April Fool's Day and the Tauranga Ladies Rest Room
From Tauranga City Library’s archives
A monthly blog about interesting items in our collection
An April Fools Day prank reported by the Bay of Plenty Times in 1964 was flour footprints leading to Tauranga's Ladies' Rest Rooms in Spring Street...
April Fool's Day Prank (Ladies Rest Room) (Photo gca-6426)
Although the joke isn't readily apparent sixty-one years later, the front of the Ladies' Rest Rooms were clearly visible, which caused some excitement when this negative was discovered as part of the ongoing Gifford-Cross project to re-house and digitise approximately 140,000-180,000 negatives contributed by local photographers to the Bay of Plenty Times.
There is another view of the building, tucked between Hayman Sharplin's Real Estate Agents and the New Zealand Insurance Company, in the 1965 Bay of Plenty Times photograph of members from the Australian Salvation Army Youth Congress...
Aust. Salvation Army Youth Congress - Wellington (Photo gcc-11226)
The rest rooms visitor's book is in our archives (Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries
Ams 106), unfortunately in very poor condition, it is still possible to carefully turn the pages and read entries from Mrs' and Misses noting the date, where they were visiting from, and what they thought of the facilities.
Detail from the first page of Ams 106 - Ladies’ Rest Room visitors' book, Tauranga, 1937-1946, showing comments from 2-5 February 1938.
Not an April Fools Day prank was the first meeting of the Tauranga Women's Representative Committee on 1 April 1935, where those present agreed to draft a letter to the Borough Council along the lines of...
"We the undersigned, being residents in and near the borough of Tauranga, emphatically protest against the action taken by the Borough Council, in deciding to build the Ladie's [sic] Rest Room on the Town Wharf, believing that such a position would be dangerous to life and limb, and detrimental to health; and urge that further investigation be made before the work is proceeded with."
excerpt from Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Ams 22
Eighteen months later "the rest room scheme provided another animated controversy at the Borough Council meeting", with the Bay of Plenty Times describing the debate where Councillor McKinnon opposed 'anything being erected on the waterfront
They had a waterfront that was unequalled in the Dominion. It could not be measured in pounds, shillings and pence. In the waterfront they had glorious nature and nothing should be erected that was detrimental to it'
Bay of Plenty Times, 15 October 1936, p. 3.
After over two years of debate, discussion and public petitions, the rest rooms were finally constructed in Spring Street in 1937. Stephanie Smith's
blog and Abby Wharne's
talk, provide more of the history.
The Strand retaining green park spaces for people to walk and play.
The Strand, Tauranga, from the Taumatakahawai (Monmouth Redoubt). 1939 or 1940. Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 02-346
Sources:
Bay of Plenty Times. (1936, October 15). Ladies' Rest Room. Waterfront site. Vetoed by Council. paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19361015.2.30
Smith, Stephanie. (2015, December 25). Friday, 25 December 2015 The Spring Street Ladies’ Rest Room. Tauranga Historical Society Blog. taurangahistorical.blogspot.com/2015/12/
Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries. (2021, March 3). Women’s Organisations in Tauranga: The Past and the Curious - talk by Abby Wharne. [Video]. Pae Korokī. AV 21-003/2. paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/42917
Written by Kate Charteris, Heritage Specialist at Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries
