E is for Embroidery

“Success is not fame or money or the power to bewitch. It is to have created something valuable from your own individuality and skill, a garden, an embroidery, a painting, a cake, a life." Charlotte Gray, Canadian biographer and historian

This sampler is an example of embroidery created to demonstrate skill and proficiency in needlework. 
Tauranga Museum, 0283/84.

This embroidery sampler was created in 1913 by Iris Shead and, according to Tauranga Museum’s receipt book, was donated to the collection in 1972 by Mrs Wapp. When I first came across it, a few questions quickly came to mind: Who was Iris? How old was she when she embroidered the sampler? And where, or what, was Hamont?

Research revealed that Iris was born in Ashburton in 1898 to Amy and Walter Shead. Just a year after her birth, her mother was involved in a shocking railway accident at Rakaia, where four passengers were killed when two excursion trains collided due to excessive speed. Amy was pregnant at the time and sustained serious back injuries, prompting Walter to take a civil case against the Crown. The case was successful and became something of a landmark, leading to improvements in railway safety across New Zealand. Amy received £700 in compensation, and Walter £500, awarded for “the expenses he had been put to by his wife’s illness (he had been forced to hire a housekeeper) and as compensation for the loss of society and companionship.”

The Rakaia Railway Disaster: view of wrecked carriage in which victims were killed. 
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-18990324-04-03

 You may be wondering what any of this has to do with an embroidered sampler. A few months after receiving the payout, the Shead family left New Zealand for Europe. By 1913 Iris, aged 14 or 15, was living in Hamont, Belgium, where she embroidered this sampler.

In 1920, Iris married Englishman Wilfred Phillips, had a son, and eventually returned to New Zealand. She later divorced Phillips and, in 1927, married Arthur Wapp. Together they would also have a son. Through all these moves and life changes, Iris’s sampler travelled with her. Toward the end of her life, she chose to preserve it by donating it to the museum’s collection. What initially appears to be a modest example of needlework becomes something far more evocative - a stitched record of a young woman’s life shaped by family tragedy, migration, and resilience.

Jocelyn and the King of Siam

Jocelyn Dumbleton at Pilot Bay, c. 1930s-1940s
Tauranga Heritage Collection, Ref. 0211/21

Many of us remember the splendour of the great musical shows of the 1950s and 60s such as “My Fair Lady”, “Oklahoma” and “The King and I”. The latter was the story of the King of Siam’s desire to modernise and westernise his country, which he had protected from colonisation, and had an English governess teach his children. This world attracted Jocelyn Dumbleton, a young English civil engineer who specialized in designing and building railways, to apply for a position in the Siam (Thai) State Survey and Railways Departments.

Jocelyn Charles Dumbleton (1877 – 1964) was born in Southsea, Hampshire, educated in England, and died in Tauranga, New Zealand. He was the son of General Charles Dumbleton and brother to Arthur Dumbleton, who had arrived in New Zealand some years earlier and married one of the daughters of George Vesey Stewart in Katikati.

Dumbleton spent the years from 1902 to 1909 in the Siam State Survey Department, and from 1909 to 1917 in the Siam State Railways, during the reign of King Chulalongkorn of Siam. It was the King’s father, King Mongkut, who had avoided the power of the European colonialists and began instituting modernisation in Siam. He is the King on whom the film ‘The King and I’ was based, and had appeared in the book “Anna and the king of Siam”. The internal reforms continued during King Chulalongkorn’s reign included instituting a uniform and centralized system of administration over the outlying provinces, abolishing slavery, establishing law courts and reforming the judiciary. He also introduced a modern school system and constructed railways and telegraph systems. 

After several years of successful work developing the railways, Dumbleton contracted malaria and returned to England on sick leave. Jocelyn Dumbleton was awarded the Order of the Crown of Siam third class, by King Chulalongkorn. The law in England required the permission of the King of England for any subject to accept an award from a foreign monarch and George V permitted acceptance by Dumbleton.

Wyke Lodge, Wellington
Tauranga Heritage Collection

He did not return to Siam, and eventually resigned from his position, settled in Wellington in 1919, and set up a private civil engineering practice. Dumbleton married Winifred Alexander (1894 – 1961) in Auckland in 1918, and they had one child, Phyllis Joyce (1919 - 1986), who spent most of her life in Tauranga.

In Wellington, he designed and built a house “Wyke Lodge”, named after the family home in Hampshire. This is where Phyllis spent her first few years.

Dumbleton’s Rotorua house
Tauranga Heritage Collection

By 1923 he was practicing as an architect in Rotorua where he built his next house in Pukakai Street. Dumbleton appeared to be listed in the 1930s as a farmer in River Road, Hamilton while their daughter Phyllis attended the Waikato Diocesan School.

Dumbleton’s Mount Maunganui house
Tauranga Heritage Collection

In 1931 Jocelyn Dumbleton appeared on the Tauranga electoral roll and built the house at Mount Maunganui on a block in the Cedric Banks subdivision. The house was built in the dunes facing the sea but the address was then Te Ngaio Road.  The address of the current building is 54 Marine Parade, Mount Maunganui and consists of an apartment block.

Dumbleton’s Mount Maunganui house
Tauranga Heritage Collection, Ref. 0179/21

The house was built on a timber frame with weatherboard cladding and a corrugated iron roof. It was a two-story building with bedrooms and a living room upstairs, all with sea views. He repeated a feature of his Rotorua house, installing bi-fold windows in the Mount house. Possibly the use of these windows enhancing air flow may be a carry-over from his years living in the tropics.

 

Dumbleton’s Mount Maunganui house
Tauranga Heritage Collection, Ref. 0186/21

Dumbleton built another dwelling he described as a “cottage” on the plan so it is difficult to tell if he regarded that one as a bach as he had other Tauranga addresses over time in Ohauiti, and Turrett Road before their last address in Grange Road. This building has an unusual roof line and from the east elevation, the roof appears to be mainly a hip roof with a skillion at the rear.  The large voids for windows on the seaward (front) wall may indicate he planned to use the bi-fold window style visible in the image of his Rotorua house.

As well as being a keen photographer since boyhood, Jocelyn spent much of his retirement sailing. During World War Two an escaped prisoner stole Dumbleton’s yacht “Jeanette” and sailed for the East Cape, where he was apprehended within a few days. Jocelyn Dumbleton may not have been your average Mount Maunganui retiree but was representative of a class of Englishman who found returning to the British Isles after working for years overseas unsatisfactory and chose instead to live in one of the Dominions.

Plans of Dumbleton cottage
Tauranga Heritage Collection

Max Avery ably told Phyllis Dumbleton’s story in his article in the Historical Review, Volume 66, No.2 November 2018.

Sources

Dumbleton Collection at Tauranga Museum. (photographs and documents)
Various NZ newspapers Papers Past
Online British newspapers
Wises NZ Post Office Directories
NZ Electoral Rolls
Bob Scott

Tauranga Railway Wharf Cargo Shed

by Guest Author Max C. Avery

For nearly 40 years the cargo shed on the Railway Wharf was the very busy hub of Tauranga’s mercantile marine commercial trading. It remains the only substantial architectural feature of the Tauranga water-front of the previous century - a reminder of bygone days when the wharf was crowded with sailing scows, coastal and trans-Tasman steamers and motor ships.

Railway Wharf, early 1930s
Real photo postcard, photographed and published by Robert J. Rendell
Tauranga Heritage Collection Ref. 0318/10

The shed had its origins in a 1919 proposal for development of the Port of Tauranga by engineer J. Blair-Mason, commissioned by the Tauranga Harbour Board (THB): “The construction of the quay proposed as part of the railway works at Tauranga should meet the needs of the coastal trade for some time to come, and allow for berthing a superior and large class of vessel,” the engineer surmised. At the time Tauranga had only the Town Wharf (off Wharf Street) and the Victoria Wharf (off Harrington Street), of which Blair observed: “None are adapted for berthing large vessels, or for the rapid handling of cargo and the quick dispatch of vessels.” With remarkable optimism and foresight, they recommended the construction of 9530 ft of berthage at Tauranga and 13,170 ft of berthage at Mount Maunganui.

Unidentified steamer arriving at the Railway Wharf, Tauranga, c. 1927-1935
Unmounted loose Velox print, postcard format, by unidentified photographer
Tauranga Heritage Collection Ref. 0692/08

However, the Public Works Department’s plan for a quay of about 710 ft at Tauranga prevailed. The East Coast Main Trunk Railway (ECMT) was then being built, and in February 1924 the bridge link to Matapihi was completed and the rails laid to the Town Wharf. Construction of the new wharf (which would be known as the Railway Wharf, as it carried a spur line from the ECMT) and the cargo shed began early in 1925 and was completed in 1927, although at first the wharf provided only 320 ft of berthage. The cargo shed, with sliding doors opening to the wharf on one side, and a landing for motor trucks on its Dive Crescent frontage, was a much-needed and much-utilised feature. When the last section of the ECMT (from Katikati to the Wairoa Bridge) was opened on March 28, 1928 the wharf went into full operation, with some cargo being transferred direct from ships’ holds to railway wagons, and other items into the shed or through to motor trucks, and vice versa.

“Dive Crescent – Situated at the north end of The Strand, is a hive of industry.”
Half-tone print used in Western Bay of Plenty Year Book, c. 1950s
Collection of John & Julie Green

Under the steady supervision of long-time wharfinger Jack Treweek, coasting vessels of all types, sailing scows, steamers, motor ships, and scows converted to mechanical propulsion, hailing from ports north and south, were found berths in order of their arrival. The masters of coasters like Clansman, Seagull, Kohi, Toa and Tuhoe had pilotage exemptions, and it was said they could smell their way up the Stella Passage in the dead of a dark and dirty night. All manner of general cargo, some bagged, boxed and baled, some in sacks and barrels, and drums, and individual items like machinery and motor vehicles, were hoisted onto the wharf using ship’s gear, for there were no wharf cranes. Steam and kerosene stationary engines hissed and banged as they turned the winches and capstans. The wharfies skilfully handled the ropes to land the cargo on big iron-wheeled trollies, to be trundled off to the cargo shed. There Jack Treweek, and the representatives of the Northern and Union Steam Ship Companies, if their ships were alongside, scanned cargo manifests and organised temporary storage in the cargo shed, or immediate onward carriage of goods.

“Three of a Kind: Aerial photo of the Company’s Hotunui, Nikau and Maunganui occupying the whole of the available berthage at Town Wharf, Tauranga, September 1955.”
Advertisement for The Northern Steamship Company Limited, mid- to late 1950s
Collection of John & Julie Green

Cargo over the railway wharf and through the cargo shed grew steadily. Until 1949 all imports were exclusively coastal in character and Tauranga’s wharf had never been busier. Ships were sometimes double-banked, awaiting a berth alongside the wharf. Tauranga Harbour board chairman Jock Reid reported a record 55,600 tons of cargo handled in 1953, and in June 1954 the New Zealand Herald surveyed Tauranga shipping and noted that that “Tauranga town wharf will remain the principal point for handling provincial and inter-island coastal cargo as well as a considerable tonnage of export timber, but further increased shed accommodation will be required.” However, the wharf and cargo shed were about to become victims of their own success, for in 1955 the chairman of the directors of the Northern Steamship Company was reported as saying that the inadequate port facilities at Tauranga were involving the company in losses on its provincial trades.

Railway Wharf, Dive Crescent, Tauranga, c. late 1960s
Loose silver gelatin print (90 x 128mm), photographed by Paul Anderson
Tauranga Heritage Collection Ref. 0063/15

By this time the Sleigh Line of Australia was sending its ships James Cook and Matthew Flinders to Tauranga to load cargoes of timber. L.B. Mckenzie and Bert Godfrey were busy pioneering this trade and Dive Crescent was becoming quite congested with New Zealand Lumber Company straddle trucks carrying packets of timber between road, rail and ship, while fork lifts handled exports from the Whakatane Board Mills. By 1957 the Northern Steamship Company was declaring that congestion was such that the company had to curtail its services to Tauranga.

Tauranga Railway Wharf Cargo Shed and warehouse, Dive Crescent, Tauranga, 1959
Medium format film negative, publ. Bay of Plenty Times
Copyright NZME, Collection of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. gca-1156

The company was advised in June 1958 by the Tauranga Harbour Board that plans were in hand for the immediate construction of extra berthage space at the wharf, but it seems it was too little and too late. Load restrictions were placed on the deteriorating decking of the wharf, and the Mount Maunganui Wharf was then open and thriving. Within a few years the Northern Steamship Company flag would be only a memory at Tauranga. That situation applied also to most of the small coastal traders, as union activity saw them becoming increasingly uneconomic.

Tauranga Wharf railway lines being renovated, November 1964
Medium format film negative, publ. Bay of Plenty Times, 21 Nov 1964
Copyright NZME, Collection of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. gca-7720

During the 1960s the trend in cargo handling was to bulk palletisation and containerisation. Individual items were carried by more efficient road transport, and with fewer general goods there was less need for the cargo shed. In March 1965 Poranui was the last NSS Company coaster to visit the Railway Wharf. The occasional cattle carrier called, the Wilson Portland Cement Company’s bulk carriers continued to be regular visitors, but they had no use for the cargo shed. Yet the wharf still provided a useful berth. When harbourmaster Captain H.A.C. Hodkinson took a 441 ft Liberty ship up the Stella Passage the occasion went into the record book as the longest ship to berth at the Railway Wharf. THB pilot Captain John Weston created a new and enduring record on June 26, 1968 when he berthed the 460 ft log carrier Kyotaku Maru at the war, but the cargo shed remained largely idle.

H.M. Submarine Taciturn berthed at the Tauranga Export wharf (aerial view), July 1965
35mm format film negative, publ. Bay of Plenty Times, 19 July 1965
Copyright NZME, Collection of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. gcc-10375

The construction of the Tauranga Harbour Bridge and its opening on March 13, 1988 sealed the fate of the Railway Wharf and the cargo shed. From that date nothing larger than trawlers and launches could navigate the harbour south of Sulphur Point due to the height restriction caused by the bridge. The Railway Wharf continued to deteriorate and was in part demolished, but the cargo shed, still sound and weather-tight after nearly 40 years as the hub of Tauranga’s maritime commerce, was hereafter used for a variety of social purposes.