Tauranga Historical Society

Friday, 13 June 2025

The Pilot House on Mauao

Pilot House on the slopes of Mauao, Mount Maunganui, c. 1950s
Collection of Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. Photo 99-243

Access by sea has always been important to Tauranga since the first European ship, the Herald, entered the harbour in 1826. The barriers of the Kaimai Range and a swampy strip of land between hills and sea prohibited any form of transport except on foot for many years.

By the time the Land Wars ceased, there had been an increase in the number and size of ships entering the harbour, and several had been wrecked or grounded on sand banks. In December 1864 the Auckland Provincial Government appointed Thomas Sparrow Carmichael as pilot for Tauranga and provided him with a tent to live in on Maunganui, as Mauao was generally referred to in those days. He had two boatmen to row him out to the ships as they waited offshore.

By 1866 the Provincial Government built a house for the pilot and another for the boatmen. Little is known about these buildings and their exact locations. One theory is that it might have been uphill above the Pilot Wharf, where they would have access to their boat, and the more likely theory, nearer to the location of the second pilot house built above the present camping ground, with a view out to sea. Ships needing a pilot would fire off a gun to signal their presence. The pilot then raised a flag to notify the townspeople that the entry of a ship was imminent.

With the end of the Land Wars, the decline in provisions and other goods needed for the military noticeably reduced the volume of ships into Tauranga and, after six years, Carmichael’s position was terminated. The money saved from upkeep was spent on building wharves on The Strand. However, after a few years, and growth in population of the town, an official decision was made to re-establish the position of pilot and in 1873 an experienced master, Captain Hannibal Marks, took over. By then, the original pilot house was in a state of “rack and ruin”.^{^[i]}

Pilot House, Mauao, Mount Maunganui, April 1955
Collection of Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. Photo 04-625

The Auckland Provincial Council approved payment of £200 for a new Pilot House in June 1874 and a second house for the son and family.^{^[ii]} Captain Marks and his son, also called Hannibal, were drowned when the pilot boat capsized in the harbour in August 1879. Following the death of Hannibal Marks the Marine Department appointed Captain Best, formerly of Thames, to the position of Harbour Master and Pilot.^{^[iii]} He appeared to have occupied the Pilot House in the Domain, as the newspaper recorded the Presbyterian Picnic as gathering on the beach behind Captain Best’s house. During all of this excitement, the pilot himself was watching for the arrival of the Lady Jocelyn, the first immigrant ship to arrive directly at Tauranga.^{^[iv]} Stormy weather caused the loss of the “iron chimney” on the Pilot House in 1881. This was probably a chimney made of two facing sheets of corrugated iron inside a timber frame, a style common in early buildings.

Grace Earle & Violet Petheridge seated on a cow, Mauao, Mount Maunganui, 1920
Collection of Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. Photo 05-456

With the cessation of the pilot service, the house fell empty, and it was suggested that it be handed over from the Marine Department to the Tauranga Improvement Society to use as holiday accommodation for visitors to the beach. The idea was even floated that Mount Maunganui become a destination for invalids like the sanatoriums at Te Puke and Rotorua.^{^[v]} Although there was some enthusiasm for transferring ownership of the Pilot House reserve to the Borough Council, it eventually became the property of the Harbour Board like the nearby Mount Drury (Hopukiore). The Harbour Board repaired the roof and part of the house several times, and the Pilot House reserve was fenced, with some camp sites made available. Various people leased the Pilot House and reserve for raising poultry, solely for the accommodation or, as occurred in March 1933, for a returned soldier from the First World War and his family with their four donkeys.^{^[vi]} The cottage had been described as kauri, having five rooms with electricity and a tank water supply with a four-roomed second cottage alongside. The whole property totaled one and a half acres.^{^[vii]}

Pilot House and Mount Drury (Hopukiore), c. 1950s
Collection of Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. Photo 99-244

The new tenant Fred Davies, with his family, and the donkeys called Smithy, Murphy, Brownie and Snowy, were to be a drawcard for the Mount Main Beach for the next twenty years. Fred named the donkeys after his mates who died at Gallipoli. He also built a corrugated iron shop opposite the Oceanside Hotel selling ice cream and soft drinks. The Davies sons supervised the donkey rides and when they left school their mother took over, until 1952 when she moved out of the Pilot House to her new home in Marine Parade.^{^[viii]} The visit of the young Sel Neal in 1951 shows a building with a rusting roof and deteriorating cladding. Thus ended occupation of the Tauranga Pilot House. The house stood for a few more years but is missing from images taken in the 1960s, and the second house is recorded as being demolished in 1964.^{^[ix]}

Sel Neal, age 9 with a donkey, at the Pilot House, Mauao, Mount Maunganui, 1951
Collection of Justine Neal

References

^{^[i]} Bay of Plenty Times (BOPT), 9 May 1874

^{^[ii]} Daily Southern Cross, 13 Jun 1874

^{^[iii]} BOPT, 4 Sep 1879

^{^[iv]} BOPT, 4 Jan 1881

^{^[v]} BOPT, 25 Jul 1887

^{^[vi]} BOPT, 5 Mar 1933

^{^[vii]} BOPT , 9 Sep 1930

^{^[viii]} Neal, Justine, The Donkeys of Ocean Beach, Historical Review, Bay of Plenty Journal of History, Vol 64, No.1, May 2016, p19

^{^[ix]} Cunningham, B. & Musgrave, K., A History of Mount Maunganui, Commissioned by Mount Maunganui Borough Council, 1989, p. 18

Tuesday, 3 June 2025

Robert Falla in the Bay of Plenty and the Sladden Collection

From Tauranga City Library’s archives

A monthly blog about interesting items in our collection

Originally published dd mm 2025 on the Tauranga Historical Society blog.

1930 portrait of Robert Alexander Falla (1901-1979) while assistant zoologist with the British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition.

Robert Falla in 1930

Head-and-shoulders portrait of Robert Alexander Falla, assistant zoologist on Antarctic expedition aboard the Discovery; inscribed "With regards R.A.F. June 1930" (Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Ms 33/5/52)

When Robert Falla retired in 1966 he had been Director of the Dominion Museum (now the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa) for nearly 20 years. He was born in Palmerston North. His father was a railway clerk. He matriculated from Auckland Grammar School in 1918, after winning a scholarship in 1915, and wanted to go to sea. Several attempts to get work on a ship were not successful. However, he managed by determination and hard work to turn his childhood exposure to ‘natural history’ from an interest – particularly in birds - into a successful and prolific career as a zoologist, which also got him on several lengthy sea voyages.

He worked his way into academic study by getting a Bachelor of Arts with a Senior Scholarship in education in 1924, working as a primary teacher, then becoming a lecturer in general science at the Training College. In 1927 he graduated as a Master of Arts with a thesis on the teaching of nature study and biology in New Zealand.

At the same time as this work and study he was doing scientific fieldwork and publishing the results. Falla established his reputation as an ornithologist with the 1924 publication of “Discovery of a breeding place of Buller’s Shearwater, Poor Knights Island, N.Z.” in Emu Vol. 24, No. 1 pp 37-43. This is among the at least 16 books and offprints (pamphlet versions of academic papers for distribution to collaborators and colleagues) he had written that Falla sent to Sladden “With the authors’ compliments” during the 1920s and 1930s, and now in the Library’s Sladden Collection.

In 1928 Bernard Sladden was the lead author of an article written with Falla - “Alderman Islands: a general description, with notes on the flora and fauna”, published over two issues of the New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology (Vol. 9, No.’s 4-5, November 1927 (pp 193-205) and February 1928 (pp 282-290). Sladden had his copy bound with other offprints – including his own 1924 article about Karewa and 1926 article about Tūhua – reporting on the fauna, flora and geology of the islands of the Bay of Plenty.

Bernard Sladden's binding of scientific papers on Bay of Plenty offshore islands

This shows how integral amateur researchers like Sladden were in building the body of scientific knowledge of New Zealand’s natural history. He hadn’t just provided the boat to get to the Alderman Islands, he had been an active participant in the collection and formal publication of the data. Sladden could also by letter and sample keep the professionals informed of new discoveries and developments in the part of the country where he lived, expanding their geographic range.

Falla’s scientific career flourished – “In 1929 he was appointed assistant zoologist to the British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE) under the leadership of Sir Douglas Mawson”[1]. Prints of photos taken by Falla on the expedition made their way into Sladden’s papers – e.g. Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Ms 33/5/311

However, the lengthy absences this work required eventually led to Falla’s resignation from the Training College. He had already mentioned in a 1930 letter to Sladden, kept in our archive, that he could only process his work from the expedition in his spare time [2]. This is in response to what must have been a comment from Bernard’s letter to him that managing the farm was keeping him from his own researches.

“In 1931 [Falla] was appointed ornithologist and education officer at the Auckland War Memorial Museum” where in 1937 he completed the publication of the BANZARE report on birds, “still considered a classic work on the birds of the southern ocean[3].” The Sladden Collection has the copy Falla inscribed and sent to “B. Sladden with compliments & regards. R.A.F. Jan 1938”.

By this time Falla had been appointed director of the Canterbury Museum, where amongst other work he instigated the investigation into moa remains at Pyramid Valley. Again, Falla sent an offprint to Bernard Sladden “with compliments”.

Falla was a Carnegie Scholar in 1939, touring and studying museums and their displays in the United States, United Kingdom and Europe (until interrupted by the outbreak of war). During the war he participated in coastwatching expeditions to the sub-Antarctic islands (ensuring German, and later Japanese ships didn’t try and use them as bases for commerce raiding), but also fitting in some geological and ornithological observations.

He was made Director of the Dominion Museum in 1947, and according to his obituaries was always unhappy that the administrative work of this role was keeping him from the kind of fieldwork and publishing he had enjoyed in the 1920s and 1930s with colleagues like Bernard Sladden.