Max Heath survived World War II as a fighter pilot, came home to Tākaka and not long after, was killed in a plane crash.¹

The 25-year-old warrant officer from Rototai Rd became New Zealand's first postwar casualty of a civilian air crash when the Tiger Moth he was flying solo crashed in Golden Bay / Mohua on November 16, 1946. Mr. Heath was aiming to make his civilian pilot's licence operative, so was on a training flight.

Max Heath third from right in back row with some of the Tākaka aero club members at Puramahoi in 1946.
Click image to enlarge

He took off from Tākaka Aerodrome in the plane that belonged to the Nelson Aero Club, and which had been flown over that morning by the club's pilot/instructor, John Reid. Mr Heath had flown dual with Mr. Reid before he was checked out at 1.15pm that day on a solo flight.

The Nelson Evening Mail reported that a number of people along the Golden Bay / Mohua coast saw the distinctive navy and sky blue plane as it flew over the boat, the MV Nikau, near "the Tata Islands" about half an hour after Mr. Heath took off.

The aircraft had enough fuel for a two-hour flight, and because it was seen over Tākaka township at about 3.30pm, it was thought it had run out of fuel and was forced down. The Moth was, by that stage already overdue, having been expected back by 2.30pm. It was reported missing at 3.19pm to Air Control at Nelson and Wellington and an extensive land and air search began.

Mr. Reid was involved in the air search that covered an area from Golden Bay / Mohua to Nelson. On the Saturday afternoon Tākaka residents joined the search along nearby beaches, and almost 100 people joined a search party organised by Constable Strawbridge at Separation Point. A launch carried further searchers along the coast.

By the following day the Royal New Zealand Air Force had joined in, with three aircraft flying in relays in the hunt that stretched from d'Urville Island to Separation Point, and from Stephen's Island to Golden Bay / Mohua. Meanwhile the Nelson Aero Club's pilots combed the inshore areas of Golden and Tasman bays, and the valleys around Tākaka and Riwaka.

Parts of the wreckage were found by a land party just before 6pm on the Sunday, but Mr. Reid made another flight to Tākaka and a close search of the area around Whariwharangi for more of the aircraft and in the slim hope he might find Mr. Heath, but without result. Amongst the wreckage found was a six-foot spar, a piece of three-ply wood, and numerous small fragments, identified as being from a Tiger Moth by two former air force officers.

A decade later the Nelson Aero Club's Tiger Moth was trawled up  by Nelson fishermen Lionel Wells, now 93, and Noel Jones, now 82.² They said recent publicity around the search in Awaroa for the missing aircraft Aotearoa had prompted memories of their discovery. They had not at the time placed much significance on their find.

Max John Richard Heath had qualified as a flight engineer and was working in Hodgkinson's garage at the time he was killed.  His nephew, Gary Bowden of Tākaka, who was 5 at the time of the disappearance of his uncle Max remembers ".. meeting him a few times, and what a handsome devil-may-care personality he was."³  His uncle had qualified to work as an engineer on Lancaster bombers, but the war finished before he had time to put his training into effect.  "He was engaged to the winner of the Miss Nelson contest at the time, who lived close to our family in Allan St, Nelson," Mr. Bowden said.

Mr. Bowden said they recalled how he "buzzed" his sister and brother-in-law's farm at Rototai Rd as they worked in the field, scaring them flat to the ground, but remembers too the great alarm when he went missing.

The 25-year-old warrant officer from Rototai Rd was New Zealand's first postwar casualty of a civilian air crash.  "Luckless, indeed, to survive the war but not the peace."

This story was originally published in two parts in the Nelson Mail, February 2014.

Updated November 13, 2020

It is now more than 15 years since Kate Mitchell published an account of the search for a Māori tupuna in the family, who turned out to be Metapere Kawhe, the wife of John O’Brian/O’Brien. Since then, we have been lucky enough to meet many descendants of Metapere and John, particularly members of the extensive families of Rihari and Tiaki O’Brien. We greatly appreciate the family reunions we have been invited to attend at Te Kuiti in the King Country and Mokau in Taranaki, and the warm welcome we have received from the wider O’Brien whānau.

Angas, George French, 1822-1886. [Angas, George French] 1822-1886 :E Rua, E Pari, and E Hoki, women of Ngatitoa tribe, Cook's Straits [London ; McLean 1847]. Ref: B-080-030. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. 22750156

Sadly, John O’Brien and Metapere Kawhe’s family was split in the wake of the Crown’s forced purchase of thousands of acres of Ngāti Toa land in the Wairau – modern-day Marlborough - in the 1850s. Two of Metapere and John’s children, Rihari and Tiaki, returned to farm in the King Country. They left a brother, Frank or Wheki, who remained to work as a shepherd and farm worker in the Wairau, and a sister, Hana or Fanny, who married and settled in Lower Hutt. A third daughter, Ellen or Erena, was thought to have become a nun on the West Coast and we do not know what became of her.

It is a tribute to Kate’s research work that, 15 years later, we really don’t know much more about either John or Metapere than what was recorded in her 1990 study. Sadly, we have no picture of Metapere, and to gain some idea of what she and her friends might have looked like, we have to look to contemporary painted portraits by an enterprising young British artist, George Angas. In the late 1840s, Angas portrayed Ngāti Toa Māori at Kapiti and Porirua and then journeyed south by waka to the Wairau to paint other Ngāti Toa Māori there.

Metapere’s whakapapa, recorded in the Nelson MLC Minute Book, Vol 1, March 1889

Metapere Kawhe

From historical records and family recollections, we understand that Metapere lived with John in Robin Hood Bay, Port Underwood, for several years in the 1850s, and that she also lived at Wairau Pa beside the lower Wairau River later in the 1850s.

Almost nothing is known about Metapere’s background, although we understand that some of her records had been kept by the oldest son, Frank who, in turn, died in December 1937. Family members believe the records may have been destroyed by one of Frank’s daughters. We believe Metapere came to Te Wai Pounamu and Port Underwood as a young woman with some of her relatives and there seems little doubt that she was of the Ngāti Toa tribe. Entries in the Nelson Māori Land Court minute book for March 1889 record Metapere as being a “Ngati Toa” resident of Wairau Pa in the mid-1850s.¹

We believe that Frank O’Brien was born on November 9 1851 at Robin Hood Bay, Port Underwood. Kate’s study records reported dates taken from a Catholic Church register for the births of the other children from the match, the oldest daughter, Hana/h (also called Fanny), a second daughter, Ellen/Erena, and the brothers Rihari/Richard and Tiaki/Jack. So far as we know, John was the only O’Brien adult resident in Marlborough in the early 1850s. He was listed on the 1853 electoral roll as a shearer, and was one of only 44 voters on the electoral roll. Many of those on the roll were absentee landowners living in the New Zealand Company settlements of Wellington and Nelson. Sadly, we have no information about Metapere Kawhe in the Wairau after the birth of Tiaki and Rihari. We have asked Ngāti Toa kaumatua and kuia with knowledge of tribal whakapapa and members of the Kawhe whānau about Metapere. However, they say they do not know of her.

Robin Hood Bay, Port Underwood. Image supplied by author

John O'Brien (sometimes spelled O'Brian)

John O’Brien was believed to have been born in Ireland about 1808², but it is not known how he came to New Zealand or when he arrived. He was in Cloudy Bay in the 1840s and the story passed down to us by family members was that he found work in Port Underwood as a whaler.³ John O’Brien was said to have had red hair and a fiery temper to match. He was reputed to have sworn a great deal.

Kate Mitchell outside the Robin Hood Bay cottage where Frank is believed to have been born

According to descendants, John O'Brien and Metapere Te Kawhe lived together for a while in a small cottage in Robin Hood Bay, the largest of the bays on the western shore of Port Underwood where, in the early 1840s, there was a Māori settlement and kūmara garden. The area was well-known as a source of kai moana, including mussels, kina, and koura (rock lobster).

According to accounts from Frank O’Brien, the family lived in Robin Hood Bay till the mid-1860s, but it may be that John O’Brien and Metapere parted company earlier. John was recorded as living at the Wairau Boulder Bank in the later part of his life, but there is no known information about Metapere being there. There is no record to show that John O’Brien ever married Metapere Kawhe, but they did baptise their children with European names in the Catholic Church while, at a later stage, John also made sure his oldest son married a European woman. This son was Francis (also called Frank/Wheki).

Fox, William (Rt Hon Sir), 1812?-1893. Fox, William 1812-1893 :Ocean Bay [Port Underwood. January 1848?]. Ref: C-013-017. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/23216133

Whaling in Port Underwood in the 1840s was partly shore-based, but largely carried out by ships in deeper water. Gales in the exposed harbour were a constant danger and high hills enclosed the bays, making them gloomy, with relatively little sun. Rainfall was heavy. and rewards from the whaling few. These were probably some of the reasons why, after the birth of Francis, John moved from Port Underwood to the Boulder Bank, a small settlement at the mouth of the Wairau River.

Frank O’Brien, older brother of Rihari and Tiaki

John O’Brien was listed on the 1853 electoral roll as living at the Boulder Bank settlement beside the river, a wild and primitive settlement with four or five mud buildings and several hotels selling liquor. These included premises owned by the Wynens, the MacDonalds, and the Budges. The Boulder Bank was regarded as a lawless place of ill repute. The settlement was situated on the north side of the river, actually across the river from the long tongue of the Boulder Bank. Wairau Pa, where Ngati Toa, Ngati Rarua and Rangitane Maori have lived together since the 1840s was further west and about two km upriver.

John's brush with the law

In the later part of his life, John O’Brien continued to live at times at the Boulder Bank settlement. In May 1877, he offered a 10 pound reward for information on “some person or persons having several times broken into my home at the Boulder Bank”.⁴ Eight months later, John was recorded as rescuing three Wellington Greek fishermen, whose boat had foundered on the treacherous Wairau Bar.⁵ One of the men, presumably suffering hypothermia, was covered in warm sand to aid his recovery.

Omaka Cemetery near Blenheim, where John and Frank O’Brien are both buried

In 1880, when John would have been 72-years-old, he was charged with assaulting a man named Batcheldor with an axe, and also with damaging a punt belonging to men named Thomas Callard and John Gibson. The allegation that John had maliciously damaged the punt was dismissed with costs of 17 shillings awarded against the complainant. The assault complaint had been lodged by a fisherman, Charles Batcheldor, who claimed that the top joint of his left thumb had been fractured in an axe attack by John O’Brien. The Irishman denied the charge.

The Wairau River mouth looking west, with the Boulder Bank to the left, the site of the settlement to the right

Batcheldor told the court that he had exchanged words with John, who was armed with an axe and was smashing up a punt. Batcheldor had asked O’Brien to stop breaking up the punt, but the Irishman lost his temper and “made at me with the axe and said he would kill me”. According to Batcheldor, O’Brien had chased him the axe and struck him with it on the thumb.”⁶
“After O'Brien hit me with the axe, I told him he had broken my thumb and he replied 'Yes,' and that he would split my brains open as soon as look at me,” Batcheldor was reported as saying. Under cross-examination, a companion of Batcheldor, named St Clair Liardi, denied that the pair had been smuggling at the time and, to further questions from O'Brien's lawyer denied that they were persecuting the Irishman so they could get rid of him for 2-3 years in order to build up their smuggling operation. John O'Brien was convicted on the charge and fined £2 with costs of £5-5s.

Judy Mitchell, second left, and Ness Beere, second right with Wairau Pa kaumatua and kuia, Kopa Stafford, left, Katie Mason-Moses, Bill Stafford and Barry Mason.

John O’Brien was recorded as continuing to live at the Boulder Bank until 1867, despite having land elsewhere. However, by 1868, he had moved to a rural block in the Wairau West district. In 1871, he sold land in Ngakuta Bay, Port Underwood, which he had been given as a Crown grant, to a man called Charles Watson, for the sum of 22 pounds. John stayed on his Wairau West section until 1890, the last time he was officially recorded as living there. He probably farmed sheep on the property.

John died on May 3 1897 and is buried at Omaka Cemetery, Blenheim, in an unmarked plot. However, despite 15 years of searching, we still do not know anything about Metapere’s later life. Sadly, we do not know when she died, or where she is buried. We would be very pleased to hear from any whānau members who have information, or suggestions about the search for either John or Metapere.

2006 (updated July 2020)

Bessie Te Wenerau Grace, 1889-1944, was the first Māori woman to receive a degree from a university. 

Bessie Grace. Image supplied by author

In the first half of the 20th century, she also became an educational leader. Grace’s Māori mother was the eldest daughter of the chief of Ngāti Tūwharetoa. Her European father had served in parliament, and wanted his children to be educated at a New Zealand European school.

Bessie Grace and whānau. Image supplied by author

Wene and her siblings lived in Blenheim with their Aunt and Uncle, Archdeacon and Mrs Grace. She attended Nelson College for Girls under New Zealand’s first female university graduate, Kate Edger, then enrolled at Canterbury College in 1905.

Later, after teaching at several New Zealand schools, she moved to London as a novice nun. There she completed her university degree in 1926 and also went on to graduate with a Master of Arts from the University of London. As Sister Eudora, Grace then became a school administrator, staying as headmistress of St Michael’s Grammar School in Melbourne until she died.

A group of Nelson women made quite a stir when they staged a protest against the closure of the Nelson Railway line at Kiwi Station in 1955.

Kiwi Station, now transformed into a museum at Tapawera
Click image to enlarge

Organized by former school teacher Ruth Allan Page, the sit-in lasted ten days and culminated in the arrest of nine women on September 30 1955.

The construction of the Nelson Railway was fraught with problems right from the start and the line had not turned a profit since 1919. In 1952 the government announced that the line would only stay open until the highways were completed. The line officially closed on June 13, 1954, but the Nelson Progress League managed to secure a one year reprieve for the line on the condition that an increase in freight could be secured. Unable to meet the targets, the line closed again in early September 1955. 

Hoping for another reprieve, the Progress League organized a protest rally and circulated a petition. Despite attracting a crowd of 4,000 and collecting 12,000 signatures, the demolition of the railway was scheduled for the following week. When Page found out about the scheduled demolition she sprung into action, announcing she would prevent the demolition of the Kiwi Station goods shed.

A meeting at the Public Library was held on September 22nd to organize a plan of action.  The following morning a demolition gang arrived at Kiwi Station to find five women occupying the goods shed. The day ended in a stalemate, but Page managed to secure a solemn promise from the workers that nothing would happen to the shed over the weekend.

Kiwi Rail Protest 1955. The Nelson Provincial Museum, Geoffrey C Wood Collection: 8830 fr18
Click image to enlarge

Geoffrey Wood, a photographer with The Nelson Mail, was dispatched to cover the protest and the story spread quickly. Page’s parents spent much of the day fielding telephone calls from reporters in New Zealand, Australia and England. By Monday some fifty or sixty people came out to Kiwi Station to watch and show their support. 

As the protest went on, rumours of sabotaged telephone lines and the drained water vats in Tadmor and Motupiko led Prime Minister Sidney Holland to declare the ‘sit downers’ dangerous and demand they be stopped. Suspicions that the women were possibly Communists prompted a visit from the New Zealand Security Police. The Police were quite surprised to find a group of mostly middle aged housewives sitting on the tracks, quietly chatting, knitting and sewing. Although cleared of any suspicions of sabotage or Communist sympathies, nine women were arrested for obstructing demolition on September 30, 1955: Leader Ruth Page, protest secretary and future MP Sonja Davies, Jean Holz, Jean Robbertson, Jean Bennet, Zena Pearce, Lesley Bartlett, Dot Price, Joyce Robinson, and Phyllis Spedin. The women were fined, but MP Stan Whitehead passed a hat around the courtroom and collected the required fees within five minutes. 

In just over a year, the tracks that had taken nearly 80 years to build were destroyed. The last two spikes came out on 21 December 1956. 

Based on research compiled for an exhibition at Founders Heritage Park, 2010. Updated May 2020

Regular users of the Nelson Railway line (closed since the 1950's) included Nelson secondary school students from Stoke, Richmond and the countryside. They were called “school bugs”, named for their on-board pranks. 

Train No. 1 left Belgrove at 7:20 am, arriving in Nelson just in time for school.  Originally intended as transport for people with produce to sell in town, the train soon became a commuter service for students at Nelson College and Nelson College for Girls. 

Passengers on the train at the Founders Park
Click image to enlarge

The first Nelson College bound passengers started taking the train in 1880. It would take another three years before mothers let their daughters ride the train to school. The ‘School Bugs’ were notorious for their on-train antics. Despite the fact that boys and girls were seated in separate carriages, there were some instances of girls being denied a secondary school education because parents did not want their daughters riding on the trains.  

The boys’ initiation involved performing skits in the rail car, being crammed under the bench seats, carrying the seniors' bags and getting your head shoved in a trough of water. The ritual ended with passing through an onslaught of knotted handkerchiefs. The girls’ initiation was much milder: at worst a girl may have been hoisted into the luggage rack, but she was more likely to just be asked a few questions. 

The School Bugs’ mischief was mainly focused on scheming up ways to delay the train. They greased the tracks, rocked the carriage and screwed the brakes to slow the train. On one occasion someone had the bright idea to unscrew the brakes just before the station and the train slid right past its stop, much to the students’ amusement. 

The train at the old Nelson Station, Founders Park
Click image to enlarge

The fun came to an end in 1947 when one girl’s mother petitioned against the cold, dirty and slow train service. Other parents were quick to voice their support and, by 1948, the train service was replaced with a cleaner, warmer and timelier bus service. 

Despite all their antics, the School Bugs were generally strong students. One train girl, Constance Barnicoat, went on to become a world-renowned foreign correspondent during the First World War. Many other students went on to work for New Zealand Railways. 

The School Bugs held a reunion at Founders Heritage Park on November 27, 2010.  The day was spent riding the Founders train and enjoying a luncheon in the railway café. 

Based on research compiled for an exhibition at Founders Heritage Park 2010. Updated May 2020

The Theatre Royal in Nelson is over 130 years old, making it one of the oldest wooden theatres in New Zealand. Before the theatre closed for renovations in 2005, around 22,000 visitors a year¹ enjoyed the theatre and dance performed by countless numbers of groups. However, in 2005 the Theatre Royal stood empty. The economic climate, the increased popularity of the State Cinema and the ongoing repairs over the previous decades had been too much for the theatre to manage. Fortunately the closure was not to be permanent.

Theatre Royal. The Nelson Provincial Museum; F N Jones Collection:11260
Click image to enlarge

The Theatre Royal was built in 1878 by C.W. Moore (who also built St Marys Convent and the first wooden buildings of Nelson College) on land owned by market gardener Samuel Bolton. The theatre was designed by Mr Bethwaite, of Bethwaite & Robertson and the Oddfellows, who had their club next door, financed the construction. The Theatre was built to seat 800, but opened on 18 July 1878 with an audience of 1000.

In 1884, at the height of its popularity and with special trains running from Foxhill to Nelson on theatre nights, ownership of the theatre shifted to The Loyal Howard and Loyal Nelson Oddfellows Lodges who held onto it for 20 or so years before they sold the theatre onto Harry Saunders in 1904. Saunders carried out major alterations, replacing seating, covering the mud floor and installing a projection box for moving pictures. Unfortunately, the creation of the Majestic Theatre (in Trafalgar Street - which burned down in 1996) and the 1930's global depression brought about a major decline in attendance. In 1944 Saunders decided that he could not hold onto it for any longer and the theatre was bought by the Nelson Repertory Club for £2,250 in 1944.

Nelson Operatic & Dramatic Society. The Runaway Girl (1917) Theatre Royal, Nelson. The Nelson Provincial Museum, F N Jones Collection: 6x8 29
Click image to enlarge

Since its opening night on 18 July 1878, the Theatre Royal has housed a huge number of amateur and professional performances by local, national and international groups. In addition, the theatre was  Nelson’s very first cinema and was used as a "picture house" from 1908 to 1936, when the Majestic Theatre was built. In the early days, when it had mud floors, the Theatre doubled as a boxing venue.  It was not until the mid 1940’s that the Theatre Royal reverted back to its original function, after being bought by the Nelson Repertory Club.

The  purchase of the Theatre Royal by the Trust in 2005 was, according to Trust Chairman Greg Shaw, a natural progression: “Nelson Repertory owned the theatre; a huge conservation plan³ was done and the Trust was formed from that. Ownership was then transferred from the Repertory to the Trust, which then set up a management structure.” Shaw also said that he was driven to take on the role of Chairman by a desire to help retain some of Nelson’s history, because he felt Nelson had lost touch with a lot of it.

Theatre Royal, 1998. image courtesty Tasman District Council.
Click image to enlarge

On the 26 March 2008, restoration work on the Theatre Royal began with $4 million raised to fund it, including significant contributions from Nelson City Council and Tasman District Council.⁴ Over the past six to seven decades the theatre had been continuously repaired to help with stability, however never to the degree of the work done between 2008 and 2010. Improvements for the theatre during this time included, but were not restricted to, more comfortable seating, total rebuilding of the backstage area, restoration of the veranda, a rebuilt fly tower and new protruding window boxes.  The Theatre reopened on 31 May 2010, with a gala opening festival from May 31 - June 13. It is a 342 seat venue, and many of those seats have been sponsored by local individuals and groups.

The Theatre Royal is now believed to be the oldest surviving operating wooden theatre in Australasia, and possibly in the southern hemisphere. The auditorium has a Historic Places Trust B classification. The theatre makes a significant contribution to New Zealand’s heritage of timber architecture and will hopefully be available for public use for many more years to come.

This story is an edited version of a  Nelson College for Girls History assignment, 2009 and draws on a Mudcakes and Roses article, 2006, plus information from the Nelson City Council interpretation panel outside the theatre.

Updated April 2020

Founders Park: Nelson's Secret Village 

On March 1st, 1986, hundreds of Nelsonians gathered along Atawhai Drive to pay witness to the opening of Founders Park. Waiting outside the large red apple (removed 2011 and re-sited in front of the Harvestland Museum), that previously greeted visitors to town¹  and an even larger replica grain-cutting windmill, Nelsonians were soon to take a walk through the streets of Nelson's colonial past.

A street view of Founders. Natasha Lubas
Click to enlarge

In the first two days that Founders Park opened 4,500² people experienced the charming historical village. Several years earlier it had become apparent to the Nelson community that much of Nelson's transport history was being lost, and a search to locate, retain and restore artefacts began. In 1976 the Newman family, founders of the Newman Brothers coaching firm, donated $50,000 for a regional transport museum.² A single large building was planned to exhibit these items close to the airport, however in 1977 a Board of Trustees was established which selected an alternative site near Neale Park. By 1980 the Nelson City Council had approved the land for the Park. Filled to a depth of 3-4 metres with city waste, capped with clay from Walters Bluff, the allocated landfill site required much engineering work to prepare it for development. 

Created with a combination of community skills, unemployed labour directed from the Labour Department, community service clubs, local businesses and a raft of volunteers, Founders officially opened in 1986. It had strong community support, with over 20,000 items donated by the Nelson community.

During the early period of development, which included extensive landscaping, many historic buildings were relocated to Founders while others were replicated. Following a period of uncertainty, the Nelson City Council assumed control in 1995.

The model for Founders Park was designed in 1981 by Matt Bennett (then in the sixth form at Nelson College), as part of a University Entrance course. Site work began in October 1982. The planned entrance for Founders was to be placed on North Road. A deal had been struck with Redwood College, formerly Sacred Heart Girls’ College, to acquire their 90 year old music block and chapel (known as the Granary) and use it as the main exhibition hall. The plan was to remove the building in three parts. the top two stories and most of the roof were successfully transported to Founders, however on May 9th, 1983, disaster struck and the remainder of the building became the victim of arson.³ The building was no longer suitable as a large exhibition hall, and without it plans had to be changed and an open spaced village layout was decided with the entrance placed on Atawhai drive.⁴

Founders Park is a replica historic village of our colonial days, dating from 1880-1930. The charming miniature township is filled with character streets and serene gardens lying on five hectares of land. Founders has over time played host to many events, including a weekly farmers' market (ceased on this site 2016), quarterly beer festivals and antique to retro shows as well as the renowned  annual Founders Book Fair. Along with the many historical buildings,  the park also has a Montessori Preschool and a classic 19^th century church, where numerous weddings take place.

Founders Park - St Peters Church. Nelson City Council
Click to enlarge

St Peters Church was built in the late 19^th century and moved to become part of Founders Park in 1983. Although St Peters has been restored to its original condition, filled with traditional Roman Catholic and Methodist furniture, the clock tower is a replica, as in 1941 it was demolished due to a safety hazard. The current St Peters clock was built in 1909 by Little John and Son from Wellington. It was originally placed at Nelson College to "be an ornament to the building for 100 years to come"⁵. However this was not to be, as when the 1929 Murchison earthquake struck the clock was removed and later stored in the College museum until it was later donated to Founders. St Peters is one of the many beautifully detailed buildings placed at Founders Park;  however many of the buildings are replicas or their original use has changed.

The Bank of New South Wales, which is now Westpac, was established in 1817. The replicated building now at Founders is a duplicate of the 1876 building that, in its time, incorporated grand architecture beyond anything ever seen before in Nelson. The Bank of New South Wales contains a giftshop. 

The Bakery, currently Ruck n Co,  is a replica of the 1876 Goodman's Bakery, which Thomas Goodman, a highly respected cheerful man ran in Motueka. 

The Crown Livery Stables of Founders Park is a fond attraction for many. It houses the history of the Newman's transport company, and it was the Newman family which originally donated a large sum of money to start a regional transport museum, which was the starting point for Founders Park.  Newman's Coachlines is now operated by Transit Coachlines and Ritchies Transport Holdings. The Crown Livery Stables is a replica of the Newman's stables. Take a look inside and you will find their coach lines and horse and carts, along with photographs and artefacts from our early transport days.

Founders Park is a village where historic buildings are bought, renovated and shown so people can get an insight into how people used to live around the turn of the 20^th century in Nelson. Life between 1880-1930 was very different to the present time and whilst walking around Founders Park you can easily note the many contrasting aspects.

Life in Nelson 1880-1930

So what was life like between 1880-1930? Horses were very important,  being used to pull carriages, deliver goods and plough fields, however in 1903 came the railway boom and by the 1920's all classes of people could afford cars - an aspect of life which we take for granted. 1895 took the world by storm when moving pictures were invented, but it wasn't until around 1912 when feature films were available. However along with many new inventions of the time these were a luxury.

Duncan House - Founders Park. Natasha Lubas
Click to enlarge

Electricity is another thing we currently take for granted, although it was not until 1930 that it was introduced to Nelson. Around Founders Park there are many examples of gas fittings or candles for lighting. These aspects are fascinating to the modern day person as the majority of us cannot imagine what life would be like without computers, cars, cell phones or even general medicine, none of which had been invented during 1880-1930.

Founders Park is important for Nelson as it links our current lives with a history that, at Founders, we are able to experience first hand.

This essay was written as part of a Nelson College for Girls history assignment, 2009.

Note 
For further information about the park, images and a map, see the Nelson City Council Founders Heritage Park interpretation panel, text by Janet Bathgate. (PDF)

The origins of the Park (taken from the interpretation panel):
The generous donation of $50,000 by the Newman family, in 1976, to back their concept of a Nelson Regional Transport Museum, sowed the seed of today's Founders Heritage Park. The following year a Board of Trustees was established and by 1980 the Nelson City Council had approved the land for the Park.

Filled to a depth of 3-4 metres with city waste, capped with clay from Walters Bluff, the allocated landfill site required much engineering work to prepare it for development. Created with a combination of community skills, unemployed labour directed from the Labour Department, community service clubs, local businesses and a raft of volunteers, Founders officially opened in 1986.  During the early period of development, which included extensive landscaping, many historic buildings were relocated to Founders while others were replicated. Following a period of uncertainty, the Nelson City Council assumed control in 1995.

The Founders Park railway

The Nelson Railway Society, formerly The "Grand Tapawera Railroad Company",  began in the late 1980's when a group of dedicated volunteers decided to set up a working railway at Kohatu, using the old existing railway formations. However, in 1991 the decision was made to recreate a railway at Founders Heritage Park instead. The group laid approximately 1km of track, restored a 1903 carriage, a guards van and railway engine and partially restored a coal wagon, within its first five years - and purchased more rail vehicles which it has restored over the years, including two diesel locomotives, a railcar, carriages and guards van, various wagons and a jigger.

In 1996 a further 400m of track was opened, extending the line to 1.75 km - taking it as far as Sovereign Street, where Grove Station, formerly the old Spring Grove Station, was opened in November 2003.  It was a struggle to get resource consent to extend the line as it meant running over a main sewage outlet and reclamation water mains. 

Tui station, was moved from Tui along the old Nelson-Glenhope railway line (closed mid 1950's) to Founders and was opened in August 2008. The main station, Wakefield Quay, at Founders Park, was a former Nelson Railway building from Port Nelson. 

The Railway Society always intended to introduce a steam train to the track. They acquired a Wf 403 steam engine in 2000, which they spent over 10 years restoring. Built in 1907 in Dunedin, it is the only engine of its type which has been restored to working practice. In 2019 the Society progressively widened a length of the Park's two km track to run the train.

The Founders Park train currently runs from 11am - 4pm on every 2nd and 4th Sunday of the month from Labour Weekend until Easter. The railcar runs from 11am - 4pm every Saturday and Sunday when the train is not running all year and daily during the school holidays, weather permitting.

Updated: August 2020

Nelson City Councillor 1956 - 1962 ; 1965 - 1976 Deputy Mayor 1959 - 1962, 1965 - 1971

In 1956, twelve years after Laura Ingram was elected to the Motueka Borough Council, Betsy Walter (later Eyre) became Nelson's first woman councillor. Born in Nelson in 1911, she was the eldest child of a Scottish immigrant, Jock Walter, and Mary Jane Mitchell. A tea-merchant in the city, Jock later became proprietor of the Metropolitan Private Hotel in Bridge Street. Betsy attended Brook Street School, Nelson Girls' Central School and Nelson College for Girls. Like Laura, she was attracted to teaching from a young age and was fortunate to enter Teachers' Training College in Wellington in 1930 before the economy measures of the depression years brought a temporary closure. She trained as a primary school teacher specialising in helping children with special needs. In 1934 she embarked on twenty-seven years of teaching in her home city at Nelson Central School and later Auckland Point School.

Mrs Betsy Eyre, Deputy Mayor, 1965. Barry Simpson. Nelson Provincial Museum, Nelson Photo News Collection: 35mm 785_fr24

For Betsy, as for many other women, the outbreak of the Second World War closed some doors and opened others. She was president of the city's Business and Professional Women's Club which went into recess. The absence of men created spaces in civic life which women like Betsy readily filled. She joined the Women's War Service Auxiliary, became secretary of the Territorial Force Association and put her locally-renowned cooking expertise to good use in the YMCA canteen at the Tahunanui aerodrome serving thousands of meals to military personnel.

In the immediate post-war decade caring for her parents limited the possibility of further civic engagement. At the age of 45, she was able to begin a 17-year tenure on the Nelson City Council which included three terms as deputy mayor. Pressed by a journalist in December 1961 to comment on the novelty of being a woman on a male-dominated council, she responded: 'My first term, I felt that being a woman made no difference whatsoever. This second term I'm not so sure....l think there is still a feeling against women taking a senior position in a public body.'¹ Undeterred, she stood for the mayoralty in 1962, coming third in a three-way contest. Her advocacy of women's rights was expressed through membership of the Nelson branch of the Pan- Pacific and South-East Asia Women's Association, and was recognised by national life membership. She also served as president of the Nelson Women's Cricket Association and vice-president of the New Zealand Women's Cricket Association and was involved in the Girl Guides Association for some 23 years.

Her concern to increase women's participation in civic life was embedded in a set of social concerns. She was on the service committee of Nelson's Voluntary Home Aid Service, formed in the late 1950's, which provided care for the elderly, sick, and mentally impaired. From 1961 she was also a member of the Nelson Branch of Birthright New Zealand, established to provide support to single-parent families. Her many personal kindnesses included cooking Sunday lunches in her home for homesick boarders from Nelson College and Nelson College for Girls. In 1962, following her retirement from teaching, she married Richard John Eyre, a retired army officer. The couple had no children, but to the many children they welcomed to their home they were known simply as 'Aunty Betty' and 'Uncle John'. The award of an MBE in 1967 was warmly received within the community she served. After a period of ill-health she retired from the Nelson City Council in 1976 and died in 1983.²

This was published in: Women Decision-Makers Nelson and Tasman 1944 -2018, p.44. Compiled by Dr Shelley Richardson, Elaine Henry, Gail Collingwood, Hilary Mitchell (2018)

Betsy Eyre Park

Betsy Eyre Park lies on the triangular section of land bordered by Brook Street, Westbrook Terrace and Blick Terrace. The land was once beside the Dun Mountain Railway yards, which extended northwards beside the Brook Stream. It was earmarked for housing, but for decades was used as an infrastructure storage area, for projects such as the 1950's Maitai waterworks pipeline and the 1970's flood channel protection works, and local children used it as an adventure playground to jump their bikes and play in the pipes. 

The Brook Valley wasteland, before the creation of Betsy Eyre Park. Nelson Provincial Museum Geoffrey C Wood Collection GCW2_22384 fr 4

In 1976 the residents of Blick and Westbrook Terraces decided to approach council to have the site cleaned up and made into a park. A committee, headed by Ron Arthur, was formed. As a former Brook Street School pupil, and in her former councillor role as chairperson of the Parks & Recreation Committee, Betsy Eyre became involved. She supported both the community and the council to present submissions to the Department of Lands and Survey to have the land gazetted as recreation reserve. This was approved in September 1976, with an agreement that the community would do most of the work itself. Contractor Bill Gibbons loaned machinery and Graham Mayers, Alf Nordstrom and Neil Kennedy carried out the bulk of the heavy work.

As the new park neared completion, residents petitioned council to have it named after Betsy Eyre. It was not common practice to have someone honoured in this way, within their lifetime, but the petition was signed by Mayor Roy McClennan and every councillor. Betsy opened the park on 17 September 1977 alongside a crowd of proud Brook Valley residents.

The land was formally gazetted as Recreation Reserve in 1979, with the Nelson City Council appointed by the Department of Lands and Survey to control and manage it. Over the years trees were planted within the grassed triangle. In 2013, when pressure mounted from the increasing number of mountain bikers using Codgers Tracks, council discussed turning the park into a car park. Community spirit once again came to the fore and residents asked that the land remain a park, to respect all those who had put their heart and sole into creating it, including Betsy Eyre.

(Information sourced from the Betsy Eyre Information panel, placed at Betsy Eyre Park July 2020)

First dentists in Nelson

JW Tatton. (Copy Collection, Nelson Provincial Museum, C2643). Source NZETC.
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One hundred and fifty years ago the first dentist arrived in Nelson by ship from England. These dentists to arrive were often jack of all trades, pharmacists, doctors, and blacksmiths, as well as tooth pullers. Before 1880 a dentist mostly needed a strong wrist, as their main activity was to extract teeth. No local anaesthetics were available, and the only drill available was a major problem. A little repair work was carried out by the early dentists, but they also made expensive sets of false teeth, from ivory and gold, extracted human teeth or porcelain. Dentists practising at this time included the very successful John William Tatton ( from 1858) who was also a doctor and chemist, also famous for his connection with the Dun Mountain company and the plaster casts of the Maugatapu murderers' heads.  Herbert Pearson Rawson practised as a dentist in 1880 and went on to become the first president of the New Zealand Dental Association in 1905.

Looking along Hardy Street, Nelson. Showing (on right), Newman Brothers Crown Livery Stables; G F Dodds - dentist;The Wilkins and Field Hardware Company - ironmongers, 1911(?). 'Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 35-R858
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Mãori dental care

Caries and periodontal disease affected the earliest Mãori inhabitants of Nelson. Around 1500 AD, changes in their diet led to their teeth, especially the back teeth, being worn down at an early age. European observers, such as Captain Cook, frequently misjudged the age of Mãoris, as their toothless state made them appear to be much older than was really the case. When the European settlers arrived, Mãori diet changed again. Softer European foods and also sugar, tobacco and alcohol, coupled with a less active and healthy lifestyle, affected the natural health and also the teeth of Mãori. Apart from the chewing of fern roots, which had a natural cleansing effect on the teeth, little is known of early Mãori attempts at oral health measures.

The Mãori did, however, make good use of herbal remedies, using the extracts of bark, leaves and roots of native plants. The kawakawa, or Mãori pepper tree, was used to relive toothache, as was the matipo or mapau, using a liquid made by boiling the leaves. To ease pain, a decoction of manuka or kanuka leaves was used and similar use was made of the inner bark of the Pukatea, which was steeped in hot water and placed over the painful area. The boiled leaves of the Koromiko hebe were used for a mouthwash and gargle.

Kawakawa. Source Wikimedia
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Dentists registered from 1880

Registration for dentists and chemists was required under the first Dentists Act which was passed in 1880.  At this time there were about 50 dentists practising in New Zealand. By the year 1901 there were 282 registered. In the next four years to 1905, when the New Zealand Dental Association was founded, there were 464 registered dentists. Dentistry became a more esteemed, and profitable profession. The Dental Bill of 1904 set standards to protect the public.

unknown, “Dental operating theatre.,” ourheritage.ac.nz | OUR Heritage, accessed July 10, 2015, http://otago.ourheritage.ac.nz/items/show/5948.[1920's second Otago Dental School
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After 1880, major technological innovations revolutionised dentistry throughout the western world. The introduction of the engine-operated foot pedal enabled dentists to drill teeth and fill them on a large scale, and surpassed the old hand held drill. A new adjustable dentist’s chair became available, increasing the range of operations a dentist could perform. Cheaper and improved filling materials, such as gutta percha and various amalgams were introduced, however gold continued to be used. Vulcanite rubber became available as a base for false teeth. Coal gas, which was used for heat and energy, enabled a greater range of metallurgical work using gold and other metals, for the construction of complex bridgework, and nitrous oxide became available for pain relief, allowing an increase in operating possibilities.

Gradually the profession developed, with the formation of the apprenticeship system, the establishment of the dental school and the dental degree, and the setting up of the New Zealand Dental Association.

New Zealand introduced the Bachelor of Dental Surgery in 1907. Prior to that, dentists trained overseas, usually in North America, Ireland or England. A Dental School opened in Dunedin in 1908 and control of dental education came under one centralised body, the University of New Zealand.

Improvement of general dental care

The inspection and repair of the teeth of New Zealand Defence Force volunteers in 1914 highlighted the nation’s poor dental health. The New Zealand Dental Corps (NZDC) was formed in 1915 to provide dental treatment in camps to members of the Defence Force. Their other duties included using dental records to identify disfigured war dead.

The involvement of dentists and dental mechanics in active war service enhanced the prestige of dentistry and demonstrated the value of public dental-health programmes.

The leader of the NZDC, Colonel Thomas Hunter, returned from war in 1918 determined to move the focus of dentistry from extraction to restoration and prevention of decay. As director of the new division of dental hygiene in the Department of Health, he successfully advocated the establishment of the School Dental Service in 1921 to treat primary school children.

In  the 1920’s the Department of Health began an advertising campaign to encourage healthy eating and personal dental care, utilising posters, exhibitions at agricultural shows, health weeks and lectures. The campaigns continued into the 1960’s, increasingly using radio, film and television.

The passing of the Social Security Act 1938 led to general improvements in access to health care, including dental-health care. From 1937 milk was provided free in schools, to supply calcium for teeth as well as improve children’s nutrition generally.

By 1947 dental care was provided free to students up to standard six (year eight), and a government-subsidised scheme staged by new dental graduates was established to treat the teeth of adolescents up to the age of 19. This was later lowered to 16.

The School Dental Service

The School Dental Service commenced in 1921 in response to the large amount of dental decay in New Zealand children’s  teeth. It was a world first and staffed entirely by female dental nurses and free to all primary aged schoolchildren.

New Zealand. Department of Health. New Zealand Department of Health :Preventive filling. The protective filling; why the School Dental Service fills certain second teeth soon after they erupt through the gum. R E Owen, Government Printer, Wellington, New Zealand. 25,000/10/50 -9980 [1950]. Ref: Eph-A-DENTAL-1950-01. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/30120566
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The first intake was of 35 women, who started their training in a building that later became the Prime Minister's house. Twenty five clinics were built across New Zealand and staffed by the 23 graduates of the first training intake. The first clinic opened in July 1923, proving to be popular and efficient. Dental nurses with transportable equipment serviced remote areas. Further training schools were established in the 1950s.

Changes in the 1960s

By the 1960’s the average intake was 270 students per year across three dental nurse training schools in Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland.  When Jennifer Lucas, from Nelson, trained to be a dental nurse in the Wellington Dental school in Willis St in 1962, it had become a popular career choice for women.

Jennifer did a two year training followed by a third year out working in clinics but under supervision.  Her job was to examine and clean teeth, do fillings and tooth extractions, apply fluoride treatment to teeth and provide health education.

In 1966 nurses averaged 300 fillings per month compared with 40 per month these days. Jennifer did a range of fillings. “Copper amalgam was used for primary teeth, silver amalgam for secondary teeth and a white filling (silicate) for front teeth.   Copper was heated until beads of mercury came up and then the mixture was mixed with a mortar and pestle and excess mercury squeezed out through gauze. No gloves were worn and there was a real danger of mercury poisoning.”  Zinc oxide powder and Eugenol (oil of cloves) was another filling mixture, but it set very slowly. Children from 2½ to 12 years at primary and intermediate schools were treated by the dental nurse and secondary school pupils were treated by a dentist.

At the clinic visitors were greeted by the distinctive aroma of methylated spirits, dettol and other cleaning fluids. The walls were covered with Department of Health posters encouraging cleaning teeth and healthy diet. The nurse wore a white starched uniform and veil, white seamed stockings and bright red cardigan. Uniforms and laundry service was provided as part of the job.

Jennifer said “ We did everything in the clinic ourselves. Along with providing treatment we did a lot of paperwork, such as setting up appointments and writing reports. Although we didn’t take X-rays we were required to use this information. On the creative side we made many gauze bumble bees for “good children”  to take away as a momento of their visit.”

Extensive coverage by Nelson dental nurses

Marguerite Hill. (2010) Examples of butterflies and bees made out of cotton swabs, paper bibs and dental floss, which decorated School Dental clinics or were given to children to take home visiting the dental nurse for the first time were allowed to take one home.[Source Te Ara]
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The Nelson area extended to Kaikoura and Haast and originally employed 68 dental nurses, or dental therapists as they were later called. Nurses were sent to outlying areas such as the French Pass with transportable equipment to set up a temporary clinic. Jennifer found herself working at Nelson Central School which had a very wide catchment to serve including Hira, Tasman Street and Clifton Terrace schools.  These pupils could be seen in the dental clinic but French Pass children required the setting up a temporary clinic.  In 1964, 1965 and 1967 Jennifer set off on the bus to French Pass with a huge tin trunk containing anaesthetics, a primus to boil water on, a tin steriliser, a spit bowl, dental instruments and other paraphernalia required. The treadle drill broke down to fit in a wooden suitcase, and the folding wooden dental chair fitted into a canvas haversack. Where the dental nurse would visit, who she would see and where she would stay was organised by the School Dental Service.

Jennifer recalls” I got off the bus at French Pass and set up the clinic in the back of the Post office for approximately seven days. Children came in from Durville Island in a launch to be seen.  I stayed in the local guesthouse. The next stop was Okoha.  I stayed with the Redwoods family here who were very friendly and hospitable. I was transported here from French Pass by the Connollys launch, and remember the hair-raising row ashore in a rowboat that made several trips to bring myself and the equipment ashore. As Okoha school was fairly basic, and was set in the middle of a paddock, I set up my gear and worked on the lawn outside the Redwoods house.  Some of the children’s teeth were excellent partly due to their limited access to fizzy drinks and sugary food.”

“ Next stop was the Manaroa School where I was hosted by the Harvey families and I set up my equipment at their homes, boiling the steriliser on the stove.  Next I went overland to Waitaria Bay School and that first year no water was laid on, presenting a number of challenges.  I stayed with the Nott and Godsiff families. Next stop was Portage then over the hill to catch the Mail Boat back to Picton, then the bus back to Nelson.”

Dental health improves

In later years the service to French Pass was discontinued citing risks of cross infection, and children had to travel further to get dental care. The improvement in children’s teeth after the introduction of the school dental service was marked.  In 1925 there were 78.6 teeth requiring extraction for every 100 teeth restored; by 1974 this figure was reduced to two extractions to 100 restorations. Today many retain their teeth through adulthood whereas it was common in the first half of the twentieth century to lose your teeth by your twenties or thirties. 1940s Health posters urged youth to guard their natural teeth for they are the best.  Whilst filling teeth was an important duty of a dental nurse, they were dedicated to dental education to prevent cavities and tooth loss in the first place. Sugary drinks, however, remain a problem. Fluoridation of water is still a contentious issue despite lessened tooth decay in areas that switched to fluoridated water. Flouride toothpaste is recommended in the fight against tooth decay, and mouth guards in sports.

Trained nurses often gave up their careers when they married and Jennifer also had a break when she had children.  Returning to work fulltime in 1983 she was required to retrain, as the use of high speed drills had been introduced, as well as a number of other changes. Improving dental health had resulted in nurses seeing children once yearly rather than twice yearly, so each nurse doubled her number of patients. Jennifer worked at a number of clinics serving many schools including Central, Nelson and Broadgreen Intermediates, Clifton Terrace, Auckland Point, Enner Glynn, and Lower Moutere.

In 1990s the School Dental Service (SDS) changed from a national service, run by Ministry of Health, to a more fragmented service under different governing and funding bodies.  The SDS was rejuvenated and renamed Community Oral health Service, after evidence of worsening decay in pre-schoolers teeth and poor dental health in some areas of the community. It provides treatment and advice for children from birth to age eighteen. 

2015

Jennifer Lucas, of Nelson,  was interviewed by Debbie-Daniell-Smith in 2015

The Brook Valley has been integral to the development of Nelson since the early days of European colonisation. From 1868 it was the site of the Nelson water supply reservoir.  Chromite was mined from the 1850s and the Dun Mountain Railway ran from the chromite mines to the Port from 1862. Coal was mined for a few years at the end of the 19^th Century. The Brook Waimarama Sanctuary was opened in 2007 and work continues to turn it into a pest-free "mainland island" nature sanctuary.

The Brook Stream

The Māori name for the Brook is Waimarama which translates as “clear or transparent water”. The stream has a catchment of 110 hectares in the Brook Valley and originates on the eastern side of Cummins Spur and Bullock Spur on the Dun Mountain. It travels approximately six kilometres before meeting the Maitai/Mahitahi at Domett Street Bridge.

The stream now runs along a concrete box channel from the Brook Dairy to Sowman Street. This was a response to the major flooding that occurred in September 1970. Roadways and river margins subsided, concrete bridges were smashed, and houses and sheds were undermined. One resident, a Mrs J.E. McCarthy of Bronte Street was swept away to her death while trying to open a jammed door. One unfortunate consequence of the channel is that it speeds up the flow of water, inhibiting fishes travelling up this stretch of the stream. The concrete transmits heat during summer, lowering water quality, and the bare concrete provides no habitat in which fish can live. A number of fish passage “fixes” have been installed in the channel, and finding innovative and plants such as climbers and grasses have intermittently been installed to help provide shade.

Water Works

Early European settlers sourced water for drinking and washing from streams and rivers, just as Māori had been doing for generations. They also built shallow wells. But the increasing concentration of the European population required a stable water source for sanitation and fire-fighting. The idea of taking water from the Brook was first mooted in 1858-9 and in, 1865 the Provincial Government provided a substantial loan (20,000 pounds) for the purpose.

Brook reservoir. Nelson Provincial Museum. Hargreaves collection. 8470. Click image to enlarge

In September 1865, Crown Land within the watershed of the Brook Stream and its tributaries was reserved for the Nelson Waterworks, which was to include a dam about 13 metres higher in altitude than a reservoir, with a 30 centimetre cast iron pipe down to the reservoir and 18cm pipes to carry water to town.¹

The gravel catch above the weir. Brook Valley. Nelson Provincial Museum. F.N. Jones Collection. Click image to enlarge

On April 13, 1868, John Blackett, the Provincial Engineer, reported that the dam was completed and cast iron piping had been laid from the dam to Nelson.²   The opening of the Water Works on 16 April 1868 was a public holiday celebrated with a procession to the reservoir and back to the Government Buildings in Bridge Street.³

It wasn't too long before demand for water began to exceed supply. In 1874, the Provincial Engineer, A.D. Dodson, stated "As the mains are extended year by year the necessity for an increased supply becomes more apparent..... I propose laying a 10 inch (25 cm) main from the dam to the reservoir, which will cost about £1,500."⁴

Brook reservoir. Nelson Provincial Museum. Kitching Collection: 317420
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In 1908, engineers found nearly half of the water inflow was being lost. The work had not being carried out to original design specifications, and inferior, porous concrete had been used. They recommended that leakage would be drastically reduced by a new concrete wall built inside the dam to a maximum height of seven metres. The report also recommended the construction of a second smaller dam further up river to provide increased water supply and pressure to the upper levels of Nelson.⁵

By March 1909, a weir was constructed 46 metres above the Big Dam at a cost of around £2,000. The weir, which is commonly referred to as the Top Dam, was 22 metres wide and 12 metres high and provided a reservoir of more than 18,000 cubic metres. The Big Dam was re-mortared and re-filled by 1911 at a cost of £2,418.

The Roding River water supply scheme was completed in 1941, with the combined output of the Roding and Brook schemes averaging 15% overcapacity for the water requirements of Nelson, Stoke and Richmond. The Maitai South Branch project was completed in 1963. The Brook Dam was decommissioned in 2000.⁶

In 1924, an American film company shot a film in Nelson called Venus of the South Seas. It starred Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman. A section of the old Brook reservoir was glazed and filled with water to shoot underwater scenes. 

Coal and Chrome Ore

"The whole range of mountains ... is rich in mineral wealth ....How best to use it and get it to the Port from these inaccessible mountains is the problem. Fortunately the matter of carriage has been solved for us by the Dun Mountain Railway Company, whose railway...coiling like a snake around the face of almost precipitous mountains, down the sides of which a hundred tons of chrome ore are weekly conveyed by the laws of gravitation to the outskirts of the town."⁷

The mining of chrome ore (a source of chromium) began in Nelson in the late 1850s and continued intermittently until about the turn of the century. Production peaked in 1862 when 3486 tonnes, valued at £24,719, was exported from Nelson to Lancashire cotton mills.⁸ Chromium was used in cotton dying, mainly to produce yellow and mauve colours, but the English market collapsed and the Dun Mountain ore became patchy and low grade.  The Dun Mountain Mining Co. Ltd went into liquidation in 1872.⁹

A stroll to the Brook Reservoir. Nelson Provincial Museum. Hargreaves Collection
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Coal was first noted in the Brook Valley as early as 1853.  In 1894, the Brook Street Coal Prospecting Association was established to prospect the east side of the Brook.  About 2.7 tonnes of hard, good quality coal was extracted in that year. Unstable ground and a shortage of capital to develop the mine shafts saw this venture fail.

The Jenkins Hill Prospecting Association was also established in 1894 and found a vertical seam of coal, which reached a thickness of 37.8 metres in places on the west side of the Brook.  The mine eventually produced 1337 tonnes of coal but lack of capital and a fire at the mine eventually saw the mine sold in 1895 and no further coal mining was done.¹⁰

The Environment

An aerial shot of Brook Waimarama Sanctuary, looking west. NZ Conservationist.
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In 2002, it was announced that a group of Nelson environmentalists hoped to develop the abandoned Brook dam area as a ‘mainland island' nature recovery project. The sanctuary was to be a wildlife corridor to encourage more native birds into Nelson city.¹¹

After an extensive and ongoing pest control campaign, to eradicate both animal and plant pests, The Brook Waimarama Sanctuary opened to the public in 2007, with funding from the Nelson City Council, Tasman District Council and other community and funding bodies.¹² A $2.6 million, 14 km fence was designed to enclose the Brook Valley water catchment area and create a sanctuary for birdlife, by keeping out rats, mice, possums and other mammals.¹³ Construction of a 14.4 km predator fence began in 2013,¹⁴ and there is now a visitor centre, an immersive outdoor classroom,  pedestrian bridges and well maintained visitor tracks (some of wheelchair standard). The plan is also to reintroduce native species to the sanctuary.¹⁵

When James Henry Sharland stepped off the John Masterman ship on the 8th February 1857¹ he had his son James Frederick Sharland and his partner Julia Lazarus at his side. They would have been greeted kindly by the local settlers, offered fresh fruit and a warm smile as comfort after months at sea.² But had the locals known of James Henry Sharland's recent, and past convict history,³ they probably would have opted for pelting him with rotten vegetables and giving him the cold shoulder.

Sharland's flax mill [photo supplied by author]
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James Henry Sharland had not embarked from London 104 days earlier, as had most of the other passengers of the John Masterman and the ship itself.⁴  In fact James Henry Sharland had not left from anywhere at all, but rather been invented somewhere in between James Henry Shaw leaving his wife in Hobart, Tasmania, and the John Masterman's arrival in Nelson about a week later. James Henry Shaw, his son, and Julia, had hopped aboard the ship when it had docked in Hobart on the 30th of January, leaving behind Sophia Neat, who was James Henry's wife and James Frederick's mother. Julia left behind her brother Elijah, who coincidentally was married to Frances Neat.⁵ 

Details as to why James Henry Shaw decided to leave have never been revealed, but it was certainly unusual for a middle aged man to leave his wife, take their child and elope with a woman four years his senior. Not that slightly dodgy behaviour was rare in the Shaw family. They weren't exactly known for being model citizens, in fact it used to be said that if you should meet an honest Shaw you should shoot him quick before he turns bad.⁶

Something that was good about James Henry though, had to be his timing. He came to Nelson when the town was in high spirits, recovering from the slump during the forties, which had been caused by naive optimism. The New Zealand Company had crudely over-estimated the quality of the soil in the Nelson region and, when settlers arrived, few had enough capital to cultivate the land. In 1842 there was a depression in Australia and Britain which made land sales even more difficult, causing the New Zealand Company to almost go bankrupt.⁷

To make matters worse, clashes in the Wairau with the local Iwi over land resulted in the death of roughly 22 British settlers. On the June 17th 1843 a group of local authorities sought out chiefs Te Ruaparaha and Te Rangihaeata, seeking their arrest over charges of arson. English law of course meant little to the Māori chiefs, and the confrontation resulted in a stand-off where shots were fired from both sides. Rongo, the daughter of Te Ruaparaha and wife of Te Rangihaeata, was one of the victims fatally wounded during the flurry of gun shots. To avenge her death tribe members captured and tomahawked twelve of the group of settlers, sending a wave of fear through the Nelson Region.⁸

Few people in the community had not been affected by the conflict, many losing family members or friends. Many settlers moved away from Nelson, and land also lost value due to the threat of violence from the Māori tribes. Hardship continued in the region, progress was painstakingly slow and the town remained crudely underdeveloped. For years a ditch stretched down the side of Trafalgar Street which caught many pedestrians off-guard, particularly at night, and a bridge wasn't built over the Maitai until 1847.   The fifties were much more hopeful times. Several mines were discovered, mostly during the year 1856. The mines offered copper, chrome ore and gold. The success of most mines was short-lived, although they did attract throngs of hopeful settlers to Nelson. Between 1853 and 1858 the population doubled, and labour shortages in the early fifties led to high wages and increased independence for wage-earners. 

There were many opportunities for James Henry Sharland when he arrived. He had left his troublesome family name behind and was a trained gilder. In his first years in Nelson, however, there are no records of his actions until 1859 when, on the October 5th he played a song at a dinner held for the Volunteer Rifle Corps.⁹ What he was doing before this date is a mystery, which he most probably intended it to be.

James and Julia's son, George Cornelius Sharland, was born in 1860, but 21 years later when he was to be married he wished to do so under the name Shaw. Attached to his marriage certificate is a handwritten note from his father: "I James Shaw hereby solemnly declare that in consequence of family reasons I changed my name to James Sharland on my arrival in New Zealand in 1857 and wrongly registered my son George Cornelius Shaw as George Cornelius Sharland on the 2nd day of August 1860." 

Wakapuaka (1892, Sep 23) Colonist, p.2. Papers Past
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It wasn't until five years after his arrival in Nelson that James Henry started to make a real name for himself, by leasing 84 acres of land, and buying three sections up the Maitai, which he named, "The Greenlands," and which remained in the family until 1969, when it was purchased by the State Forest Service. The land was in the area now named Sharland's Hill. It is here that he set up a flax mill, which established a long tradition of flax milling in the Sharland family. It expanded to mills in West Wanganui, Pakawau, at Mt Patriarch on the Wairau's North Bank and even Nile Street.   James Henry continued to run the original mill until 1876 when his sons took over and he returned to his old trade of carving, gilding and picture framing. The shop that he owned still stands just before the Collingwood Street Bridge, and the building remained a framing shop until 2008, when the business moved to Gloucester Street.¹⁰ 

James Henry passed away on March 3rd 1901. His will, dated two days before his death, left his land to, "Son James Frederick Shaw," and the rest of his estate to, "George Cornelius Sharland." It seems he even confused himself, as James Frederick always referred to himself as Sharland, and George officially had his name changed to Shaw. James Henry himself died registered a Shaw, but like many of the details in his life, it has never been confirmed if the funeral directors took note of old English advice to "bury a Shaw 7ft below, as deep down they're really good men."¹¹

^{Ellen Sharland, Nelson College for Girls, 2009}

Updated: April 2020

The Dun Mountain Railway was officially opened amidst great fanfare on Monday 3 February, 1862. From the port, across the city, the horse-drawn tramway then climbed from Brook Street to a height of 2870 feet where it terminated at the chromite mines situated east of Nelson. It is known as New Zealand's first railway, although because some claim it is "just a tramway" this title has also been claimed by the Christchurch to Ferrymead railway, opened December 1, 1863.

Opening of Dun Mountain tramway, Nelson region,3 Feb 1862, Alexander Turnbull Library, 1/2-018188-F [permission of ATL must be obtained for further use of image]
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Early Māori quarried argillite for adzes and tools from Nelson's Mineral Belt (a strip of serpentine- rich ground running from D'Urville Island to Lake Rotoiti). European interest in the mineral deposits dated back to 1852 when copper ore was found. Mining engineer, Thomas Hacket, eventually pronounced the copper lodes to be worthless, however he did recommend mining the chromite deposits on Wooded Peak- a summit nearly two miles  northwest of Dun Mountain.

The chromite had been discovered by  German geologist Ferdinand von Hochstetter. In 1859 he climbed Dun Mountain as part of the Austrian Novara Expedition and named the olivine rock he found here Dunite. Dunite is a silicate rich in magnesium and iron and weathers to a rusty reddish or dun colour. Dun is the old English word for the colour brown. The flecks of black within rock samples are chromite. Dunite, serpentine and other ultramafic rocks are part of the Nelson Mineral Belt. Hochstetter stayed three nights in the Dun Mountain Company mine House, sited beyond Coppermine Saddle, during his Dun Mountain expedition (29th August - 1st September 1859), which was sited just below the current bike trail as it leaves Coppermine Saddle and enters the bush (825m).

Initially constructed to carry this chrome ore from the mines to Nelson's Port, the railway also provided a well-used passenger service between the Port and Nelson city for nearly four decades. When the Dun Mountain Railway Company applied for permission to cross Nelson's city streets with its railway lines, the Provincial Council and Government required the Company to run at least one public passenger train per day - New Zealand's first public transport. A new Railway Act required that the locomotives travel through Nelson at a maximum of four miles per hour.  

Two Irish engineers with considerable railway experience, William T. Doyne and Abraham C. Fitzgibbon, were engaged to construct the railway which was to climb through heavily bushed mountainous country. Tons of railway track were shipped from England and more than 24,000 wooden sleepers were provided by local sawmills. Rolling stock, consisting of 20 knocked down wagons, arrived from England in 1861, with another 25 wagons arriving a year later, giving a capacity of 500 tons of ore a month. Horses pulled the wagons up the railway. 

Scene at Dun Mountain, 1862, Alexander Turnbull Library, 1/2-160121-F [permission of ATL must be obtained for further use of image]
Click image to enlarge

The Dun Mountain Railway cost £75,000 to build and was so popular that by the end of February 1862, the Company advised people they could not ride up and down the line any longer - the wagons were required to haul ore to the Port. Horse-drawn along the railway up to the mines in the morning, gravity assisted the loaded wagons down the hill in the afternoon, with brake-men controlling the speed. Horses pulled the wagons to the Port.

Third House 1862, Copy Collection, The Nelson Provincial Museum, C2634
Click image to enlarge

In 1862, 3843 tons  of chrome ore were extracted and carried down Dun Mountain by the railway, much of it coming from the Duppa Lode Mines on Wooded Peak - where evidence of mines and ore chutes remain on the hillside. However, only 1363 tons (1236 tonnes) were mined over the next two years and, in the autumn of 1864, it was found that only low grade ore remained in the existing workings. In addition, the American Civil War (1861)  had stopped the export of cotton from the United States to Britain and the Lancashire cotton mills, which used chrome to produce yellow and mauve dyes, eventually closed.

It was left to mining engineer, Joseph Cock, who arrived in Nelson in mid-1864, to inform the London directors of the Company of the true state of affairs. While Cock assiduously explored mountains, gullies and stream beds, he found the remaining ores were patchy and low grade. He discovered another deposit of high grade ore, which a four mile  branch line would access, but decided the cost of constructing such a line would not be recovered.

By January 10, 1866, Cock reported to the directors that the chrome deposits were completely exhausted and he had suspended mining operations: "Gentlemen, it is my unpleasant duty to inform you that the present condition and future prospects of your mine are extremely unsatisfactory."

The Company went into liquidation in 1872. But the last remnant of the railway - the horse drawn tram - continued to operate half hourly between Hardy Street and the Tasman Hotel at the Port until 1901. The line to the mines was finally lifted in 1907, but the route is still followed by the popular Dun Mountain Walkway.

Written by Joy Stephens, 2008, and published in Wild Tomato with the support of The Nelson Provincial Museum

Other features of the Dun Mountain Railway track

Carters Bridge
Carters Bridge was named after the contractor who built it, Robert Carter. The bridge was made of a cribwork of logs which soon began to rot, causing subsidence and increasing maintenance costs on the line. The logs were designed as a temporary measure to get the railway open to deadline and budget, with an intention to later replace them with concrete structures.

Third House
At strategic intervals along the railway The Dun Mountain Company had a number of “houses”. Third House (660 metres altitude), at Wairoa Saddle as it was then known, was halfway between Brook Street and the mines and included a wooden two-storeyed stable. The houses, initially probably construction depots, were later used for maintenance purposes and shelter for the railway workers. Many men who built the railway were unemployed goldminers, no doubt accustomed to tent-camp life and hard work. In total, around 200 workmen were involved in the construction of the railway, which was completed in less than a year using picks, shovels and wheelbarrows. 

Dun Mountain Co Mine House c.1859 Nelson Provincial Museum

Junction Saddle
The converging tracks of earlier prospecting tracks – a railway route laid out by the Dun Mountain Company manager, Thomas Hacket, and a cartage track known as the Bullock Track – met the railway line at Junction Saddle (682m). The tracks that preceded railway construction accessed copper mines in Travers Gully on the eastern side of Wooded Peak. An early prospectors hut sat on the saddle but became redundant when Third House (660m) and Fourth House (810m) were built. Between Junction Saddle and Fourth House are several historic features including a major cutting through a sandstone spur, sandstone quarries, stone work, sleepers with dog spikes and bolts and a lime kiln and quarry that operated beside the railway.

Lime Kiln
Throughout the four-year life of the railway, mining was a stop-start affair due to fluctuating chromite returns. To keep the railway operating the company diversified into selling firewood, timber, gravel, flagstones and lime. The site of the company’s lime kiln is shortly before Fourth House and is marked with a post. Lime was quarried from a belt of Wooded Peak Limestone. It was used as a mortar and fertiliser. Price and demand fluctuated in response to the building trade and competition from the lime works sited at Port Nelson. The Dun lime works were still in operating after chromite mining finally ended in 1866 but by 1870 wagons could no longer access the upper part of the incline and the kiln closed.

Windy Point
The Dun Mountain Railway terminus (875m) was sited about 230 metres west of Windy Point where chromite was mined from the hillside above and loaded into wagons. Prospecting for minerals was carried out above and below the railway bench between Coppermine Saddle and Windy Point. Windy Point (845m) was originally known as Coads Point after Stephen Coad, who, in 1862, opened out a weak zone of mineralisation down-slope of the point for The Dun Mountain Company. Nearby Coads Creek retains his name.

While researching the history of Russell Street, for use on a historical interpretation panel for the Nelson City Council, I met Madge Wilson on 3 April 2017, at her home. This story is written from notes and a recording of our conversation, as we sat in the front window seat that overlooks Haven Road and Port Nelson.

Madge Wilson. Janet Bathgate

“I don’t understand new people moving in here and then a few months later complaining to the local authority about the Port noise. It’s a working Port and always has been. They should have paid more attention before purchasing. I bet the real estate agents keep quiet about it.”

Madge was raised with Port noise, being born at No.52 Russell Street in 1924. Her parents, May and John, bought the house in 1918. The house was first built in 1903, and sat prominently against the skyline at the top of the ridge. Madge had one sister and one brother, and when she was 16 a nephew, John, came to live with them and he was like a young brother to her as well.

No.52 Russell Street, built in 1903. The sign on the front of the home reads Haumoana (home beside the sea).

Back then the road up the hill was a rough dirt road. There were cottages clustered together near the bottom of the hill but the upper slopes were farmland. Local boys and girls played together all over the hills. They would roam over to the western side of Queens Road and look down into the back of the large Nelson Foundry building that was located on Wakefield Quay.

In those days Nelson Haven had not been reclaimed for Port and associated industrial use. The estuary came right up to a sea wall on Haven Road.

“We swam at the bottom of the hill, beside the sea wall opposite Franzen’s ship chandlery; there was an open space for small boats and it was good for a swim. At low tide we got in under Franzen’s¹ and would explore the pools for cockabully’s.”

Back then, boats would be seen anchored in the Haven and sometimes moored right up to the wall. A railway line to the Port ran around beside the road. The Wilson children attended Auckland Point School and later the respective Nelson colleges (Nelson College and Nelson College for Girls).

Looking down Russell Street from the veranda of No.52. Note the sections of the lower Russell Street houses extending right up to Queens Road, at left.

“The boys always looked after us when we were little. When we went to tech to do cooking and sewing in standards five and six, we had bikes by then. The boys would always meet us after cooking so they ate what we had made that day.

When I left school I went to work at Louisson's,²  Nelson premier womens’ wear store, and it was during this time that my friends and I were ‘Manpowered’ for the war effort. We went to Stanley Brook, way up the valley, to work in the tobacco. We worked very hard. The first time I went there was with a larger group of girls and the local M.P.’s wife Dorothy Atmore came and cooked for us until a cook could be arranged. The second time it was just with my friend Betty Henderson and we had to pump water and light a fire at night to do our cooking”.

At the end of World War II Madge went to Auckland to train as a nurse. Unfortunately she contracted tuberculosis (TB) and had many weeks in hospital followed by sick leave at home in Nelson. She was absent from training for so long that her nursing friends had moved on in their studies. Madge worked for a time in Nelson at Louissons before joining her friends on an overseas working holiday. They travelled by ship to England through the Suez Canal.

During her overseas adventure, Madge stayed often with her father’s relatives, in London, Cambridge and various European countries and doing office work that she learned quite quickly. One skill never mastered was shorthand, but by keeping the notebook well slanted towards her, Madge created a ‘long-hand, short-hand’ that got her by.

Russell Street from The Haven. No.52 can be seen prominently on the ridgetop skyline, sitting to the right of Russell Street. FN Jones Collection. Nelson Provincial Museum

Upon returning to New Zealand Madge finished her nursing training in Nelson, living at the Nurses Home. In 1965 she went to Wellington to carry out post-graduate maternity training and came back to work at Nelson Hospital.

"The hospital was my life. I worked there until my early sixties. It was a supportive place. Colleagues stood up for you and it was like family. I did theatre work and later social work.

Our father died in 1959 and that’s when I went home to look after our mother. Mother died in 1967 and left this home to my sister and I. I have lived here ever since, on my own. I like being by myself. People ask me if I am lonely but I am never lonely; I’m too busy to be lonely.

There was always a strong community feel here up until WW2. Before then there was the cluster of houses near the bottom and only a few at the top. Then things changed. The arrival of B.B.Jones, the developer and house builder, was quite significant. He built a lot of houses in Russell Street and around the hills. Things became more crowded; more people; more buying and selling. Children from the working class houses at the bottom of the street, when they grew up and married they were quick to move into homes further up the hill.

Most families for a long time had connections with the sea. Many ship’s captains and several harbour-master’s lived around here. Gilbert Inkster used to be up there on Victoria Heights and at Christmas he played his bagpipes down his street and the neighbours formed a procession.

When the reclamation was being formed the boys would find materials to use for building huts and other uses – boxes, timber, that sort of thing. One day I was coming home and there were John and Ken’s legs under a huge box going up the hill. They couldn’t see where they were going and were stumbling about. Nephew John married one of the Hadfield girls. Their family run the Abel Tasman tourism business now.

This home has been altered slightly over the years. The veranda has been enclosed. That’s the warmest part of the house in winter because the sun is low and gets right inside. As soon as the sun comes up in winter it hits the sunroom and shines in all day long. The trees have grown up in front. Ken and father planted the largest of the two pohutukawa. I was five, so around 1929; it’s a listed heritage tree now.”

2017 (updated August 2020)

The Botanical Reserve was set aside by the New Zealand Company in 1858 for public use. The area comprises two distinct parts, the playing field on the corner of Milton and Hardy Streets and Botanical Hill with its forested area behind and Branford Park, stretching alongside the Maitai River. The total area is approximately 12 hectares.

Botanical Reserve Queen Victoria's Jubilee Celebrations 1887. Nelson Provincial Museum Tyree Studio Collection 181976

Botanics garden party and band contest 1921. FN Jones Collection. Nelson Provincial Museum

View from Botanical Hill 1887. Kingsford Collection Nelson Provincial Museum

The Reserve's playing field was originally used for a variety of activities including cricket, rugby, public dances, fetes and band performances. The Reserve was the site of the first Rugby match played in New Zealand on the 14th May 1870 between Nelson College and Nelson Rugby Football Club.

The top of Botanical Hill is reached by a moderately easy track, commonly referred to as the "zigzag", winding up the southwest face. The monument at the top is meant to designate that Botanical Hill is the  geographical centre of New Zealand.

In the early days of European settlement in New Zealand, independent surveyors made isolated surveys that were not connected up. In the 1870s, it was decided to connect these up by a geodetic survey (one that takes into account the curvature of the earth) and John Spence Browning, the Chief Surveyor for Nelson was the only surveyor with the practical experience to do the job. Because he was located in Nelson he was instructed to begin the job here and to extend the survey south to the West Coast.

Spence Brown used the top of the hill as a central survey point for doing this first geodetic survey of New Zealand, combining the earlier isolated surveys. Later it was connected up to surveys from Canterbury. Using the triangulation method to make the survey, Browning took the easily accessible Zig Zag track to the summit of the Botanical Hill and made this the starting point for the apex of his first set of triangles. The base line for the triangle was laid out in what is now Rutherford Street, between Examiner St and Haven Road. Botanical Hill was from that time on known as the Centre of New Zealand, because these first surveys radiated out from the first survey point in the South Island, located at the top of the Hill.

In 1962 a survey located the centre of New Zealand at 41deg. 30min S., 172deg. 50min E., which is a point in the Spooners Range in the Golden Downs Forest, 55km southwest of the "Centre of New Zealand". The survey did not include the Chathams.

The hill was originally devoid of large trees and has gone through a succession of plantings. Pine trees, probably Pinus Radiata, were the most prominent species. In 1977 a large number of these trees were felled to encourage the regeneration of native vegetation. The area around the playing field was planted witha variety of species including plane trees (Platanus orientalis), Lombardy poplars (Populus nigra italica) and lime trees (Tilia europea).

Text prepared for a Nelson City Council Heritage Panel located at the Botanic Reserve 2010

Public pressure and commonsense saved Nelson Haven

A large part of Nelson Haven might have been ‘a place of sprawling ribbon development’ on reclaimed land at Wakapuaka, if a group of Nelson people hadn’t fought the Nelson City Council in the 1970s.¹

Nelson Haven Mudflats at low tide. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons

The ecological and economic values of estuaries, like Nelson Haven, were only just being understood and it had only been a few years since they were recognised as crucial spawning and fishing grounds for many commercial inshore fish species.² Environmental lobby groups were almost unknown at this time,³ but the industrial growth of the post-war economy had begun to put pressure on the environment.⁴ From about 1970, environmental groups around the world began to confront the issues of pollution and the negative impact of industrial development.

Reclamation in Nelson Haven. (1885) Note Trafalgar Park at Maitai River mouth. Nelson Provincial Museum, Misc 1/2 47

 In the mid 1970s, largely untreated effluent poured into Tasman Bay. This included waste from the Stoke and Richmond sewage outfalls, the Apple and Pear Board’s cannery, Nelson Freezing Works, Nelson Pine’s chip mill and two piggeries.  An estimated 14 million litres per day was pouring into the Waimea Estuary in 1976.⁵

Nelson Haven is the estuary of the Maitai River and is  largely enclosed by the 13 km Boulder Bank. The tidal land (about 17,280 h) from Glenduan (The Glen) to Ruby Bay was vested in the Nelson Harbour Board for more than 150 years and the development of the Port encroached on hundreds of hectares over the years.⁶

Nelson City Council Planning map showing reclamation proposal, 1969

In 1967, the Nelson City Empowering Act  saw some of this land handed over to the Nelson City Council. The  Council developed a plan to infill 710 hectares of the remaining 1600 hectares of the Haven’s tidal flats  providing housing for 18,000 people, as well as industrial development.⁷ The scheme to develop a marina-type residential area aimed to meet Nelson’s pressing need for more land to house its growing population.⁸

It wasn’t until Truth newspaper published a contentious article in September 1972 about the murky dealings, between some members of the Nelson City Council and a development consortium regarding the infilling of the Haven for housing, that public opposition began to grow.  There were angry letters to the Nelson Evening Mail⁹ and the Wakapuaka Residents Association voted unanimously to oppose the reclamation.¹⁰

On July 9 1973, more than 400 people crowded into the Nelson School of Music for a public meeting to learn about the campaign to save the Nelson Tidal Flats.¹¹ A resolution was signed at this meeting asking that (at least) the area north of Cemetery Point (by Brooklands Road) was declared a reserve under The Reserves and Domains Act 1957.¹²

Notice for Nelson Haven protest meeting, Nelson Evening Mail, 7 July 1973

Next day, July 10, the editorial in the Nelson Evening Mail described a sudden turn around by Mayor, Roy McLellan, who surprised those at the public meeting when he indicated his support for the resolution and announced that the development would not proceed.  The editorial went on to say that several official reports had urged caution as little was known about the effects of the proposals on the ecology of the Haven and wider Tasman Bay.  It was also noted that Council membership and public attitudes had changed since the scheme was first mooted in 1967.¹³ Mr McLennan’s Wikipedia entry notes that he didn’t have Council support at the time and it took some time for the matter to be finally resolved in the objectors’ favour.¹⁴

Through the 1970s and into the 1980s, the Harbour Board continued to pursue its development plans, reclaiming nearly 15 hectares at the mouth of the Maitai River for a boat harbour and dredging dump - this work was completed in 1984. In 1986, Nelson’s Cawthron Institute published a report recommending that any future reclamations be of sub-tidal, rather than inter-tidal areas.¹⁵

Natural infilling caused by sedimentation (accelerated by clearing bush from the hills to the east of the Haven) has been a long continuing process at the northern head of the Haven, with the area of the Haven reduced by about 1400 h. Between Nelson City and Port Nelson, about 100 h of the Haven has been reclaimed by man-made hard and hydraulic fill.¹⁶

The Friends of Nelson Haven were not able to stop reclamations, but were successful in greatly limiting them.¹⁷ When the society began in 1973, there were minimal controls on the infilling of estuaries and the coastal discharge of effluent. While the environmental regime today is very different, it is thanks to groups like the Friends of Nelson Haven that large parts of the Haven and  Waimea Inlet are undeveloped and retain a large part of their natural character.¹⁸ 

However, in 1994 Nelson Haven and, in particular, Wakapuaka Flats faced another challenge, with a proposal for a deepwater port development on the Flats. The project – fronted by a prominent local politician of the day, Owen Jennings and backed by former Cabinet minister and future ACT party leader Richard Prebble and various state and private sector high flyers – became known as Port Kakariki, a deepwater port featuring a one-kilometre-long wharf extending from the Boulder Bank into Tasman Bay, where giant ships could berth and manoeuvre with ease.¹⁹ It was planned as the hub to ship West Coast coal to Asia, as well as handling logs, which would be barged across Tasman Bay from Mapua.

The project garnered a huge amount of opposition, for its environmental impact, with planned construction of enormous sheds on the bank to house cargo, as well as the long wharf, and scepticism about the business model, as rival operators on the West Coast stated their concerns. By 1996, the Nelson Mail, stated that it was  "too grandiose to ever be put into practice", but it was never truly dead and several years later, when the Nelson North marine reserve was proposed, Port Nelson lodged its concerns that a reserve must not be allowed to hinder the possibility that one day, a deep-water port may be built out in Tasman Bay. However, the marine reserve went ahead, ending plans for any port.²⁰

The Friends group was involved in fighting the Port proposal and became involved in a wide range of issues around threats to water quality and threats of infilling and the loss of estuarine habitat.²¹ The group continues to make submissions on a variety of environmental issues throughout the top of the South Island.²²

2017 (updated November 2020)

Gold was known in the Wangapeka district from the late 1850s.¹  However, although an award was paid in 1861 to prospectors for the discovery of gold in the area, the decision by administrators in the Provincial Government was not to proclaim it as a Goldfield.  Rather, it was regarded as “poor man’s diggings^”2 and was to be administered under the Waste Lands Act.

John Gully, Wangapeka Valley 1886. Image courtesy Bishop Suter Art Gallery. Click image to enlarge

In 1869 there were reports of the discovery of a reef at Blue Duck creek in the district by  miner Alfred Culliford, who had purchased the auriferous land.³

This was immediately followed by sale of adjacent blocks of land to men, several of whom were government officials, simultaneously sparking a rush to the region and concerns about the propriety of the sales.⁴

Further land sales were officially stopped, and any attempt to mine the gold on these sites was blocked until it was clarified whether these lands were within the already designated South West Nelson Goldfield or outside this goldfield.  A petition to the Governor (his Excellency Sir George Ferguson Bowen) of about some 800 signatories from the region called for this clarification.⁵

This imposed inactivity in turn generated more heat from the local newspapers and citizenry. Provinces across New Zealand were feeling the adverse effects of a depression in trade, and the experiences of Otago and Westland had shown that activities on goldfields made a huge boost to their regions – an effect that was being denied, or at least delayed, to the Nelson province.⁶

Charles Broad. Ref: 1/2-091447-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22704513

At this point the Provincial Government instructed Charles Broad, Warden and Resident magistrate then of the Brighton and Charleston goldfields, to visit the Wangapeka where by now about 100 miners had gathered and were attempting to stake claims. Broad was to promote the need for a survey to determine if the land was within or outside of the official South West Nelson goldfield.  The prospective miners were angry that their attempts to begin mining were being delayed and refused to countenance any attempt to survey to site. They actively resisted a group of surveyors attempting to enter the site, accompanied by police, and the instruction to Broad to arrest one of the resisting miners, a W. Noble.⁷ 

No attempt was made to arrest any of the miners and the attempts to survey the field were abandoned.⁸  However, the uproar led to the immediate establishment of an official enquiry into the Wangapeka land sales.⁹ This was conducted by Mr. Domett,  assisted by Mr Kingdon who was to represent the miners (of whom, one of them Mr R.A. Moss was to also take a part) and Mr Henry Adams to represent the Provincial Government. It commenced 16 December 1869 and concluded on 24 December 1869.

The official enquiry was reported in full in local newspapers and, together with all other official communications, in an Appendix to the Journal of the House of Representatives, where it fills 53 pages and records verbatim some 75 items of correspondence.¹⁰

This enquiry makes for fascinating reading, uncovering the fact that there were four different maps of the Province's South West Goldfield.  The position of Mt Owen, on whose slopes the Wangapeka region is, was different in all four, but, surprisingly, this had not been noticed until then.¹⁰   

One immediate outcome was the appointment of the surveyor Mr J.W.A. Marchant to define the position of Mt Owen, so that the question as to whether the Wangapeka field was within or outside of the goldfield could be determined.  As it transpired subsequently, the Wangapeka was within the already designated South West Nelson goldfield.¹¹ Therefore, the exploitation of the goldfield was then able to proceed.

Jonsen's split slab hut near Rolling River. One of Wangapeka's independent old diggers, Jonsen, a runaway Norwegian sailor, spent 25 years working the goldfield.

Another outcome of the enquiry was that the Wangapeka was separately designated as a Goldfield and as such a Warden to manage it specifically was appointed.¹¹ The first appointment was the temporary one of Dr Joseph Giles (previously Warden from Westport) until T.A.S. Kynnersley could take up the position.  Subsequently, on 7 September 1870 Mr Lowther Broad, who was a younger brother of Charles Broad, RM, was appointed Warden of the Wangapeka goldfield.¹¹

A third important outcome was that the Waste Lands Act was amended¹² to remove the legal ambiguities and uncertainties that had troubled the provincial administrators that precipitated this dispute. These amendments were to have benefits for the whole of New Zealand. 

And so, after all the furore, did the Wangapeka gold strike have the benefits that were hoped for by the community? In short, the answer appears to be, sadly no.  The initial description of it being a ‘poor man’s diggings’ was later borne out, there being no vast wealth returned to miners, their companies (Culliford’s Gold-Mining Company or the Waimea South company) or the region.  However, it did lead to the construction of roads and bridges which opened up some difficult country, and of infrastructure that enabled farming and other developments to occur.¹³

The events were to be a platform on which the personalities of several prominent men were played out. These included Alfred Domett,¹⁴ Mr D.M. Luckie¹⁴ & Mr Felix Wakefield¹⁴, a brother of Edward Gibbon Wakefield about whom much is already written. The figure of the miner Mr R.A. Moss still remains shadowy: it appears that he may have been Scottish and came to Hokitika in 1865 as a passenger on the SS “Gothenburg” from Melbourne.  Little more is known of him.  Officials in the Provincial Government who played important roles in this affair include, Oswald Curtis, Superintendent of the Province; Alfred Greenfield, Provincial Secretary; H.C. Daniell, Commissioner for Crown Lands; Mr J. T. Catley, Receiver of Land Revenue; Henry Adams, Provincial Solicitor:  Joseph A. Harley, clerk to the Resident Magistrate; Robert Shallcrass, Inspector of Police; Charles Lendrick Maclean, Registrar of the Supreme Court; John Sharp, Resident Magistrate at Nelson; H. D. Jackson, Provincial Auditor; Mr John Gully, draughtsman, Crown Land Office; Alexander Mackay, Native Commissioner; and Henry Lewis, Chief Surveyor. 

And as for my great grandfather, Charles Broad^15, despite his actions being the object of criticism by the miners, I leave the last word on his actions to Mr Luckie:¹⁶

”The whole proceeding of the Government in regard to Wangapeka, stands out in bold contrast to what they did under somewhat similar circumstances at the West Coast. In his speech of 1868, his Honour [Mr Justice (C.W.) Richmond], referring to the assault at Addisons Flat, said he had a firm reliance on the good feeling of the people, and also on this Council, for protecting men whilst in their lawful occupation. Contrast this with the letter written by the Provincial Secretary to Mr. Broad, in 1869. It is as follows:—

 ‘In the event of the survey being forcibly prevented, you will try and arrest one or two of the most prominent persons offering resistance, such attempt to be made without resort to violence. Should the arrest be prevented by force, you will at once report to this office, and wait further instructions.’

If this is not an assumption of the powers of a judge, I know not what is. Had it occurred in England the whole country would have rung with a loud protest against such justice's justice. The loss occasioned to the province by the advocacy of justice for the miners, rests on some one's shoulders; whose can they be, if not the Superintendent's and his Executive's? I say it was due to their utter disregard of facts, and too much regard for persons.

Now it has been said on behalf of the Government, that though the Wangapeka land-sales may have been a mistake, it was the result of honest conviction; that however much delay has occurred in opening the Wangapeka, there is no doubt that the Superintendent has acted throughout from conscientious motives. Such an excuse reminds me much of the old Scottish lady, to whom a person was recommended as a very decent servant. " Damn her decency," said the old lady, "can she cook a collop?" No one doubts Mr. Curtis's conscientious motives, but we want more in our head magistrate — we want competency, we want ability to cook the political collop.”

2019 (updated August 2020)

The renowned Irish Guinness family and their equally famous stout have a strong connection to the Nelson, Tasman, and Golden Bay regions, dating back to the 1850s. The links were discovered by Tauranga historian Rod Smith during the research for his book published last year – “Guinness Down Under: the famous brew and the family come to Australia and New Zealand”.

Early Guinness Provincial Councillor earned "quarrelsome" reputation. 

Frank Guinness, a grandson of the famous Dublin brewer, had a brief time on the Nelson Provincial Council, but it was long enough to earn himself an unenviable reputation. 

Frank Guinness. Image supplied by Campbell Ford, NSW.

Frank Guinness – his full name was Francis Hart Vicesimus Guinness - left Ireland for India when he was eighteen. He worked for indigo manufacturers, eventually marrying Catherine Richardson whose father ran an indigo business in east Bengal.  Frank, Catherine and family came to New Zealand in 1852 and lived in Canterbury and the West Coast. He moved to New Zealand at the suggestion of his cousin Michael John Burke, an early Canterbury pastoralist and the first European discoverer of Burke’s Pass through to the McKenzie country. Burke also gave employment to Frank, having him work as a cadet on his station at Halswell near Christchurch.

Michael Burke. Image supplied by Susan Freund, Tasmania.

Frank had a varied working life – unsuccessful farmer, horse trader, policeman, and court official, ending up in Ahaura in 1871 developing a business as an auctioneer, land agent and stock dealer.  Guinness was involved in local body affairs and in 1872 when the Grey Valley representative on the Nelson Provincial Council retired, he won the by-election.  The following year he was re-elected and in 1874 he came to Nelson as a man on a mission.

The provincial superintendent Oswald Curtis had promised that the new executive committee would have some fresh progressive thinking and some new members.  Guinness had let it be known that he would be willing to serve on the executive but whilst there were new members elevated, he was passed over. Whether that rejection was the motivation for his next move is not known, but his first action in the new sitting was to try (unsuccessfully) to introduce a measure to curtail the power of the executive, a move noted in the Nelson Evening Mail as the work of one who had already shown a “quarrelsome disposition”.¹  

Barely a fortnight later fate took a hand and gave Curtis an opportunity to remove Guinness in the nicest possible way, and with a good measure of prestige. The resident magistrate at Collingwood, Dr H W Turnell, drowned whilst riding his horse across the flooded Takaka River and Curtis offered the post to Guinness, which he accepted. After seven eventful years on the West Coast he was on the move again to a region that had an even longer history of gold mining – since 1856 – and was even touted at one stage as a possible capital for New Zealand.  

Being the resident magistrate in an isolated area of the country in those times was only one part of the post. Guinness was also the warden for mining matters, the registrar of electors and returning officer, coast-watcher, shipping officer, postmaster, and the registrar of births, deaths, and marriages with the fees forming part of his pay. Later on he was appointed public vaccinator as part of a government programme to combat smallpox, judge of the rates assessment court, an authorised collector for the Indian Famine Relief fund, and a person licensed to kill hare, pheasants, and quails under the Protection of Animals Act.  So how much of a workload did all this add up to? The bustling days of the goldrush in the 1850s were well gone. Collingwood itself had about 30 residents, with more scattered in the surrounding region, and mail came once a week by boat from Nelson. 

Within three months of taking office Guinness prepared an assessment of his position at Collingwood for the provincial government.  He praised the resources of the district and echoed his regular plea from the West Coast that greater effort be made to improve the roads which would greatly increase development, asked for assistance to help him with his workload, and gave a scathing attack on the Collingwood Police constable who was “useless” and had turned the lock-up into accommodation for his married daughter. ²

As warden of the mining court Guinness was in a privileged position dealing with applications from gold mining companies, and at the same time he was keen to join the quest for the elusive ore himself.  His solution was to install family members as principals of mining companies in which he had holdings  – Excelsior Quartz and Shamrock -  hopefully to show he was managing carefully his potentially conflicting interests.  His efforts, sadly, came to nothing. Both companies folded without ever striking it rich.³

Frank Guinness was transferred to be the magistrate at Ashburton in 1879 and then the following year was transferred back to Collingwood.  In 1881 he resigned and moved back to Greymouth to stand for election to Parliament, a move which he lost.  Unemployed, he returned to Christchurch where he took up his old work of commission agent, stock dealer, and auctioneer. Politically, however, Guinness was about to make his mark.  No longer under the restraints of being a public servant, or accountable to his electors, and apparently with an adequate income, Frank was able to give free rein to his ideals, and in his final ten years he would become an activist for the working class and unemployed, the elderly white-bearded radical of Christchurch. He died in 1891 aged 72.

The Guinness' eldest son Sir Arthur Guinness, followed his father into politics, serving as the MP for Greymouth for 29 years from 1884-1913, and for ten years as Speaker of the House from 1903-13.

The Burkes come to Nelson

Frank Guinness’ cousin Michael John Burke (see above) became a prosperous Canterbury sheep farmer, but died young aged 57 in 1869, leaving a widow Maria 27 years his junior and a young family of two sons and one daughter.   The elder son Jack eventually farmed in north Canterbury but moved to Upper Moutere in the early 1900s and broke in a block with a rather unconventional approach.  He planted gorse on the slopes, burned the bushes, and fattened sheep on the regrowing gorse.  One observer couldn’t abide the sooty sheep, but Burke explained he was growing them for their meat not wool so wasn’t worried about their appearance. ⁴

Maria Burke. Image supplied by Susan Freund, Tasmania.

After her family grew up, Maria Burke travelled overseas and eventually returned to live the last 15 years of her life in a small cottage in Ngatiawa Street, Nelson.  The cottage is long gone and the section merged with one of its neighbours.  Her house and the Burke family line have disappeared.  Michael and Maria’s ten grandchildren all died without marrying, five boys killed or crippled in war. Their youngest grand-daughter Marguerite spent her later years in a Nelson rest home.  She made a name for herself at one point embarking on a sea voyage to England – without a ticket it seems, effectively a stowaway.  When the vessel arrived she had no idea what she was going to do and was kept in a rest home in England until she could be taken back to New Zealand. 

Nelson - the first NZ settlement for Guinness imports

The famous Irish brewer Arthur Guinness started his Dublin brewery in 1759 but high tariffs meant it was over 40 years before he could establish a presence in England. Then in the early 1800s occasional shipments reached the Caribbean, Africa, and the United States of America.  The earliest recorded shipment for Australia is 1836.   The brewery arranged exports itself for a time, but then in the mid-1800s sold bulk product to newly-established bottling companies which developed the overseas markets.  The largest of those was the business of Edward and John Burke, grandsons of Arthur Guinness, who eventually had over 200 agencies world-wide, including Australia and New Zealand.  They prospered for many years but in 1950 Guinness absorbed bottling and export back into its own organisation. 

Guinness Stout. Image supplied by Margaret Jamieson, Masterton.

The first advertised availability of Guinness in New Zealand was through Nelson importer William Beit at his Auckland Point store, in April 1851. ⁵  William was a son of John Beit, leader of the German adventurers who came to Nelson on the St. Pauli in 1843.  John fell out with the New Zealand Company and his fellow settlers in Nelson and moved with his family to Sydney. Son William eventually owned a cattle station in Queensland, continuing the family trait of arguing, this time with the land registration authorities.  He eventually became a wealthy man and died at sea on a voyage returning to Australia, in 1872, just before the arrival of his unborn son who inherited a considerable estate. ⁶

According to newspaper records ten years were to elapse after that first shipment of Guinness. In the 1860s further imports were organised by merchants Henry Baly, James Bentley, and J Levien.  Another Guinness historian (David Hughes, author of “A Bottle of Guinness Please” ) describes the export trade of Bass and Guinness in the 1800s as a great success, those two beers far outstripping all others in the market at the time.

A political deal with satisfaction all round - happy times for Motueka hop growers

One of the all-time political juggling acts which benefitted Motueka hop growers  occurred in 1934. Prime Minister Gordon Coates wanted to help the region’s hop growers by encouraging the famous Dublin brewery Guinness to buy more of the New Zealand crop, a surplus which the growers could plan for and not risk going to waste.  Guinness told the government they would only buy the hops if duty on their stout imports to New Zealand was decreased.  To do that the government risked the wrath of local brewers, so proposed a decrease of duty on their product too.  The decrease was so small it would be miniscule when built into the price of a glass of beer – so small a new coin would have been needed – but significant enough to improve the brewers’ annual bottom line. 

The Labour Opposition was outraged at these moves on behalf of brewers, saying they would only give their support if the Government restored a cut in pensions they had imposed earlier in the year. ⁷

Hops bring loaded in Nelson. Image supplied by William Harvey, Dublin.

The government agreed and set off a chain of goodwill which modern day politicians would envy. Pensioners were happy. Local brewers had a windfall.  Guinness sold stout into the New Zealand market pleasing their devoted customers, and Tasman hop growers were happy to have a buyer for their crop. The only people to miss out were the drinkers of local beer who saw nothing of the reduction in duty imposed on local brewers.

A similar hops-for-imports arrangement was negotiated in 1959 when the outgoing Labour government and then the newly elected Prime Minister Keith Holyoake negotiated hops purchases by Guinness in return for import access for the famous stout. ⁸

2019

Collingwood lad, Trooper Ralph Vincent James 2483, died of enteric fever (typhoid fever) on 20 November 1900 at Zeerust Transvaal, South Africa while serving in the Boer War for the Fifth Contingent of New Zealand.  Following public subscription, a monumental obelisk was unveiled to the Memory of Ralph James, beside the Court House in Collingwood.

Court House Collingwood. Showing the Monument’s first location, on the East side of this building.  Rob Packer post card collection.

Ralph was born in 1878, making him 22 when he died.  His father, Frank James, and his mother, Jane Mary Skilton, were married on 3 September 1877 at the residence of Mrs Johnson, in Beachville Nelson.  Both Frank, born 1855, and Jane, born 1856, were from Collingwood.  Frank farmed at Puramahoi.

Ralph's grandfather, John James, arrived in Nelson as a 12 year-old, on 1 February 1842 aboard the Fifeshire.  On 24 May 1854 John married Mary Ann Roil at Stoke, Nelson.  Mary Ann arrived in Nelson, as a ten year-old, on the 15 March 1842 aboard the Bolton.

Ralph, his father and grandfather were all gold miners at various stages, in the alluvial gold areas around Collingwood.  Grandfather John James, his brother Edward (Ned) James and John Ellis, were responsible for discovering gold in the Aorere in July 1856 at the point below what later became known as Lightband's Gully.  John and Edward came to Collingwood on the cutter “Supply” on 5 August 1855.  John Ellis had arrived six weeks before them.¹  Bachelor Ned James became well known for his Cob house building, particularly accommodation houses in the Tophouse to Molesworth areas.

Ralph, who was the first born son in 1878, had three brothers; Llewellyn John born 1882, Frank Harold born 1890 and Roderick Roland born 1896.  Tragically, following Ralph's death in 1900, a further two of his brothers were killed.  He had five sisters who all married.

On Tuesday 28 May 1907, 25 year-old Llewellyn (Lou) James died in a mining accident.  "On Tuesday afternoon the remains were brought down from the Slate River Sluicing Company's works to the residence of his uncle, Mr George James, on the Rockville road.  In reference to the accident, it appears that the deceased was working in a tail race, when a small slip came in from the top.  A stone struck him on the head and he fell into the race, meanwhile the water backed up behind the slip and drowned him, before help was obtained.  When the water was let off there was no debris on his body".

Frank (Chum) Harold James served his time as an engineer at the Anchor Foundry in Nelson and was employed at Tarakohe Cement works for 12 months as an engineer.  He arrived in England a few days before war was declared and joined a troopship to Australia which subsequently visited several times.²  Twenty seven year-old Frank, Third Engineer on S.S Seistan was killed, when it was Torpedoed by a German submarine off the Flamborough head on the east coast of England.  SS Seistan was a 4,238 Ton steam powered collier and was transporting coal to Alexandria.  It was torpedoed by German submarine UB 57, at 3.50pm on 23 October 1917.  Without warning the torpedo struck the starboard side below the water line, level with the engine room.  The ship was practically blown to pieces where the explosion occurred, which killed Frank and four crewmen. The ship complement was 59 crew.  The crew abandoned ship immediately and the ship sank within 12 minutes.  They were picked up and landed at Bridlington with five injured crew.  The submarine had been hiding in shore of them and was never seen before or after the attack.³

The three brothers are acknowledged together with the same grave head stone, in the James plot at Collingwood cemetery.

The fourth son, Lance Corporal Roderick Roland James 55599,  was listed as a farmer in Puramahoi and was part of the 29th Reinforcements.  He departed from Nelson on 28 May 1917.  He survived the war and returned to Wellington on the Corinthic on 22 September 1919.  He married and went on to have a family.

In June 1898, two years before his war service, Ralph sustained an injury at the Quartz Range, near the Aorere, when an axe slipped and inflicted a large deep wound in the instep of his foot.  Mr Mace, the manager of the Collingwood Goldfields Company's works, skilfully sowed the wound.  He was expected to be alright in a few weeks time.

Trooper Ralph Vincent James, from H Bruisewitz "713 Nelson Troop 5th Contingent March 19 1900" (of ten uniformed men). Denny Gillooly photo.

When the South African war began there were two local fund raising efforts to provide uniforms and equipment for the Nelson troop contingents.  The “More Men” Fund and the “Patriotic Fund” were two initiatives which were operating in the Nelson Province.  Fund raising included workplace and club donations and a concert.   One of many workplace donations was £9 1s from the Collingwood Gold Fields Employees at the Quartz Range.  This included a donation from Ralph.

Men who wanted to volunteer for the Fifth Contingent travelled to Nelson to undertake testing for selection.  This included a medical fitness examination with the testing of horse riding and rifle firing skills.  Ralph James was selected on 18 March 1900 and was listed as being part of the Stoke Rifles, but from Collingwood.  A total of 13 were selected from Nelson, with two of those men already being in Wellington.

Nelson 19 March 1900.  There was very little fuss and no formal demonstration made over the departure of the 11 men who left by the Wainui yesterday for Wellington to join the Fifth Contingent as Nelson's contribution.  Still the men were not allowed to go away without some evidence that they took with them, the good wishes of the citizens, some patriotic citizens saw that horses were provided, so that the men, under Quarter-Master Coleman, were mounted.  They assembled near the Drill Shed, marched to the Church Steps, and thence made their way to the Port, a number of citizens following in vehicles, and some cyclists.  On the Haven road the Garrison Band, just returned from Wellington by the Mapourika, met the contingent and played them to the wharf where a large crowd had assembled.  We should mention also that a number of Stoke and Waimea Rifles, in uniform, took part in the proceedings and included among the crowd were a considerable number of the town Volunteers, not in uniform.  On the wharf, cheers were given for the Nelson men, and also for the West Coast men on the Wainui, also on their way to the central camp.  The West Coasters acknowledged the compliment with cheers for the Nelson men, and the Band, as a final contribution, played "Auld Lang Syne."⁴

Ralph’s details on his attestation form signed on 28 March 1900 outline the following; Occupation gold miner, Employer Collingwood Goldfields Company, Age 21 years & 5 months, Height 5’ 11”, Chest 38”, Weight 12st 6lbs, Religion Church of England, Next of Kin Father Frank James.⁵

Wellington 31 March 1900.  The weather is fine for the send-off to the Fifth Contingent today and the afternoon will be a general holiday.  There is an absence of country people and the numbers to witness the departure will not be so great as on former occasions.  The men were busy this morning breaking camp and shipping the horses.  At eleven o'clock the Contingent began the march from Newtown Camp to the Skating Rink, where they will be entertained at luncheon by the citizens.  After luncheon the men will march direct to the steamers Waimate and Maori, and the work of embarkation is expected to finish by 3.30 p.m and the troopships leaving by 4 o'clock.  Thirteen steamers will accompany the troopship down the harbour.   Including the additional men who were passed by the Premier today nearly 500 men have gone.  The exact figures being; "Waimate";13 officers, 268 men, 233 horses.  "Maori"; 8 Officers 200 men, 180 horses.   It will thus be seen that there are 55 more men than horses, as it was, of course, impossible to obtain sufficient chargers at the last moment.   The Fifth Contingent arrived in Durban on 5 May 1900.⁶

Ralph died of typhoid fever, which is characterised by high fever, intestinal inflammation and is spread by food or water contaminated with the bacillus Salmonella typhosa.  Many soldiers died needlessly during the South African War from diseases, which also included dysentery and pneumonia.  During this period there were no antibiotics to treat these diseases.

Men employed at the Collingwood Goldfields Company, at the Quartz Ranges, each gave a day's pay towards the fund for erecting the memorial and £10 were so raised.⁷ The Takaka Mounted Rifles also contributed.⁸  About £50 were raised for the memorial.  In addition to this the Foresters Lodge  raised £16 to place a memorial tablet in their Court room.⁹

Trooper Ralph Vincent James Monument Collingwood. Ken Wright photo.

Memorial to Late Trooper James.  Mr G.M.Simpson, monumental sculptor has just completed to the order of the Collingwood Foresters, a wall tablet to be placed in the Institute, Collingwood, in memory of the late Trooper Ralph James.  The tablet takes the form of a scroll in marble, and bears the following inscription in permanent lead filled characters.  "This tablet was erected by Court Aorere, A.0.F., No 5683, Collingwood, in memory of their late Brother, Ralph V. James, member of the Fifth New Zealand Contingent, who died at Zeerust, South Africa, 20th November, 1900, while serving his Queen and Country in the Boer War, March, 1901."¹⁰

On 9 November 1901, the handsome memorial erected near the new Court house (1900) to commemorate the late Trooper Ralph James, was unveiled in the presence of a large number of people, the Takaka Mounted Rifles, under the command of Lieutenants Kirk and Fittal, being also in attendance.  The monument, which cost over £50, stands 13ft high, is of Aberdeen grey granite with a bluestone base, and bears the following inscription; "Erected by public subscription in memory of Ralph V. James, late of Collingwood, a member of the Fifth New Zealand Contingent, who died of fever at Zeerust in South Africa 20th November 1900.""He died for his country".
Mr Frank Stallard Snr (Ralph’s uncle), on behalf of the subscribers, requested Mr F.G.Mace to unveil the memorial.  Mr Mace, in conducting the ceremony, referred to the late trooper in feeling terms, and said that though he had not died in actual battle, yet he had laid down his life for his country, and Collingwood was proud to do honour to his memory and to show his parents and relatives the esteem in which he was held.  Mr Stallard then thanked the public for their attendance and after a few words from Mr G.P.Graham (One of the pioneer settlers of Bainham, and one of the founders in 1873 of Court Aorere A.O.F.), the gathering dispersed.¹¹

In 1993¹² the monument was moved 60m from the east side of the court house to the small local purpose war memorial reserve near the church hall.  This reserve includes a WWI monument and a monument to WWI Army Lieutenant Harry Bolton Riley.¹³

In October 1999 The Guardian Newspaper featured the James family descendants gathered at Ralph's memorial, to remember 100 years since he died.  A photo taken at the memorial featured the family members.  An extract from a letter written by Ralph to his grandfather reads, "There are plenty of oranges and lemons here, very large groves.  You can guess pretty well what they are like when 1,000 men have had all they want and then you can't see where they have been....It is very hot and dusty out here."¹⁴

2016

Updated May 20, 2020

Bridges come and bridges go, especially in Bainham, where the Aorere River in a raging flood can leave a trail of destruction. The upright wooden straining posts of the 1902 suspension bridge, the second footbridge in this location, can still be seen in the gorge. This bridge was swept away in a flood in 2010.

On the Aorere River. Tyree Collection 181884. Nelson Provincial Museum. Of the five bridges built to span this gorge, this was the earliest: a footbridge built in 1887 and destroyed in an 1899 flood. A suspension footbridge was the only means of crossing the upper Aorere River until Jack Flowers built a temporary vehicle bridge in 1956. Click image to enlarge

Active gold mining had occurred in the Quartz Ranges to the south of the Aorere as early as 1857.¹ It continued through the depression of the 1930s and casual fossicking still takes place in Salisbury Creek. During New Zealand’s colonial period settlers lobbied councils and government to provide roads and bridges to enable access for mining, milling and farming.

A track for horse and cart had been formed to the north of the Aorere by 1862, as far as “Salisbury’s creek junction,” to provide access for miners into the Quartz Ranges. However, miners then had to cross the river, and a bridge was the logical way to prevent drowning. When the locals finally got their bridge, in 1882, it was not the bridge they wanted. A correspondent to the Golden Bay Argus pointed out that to build a footbridge for 220 pounds was short-sighted, because for 400 pounds a bridge capable of carrying pack-horses could be built. However, the cheaper option was eventually chosen and built under contract by J.R. Rees. Completed in March 1887, the first bridge provided a vital link to the Quartz ranges goldfields. That original bridge was swept away by a massive flood in 1899 and replaced by another in 1902. It would last 108 years, and was the only means of public access until the mid 1980s.

Flowers Bridge. Courtesy Price family
Click image to enlarge

Flowers’ Bridge (left), the first of the vehicular bridges across the gorge, was built in 1956 to take rimu logs from across the river to Jack Flowers’ Aorere  Timber Co. mill in Bainham. It was constructed by Don Kelly from Blackball, from beech with three huge lengthwise rimu stringers, all milled from the Quartz Ranges and cost 800 pounds. Kelly and his gang built it in only 90 days without any scaffolding or staging, by using an aerial cableway. Built to take 20 tons, it was 160 feet long, 45 feet above the river, and anchored by 1.5 inch steel cables from old West Coast dredges.

The construction was not intended to be permanent, and the bridge was demolished about five years later, when the timbers started to deteriorate.

The footbridge again became a lifeline, this time for farming families, when the new government-funded road bridge upstream, opened in 1982, was swept away in a flood on the night of 10 January 1985. The locals – some of whom had warned the bridge-builders that the bridge was too low – could rightly say “we told you so”. Another road bridge was built at a higher level and opened in early October 1985, not surprisingly with little fanfare.

Salisbury footbridge was again the subject of local lobbying in 2003, this time to have it restored after it was deemed unsafe for public use. A government grant was made available and the restored bridge reopened on 26 June 2004, followed by a sumptuous afternoon tea in the Bainham Hall. As it turned out, that was the final public celebration of the bridge’s importance to a remote community. On 28 December 2010 nature would have the last word, when the bridge was swept away in a huge 13.75 metre flood on 28 December 2010 only six years after being restored and becoming one of Golden Bay’s tourist icons.

Olive Field and Renie Grant watch from the second (1902) Salisbury Footbridge as Les Grant prepares to swing another huge iron pipe across the Aorere River using wire ropes, block and tackle. In 1922 the pipes from the old gold sluicing claim on the Quartz Ranges (originally brought from Dunedin in 1899) were retrieved for use in other local sluicing operations. Courtesy Etheredge family
Click image to enlarge

Salisbury Creek downstream and the footbridge were named after the Salisbury family, descendants of brothers John and Charles Salisbury who came to the area to seek their fortunes from gold about 1860. The two-storey homestead still standing at the nearby bend in the river was built by the family in 1903. The property is still known as Armchair Farm.

The Salisbury footbridge was registered as a category 2 historic place by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust 2000-2011 (NZHPT Class II Historic Place, Reg. 5123; since deregistered).

A timeline of the Salisbury bridge and other bridges at the gorge on the Quartz Range Road (2013)

• 1881: Inquest into 5 April drowning concluded “it is desirable that a wire footbridge be erected over the Aorere at Salisbury Creek junction.”²
• 1886: Tenders called;³ eligible for subsidy which was not applied for.⁴
• 1887: Earliest footbridge constructed, for ₤220. There was criticism for not spending ₤400 on a bridge strong enough for packhorses. Delays in bridge being built – grant made October 1885. Provided access for mining.⁵  There are two known photos of this first footbridge, both taken by the Tyree Brothers: one is held at Alexander Turnbull Library and one at Nelson Provincial Museum.
• 1899 (30 January): Storm/flood, apparently of similar intensity to 28 December 2010, damaged the Salisbury bridge, and washed away the Kaituna suspension bridge.⁶
• 1902: New footbridge constructed; grant of ₤325.⁷ We have the specifications for this construction, which lasted until 28 December 2010.

Alan McArthur at the Salisbury Footbridge in 1932. He and several other Hutt Valley (Wellington) workers had been laid off the previous year and were forced to take relief work. The gold subsidy scheme attracted them to the Quartz Ranges diggings, where they dug and sluiced for gold in harsh conditions for eight months. Courtesy McArthur family
Click image to enlarge

• 1945: Repairs carried out.⁸ The 1887 and 1902 suspension footbridges were the only means of access across the gorge from 1887 to 1982, apart from the short-lived private Flowers’ Bridge (1956-ca1961)
• 1956: Flowers’ vehicular bridge built over the Aorere near Salisbury Creek to remove logs for transport to the Aorere Timber Co. mill at Bainham.⁹  It was removed ca.1961.
• 1961-1982: Suspension footbridge again the only means of access.
• 1982 (March): Lands & Survey road bridge opened up the Quartz Ranges land.
• 10 January 1985: the 1982 road bridge (built too low) was washed away.¹⁰
• January-October 1985: The suspension footbridge was again the only access to Quartz Ranges farms.
• October 1985: Replacement road bridge opens (still in place, September 2013)
• 1990: Footbridge registered with New Zealand Historic Places Trust as Historic Place, Category II.
• 1995-2002: Inspections, reports, repairs, resulting from April 1995 flood damage and timber deterioration.¹¹
• 2003/4 (from approx June 2003 to Feb 2004): Tasman District Council (TDC) mid-year decision to close the bridge.¹²  Heritage Subcommittee Chair Grahame Anderson speaks out criticising TDC’s lack of commitment to heritage. Various estimates of what money is needed for repairs, load testing etc.. A report is prepared October 2003. Community asked to raise funds for restoration. Bridge closed December 2003. Mayor Hurley reported as saying TDC wanted the bridge “off its books” as it was unsafe and a liability.¹³
• Golden Bay Community Board obtains $40,000 from central government Tourism Facilities Fund, with support from local MP Damien O’Connor. Conditions of this grant were for ongoing maintenance by TDC and appropriate tourism road signage.
• 2004 (26 June): Footbridge reopened and celebrated by an amazing afternoon tea at Bainham Hall.
• 2005: TDC funded a small heritage information panel as part of the Trafalgar Bicentenary commemorations. Road signage took a couple of years to eventuate and getting the carpark area made usable (from a quagmire) was another long struggle.
• Over the years Salisbury Footbridge attracted many visitors and special events. Here, a local wedding group – groom Craig Harvey and his bride Melinda McLennan- capture their special moment on the bridge in April 2004. The footbridge itself had hardly changed since the first suspension bridge constricted 117 years earlier in 1887. However the vegetation has definitely thrived in this high rainfall area, a consequence of no more burning of the land for grazing. Courtesy Harvey family.
  Click image to enlarge
  2009 (27 January): Report to Peter Thomson (TDC Roading Asset Manager) by Geoff Ward (MWH) includes photos of decay and details of vandalism (e.g. removal of safety notices). The inspection resulted in the bridge being closed for a week and reported urgent work to be carried out by July.¹⁴
• 2009 (June-Sept): the Bridge and Drummond Report is discussed at TDC Engineering Services Committee meetings. General attitude of Council is unsupportive.

• 2010 (28 December): Salisbury Footbridge demolished by logs swirling through the gorge in the major flood event.
• 2011 (12 January): NZ Historic Places Trust (NZHPT) writes to TDC commenting on the damage and stating its position—recommends that the remaining tower be left standing as a “reminder”. Also commends TDC for recognising the historic worth of the bridge and for tackling the repairs and maintenance over the preceding 18 months.
• 2011 (23 June): NZHPT deregisters Aorere River Swingbridge (Record no. 5123) as a historic place.¹⁵
• 2012 (October): Funding received from TDC for an information panel ($1500: Grants from Rates; $1500: Engineering Services)
• 2013 (August): Information panel installed near Quartz Range Road bridge. It records the stories of all five bridges, of which now only one remains. The long-term vision is to incorporate the roadside panel with a walkway to Salisbury Creek, improving access to Salisbury Creek and the public toilet, currently accessed over a stile.
• 2013 (September): request to TDC (via Golden Bay Community Board, 10 September) to amend existing tourism signage (to “Site”) and reinstate signage on main Aorere Valley sign.

The text is displayed on a panel created for Tasman District Council, 2013, from research by Penny Griffith. The image of Flowers Bridge and the 1902 and 1932 bridges are reproduced courtesy Baniham Reunion Committee and River Press.

At Home and Away during World War I: A Tale of Two Families

Albert Edward (Bert) Everett was born in Nelson in 1857 and was the fifth of ten children. He came from a prominent Nelson family with civic connections. His parents, Edward and Hannah (Annie), née Pope, had previously spent several years in Canada before emigrating to New Zealand on the Sir Edward Paget. They made landfall in Auckland on May 25, 1853.¹ A Londoner by birth, Edward Everett settled with his wife and first four sons in Nelson around 1856 and soon prospered in his new home town.

Edward set up as a publican and wine and spirit merchant, getting an early boost to his fortunes by obtaining a lucrative "bush licence" in March, 1857, for the sale of liquor at the Aorere goldfields. Starting with both the Bank and Masonic Hotels on Hardy Street, he built up a substantial property portfolio over the years, including the historic Haven homestead, "Stafford House". He also served as a captain of the Volunteer Fire Brigade, City Councillor, Justice of the Peace and twice as Mayor of Nelson during the 1870s and 1880s.²

Everett Bros. Bridge Street Store ca 1910.Nelson Provincial Museum Ref: 176679 (Photographer F N Jones). The "Victoria House" premises were sited at 68 Bridge Street. Later this would become the site for another long-running Nelson business, H & J Smith’s department store. Click image to enlarge

1864 saw a goldrush at Wakamarina and another opportunity for Edward Everett, who bought up John Wilson’s Accommodation House at Canvastown and rebranded it the Pelorus Hotel. With his two oldest sons, Edward Jnr and Charles in mind, he also set up an import and retail drapery business on Bridge Street. Trading as Everett Brothers & Company, with Edward Jnr in charge of the store and Charles in London, sourcing merchandise and sending it back home, this highly successful business would run for nearly 50 years, becoming a Nelson institution.³

Everett Bros. expanded their operations in 1874 by building a second, larger shop on Bridge Street. Following the death of storekeeper William Snow early that year, Everett Bros. acquired the drapery he had established on Trafalgar Street in the 1840s. Its stock and well-known trading name, “Victoria House”, were transferred to their own new premises, sited nearer the centre of town and opened in October, 1874. However, in March, 1875, a spectacular fire destroyed the original Everett Bros. store and its contents, fortunately well insured.⁴ Everett Bros. were back to one shop, with all business now devolving on “Victoria House”.

Meanwhile the younger son, Albert, went to school. He won a scholarship to Nelson College, which he attended 1871 to 1874, then spent time in Christchurch and Dunedin. Around 1885 he joined the partnership as manager of the family firm and oversaw another period of expansion. Everett Bros. Nelson store underwent a total revamp in November, 1899, and branches in Takaka and Motueka were opened around the same time.  

Country cousin: Everett Bros.’ new Motueka store on opening day, 15 Nov., 1902. Motueka & District Historical Association. Fergus Holyoake Collection. Ref:355/1 SHOP. Motueka. This store was established at 151 High Street, where Paper Plus stands today.
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Motueka’s first Everett Bros. shop was a modest affair, but a brand new, purpose-built store on High Street was launched with great fanfare on 15 November, 1902.⁵ Everett Bros. Motueka establishment was sold in August, 1904, to its Motueka manager, William Uren, who continued to run it as a drapery under the name Uren & Co.. Albert Everett retained his connections with the Motueka community. He had a new interest and may have made a trade - store for land. In 1904 he bought a farm at Pokororo in the Motueka Valley, where he could experiment with apple production.⁶ By 1907 he was winning prizes for his apples at the Motueka Horticultural Society Show.

In 1883 Albert married Ada, née Gordon, born 1862 in Melbourne, Australia. They had 12 children who were raised in Nelson at the family's John Scott-built Collingwood Street villa, several attending Nelson College and Nelson College for Girls. They were: George, Ethel, Gladys (who became a well-known headmistress at various private girls’ schools in Australia), Viola, Claire and Dorothy (twins), Gerald, Frank, Charles, Stella, John and Colin.

Captain George Gordon Everett. Courtesy Barbara Strathdee, My Heritage: Everett-Strathdee Family
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George (b. 1884) was the eldest, and distinguished himself at Nelson College, which he attended 1900-1904, being captain of the 1st XV and Head Boy, dux and captain of the No 2 Cadet Company in his final year. A career soldier, he went to England after leaving school and gained a commission with the British Imperial Army in 1904. He was later transferred to India, where he served for 12 years as a Captain with the 67th Punjabis. He had just returned to Baluchistan after a three-year tour of duty with the Military Police in Northern Burma when he was killed on 1 May, 1917, during an attack on a British convoy by Mahsud tribesmen near Fort Nili Kach, on the North-West Frontier.⁷ He is the only known New Zealander to be commemorated at the India Gate memorial in New Delhi, dedicated to Indian Army soldiers killed in WWI and on the N.W. Frontier (today Pakistan).

By the time of George’s death, his father Albert was living at Pokororo. His wife, Ada, had died in 1906 and on 10 September, 1913, he remarried at the Nelson Registry Office to 40-year-old divorcée, Annie Watson, née Arscott, daughter of Thomas and Harriett Arscott of Timaru.⁸ Annie had come out from England with her parents on the White Rose in 1875. Not long before the wedding, Albert liquidated several Nelson properties, including the flagship Everett Bros. store on Bridge Street. By now the only family member involved with the business, he had decided to make a complete break and, with his new bride, set up permanently on his Pokororo farm as a commercial fruitgrower.⁹

Ralph Watson. Nelson College Old Boys Association. Courtesy Gina Fletcher. Originally published in The Nelsonian, July, 1917
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Annie had a son, Ralph Thomas Watson, born in Wellington on Christmas Day, 1897, who became Albert Everett’s stepson.¹⁰ Ralph got off to a rough start. His birth father was William John Turner Watson, an Australian carter who was working as a hotel-keeper at Makikihi when he married Annie in January 1897.  The Watsons struggled to make a living and he deserted her a year after Ralph's birth. Annie returned to her family in Timaru, where she supported herself and her son by working as a dressmaker. She eventually sued for divorce and was granted a decree nisi in 1910.¹¹

Ralph's grandparents lived on Timaru’s Dee Street. His grandfather, Tom, was a stoker with the Timaru Gas Company, his grandmother a supporter of women's suffrage. There were plenty of male role models amongst his extended family. His mother had three brothers  - Ernest, Frederick and Alfred Arscott  - who all served in WWI and returned. Their names are inscribed on the Roll of Honour at the Timaru War Memorial.

A regular attendee at the Timaru Congregational Church Sunday School from an early age, Ralph started school in 1903 and spent 20 months at Timaru Main School. From 1905 to 1910 he was educated at Tasman Street School and Nelson Central School, after moving with his mother to Nelson.¹² Annie Watson carried on her work as a dressmaker at a Bridge Street establishment, almost certainly Everett Bros., the biggest employer of tailors and dressmakers in Nelson.¹³

Ralph attended Nelson College, 1911-1914, at the same time as Albert Everett’s sons, Gerald and Frank. He appears to have been a natural athlete. In December, 1910, at the age of 12, he was coxswain for the losing crew in the final of the Nelson Rowing Club's fours. At College he was a keen rugby player and cricketer, being a member of both the 1st XV and the 1st XI.

Albert Everett at his Pokororo farm with his children Claire (later Strathdee) and Charles (Charlie). Courtesy Barbara Strathdee, My Heritage website: Everett-Strathdee Family.
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After leaving College Ralph worked on mixed farms and orchards around Pokororo, no doubt including his stepfather’s property, where his stepbrother Frank was employed. At the age of 17 he enlisted at Pokororo, becoming a Gunner with the NZ Field Artillery. He was still keen as mustard when he wrote to his proud grandfather from France in August 1916,¹⁴ and itching to get back to the Front in a letter sent to Timaru from Sling Camp a couple of months later. Just five days after this last letter was published in the Timaru Herald, Ralph would be dead, killed in action at the Somme. He was 19.¹⁵

Five of Albert Everett’s other children also served during WWI. His sons Gerald and Frank were likewise Gunners with the NZ Field Artillery. Gerald joined up before his younger brother Frank, leaving New Zealand with the Main Body on October 16, 1914. Frank and Gerald (known as “Flick”) were also Nelson College Old Boys, with Gerald a noted sportsman at school.¹⁶

Matron Fanny Wilson and nursing staff at Walton-on-Thames Hospital, ca. 1918. Claire & Dorothy Everett together at right-hand end, bottom row. Credit: Royal NZ R.S.A. Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. Ref: 1/2-014124-G
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Roy Edward Everett. Image supplied by Jenifer Lemaire
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Viola, who qualified as a nurse in Sydney, Australia in October, 1915, joined the Australian Army Nursing Service in December 1916 and served as a staff nurse at No 27 General Hospital in Alexandria, Egypt, returning to Australia in July, 1919.¹⁷ Twins, Claire and Dorothy, who qualified together at Christchurch in June 1916, both went off to England with the NZ Army Nursing Service in August, 1918. They served together as staff nurses at No 2 NZ General Hospital, a military hospital for seriously wounded NZ soldiers, situated at Walton-on-Thames. The life-saving care their brother, Frank, received at No 1 NZ General Hospital at Brockenhurst from October 1916 to January 1917 possibly influenced their decision to join up. They returned to New Zealand in August, 1919.¹⁸

One of Albert's nephews went off to war as well; his brother Frank Evelyn Everett's son, Roy Edward Everett.  Roy was another Nelson College Old Boy. He also served as a Gunner with the NZ Field Artillery and was awarded the Military Medal for gallantry in action during the Battle of Broodseinde Ridge in October 1917. After the war he became a farmer at Motupipi, Takaka.

In October 1916, around the same time as Thomas Arscott was receiving the bad news about his grandson in Timaru, Albert Everett was notified that his stepson Ralph had been killed and his son Frank seriously injured by shrapnel.¹⁹

A Gun-Pit in the Somme Valley. From: The New Zealand Division 1916-1919: A Popular History Credit: NZETC
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The two stepbrothers were close in age and clearly inseparable friends as well, perhaps from school-days. They joined up together on the same day, 24 August, 1915, left with the same draft on 9 October, 1915 and trained together in Egypt, where Ralph turned 18. They were together, too, in the same artillery gun pit at Flers when it was struck by an enemy shell on October 15, 1916, during the Battle of the Somme. Ralph took the full impact and was killed instantly. Frank was hit by shrapnel, receiving head injuries which left him unconscious for 14 days. Ralph was found lying over Frank, who later credited his stepbrother with saving his life.²⁰

Frank Everett. Courtesy Barbara Strathdee, My Heritage: Everett–Strathdee Family
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After three months in hospital in England, Frank was sent back to New Zealand for 12 months’ recuperation, but was discharged in 1917 as a result of his injuries and later moved to Australia to live. Gerald was demobilised in 1919 and went to Auckland, where he resumed his former profession as a clerk with the Union Bank of Australia. He retired to Nelson. Viola, who never married, continued her nursing career in Australia and in 1945 became Matron of the Kenmore Repatriation Hospital in Queensland. In 1957 she was awarded an MBE for her work there. Her sister Gladys (who preferred to be called "Gordon") was also awarded an MBE in 1960 for her work in the field of education.

Dorothy and Claire came back to Nelson but soon found that it was too quiet for them. They travelled together to San Francisco where they both took work as nurses. Claire met and married Frederick (Fred) Strathdee, who came from Scotland. He had been recruited as a teenager by a Canadian Bank, and remained in banking all his working life. Fred and Claire made their home in San Francisco, and raised their three children there. Dorothy didn’t ever marry, but continued working as a nurse. She was a fond aunt and spent many weekends with the Strathdee family. When the Strathdees eventually retired to Victoria on Vancouver Island in Canada, Dorothy returned to Nelson.

The Everett family suffered an earlier loss at home on the 1^st January, 1915, when Albert’s daughter Stella drowned while swimming in the Motueka River. She was 24. Stella had epilepsy, which was thought to have been a contributing factor in her death.²¹

Albert Everett lived with his second wife Annie at his Pokororo farm for many years and remained closely involved with the local fruitgrowing industry until April 1935. He then leased out his farm and retired to Nelson, where he died 17 August, 1943, aged 85. Annie died 29 September, 1957. They both lie at the Wakapuaka Cemetery, with Albert's first wife, Ada, his parents Edward and Hannah Everett and other family members close by.

Ralph Watson is commemorated at the Caterpillar (New Zealand) Memorial at Caterpillar Valley Cemetery, Longueval, France, which records the names of those NZ servicemen killed during fighting at the Somme in September and October, 1916, "whose graves are known only to God."

He is listed on the Nelson/Tasman Roll of Honour and also honoured at the Ngatimoti War Memorial in the Motueka Valley, Tasman, New Zealand.

2014. Updated July 2020

Acknowledgements: Jenifer Lemaire and Barbara Strathdee (Everett and Strathdee families); Nelson College Old Boys’ Association per Gina Fletcher; Coralie Smith, Motueka Historical Association; Tony Rippin (curator), South Canterbury Museum, Timaru, and Teresa Scott (librarian), South Canterbury Branch NZSG.