Tauranga in 1934: G. Duncan’s City Centre Plans

From Tauranga City Library’s archives

A monthly blog about interesting items in our collection

If you’ve ever wondered what Tauranga’s 'CBD' looked like nearly a century ago, G. Duncan’s 1934 survey drawings are a fascinating window into the past. These two maps - accessible in Pae Korokī as Map 21‑001 and Map 21‑002 - capture a city in transition, balancing its small-town roots with the ambitions of modern planning.

Tauranga properties in the city centre - sheet 1. Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Map 21-001

We don’t know much about G. Duncan himself, but his work speaks volumes. His detailed survey of Tauranga’s CBD shows a bustling hub concentrated along The Strand, especially between Spring Street and Hamilton Street. This was the commercial core, lined with shops, fruiterers, bootmakers, drapers, clothiers, furniture makers, paint shops, loan and mercantile offices, garages—and, of course, hotels, tea rooms, and billiard rooms.  Even noted is the Gasometer on Grey Street and the banks on the corners of streets.

Tauranga properties in the city centre - sheet 2. Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Map 21-002

Duncan’s plans captured an extraordinary level of detail, showing not only the footprint of every building, but also sheds, garages and outdoor lavatories. It documented each structure’s size, level of completion and storeys, and the materials used for walls and roofs. Even infrastructure like water reticulation, with pipe diameters, pressure levels, and parapet heights, is noted. This level of precision would have made the maps useful planning tools for the city to respond effectively to fires, to prioritise areas for growth and determine how Tauranga could balance practical needs with new planning laws.

Screenshot showing key to Tauranga properties in the city centre - sheet 2, Map 21-002

Sadly, you have to look very hard to see many of these buildings still standing, although there are a handful, particularly near the lower end of Devonport Road. When used in conjunction with other local resources, we are able to cross-reference and determine where previous owners had their premises.  Following, is an image, outlining names of business owners and their premises in 1934, on the corner of Wharf Street and The Strand:

Screenshot of part Map 21-001

We can only guess why these maps were made, however, the Central Tauranga Heritage Study (April, 2008, p 33-34) mentions that the Town Planning Act 1926 required all boroughs with populations over 1,000 to prepare a planning scheme by 1930. Tauranga’s first operative town plan didn’t arrive until 1969, but Duncan’s 1934 survey was almost certainly part of the groundwork for that process. 

Central Tauranga Heritage Study: part one, April 2008, p16

Next time you need to link a name to a location in central Tauranga, download G. Duncan's maps and you may be surprised at the connections you can make.

Sources

Duncan, G. (1934). Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Map 21-001 Tauranga properties in the city centre - sheet 1 | Pae Korokī

Duncan, G. (1934). Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Map 21-002: Tauranga properties in the city centre - sheet 2 | Pae Korokī

 

Gainsford, Jennie, Matthews & Matthews Architects Ltd, R. A. Skidmore & Associates, Rorke, Jean Euphemia Finlayson, Trutman, Lisa. (2008, April). Central Tauranga Heritage Study : part one, April 2008 Tauranga City Council & Bay of Plenty Regional Council. https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/109864

Palmer, Kenneth, Waitangi Tribunal: Te Rōpu Whakamana i te Tiriti o Waitangi (2006). Legislation governing town and country planning in Tauranga Moana 1953-1990. Wai 215 - Waitangi Tribunal Tauranga Moana Claims https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/27713

 

New Zealand Legislation: https://www.legislation.govt.nz/

 

Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Map 24-371. (1963). City of Tauranga – District Planning Scheme https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/115677

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Written by Jody Smart, Heritage Specialist at Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries

 

A to Z of Tauranga Museum: B is for Bathing Suits

 

Image courtesy of Tauranga Museum, Robert Gale Collection, 0005/20/539

As the Bay of Plenty summer continues to be hot and locals and visitors alike flock to the coast, it’s hard to miss how deeply beach culture is woven into our identity. From sun-soaked days on Mount Maunganui beaches to the salty breeze off Te Awanui, these experiences have shaped our city’s character for generations. The Tauranga Museum holds a treasure trove of artifacts that tell this story.

Gifted by Tauranga Historical Society, Tauranga Museum, 0230/11

Its collection captures the essence of seaside leisure: beach umbrellas for shade, surf boards for thrill-seekers, picnic baskets for family outings, and even a bottle of Q-tol – the once-popular lotion that soothed sunburn long before we understood the importance of sunscreen.

                                1930s swimsuit, made in England.               Early 1980s Expozay, made in Tauranga.
                                       Tauranga Museum, 0151/16                           Tauranga Museum, 0032/14

But the real stars of the collection might be the bathing suits. With 83 suits spanning more than a century, this collection charts the evolution of beachwear - from modest woollen costumes to sleek Lycra designs. Many of the suits reflect not only innovation in materials and design but also changing attitudes toward fashion and freedom of expression.

For example, the museum holds two Jantzen swimsuits that were manufactured in Wellington by A.J. Coleman Ltd under licence from the American brand.  They were the height of style in their respective decades. During the 1930s and 40s, new fabrics emerged, sleeves vanished, and bold colours became the norm – as seen in a striking bright blue swimsuit:

1930s-1940s Jantzen swimsuit. Tauranga Museum, 0019/00

 Moving forward to the 1970s, and designers were embracing Lycra, a revolutionary fabric that allowed for greater flexibility and comfort. This floral swimsuit illustrates the shift toward vibrant patterns and figure-hugging styles that defined the decade:

1970s Jantzen swimsuit. Tauranga Museum, 0266/11

When I first heard of Papamoa

 Papamoa farmland - typical flat land that the Baylys farmed in the 1920s.

Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo gca-20628

I can remember my parents talking about Elsie Walker when I was a child.  In fact, it might even have been part of a ‘stranger danger’ conversation with them.  The year before I was born, my father had heard on the radio that Bill Bayly had been hanged.  What does this have to do with Papamoa, my current home, you may well ask?

Elsie Walker, Auckland Weekly News, 28 February 1929, p.50 

Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19290228-50-05

Elsie, an Opotiki girl, lived with her aunt and uncle, the Baylys, on their farm in Papamoa in 1928 when she disappeared.  Coincidentally, so did their car.  Some days later, her body was found in Auckland at Panmure, and the car was discovered with an empty petrol tank at Papatoetoe. Elsie did not drive.  The sandshoes she was wearing were worn out as though she had walked the seven miles from Papatoetoe to Panmure. The police and coroner could not establish her cause of death, with opinions varying from exposure to accidental. A witness claimed to have seen the car being driven to Auckland by a man with a woman sitting in the back seat, already dead, but the accuracy of this information was not conclusive. Some suspicion arose about Bill Bayly, Elsie's cousin, but he claimed to have been in Auckland all along, and the police believed him.

Mr F K Hunt, a Stipendiary Magistrate, spoke at the inquest stating that the public were entitled to a better service from the Police than they received in that case.  He referred to mistakes and described the enquiries as inefficient. No person ever faced trial for the murder of Elsie Walker.

William Alfred (Bill) Bayly, NZ Truth, Issue 1246, 17 October 1929, Page 7
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZTR19291017.2.33.1.2

Five years later William Alfred Bayly, a married man with two children by then, was farming at Ruawaro near Huntly.  Bill Bayly lived on an adjacent farm to Christobel and Samuel Lakey. Other neighbours noticed one day in October 1934 that the Lakey’s cows had not been milked that morning and set about doing so. The Lakey’s 110-acre farm carried 51 dairy cows. The neighbours were concerned to find no sign of the Lakeys in their house and it was not long before they found the body of Christobel Lakey dead with her face in the duckpond.  As soon as this news spread around the district people assumed Samuel Lakey had murdered his wife.  

The search for Samuel Lakey, Auckland Weekly News, 8 November 1933, p.46 

Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19331108-46-02

Police searched for his body, with the help of local people, expecting that it might be a murder/suicide.  Lakey’s shotgun was found in a creek on Bill Bayly’s farm and blood was found on items at his place.  The two farmers had fallen out and argued over a fencing issue when Bayly’s bull got into the paddock with Lakey’s cows, and they did not get on generally.  Mrs Lakey has said she believed he had killed Elsie Walker and could well kill them. Police used chemical tests that revealed that there were charred bone fragments on his shovel, for he had tried to burn Samuel Lakey’s body in a drum.  On 10 January 1934, Bayly was charged with Samuel Lakey's murder and he hanged for it in the following July. Gossip spread around the country and the version that I heard a decade later was that he fed the body to his pigs.  The guilty verdict reinforced the suspicion that he had murdered his cousin in Papamoa.

Burial of Samuel Lakey with his wife
Photo: KELLY HODEL / Waikato Times by kind permission

Christobel was buried in an unmarked grave in Huntly while Samuel's remains became part of the police's investigative and forensic training exhibits collection.  It was not until 2015 that the Police released the remains for burial and arranged to have a name plaque placed on the joint grave. The Lakeys were English and had no family in New Zealand.

Classic Refreshments of a Kiwi Summer

 

Mrs J. T. Trotter left and Mrs S. A. Sefton with three-year old Steven Trotter enjoy fish and chips on the Strand reclamation. Published Bay of Plenty Times 23 March 1971.

Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo gcc-16664

Who among us has not enjoyed a sunny seaside snack of fish and chips, coupled with a fizzy drink and maybe followed by an ice cream?  How long have Tauranga residents been able to do so?  It took quite a while for the components of this classic meal to come together.

Exactly 152 years and two days ago, at a race day at the Tauranga racecourse on 14 January, 1874, hot and thirsty spectators were offered a fizzy drink – the long-standing classic and ubiquitous ginger beer. Messrs Grant & Co superintended the refreshments tent [1[ and a Mr. Clarke handed out the non-alcoholic beverage, probably in sturdy, re-usable bottles that looked like this:

Tauranga Museum, 3189/85
Image courtesy of Tauranga Museum

Ginger beer was enormously popular, not only for the slightly daring implication that it might be intoxicating, but also because it was cheap and easy to make in a bottling plant or at home.  (Ginger was also a well-loved spice and thought to aid digestion.)  Prizes were awarded for the best home-made ginger beer at A & P Shows[2] and by 1923 T.H. Hall was offering it in a commercial quantity[3]:

The other elements of our now-traditional meal trio were less easily adaptable to open-air enjoyment.  The first reference I can find to an offering of fish and chips is in the Bay of Plenty Times of 16 April 1909 [4], where Mr W. H. Beets, one of the firm of Beets Bros. that flourished briefly in Tauranga during the early years of the century, offers a terse invitation:

This is, unfortunately, some months after the same paper had advertised the Beets Bros clearing sale, so maybe it is a last gesture to mark the end of their endeavours from their premises on the Strand? 

I have been unable to trace the location of either the Beets’ “depot” or the “Strand supper room” as such – it may have been a venue so convenient and well-frequented that everyone knew where Mr Beets’ hospitality would be on offer. Supper rooms were to be found as part of larger buildings all over Tauranga, so this one was very likely to be part of another establishment, possibly the Commercial Hotel.  In this, approximately 1908, photo, where the two-storey hotel is the backdrop, fish can be seen hanging on its verandah:

Tauranga Museum 0333/21
Image courtesy of Tauranga Museum

One thing is quite clear, however – in early Tauranga, fish and chips were not eaten out of paper on your lap[5], but were served on plates set on tables.  The clearest evidence of this is provided in 1911[6]:

So – mass public consumption of fish and chips occurred much later than ginger beer.  And, still later, came ice cream.

Column header, Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XXII, 9 December 1896, Page 3[7]

People knew about ice cream, of course.  But suspicions of the mass-produced stuff were rampant.  The 1909 – 1910 issues of the BP Times carry several stories of high microbe counts, the presence of arsenic, and even ptomaine poisoning.  So the cream had to be reliably sourced (Beets Bros had advertised a milk ordering service during their time here); and, although pasteurisation was well understood as a preservation process, it was complex to accomplish.

The 1896 feature article, underneath  “The Dairy” headline, highlights the way in which an apparently American manufacturer achieves production in sufficient quantity to supply the ice cream parlour in his city for the summer months.  The correspondent, J. Moldenhower, states: “Thus treated you can ship your cream with absolute safety in jacketed [i.e., insulated] cans any reasonable distance.  If the cream on arrival at its destination is cooled again to below 50 degrees, it will keep sweet for 24 hours at least even without freezing.  The pasteurised cream not only keeps from souring, but it keeps its flavour perfectly fresh for several days.”

Well, maybe.  For some time ice cream was to remain a delicacy made in private homes, involving much labour.  

Ice cream maker, Tauranga Museum 2115/85
Image courtesy of Tauranga Museum

By 20 January 1913, however – one week less than 113 years ago – we are back at the Tauranga races, where, in the “capable hands of Mrs F. H. Hammond”, a midday dinner was provided, followed by “afternoon tea, ice cream, and cream and fruit, from 2 p.m. till 6 p. m.”[8]

It could be said that Mrs Hammond broke the ice.  In October of that year, an ice cream stall was up and running at a Methodist Church sale of work[9]; and at last, in 1914, ice cream was to be had from a shop on the Strand[10],  Whitehead’s Tea Rooms.  Did Whitehead’s customers get to wander along a sunny street licking a cone?  Almost certainly not.  A thick conical sundae glass kept the confection colder for longer (anyone who has eaten ice cream made from real cream knows how quickly it drips and puddles).

A century ago our 1970's family eating with their fingers al fresco on the Strand may have chosen Whitehead’s for their classic summer meal.  And they might have found it as delicious as the fizz, fish, chips, and ice cream of today.

Ice cream sundae glass, Tauranga Museum 0209/85
Image courtesy of Tauranga Museum

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[1] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18740114.2.8
[2] See, for instance, results listed in the Bay of Plenty Times of 24 March 1916, 16 March 1917, and 15 March 1918
[3] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19230111.2.2.6
[4] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19090416.2.7
[5] An early example of such informality, however, is the account of the Peace Celebration in 1919, when, along with ginger beer, participating children (in large numbers) were given paper bags containing a lunch (likely to be a sandwich, a cake and some fruit).  Having eaten its contents, they felt free to blow up and pop! the bag.

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19190723.2.10
[6] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19110529.2.6
[7] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18961209.2.19
[8] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19130120.2.8
[9] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19131020.2.5
[10] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19141118.2.18

 

 

The Centennial Film in Tauranga, 1938-39

From Tauranga City Library’s archives

A monthly blog about interesting items in our collection

In 1938 the Government Film Studios, part of the Tourist and Publicity Department, started filming for a production to celebrate New Zealand’s centennial year in 1940. A short sequence of settlers landing from the ship that carried them from England was shot on location on Ocean Beach. The lower slopes of Mauao are visible in the background, but are not identified.
There are several reports in the Bay of Plenty Times on the filming of what it called the New Zealand Centenary Film. A front page article on Friday 4 November 1938 describes the arrangements being made ahead of the arrival of the production unit and two lead performers. They included collecting ‘properties’ to represent the arrivals’ belongings, and recruiting extras for the scenes on the beach.
The St John Ambulance Association proposed holding a fundraising ball where the attendees would attend in period costume, the best of which “will be given the opportunity of appearing in the film”.
The ball was held in the Town Hall on 28 November, with the costumes worn described enthusiastically in the Times the following day. Some of those selected as extras are listed, including a Miss Doreen Mander. Pae Korokī contains scans of two copies of a photo of a Miss Dorothy Mander in costume – presumably the same person.

Dorothy Mander in costume for filming on Ocean Beach, Mount Maunganui
(Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 01-343)

 Planned weekend rehearsals went ahead over the weekend of 2 and 4 December 1938, despite bad weather. There is a gap in reporting until 16 December when the director, Mr. Bridgman, and leading lady of the film, Miss Una Weller (accompanied by her mother), judged the costumes at a fancy dress ball for school children held at the Peter Pan Hall in Pacific Avenue. On 20 January 1939 there was a notice calling for extras for some filming at Whareroa.
Pae Korokī has scans of five other photographs taken during the filming on Ocean Beach. Three were provided for scanning by Ray Armstrong, one by Marion Proud, and we have a print from an unknown donor in our Climate Controlled Room.

Filming on Ocean Beach, Mount Maunganui 1938-1939

(Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 01-155)

Sets and extras on Ocean Beach, Mount Maunganui 1938-1939

Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 01-156

These two photos were provided by Te Ao Mārama's then New Zealand Room team for a Bay of Plenty Times feature called “Back in time”, one in 2001 and another in 2006. Several people responded with more information - "Mr W. D. Moxham of Alexandra [writes that].... as a child he was an 'extra' in the film, qualifying for this privilege not because of his acting prowess but because he was top in arithmetic that day at Mount Maunganui Primary School" (Bay of Plenty Times, 18 August 2001).

This information enabled the dates of the filming to be narrowed down. However, no informant could remember the title the film was eventually released under – “One Hundred Crowded Years”. The articles found in Papers Past for 1938 helped make the connection. This led to the discovery of more detail about the production from a chapter in a 2004 book edited by William Renwick (listed in the Sources and available online). This doesn't mention who played the Māori seen on screen, opening a hāngī to feed the new arrivals, guiding the settlers into the bush, and later attacking a redoubt.

A lack of resources and the outbreak of World War 2 in September 1939 dramatically slowed the completion of the film. It wasn’t released until the very end of the Centennial Year, when “the government gave it to the National Patriotic Fund Board, which made it available to provincial patriotic committees to screen as a fundraiser” (Renwick, p. 269). It toured the country for the next 18 months, raising £1,200.

The fifty-minute film can now be watched on Archives New Zealand’s YouTube channel, with the landing sequence starting at 12 minutes 35 seconds, followed by the pioneers’ journey inland to start breaking in the countryside for farming (filmed around Ōropi at the same time).

 

 

As you might expect of a celebratory film of the period it skims quickly over the complexities of the Treaty of Waitangi, land ownership and later instances of warfare between Māori and Pākehā. This may be particularly so since the film’s ending included footage of New Zealand soldiers boarding a ship back to the Old World, to fight in a war with no certain outcome.

Exploring part of the set built on Ocean Beach, Mount Maunganui 1938-1939

Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 01-269

In early December 1938 the film’s director wrote to the Mount Maunganui Town Board for permission to build “temporary huts, etc., on the ocean front necessary in the taking of the Centenary film”. This was granted, but it looks like the budget didn’t stretch to anything too elaborate.

Sources:

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVII:

Issue 12497, 4 November 1938, Page 1

Issue 12517, 29 November 1938, Page 1

Issue 12521, 3 December 1938, Page 4

Issue 12521, 3 December 1938, Page 5

Issue 12522, 5 December 1938, Page 1

Issue 12531, 16 December 1938, Page 4

Issue 12258, 20 January 1939, Page 4

 Renwick, William. One Hundred Crowded Years: The Centennial Film. Chapter 19 of Creating a National Spirit: Celebrating New Zealand's Centennial. Wellington : Victoria University Press, 2004. Pages 260-270.

“The Tin Shed” : the origins of the National Film Unit. Wellington : New Zealand Film Archive, 1981.

Early documentary film in New Zealand - last paragraph. Retrieved 20 December 2025

One Hundred Crowded Years. Wikipedia. Retrieved 18 December 2025. 

Written by Leslie Goodliffe, Information Access Specialist at Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries