Any historical researcher must at some stage ponder when what might be loosely called ‘stuff’ becomes, in a more dignified term, ‘the stuff of history.’ The Tauranga Historical Society Committee conferred on the subject during a recent tidy-up, when the first Register of those who made bookings for meetings at its, relatively modern, Hall in the grounds of Brain Watkins House came to light.
This unassuming notebook, it was agreed, was not to be discarded – its listings provided a unique outline of how a new building closely adjacent to one of Tauranga’s oldest houses was incorporated into the activities of a few, apparently disparate, groups. In due course, we wondered, the activities of those groups might possibly come to be of historical interest? Thus, we also agreed, the first Register is arguably the stuff, as well as something of an accident, of history. Justifiably, therefore, the subject of a THS blog.
The Hall Register, dated “Nov 1998” on its back cover, came into use on 1 February 1999. Under the supervision of Sue Ferguson, then the live-in caretaker of Brain Watkins House, the door was opened and the lights turned on for the Tauranga UFO Information Group. This group seems still to be active in Tauranga – in 2020 its meetings were being held monthly at the Senior Citizens Club [1] – but for the first decade of the new millennium their monthly gatherings were regularly noted in the Hall Register.
Other early adopters of the new venue were the Tauranga Embroiderers Guild, who left a nice comment about the excellent light [2] and the fee, and the Tauranga Hearing Association Social Club who got together to consider a wide-ranging series of practical topics – the Road Code, the Citizens Advice Bureau, stroke rehabilitation and other therapies, Search and Rescue; in May 2000 a happy overlap delivered a talk from Harvey Cooke of the UFO Information Group … the list, fascinating to anyone researching the history of deaf culture, goes on ….
As well as the establishment of a venue for the Historical Society’s own meetings, much appreciated after many years of ‘camping’ in a variety of rented or borrowed rooms [3], the Hall became an early base for Tauranga’s Aviation History Society, eventually to become the Bay of Plenty Classic Aircraft Trust [4]. It is good to know that their ambitions for a museum of aviation came true.
The Hall’s simplicity and serene garden location seems to have been attractive to several religious groups. The first such to use the Hall was Unity on the Mount, which had become an approved organisation for the purpose of the Marriage Act 1955 on 21 June 1999 [5]. Two months later, on Sunday 5 September, Mr George Watson organized two hours of worship, the first of many weekly gatherings that came to an end in September 2004. A Catherine Ruby Watson was among the list of marriage celebrants published in the Gazette of 26 April 2001 [6]. (The Hall Register does not reveal that any of the bookings actually involved a marriage ceremony.) In August 2000 Unity on the Mount’s Sunday services were complemented by the Thursday meetings of the Sri Sathya Sai Group of Tauranga [7]. When Unity stopped using the Hall, their Sunday slot was filled from October 2004 by the Society of Friends, aka Quakers, an arrangement that continues to this day.
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| Tauranga Historical Society’s Annual General Meeting in April 1995 Tauranga Historical Society Collection |
What does this small body of information amount to? Might I hope that some researcher of the future, seeking evidence of ‘alternative’ social networks in Tauranga at the turn of the twenty-first century, would find this list as intriguing as I do? Based on the example of the Hearing Association and the UFO Information Group, there was at the very least an exchange of ideas, a distinctive life of the mind, among those who came and went from the Hall. The Register is not evidence of overlapping membership, of course. That is something for my researcher of the future to explore. What is evident, especially in 2004, is that, among themselves, word got around. (This was after the World Wide Web [8] but before Facebook [9].)
It comes to this: even if these groups’ commonality derived only from the circumstance of their regular meetings at this small, simple and low-cost (then hired out at a flat rate of $20 per session) venue, I feel I have made a case, even from this short distance of time, for the historical importance of the first Register of bookings for the Tauranga Historical Society’s Hall.
[2] The writer is aware that even better light, as well as space for an expanded group of embroiderers, was eventually found at the Tauranga Rowing Club’s Clubrooms in Memorial Park, Tauranga.
[3] Such as the downstairs lounge of the Baptist Church Centre, cnr Cameron Road and 13th Ave: https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/23916
[4] https://register.charities.govt.nz/CharitiesRegister/Search. See also https://www.classicflyersnz.com/aboutus.html
[7] This group, too, seems still to be active: https://www.sathyasai.org.nz/Tauranga
[8] “The Web began to enter everyday use in 1993-4 when websites for general use started to become available.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web
[9] “Facebook was then opened on September 26, 2006 to everyone aged 13 and older with a valid email address.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Facebook
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