162 Years On: The Māori Rifle Pits of Te Ranga

From Tauranga City Library’s archives

A monthly blog about interesting items in our collection

Around 6.45am, Sunday the 21st June, I arrive at Joyce Road and pull into the last space available in a small carpark to my left. Rain continues to fall as I hastily exit my car and offer a quiet “mōrena” to the koro standing nearby. In a soft tone, he replies, “mōrena, dear,” as he readjusts his gumboots and shuts his boot, and together, in the darkness, we silently make our way across the road to Te Ranga Reserve. There is something in that brief exchange, simple, unassuming, that settles into me as we walk. In the hush of the early morning, with rain falling and senses heightened, I become aware of the space between us not as distance, but as connection: between generations, between memory and lived experience, between those who carry the weight of this place differently but walk it together all the same. His presence is steady, familiar with this whenua and what it holds. Mine is quieter, searching, trying to understand what it means to stand here not just as a visitor, but as uri.

For me, it is my first time attending a service like this for the battle at Te Ranga. As a direct descendant of tūpuna involved in the conflicts of Te Ranga and Pukehinahina, I feel the weight grow heavier with every step I take, not oppressive, but grounding, drawing me closer to something I am only beginning to fully comprehend. For the koro walking beside me, this is likely not his first, and most certainly will not be his last. There is a quiet knowing in the way he moves, as though each step is guided by memory, by obligation, by remembrance. As we draw closer to the southern edge of the reserve, the sound of karakia emerges in the distance. As the sky begins to lighten, I recognise my whānaunga, standing by the cairn, his voice anchoring the moment as those arriving quietly come together nearby. And as the kaumatua and I cross this tapu space to join them, I begin to understand that this place is not simply land, it is layered with story, with loss, with enduring presence.

Five kilometres south, inland from Gate Pa lies this historical battle site.[1] The conflict, premature in its onset, became the final stand-off between Tauranga iwi, their allies, and the government’s military forces. For defending iwi, the landscape of Te Ranga offered a naturally defensive position for the construction of rifle pits. A sketch of the area in 1864 mirrored its narrow, level ground, constrained by ravines to the west and east.[2] (see Figure 1). The north-facing rifle pits stretched across the narrow isthmus, making an approach from the rear near impossible without deadly consequence. In retrospect, I find myself wondering, had Māori been better positioned in their preparations, might tactical advantages such as these have changed the outcome entirely? The potential for this fortification to have inflicted a deadly repeat of Pukehinahina was not lost to the military in published reports. One such account described details of the pā’s already sophisticated formation, despite its unfinished state.

“….the shortest and clearest mode of explaining the position will be by imagining the capital letter A to be the piece of land, bounded at the apex and two sides by gullies, with the road from the Gate Pā leading to the base. The transverse line in the letter will admirably represent the traversed rifle-pits, which in the course of a single night had been carried, semicircularly, for a distance of from 160 to 170 yards, three feet or more in depth, and two feet in width. The earth had been thrown on the south side of the pits, preparatory to forming the parapet, but the works had not been sufficiently advanced to give the latter any precise form, when the soldiers appeared on the ground. The rebels continued working at the pits, deepening and widening them, whilst the skirmishers were favouring them with occasional shots. A number of posts had been placed in the ground on the right side, and rails were found laid in front of the pits, measured to the requisite lengths, with a good supply of supple-jack for wattling. It was thus evident the gallant colonel had not made his dispositions for the assault one moment too soon, for, in all probability, in another day the fence would have been put up; and, from the number of hands engaged in the work, great progress would also have doubtless been made with the parapet...”[3]

Various records of old that I skim over show conflicting numbers of Māori killed and buried in the defensive trenches they themselves dug. Journals of the Deputy Quartermaster General in New Zealand records 108[4] Māori were buried there, another account noted 120[5] whilst Private George Alfred Crabbe’s first-hand account says 125 were buried in total.[6] Even if the exact number of those buried at Te Ranga remains uncertain, the weight of that loss is undeniable. For iwi, it was not only those who fell, but the extinguishing of a generation of rangatira and the loss of future generations whose paths also ended there. 

Colonial accounts, however, like that of Lieut. General Fiennes Colvilles, reveal actions that underscore a profound cultural dissonance in their attitudes toward the fallen. He who led the storming party on the left side of the rifle pits, later wrote to his parents describing how he cut a lock of hair from ‘head chief’ Rāwiri Puhirake’s head immediately after he fell. He further described how the sudden assault prevented any return for the fallen, who lay in rows near the rifle pits through the night until they were buried the following day.[7] Other voices linger over the scene, the stillness after the violence, and the cautious concealment of tupāpaku within the battlefield’s trenches. Crabbe, a participant in the battle described chief Puhirake as having been "laid by himself, wrapped in a blanket and positioned at the head corner of the trench", with others buried en masse nearby.[8] Fifty years later in 1874 at the request of Rawiri's people, his remains would be exhumed and reinterred in the shaded grounds of Mission Cemetery, traditionally known to his people as Otamataha Pā (see Figure 2.).

In the aftermath of this skirmish, accounts suggest that the range of arms used by Māori in the trenches was relatively limited, yet still of notable significance. The weaponry used by warriors at Te Ranga was vividly illustrated by Horatio Gordon Robley, a settler-soldier whose artistic ability employed him to capture pivotal moments during these conflicts.[9] These items, aptly deemed taonga in today’s terms ranged from close combat weapons such as the patu (short hand-held club), and toki patiti (short handled steel headed hatchet) to the taiaha (long tongue-headed spear) and the deadly tewhatewha (long club-like spear).[10] These relics bore witness to a final act of resistance against overwhelming colonial force, yet, in hindsight, the spirit and momentum of that resistance did not end with their deaths. Beyond these physical remnants is a powerful legacy of those who fell where they fought and those who escaped their pursuers and sought refuge in the darkness of nightfall. 

The mounds that once defined their resting place have levelled with its surrounds over the decades. With the passing of both Māori and Pākehā who knew its whereabouts, the site has become elusive, its presence now obscured by the very earth they fought to defend. What was once a place of urgency and violence now appearing as unremarkable pasture, shaped by the same contours that once influenced the battle on that fateful day 162 years ago.This place however, still holds its memory. Beneath the soil and sand lie traces of hurried digging and lives lost, marks of moments that reshaped Tauranga’s history and carried lasting consequences for mana whenua across generations. But there they rest, returned to Papatuānuku, held within her and within us, and remembered through collective memory.  For those like the kaumatua and I, who move through this place with quiet awareness, Te Ranga is not silent. The echoes of struggle, loss, and resilience remain in the whenua, carried through the kōrero we share so they are not forgotten, and ensuring those who fell here are always present in place and story. 

Māringi ngā roimata mā koutou, okioki atu rā hei whetu mārama i te pō nui, te pō roa, te pōtangotango, moe mai e ngā rangatira, i te aroha mutunga kore o te Atua, mō ake tonu atu, kei wareware tātou.

            Piper Andrew Graham at the 160th Commemoration of the Battle of Te Ranga, with the hapū flags behind him, representing tūpuna who 

            fought there. Te Ao Mārama Tauranga City Libraries Photo 24-188 

---

[1] Battle of Te Ranga., (Manatū Taonga - Ministry for Culture and Heritage). https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/battle-te-ranga

[2] Te Rangi, N.Z. Rough sketch of ground occupied by rebels on 21st June 1864 / by Lt. Warburton ... sketched on day of action.  Te Rangi. N.Z. Rough sketch of ground occupied by rebels on 21st June 1864 by Lt. Warburton, R.E. Sketched on day of action - Heritage Maps - Kura

[3] Sydney Mail (NSW:1860-1871) Sat 16th July 1864, p.7, ‘Latest from the Rebel Position’. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/166657204

[4] Journals of the Deputy Quartermaster General in New Zealand : from the 24th December, 1861, to the 7th September, 1864, p.122, https://kura.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/digital/collection/rarebooks/id/14250

[5] Geelong Advertiser (Vic. : 1859 - 1929) , Mon 11 July 1864, Page 3, BATTLE OF TE RANGA. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/150463632

[6] Crabbe, George Alfred, 1840-1905, Land wars history, Māori culture, fauna/ flora/ reptiles, and sketch of Orākau pā. Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries: https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/74775

[7] Letter to his parents, Tiaki IRN: 802248 Tiaki Reference Number: MS-Papers-11967-1, MS-Group-2403: Colville, Fiennes Middleton (Sir), 1832-1917: 1864. https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.802248

[8] Crabbe, George Alfred, 1840-1905, Land wars history, Māori culture, fauna/ flora/ reptiles, and sketch of Orākau pā. Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries. https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/74775

[9] Maori arms taken at Te Ranga fight, New Zealand, 21st June 1864 [picture] / by Major General H.G. Robley. URL: https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-140441624/view

[10] Tauranga Campaign: Images of arms: Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries. https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/10327

 

Mrs Ruth Mander (1915–2015)

 

Left to right: Ruth Mander, Ina Bathe, Mary Parker, and Nancy Snodgrass admiring the rose "Remember Me" at the Tauranga Rose Gardens, Robbins Park, 1991

Image: Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Ams 382/4/5

After several years working with the Tauranga Museum collection, I pondered on a number of donations made by Mrs Ruth Mander (née Prescott). Curious to learn more about them, I visited Ruth at her home on Ōtūmoetai Road in June 2011, where she shared memories of her life and the transformation of Ōtūmoetai from a rural district into a suburb of Tauranga. [1]

Ruth’s path to Tauranga began in the late 1930s after her mother became seriously ill with a goitre.[2] As the eldest daughter, she left her job in Hamilton to care for her younger siblings while her mother spent an extended period in hospital.[3] In 1937, seeking a healthier climate, her father, a First World War veteran, sold their Waikato farm and moved the family to a citrus orchard in Ōtūmoetai. 

Ōtūmoetai and Hinewa Roads, looking over Cherrywood and Bureta towards Mauao and Motuotau Island, c1950. 

Image: Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 12-575

At that time, the area was still largely rural. Work on the orchard, along with caring for poultry and a house cow, formed part of everyday life. Social life centred on visiting neighbours, swimming in the harbour below Ōtūmoetai Pā, and attending local dances. It was through these connections that Ruth met the Mander girls, Betty, Dot, and Nola. They would often bike together to attend films in town, taking the long way around as Ngatai Road had not yet been formed. These friendships would ultimately change the course of her life. 

Ray Mander, the older brother, had returned home for a holiday but stayed after meeting Ruth, and the two quickly became engaged. They purchased five acres on the Ōtūmoetai ridge and were among the first in the district to plant Chinese gooseberries, later known as kiwifruit. In a practical move to secure a government loan, they married quietly at the newly opened Tauranga Post Office in December 1938 - the first couple to do so - marking the beginning of their life together. Ruth recalled that afterwards they went to Rendell’s Photography and had a wedding photo taken and then to the only restaurant in town for a meal. 

Te Puke Times, Volume 26, Issue 52, 2 July 1937, Page 3. Papers Past.

With the help of a State Advances loan, they built a Beazley bungalow on their land, designed by Ruth herself. Construction was slow, and they did not move in until September 1939, but the house would remain their home for the rest of their lives. Over the following eight years, they had four children, bringing both busyness and energy to their lives, and it was clear that Ruth took great pride in them. While the orchard developed, Ray took on various jobs, later running a hardware shop in Ōtūmoetai and keeping bees on the property. Ruth managed the household, sewed much of the family’s clothing, and maintained strong connections within many communities.

A wicker pram purchased in the 1940s by the Manders from The Mart in Willow Street.

Image: Tauranga Museum 2005/84

Ruth became involved in numerous organisations, serving for decades as treasurer of both Forest and Bird and Rural Women, and participating in local garden clubs from the 1950s onward. Over time, the landscape around them changed. Ruth recalled that after the Second World War, orchards and farms across Ōtūmoetai were subdivided into residential sections. Roads such as Lemon Grove replaced rows of trees, and the rural district she had first known gradually became the suburb it is today.

 When I met Ruth, she was living alone, Ray having died in 1995. Despite being nearly blind, she was fiercely independent, able to stay in the home she had lived in for more than seventy years with the support of her family and her deep familiarity with every corner of it. She was particularly keen for me to identify some of the objects she had donated to the museum, and I was pleased to do so while hearing the stories connected to them - her memory remaining very sharp.

A 1930s ‘Airzone’ wooden mantle radio purchased for the Mander’s new home.

Image: Tauranga Museum 0038/95

References

 

[1]       At the time of our meeting, it felt only right to address her as Mrs Mander, so I hope she would forgive me for referring to her here as Ruth.

[2]       A goitre is an abnormal enlargement of the thyroid gland in the neck, often visible as a swelling at the base of the throat.

[3]       Ruth initially worked as a technician for Glaxo Laboratories and later took a position in the office at the New Zealand Dairy Company while waiting for an opportunity to move into their laboratory.

The Wreck of the Cutter Oi on Panepane Beach, 1890

 

Panepane Point and Beach from Mount Maunganui, showing part of the narrow main shipping channel and the Tauranga harbour.

Populated for centuries by Māori iwi, and today mostly associated with Ngāi te Rangi hapū, Matakana Island is a long, flat barrier island 20km in length and about 3km wide. The island forms a sand barrier between Tauranga Harbour and the vast South Pacific Ocean. Since time immemorial Matakana’s dune-backed beach has been a landing and wrecking site for waka Māori, and before and following the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, a diverse range of Māori and Pākehā owned sailing vessels.

The name Panepane in 19^th century European sources referred to a specific southern section of Matakana Island close to Panepane Purakau or Panepane Point, not the entire ocean beach [1]. It was in fact a name for the southernmost three kilometres located across the channel from Mauao | Mount Maunganui.

Sailing craft, driven eastward during gales, were thrown bodily onto the beach where their crews attempted to leap clear into the surf, before their vessels began a deadly mast-shattering roll. Again, when sailing vessels of all sizes attempting to enter or leave the harbour during marginal conditions missed the channel by even a little, they, depending on conditions, either grounded temporarily or were rolled and wrecked among the breakers.

A Tauranga-owned and -based cutter, the Oi became a common sight on Tauranga Moana during its three-year working career - likely named, in part, after the common nautical haloo in use at the time, “Oi, ahoy!” Kauri-built cutters were much favoured by Tauranga’s small maritime entrepreneurs though they never outnumbered schooners. Interestingly, their single owner-operators also styled themselves master mariners though their crews might number only one or two.

On 16 January 1890, the Oi left the little Bay of Plenty port of Maketū. Crossing the Kaituna River outlet through heavy surf, it began the short 27km (14.6 nautical sea mile) voyage up the coast to Tauranga with a cargo of flax. Information on the cutter’s tonnage is not available, probably because it was unregistered. Regardless, the provisions and coastal timber trade on the Coromandel and Bay of Plenty coasts between the 1870s and 90’s was often handled by sailing cutters of 8-30 tons.

A gale had sprung up a day before the Oi’s departure from Maketū, but the captain and crew, later identified as ‘Messrs W. Turner and W. Cinnamon’ undertook the voyage regardless. The Oi cutter was last seen on the same day by people near Mount Maunganui around midday. It was then battling heavy seas just off Motuotau | Rabbit Island and Moturiki | Leisure Island and heading towards the Tauranga Harbour entrance [2].

 There were soon grave fears at Tauranga for the safety of the Oi and its crew, and two days later, despite the gale which was to last for a week, an intrepid search party comprising ‘Messrs Moss, C. Faulkner, C. Spencer, Allely, Maxwell, and Cotter’, was organised. First crossing by boat to Pilot Bay below the Mount, they were informed by the crew of another cutter that had just safely passed through the Mount Maunganui Channel, that they had seen wreckage of another vessel on Matakana Island’s Panepane beach.

The old Auckland-based, gaff-rigged cutter Jesse Logan. Note the long bowsprit which, without making their masts taller, increased the sail area of cutters while allowing the sail plan to be broken down into smaller, more manageable headsails.

Crossing the channel to Matakana Island and Panepane Beach, the search party found the remains of the Oi lying literally smashed to pieces above the high-water mark.

The mast was broken off to a stump, the bowsprit was completely wrenched out, and the timbers had all parted at the stern, leaving a great gap. Her hatches were off, and the hold was swept of everything. Her rudder was found broken in two places, and her sails were found on the beach double reefed. No trace of the crew was discovered, and there is little doubt that these unfortunate young men have found a watery grave. It is difficult to say what caused the catastrophe [3].

The following day, the same party began another search along the full length of Matakana Island’s ocean beach on horses hired from the Island’s Māori residents. Half way towards Tauranga Harbour’s northern Katikati entrance ‘they found broken oars, part of a hat belonging to Cinnamon, and parts of an accordion’[4].  Footprints on the beach initially gave some hope and the cutter Eleanor and several other local boats continued the search as the gale abated. The police also searched Mount Maunganui’s forested slopes but the Oi’s crew were never found [5].

 The loss of well-captained, shallow-draught, local vessels like the Oi had disruptive as well as tragic outcomes for the Bay of Plenty’s coastal communities. From December 1887, for instance, the Oi had transported much needed cargoes of provisions and sundries twice per month from Tauranga to the settlements of Katikati and Te Puke on the Uretara and Kaituna Rivers respectively, ‘cash on delivery’. In one instance, the cutter had sailed the inner harbour route from Tauranga to deliver, to the Uretara River bridge at Katikati, sacks of potatoes, flour, sugar, oatmeal, seed, ‘maize by the bushel’, and boxes of tea, soap, candles, jam and golden syrup for the new settlers there [6]. 

A beach-wrecked ketch or sloop at the high-water mark.

The Oi was by no means the last Pākehā or Māori owned sailing craft to be wrecked or temporarily stranded in the wrecking zone on Panepane Beach. In May 1893, just three years after the Oi’s loss, the wreckage of an unidentified ketch was found on Panepane Beach following a gale. The violence of the wrecking had broken off the 25-foot mast at deck level. Again, the bodies of the crew were never found [7].

References

[1] Panepane Purakau, Western Bay of Plenty District Council,https://www.westernbay.govt.nz ›community› projects

[2] Te Aroha News, 23 April 1890: 4.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Bay of Plenty Times, 9 December 1887: 3.

[7] Grey River Argus, 9 May 1893: 2.

Image credits

Panepane Point, Matakana Island, photo/file. Kiri Gillespie, ‘Matakana Island proposal: Panepane Point plan prompts encouraging level of interest’. Bay of Plenty Times, 27 August 2020.

 ‘Jessie Logan, circa. 1880s. Restoration of NZ’s Oldest Surviving Yacht’. Image courtesy of Keith Pine, New Zealand Prosthetic Eye Service, info@prosthetic eye service.

 Abandoned maritime wreckage. Stocktake royalty free images https://www.freepik.com › free-photos-vectors  

David Topi Werahiko Borell – a tribute

On Saturday 9 May, fifty years and one day after his death, representatives of Tauranga Historical were invited to gather with members of the Borell whānau  to commemorate their koro and our rangatira’s contributions to his community.

Paparoa marae, 9 May 2026  (Image: Beth Bowden)

Family man, famed sportsman and scholar, Mr David Borell of Te Puna was a member of the Tauranga Historical Society in various roles in the 1960’s.  He was on the Executive Committee for a long time, starting in 1963 and serving as Vice President for 1965 (the job was taken over by T. R. Te Kani in1966).  But his activities extended far beyond those administrative functions, and well into the century’s – and his – 70s.

Te Puna Rugby Team, 1920.  Davy Borell is third from left in the middle row. (Image: Te Ao Marama, 08-073)

Davy, as he was usually known, famously turned down the chance to play for the All Blacks because his wife was due to have a baby.  The confidence that underlay such a decision may have come from his earlier experience as a scholarship boy:  he had won his secondary education at a big-city school, Sacred Heart College in Glen Innes, Auckland, where he learned Latin, history and geography.  He spoke te reo all his life and moved effortlessly between te ao Māori and te ao pākehā.  In his retirement, he put these talents at the service of the Tauranga Historical Society.

In the Society’s September 1964 Journal (Number 21) [1] he published a long-form article titled “Historic Te Puna”.  Being the scholar he was, it took two full pages of background description of waka voyages, social context, and whakapapa before he actually got on to Te Puna;  and in the midst of this introduction is a small personal gem:  his father saw the famous, now lost, family portrait sent by Queen Victoria in return for a gift of a sack of wheat flour milled at Rangiawahia.  Davy mentions:

My father actually saw this portrait of the Royal Family, which he said measured about three feet by about four feet.  In 1932 communication was made to the then Governor through the authorities, for a possible replacement of that portrait or something similar, but of course the request proved negative.  It was I who wrote out the request and covered almost two foolscap sheets of writing paper.

Davy then goes on to describe, in order, the pā of Te Puna – Oikimoke, Epeha, Hamaruru, Raropua, Oturu, the strange and beautiful story of Hawaiki, the island pa of Tukoro, Hūharua on today’s Plummers Point, and the inland pa of Hopuni, Tawhitinui, Pukewhanake, Paerangi.

We must note here, given the current exhibition of toki at the Western Bay Museum:

The pā at Hakarua [Hūharua]… was a repository of scores of stone axe-heads.  Miss Violet Plummer, while I was there building at her home, showed me two boxes of these stone axe-heads.  Some of them were well polished, others were of a rougher nature, and the best ones she told me were sent away to the Auckland museum, a box full of them… a taiaha was found in swampy ground lower down… Who knows, there may be a lot of other old artifacts within or immediately outside that pā.

 Davy wrote beautifully, and was a great storyteller.  He could evoke character and personality, drama, emotion, and humour.  He describes the workings of the mill on the Wairoa River, and how his father Werahiko and Hone Bidois built St Joseph’s church.  He himself learned his carpenter’s trade from Werahiko.  As late as 1967 he was still using these skills for the benefit of the Society, making “a large cabinet” for the Society archives, “placed temporarily in the Sladden Library room adjoining the City Council Library.”  A suggestion that the cabinet was included in the Museum collection (Journal Number 42, April 1971) remains unconfirmed.

He was just as much at home of the water of Tauranga Moana as the mainland, and organised two trips, both involving launch travel, to entertain and inform Society members.  Under his guidance, in 1965 they enjoyed boating out to Ōmokoroa and thence (by bus) to Whakamārama; and, in 1966, took another trip out to Motuhoa Island, which started with a pōwhiri:

After these formalities were over, the tractors with their passengers and others who preferred to walk moved off towards the western end of the Island to the home of Mr. and Mrs. C. G. Borell.  It was a lengthy trudge, for those on foot, but it helped to build up a thirst and an appetite…Mr Peter Bidois, who is a highly respected elder of the Pirirakau tribe, extended a worm welcome to the visitors in traditional Māori style.  He likened their coming to the arrival of the early Māori fleet of canoes, with the winds, from the four corners of the earth, making the same waves that had carried both the visitors and the Māori people on their journeys.

Luncheon was then set on tables on the lawn…

By far the best story of island life, however, appeared in the April 1967 Journal (Number 30). It is an account of horse racing on Matakana Island, meetings which took place on New Year’s Day of 1919, 1920 and 1921: [2]

A Committee of management was elected, Mr. Aramoana Amohau being chairman and Mr. Turoia Kuka, secretary.  The first programme  was made known by way of notebook and verbal contacts.  The news spread like wildfire, and nominations were soon received for the various races.  … one such race horse, named Oaklands, a fine upstanding brown gelding, by appearance, and that alone; anyone would have deemed defeat in a race impossible; but alas, it was not to be.  Some of the Island half-racehorses which ran against Oaklands beat him to a frazzle. 

For the descriptions of the “Island half-racehorses”, and their names, and those of their owners, and the weight of their jockeys, and the adjudication of the races themselves, and the hilarious double-booking of the Tauranga Municipal Band that eventually triggered official intervention, you really do have to read the full article.  When Davy died eight years later, the Journal editor reprinted it, along with his obituary (Number 57, September 1976).

At the end of his very first article for the Journal, Davy expressed the fear that

As we are being borne aloft on the wings of progress and speeding on into the vortex of a faster world, the very things we loved and cherished are being swept away…

Screenshot of a Matakana Island beach race in 2012.  (Image: Stan Walker, J M Media)

At the commemoration we all agreed that he would be pleased to know that horses still occasionally race at Matakana Island. [3]  

 [1] All sources for the Journal references in this essay are available on Pae Koroki.  For the Collection Summary page, go to https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/23915

 [2] For a vigorous overview on horse racing activities in Tauranga, see Leabourn, B. From the Government Paddock to Group 1 Glory, especially Chapter 3.  https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/50640

 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXgUvLgNpps&t=24s , JM Media

 

The Bay of Plenty Times, a history from 1872

From Tauranga City Library’s archives

A monthly blog about interesting items in our collection

Users of Pae Korokī - Tauranga Archives Online will regularly discover photographs from the Bay of Plenty Times. The library's Heritage and Research team has also collaborated with the National Library of New Zealand to put editions from the very first up until 1949 online via the Papers Past website. Here's a brief history of the paper, including an exciting new development for researchers! 

The Bay of Plenty Times was first published on 4 September 1872, making it one of New Zealand’s longest-running provincial newspapers. Its founder and first editor and publisher was W.B. Langbridge, with H.W. Penny also a publisher. Initially issued twice weekly, the paper consisted of four tabloid-sized pages and sold for threepence per issue. Printed on a flat-bed press from premises on The Strand, then Beach Road, it became known locally as the “Tauranga Duster.”

The first of the three long single story structures to the right is the initial Bay of Plenty Times on The Strand in the mid to late 1870s. A portion of Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 04-213.

In September 1875 ownership passed to Edward Mortimer Edgecumbe, a prominent Tauranga figure remembered in "Edgecumbe Road". By September 1878 public demand for news led the paper to publish tri-weekly and it was becoming clear that the newspaper was a powerful tool for shaping public opinion . At the start of 1879 control of the paper passed to George Vesey Stewart and A.F. Rathbone, Rathbone serving as editor and manager. Stewart was a central figure in the organised settlement of Katikati and Te Puke, and was destined to become the first Mayor of Tauranga in a few short years (1882). That first month new premises were built in Harington Street on the former Customs House site. Before the end of March, he had became sole proprietor and Rathbone was out, departing for England that May. These early years were marked by repeated disruption: in May 1881 a major fire destroyed much of the northern end of Tauranga, including the Times premises. Publication resumed in short order (7 June 1881), missing just two issues, and rebuilding began immediately. By August 1881 the new, new building was ready for use. Over the next year and a half the paper floundered and in March 1883 it was sold by order of the mortgagee. And who should be waiting in the wings but our newly minted Mayor George Vesey Stewart and the Rev. David Bruce of Auckland for £1000. 

Astute and influential, Stewart was well aware that power and media went hand in hand. But now with control well in hand and with a sympathetic business partner, management could pass to the Reverend.

Portrait of George Vesey Stewart (1832–1920), Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 21-1915

The sale was part of a wider pattern of financial instability: over its first 40 years the Times changed ownership many times, including several changes through mortgagee sales. Ownership changed again in November 1887, when Edward Alexander Haggen became proprietor and Walter James Pull was appointed printer. On 16 April 1888 Haggen handed over the Bay of Plenty Times, which was amalgamated with another Tauranga paper owned by barrister and solicitor James Galbraith.

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were difficult economic years for many provincial newspapers. Frequent changes of ownership, publication schedules, and printing arrangements were common, including at the Bay of Plenty Times. Despite this instability, the paper issued a Christmas supplement in 1897 that featured one of the earliest uses of photographs in a New Zealand newspaper. Stability began to return in the 1890s under William Elliot and General Arnold Ward, followed by technological upgrades and the construction of new printing premises in Willow Street. Photographic illustration, modern presses, and engine-powered printing kept the paper at the cutting edge in the region.

A major turning point came in 1913 when W.H. Gifford purchased the Bay of Plenty Times. Under the Gifford and Cross families, the paper entered a long period of continuity that lasted for most of the twentieth century. The Bay of Plenty Times Company was formed in 1929, and William Cross played a central role in the paper’s administration for more than sixty years. Circulation and staffing expanded steadily, supported by the growth of Tauranga and the wider Bay of Plenty, especially after Mount Maunganui developed as an export port in the early 1950s. New technologies were introduced, including linotype typesetting, reel-fed presses, rotary presses, and later full computerisation.

Bay of Plenty Times premises on Willow Street before it moved to Durham Street in 1955. Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 00-399

A 1976 fire destroyed the newspaper’s own collection of back issues, but copies survived on microfilm kept by the publisher and now held by the Alexander Turnbull Library. A collaboration between The National Library of New Zealand and Te Ao Mārama, Tauranga City Libraries has meant these historic papers are also available on Papers Past up until 1949. But in an exciting update, this collaboration in currently being extended and we can expect to see papers from 1950 to 1963 appearing in the first part of 2027. 

Bethlehem School pupils shown around Bay of Plenty Times factory in 1966. Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo gcc-13613

In 1992 the Gifford and Cross families donated tens of thousands of historic negatives to Te Ao Mārama – Tauranga City Libraries. Most date from the late 1960s to the late 1970s and are primarily 35mm film, which had replaced earlier 120-format negatives, along with a smaller number of large-format negatives. These have since been digitised and made available through Pae Korokī – Tauranga Archives Online.

That same year, the newspaper was sold to Wilson and Horton. In 1996 Independent Newspapers plc of Dublin acquired a controlling interest in Wilson and Horton, bringing the Bay of Plenty Times into a broader Australasian newspaper group.

From the early 2000s the newspaper faced industry-wide challenges of declining print circulation and advertising revenue. In response, it made significant changes to format and delivery: on 5 February 2011 the first rebranded Saturday edition, Bay of Plenty Times Weekend, was published, and in March 2013 the weekday paper shifted from a traditional broadsheet to a compact format with morning delivery.

A series of images captured by Bay of Plenty Times photographer John Borren during the Rena Disaster, 2011. Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo NZME-CD810_181111jb08

In 2014 APN News & Media’s New Zealand operations were restructured into New Zealand Media and Entertainment, or NZME, a merged national media company combining publishing, radio, and digital assets. Under NZME, the Bay of Plenty Times became part of a national network of regional newspapers. NZME lists the Bay of Plenty Times among its current publishing brands, and its Bay of Plenty presence expanded in March 2024 when it acquired Tauranga-based SunMedia, including SunLive, The Weekend Sun, Coast & Country News, and New Farm Dairies.

In 2023 a second large donation of negatives and Optical Discs containing born digital photographs was made to Te Ao Mārama – Tauranga City Libraries’ Heritage and Research Team. This captured images from the late 1970s through to 2012. These will enter the teams schedule of work in the future.

Users of Te Ao Mārama – Tauranga City Libraries can access recent editions from 2008 onward through the library’s PressReader subscription, available free to library card holders.

Sources:

Pae Korokī - Tauranga Archives Online, The Bay of Plenty Times, 1872 - (Organisation)

Pae Korokī - Tauranga Archives Online, Gifford-Cross Photographic Collection

Pae Korokī - Tauranga Archives Online, Bay of Plenty Times moments in history

Pae Korokī - Tauranga Archives Online, William (Bill) Cross interviewed by Rosalie Smith in 1985

Tauranga District Museum Oral History Unit, Interview with Mr William Frederick Wallis Cross

A Bay of Plenty Times timeline (1995), part of the Vertical Files in the former New Zealand Room (Tauranga Library)

Papers Past (Bay of Plenty Times)

New Zealand Media and Entertainment (Wikipedia)

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Written by Harley Couper, Heritage and Research Team Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries