One Sweet Picture of Perfection 1840

CHAPTER ONE

Sweet Picture of Perfection

Co-operatives in agriculture and other industrial enterprises can be traced to the earliest known records of human history. Babylonians practised co-operative farming and ancient Chinese people developed collective associations similar to those in use today. However, in the Western world the co-operative movement as we know it only began approximately 200 years ago. One of the best-known examples is well documented and records how a group of weavers and textile workers employed in cotton mills in the town of Rochdale, England in the 1840s established the first successful co-operative business. Working for very low wages and unable to pay high prices for food and household goods, they opened their own shop, buying stock in large volumes and selling at cost price. Only quality goods were sold, the first shop selling flour, oatmeal, sugar and butter. It was a huge success. The democratic approach and co-operative ownership structure kept control in the weavers and textile workers own hands and brought their venture into public prominence. The Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society was formed and collected money from member families to open a small co-operative store on Toad Lane, Rochdale. Each member had one share and one vote, and thus an equal say in the decisions made in the business. The Society developed and began to sell goods at normal retail prices – a lesson in itself – but, most importantly, profits generated were apportioned to their spending during the year. Although co-operatives had been established before the Toad Lane shop, it was this one which succeeded and set an example others followed. We are fortunate this early enterprise recorded the principles of the society and the philosophies set down became the basis of many co-operatives around the world today.

This history is focused on trading, in particular livestock and merchandise specifically relating to agriculture and primary produce in Taranaki and the North Island of New Zealand. Trading first occurred in Taranaki in the 1820s when a revived sealing trade in southern New Zealand saw ships sailing home to Sydney or Hobart through Cook Strait began calling at Nga Motu, New Plymouth to exchange muskets for pigs and flax. Ian Church in ‘Heart of Aotea’ describes one of the first encounters:

The Nga Motu anchorage in the lee of the Sugar Loaves was known by 1822 when, ‘an old friend’ of Frederick Maning’s, probably Captain James Heard in the ‘Providence’, exchanged a box full of cartridges for a Maori woman from Taranaki who was about to be ‘baked’ at Kawhia. He took her back to Taranaki where he was given two tons of flax and 18 pigs and asked to remain a few days longer while more was collected. ‘But as he found their intention was to take the schooner and knock himself and crew on the head he made off in the night.’

Muskets proved to be a highly sought-after commodity and the exchange of flax for the ‘Pakeha’ weapon continued for many years between Maori and seafaring visitors to Taranaki. The first sale

Devon Street, New Plymouth. Illustration from London News 23 August 1856.

COURTESY COLLECTION OF PUKE ARIKI. UNKNOWN ARTIST. A95.248

of land occurred in the 1840s and a few early individual settlers sold various wares, but almost 50 years would pass before any substantial activity took place in South Taranaki.

Settlement of the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand commenced in the north.

The province of Taranaki originated in the settlement of New Plymouth which was formed by the Plymouth Company of New Zealand, in conjunction with the New Zealand Company, in the year 1841.

New Plymouth was then founded and became the region’s main town. The boundaries of the province were defined by proclamation, under the Constitutional Act of New Zealand in the year 1852. At that time Taranaki was described as ‘The Province of New Plymouth’ but later, in 1858, changed to Taranaki by act of the General Assembly of New Zealand. The province was described as the western projection of the North Island divided at the coast from the Auckland province to the north by the Mokau River and from the Wellington province by the Patea River. The Mokau River also formed the northern boundary line. The eastern boundary was established by a number of lines between the Wanganui and Mokau rivers. The rest of Taranaki is surrounded by ocean. The province was one of the last to establish a functional farming community. Although the hinterland ring plain surrounding the sleeping volcano Mount Egmont was graced with rich volcanic soil, with rivers and streams reticulating sparkling fresh water throughout an exquisite natural garden, early settlement by Europeans south of the more northern New Plymouth district was delayed by Maori opposition to the selling of land.

This treatise documenting the history of Allied Farmers Limited, formerly The Farmers’ Cooperative Organisation Society of New Zealand Limited, Gillies and Nalder, Gillies Fantham and Nalder, Fantham Bros. & Co., and The Egmont Farmers’ Union Limited, has been referred to by Arthur Fryer, a local historian saying, ‘Farmers’ Co-op is the history of Hawera’. Consequently no documented history of an organisation that began its journey only a decade after the New Zealand

Wars ended, and involved many outstanding South Taranaki citizens, could be written without a brief introduction describing the European settlement of this untamed but beautiful countryside of Taranaki.

In 1841 The New Zealand Company negotiated the purchase of land from local Maori chiefs for settlement of British immigrants at New Plymouth. Ownership of this land was challenged by absentee owners and the Waikato tribes who claimed the land by conquest. The first planned arrival of Europeans at New Plymouth was on 31 March 1841 on the ship William Bryan. Early European missionary Samuel Ironside visited South Taranaki in the early 1840s and was impressed with the fertility of the soil, agricultural and pastoral possibilities and said, ‘I wondered what a splendid location it might be made for some industrious farmers’.

In The History of Taranaki B. Wells records Edward Wakefield’s experience while travelling by horse overland from Wellington to Taranaki in February 1843, encountering Mr Cooke and ‘two or three stockmen and Richard Barrett’ driving ‘70 head of cattle and a large flock of sheep’, both parties intending to reach the New Plymouth settlement through forest on the east side of Mount Egmont. This was possibly the first large herd of cattle and sheep driven through this picturesque but often heavily bush-clad country. The ancient Whakaahurangi track on the eastern side of the mountain was later known as the Chute, or Nairn track, and eventually became what is now known as Mountain Road.

Edward Jerningham Wakefield, an eccentric pioneer, explorer, politician and writer, described the districts of Whenuakura and Waitotara in 1843 as, ‘fine open pasture land watered by numerous small streams’, and the land around Hawera as of ‘the most fertile description and admirably adapted to tillage or pasture’ and: … after all the beautiful spots … which I had already seen in New Zealand, I was struck with the surpassing beauty and luxuriant productiveness of the country (near Ketemarae), just after entering the wood which is at first like an immense shrubbery with occasional large trees, the abundance of the second crops in the existing Native gardens, the rankness and yet softness of the grass which had sprung up in the old deserted places, surrounded the flowering shrubs amidst which countless flocks of singing birds were chasing each other, all combined with the genial atmosphere, although it was approaching to the middle of winter [May 1843], to remind me touchingly of Shakespear’s [sic] sweet picture of perfection of agriculture. The innumerable difficulties encountered in connection with the sale and purchase of land that faced both Maori and Europeans from the 1840s to 1860s are described in publications dedicated to this unsettled time in our history. However, pressure to develop the southern part of Taranaki Province caused Maori leaders to become concerned at the increasing demand for land by Europeans and in 1854 a large gathering of local leaders was held at Manawapou. A decision was made that sales of land would only proceed if approved by the Maori Council. An organisation known as the Maori Land League was formed ‘after a meeting held sway during the next few years and was reinforced by adherents of Te Ua Haumene, a Maori prophet from East Egmont. His followers were known as the Hauhau’. War, hostilities and division continued for some considerable time.

The Government decided to quell the unrest and encourage military settlers into Taranaki and offered not only a degree of security but practical inducements as well. Advertisements appeared in newspapers throughout the country:

Edward Jerningham Wakefield 1820–79, pioneer, explorer, politician and writer. COURTESY OF IRMA O’CONNOR COLLECTION, ALEXANDER TURNBULL LIBRARY, WELLINGTON, N.Z. PACOLL-6987-1

Original Allotment Map of Hawera town sections with proposed line of railway.

COURTESY OF ROSS AND CLAIRE CORRIGAN

Wanted: Volunteers for Taranaki. Men wishing to join the above force subject to the under mentioned conditions are requested to make early application to the undersigned, adjoining the office of the Commissioner of Police. Information as regards the duties to be done and the nature of the land to be given can be had at the office.

Some of the conditions of taking up the land included: Settlements will be surveyed and marked out by the Government. Each settlement will comprise not less than 100 town allotments and 100 farm sections. A stockade at the most eligible site in each settlement will be erected at the expense of the Government. A town will be laid out around or as near as may be to the stockade in one acre allotments. Farms will be laid out around or as near as may be to the town in sections of 50 acres each. Every settler under these conditions will be entitled to one town allotment and one farm section. Priority of choice will be determined by lot. No man above the age of 45 years will be accepted and every applicant will be subject to an examination by an officer appointed by the Government and must produce such certificates of good health and character and fitness for service as such officer shall require. … After taking possession he will be entitled to receive rations, free of cost for 12 months, upon the

same scale as supplied to H.M. troops. He will be allowed to retain possession, as a Militiaman, of his arms and accoutrements, and he will be supplied with ammunition for use according to Militia Regulations.

In 1867 the first European settlers began to move onto the land, only to be displaced on 7 September 1868 when Titokowaru and his warriors swept down through the southern part of the province as far as Nukumaru. They were eventually driven back to the north at Ngaere and rounded up. Following this engagement South Taranaki was almost deserted until March 1869 when those who had earlier been driven from their homes started to return and finally fighting between Pakeha and Maori ceased.

Only in the last two decades of the nineteenth century did the European settlers in isolated districts feel secure enough to open up large tracts of virgin bush country for farming, particularly east and south of the mountain. The settlers comprised a few former military men, who had tested their mettle in the dwindling goldfields of New Zealand, some established farmers from elsewhere in the colony, and mainly British immigrants who had arrived with their families and begun clearing the bush and tilling the soil.

Original map of Militia Farm Section allotments surrounding the town of Hawera in South Taranaki, 1860s and 1870s.

COURTESY OF ROSS AND CLAIRE CORRIGAN

Dense virgin forest covered the areas, particularly northwest of Patea, Alton, Hurleyville, Whakamara, Ararata and Meremere and north towards Eltham and Stratford. The open country, towards the west – Ohangai, Mokoia, Hawera and the Waimate plains – was dressed in fern, tutu, and, in the gullies, light forest. Taranaki’s rightful place in the colony would be realised in time but there were years of considerable hardship before settlers’ ambitions were fulfilled. With little or no financial reward from their efforts, many early farmers sold fungus as a means of sustaining their families while they developed land holdings to the point where they could survive from income from their own produce. Fungus was known as ‘Taranaki wool’ and was the main source of income for many in the initial stages. It has been recorded that in 1885, the value of fungus exported amounted to £72,000, more than the total value of butter shipped from the province.

James Davidson, born in 1836 at Canonbie, a border parish of Dumfriesshire, Scotland, arrived in New Zealand in 1865. His family can be traced back to the historic figure John Armstrong, who was murdered by James V in 1530 and in whose memory, and that of his fellow victims, a monument was erected. He arrived at Hawera from Turakina, where he had been employed by Messrs Franklyn and Hirst, on 2 October 1871, and established the first general store in the area, Davidson’s Hawera General Store. He sold almost everything, including groceries, general provisions and farm requisites. Travelling by packhorse to the outlying districts on a weekly basis through extremely difficult country he exchanged wares for fungus, eggs and homemade butter. His sisters Elizabeth and Isabella arrived from Scotland in 1888, with another sister’s orphaned children, to join their bachelor brother. They kept house for James, and assisted in the shop until James retired to a farm at Ohangai Road, Taiporohenui in 1897. A shrewd yet popular man and well known trader, James was a welcome visitor to early settlers in the many remote South Taranaki districts being opened up in the early years. He was the first chairman of the Town Board, James Davidson, general which met in December 1875, and he resigned in January 1879 when the Hawera storekeeper, first chairman Borough was formed. He was Mayor of Hawera for four years, a member of the of the Town Board, Mayor of Patea County Council, chairman of the Egmont Racing Club from 1896 (R. H. Hawera, president of Egmont Agricultural & Pastoral Association for the year 1896. COURTESY OF THE CYCLOPAEDIA Nolan was president), vice president from 1907–1916 and chairman of the Hawera Trotting Club committee in 1898. For several years he held the position of president of the Hawera Branch of the N.Z. Farmers’ Union and was active in the Presbyterian OF NEW ZEALAND Church. He was involved in a variety of other organisations but, notably, he was president of the ‘Hawera [Egmont] Agricultural & Pastoral Association’. During the settlement and establishment of Hawera, James (Baldy as he was affectionately known), Davidson, became the central figure of any new local endeavour. As agriculture developed, the relative isolation of the area made moving produce out of the province a major impediment to early trading. Rugged bush-clad hills in the north and treacherous often swollen rivers in the south isolated the area. In H.G. Philpott’s A history of the New Zealand Dairy Farmer he states: As a result produce had to be transported over land to Wanganui or Wellington, a costly business and quite unsatisfactory before the days of insulated rail transport. Roading and bridging was costly on account of the heavily forested country, the innumerable streams, the heavy rainfall. Lastly, Taranaki dairy farmers probably had less Government financial assistance in the early years than settlers in almost any other part of the colony. Also stock and station agency firms generally did not appear to find such an attractive opportunity for their capital and enterprise in Taranaki as obtained in most parts of the colony then in a state of active development. The fact is apparent from a survey of the beginnings of this province. In the view of the hardships faced and the lack of outside help and communication, the first Taranaki settlers were truly pioneers.

As well a wind-swept coastline provided few places of safe harbour other than Waitara and Patea rivers, and these could only be navigated at high tide across unpredictable and dangerous sand bars. In later years breakwaters were built at New Plymouth, Opunake and Patea, but these were unreliable and would test even the most experienced sea captain.

With hostilities between disenchanted Maori tribes and settlers abating, an orderly settlement of the land with the prospect of commerce was a much-awaited development. William Dale and William Cowern (later Mayor of Patea), both of Patea, were two of the pioneering auctioneers of South Taranaki. An advertisement in the Wanganui Herald stated that William Dale would be selling every month on the second Wednesday in the yards adjoining the Hawera Hotel in High Street. At the time Hawera had a population of ‘438 white persons and a town Board’. The Patea Mail stated on 14 April 1875: William Dale, auctioneer, will hold an auction sale of livestock in the yards of the Manutahi Hotel in eight days time. One month later a second sale was held with an entry of 50 cattle and one pony. In October of the same year W. J. Furlong held a cattle sale in the hotel yards. Mr Furlong had a mart in Hawera and ‘sold a little livestock’, and disposed of business in 1878 to McLean and Broadbent. Another Hawera firm Thomson and McGuire held a sale at Manutahi in 1878.

Cowern and Dale were both ‘noted men of trade’ and responsible for the establishment of saleyards in many South Taranaki townships. They received licenses to operate from the Provincial Treasurer, Arthur Standish of New Plymouth, in April 1875 and held sales at regular intervals for many years in Patea. C. F. Barker opened a yard at Patea for a short period, and William Cowern built yards in Lincoln Street, Patea in 1883. A few years earlier, in 1879, he had held a sale for Steuart and Corrigan, a partnership, who later became stock and station agents themselves with a head office in Manaia and a branch at Stratford. Around the same time (1883) Freeman R. Jackson of Wanganui also held a sale at Kakaramea. Waverley had also received the attention of this company when the Patea Mail carried an advertisement on 10 July 1877: Freeman R. Jackson having erected extensive yards will be holding monthly sales on the second Saturday of each month. Waitotara also had a saleyard adjacent to the police station which was ‘cared for’ by Joe Richardson a longtime local drover. Another character of the day was Gordon Walker, a drover, dealer, and later a stock agent at Waverley. He claimed to be the first man to drive a car up the Waitotara Valley road. Mr John McCaw said, ‘When I told Mr [Bert] Symes of this claim of Walker’s, he said: “Probably true – Gordon was game enough to tackle anything even the mud of the valley”.’

The last regular sales at Waitotara were held in 1905 and it is understood that the first sales held in this district had commenced some 26 years earlier.

The Patea Mail reported on 26 April 1877 that the firm Inman and Coy. of Hawera conducted their first stock sale in that town.

William Cowern JP, Mayor of Patea for three years in succession, auctioneer, land and financial agent at Patea for nearly a quarter of a century.

There was a great gathering of people from Hawera and the surrounding districts at Inman and Coy’s first sale. Liberal lunch was served in the nearby auction rooms. Mr Charles Brown acted as auctioneer and shaped well. … The entry of 20 horses were mostly sold. The livestock sale was a great success. The auctioneers deserved commendation for their enterprise in erecting such a suitable and commodious auction mart and such substantial and convenient cattle pens are at present to be found adjacent to the auction mart.

William Cowern also conducted sales at Normanby in 1878. In fact when hostilities during the European settlement came to an end in the region there was considerable interest from many stock firms and auctioneers from neighbouring provinces and towns and a few locals who saw an opportunity to realise the potential of this hitherto inaccessible strip of fertile coastal country. Some partnerships and firms were as follows:

Ashworth and Liffington Wanganui 1877 Sale at Waitotara McLean and Coy. Hawera 1877c Hawera Wilson and Barnes Wanganui 1879 Sale at hotel yard, Waitotara Thomson and McGuire 1878 Normanby Baddeley and Forlong Wanganui 1905 Auctioneer, Waverley Dalgety and Co. Wanganui 1907 Waverley. Estab. yard 1910 Nixon and Coy. Wanganui 1907 Waverley

The status and standing of the auctioneer and stock agent in rural communities throughout the districts, even in these early years of settlement, is clearly evident, with many elected to local town boards and other positions of responsibility such as George Bate (a chairman), W. J. Furlong (a chairman), Felix McGuire (later a Member of Parliament for Egmont), Max D. King and W. McCutcheon. Freeman R. Jackson and William Cowern were mayors in their respective towns.

Fortunately there were a few scribes who were passionate enough to write about these almost forgotten days of European settlement before those who had laid the basis for the development of the countryside had passed away. One was John (Jack) McCaw, born on 22 August 1903, who eventually became branch manager for Wright Stephenson Limited, Feilding. While he spent most of his life working in the livestock industry, he is best known for his research and writing, and some broadcasting on pioneering, early New Zealand farming, and land and stock sales. He also wrote many articles for newspapers and periodicals, with stories relating to the pioneers of auctioneering enterprises, sales and saleyard establishments in and around the districts, including South Taranaki.