Norman Blackie's Tauranga in 16mm

 From Tauranga City Library’s archives

A monthly blog about interesting items in our collection

In 1983 my family bought a large VCR player. It was a gift from the future, as far as this 13-year-old was concerned. Painfully shy, I relished the thought of watching a movie that didn't require my going out in public. All I needed to do was wait a year and then bring it home to watch on the family 20-inch TV. 

The same year I recall my geography class laughing at the teacher as he struggled with a large reel film projector. On that sunny afternoon, watching an underpowered projector struggle to cast its dreary educational film onto a dirty white sheet stapled to the classroom wall, we pimply few exchanged knowing smiles behind his back. 

"Reel films are a joke", said those smiles. The future was VHS. 

This learned judgement was despite the jammed tapes, rogue marmite sandwiches, impossible operating instructions and unimpressive picture resolution (240 lines vs an equivalent of up to 400 lines for the old 16 mm reels). Sure reels only had mono sound, were large and unwieldy and couldn't be paused, but they had primarily lost the format wars based on convenience more than anything. VHS tapes were just smaller and easily mass-produced. The market had spoken. 

1983 was also the year the light of Tauranga resident, Norman Wakefield Blackie, flickered and failed after 84 years. Norman had been an avid videographer, capturing much of the public life of Tauranga from the 1940s to the late 1970s. 18 of his films had been gifted to Tauranga City Libraries and by 1985, the then archivist Jinty Rorke was making enquires about local "Reel to VHS" services. The reels were to be deposited with the National Film Archive, the predecessor to Ngā Taonga, Sound and Vision, where they sit today. 

Odine and Norman Blackie (via a grand-daughter on Facebook)

Fast forward and these 16 mm reels have had a new lease on life. Tauranga City Libraries recently requested Ngā Taonga undertake to restore and digitise all 18 of Blackie's reels in their care, and the results are incredible.  The digital files they created are truly beautiful. They're sharp, correctly coloured and free from all the limitations of underpowered bulbs, dirty lenses, and those old sheets from the spare bedroom.  What immediately grabbed my eye was the size of the crowds in the background. They line the streets and fill the squares, despite a population just 10% of our current. Yet Norman doesn’t often focus on these crowds, their size is nothing unusual for him. For Norman it is the spectacle itself; the floats, the costumes, the games, the beauty queens and marching girls. It seems when something is happening, half of Tauranga comes out to cheer on the other half participating.

The footage is wonderfully showcased in a beautifully nostalgic and optimistic two-minute tribute by Ngā Taonga here, and below.

Today, you can see the entire footage on Pae Koroki here, and on Ngā Taonga here. 

Sources: 

• Records relating to the history of the New Zealand Room, Tauranga Library; General and research correspondence, 1985 (Ams 289/4/2)
• Norman Blackie Collection, Pae Korokī
• The Past and the Curious, Tauranga in 16 mm, a short introduction
• Ngā Taonga blog: The Blackie Collection: a window into mid-century Tauranga (January 24, 2023)
• Norman Blackie (1899-1983), a biography by Debbie McCauley
• Tauranga Heritage Collection, Item 0007/19 (Norman's camera)
  
  

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This archival collection has been digitised and is available to view on Pae Korokī. For more information about this and other items in our collection, visit Pae Korokī or email the Heritage & Research Team: Research@tauranga.govt.nz

The Dover Castle, SS Rowena and the first Vesey Stewart Settlers, 1875

Early Maritime Tauranga: Vessels, Visitors, Settlers and Events, Part XXIV

Unlike the immigrant clipper ships Lady Jocelyn and May Queen in 1881, the barque Dover Castle never sailed settlers directly to Tauranga. Its first port of call was Auckland on the Waitemata Harbour. The vessel was nevertheless important in the history of Tauranga’s social and economic development. Dover Castle was the first of 12 ships to arrive in New Zealand between 1875 and 1884, carrying settlers for immigrant visionary George Vesey Stewart’s ‘special’ settlements at Katikati and Te Puke. 

The East Indiaman turned New Zealand immigrant ship Dover Castle
Metano Amhaouche, ‘Dover Castle off Madras, India’, undated
Authors private collection. Copyright

On 25 August 1875, the Auckland Star reported:

The barque Dover Castle, with the first half of Mr. George Vesey Stewart's special immigrants, arrived inside Rangitoto Channel last evening after a quick passage of 88 days. In consequence of the westerly gale blowing she brought up in the channel for the night. The Dover Castle is a fine Sunderland built vessel owned by Shaw, Savill and Co.¹ 

 

         A wooden frigate-styled barque of 1008 tons, Dover Castle bore the distinctive figurehead of an Indian Prince. Built in Sunderland in 1858 for R. & H. Green's Black Ball Line, the East Indiaman was purchased by the Shaw, Savill Line for the New Zealand immigrant run in 1871.² With a length of 185 feet (56m) and a beam of 34feet (10.6m), in 1875 it was described by The Auckland Star as ‘a sample of one of the good old comfortable, and yet fast sailing Indiamen - although these vessels are now superseded by the modern clipper of the Carisbrooke Castle stamp’ adding ‘The Dover Castle has just shewn us what she is capable of in the way of sailing, having beaten the more powerful Carisbrooke [in the run between Belfast and Auckland].’³

 

         The Dover Castle (Captain Calvert) departed East India Dock, Belfast on 28 May 1875 with free New Zealand government emigrants from Northern Ireland. The nationalities were ‘English, 4; Scotch, 3 ; Irish, 357 ; total, 364 souls’⁴ Vesey Stewart stated that the Dover Castle left Belfast ahead of Carisbrooke Castle (by 10 days), ‘with members of  No. 1 party’ who were to settle at Katikati.⁵ Some were people of capital; most were labourers, artisans, tenant farmers and young single women.

 

        On their voyages to New Zealand, the two ships met at sea and sailed in company for two days.  Though described as an uneventful voyage, at one point the Dover Castle was struck by a white squall and, running under bare poles for 24 hours, was driven 300 nautical miles closer to her goal. There were also 10 deaths on board, 2 from scarlet fever and 8 from other ailments.⁶  Interestingly, as an unarmed barque, the Dover Castle was  painted with false gunports to look like a man o’ war and thus deter pirates.

 

On arrival at Auckland on 25 August, Dover Castle anchored off Rangitoto and hoisted a yellow flag, as one of the passengers was afflicted with scarlet fever.⁷ The vessel had on board the only boat saved from the ill-fated immigrant ship Cospatrick which had burned and sank with few survivors while bound for New Zealand. Quarantined off Motuihi Island, the passengers were cleared on 1st September. When the Carisbrooke Castle and its passengers arrived in Auckland, ‘The only thing that marred their satisfaction was the sight of the despised Dover Castle, which had beaten them by a fortnight’.⁸ After 3 days in Auckland, the reunited Vesey Stewart No. 1 Party went on to Tauranga in ‘semi-royal state in the fast and favourite government steamships Rowena and Pretty Jane’.⁹ 

The SS Rowena, Photographer and location unknown
Heritage Collections, Hamilton City Library, Te Oho mauri O Kirikiriroa, Ref. HCL_06579
(in favourable conditions, voyages between Auckland and Tauranga on coastal steamers like the Rowena averaged 12-15 hours)

SS Rowena was built in Henry Nicol’s Auckland shipyard in 1872 for Capt. Alexander McGregor’s Auckland Steam Packet Company. Registered at 110 tons, he named it after the beautiful bride of author Sir Walter Scott’s fictional Saxon knight and crusader Ivanhoe. Intended for the New Zealand coastal trade and its variable sea conditions, the vessel had a skeleton of pohutukawa planked with heart kauri and a hull sheathed with copper. With a length of 101 feet  (30.48m) and a beam of 17 feet (5.18m), the Rowena, while powered by two 30hp engines, was twin-masted and schooner-rigged (as were many coastal auxiliary steamers during the 1860s and 1870s). With its screw located outside the sternpost for greater power, it averaged a respectable 10 knots.¹⁰   

Described as a vessel that ‘promenaded in style’, with its ‘fine lines and clipper bowsprit’, the Rowena conveyed Vesey Stewart’s wealthier settlers to the port of Tauranga in comfort. There was a 23 berth first class passenger saloon and ladies’ cabin aft. There was roomy steerage for the majority, who were tenant farming families with limited capital, and a large hold for luggage, capable of holding 300 sheep. With the vessel skippered by Capt. Daniel Sellars, who had sailed the Bay of Penty and East Coast in his own cutter Brunette since the 1860s, the new settlers were also in safe hands.¹¹

Mount Maunganui and Waikorire-Pilot Bay as seen by the first Vesey Stewart arrivals in September 1875. The steamer seen near Stoney Point may well be the Rowena, the first to operate a Tauranga-Auckland service in 1874.
Watercolour by John Kinder, 1874
Collection of Auckland Art Gallery, Toi O Tamaki, Ref. 1937/15/46

On the morning of 14 September, the two steamers passed through the Mount Maunganui channel and anchored close to the town. From there, the passengers were ferried ashore in small boats to the Tauranga foreshore where:

A most enthusiastic reception was given by the residents, who all turned out to welcome the party. The Committee was headed by Captain Morris M.H.R., who presented an address of welcome to the settlers on their arrival. The Native Chiefs belonging to Tauranga also assisted at the welcome. Good fellowship between the new arrivals and the settlers is already established.¹²

On the following day the settlers balloted for their sections. After hiring assorted local craft at £15 pounds per trip, they made their way independently to Katikati’s three main landing places and temporary whares located on the Aongatete, Uretara and Tuapiro Rivers, before proceeding to their sections.¹³ As first arrivals in New Zealand, Vesey Stewart’s Dover Castle settlers ‘took on the airs of old colonists’ when interacting with those from the Carisbrooke Castle, affectations no doubt endured by later settler arrivals at Katikati.¹⁴

While  Katikati’s settlers commenced the long and  laborious task of clearing their sections, the Dover Castle was sailing from Auckland to China. Later sold and renamed the Kem, it was later broken up after becoming stranded on the Norwegian coast.¹⁵ The SS Rowena was acquired by the Northern Steam Ship Company in 1878 and, under Capt. Sellars, continued its twice-weekly Auckland-Tauranga passenger, freight and mail service. In January 1880, Capt. Amadeo took command and the steamer began sailing further afield. After several mishaps and in the face of growing competition the Rowena was laid up by its owners in 1886.¹⁶

^{Endnotes
1 Auckland Star, 25 August 1875: 3.
2 Auckland Star, 31 August 1875: 2.  Brett, Henry, White Wings: Fifty Years of Sail in the New Zealand Trade, Vol. I,  Brett Printing, Auckland, 1924: 121. New Zealand Settler Ships - Genealogy Projects - Geni.com, https://www.geni.com › projects › tag › ships_to_New_...
3 Auckland Star, 13 September 1875: 2. Ibid, 25 August 1875: 3.
4 Auckland Star, 25 August 1875: 3.
5 Bay of Plenty Times, 15 September 1875: 3. Otago Daily Times, 6 November 1880: 1.
6 Auckland Star, 25 August 1875: 3.
7 Brett, 1924: 121. Dover Castle (Ship: 1858 - National Library of New Zealand, https://natlib.govt.nz › tapuhi
8 Gray, Arthur J, An Ulster Plantation:The Story of the Katikati Settlement, A.H. and A.W. Reed, Wellington, 1938: 23.
9 Bay of Plenty Times, 20 September 1905: 2. Observer, 23 September 1905: 5.
10 Amodeo, C. F;  ‘A Trial of Strength’, Part 1, in New Zealand Marine News, Journal of the New Zealand Ship and Marine Society, Vol. 31, No. 3, 1981: 76. (71-92).
11 Ibid: 79.
12 Star (Christchurch) 16 September 1875: 3.
13 Gray, 1938: 25-28.
14 Ibid, 1938: 23-24.
15 Brett, Vol. 1, 1924: 121.
16 Amodeo, C. F;  ‘A Trial of Strength’, Part 2, in New Zealand Marine News, Journal of the New Zealand Ship and Marine Society, Vol. 31, No. 4, 1981: 129. (111-138).}

The Strand - Early Days

The Strand, with wooden seawall and beach, c. 1883 (photographer unknown)
Collection of Tauranga City Library, Pae Korokī Ref. 04-214

In the early days of Tauranga’s European settlement the foreshore extended from about the present Harbourside Restaurant building to the foot of the cliff on which Monmouth Redoubt was built and was known as “The Beach.” Later, when a rough track was formed along the frontage, it became known as Beach Road and, later still, Beach Street. Finally, after the construction of the first wooden seawall plus other improvements, it became The Strand. In 1872 the building of the seawall began. It was built using 3 inch, well cured, kauri planks and extended from Spring Street to Harington Street.

The Strand with wooden seawall, from the Town wharf, probably 1886
Mounted print, photographed by A.A. Ryan, The National Photographic Company
Tauranga Heritage Collection Ref. 0431/08

A letter to the editor of the Bay of Plenty Times 18 May 1891 pointed out the dangerous state of the seawall, especially if an easterly wind was blowing when the sea was washing the earth from between the planks and causing a chain of holes on the outer edge of the Strand immediately behind the seawall and possibly scouring out the soil under the Strand itself.

The Strand, with concrete seawall and reclamation, c. 1902 (photographer unknown)
Collection of Tauranga City Library, Pae Korokī Ref. 04-214

In 1902 a new concrete seawall, built by Joseph Brain extended the Strand further into the harbour and the wooden wall was buried in the process.

The Strand (southern end) with shipping, c. 1910s
Postcard view, photographer (attributed) Mary Humphreys
Collection of Tauranga City Library, Pae Korokī Ref. 04-574

Early streets were made using the materials at hand, shell and shingle from the Mount beaches was barged across the harbour to be put on the roads. In 1906 there was a change in road making with preliminary arrangements being made for the asphalting of the Strand. In 1902 the Borough received a Coronation grant of 200 pounds which enabled the go ahead and completion of the King Edward VII Esplanade and on 8 August the foundation stone was laid by the Mayoress, Mrs Jordan. The new footpath ran along the harbour side of the Strand reclamation and soon became as simply “The Esplanade.” In March 1905 there was great excitement in the town when, with great ceremony, Prime Minister Seddon declared The Esplanade open. The mayor had first invited Seddon to attend and open the completed work in 1902 but the pressure of other work had kept him away till then.

The Strand from the Wharf, Tauranga, c. 1910s
Postcard, photographed by F.G. Radcliffe
Tauranga Heritage Collection Ref. 0147/09

Apparently plane trees were growing along the Strand before the well known palm trees of today. On 8 August 1906 The Bay of Plenty Times reported that at that evenings Borough Council meeting the question of the removal of the plane trees was brought forward by Councillor Bull. His suggestion was that the plane trees should be dug up and planted on the reserve called the police paddock, and palms or other suitable trees to replace the plane trees on The Strand. He also suggested that each councillor donate a palm tree for the purpose mentioned. Votes were even for and against, so the Mayor used his casting vote against the motion. By 1910 the palm trees in cages were featuring in photos of the day.

The Strand with palm trees, c. 1918
Postcard, photographed by W.T. Wilson
Collection of Justine Neal

By 1909 parts of the Strand were lit by gas lamps and in 1936 an ornamental lighting system consisting of twelve lamps was installed in time for Christmas. The Strand was a desirable place to have a business because the coastal ships bringing passengers and freight came in there. On the days the ships berthed the wharf was an incredibly busy place. In the early days cows had the freedom of the borough and at various times could be seen leisurely ambling along the Strand or sunning themselves on the Esplanade. They even occasionally helped themselves to the vegetables displayed outside the greengrocers. In return they efficiently mowed the grass on the streets and kept the trees (perhaps the aforementioned planes) trimmed to a convenient height.

The Strand, Tauranga. c 1920s
Postcard photograph by McLaren
Collection of Justine Neal

Where else could a shop owner hang a “Gone Fishing” sign on the shop door, stroll across the Strand to one of the two wharves for a spot of fishing, and be back behind the counter in minutes if they were really needed. A couple of entrepreneurs set up a business on the Strand selling fresh fish from barrows, snapper at 6d each! When they ran out of fish they’d row out into the harbour to replenish their stock.

In 1924, with the railway bridge linking Matapihi and Tauranga completed, the citizens’ interest turned towards the railway line’s track through the town. Business people wanted it along the Strand but the King Edward VII Esplanade  with its seats, grass, shrubs and the tide lapping the edges was a pleasant place to be and many townspeople did not want it spoilt. They wanted the line to run along Elizabeth Street, but business interests had their way, so the railway embankment along the Strand was built in 1925.

A new era in the life of this ever-changing part of Tauranga was about to begin.

References

Papers Past: Bay of Plenty Times, 18 May 1891 & 8 August 1926
Tauranga Historical Society Journals. No. 17, 28, 59, 78
D. Kahotea, K. Phillips, S. Arabin, Archaeological Survey, Tauranga City Central Business District, Te Papa
Tauranga Heritage Collection
Tauranga City Libraries