Horse racing at Orakei

Barraud, Charles Decimus 1822-1897 :Maori hack race in full costume. C. D. Barraud del. ; G McCulloch lith. - London ; C F Kell [1877] Reference Number: B-080-031-2-2 Two young Maori men racing horses, one clad only in a shirt, the other in cap, open-fronted shirt shirt and jodhpurs. Alexander Turnbull Library.

From c.1894 to c.1908, there was once organised horse racing meetings at Orakei, behind the settlement at Okahu Bay. For Aucklanders in the 1890s to early years of last century, these country meetings would have provided both a destination for excursions out over the Waitemata Harbour to the wharf at Takaparawha Point -- and a source of entertainment, beyond just the thrill of the bet.

The settlement at Okahu Bay, 1920s. Ref. 4-4439, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries

Auckland Star 22 December 1894

Auckland Star 5 March 1898

What drew my attention to the story of the Orakei races was the following long descriptive and lively piece from the NZ Herald.

This is a true story of a day at the Orakei race meeting.

A hot sun beamed down upon the little breeze-cooled valley, at the seaward end of which the Maori settlement lay lazily fronting the still waters of the bay. At the rear of the village an open space surrounded on three sides by rising ground, which formed a natural coliseum, wore an animated appearance on Saturday last as a guileless representative of the Herald jumped a muddy creek and joined the crowd of people there assembled. The usual fraternity to be seen “on the outside” at other race meetings had foregathered – two or three hundred of them – ranging from the city man to shabby tout. In and out amongst the throng passed Maori officials, phlegmatic, gravely, and with infinite circumlocution going about their various businesses, as though serious matters were afoot, but there was no hurry. The uninitiated pressman commenced to take his bearings.

Nothing visible was there to indicate where the races were to be run from or to, where the numbers were to go up, or from whence the flag signals were to be flown. In the middle of the ground a large Maori, in a wideawake straw hat and his shirt-sleeves, was helping two wahines to supply thirsty visitors with “soft tack” and watermelon. To him the scribe appealed. The large Maori turned out to be the secretary – a most obliging person – but preoccupied. He pointed out a shed at a little distance where, between two roughly nailed-up bits of kauri, three mystic numbers had been hung. “That the first race,” he said; “three starters.”

Oh,” said his questioner, “and where do they stick up the results?”

Same place,” was the laconic reply.

THE “BOOKIES” SCORE

At that stage one of a group of men carrying large bags, which jingled when they moved, accosted the secretary. “You’d better take it while you can get it,” he said. “None of them will bet if you insist on the ‘two ten’ racket.”

Then the pressman remembered having seen an advertisement, which set forth that bookmakers desiring to bet at this meeting must pay £2 10s for a license, or “stay at home”. They had refused to be domestic, but were in no mood to let their outing cost them more than was necessary. At their spokesman’s blunt statement of the case the preoccupied one fought a silent battle with himself. Good-nature – or was it business instinct? – won the day. “All right,” he ejaculated with startling suddenness, “announce it.”

“Boys,” said the bookies’ representative, in a loud, triumphant voice, “you can bet for a pound.”

“An one shillin’,” chipped in the astute secretary.

“A guinea, boys,” corrected the bettors’ mouthpiece; “come on, pay up, and get a start.”

And they did. Within a few minutes the familiar cry of “Even money on the field” resounded in the air.

Over towards the little shed a native official walked serenely around, looking for the starters for the first race. An old fellow in a white suit acted as his “go between,” and helped to saddle the three horses when they had been found. In the shed upon which appeared the numbers the three riders donned their colours. This was a very useful shed – everybody used it – jockeys, stewards, and public. It was weighing-in room, dressing-room, and stewards’ stand in one. Out of it popped a Maori horseman. He wore a scarlet jacket, with a white stripe, and a pair of long pants. “Lend me a coat,” he cried; “I got to make up 3lb.” Someone filled the order, and he put it on, the tails of the red jacket jauntily flying in the wind from beneath it as he rode away.

Then came the preliminary canter. A comfortable-looking Maori on a sturdy pony cleared the course, which was merely an unevenly trodden track around the pa. The three candidates for a stake of four sovereigns rattled down the straight amidst the cheers of the crowd. Dogs of all sizes and descriptions, awakened from drowsy slumbers by the noise of the clattering hoofs, scuttled down the hill-sides, rushed blindly from diverse bushes, and dived madly yapping, into the clouds of dust raised by the disappearing steeds. Away on the other side of the valley the three riders pulled up. The starter on a Maori “scrubber” got them into line, and hit his hip.

“They’re off,” yelled the people on the rise, from sheltering tea-tree, and the like. The crowd on the green made a rush for the track, and several crossed and ascended to points of vantage. This, of course, gave the clerk of the course some work to do. He did it with as little exercise of muscle and tissue as possible, merely sitting statuesquely on his pony and issuing commands to “keep back there,” like a captain on the bridge. The first time past the winning post, and it was clear to most of the spectators that the chestnut mare must win. She had a lead of many yards, and the other two were, as the racing writer puts it, “under punishment”. Roars of delighted laughter rent the air as the pakehas saw the gallant mare run along the back like the wind, her opponents furlongs to the rear. At the bend her rider pulled her up to an easy amble, and at that pace passed the post, the others nowhere.

“Another round,” shouted some wit in the crowd.

“Yes, another round” – a hundred voices joined in the cry.

The jockeys on the last two horses, who had made a merry “go” of it for second place, were quite willing but as they were about to whip their mounts into renewed efforts, the judge climbed down off his hencoop, and remarked finally, “All over.”

So the crowd was baulked.

Maori group (at a country horse racing meeting?), [ca 1901] Reference Number: 1/1-001882-G Maori group (at a country horse racing meeting?), circa 1901. Photograph taken by the Auckland studio of Hemus and Hanna, probably in the Auckland region.Alexander Turnbull Library.

HORSE OR PONY?

The horse is a sagacious animal. Someone has uttered the same remark before, but that does not make it any the less true. An instance of the sagacity of a horse who was entered for a pony race will now be given. The story of this pony race deserves to go down in posterity in the form of profuse illustrations and accompanying text, a la “Darktown Races” series. It was the third race of the day. The pressman had received priceless information as to the two former events from a small boy with a black body, a red tie, and a white nature. He learnt from him in consultation prior to the pony race that the best “horse” in it was a certain bay mare. “But,” said the knowing youth, “if she wins she’ll be measured after the race.”

Now, the unsophisticated scribe hadn’t the remotest idea why it would not be good for the bay mare to be measured, but he winked slyly at his young friend to cover up any sign of ignorance he may have displayed. The mystery was explained afterwards. To commence with, there was what the pressman would have described as a bad start. The starter had scarcely smacked his hip before the bay mare rose up on her hind legs, with her mouth open. When she did get away she was well in the rear. Curiously enough she forgot to shut her mouth again during the race, and this induced some unkind people to say nasty things about the jockey. That measuring business was blamed for it too. Anyway, the brown gelding won. He was having his photograph taken, with the proud owner “up” when there came a swirl of the crowd towards the stewards’ dressing-weighing shed, and a heated Maori on the grey gelding, which had run second, urged his nag towards the shed door with a cry of “protest” on his lips.

Someone stuck a tattered and faded flag up over the lintel of the door. “What’s the blue flag for?” asked a spectator on the outskirts of the now jocularly excited crowd.

“Blue,” scoffed the man nearest to him. “It’s green. There’s a protest.”

A Maori of proportions which a Frenchman would describe as “embonpoint”, leisurely thrust his huge bulk through the mass of pakeha spectators who were storming the shed in their desire to hear the fun. “where are the stewards?” he said. From several points of the compass coatless Maoris, figuring in the required capacity on the programme, edged their way into the shed of many uses.

“Run it again, no race,” yelled the mob deliriously.

Out on the green, stamping a profusion of penny-royal beneath his feet, and thereby filling the adjacent air with the pungent smell of peppermint, a Maori backer of the bay mare waxed wrath. “Wha’ for?” he gesticulated.

“No race, I tell you. I go for the police. The mouth came like that – wide open.” And he proceeded to give an imitation with his hands of the open mouth of a horse.

Whilst the stewards were in the shed deliberating over the protest, a pakeha official (self-constituted, unless the race-card lied) was measuring the grey that had come in second. A length of timber, with a rough cross piece nailed on at a pony’s lawful height, was requisitioned. The grey passed comfortably beneath it, amidst cheers from the onlookers.

Then the winner was wanted. He had disappeared. Not a whinny betrayed his hiding place. Fast sped the moments, but he could not be found. The scribe was beginning to wonder if it could be possible, as was hinted in some quarters, that the owner did not want the brown measured. Of a sudden an exultant yell arose. “Here he is!” and someone dived into a clump of willows, and dragged forth the missing quadruped. Was it a horse or a pony? The all-important question took a lot of settling. Eventually the man with the stick declared that it failed by three or four inches to pass under the crossbar. The news was broken to the stewards, who were about to decide that the protest must be upheld, when the owner of the horse that had been declared not to be a pony appealed to the secretary, nearly coming to blows with an angry member of the crowd whose money was on the grey. The secretary, assuming supreme powers, and over-riding those of the stewards, seized the measuring stick. The people surged round him, and the brown gelding sent them scattering with uplifted hoofs. He seemed to dread that measuring-stick. He would not stand still. Ultimately the sagacious animal espied a ditch. He promptly stood in the bottom of it – stood there like a lamb. The timber measure was placed on the ground. It rested on the bank of the ditch, as the gelding has designed that it should. The crossbar showed inches above his back. “He’s pony all right,” decided the secretary, flinging the stick down, and the gelding was seen to furtively wink at his owner as the latter led him away. In the shout that went up were mingled execrations. One man said something reflecting on the secretary. But the secretary – he who had so firmly carried out his work, and with such supreme contempt for all other authority – said nothing. It was not his fault if the brown gelding did stand in a ditch. It merely proved that a horse’s sagacity is equal even to making out that he is a pony.

THE DISAPPEARING JOCKEY

The running of the Orakei Cup of 9 sovs was another feature of the meeting that was not without interest. Hard-hearted people declared that it was a “schlenter”, whatever that may mean. They said that the horse that was leading most of the way was not meant to win, and that the horse in second position for the greater part of the distance was. As it turned out, a Maori horse, which, cruel report had it, was blocked all the way, got home first, and there was great glee amongst the natives in consequence.

Just before the three horses entered the straight the jockey of the leader, who was running strongly, disappeared. When he limped painfully into the open space where the crowd was, a little later, with sand in his hair and a woebegone expression, he was heartily jeered.

“Booh,” remarked a Maori in his ear, with infinite scorn, “you jump off the horse. Wha’ for?”

The poor jockey, with a “not understood” expression, wildly resented the aspersion, but the spectators showed a similar spirit to that of the Maori accuser, though they were good-natured enough about it. The fact that the rider “left” his saddle in a nice, soft, sandy place was beyond doubt true, but how the poor young man must have suffered to hear someone say that he had rubbed the sand into his head and gone voluntarily lame!

The element of happy-go-lucky haphazard ruled everything. Maori riders cheerfully went “another round” when the spectators urged them to do so. The clerk of the course most agreeably furnished reliable tips to all inquiring investors, and so did all the other inhabitants of the village. Wahines strolled around in gaudy greens and resplendent yellows; mongrels chased the racers round the course; children romped, and everybody was in a laughing mood.

The difference between the Orakei races and musical farce-comedy is that in one case there is no music.

NZ Herald, 20.1.1908

Programme advertising a Maori horse racing meeting in Karioi, Waikato, 1 January 1870 Reference Number: 1/1-000855-F Programme advertising a Maori horse racing in Karioi (Whaingaroa/Raglan region) January 1, 1870.Alexander Turnbull Library.

The end of 1908. though, seems to have been the end of this part of Auckland's horse racing history.

A MAORI RACE MEETING 

LUDICROUS INCIDENTS AT ORAKEI. 

[From Our Correspondent.] 

AUCKLAND, December 26. 

For some time past there had been portentous signs of trouble for the Maori Christmas Day races at Orakei. Mysterious and contrary advertisements had assured bewildered race goers that the race meeting would and would not take place. Intending patrons were definitely told that an eighteen-penny fare would admit them to the course and in the next advertisement they were informed that if they set foot on the course on Christmas Day they would be prosecuted as trespassers. An interesting account of the sequel is given in the Herald report of the races.

When the racegoers went to catch the ferry steamer to Orakei they were confronted by a remarkable notice, which conveyed the information that the course had been ploughed up, by whom it was not stated. Notwithstanding this depressing manifesto large numbers went out anticipating some fun. They were not altogether disappointed. The course had been ploughed up right enough. The situation was earnestly discussed by many Maori but nobody seemed to be able to indicate the perpetrator of the fell deed but the Maoris who had gathered together for horse racing were not going to be stopped by a trifle like the want of a course. Some ingenious brown individual pointed out that the stretch of beach would do as a makeshift, and the joyful news that races were to be held was spread abroad and the first race was started.

There were horses of sorts from the twelve hand pony to the seventeen hand horse that would have looked more at home in a spring cart. There were also a few good ones in the motley lot. They went up under the cliff to start, about twenty-five of them, but they were thinned out. Three bolted off and had a race of their own. Several dashed into the sea, two darted across a field and were seen no more. Then a vicious little pony scratched at least three for all engagements with hind hoofs, in making room for himself. One horse started to browse so greedily that his rider could not get his head up and was left at the post. They started, or some of them did. The field swept along in gallant style, some in the water and some out of it. A desperate finish ensued. As the ti-tree winning-post was neared, the tumultuous mob cheered madly, the struggle was terrific, but blood told. A dashing little animal, pakeha rider up, finishing gamely under punishment, just got his nose in front of the hope of the Maoris, a long raking bay beast ridden by a barefooted Maori boy.

"No race"' It was the voice of a Maori judge who sat still and impassive in all the excitement, sheltered from the rain by a huge umbrella. There was a furious outburst of wrath from the pakeha rider.

“No race be damned! This is a bit tough. Why, I won the race fair enough."

“They didn't all start," said the judge.

“Well, the starter gave to the word to go and we came away. Why, some of them are messing about there, I ain’t to blame for that, am I?” The judge declined to argue the question further. He called up the starter, who had paced along with the field, probably to see that they raced fair, and in a dignified tone demanded an explanation. The starter gave a loquacious account of affairs that apparently satisfied the judge, and he ordered the race to be run again. He also showed his supreme authority by limiting the number of the field.

“Six of them no more," was his brief mandate to the starter.

There were more races, including an event which was dignified with the title of the Orakei Cup, but one Maori horse race is very like another, and the pakeha spectators who had gone out from curiosity began to drift back to the wharf for the ferry boat.

Christchurch Star 28.12.1908

Around 1914, the sewer line was installed along the shore of Okahu Bay. Native Land Court judgements and government legislation began the breakup of the Maori-owned lands at Orakei, and the days of the "anything goes" races were gone forever.

If the one-time Maori race meetings were still being held at Orakei it might be worth while keeping some of the horses who raced at Ellerslie in training.

NZ Truth 15.6.1918 

Detail from NZ Map 7013, 1920s, from Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries

Influenza City

Recently, whiling away a bit of time between appointments, commitments and the usual scheduling stuff, I had a bit of a browse through the oversize collection of reference material at the Central Auckland Research Centre at the Central Library. I’ve always found that collection on the general shelves in the CARC a source of wonderful chance finds. This time, I had a nosey at a folder entitled:

Influenza Epidemic – Mayor’s Memorandum Covering Reports of City Solicitor and Council Officers.

Walter Bush, the City Engineer, provided in his report to the Mayor dated 27 November 1918 a day-by-day run down as to his department’s response to the crisis.

8 or 9 October

The epidemic first attracts notice in Auckland, although Bush noted that 24 deaths had been recorded in the four metropolitan and nine suburban areas in the 6 months preceding 30 September. From 8 October, the daily papers contained references to the influenza’s spread.

12 October

The RMS Niagara arrived in Auckland. The number of passengers under treatment was between 30 and 40, according to Bush, and the Health Authorities put the ship effectively in semi-quarantine for a time. Passengers and crew were “obliged to pass through an inhaling chamber improvised on the ship by the District Health Officer, and the quarters thoroughly fumigated.” 26-28 members of the crew and 2 passengers were admitted to Auckland Hospital for isolation treatment.

15 October

Five more crew members of the Niagara were admitted to hospital, with at least 8 of those already admitted developing slight pneumonia. By now, 9 Auckland residents were receiving treatment as well. The isolation ward was crowded, the nursing staff reported as “fully taxed”.

16 October

A conclusion, startling to our eyes with the benefit of hindsight, made by a Conference that day between the Hospital Board’s Visiting Committee, and the District Health Officer. “ … It was made clear that the influenza was of a very mild type … not “Spanish” Influenza, the more virulent kind.” Dr E Graham Russell, Port Health Officer, “stated that the type was the mildest he had experienced.”

Dr Russell wasn’t alone with that opinion. The district health officer told the Education Board “that the epidemic went through a community like a flash, usually lasting from 6 to 8 weeks, and that at least 50% of the population was ordinarily attacked. He was of the opinion that the epidemic had been in Auckland for three or four weeks, and had not been introduced by the Niagara, and … that the disease was not present in a serious form, and “Spanish Influenza.”

17 October

The District Health Officer advocated “thorough ventilation of schools, etc. especially during week-ends, picture theatres etc., tram cars, and other public conveyances, and also the wiping of straps and seats in tram cars with cloths moistened with antiseptic, while counter railings, etc. in shops and desks in schools should be similarly treated.”

20 October

A fireman from the Niagara died from lung complications from influenza at Auckland Hospital, but other patients from the Niagara were reported as improving. Out of 26 in hospital on the 18th, 10 were discharged on the 19th, and another 8 in the 21st. But …

21 October

A steward from the Niagara dies “from pneumonia supervening on influenza.”

22 October

At the meeting of the Board of Education that day, a report was submitted to the effect that out of 4887 pupils attending seven lading schools in the city, 1032 were away due to the epidemic, with 21 out of 92 teachers affected.

23 October

“The epidemic was assuming a worse form”, the NZ Herald reported.

24 October

During that week, members of the City Fire Brigade came down with the disease, 17 men reported off duty on 24 October. That day, 25 of the Aucland Hospital’s nursing staff were ill.

29 October

The NZ Herald reported a “slight abatement” of the epidemic.

30 October

The Mayor of Auckland ordered that the Minister of Labour be telegraphed, asking that, while the epidemic was in effect that the law requiring chemists to close at certain hours not be enforced, allowing them to remain open at night “to meet the generally increased demand for medicine. The Minister replied that if the majority of chemists indicated that they wanted to stay open an extra hour, the Department wouldn’t interfere while the epidemic lasted. Bush reported that the extra opening hours reduced the workload significantly at the all-night pharmacy.

31 October

The Mayor was waited upon by a deputation of community representatives who asked for a meeting to be convened “to consider the prevalence of he epidemic [and] … what measures should be taken in its abatement.” The meeting took place at 4 pm that day, resulting in the formation of a Citizen’s Committee “to take such steps as were necessary to help sufferers and to cope with the epidemic”. The executive, with powers to co-opt as required, were:

The Mayor: James Henry Gunson

Cr. Andrew Jack Entrican [Deputy Mayor]

Cr. William John` Holdsworth [Elected to the Grey Lynn Borough Council in 1907, he became its Mayor in 1910, and then Auckland City Councillor in 1914]

Ernest Lilly: City Districts Schools Committee

E Phelan

G Davis

F Potter

P M Mackay

S Milroy, and

H P Kissling

1 November

The NZ Herald reported that three more deaths had occurred, including George Moore, an employee in the City Engineer’s Department, as well as an auxiliary fireman at the City Fire Brigade station. The Tramway Company was obliged to take several morning and evening special cars off the rush hour runs as a result of 66 tramway motormen and conductors reporting in as ill.

The Citizens Committee met again, this time with the Chairman of the District Hospital Board, the Medical Superintendent and the District Health Officer present. The committee decided to telegraph the Minister of Defence suggesting that the Medical Boards be released to provide additional medical assistance to the city. They also resolved to contact the Minister of Public Health asking that, finally, the disease should be subject to quarantine regulations.

W J Holdsworth, the first secretary to the Citizens Committee, came down with the ‘flu himself. In his place, H D Robertson was co-opted onto the committee. He was Secretary of the Joint Committee of the British Red Cross and the Order of St John.

That evening, the Auckland Hospital Board held a special meeting to consider steps to combat the epidemic, “and to provide additional hospital accommodation for patients dangerously ill from the disease.” The outbreak was no longer being considered as a non-serious form.

2 November

Bush’s plan which saw the city and suburbs divided into 22 blocks came into effect, as submitted to the Citizens Committee the day before. Members of the committee were appointed “to supervise the work of rendering assistance in he representative areas.”

The Auckland Education Board met that day, a Saturday, to consider the District Health Officer’s advice that the district’s schools be closed, “in view of the increasing seriousness of the situation”. The Board decided to close the schools for a week, and to reconsider the situation at the end of that period. The three city Manual Training centres, as well as those at Devonport and Otahuhu, were also closed. “Any assembly of children,” during the epidemic period, “was undesirable.”

The streets in the central ward are disinfected. Other streets are similarly treated on 6 November, in conjunction with watering of the streets and flushing of the cesspits.

3 November

Dr Joseph Patrick Frengley, the Acting Chief Health Officer for New Zealand, arrived in Auckland and conferred with the Mayor, the Chairman of the Hospital Board, and the Auckland Hospital medical superintendent. Auckland’s Mayor placed Kilbryde, the former home of Sir John Logan Campbell in the new Parnell Park at the disposal of the Hospital Board. Auckland Hospital at Grafton and the Costley Home at today’s Greenlane Hospital site were closed to visitors, in an attempt to minimize the spread of the virus. The Board also arranged for a supply of medicines, day and night, to Henderson & Barclay’s pharmacy in Queen Street.

C T Haynes, the Chief Sanitary Officer, was appointed “to take charge of the office of the [Citizens] Committee at the Town Hall for the purpose of tabulating the returns from the various blocks.”

His own report to the Mayor (27 November 1918) was concerned primarily with the state of Auckland’s slum housing at the time of the influenza pandemic in late 1918.

“… many of our citizens engaged during the past few weeks in combating the influenza epidemic, an obtaining for the first time an insight into the state of affairs under which numbers of people are living, have been surprised and shocked that such conditions exist, and strongly impressed with the necessity of adopting some measures for their removal.”

Over the course of the 16 years immediately before the ‘flu hit the city, around 600 houses had been either been already condemned and pulled down, or demolished by arrangement with the owners. So by the time the Spanish ‘Flu came, the policy and process of urban renewal by Auckland City Council had been well underway. Influenza spreads from public gatherings and the airborne transmission of the virus rather than from the obvious source of sanitary risk, residential overcrowding. It could be said that the sanitary inspector’s department was using the epidemic as an opportunity to bang that department’s particular drum.

The department did report that half their number was away on Active Service during the war, and the workload had been increased due to the amalgamation of boroughs and road boards with the city, such as Parnell, Epsom, Remuera, and Grey Lynn.

4 November

Doctors provided by the Defence Department, in response to the Citizens Committee request of three days before, started work from a central bureau opened at the Auckland Hospital Board’s Kitchener Street office. Advertisements were inserted in the NZ Herald and the Auckland Star regarding applications for medical assistance. A fumigation room was set up in the District Health Office at Albert Street.

At noon, the Citizens Committee met again, making final arrangements with Dr Frengley and the Hospital Board Chairman.

The block committees were already at work, establishing centres in each area to accept applications for assistance. Appeals were made for assistance from volunteers, trained nurses, and “those able to undertake domestic duties in homes where the epidemic had laid aside the inmates.”

“By this date,” Bush recorded, “the situation was very grave, and the large number of applications received for admission to the Hospital indicated that there was no diminution in the number of serious cases. On the contrary, in numerous instances whole households were simultaneously affected, and in consequence of the lack of assistance the position became very acute.”

5 November

The owners of Auckland’s cinemas met with the mayor and the Acting Chief Health Officer in the mayoral offices, and agreed not to admit any children aged 14 and under to their premises. They also agreed to fumigate the cinemas daily.

The Minister for Public Health, G W Russell, arrived along with Dr. Frengley and three doctors, two others which been released by the Defence Department to assist with the epidemic, and another four from the Medical Boards. The Minister of Defence had been requested to obtain nurses from other parts of the North Island to assist as well.

The Mission Hall at the Sailor’s Home on Quay Street was opened as a temporary hospital. By the next day, this facility was looking after 20 patients. The Women’s National Reserve opened an emergency kitchen at their Rutland Street premises.

6 November

No less than 90 nurses at Auckland Hospital were off work through influenza. Up to 10 pm that day, 600 applications for assistance were received by the Citizens Committee at the Town Hall.

A “Gazette Extraordinary” was issued declaring the influenza as a dangerous infectious disease, authorizing the health authorities to exercise all the powers laid down under the Public Health Act. This meant that instead of limited opening of places like picture theatres, all such places were to be completely closed, from the following day, along with billiard saloons, other public gatherings and entertainment, and schools.

The Vermont Street Girls’ School, capable of accommodating 150 patients and a complete nursing staff, was placed at the disposal of the Auckland Hospital Board by Bishop Cleary and Rev Father Carran. This was opened as a temporary hospital on 8 November.

The Mayor of Auckland came down with the ‘flu, and instructed Bush to confer with Dr. Frengley with regard to the Public Health Act regulations. From that point on, Bush effectively became a CEO, at all hours, day and night. He convinced the Superintendent of Telegraphs late at night to make all telephone lines connected with the epidemic relief works available, despite the planned closure of the telephone exchange between noon and 3pm.

7 November

“Following Dr Frengley’s conference with the Crown Solicitor and myself on the 7th inst., a notice was issued by him requiring the immediate closing of all places of entertainment, Public Halls, Billiard rooms, and shooting galleries for a week. This included the Auckland Racing Club’s course and buildings and in consequence no race meeting was held at Ellerslie on the 9th idem. In addition, the list of places ordered to be closed included the Chamber of Commerce, Society of Arts Hall, Trades Hall, friendly societies’ meeting places and many other public and church halls.” (Bush)

The Acting Chief Health Officer requested that all denominations hold only morning services “of the shortest possible denomination”. [Apparently Bishop Cleary went one better, ordering all Catholic services suspended during the epidemic.]

Bush also conferred with Dr Frengley over the opening of fumigating stations as soon as equipment could be manufactured.

It was decided to insert an advertisement in the newspapers urging all those not engaged in the central city to stay in their homes.

8 November

The Armistice was prematurely reported in the country’s media. This added to the strain of dealing with the epidemic in Auckland.

“Work in connection with the various Block Committees was in full swing when the cable prematurely announcing the signing of the terms of the Armistice was received on the morning of the 8th inst., and for a time this seemed to arrest the valuable work being done in combating the epidemic. My first action on receipt of this news was to proceed to the Council’s depot and arrange for the detention of sufficient men and carters, and the keeping open of the stores and offices there, so that any urgent calls that might be made for special services might be made … In consequence of the universal holiday observed and the resultant closing of shops and warehouses, necessary stores were found a matter of great difficulty.”

Waikumete Cemetery sent out a call for more gravediggers. Eight men, along with the necessary tools, were dispatched out to Glen Eden in motor cars.

An inhaling station was set up on Queen’s Wharf, with two of Bush’s assistants in charge.

The City Library and Art Gallery, along with all branch libraries and the Old Colonists’ Museum, were closed from that date until 2 December on the orders of the Deputy Mayor. (Barr’s report – see below)

9 November

Victoria Park Pavilion was opened as a temporary morgue, fitted up with tables and disinfecting apparatus. Bush’s department also saw to a request from Vermont Street hospital for screens, a dispensary and provision of electric lights.

Kilbryde at Parnell, as well as the Technical College in Wellesley Street, were opened as more temporary hospitals.

10 November

“Arrangements were made for the transport of extra grave diggers to and from Waikumete Cemetery and also for the pegging out of extra grave spaces…” (Bush)

An inhalation chamber opened at the Town Hall.

12 November

The Tabernacle Sunday School was found to be unsuitable as a children’s hospital, so Bush and his team contacted the secretary for the YWCA. Two lower floors of their Queen Street building were placed at the Hospital Board’s disposal “as a home for healthy children whose parents had been incapacitated by the disease.” (Bush) Conferences also began with the Women’s National Reserve with the view to converting the Myers Kindergarten Building in Myers Park as a hospital for sick children.

The Acting Chief Health Officer ordered the immediate burial of all known victims of influenza. Special funeral trains were organized, at 10 am and 1.45 pm each day as required. Bush also approached the General Manager of the Railways for reduced rates of carriage of the bodies. The demand for additional grave diggers at Waikumete was met by sending out 12 more men, reinforced on 14 November by another 6, on the 15th by still another 6, and 3 more on the 25th November.

The real Armistice was signed. This meant that government offices were closed, and so too (temporarily) was the telephone exchange. Bush contacted the Superintendent of Telegraphs again, who assured him and the secretary of the Citizen’s Committee that “all special telephone numbers would be kept open for use through the day.”

“From this date,” Bush reported, “the Health Authorities, Hospital Board, Citizens Committee and other organisations may be said to have had the epidemic in hand, and although numerous calls were still being received for assistance, and many serious case were being admitted to the various hospitals, the organisation provided was adequately coping with the situation.”

13 November

The Mayor had recovered sufficiently to discuss with Bush various Council matters, including his decision to postpone a planned loan poll, and the election of a councilor to fill a vacancy. The Mayor returned to his official duties on the 18th.

Another inhalation station was set up, this time at the Leys Institute in Ponsonby.

14 November

A Citizens Relief Committee was established, presided over by the Deputy Mayor A J Entrican. They held their first meeting on the 18th.

During the epidemic, “collections of refuse were made twice daily and on Sundays from the temporary hospitals… and also from the food kitchen in Rutland Street… Mattresses, clothing etc., from private houses were either collected and conveyed to the destructor or else burned in the back yards. Sprays and disinfectants were provided to the men engaged in the collection of refuse, and the dust bins were disinfected, and the carts washed out and disinfected. Fruit was also collected from premises closed in consequence of the inmates being laid aside with the complaint, and conveyed to the Destructor for burning.” (Bush)

469 interments took place at Waikumete Cemetery from 1 November to 26 November, “this large number of interments necessitated the pegging out of graves in the area recently cleared and ploughed on the Western Boundary, the number of new graves utilised to date in such ground being 131.”

137 out of 380 Council workmen were laid aside with influenza during the epidemic. Bush attributed the relatively lower number than expected to “the healthy nature of their occupation.”

John Barr, Chief Librarian, also prepared a report (28 November) on what his staff did during the enforced closure of the libraries from 8 November to 2 December.

The senior messenger was left behind to care for the library, while those of the staff who were still fit engaged in relief work with the supporting institutions. One member had to give up work after contracting influenza, while another (Mr Collins) had blood poisoning while nursing. Books and magazines were supplied to convalescents at the various temporary hospitals, and in conjunction with the Women’s Patriotic League Mr Barr called for more donations of books and toys through advertisements.

“During the time that the Library and Art Gallery have been closed the Messengers have been engaged thoroughly cleaning the building. The Chief Sanitary Inspector at my request undertook to disinfect the Libraries with formalin, but as the use of a chemical solution might have had injurious effects upon pictures and frames in the Art Gallery it was not treated in this manner. The washing of floors with a solution of Jeye’s Fluid was considered sufficient, especially as the roof lighting of the galleries provided plenty of sunlight, the best of disinfectants. I have also arranged with the Chief Sanitary Inspector to have all books which are at present “out” from the Lending Departments of the various libraries disinfected at the Town Hall before being returned to the shelves. These precautionary steps should reassure the public that the libraries are perfectly free from infection.”

Auckland’s official death toll during the epidemic is established to have been 1,128, or 7.6 per thousand head of population, the largest metropolitan toll in the country.

See also: Black November, Geoffrey W Rice (2005, second edition)

Waikumete graves

Avondale's influenza hospital

Apples to thoroughbreds – the Apple Farm of Waiouru Peninsula, East Tamaki

When I first came upon references to the Apple Farm of East Tamaki, I thought it was interesting but would be a considerably shorter story than it has turned out to be. Instead, it has ended up being about missionaries, land deals, surveyors-turned entrepreneurs, the misuse of trust funds, the craziness of the Auckland business economy in the mid 1880s – and apples.

Updated (info on J C Cairns) 24 November 2015. 

Fairburn’s claim 

The Waiouru Peninsula in East Tamaki, east of Otahuhu, lies between the Pakuranga Creek to the north, the Tamaki Creek to the west, and the Otara Creek to the south, loosely bounded to the north-east by Ti Rakau Drive, Harris and Spring Roads. 

The first European to acquire land in the area was the Church of England missionary William Thomas Fairburn (1795-1859). Albert E Tonson in his book Old Manukau (1966) refers to him as a “lay catechist,” one who laid claim to over 40,000 acres by means of direct purchase from local Maori with cash and goods totalling around £900. Further research on him and the Fairburn descendants was done by Edward Thayer Fairburn (brother of poet A R D “Rex” Fairburn, great-grandson of W T Fairburn, 1909-1998), and Rex D Evans who compiled a family history. 

W T Fairburn was born 3 September 1795 in Deptford, Kent. He was in Sydney by 1817, and married Sarah Tuckwell on 12 April 1819 at Parramatta. He arrived in New Zealand with his new bride four months later, at Rangihoua in the Bay of Islands. The family returned to Sydney in 1822, then Fairburn was taken on by the CMS at their New Zealand Mission the following year , and in 1837 became the missionary at Maraetai among the Ngai Tai. He and Sarah set up early church schools, and remained resident at Maraetai until 1841. According to Evans, William Fairburn’s grand land claim came about thus: 

“Three tribes disputed the ownership of the land between Otahuhu and Papakura, a large tract of 40,000 acres. Since no natives were living on it, William [Fairburn] and Henry Williams were persuaded by the natives that, if the missionaries bought the land, they could then come back and settle peaceably upon it. Fairburn and Williams thought the idea had merit and proceeded to draw up documents for the purchase. But Henry Williams, fearing the wrath of his parent body, the CMS, backed off, leaving William to complete the deal on his own. William’s proposal to the CMS was that he would give a third of the land to the Church for farms and schools for the natives; a third was to be held in trust for the sole use of the native tribes and the other third he wished to divide amongst his now adult and landless children, all of whom had worked for years for the CMS for little or no pay … However, the CMS objected vigorously to this plan and, under threat of dismissal, William resigned from the CMS at the end of 1841.” 

SO 931B, LINZ records crown copyright. Left, Otahuhu. Right, Fairburn's property on the Waiouru Peninsula

His first wife Sarah died in 1843. He did eventually get a Crown Grant to some of his claim, of interest to the subject of this article allotments 42, 43 and 46 of the Parish of Pakuranga in April 1844, a total of 383 acres, and part of a total 5495 acres in the area including parts of Otahuhu. His second wife Elizabeth Newman (b.1811) died in Otahuhu in June 1847. Fairburn married a third time in 1851, to Jane Tomes. He died in Dunedin in January 1859, and his widow Jane died at the house “Ravensbourne” in Auckland in 1884. 

Detail from NZ Map 4789, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries

Fairburn transferred part the land, which was to include the property known as Apple Farm (eastern part of Allotment 42, whole of 43 and eastern part of 46), to his brother-in-law Joseph Newman (1815-1892) and to his son John Fairburn in 1851 in trust for Esther Hickson née Fairburn, “to occupy and enjoy and receive and take the rents and profits” for her own unalienable use. On her death, rights passed to her husband Joseph Edward Hickson, and in trust for Esther’s children. Alfred Buckland replaced Newman as a trustee in 1858. From 1850 this part of Fairburn’s estate was known as Otara Grove Farm, operated by Joseph Hickson. We know this because of the text of an advertisement placed by Alfred Buckland selling the property (as the Apple Farm) in September 1887, and references to the old name of the farm in the surviving Apple Farm Company file records. Hickson ran cattle and sheep there, and leased grazing to others. 

The Hicksons travelled to Sydney in 1859, after the deaths of Joseph’s and Esther’s fathers, and on to England where they rented a house in Tottenham. They all returned to Auckland August 1861. Hickson leased the farm out completely from 1867 until 1873, then returned briefly, before retiring completely from farming in the late 1870s. In East Tamaki by Jennifer A Clark, 2002 (p. 77), a Whitson Powell is referred to as a lessee in 1866, but he received grants of land in Waitakere South the following year. 

Theodore William (TW) Hickson … offering a farm up for apples … 

Hickson’s son, surveyor and land agent Theodore William Hickson (b.1850), said to have been born on Otara Grove Farm (East Tamaki, p. 76, as well as his sister Ada Emily Hickson 1853-1934), seems to have become administrator of the property from around 1878, at a time when he lived in Pukekohe with his family. His parents now lived in the Bay of Islands, Joseph working as a land agent. T W Hickson advertised two outer paddocks on the Otara Grove property as available for grazing. (NZ Herald, 9 October 1878, p1[6]). By then, a J Murray was associated with the property, formerly used by a Mr Loverock. 

T W Hickson had married Edith Jane Martin (1853-1939) on 6 January 1876. She was the daughter of Albin and Jemima Martin, owners of Allotments 35, 36 (just north-east over the road from the Apple Farm site) and 36, according to East Tamaki (p. 79), and also leased the remainder of Allotment 42 for a time from John Fairburn in 1854. (DI 2A.48) He’d retired from government service as a surveyor in March 1881, taking up the land brokerage profession full-time. (Poverty Bay Herald, 8 March 1881, Page 3[1]). In June, he set up the Great Northern Land Agency on Queen Street, offering catalogues, mortgages, surveys and conveyancing. Later the following year, the Great Northern Land Agency name seems to have been relegated to “GNLA” beneath the larger type: “T W Hickson & Co”. Around this time, in September 1882, he published his survey map of the City of Auckland, by which he is arguably best remembered today. 

NZ Map 91, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries

"The new map of Auckland city, published by Mr. T W Hickson, of the Great Northern Land Agency, is now out, and in the hands of subscribers. The map shows every allotment as fenced within the city boundaries, as well as a ground plan of every building within those limits. The material of which such building is constructed is shown by means of different colours. The position of fire-plugs, street lamps, and letter boxes, is also shown. No expense has apparently been spared in making the map as reliable and complete as possible. It has been substantially mounted, and should command a large sale amongst business men and owners of city property. Last, but perhaps not least, the map has a handsome appearance, and will form an ornament on any office wall. It is drawn upon the scale of two chains to one inch, and all the latest alterations in the city are included. The reclaimed ground around by the harbour, and the works erected thereon, are shown, and the hotels, and many of the larger places of business in the city, are recorded on the face of the map. The accuracy of the map may be depended upon, when it is remembered that Mr Hickson was for some time lnspector of Surveys, and that the map now issued was prepared from an actual survey of the city during the last 12 months. The position of the dock is shown, and even the plan of footpaths laid out in Albert Park are delineated. Mr Hickson and those he employed have evidently taken considerable trouble to secure fullness and accuracy. The map has been printed at the Herald office, and reflects credit upon the workers in that establishment." 

NZ Herald, 6 September 1882, p 6

His final land brokerage ad, from September 1884, strongly advises that he intended working for investors and buyers, not vendors, and that he’d shifted offices from Queen Street to Vulcan Lane. At that point, apart from reports of his totalisator invention, nothing further is mentioned of his activities in New Zealand. Strangely, he appears to have initially abandoned his family in Auckland, taking up a surveyors licence in Australia in the 1890s, exhibiting mosquito tents and taking out various invention patents. His wife and six children joined him in South Gippsland in 1892, then the family returned to New Zealand around 1897 or 1898, according to the Fairburn family history. Theodore then left his family forever, disappearing off the records sometime after 1899. There are rumours of his association with an office in New York which caught fire, and patent records from a “T W Hickson” for various inventions. None of which seem to have led to any prominence. 

Edith Hickson lived near her parents in Ellerslie from that point on, her will from 1924 referring to her husband “of parts beyond the seas.” By the time of her death in 1939, it was reported that she was then a widow, that Theodore had died “some years before”. 

The Apple Farm Company forms … 

Back to the early 1880s, though, when Theodore W Hickson was still present in Auckland, a successful and respected businessman, family man and land broker, with an interest (along with his sister Ada) in the old Otara Grove farm at East Tamaki. In 1880 Hickson mortgages his interest in the farm for £500 from Edward Albert Amphlett (1828-1896) “of parts beyond the seas,” the mortgage due in full on 12 February 1883. It was a deal done within the wider family. Hickson’s father-in-law Albin Martin held Amphlett’s power of attorney in 1883. Albin Martin’s daughter Mary Megellina married Amphlett at East Tamaki in 1867 (Church of St John), so Amphlett was a brother-in-law by marriage to Hickson. So, T W Hickson owed his brother-in-law £500 for the mortgage. February 1883 came and went, and this had still not been repaid. Hickson may well have had other ideas. 

In May 1882, Hickson paid his sister Ada, then living in Tasmania with her de-facto husband Harry Gardiner, £600 for her interest in the Otara Grove Farm. From then on, aside from the trustees set down by the original deed (Hickson’s parents), Hickson had full control. His uncle John Fairburn didn’t seem to have any issues – Hickson had been doing surveying and land estate work for him, as Fairburn sold off his Glengrove property in Otahuhu at this time. Buckland seemed to have only marginal involvement, at best. 

Seemingly out of the blue, Hickson called together a meeting on 6 April 1883 at his Queen Street offices of nurserymen and orchardists in the Auckland region “for the promotion of fruit-growing (especially the growth of apples)”. Hickson said he’d called the meeting “on the representation of a number of fruitgrowers”. It was agreed at the meeting that a society be formed, and the names of Lippiatt, James Mason, Hawkins, John Fairburn, Dr Puchas, Parr and Sharp were named as a committee to draw up rules for a future meeting. They met again on 13 April, again at Hickson’s office, a committee named, a subscription of 5 shillings set, rules authorised and ordered to be printed. Then – nothing more. 

Two days earlier, on 11 April 1883, the prospectus of the Apple Farm Company was published in the newspapers. It aimed to raise capital of £10,000 by selling 20,000 shares at 10s each, half payable on share allotment and application, the rest payable “in calls” of not more than 1s by at least 6 months intervals. 

"The object of the Company is to make money by supplying a number of wants. In California, during the months of April, May, and June, they want good fresh apples at a moderate price, and cannot got them at any price. This is a want we propose to supply. In Auckland, they want good apples at a penny a lb. by the case, and cannot depend on getting them at anything like the price. This is another want we propose to supply. 

"All over the Australian Colonies they want dried apples of good quality of local production, and cannot get them. This we mean to supply. They also want Cider at a reasonable price all over the colonies, and cannot get it. We hope to be in a position to supply this also. We have 200 acres of Land prepared for planting this season, and 50,000 Apple Trees, from one to four years old, ready to plant out, with 50,000 more being worked for planting next season. Our Plantation is so situated, that while we are completely out of the way of the thieving larrikin element, we are conveniently situated as regards means of conveying our fruit to market, being able to send 10 cases or 100 tons of fruit to a vessels side or deliver it in town within two hours of being picked from the trees. The land is the best obtainable for the purpose, being a strong, friable, semi volcanic loam, slightly undulating. It is such that if the trees were planted and nothing more done but keep cattle out, they would soon produce good returns, but with good cultivation they will become rapidly productive. It is of that consistence, and as easily undulating, that the whole of the necessary cultivation can be inexpensively effected by horse power, hand labour being required only for pruning, gathering, and packing the fruit.

"It is our intention to plant our permanent trees (Northern Spy and Majetin principally, they being blight-proof) at 30 feet apart every way in Qninceaux order, and between them, at ten feet apart every way, quicker bearing sorts, to be forced into early and exhaustive bearing, and removed or destroyed as required to make room for the growth of the permanent trees. By this mode of planting we get over 500 trees to the acre, which will entitle us to claim £800 from the Government, under the provisions of "Tree Planting Encouragement Act," the second year from planting; the temporary trees will be forced into early and exhaustive bearing as quickly as possible, while the permanent trees will not be encouraged to fruit until well-grown.

"An immediate profit will be obtained, as it will only require an average return of 5d per tree to enable us to declare a dividend of 10 per cent per annum, after providing for all necessary expenses, and when we can get a return of 1s 9d per tree, we will be able to pay a dividend of 50 per cent, after providing for culture and erection of all necessary buildings, for packing and storing fruit, and other necessary expenses. An average return of 12s worth of fruit per tree will enable us to pay dividends of 1000 per cent after making most liberal provision for all possible expenses. There are few trees which receive proper care and culture that will not yield considerably more than 20s worth of fruit at from six years and upwards. It being considered desirable to associate the interests of consumers with those of the producers in the undertaking as largely as possible, one-half the Company's shares are now offered to the Public." 

Auckland Star, 11 April 1883, p 2(1)

On 30 April 1883, Hickson mortgaged his interest in the farm again, this time for £484 from James Cooper Cairns, due 23 July 1883. Now he owed £984 total on the property. On 24 May 1883, a further prospectus was issued. Only 15,000 shares were to be issued, and details were given as to the land, being the old Otara Grave farm, now renamed Apple Farm, 226 acres bought via mortgage at £25 an acre. Over 50,000 trees were to be purchased from the region’s nurseries (the actual figure, although lower, still reportedly drained stocks of available apple trees from nurseries in Auckland that year) from one to five years old, but most two years old. 

The new company was banking on achieving full production in five years, and that the Panama Canal would open in the next five to six years (sadly for the company’s backers, it was another 31 years before the canal was finished.) 

Two days after the prospectus’ publication, all but 2,500 of the shares offered were snapped up. The provisional directors in May 1883 were: Scots born James Cooper Cairns (1850-1919) of Mangere and Three Kings, holder of 2000 shares (largest holder) and holder of a mortgage over Hickson’s interest in the land; James Mason of Parnell; John Fairburn (son of W T Fairburn – 1824-1893) of Otahuhu; Edward Lippiatt (c.1818-1887), nurseryman also of Otahuhu; Thomas Peacock, MHR; and T W Hickson. 

Under an agreement in August, Otara Grove to be acquired by Apple Farm Company for £5650 to Hickson and his parents, £650 in cash, the balance secured by mortgage. The shareholders then were: Cairns 2000 

Hickson 2000 

George Sergeant Jakins 500 

James Mason 500 

William Henry Connell 400 

John Torrance Melville 400 

By October 1883 and the first annual meeting, George Sergeant Jakins (1839-1928) and William Henry Connell had been added to the list of confirmed directors of the company. Planting had been finished, the company had all the funds it needed to meet expected expenses, the number of trees planted was 47,000 over 90 acres (planting beginning in the third week of August, and completed in three weeks), and a manager had been chosen from a number of applicants: Philip James Perry (1860-1933, also one of the largest shareholders, holding 500 shares, or the second-largest holding). William Lippiatt was to serve as Perry’s assistant and foreman. Arrangements were made to build a seven-roomed manager’s residence, along with a four-stalled stable. Part of the unused land, so it was proposed at the time, might have been planted out for a tobacco crop, but the directors turned down a similar application from a hops grower. The remainder had been leased out and planted in potatoes, oats and wheat. 

The directors were quite keen on a bridge being built across the Tamaki, linking their property directly with Otahuhu and the Great South Road, saving six miles from the round trip to the city. (NZ Herald 8 October 1883, p.9) 

On 27 October 1883, it all came together. Hickson’s two mortgages owed to Amphlett and Cairns were paid off; Joseph Newman replaced Buckland to become a nominal trustee for the land once more; the trustees, Joseph Edward Hickson, Esther Hickson and T W Hickson convey land to Apple Farm Company for £5650; and the Apple Farm Company mortgage taken out from T W Hickson for £5000. Hickson took out a further £5000 sub-mortgage from Fairburn and Newman, thus obtaining all the money for the land transaction early. The whole set-up was reliant on the success of the new company. 

Apple varieties apparently used on the farm, as well as Northern Spy and Majetin, included Lord Sheffield, Irish Peach, Baldwin, Cambridge Pippin, and Ribston Pippin. Citrus trees were also planted. (NZ Herald 17 March 1884, p. 6) A further 1500 trees were planted in the 1884 season, and the company’s second AGM saw the directors presented with a healthy balance sheet. There weren’t even any fears regarding codlin moth, a particular concern for orchardists of the time. Perry advised that the loamy soil at East Tamaki would help protect their trees. (NZ Herald, 1 November 1884) He became a director at the 1885 AGM, a holder now of 1160 shares, topped only by Cairns at 3000, but this was disallowed at a meeting a little later on the grounds of insufficient notice, George Jakins taking his place. 

By November 1884 the main shareholders were: 

Cairns 3000 (up 1000) 

P J Perry 1160 

T H Lindsay 800 

W H Simcox 800 

James Mason 700 (up 200) 

S A Asher 700 

G S Jakins 700 (up 200) 

Thomas Peacock 700 

Wilson & Horton (NZ Herald proprietors) 600 

Henry Brett (Auckland Star proprietor) 100 

By now, Hickson had disappeared from Auckland and from New Zealand, setting himself up without his family in Australia. He had also, apparently, cashed in his shares in the company, and therefore any future pending liability. 

In November 1885, Perry was charged by some of directors at an extraordinary meeting with having removed 700 trees from a piece of the farm’s land he wanted to lease. Animosity had boiled up between himself and Jakins, who led the charge to move that any offer to lease land to Perry be withdrawn. Money had been lost planting potatoes amongst the trees, the potatoes harvested being only "as big as peanuts". Some of the directors were aggrieved that by diversifying, the promised profit margin had been lost. 

Perry resigned as the farm’s manager, and the first concerns were raised that the company would not have enough capital to continue. (NZ Herald 20 November 1885, p. 6) Reuben Scarborough was appointed as the new manager that month. 

Cairns stepped down as chairman of the board, amid claims of profiteering. In January 1887, in a court case between Perry and Cairns, it was revealed that Cairns had convinced Perry to take up his initial 500 shares in the company, on the understanding that if he was dismissed from the manager’s position within three years, “except on account of wilful neglect or repeated carelessness”, Cairns would buy the shares from him at the paid-up price. He demanded from Cairns a refund of money spent on the shares, immunity from liability from calls on them, and a further £250 compensation. The judge agreed that Cairns had to compensate him for the shares, interest and £25 in calls, but declined the compensation. (Auckland Star, 27 January 1887, p3) 

… and the Company disintegrates 

The first signs of a complete unravelling came in 1887, probably not helped by predictions such as those made by the Otago Witness that the price of apples was set to fall in the market place, and with the influx of the expected crop from the Apple Farm, the price could drop lower still. (OW, 22 April 1887 p. 11) 

By June 1887, the directors were becoming worried. They met to discuss releasing the remainder of the unallotted shares to urgently raise capital. The reaction from shareholders was less than hopeful that the required £1000 would be raised to try to carry on until 1890, and that month the directors began to process of placing the company in voluntary liquidation. 

The Auckland Star remained hopeful that a new company could be formed in place of the old one, seeing as the apple trees on the farm at East Tamaki appeared to be doing so well, expected to bear 1,200 cases of fruit in the new season. Produce from the Apple Farm was even starting to win awards of merit at horticultural shows, events long dominated by fruit from Edward Lippiatt’s orchards.

By September 1887, the £5000 mortgage owed to Hickson by the Apple Farm Company was put up for sale by the Supreme Court. It was purchased by Joseph Newman, John Fairburn (Mrs Hickson’s agents) and James C Cairns for £3200. Five thousand apple trees, plus various farm implements, were put up for auction later that month. In October, the liquidator T L White sued Cairns for the amount Cairns owed on the sixth call on his shares in the company, along with fees for White’s attendance at directors meetings. Cairns lost the case. Finally, on 19 December, the Apple Farm itself was put up for auction.

The life and times of James Cooper Cairns 

Caricature, Observer 24 September 1894

James Cooper Cairns was born in 1850. His father, a provisions merchant, died in Scotland apparently in 1861. In 1871, J C Cairns became eligible for a share of his father’s estate -- £3000. He married in 1874, and received £2500 in trust as part of a marriage contract. He arrived with his wife in New Zealand 1875, and used the trust money to buy a 54.5 acre farm in Mangere, today a property bounded more or less by Mountain, Miller and Coronation Roads, known as Tararata Farm. He also invested in land at Whakatane. 

He returned briefly to Scotland in 1882, acquired another £100, and also received £3000 of his mother’s trust fund money, meant as an annuity fund for her until she died, on the basis that (so it was claimed) he could get better investment interest on the money in New Zealand than the trustees could back in England. On his mother’s death, it was supposed to be shared equally by him and his sister Hannah Grier Cairns. Possibly half of this money went into his investment with the Apple Farm Company (£1000 lost). Other investments would have been mortgages, land in Mt Roskill, Roganville in Mt Albert, and timberland ventures in the Waitakere Ranges and near Kaiwaka with Samuel Bradley (also a past partner of his in a shipping venture to Samoa) and Francis Mander. In his business dealings, he conveyed the impression that the funds he had to use were all his, and not those that came from long-term trust funds for his family’s benefit. 

Perhaps concerned as to what was happening with her fund (she didn’t receive any sets of accounts from him, only mentions in other correspondence), Cairns’ mother arrived in Auckland in 1884. She began, slowly, to try to help her son with his investments. She did receive interest payments from him, but closer to the point of Cairn’s bankruptcy (and the end of the Apple Farm Company), the interest payments became erratic. It isn’t known whether she was ever recompensed for the lost investment money. Cairns’ bankruptcy lasted from 1888-1894. He and his family left Auckland in 1889, then returned; his wife died in Mt Albert in 1894, from apoplexy. Around 1895, he married Jessie Ritchie from Edinburgh, who came (according to the Observer) with a £50 dowery.

In 1896, Cairns appears at Norsewood, in a business "Cairns & Co", acting as local agents for an insurance company. His store burned down in April 1897, the later inquiry determining that it was arson by person or persons unknown. In the fire, among other items, Cairns claimed he lost his father's gold watch that had been in the family for 50 years. While he had the store, he was also a sawmiller at Waipawa -- and went into bankruptcy yet again in December 1897. This time, the bankruptcy only lasted until 1899.

In 1905, Cairns’ children Annie, Elizabeth, John Dewar and James took legal action in the Supreme Court against another daughter Margaret Jane Fleming, and Cairns’ second wife Jessie in Hastings, the two trustees of the original 1874 marriage contract funds (as from a court decision in the Auckland Supreme Court in 1899). All that remained of the £2500 marriage contract trust in 1902 were four mortgages to the value of £1390. After Margaret agreed to be a co-trustee, she didn’t receive any update from her father, who had sole control of the funds, as to what was happening with them, and advised her siblings of this.

Cairns died in Te Mata, Havelock North, 10 August 1919, having lived there for around 20 years, and was well-respected in the community for his views supporting temperance, his chairmanship of the local school committee which saw the community get its first school, and his stand in 1918 against conscription for farmers and farm managers. He’d contracted a cold in the winter of 1919, and couldn’t get rid of it. He complained of feeling worse that night, after talking with his family (second wife and children, first wife dying in 1894 in Auckland), a bed was made for him near the fire, and there he quietly passed away. His will left all his remaining estate to his second wife Jessie and her children. Going by that, whatever was left from the marriage agreement trust, his children from his first marriage wouldn't have seen a penny.

His mother Jane nee Couper died at Cadzow Villa, Epsom, Auckland, in 1898, leaving what remained of her estate to the family of her daughter Hannah Grier Cairns (1848-1943), who had married James Halden Torrance (1843-1884) in Scotland in 1874. By 1880 the Torrances were living in Onehunga, Torrance being a medical practitioner. They shifted to south Epsom (Cadzow Villa) where he died in 1884 (at that stage, holding 400 shares in the Apple Farm Company). Hannah kept the farm in Epsom going, ultimately subdividing it in the early 20th century. Torrance Street is named after her.

Phillip James Perry, farming expert

He was born in England in 1860, the youngest on of Rev F H Perry of Cadmore Rectory. He left school at the age of 15 to work on a farm, then around 1878 sailed to New Zealand. His career spanned from hoeing turnips on an estate he later managed, through to the Apple Farm from 1883-1885, to appointment as sub-manager (according to obituaries) of the Waikato Land Association, having charge of the first shipment of frozen meat from Auckland to England. He returned to England, was involved with the Colonial College in Suffolk, then brought out settlers back to New Zealand before the Second Anglo Boer War of 1899-1902. He ended up connected with Westland County politics, was an adviser to Richard Seddon, and retired from business in 1905. He settled in Tasmania, involved with agricultural and immigration interests there. He died 9 May 1933 at Hobart.

After the Company, but still the Apple Farm … 

From NA 50/3, LINZ records, crown copyright

Local farmer John Snell Henwood (1849-1890) took over Apple Farm in March 1888, with only two mortgages remaining on the property from the sorting out of the Apple Farm investment failure, both of which were discharged in 1889. Henwood seems to have gone into a sort of partnership with Joseph Foster (who advertised 800 fruit trees for sale from the farm in August 1889), the two men running the orchard until Henwood’s death in 1890, aged 40, when he was kicked by a horse he was unharnessing at his residence on the farm. Joseph Foster may have been succeeded by John Foster. 

Henwood’s widow Mary Anne (1847-1919) leased another part of the farm to George Bellingham in 1891, and again in 1893, finally selling 18 acres to the Bellinghams in 1895. In 1901, Mary Henwood sold around 37 acres of the easternmost part of the farm to David and Agnes Belle Crooks, leaving 177 acres remaining of the original farm. This was purchased by Frank Clifton Litchfield in 1908. Litchfield renamed the farm “Ayrshire Moor”, but he sold up in 1910. (NZ Herald, 8 October 1910, p12[1]) 

The next owners were Charles and Hannah Clarke, New Plymouth hotelkeepers. Charles Clarke advertised in the NZ Herald in 1911 for a “married couple, wanted at once, to manage farm East Tamaki, both milkers and capable.” (9 September 1911, p.1[7]). The farm was still known as the Apple Farm when it was sold again in 1913 to Auckland farmer John Parker. He sold the farm in 1916 to Auckland tailor John Johnston; the next owner was Penrose farmer William Knox Chambers from 1919. Chambers transferred the farm to Ross Girling Ross and William James Girling in 1925, although advertisements referring to “Ross Apple Farm” appeared from 1924. 

The last references to the Apple Farm come from reports of the Pakuranga Hunt going through East Tamaki properties in 1932, and describe them following the hounds “through on to the Apple Farm.” The farm had been part of the club’s hunts from 1902. 

R G Ross was to run the farm through to 1960, when Woolf Fisher bought it as part of his Ra Ora stud. So, the old Otara Grove Farm, once the scene of a massive operation for growing apples, ended up being used to grow horses, instead.