Lawyer Bromfield's Trial by (Rugby) Combat

The Strand, Tauranga, taken from the Monmouth Redoubt, c. 1886
by The National Photographic Company (A.A. Ryan, Manager)
Albumen print (160 x 215mm) mounted on card
Courtesy of Tauranga Heritage Collection, Ref. 0620/08

It’s rare for me to be stuck for a topic for the Historical Society blog. But, as the deadline approached, and perhaps as a consequence of the Covid-19 lockdown, I felt fewer symptoms of oncoming inspiration than usual. My shot in the arm? A look into the Bay of Plenty Times issued Saturday 10 July 1880 – one hundred and forty years, plus one day, before the date of this post. And there, in the middle of page 3 (the Times always offered two pages of advertisements before its readers got to the ‘real’ news), was a story with a tantalising headline: “AN EXCITING FOOTBALL MATCH ON THE TAPIS.” [1]

The article was, it turned out, a jolly colonial jape. The anonymous ‘correspondent’ (my money is on the editor himself) put forward a fake news story: a putative proposal to resolve a conflict as to which local body was responsible for the lamentable state of the street at the north end of the Strand. The outcome was to be determined by whoever won a rugby game. Rain was stipulated over shine; the teams were to come from the staff of the County Council and the Town Board, and to play in uniform. The ground itself was to be the northern-most section of the Strand variously and elsewhere described as a slough, a bog, or a large puddle. Afterward, our correspondent declared, they could clean up in the harbor and go on to a dinner together, “at which the hatchet will be permanently buried”. Admission was to be free. Spectators were to be encouraged by a bell, rung along the rest of the Strand by someone I have identified as Peter Grant [2], the contractor whose deliberate pace of work (he was almost certainly worried about not getting paid for it) had so exasperated local solicitor Archibald William Bromfield that he had issued a legal claim under the Public Works Act 1876 against the Town Board. The BP Times’ ‘correspondent’ nominated Bromfield as the umpire for the match.

Warming to his joke, that correspondent also advised readers that Mr Bromfield had “received instructions to prepare the wills of the combatants” who were, he further asserted, “on application to Mr Sheath ... appalled to find they could not insure their lives ... as the probability is that some of them will get swamped and smothered in the mire.”  The Coroner and an undertaker would be in attendance, and a team of bullocks, our mendacious informant concluded, would be there to pull inextricably stuck players out of the mud.

Northern end of The Strand, Tauranga, June 2020
Photograph by Beth Bowden

Bromfield, I am certain, would have taken the joke in good part, and relished the ridicule being leveled at the two reluctant Councils. His was a short, zestful and intriguing life that ended in the saddest of circumstances in 1889. It is hard to make this blog more about street improvement shenanigans in Tauranga than about him. In July 1880, however, he was fresh off the boat from Gisborne, where he had briefly settled after a voyage out from London in 1876 [3]. In Auckland, early in the following year, he had successfully applied for admission to the Bar of the Supreme Court [4] and was for a short while in partnership with one William Henry Connell [5], who eventually – and successfully - sued Bromfield for debt [6]. While in Gisborne he seems to have been appointed Crown Prosecutor [7], but little in the Court cases reported from there indicate his actually taking on this role.

A.W. Bromfield was around 35 years old when he set up his law practice in Tauranga, which makes the Bay of Plenty’s report of a claim to twenty years’ experience in the law just barely credible [8].  In Gisborne he had acquired his wife, Josephine [9]. I have found no record of their marriage in New Zealand [10], but they set up house (having left their home and all its chattels, including a piano, on sale in Gisborne) on the east side of Cameron Road in the block between Spring and Elizabeth Streets. He was to spend seven years in Tauranga, and it is evident that he was humourous, gallant and, until the very end, undaunted in facing down the vicissitudes of life.

Including a large, deep and muddy expanse outside his 1880 office door. Readers no doubt realise that 140 years ago the Strand was, actually, on the beach; and was, for that reason, highly convenient for boat traffic as well as horse- and bullock–drawn vehicles. The combination of commercial street appeal and very poor, tidally-affected drainage involved a hideous compromise. Bromfield, having suffered the indignity of mud coming over his boot-tops, put up his own (presumably wooden) sidewalk [11]; but the Town Board was not even prepared to accept the Chairman’s suggestion that “a few” cartloads of sand (not without its own problems [12]) be put down on the road itself [13]. In an election year, Bromfield sought £90 in damages from a debt-beset Town Board [14].

Extract from the Bay of Plenty Times, 16 Jan 1883
Image courtesy of Papers Past

Even in an election year, however, the seasons change. It is not clear that the action for damages was ever pursued (or that there would have been much point in pursuing it). It seems, sadly, that the Monty Pythonesque rugby grudge match did not take place. What is clear is that in August 1880 A.W. Bromfield’s professional brother in law, E.G.B. Moss, moved into offices right next door [15], whence the two counsel launched a not-quite-partnership rich in legal adventure and interest.

It’s also apparent that, in spite of my best efforts, this post turns out to be less about Tauranga roading politics than about Tauranga personalities. A biography of Bromfield does not exist: such is not my field, but I recommend him to anyone seeking a subject whose life combines moments of real bravura as well as the sloughs of despond.  And in 1880 he saw no dire symbol, only the joy of the combat, in the object of contention outside his Strand office.

References

[1] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/bay-of-plenty-times/1880/07/10/3. So pleased was the writer with the piece that it was reprinted in the Bay of Plenty Times of 15 July as well.
[2] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18800703.2.18.  Amusingly, Bromfield successfully managed Peter Grant out of a sticky indebtedness situation the following month: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18800821.2.8
[3] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AS18761111.2.12
[4] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AS18770331.2.10
[5] I have been unable to find a connection to the well-known Auckland firm of Meredith Connell, established about 95 years ago: https://www.mc.co.nz/about-meredith-connell
[6] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH18790509.2.38
[7] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/PBH18790611.2.9. Even this was not without contention; one C. C. Lucas thought the job should have been his.
[8] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18791218.2.6. Articled clerks were often quite young. https://englishlegalhistory.wordpress.com/tag/articled-clerk/ It’s possible Bromfield was claiming some early guidance from his father, a JP and Doctor of Law, who died in Bath, 17 April 1887: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18870627.2.13.2
[9] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/PBH18791211.2.3.3
[10] I have her name from the birth certificate of their son, James Archibald Bromfield, born 23 May 1887: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18870524.2.5, https://www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/Search/Search?Path=querySubmit.m%3fReportName%3dBirthSearch%26recordsPP%3d30#SearchResults
[11] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18800729.2.19.1
[12] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18800722.2.5
[13] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18800703.2.18
[14] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18800710.2.16
[15] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18800821.2.7.7