Marvellous machines and feats of endurance – the story of Sir Douglas Maclean’s bicycle

Over the past fortnight I’ve had the pleasure of piecing together the story of Sir Douglas Maclean’s bicycle in preparation for its display – from today – at MTG Hawke’s Bay.

Maclean’s bicycle, held by Chad Heays, Design Technician, MTG Ariel pattern bicycle, late 1871 Designed and manufactured by Starley & Co, Coventry, England Steel, wood Gifted by Lady Maclean collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi, R85/2

Maclean’s bicycle has been in the collections of the Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust for many years, but we’ve known very little about her. Now, with the assistance of a number of experts around the world we have discovered that she is one of the earliest Ariel model bicycles, invented by James Starley, and manufactured in late 1871 by Starley & Co, Coventry, England.

In about 1870, Starley, known as the father of the British bicycle industry, began producing bicycles based on the French velocipede, or ‘boneshaker’, but with front wheels of increasing size to enable higher speeds.

Starley’s innovative designs made the new style of bicycle a simpler, lighter and more comfortable ride than the older-style velocipedes. The larger front wheel allowed the rider to travel faster. Cyclists would buy a bicycle sized to the length of their leg, the taller you were – the bigger the wheel you could ride. The high bicycle ruled the road from the 1870s to the late 1880s, falling into obsolescence, in their turn, with the introduction of the safety bicycle in the late 1880s.

While today, these machines are frequently referred to as ‘penny-farthings’ (referencing the large penny, and small farthing coins, as viewed from the side), the term is something of a misnomer. They were referred to as bicycles at the time, and from the late 1880s, with the emergence of the new safety bicycles, were called ‘ordinary’ bicycles’ to differentiate them from the new design.

Portrait of Douglas Maclean Photographie Disderi Delié Succ
collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi, 12882

As part of our research into the bicycle we’ve also rediscovered some of Douglas’ adventures with this remarkable machine in the very early days of New Zealand cycling.

Sir Robert Donald Douglas Maclean (b. 1852, d. 1929) was the owner of the Maraekakaho Estate, inherited from his father Sir Donald McLean KCMG in 1877. Douglas represented the Napier electorate as an independent Conservative member of parliament from 1896 to 1899, but, as one of the largest land holders in Hawke’s Bay, focused most of his energy on pastoral pursuits, particularly stock-farming and sheep-breeding. He was also the first President of the Napier Society of Arts and Crafts in 1924, and was actively involved in promoting arts in the region.

Douglas spent most of his early years in Napier, but went to England for his schooling in 1865, returning to New Zealand in 1870. He worked in Wellington for the law firm of Hart and Buckley through the 1870s. An accomplished sportsman, he was a prominent local cyclist (winning the first two cycle races ever held in Wellington) and an early rugby player.

In February 1876 Douglas rode this bicycle from Wellington to Napier, a journey of six days on rough roads, which included the arduous climb over the Rimutaka Range, slow riding through Forty Mile Bush on muddy tracks cut-up by drays, and the fording of many rivers and streams. He ran the final 40 miles as he came into Napier in one day, with a strong head wind against him. The newspaper’s noted that on his arrival, “he suffered a little from exhaustion”. (Auckland Evening Star, 11.2.1876, Wellington Evening Post, 8.2.1876)

Douglas Maclean and his son Algernon, outside the Maclean residence, Napier Terrace, c1900
collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi, M2004/19

Maclean’s bicycle is in largely original condition, though it is thought that the saddle spring was at some point replaced with a slightly later, 1873 design. The wheel rims have also likely been replaced.

Among its many innovations in design, the Ariel featured Starley’s new wheel design – a lever tension wheel with wire-spokes. It also used one inch rubber tyres, one of which the museum holds in the collection, but which has disintegrated over time to the extent it cannot be displayed.

Saloon, Maclean Residence, Napier, showing the bicycle propped up against the back wall.
A B Hurst & Son
collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi, 2004/19

The bicycle came into the museum collections in 1940, as part of the Lady Maclean bequest. That same year it also featured in the New Zealand centennial celebrations in Wellington.

MacLean’s bicycle will be on display in the Century Theatre foyer from 28 January 2015.  Come in and pay her a visit.

Eloise Wallace, Curator Social History

My thanks to Graeme, Lorne, Carey, Richard and Bob for their expert research assistance.

Visit our Collections page for many more photographs of bicycles and cycling in Hawke’s Bay http://collection.mtghawkesbay.com/welcome.jsp

A Boxing Day Casualty – in memory of Private Albert Cooper (1891 – 1914)

This Boxing Day marks the centenary of the death of Private Albert George Cooper [10/380], one of New Zealand’s earliest casualties of the First World War.

Private Cooper, of Hawke’s Bay, never saw battle. Eight days after his arrival in Egypt with the NZEF he was hospitalized, suffering from pneumonia. He never recovered and died on 26 December 1914.

Albert was born in Hastings in 1891, to William and Elizabeth Cooper, of Tarapatiki, Waikaremoana. His occupation on his attestation forms is given as a painter, his last employer S. Sargent, of Wairoa. He is described on enlistment as 5ft 8 inches tall, 126lb, of dark complexion, with brown eyes and hair.

Albert enlisted with the NZEF in the 9th (Hawke’s Bay) Company of the Wellington Infantry Battalion in September 1914 and sailed with the main body on 16 October.

Photograph of Private Albert Cooper (front left), and three other unidentified soldiers taken at Electric Studio, 90 Manners Street, Wellington, October 1914, prior to the departure of NZEF.
collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi,[75041]

He arrived in Alexandria, Egypt on 3 December 1914 and as a young man on his first trip abroad, would have been impatient to see the sights. The NZEF disembarked at Alexandria and most of the New Zealand force entrained immediately for their camp in Zeitoun, on the outskirts of Cairo. However, Albert, as a member of the Hawke’s Bay Company, was, along with the Taranaki Company and Battalion Headquarters given the task of staying on in Alexandria to complete unloading the transports.

O E Burton wrote in The Silent Division impressions of the arrival of the NZEF in Egypt:

The men went thronging into the city. And what a night they had! At midnight they came back to the familiar holds but not to sleep. They had seen marvels and must recount what they had seen. Excited men talked at the top of their voices. No one listened to anyone else. Everyone was too full of his own experiences—and so the babel flowed on. In one evening they had seen Aladdin’s Cave, the Forty Thieves, and the houris of the Thousand and One Nights; veiled women and others whose draperies were of the most diaphanous sort. French, Greeks, Russians, and Italians, with the brown-skinned Egyptians and black Nubians from the south—all these they had seen and the spell of Egypt had taken hold of them.

The diary of Edward P Cox, a fellow soldier in the Wellington Regiment (and who later noted Albert’s death in its pages) wrote of Alexandria:

Saturday, December 3rd
Went ashore this evening to Club de Anglais of which we have been made hon. members. The best quarter of the city is very well built and very fine at night when all lit up as I saw it tonight. But the native areas about 2 miles of which I passed in a cab going to the wharves, have narrow streets, most evil smelling, and cafés, saloons and open bars etc galore. The work of unloading horses & military stores goes on and trains for Cairo leave every hour or two.

Men of the Hawke’s Bay Company were given a half-days leave on the 5th to visit Alexandria, before departing for Cairo on the 6th.  In the museum’s collection we hold a postcard, likely written on 5 December, to his sister-in-law Alice Maud Cooper. Maud was the wife of his older brother William Edward Cooper, watchmaker of Napier. In the short note, Albert (or Albie, as he signs off) gives his love to Betty, their daughter, his three year old niece.

Postcard, from Albert Cooper to WE Cooper, 1914 [front]
collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi,75/29

Postcard, from Albert Cooper to WE Cooper, 1914 [back]
Mrs W E Cooper, of 13 Napier Terrace
9 December 1914
Dear Maud
We have got as far as Alexandria. We are going to ‘Zeetun’ outside Cairo in Monday. We have leave here today and town is very interesting. Will write and tell you all about it. Love to Betty.
Yours etc
Albie
collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi,75/29

Albert reached camp at 6pm on the 6th December after a train journey south through the heart of the Nile Delta. The regiment’s unit history recounts the difficulty of the first days in camp at Zeitoun. The camp was at first no more than a bare patch of desert, and the air described as very bracing after the stuffy conditions aboard ship. On the first night men slept on the sand wrapped in great coats and blankets. The ground was cold, and the air frosty. The author of the Wellington Regiment’s unit history wrote “those who were privileged to experience that first night’s bivouac on the sands of the Egyptian desert will long remember it as one of the coldest of their lives.” The first night’s exposure in the desert produced a mild epidemic of influenza and some twenty men were sent to hospital the first day.

The desert training regime was intense, but outside of their work, the sights of Cairo were an irresistible lure to all ranks. We do not know if Albert had the opportunity to visit Cairo, or see the wonders of ancient Egypt – the Pyramids, the Sphinx on his picture postcard home – before he succumbed to illness.

On the 10th December, five days after this postcard was sent, Albert was admitted to Abbassia Hospital, a British facility, east of Cairo, with pneumonia, along with fellow Hawke’s Bay soldier John Archibald Campbell, driver for Barry Bros of Napier. John Campbell died on the 14th, while Albert remained seriously ill in hospital, eventually passing away on the 26th. Respiratory diseases such as influenza, tuberculosis, pleurisy and pneumonia were rife in Egypt and struck many of the new arrivals from Australia and New Zealand.

We do not have a record of his funeral, but Albert’s death is noted in the diaries of other soldiers in his unit. It is possible that his next-of-kin were cabled with news of his death, and it was widely reported in the New Zealand papers from 30th December. The news must have come as a shock to the tiny East Coast community in which he grew up. His brief postcard from Alexandria, would have arrived in Napier much later and must have been a treasured remembrance of Albert, and his grand adventure, cut tragically short. Thus far, it is the only known letter of Albert’s to survive.

AG Cooper’s grave, Cairo War Memorial Cemetery, Egypt
Private Cooper is listed as aged 26 on his memorial, though he was actually only 23.
http://www.nzwargraves.org.nz/casualties/albert-george-cooper

The museum also holds Albert’s Memorial Plaque in its collections. These were issued after the end of the war to the next-of-kin to all British and Empire service personnel who were killed as a result of the war. The full name of the dead soldier is engraved on the right hand side of the plaque, without rank, unit or decorations. They were issued in a pack with a letter from King George V and a commemorative scroll. These plaques were colloquially known as the ‘dead man’s penny’ because of their resemblance to the penny coin.

AG Cooper, Memorial Plaque
collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi,75/29
gifted by Mr Noel G Cooper

The First World War was the first major conflict in which the overwhelming majority of military deaths were battle-related, rather than caused by disease. Of the 16,703 New Zealanders who died during the war years, 63% were killed in action, 23% died of wounds, and 11% of disease.

♦

Dedicated to the memory of those of the Regiment who gave their lives in the Great War;
And to our fellow soldiers of the Regiment who remain to serve the country in peace;
And to the present and future soldiers of those battalions that made the Wellington
Regiment N.Z.E.F., in whose keeping is its good name.

For us the glorious dead have striven,
They battled that we might be free.
We to their living cause are given;
We arm for men that are to be.
– Laurence Binyon

Dedication from the frontispiece of the Wellington Regiment unit history, Cunningham, Treadwell and Hanna, 1928

♦

Albert’s story will be featured in MTG’s upcoming First World War exhibition, to open in April 2015. His service record is available online at Archives New Zealand, http://www.archway.archives.govt.nz/

Eloise Wallace, Curator Social History

Our Boys in Camp – Hawke’s Bay goes to war (part 2)

By the spring [1]  of 1914, Hawke’s Bay’s first contingent of volunteers were settling in to soldiering life at Awapuni mobilisation camp in Palmerston North.

Awapuni was the largest of New Zealand’s four initial mobilisation camps and the muster point for the Wellington Mounted Rifles Regiment, the Wellington Infantry Battalion, the New Zealand Field Artillery, Field and Signal Troops of the NZ Engineers, Company of Divisional Signallers and Mounted Field Ambulance.

The transformation of the site from picturesque country racecourse – with stock grazing on the oval, and spring flowers opening on carefully tended flower beds – to one of the busiest spots in New Zealand, took place over a matter of days in mid-August. Hundreds of Territorials and civilian volunteers from Palmerston North and Fielding joined fatigue parties to assist in construction of the camp – doing everything from lay water pipes to pitching tents, all in the abysmal weather typical of early spring. As soon as the camp was complete, thousands of men began to stream in from across the Wellington military district.

It’s easy enough to understand the fervour of these first volunteers – eager for adventure in defence of the British Empire, buoyed by childhood stories of the South African War and the daily reports of great battles and Allied victories in the papers. After youthful years spent at war games in the Territorials, their chance had come.

As Ormond Burton wrote in The Silent Division, “There was enthusiasm and a haze of rather splendid feeling. A great adventure was opening up. All the humdrum of life suddenly fell away and men were like young gods in a new world of romance.” [2]

Captain Jickell’s ‘Dreadnought’

On arrival at Palmerston North train station, after the journey down the line from Hawke’s Bay, the new recruits were met by a vast steam motor-lorry, owned and driven by Captain Jickell. Men and bags were piled on Jickell’s ‘Dreadnought’ to the upmost limit, “swarming upon it like flies” [3] (up to 63 men and 23 swags in one load) and transported down to camp, navigating a constant stream of traffic, on what had become one of New Zealand’s busiest thoroughfares.[4]

Tent on Tent

Mobilisation camp, Awapuni, August or September 1914. Collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi, 3162, gifted by Mrs Florence Le Lievre

On arrival at camp new recruits would have been greeted by the impressive spectacle of orderly lines of tents, horse lines of patiently tethered horses, and a busy scene of vehicles, artillery, cookhouses, smoking fires, and khaki uniforms of every description.

The numbers of men at Awapuni grew over August and early September, until there were well over 2000 men in camp, and over 850 horses. Each bell tent housed eight men, as well as their kit, rifles and equipment.[5]

‘For the benefit of our feet’

Training commenced at once and largely consisted of physical exercises and route marching, musketry and drill. There was every expectation that the men would have to entrain for Wellington, and sail to Europe within days.

The daily route marches, of 12 – 15 miles, in full outfit, were as one trooper put it, “for the benefit of our feet”.’6] A popular route was to Ashurst and back. On one occasion the Wellington Regiment took a route march to Fielding, where they were entertained on arrival at the racecourse, with delicacies provided by the women of the town.[7]

Equipping the men for the front was another important activity at the camp. All the military equipment available in New Zealand at the outbreak of war was on issue to the Territorial Force, and while men left for camps as thoroughly equipped as possible by their local Regiment, shortages had to be made up. Public calls were made for all manner of items from saddlery to binoculars.

Despite the pace of activity, there were opportunities for leave and the public of Palmerston North undertook all manner of activities to entertain the troops. Ormond Burton wrote that “Khaki … seemed to have a very potent influence over the youth and beauty of the towns, and this was as it should be for all felt themselves to be heroes in advance, as it were, and therefore due for a little hero worship.”[8]

In camp, the YMCA marquee was well attended by soldiers, with supplies of games and reading materials (donated by the public), concerts and religious services. The YMCA also forwarded letters home for the men in training, over 4000 had been sent by the 4 September.[9]

‘Bundled off home’

Discipline in camp was strict. To encourage good behaviour men were told that on view of the large number of volunteers anyone who committed a breach of discipline would be excluded from the final selection.[10] Examples were made of any volunteers who ignored regulations, even for comparatively minor offences. Among those dismissed were two Napier volunteers (identities as yet undiscovered), absent without leave for two days, who were “bundled off home” on 8 September.[11]

At Awapuni underage men were also gradually discovered and returned home from camp. Young men under 20 were not eligible to sign up, and although care was taken, many slipped through the net. Anxious parents up and down the country lobbied the government to ensure the young men were sent home and to improve enlistment procedures, by requiring the production of birth certificates.

An imposing spectacle

There were a number of opportunities for members of the public to visit Awapuni, and on 23 August the gates were thrown open to the public to inspect the goings-on in camp, and for many to see their husbands, brothers and sons, one last time before their departure. Up to 8000 visitors attended on the open day, and would have included many people from Hawke’s Bay, who would have travelled down for the day.

On the 24 August, Major General Sir Alexander Godley, commander of the NZEF, made an inspection of the camp. At 11 o’clock the various units, to a total strength of 81 officers and 2680 other ranks, drew up in front of the grandstand.

In Godley’s speech to the men he hoped they would “all remember that in their hands lay the honour of the New Zealand territorial regiments, from which the regiments of the NZEF were formed. I wish you bon voyage and God speed and remember that the whole of New Zealand will be watching you, this district in particular, and they will expect to see, as I have said before, something more than ordinary from the men who are here today.”[12]

The reporter for Napier’s Daily Telegraph, present on the day of inspection, reported that the Hawke’s Bay men he spoke to were in good spirits and excellent health and getting ‘good tucker’. He also loyally reported, that the 9th looked one of the best on parade and took back a report from one young contingenter who said “Our kits presented by the ladies of Napier are easily the best of the lot, and it was not until we had arrived her that we really valued so highly as we should.”[13]

‘Toe Footry and Frowsy Grooms’

9th (Wellington East Coast) Mounted Rifles squadron at Awapuni. Collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi, M2004/6/3 [91283], Gifted by Dale Connelley
The squadron was commanded by Major Selwyn Chambers (d. 7 August 1915); 2nd in command was Captain Charles Robert Spragg (and possibly pictured on lead horse), with Lieutenants Norman Donald Cameron (d. 30 May 1915), Percy Tivy Emerson (d. 30 May 1915), Arthur Frederick Batchelar, and 2nd Lieutenant Henry Beresford Maunsell (possibly the four men behind Spragg). Chambers may have taken this photograph.
The Gallipoli campaign would destroy the original NZMR Brigade. Half of those who served at Gallipoli died, or were wounded. All would fall sick.

For these men, thrown together from across the lower North Island at Awapuni, it was the first step in an increasing circle of identification, comradeship, and rivalry that would take them from their local unit and tie them to their regiment, to the NZEF, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and finally to the 8.7 million men [14] who would serve in the British Army.

Of the friendly rivalries which sprang up at Awapuni, one of the keenest was between the infantry and mounted men. One unnamed volunteer reported to his local paper that “the horsemen call the footmen the “toe footry” and smile pityingly as they pass them on the road, while the man with a pack on his back and a rifle on his shoulder calls his mounted friend the “frowsy groom”.[15]

Anxiety to go

Throughout the busy weeks of training at Awapuni, was a current of impatience and anxiety that the war might be over before the New Zealanders had a chance to fight. The fleet of troopships was almost ready but the government was close-lipped about a departure date for the force. Rumours abounded, equipment was packed and unpacked, finally, over the three days of 21st, 22nd and 23rd September the camp was emptied of men, as they left for Wellington by train, on the next stage of the journey.

 

Today, even at a 100 years distance, it isn’t easy to write about these first small steps in New Zealand’s path to war with composure. Knowing what was to come, that by the end of the following year, almost all of these young men of the first contingent would be casualties of the Gallipoli campaign, has lost none of its impact.

In my next post I’ll write about the preparation of New Zealand’s fleet of troopships, and activity in Wellington before the eventual departure of the convoy on 15 October 1914.

Eloise Wallace
Curator of Social History

1 An Awapuni spring joke, as reported in the Evening Post, 26 August 1914.
“One of the best that has gone the rounds – whether it was invented in Awapuni or not cannot of course, be said – has relation to the trees which surround the racecourse. The narrator will inform you gravely that it has been decided to shift the camp to some other spot because the present site is considered dangerous. You do not believe him of course and he replies with the reason “Why?” he replies “because the trees are shooting!” And then it occurs to you that it is springtime.”
2 The Silent Division
3 The Daily Telegraph, 25 August 1914
4 Evening Post, 19 August 1914
5 The Press has recently digitised a number of 1914 lantern slides, some of which show the Wellington contingent at Awapuni, and can be viewed here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/last-post-first-light/photos/6659839/WWI-era-photos-unearthed-by-The-Press
6 Evening Post, 4 September 1914
7 The Wellington Regiment
8 The Silent Division
9 Evening Post, 4 September 1914
10 The Wellington Regiment
11 The Dominion, 8 September 1914
12 The Daily Telegraph, 25 August 1914
13 The Evening Post, 25 August 1914
14 The number 8.7 million is the number given for all men who served between 1914 and 1918 in the British Army, including all Dominions. http://www.1914-1918.net/faq.htm
15 Taranaki Daily News, 1 September 1914

References

Official War History of the Wellington Mounted Rifles Regiment 1914-1919 by AH Wilkie, 1924.
The Silent Division: New Zealanders at the Front, 1914-1919 by OE Burton, 1935.
The Wellington Regiment (NZEF) 1914 – 1919 by Cunningham, Treadwell and Hanna, 1928.

All these publications can be accessed online at the New Zealand Electronic Text Collection: http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/

A splendid send-off – Hawke’s Bay goes to war

One hundred years ago this week, Hawke’s Bay’s first contingent of men were mobilised for the New Zealand Expeditionary Force.

When the King declared war on behalf of the British Empire on 4 August, New Zealand put its mobilisation plans into action. Men volunteered in their hundreds. Women marshalled in matters of ‘practical patriotism’ – raising funds for the expeditionary force and in equipping men for the front.

The first thirty seven – 10 August

On 6 August Prime Minister William Massey offered troops for Imperial service and the Defence Force made its first call for volunteers. The government promised to have the entire expeditionary force of 8500 men and 3800 horses on its way to Europe in three weeks. Recruiting began on 8 August. Within a week more than 14,000 volunteers had stepped forward. The Hawke’s Bay men accepted into the first draft departed in groups according to the requirements of the unit they were joining. Whether it was a handful of men, or a hundred, thousands of well-wishers turned out for each departure, and sent them on their way with speeches, brass bands, and a chorus of God Save the King.

Some of the first to leave Hawke’s Bay were 37 men who had answered an early call for ambulance brigade members, a machine gun section and railway engineers. A public notice was put up on the evening of the 8th for volunteers; men were selected and fitted out on the 9th, and departed for Wellington on the morning of the 10th. Over 3000 people gave these first volunteers[1] an enthusiastic send-off from the railway stations in Napier and Hastings.

Hastings all agog – 11 August

The earliest dated photographs in the museum’s collection capturing the departure of troops from Hawke’s Bay are three photographs taken at Hastings Railway station on 11 August.

Troops leaving Hastings for Awapuni, 11 August 1914, gifted by Stan Wright. Collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi, m74/72, 4923(a)

Troops leaving Hastings for Awapuni, 11 August 1914, gifted by Stan Wright. Collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi, m74/72, 4923(b)

The Daily Telegraph for 11 August notes the departure of one group of men from Hastings on that day. “Hastings was all agog” the paper said “to see one of the first large groups of men to leave Hastings”, the departure of a draft of 25 Mounted Rifles, B Squadron, 9^th (Wellington) and their horses, for Awapuni (via Dannevirke), commanded by Lieutenant [Augustine] Georgetti.

These men were to join the Wellington Mounted Rifles Regiment, formed on 8 August, and which concentrated at Awapuni Racecourse in Palmerston North (alongside other units) from the 12 August.

Napier Contingent Day – 15 August

Napier Contingent Day ribbon. Collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi, [74627]

On a meeting at the Napier Council Chambers on 10 August a ‘Contingent Day’, was proposed for the 15 August to raise funds for the expeditionary force. 250 women were given boxes and badges and let loose upon the pockets of the generous Napier public. Some ladies, the paper noted, started solicitations before breakfast, and they worked till 9.30pm that night, canvassing the streets. Hotel-keepers provided complimentary teas to all collectors. At Taradale, the post mistress, Mrs Hazel took charge, and had twenty girls on horseback scouring the countryside.

These satin badges, of which the museum has half a dozen, were given out to each patriotic purchaser, for a minimum donation of 5s. By noon, 2000 had been distributed and demands were coming in from collectors for more. Napier Contingent Day raised £351 18s 6d in all.   Hawke’s Bay people undertook all manner of concerts, parades and events to raise funds.

Practical patriotism – 16 August

After the declaration of war, and the confirmation New Zealand would send men to fight, the women of Hawke’s Bay banded together in local Ladies’ Expedition Equipment Committees, to consider how to quickly supply the men of Hawke’s Bay with all they would need for the front.[2] At the suggestion of Lady Godley (wife of General Sir Alexander Godley, Commander of the NZEF) the wives and mothers of the men of the 9^th Regiment focused their attention on the supply of vests, hold-alls and ‘housewives’. The various branches of the Girls’ Friendly Society of Hawke’s Bay made and contributed 50 pairs of sox, 50 suits of flannel pyjamas and 50 flannel shirts.

Donated goods were collected at drill halls, and citizens were encouraged to make public subscriptions to enable the purchase of materials. Mobilisation commanders directed, and expected that local men be fitted out locally before their transfer to the concentration camps.

On 16 August, the main contingent of Napier men assembled in full force at the drill hall to be presented with the war kits that had been assembled by the women of Napier. Lieutenant Colonel Hislop, officer commanding the 9^th Regiment (infantry) made a speech of thanks, “on behalf of the Napier boys going to the front I have to most heartily thank the ladies of this town for equipping them”.

Au Revoir, God speed, and a safe return – 17 August

On the morning of Monday 17 August 1914 the main contingent left Hawke’s Bay.

From Napier, 112 men, including 33 from Gisborne, met at the Drill Hall, where the the Rev J A Asher, conducted a short service, concluding with the Lord’s Prayer. The volunteers, headed by a band, were then marched to the railway station via the Marine Parade, Hastings, Emerson and Munroe streets, all of which were thronged with spectators. The museum holds two photographs of a large contingent of men parading along Marine Parade, on what may be this occasion.

First draft of the NZEF, Napier, August 1914, gifted by Neville Harston. Collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi, m76/30, 5241 (a)

First draft of the NZEF, Napier, August 1914, gifted by Neville Harston. Collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi, m76/30, 5241 (b)

Mayor J Vigor Brown and Lieutenant-Colonel Hislop spoke to the 112 contingenters and a crowd of 7,000 enthusiastic spectators from the balcony of the Terminus Hotel.

The papers reported:

“A most enthusiastic send-off was given to the local volunteers for active service this morning, many thousands of residents of all ages cheering the men on in their noble response to the great call from the Motherland for some of her stalwart sons.

Everyone appeared to be excited and patriotic in the extreme. Flags fluttered everywhere. Ladies wore ties of red, white and blue.

Some of the crowd were gathered together in small knots, only too evidently related to some member of the departing warriors, and in such groups were to be seen many saddened faces and moistened eyes. It was a scene of intense enthusiasm, dampened only by the stern realty of what was before the brave lads who had so nobly responded to the call.[3]

In Hastings, the town despatched 48 members of B Company 9^th Hawke’s Bay Regiment (old Hastings Rifles) and nine mounted rifles on the same special military train as the Napier and Gisborne men. Crowds began to assemble on the railway platform from 9am, and the paper notes that,

“by the time the men, headed by the Union Jack, wheeled into Station street to the inspiriting strains of the Hastings Band, something like 4000 persons had gathered on the platform, on the verandah roofs, tops of railway carriages, trees, and every available spot, to watch the lads’ departure.”

“When all were aboard, the train, whistling “hip hip hurrah! steamed out over exploding fog signals, amidst waving of handkerchiefs and sustained cheering, the Salvation Army Band playing ‘God Be With you till we meet again’”

These scenes of departure were repeated again and again from 1914 to 1918 as reinforcements were mobilised for the front. In my next post I’ll be writing about the next stage of the journey, and the experience of Hawke’s Bay men, at Awapuni, and other camps, as they prepared to depart for the war.

Can you help?

Piecing together the story of the departure of the first contingent of Hawke’s Bay men is a challenge, and my research is very much a work in progress. If you have information to share please get in touch.

I’m particularly keen to find out if there are any more photographs of the departure of Hawke’s Bay men in 1914 out there? Or better yet, letters, or diaries written by Hawke’s Bay men and women which shed light on daily life and activities in the early months of the war.

Did any of your ancestors depart as part of these first contingents of Hawke’s Bay men?

Eloise Wallace

Curator of Social History

 

 

[1] The Napier recruits for the Field Ambulance Corps were BH Dyson; JH Ward; WH Wrathall; C Page; CB Angrove; JC Twomey; JA Campbell; ES Flood; FN McGee; C Collins and B Trim. The Hastings Ambulance contingent were Corporal McGuirk, Privates P Henderson, A Ford, R McKeown, V Portas, C Halse, R Chadwick, C Money, E Cruickshanks, J broad, G McNaughton, C Heald, WH Temperley, Duncan and Grant. The machine gun section members were H McCutcheon; WR Proffitt, S McConnochie, P McLean and JW Rowney, all of Napier. Napier railway staff, Sergeants Hammond and Mullaney, Sappers Hatwell, Woodville, Johnson, Marriott and Greenslade all left for Wellington to join the railway contingent. The Daily Telegraph, Monday 10 August 1014

[2] A public call was made for items such as strong pocket knives, strong cord, double or single blankets, dubbing for boots, empty pillowslips, underclothing, shirts, socks, towels, soap, brush and comb, shaving material, cleaning material for arms, needles pins and strong thread, forks, spoons, plates and pannikins.

[3] Monday 17 August 1914 Daily Telegraph

Walking among the headstones

During January, February and March, 2014 MTG Hawke’s Bay will again host three guided tours in the Napier Cemetery. These highly successful tours were launched in November 2008 in association with the exhibition Somebody’s Darling, Stories from the Napier Cemetery, curated by Peter Wells and Gail Pope and have run every summer since.

Row upon row of hand crafted headstones contrast vividly against the startling blue of the sky, shadows cast by the varying hues and patterns of the trees and leaves produce constant movement and dance over headstones and the air is punctuated with birdsong. Spectacular views looking out towards Cape Kidnappers and Te Mata Peak can be glimpsed between trees contorted by age and weather. The beautifully crafted headstones identify well-known local and national identities as well as the ‘everyday’ men, women and children who also have extraordinary stories associated with their lives, and their deaths.

In conjunction with the exhibition a group of keen volunteer gardeners, Jenny Horne, Jenny Baker, Heather Carter, Sue Langford, Peter Wells and Gail Pope formed the Greening the Graveyard Group. Their aim, with the support of the Napier City Council, was and is, to turn a stark grey environment into one of colour, fragrance and life.

The income received from the cemetery tours each year has been used to support the museum redevelopment project and for the Greening the Graveyard Group to purchase plants to enhance the beauty of the cemetery. For the last three years the Greening the Graveyard Group have also used the funds to purchase new works for the Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust collection.

The first item purchased by the Greening the Graveyard Group was A Study of Two Figures by George Wood (1898-1963). Wood was a New Zealand draughtsman, illustrator and artist. He is best known for his graphic stylized images which capture form and light through simple line with the use of unbroken colour.

His work reflects the concerns and style of the Art Deco movement, which fed into the modernist Avant-garde and also shows the influence of Māori culture and the Pacific Islands. Such works as this are extremely rare and particularly resonant within the context of the Hawke’s Bay Museum’s Trust collection.

George Wood (1898-1963), A Study of Two Figures
Printed in ink on paper
Collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi, 2012/29

The second piece purchased by the group was a repoussé tray made by Cedric Storey. Storey was an artist, panelbeater, sculptor and jeweller. He designed the Auckland City Council official coat of arms and created the much-loved dragon at the Auckland Zoo in the late 1950s. This tray is rare example of a New Zealand made piece of Arts & Crafts metalwork, rectangular in design with raised decoration at either end in the form of grapes and vine leaves.

Cedric Storey, Repoussé tray, Brasswashed copper
Collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi, 2013/25

Cedric Storey, Repoussé tray, Brasswashed copper
Collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi, 2013/25

This top, a sample garment from the Laurie Foon label, a designer and founder member of the Starfish clothing range was purchased for the collection in 2013. One of the many attributes of Starfish clothing was the understated detailing and relaxed lines that allowed the wearer to integrate the garment into their own unique style. The label was also known for a commitment and focus on environmental sustainability.

Laurie Foon, Sample garment, Silk and cotton
Collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi, 2013/34

The most recent purchase, in late 2013 was the painting titled, In the Bath by New Zealand artist Murray Grimsdale. Grimsdale’s recurring concerns as an artist are the events and the people which surround him. His works are often domestic in scale and familial in subject.

Murray Grimsdale, In the Bath, Pastel on paper
Collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi, 2013/49

The money raised over the summer 2014 tours will continue to be used to develop the collection and we look forward to sharing new acquisitions purchased by the Greening the Graveyard group over the coming year.

The guided walks are being held on the following dates at 2.00 pm:
Sunday January 26th
Sunday February 16th
Sunday March 23rd

Cost: $12 per adult, children free
Payment to be taken on the day.

Please wear sturdy footwear, a sunhat and take a bottle of water.
The tour meeting point is at the gates of the Cemetery, situated on Napier Terrace, next to the Botanical Gardens.

Tours do book out, so please book early to secure a place by calling MTG Hawke’s Bay, 06 833 9795 or email events@mtghawkesbay.com

Gail Pope
Curator of Archives
January 2014

The photographs of the cemetery used in this post were taken by David Frost, Graphic Designer & Photographer, MTG Hawke’s Bay

One Month In

As I sat down at my desk this morning I had rather a shock.  Today is the 21^st October, which means MTG Hawke’s Bay has been open for one month today! The days have flown by and we are so enjoying welcoming visitors to our beautiful new facility. This month has seen an outstanding 12,000 museum and gallery admissions. Add to that all who have attended events, performances and film and MTG Hawke’s Bay has been very busy indeed.

As I write, the Customer Services Team are preparing to open the gallery doors, our Educators are welcoming a class from St Joseph’s Māori Girls’ College, and the MTG Century Theatre is gearing up for day 6 of the NZ International Film Festival.

Just over one month ago all of the MTG team and many, many helping hands were in the final stages of preparation to welcome the public back to the MTG.  There were late nights, early starts and quite a few stressful moments.  Now we are (almost) recovered from the exhaustion I think we will soon look back with fond memories on the energy, exhilaration and anticipation of that final countdown to opening day.  

The MTG team would like to thank our talented team of installers, lighting specialists, AV developers, carpenters, bricklayers, designers, technicians and many more friends, colleagues, contractors and volunteers. To Stephen Salt, Rob Cherry, Mickey Golwacki, Martin Kelly, Alivia Kofoed, Sobranie Huang, Stephen Brookbanks, Clem Schollum, Chris Streeter, Jake Yocum, Beau Walsh, Gavin Walker, Greg Parker, Nick Giles, Gerard Beckinsdale, Dean Edgington, Sophia Smolenski, Marcus McShane, Adam Walker, Johann Nortje, Mike Slater, Te Rangi Tinirau, Tony Zondruska, Matt Kaveney, Elham Salari, Jon Hall – we couldn’t have done it without your expertise and dedication. It was great working with you and we hope to see you all back at MTG soon. 

Here are a few photographs captured in the last stages of exhibition installation:

Eloise Wallace, Public Programmes Team Leader, October 2013

An Art Deco portrait

When we imagine the Art Deco period our mind travels towards images that dazzle – a world of youth, excess and abandon; of glamorous men and women dancing to jazz and exuding Hollywood glamour.  Art Deco style – from its furniture to its fashions – is a glittering, instantly recognisable, backdrop to life.

We know too, that the 1920s and 30s were a period of enormous change.  Collective post-war grief and years of plenty gave way to the grinding poverty of the Great Depression.  A shift in energy, from the old world to the new, accompanied rising nationalism, consumerism and industrialisation.  It can be hard to understand the Art Deco images we conjure as a product, and driver, of the forces at work on the western world.

In 2012 the Friends of the Hawke’s Bay Cultural Trust purchased an arresting portrait of a woman, painted in New Zealand in 1931 by British artist Christopher Perkins. 

Portrait of Annette Stiver, 1931, Christopher Perkins (b. 1891, d. 1968), purchased by Friends of the Hawke’s Bay Cultural Trust, gifted by the Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust Foundation, collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi, 2012/37

The year – 1931 – is of course the year of the Hawke’s Bay earthquake, an event to which we owe our interest as a city in all things Art Deco. As an institution seeking evidence for the development of the style within its own time and wanting to untangle its impact on lives lived in the period, the portrait is a particularly resonant gift.  

For a long time the world knew the sitter only as Mrs Michael Stiver, and the official name of the work remains Portrait of Mrs Michael Stiver. Like so many women of the period, the subject of portrait somewhat unknowable through the use of her husband’s name. However on acquiring the portrait we began to piece together her story and what we found of her charmed us. 

In the woman we know now as Annette (though always Andy to her friends) we have found someone to conjure with. In her modernity, her glamour and impetuosity and the twists and turns of her life we had a true tale with all the makings of a Hollywood film.

As a portrait of a young woman living in New Zealand in 1931, Andy’s portrait is a rare for its directness, uneasy intimacy, womanliness. Andy is not conventionally beautiful, her features are almost too strong, but we are drawn to her face – her upturned nose, sculpted brow and red lips.  Our gaze is drawn to her hands as she plays with them uneasily in her lap.  She wears no jewels; her hair is pushed simply away from her face, she sits informally, looking away but leaning toward the viewer in a loose, dark-red gown.  The simple backdrop of Calla lilies behind Andy and reflected toward the viewer intrude on us with their starkly sexual allusions.  Hints of an intriguing personality breathe life into the fragments of her story. 

Annette was born as Julia Anderson (she changed her name after leaving school) in upstate New York into a wealthy small-town family in 1901.  She was a bright and clever student.  In 1923 she married for the first time. When the marriage soured within a few years Andy began working for F L Carlisle, a rather unsound Wall Street investment company of the type that precipitated the stock market crash. 

New York in the mid-twenties would have been an exciting place for a young woman, heady times too – she was likely in the thick of the action as the chaos of Black Tuesday unfolded.   

Then, on 2 April 1930 Andy appeared in the press in an article titled ‘Given divorce Carthage woman weds next day.’ In a bold move, equal to a modern Hollywood heroine, Andy had indeed divorced her first husband and secretly married advertising executive Michael Stiver of the firm J Walter Thompson the following day.  The couple stole away to Canada and sailed immediately for Wellington.   

Michael was charged with opening a New Zealand branch of J Walter Thompson to manage the promotion of products of the new General Motors assembly plant in Petone.  It was particularly bad timing for such a venture. The shockwaves of the stock market crash followed in the wake of the Stivers as they sailed to New Zealand and sales of luxury consumer goods such as cars soon plummeted. 

1920s Wellington must have come as rather a shock to the couple, used to the extravagance of New York City.  However they soon became friends with a small circle of Wellington based artists, writers and academics.  While all relatively well-off it was a group that had little in common with the middle class conservatism of many of their peers. Christopher Perkins and his wife Berry were part of this circle. 

Perkins had been recruited in Britain under the La Trobe Scheme, a programme to import teachers from England with the intent of improving the quality of art education in New Zealand.  He had come to Wellington with his family in 1929 to teach art at Wellington Technical College.

The Perkins’ daughter Jane remembered Andy as a ‘fine boned intense little woman with a swathe of dark hair’, who, half in love with Perkins, held ‘a profound and touching adoration for himself as well as for his work.’ We might speculate that this amour is the reason for the palpable intimacy and unease evident in the painting; it suggests at the very least an unconsummated emotional entanglement between artist and sitter.   We know at least it is a work that captures something of a kindred spirit at the start of what would be an enduring relationship. Andy was a determined and admiring friend, patron and promoter of Christopher for the rest of her life.

Andy sat for the portrait over a number of days in the converted studio basement of Perkins’ rented home in Kelburn.  We see her in a home-made dress, upon a rattan chair brought down from the kitchen above, and posed amongst calla lilies picked from the garden.  After the morning sittings she would stay on for lunch with the family, bringing along her sewing machine so she could teach dress-making to Berry, and their two young daughters. 

One wonders what Michael made of the work he commissioned? Andy treasured the portrait – it only entered the open-market after her death – and years later still signed off her letters to Christopher with a lipstick saturated kiss.

Back home in America, Andy’s family lost all their money in the stock market crash.  Then, just months after the portrait was painted, the Wellington branch of JWT closed its doors due to unprofitability. The couple, ever resiliant, moved on to Australia and Michael took up the management of the Sydney branch of J Walter Thompson.

Andy and Michael soon became part of Sydney’s ‘smart set.’ Andy started writing a regular column on fashion and shopping for Sydney Ure Smith’s The Home magazine – a periodical that embodied the aspirations of ‘Modern Sydney’.  What we now recognise as the quintessential Art Deco look was emblazoned across its pages.  Its readers were not avant-garde or revolutionary; they didn’t disdain commerce but admired taste, refinement, intelligence and style. In these pages we hear Andy’s voice for the first time – witty, enticing and elegant, cajoling middle-class women into the latest fashions.  The Sydney lifestyle was a perfect fit for Andy; she had just the look and the voice for promoting an achievable local ideal and encouraging the spending that would entrance advertisers.  

After a few years the Stivers moved on to the UK (reconnecting with the Perkins who had since moved back home).  By 1940 she and Michael had divorced, Michael moving to Buenos Aires and marrying a local woman, Andy moving back to her native New York. By the mid-1940s Andy has established a career working for one of New York’s biggest advertising firms as a copywriter, eventaully heading up the department.  She married again, but divorced just a few years later in 1959.   Andy died in New York in 1996 and is buried in the family cemetery of her first home.

While we can now only catch glimpses of Andy’s life her enigmatic portrait commands attention and captures the imagination.  Her life and look is instantly recognisable as that of a twentieth century woman, and it is through stories like hers, sparked through the acquisition of such a striking portrait, that we can rediscover and reinterpret the Art Deco decades with renewed vigour.

Portrait of Annette Stiver by Christopher Perkins was purchased by the Friends of the Hawke’s Bay Cultural Trust.  The portrait will be on display when MTG Hawke’s Bay opens this spring.  This article was first published in the Newest City News, May 2013 and is kindly reproduced with the permission of the Art Deco Trust.

Eloise Wallace
Public Programmes Team Leader
June 2013

african adventures in the art collection

One of our most interesting ‘while we are closed’ activities is James’ framing project. Every time I’m in the collection store there is an intriguing assortment of work from the Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust (HBMT) fine art collection out of their crates.  Douglas pointed out this work to me last week as I’m doing some research into the work of New Zealand artists in North Africa in the early 20th Century.

The plate on the frame reads: “North African Coast” by B. C. Dobie. Presented to H Guthrie Smith Esq

I rather liked this scene of a bright orange tent, pitched under the shifting shadows of a cork tree, looking out on olive trees and the dazzling blue of the Mediterranean.

The artist is New Zealander, Beatrix Charlotte Dobie (1887 – 1944).

Beatrix must have been a rather intrepid and determined woman to travel in this part of the world in the 1920s and 30s. I found myself curious about her; and the connection inferred by this painting with Hawke’s Bay farmer, naturalist and author Herbert Guthrie-Smith.

Beatrix Dobbie was born in Whangarei in 1887, daughter of Herbert Dobbie, a well-known stationmaster, botanist and writer. In 1911 she travelled to London with her friend Esther Barker (later Hope) to study painting at the Slade School of Art, under Henry Tonks. It was at this time she changed her last name to Dobie.

Muriel Wyman and Beatrix Dobbie, Mangere, c 1910. Photograph reproduced courtesy of Mangere Historical Society, Manukau Research Library, MGE: I, 2, no. 31

With the outbreak of the First World War she and Esther volunteered for the Red Cross and were stationed in Malta, and later at the New Zealand transfer camp in Codford, England. After the war she returned to New Zealand and exhibited regularly at the Canterbury Society of Arts.

The connection to Guthrie-Smith is here discovered, as it turns out that she illustrated his wonderful book Tutira: the story of a New Zealand sheep station, first published in 1921.

Guthrie-Smith writes in his preface: “My thanks are due to Miss Beatrix Dobie for her physiographical sketches, and for her careful and accurate restorations of the old-time pas of the station. I consider myself most fortunate in having secured her services.”

The painting must have been presented to Guthrie-Smith by her in remembrance of this collaboration, Guthrie-Smith in turn gifting it to the HBMT before his death in 1940.

In 1926 Beatrix went abroad again, this time on a painting tour of Africa, and while in Tunisia she met and married Rene Vernon, an engineer with the French Army. They lived in Sfax and later Beja, and Dobie continued to paint, sending pictures to exhibitions abroad, including the Empire Exhibition of 1937. Despite civil unrest in Tunisia, and later the outbreak of the Second World War, they remained in Beja, keeping an open house to Allied servicemen. As fighting raged within miles of her home she slept with a dog beside her and pistol under her pillow for protection.

The occasion of Beatrix’s infrequent return visits to New Zealand were often reported in the press, on one visit in 1935 she commented in the Evening Post on life and art in Tunisia: “Life in a French colony is full of interest but it encourages the housewife in a woman more than an artist. [I] found [I] could not get into “casserole cookery” mood one minute and into painting the next.”

On the subject of art Beatrix said “Tunis was certainly a land of sunlight and a perfect place for painting. French art had experienced the cult for hypermodernism, but it was now coming back to a true form, enriched by the experience of its adventuring. People were realising that pictures without drawing, colour or form were not “liveable” with.”

While not in the first tier of New Zealand’s expatriate artists, Beatrix certainly achieved some success as an artist in her lifetime, and deserved the epitaph a ‘varied career of unusual interest’ bestowed upon her by the Evening Post when reporting her death in Tunisia in 1944.

The HBMT holds another work by Beatrix – an undated, untitled landscape, possibly of a Hawke’s Bay scene. We also have a work painted in 1911 of Hawke’s Bay farmer and industrialist William Nelson which has been on loan to us from the Napier Borough Council since 1940. In 2002 Whangarei Art Museum held an exhibition on Beatrix and her father called Portraits of Place, with loans from HBMT (including North African Coast).

Dobie. B. W.M. Nelson Esq, Waikoko, Tomoana c1911 on loan from Napier Borough Council40/21

If anyone knows the whereabouts of other works by Beatrix Dobie painted in Malta and North Africa, or knows more about her connections with Hawke’s Bay please get in touch.

happy new year leo

Lately, we’ve been spending rather more time than usual looking over our shoulders – it’s inevitable I suppose that we seek to be reassured by the history of this place as we rush headlong toward the reopening of the Museum next year.

In the weeks before Christmas we chanced across a delightful file of ‘miscellaneous’ papers written by museum directors’ past. During our spare moments we pored over the scraps of paper, reading aloud to each other snippets of this and that – from intriguing anecdotes about the collection, to all sorts of amusing advice about how to run a museum.

It is the voice of Leo Bestall (1895 – 1959), the Museum’s first Director that dominates these files. I immediately felt a very strong impression of him and was possessed by that nagging desire that inflicts a historian from time to time – to meet the man. How I wish I could have talked to him – if it is possible to know a man at all from the leavings on a few pieces of paper I don’t know – but I thought we might have got along rather well and I felt the disappointment that comes from lifetimes that don’t cross.

Working in a museum, a type of public institution that exists in the world mainly because of the passionately obsessive curiosity and drive of particular individuals, long dead men have a way of looming over us. Just as I was feeling over-burdened by the weight of one demanding institutional ancestor – thank you William Colenso – I read these documents and felt Leo shake my brain about even more. 

Bestall’s perspectives on museums in general, and this one in particular were refreshing and energising. He was no passionless academic, he doesn’t get too tangled in questioning whether museums should exist and why, he knew it and he just got on and did it, scrambled over the hurdles and seemed to have a rather good time.

It’s all too easy to feel exhausted by the demands of this new museum we are making, especially now the calendar has ticked around to 2012 and reopening looms just one year away. Bestall’s lessons were good and timely ones for me.

Just before Christmas the whole team visited the museum site to have an explore and share a morning tea with our lovely builders from Gemco. I was particularly keen to get back into the ‘Bestall’ Gallery because the name meant more to me than it had before. Uppermost in my mind as I walked around was the fun and thrill of what we were doing. In particular, I had such pleasure in seeing the restoration of Bestall’s building underway, its galleries are a thing of beauty and I know they will be a pleasure to inhabit in their new form.

It was Leo’s vision, and sheer bloody-mindness that made this building in 1936. In proof that passion bears fruit that outlasts us, I think he would be quite delighted to see the HBMAG’s current team wandering about the bones of his building, as alive to its possibilities almost 80 years on.

So Leo, a 2012 New Year’s toast to you, thanks for those letters you left behind, we are thinking about you, and we think what you made here in Napier in 1936 was pretty darn fantastic.