, and fish after successful fishing trips later in life.  The illustrations reveal his efforts to capture each species' local and scientific names, a difficult task in the 1930s to 1950s.  Modern marine biology students might be interested in his observation of local species during that time. His family cherished these natural history illustrations but they were nearly lost when a fire broke out within a moving van between Wellington and Christchurch. The works survived, but not without sustaining some smoke damage. 

Arnold's granddaughters at the Tauranga Archives with Heritage Specialist Harley Couper, in 2024.

In April 2024, two of 'Bang’s' granddaughters, as he was affectionately known, donated a significant collection of his natural history illustrations to our archive. These are now part of Ams 507, which was digitised in September of 2024. 

"Sepioteuthis bilineata", an older name for "Sepioteuthis australis", commonly known as Ngū, the Southern Reef Squid or Southern Calamari

 

1 of 79 colour illustrations on card featuring various butterfly and moth specimens collected mostly in the Bay of Plenty

Arnold Henfrey Watson retired to Mount Maunganui when his asthma made it difficult to keep working.  He died suddenly in 1960 while swimming at Puru near Thames. 

By Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Heritage and Research Team: Harley Couper

Sources: 

• The Natural History Illustrations of Arnold Henfrey Watson
• Arnold Henfrey Watson (1882-1960)
• Diaries of Arnold Henfrey Watson

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 This archival collection was digitised in September 2024 and is located 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

 

The When and Why of Provincial Anniversaries

Provincial government boundaries came into effect on 17 January 1853. Over time the number of provinces increased to ten
Map courtesy of Te Ara, The Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Two recent work-related mix-ups around Auckland Anniversary Day got me wondering about the when and why of provincial anniversaries. A quick search online revealed their relevance is increasingly debated and calls for consolidation, or even cancellation, are frequent. One of the most persistent arguments is that regions, like Waikato, should have their own celebration. Seemingly anniversaries being determined by a system of provincial government established in 1852 and abolished in 1875 is at best antiquated, and at worst, a vestige of colonialism. [i]

William Hobson, Oil portrait by James Ingram McDonald
Courtesy of Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa

Six regions currently celebrate Auckland Anniversary - Waikato, Auckland, Coromandel, Bay of Plenty, Northland, Gisborne, and parts of Manawatū-Whanganui. The day carries the additional historical significance of being New Zealand’s first public holiday. The commemoration date of 29 January marks the arrival of William Hobson in the Bay of Islands in 1840 and was gazetted in 1842:

Saturday, the 29th instant, being the SECOND ANNIVERSARY of the establishment of the Colony, His Excellency the Governor has been pleased to direct that day to be held as a GENERAL HOLIDAY on which occasion the Public Offices will be closed.[ii]

Hobson would later state that 30 January was the day the Union Jack was hoisted up the Herald’s flagpole at Kororāreka (Russell) and British Sovereignty over New Zealand was proclaimed. As a result, there was some fluidity around the date of the anniversary. At the end of the 1800s and the turn of the 1900s, the Bay of Plenty Times regularly printed advertising which used either date.

Advertisements for the annual Athletic Sports Day held at the Tauranga Domain on Auckland Anniversary Day. Printed in the Bay of Plenty Times in the weeks before each event, they show how the two dates were considered Anniversary Days. Courtesy of Papers Past

With ‘Mondayisation’ the date we observe the holiday is different each year. Indeed, in 2027 Auckland Anniversary won’t even be in January, the Monday falling on 1 February.[iii] Not that this will be the first time it’s been held in February. In 1901 the death of Queen Victoria necessitated the postponement of the celebration.[iv]

The campsite of the advance party sent to establish the newly founded city of Auckland, September 1840
Courtesy of Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, Ref. E-216-f-115

Last year, in an additional twist to the date debate, Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Trust called for the holiday to be moved to 18 September – the day Ngāti Whātua chief, Āpihai Te Kawau, gifted Hobson 3000 acres to establish the settlement of Auckland.[v] According to the trust this was the “true birth of the city”.[vi] While this seems a valid point for Auckland, those of us in the regions might be left wondering if it is indeed time to go our separate ways. However, it might be a case to be careful what we wish for as how can the Bay of Plenty – as diverse as it is – find a date of significance to all?

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[i] Why NZ’s outdated regional anniversaries should be ditched | The Spinoff Auckland Anniversary 2024: Waikato community leaders supportive of own celebration - NZ Herald

[ii] The New Zealand Government Gazette, 26 January 1842, (Volume 2, 4th edition)

[iii] For those reading this blog in the future this year’s date is 27 January 2025.

[iv] Papers Past | Newspapers | Bay of Plenty Times | 30 January 1901 | TELEGRAPHIC.

[v] Yeah, Nah: Should the date for Auckland Anniversary Day be changed? | Stuff The case for celebrating Auckland’s anniversary on September 18 | The Spinoff

[vi] https://www.stuff.co.nz/te-ao-maori/350158615/newsable-auckland-anniversary-date-has-no-relevance-city#:~:text=The%20Ng%C4%81ti%20Wh%C4%81tua%20%C5%8Cr%C4%81kei%20Trust,does%20not%20relate%20to%20Auckland.

 

Wooden Monuments – Markers of the Past

Sometimes only trees are left to remind us of human settlement. And sometimes their absence does the same. Now that a lattice of shelter-belts characterises the landscape around Tauranga, including my home locale of Te Puna, it is difficult to picture the transformation that has taken place as a consequence of both Māori and European settlement.

Google map, screenshot of Te Puna area, Snodgrass Road in the centre

About a millennium ago, when a group of ocean-voyaging waka made landfall in the sheltered waters of Tauranga Moana, the new immigrants found a remnant population, Nga Marama, and a vista of timbered hills receding to what came to be known as the Minden dome. A tiny sample of that dense bush, the reserve at Whakamarama, can be seen as a dark irregularly-shaped patch in the bottom left-hand corner of the above Google maps image[1]. But even that is not ngahere horomata (virgin forest). It was milled for timber in the early twentieth century by the Sharplins, a rival to the Gammans’ operation in Oropi[2].

Most of Tauranga was without trees for centuries before Europeans arrived. An early survey noted its countryside as “good soil, fern and tutu”[3] and the sketch made of the harbour entrance looking south from the deck of the HMS Pandora[4] offers no indication of a fuzzy, tree-lined inland horizon. Archaeological studies tell us that the local style of agriculture was a cycle of burning, cultivation and planting, moving on when the soil ceased to be productive and returning when it had recovered.This allowed no time for aboriculture. Such timber as there was was likely dedicated to building waka and important wharenui. The most venerated tree in Te Puna, a pohutukawa growing on the ravaged slopes of Pukewhanake close to the Wairoa River, is unlikely to be very ancient, although these tolerant and adaptable trees can live for half a century or more.

Old gum tree, corner of Tangitu and Te Puna Roads, 2025
Photo by Beth Bowden

The trees we see in Te Puna, therefore, were all planted after European settlement. Many of them were indeed markers of settlement, nineteenth-century examples of exotic arrivals in waves of arboreal fashion. This Australian gum has stood at the end of Te Puna Road for possibly a century. A rapid-growing species, this specimen was already huge to my five-year-old eyes in 1958.

Phoenix palms, end of Snodgrass Road Te Puna, 2025
Photo by Beth Bowden

The rusticity of this image was chosen in deliberate contrast to the sophistication of a stand of three phoenix palms that mark the end of Snodgrass Road, an area of Te Puna that was subdivided by landowner Sandy Snodgrass between 1930 and 1950.

Sutton kauri woodlot, Wallace Road Te Puna, 2025
Photo by Beth Bowden

For years after the Snodgrass homestead itself had disappeared, the Norfolk pine that marked a shady corner of its tennis lawn stood high above the surrounding rows of casuarina and matsudana willow shelter lines: cheap, mass-produced and unbeautiful trees kept trimmed for optimal economic benefit to the orchards they protect. That pine no longer pierces the skyline of Te Puna; but just along the road, on land that once was Snodgrass’s farm, a stand of kauri marks a twentieth-century investment.

Baby grey heron, Ettrick Farm, 1960
Photo by Shirley Sparks

Snodgrass Road is a name applied to a more ancient ara – a well-used pathway between the harbourside and the Minden that surveyors marked as a convenient line for a road. At its inland end, the trees changed. Farmers like John Munro preferred sturdy macrocarpas to wind-tossed fronds. Not only did a line of conifers mark his boundary with the Harper property to the north; he planted a macrocarpa near his barn and cowshed, at the bottom of wife Mary’s beautiful garden. By the time my parents took over the property, which they named Ettrick, this tree was a vast Ent-like structure.[5] Its strength and generous shade made it the ideal site for the periodic slaughter and butchering of a farm sheep for the household’s mutton. A more innocent image was caught by my mother in 1960.

Macrocarpa planted on L T Harper’s property, Te Puna
Photo taken 1970 by Shirley Sparks

The Harper farm had its signature macrocarpa too. I think Len’s father must have planted it, on the very top of the hill that was the highest point of their farm. This tree, much loved by the Harper family and ours, succumbed to disease in 2015 or so. It was a true landmark on both State Highway 2 and the horizon of the surprisingly small pastoral area that made up the productive part of the Munro’s, Sharp’s, and then the Sparks’ family farm.

Hay harvesting, Ettrick 1967
Photo by Shirley Sparks

My father made his hay on paddocks that were flat enough to take the machinery. While he cut and wind-rowed the grass himself, using his trusty Fergusson tractor, Rex Williams’ baler was a large and unwieldy beast, and the bales once made were picked up on a truck. Gradient was the key factor in an efficient, mechanised harvest. And macrocarpas loomed over the whole operation.

Hand-drawn map of Ettrick by Shirley Sparks, 1964
Photo by Beth Bowden

The treeline boundary on the lower left marks an important, original survey line that dates from Theophilus Heal’s map of 1867[6]. Here it is again, running on the diagonal in a hand-drawn map done by my mother in 1964.

Shirley Sparks mock-planting with a tiny trowel on the new house site, Ettrick, 1967
Photo by Beth Bowden

Local memory is bound up in trees. They have a chancy existence amongst their human companions, being vulnerable to development pressures, carelessness and climate change; but, left to themselves, their lifetimes extending well beyond those of the people who planted them, they can command a quiet significance. My mother who turned 95 while this essay was being written, has planted many and many a tree, not all of which have lasted her distance.  But those that will survive her will carry her memory. The same is true for others who set their saplings at roadsides and on hilltops. Trees may indeed have a secret life – and they tell a public story too.

References

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[1] For an interactive scan of the extent of the thousand-year-old Kaimai bushline, go to

https://www.google.com/maps/@-37.7041192,176.0304427,7647m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDEwNy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

[2] https://taurangahistorical.blogspot.com/2020/06/

[3] Map of Otumoitai West, Parish of Te Puna, Cook County, SD 420

[4] https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ Pacific Ocean NEW ZEALAND From Surveys in HM Ships Acheron & Pandora Captn. JL Stokes, Comndrs B Drury & GH Richards Assisted by… 1848-1855

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ent

[6]  Map of Otumoetai Block, parish of Te Puna, Cook County, SD 424