Waimea South Looks Back on the Last 40 Years

President’s Speech 40^th Anniversary WSHS 12 June 2021

Welcome everyone to this historic occasion – the 40^th Anniversary meeting of the Waimea South Historical Society Inc.

A special welcome to Councillor Christeen Mackenzie, deputising for Mayor Tim King who is unable to be with us today. Christeen will speak to us in a moment.

Maureen Barton & Virginia Gray do the Honours

I wonder if the 21 Wakefield citizens who met in the Supper Room of the Wakefield Hall on 21 May, 1981 had any idea that the group which eventually decided to form an incorporated society would, 40 years later, be still in business working to make people aware of the history of Waimea South and their cultural heritage, especially since a month later on 11^thJune, at their first formal meeting, only 11 people were present with 11 apologies. Interestingly, over the years, our membership has remained in the vicinity of 20-30 members.

There have been some key members, passionate about history, who have been the driving force behind much of what we have achieved. Betty Bint, to whom our first publication, From River to Range, was dedicated was the first of these. Printed in 1991, a year before the 150^th anniversary of Nelson’s European settlement it provides details of some of the first European settlers in this area. Mindful of the impending sesquicentennial, a call had been made for families to contribute photographs and print resources to provide sufficient material for this to be produced and an arrangement was made with the local council for this to be stored in the district library. The legal agreement can be viewed on the display table. I would like to read the dedication at the beginning of River to Range which is a tribute to Betty Bint’s work:

“This book is dedicated to the memory of Betty Bint whose unflagging enthusiasm inspired us all. Most of these articles result from her meticulous research over many years. Future generations will thank her.”

In recent times photographic material has been digitised and placed on the Kete Tasman website. Other gifts of photo collections e.g., The George Lawrence Collection have later been added. Very recently Mr Ralph Davies who was born in Pigeon Valley has passed on to us the engraved pair of scissors and the ribbon that was cut with them when he “did the honours” to open the latest Pigeon Valley bridge.

Future generations will thank her. This could also be said of Marion Stringer who built on the groundwork prepared by Betty and produced Just Another Row of Spuds which was published in 1999 towards which our society made a very substantial monetary contribution. Twenty-two years later it is in great demand as it is the only comprehensive, detailed source of information on the early settler families in the area. To date we have been unsuccessful in persuading the Stringer family to agree to a reprint – but we remain hopeful that our Society can present them with a proposal and an offer which they may find acceptable. We are certain that Marion’s greatest wish would be that her work was accessible to as many who wanted it.

However, we have not just been concerned with preserving history in print. On sites around the district we have left our mark. The display board outside the Rutherford Memorial Hall at Foxhill is one of these. The William Harkness display board on the northern entrance to the Tasman District Library is another. As several of our members now live in Richmond, we decided some years ago to meet there rather than in Wakefield and to extend our area of interest over the Waimea Plains as a whole (there being no history group which met in this area.) So now we meet in the Holy Trinity Church Hall in Dorset Street – (and a very pleasant venue it has turned out to be!)

In 2013 we negotiated with Mrs Val McLean to gift the set of 52 handbells which her great-grandfather. Edward Edridge, schoolmaster at Wai-iti had imported from England beginning in 1875, to the Nelson Centre of Musical Arts (School of Music) where they are now kept as a treasured taonga for future generations.

In Wakefield we have marked with a plaque the site of the first Wakefield School – the oldest school in continuous use (though not in the same building or site) in New Zealand.

There is still some unfinished business to be done in Wakefield. The 1909 Post Office Building (now in private ownership) whose domed tower creates such a memorable focus to the shops in Edward Street needs somehow to be preserved. Edward Baigent’s 166 year old combined flour and sawmill still stands but is no longer in the hands of the Baigent family. Sadly some years ago when our society was approached we felt it too big a task for our small group to offer any real practical help. At the moment its future seems insecure.

But the new subdivision proceeding speedily on what was once Captain England’s farm “Pitfure” below St. John’s church could benefit from an information board. This is something we could manage.

Our move to Richmond caused us to become involved in helping to give the town a history which previously had been conspicuously absent. We became involved in helping to provide the text for the information boards placed along Queen Street. The photographs were largely sourced from Rob Packer’s extensive collection.

We can look back over the past forty years and see some tangible achievements – but more needs to be done. I would dearly love the Tasman District Council to appoint a “Heritage Advisor” which Nelson City has done. Then it is unlikely that the rather embarrassing situation where new streets or reserves in new subdivisions, such as has happened in Hart Rise in Richmond, have no reference to the original family. This despite the fact that the family had owned the land now being developed since 1847 with 7 houses still owned by the family in the general area. It shouldn’t be necessary to get up a petition to have streets in an area with such a provenance as this to have their name on a map.

To mark the 175^th Anniversary of the founding of Wakefield School, our society offered its services to present the history of the school as part of their celebrations. Many photographs were obtained from different sources, the Edridge handbells were rung and our secretary Arnold Clark agreed to bring the school’s history up- to- date since Marion Stringer had written her book, “Wakefield Schooldays” for the 150^th Anniversary. Some original registers were also on display under the watchful eye of a museum custodian. We also published a booklet which detailed all the schools in the surrounding valleys that, one- by- one, as transport improved, closed with pupils being brought to Wakefield by bus – the last being Foxhill. As part of the weekend celebrations a bus tour was also arranged to the sites of the different schools with the booklet being used as a guide.

In conclusion, I would like to pay a tribute to the dedicated group of local citizens who felt there was an important story to tell about Wakefield and its surrounding area – Waimea South: one of the first NZ Company settlements, containing the oldest church and school in continuous use in NZ and that this story should be preserved and passed on to successive generations.

I think I can say without fear of contradiction that we here today have continued to honour the ideals and aspirations of our first members forty years ago and that I feel proud -as you should be also- to be part of realising those ideals which they aspired to.

Roger Batt 12 June 2021

After the President’s address, we all trooped outside to listen to a busking group, conducted by Joel Bolton from the Nelson Centre of Musical Arts. Most were quite young players just beginning to experience playing to an audience. Despite the coldness of the afternoon, they performed very well. Then we all trooped back into the church to enjoy a special afternoon tea.

A Time to Meet Old Friends and Make New Ones

I981 Was the Year of the Rooster

Violence was an underlying theme. In July, August and September the Springbok Tour Rugby games divided the country with street marches, battles on the pitch between protesters and supporters and flour bombing of games from low flying aircraft. A new term entered the language: Minto Bars (Long batons used by the police named after John Minto the national organiser of HART (Halt all Racist Tours)

Attempts were made to take the lives of: President Reagan, The Pope and the Queen when she visited New Zealand

Underhand (and underarm) tactics were used in cricket during a one day match between NZ and Australia in Melbourne to deny the New Zealand a chance of winning the game

And on April 16th Judge Peter Mahon released his report on the Erebus Disaster in which he concluded that the pilots were not to blame and that he had been subjected to a “litany of lies” from Air New Zealand as to why the plane was flying on the course which had them headed straight for the mountain. The company then was wholly owned by the government which did not table the report in Parliament until 1999 – 18 years later. The report effectively ended his career.

However, the positive events of the year were:

the opening of the Musical “Cats” in the New London Theatre which ran for 8,949 performances
the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in St Pauls at which Kiri te Kanawa sang Handel’s “Let the Bright Seraphim”before an estimated television audience of 600 million viewers
“Chariots of Fire” was released, winning 4 Academy Awards and becoming a great commercial success
The Space Shuttle successfully performed the first of 4 orbital test flights
For the 3rd consecutive year the Toyota Corolla was the world’s most popular car
The first electrically powered aircraft built by an American team crossed the English Channel
“Goodbye Pork Pie” was flmed in New Zealand
“Raiders of the Lost Ark” made Harrison Ford extremely well known

All of these facts -and more- were presented after our afternoon tea by our very own committee member and former history teacher, ‘Warwick Johnstone, and we ended a very pleasant afternoon 40 years, almost to the day, later listening to one of the great songs from “Cats” entitled Memories which, after all, was what the whole afternoon had been about.