Tuesday 2 February 2016

Margaret Matilda White ( AKA surname Reed ) Photographer and Photography of that era

Bridge across Ohinemuri Karangahake Mining Settlement where Margaret Matilda White lived after marriage to Alfred Reed Photo from The Cyclopaedia of New Zealand, Vol 2, Auckland Province. Christchurch: Cyclopaedia Company Limited, 1902.
Going to the  Women of Empire Exhibition at Thames during November 2015 , led me to thinking about other women before the war who stepped into what then, in the tail end of the 1800's, was an occupation in a man's world. One such was Margaret Matilda White who, aside from an occupation of nursing, was another early New Zealand photographer.
 
Often when looking back on a part of the past New Zealand History, it is the work left by those early New Zealand photographers that provide a visual history of  a place, a person or an event.  Especially in those goldfield and timber towns of the Coromandel Peninsula. Photographs of Daniel Beere, John Robert Hanna, Henry Thomson Gorrie, George Valentine, H B Morton, James Napier,  Una Garlick ( AKA Harriet Eunice) and Margaret Matilda White. It is known that White had contact with John Robert Hanna. There may have been exposure to the photography of the others via occupation, people and place. Although White may not have met Daniel Beere, she visited Thames taking photographs - a town in which Daniel Beere's family had lived, worked and been part of the gold mining community.
 

Gerald Butler Beere and family on veranda of house in Shortland. Beere, Daniel Manders, 1833-1909 :Negatives of New Zealand and Australia. Ref: 1/2-096138-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/23007424   Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.”


View over township from hill, wooden fence in foreground  PH-NEG-B3594 Photograph by Margaret Matilda White  photo courtesy “Auckland War Memorial Museum –Tāmaki Paenga Hira”.

By mid-1885, with a partnership with Hemus  dissolved, John Robert Hanna concentrated  on establishment and renovation of his own studio. In 1890 Hanna became President of the Auckland Photograhic Club. It is not known whether Margaret Matilda White  was a member of this Club.

John Robert Hanna 1850 - 1915

It is known that with Hanna President and a photographic exhibition in 1890, photos of George Valentine ( the South Crater was said to be "great triumph over no ordinary difficulties" ) , H B Morton and that of Hanna's were exhibited.  The members of the photographic club were interested in shots of scenery, and portraiture. H B Morton,  gum and general merchant  and shipping agent, was  joint vice-president of the Auckland Photographic Club 1891-1895 and patron in 1910.


South Crater – the termination of Rotomahana Rent  From photo 142 by George Valentine 1886
From JM Stewart family collection
H.B. Morton - photo in H. B Morton , Recollections Of Early New Zealand Auckland Whitcombe & Tombs (1925)

 There was much scope for these amateur photographers in this new raw country - New Zealand. John Robert Hanna also specialised in portraiture and all photographers then, with photos of the Maori way of life and culture. All of this was an excellent training ground for Margaret Matilda White.
 
The information on Waihi Cemetery records for Margaret Matilda Reed  ( nee White ) are almost  non-existent,  apart from  recording a Margaret Matilda Reed, date of death and burial unknown but listed in  Ang Section, Block F, Lot 14. It is known that Margaret Matilda Reed ( nee White ) died from tetanus which was the outcome of stepping on a  nail. That for Margaret Matilda , was back 105 years ago on 6 July 1910. The Northern Advocate reported the following:-
 
" Mrs A. Reed, jun., of Karangahake, and well known in Whangarei, died in the Waihi hospital last week. Her death was occasioned by blood poisoning, caused by a nail piercing her foot."   ( Northern Advocate 15/07/1910)
 
Albert Reed, Margaret Matilda's husband, born in Whangarei ,was the eldest son of Albert Reed who had arrived in 1859, a builder who in 1876 counted his work in connection with Walton's mine at Whau Whau Valley, Whangarei.
 
The Affidavit under oath  of Albert Reed, her husband, filed on 30 July 1910 in probate documents : -
 
  • gives her name as Margaret Matilda Reed
  • records her as wife of Albert Reed miner
  • records her as mother of two children Albert Sherlock Reed and Cyril Midford Ferguson Reed
  • gives the date of her death as the sixth day of July one thousand nine hundred ten.
 
A search of Find a Grave website produced a photo of Margaret Matilda's headstone.
 
Created by: Griffin  Record added: Dec 10, 2013  Find A Grave Memorial# 121546115 under the Creative Commons license http://www.findagrave.com/cgibin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Reed&GSiman=1&GSst=2926&GRid=121546115&

Behind the sparse information in Waihi Cemetery records, is a person whose collection of interesting photographs have  survived.  Thanks to the guardianship of her son Albert Sherlock Reed who donated these to  the Auckland War Memorial Museum in 1965. In  the Whangarei Museum photograph collection ,there is also more of White's photographs. Both sources  show  early Maori and settler life in Northland, Whangarei District, Auckland Thames, Karangahake, Owharoa and Waihi along with other places.
 
Margaret Matilda White was born on 9 January 1868, the daughter of  Irish born John White and  Mary Jane White ( nee Davison).  Little is known about White's childhood. It is known that her father was a merchant and died soon after her birth in 1969, leaving  two children - Margaret and Nathaniel, who was born in 1866.  Mary Jane, John's widow, remarried an  Alexander Orr Polley in Ireland in 1876. They were recorded as being parents of two children - Alexander Junior and James  Polley.
 
Little is known of Margaret Matilda White's growing up years. The threads of her life were picked up again, when White, aged eighteen years, was recorded as an immigrant passenger aboard the s.s. Ionic which arrived  at Auckland 18 March 1886. With White, other passengers recorded were  brother Nathaniel White ,Hugh White , mother Mary Ann Polley, husband Alexander Polley and their sons Alexander Junior and James.
 
 
Until White's marriage to Albert Reed in 1900, a varied and full life was lived in Auckland. A volunteer in various  hospitals,  amongst these the Auckland Mental Hospital (or Whau as it became known as ). Energies were put into the  Amateur Theatrics and Amateur Operatics groups in Auckland . White took up photography and gained some good skills in the mechanics and chemistry of photography from John Robert Hanna. White has in 2016, become known for her photos of nurses and nursing in what was then a " shut-away" environment - the Mental Hospitals of that era.


Group of female assistants, Auckland Mental Hospital Group of eleven women in uniform - white aprons and caps, black shirts with white cuffs, outside brick building - Photograph by Margaret Matilda White 
 PH-NEG-B3486 photo courtesy  Auckland War Memorial Museum – Tāmaki Paenga Hira.
However White's  photo collection is also  a comprehensive coverage of people and places of that era in the Auckland Province.
 
Hanna specialised in portraiture including Maori ,  experimenting also with artistic shots of subjects. By 1902 Hanna was said to have a staff of seven assistants in his studio. It is not known if White was one of these. It is known that White  did set up a studio of her own, however it did not come to anything.

Photo from The Cyclopaedia of New Zealand, Vol 2, Auckland Province. Christchurch: Cyclopaedia Company Limited, 1902.

The  Observer reported the marriage of Margaret Matilda White to Albert Reed in 1900: - 
 
" The following was crowded out of our social page last week : — On Wednesday week last Miss Maggie White, of Auckland (late of Belfast, Ireland) and Mr Albert Reed, of Karangahake and Whangarei, were joined in the holy bonds of matrimony, at the residence of the bride's mother, Pitt-street. The Rev. Mr Jellie, of the Auckland Unitarian Church, officiated."...... ( The Observer 15/12/1900)
 
Following the wedding, the couple went to Mackaytown, in the  Karangahake Gorge , where Albert Reed was a miner. With three large mines then - Talisman, Woodstock and Crown - the townships of Mackaytown and Karangahake ,  then, were busy mining settlements boasting shops, hotels and churches.
 
Karangahake photo from  Photo from The Cyclopaedia of New Zealand, Vol 2, Auckland Province. Christchurch: Cyclopaedia Company Limited, 1902

The area had its share of amateur photographers. Amongst them , it is known that Henry Thomson Gorrie  , one of the directors  of Talisman Mine and James Napier, Metallurgist for NZ Crown Mines were involved with photography as a hobby. Margaret Matilda White ( Reed) also found an area rich in opportunity for photo shots - the mines including Woodstock where Henry Thomson Gorrie's brother William, was a director. Then, there were the people and communities of Ohinemuri and Waihi. 
 
School Children Owharoa School Group of school children posed for photo outside corner of wooden building, one male teacher - Photograph by Margaret Matilda White  PH-NEG-B3420photo courtesy   Auckland War Memorial Museum – Tāmaki Paenga Hira.
 
Karangahake Fire Brigade - photograph  by Margaret Matilda White
This photo is in a number of collections including Auckland War Memorial Museum - Tāmaki Paenga Hira and
Ohinemuri Regional History Journal 5 May 1966

After the death of Margaret Matilda White (Reed), Albert returned to Whangarei. There were many cousins in both places amongst the families of Reed, White, Davison and Organ, also Hanna.  Along with a very relevant part of the past  New Zealand history - the photo collection of Margaret Matilda White showing the people, events, and places of that era.
 
Reference Source:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Posted by at No comments:

Sunday 10 January 2016

George Turnbull Niccol - Shipping Vessels owned and built, places with links

Tairua Harbour - A Port of call for many of the Niccol Vessels - Photo Chris Ball November 2015

On 27 September 2015, The MV Tuhoe came to a final resting place, run aground on a sandbar at the Waimakariri River Mouth having just returned from  a major $200,000  restoration work at Lyttelton. Declared unsalvageable, the ninety six years old  Tuhoe was broken down where it was stranded, ending working life for this historic schooner.

Tuhoe , a 97-foot, 186 ton gross, two-masted auxiliary schooner, was launched on 7 April 1919 from the yard of ship builder George Niccol. Tuhoe was built by Niccol for the Northern Steam Ship Company ( NSSCo) with the object of withstanding rough bar work, enabling work in the shallow harbours of the East Coast and rivers of Firth of Thames.

MV Tuhoe was one of many vessels to be built in the yard of George Turnbull Niccol. A review of  Papers past newspaper advertisments record the many East Coast Ports of call amongst them: - Tauranga, Whakatane Opotiki, Tairua Mercury Bay Paeroa Te Aroha Turua Kopu, Wharepoa, Hikutaia, Puriri, Coromandel.

AFTER THE DELUGE.—The sunshine yesterday after Tuesday's "in was a good opportunity for sail drying.... [truncated] Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 51, 2 March 1933, Page 9
Photo courtesy Papers Past National Library NZ

For almost 100 years the name of Niccol was at the forefront of shipbuilding  during the settlement of the Auckland province. George Turnbull Niccol, born at Parnell, Auckland in  1858, continued the occupation of  his father Henry Niccol, learning this trade from his father.  Henry Niccol began shipbuilding soon after arrival aboard the Jane Gifford in 1842 with his wife Sarah and newly born son Thomas. Henry Niccol was son, George Turnbull Niccol grandson,  of Thomas Niccol, a well- known and prolific shipbuilder in Inverclyde, Scotland.

 The 1900's saw the shipbuilding yards of George Turnbull Niccol well established in Freeman's Bay. It was an ideal location for a wooden vessel shipbuilder - located close to the big timber mills, namely the giant Kauri Timber Company and the smaller Leyland and O'Brien Timber Company. 
 

Looking south west from the foreshore of Freemans Bay showing Kauri Timber Company (centre), G T Niccol's Shipbuilding yards ( left), Leyland O'Briens Timber Company (right), Parker Lamb Timber Company (extreme right) and small craft at anchor
Photo Courtesy Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 4-5337'

From records and various archive records it could be said that George Turnbull Niccol was also a well-known and prolific ship builder - scows and wooden steamers being his speciality suitable for the New Zealand coastal waters. Typical of many of the ship builders of that era, Niccol was also known as a ship owner. A number of these were recorded in Papers Past newspapers as calling on Ports on the Coromandel Peninsula including Tairua and inland up the rivers on the Hauraki Plains :-

Ports of the Coromandel Peninsula in the 1900s - L Top Whitianga Mercury Bay, R Top Tairua, B Left Turua, B Right Tairua- Photos Chris Ball 2015
  
By 1905 George Turnbull Niccol was established as a director of the coastal shipping company - Northern Steamship Company.  In 1906, there was a change to carrying of cargoes that had an influence on the type of vessel, particularly scows. This saw the formation in August 1906,  of  The  Federated Shipowners’ Association. Edwin Mitchelson, Charles Ranson, D. Gouk, George Niccol, J. Cardlaw, Alexander Alison, R. Reynolds, Ernest Ford, A. Jagger, E. Craig, F.B. Winstone, and Captains J. Hull and G. McKenzie. The appointed  officers of this organisation were  W. Smith (secretary), Thomas Henderson (treasurer) and M. McGregor (solicitor) .
 
Sails of Scow Ted Ashby NZ Maritime Museum - photo Chris Ball January 2015


George Niccol was there on this new " heavy weight organisation" along with Edwin Mitchelson and Alexander Alison. Edwin Mitchelson and Alexander Alison also had connections with the Coromandel Peninsula via shipping , timber, gum and gold. They also were owners/directors of the Tairua Broken Hills Gold Mining Company at the beginning of the 1900s. This mine was near Hikuai where George Turnbull Niccol was to buy land in 1912. The Thames Star reported the purchase of land to George Niccol .

"  Faithful , McConnell and Co. have sold their splendid farm, as well as the leasehold, to Mr Geo. Niccol, of Auckland, -who has a party of surveyors cutting them into farms of 200 to 300 acres" ( Thames Star 14/09/1912)
It was also reported that a Norman MacLean had sold his farm to Niccol - also in the Tairua Valley near Hikuai.

The area was not an  unknown valley to Niccol, as there was knowledge of both the Tairua Sawmill activities and shipping to Tairua from the beginning days of Tairua settlement back in 1864 when the sawmill was first built.

It would appear that George McLaughlan Niccol ( son of George Turnbull Niccol), may  also have had an interest in the Hikuai farmland. The Ohinemuri Gazette  in 1916, reporting on the Thames County Council meeting, wrote that a letter of complaint had been received from Mr. Geo. T. Niccol, of Auckland. According to Niccol, he had been sued for rates owed by his son. George McLaughlan Niccol was away fighting in WW1 on the front somewhere in France.

George McLaughlan Niccol ( 1888 - 1918 )

 Captain,  Royal Field Artillery and recipient of the military cross, for conspicuous bravery, George McLaughlan Niccol, only son of George Turnbull,  did not return from the war. Gassed twice, he contracted pneumonia and died on 30 October 1918 in France.

Three years later in 1921 George Turnbull Niccol had sold his subdivided farms at  Hikuai, Tairua  Valley to the New Zealand Government.


Hikuai, Tairua Valley - photo Chris Ball 2015

Mick Lennan in an article - Hikuai- in the Ohinemuri Journal of October 1967 said:-

" ………  and when the First World War ended, almost the whole of Hikuai, now owned by George Nicol, Uncle of Ernie mentioned previously was purchased by the Government to be subdivided for the settlement of Returned Soldiers. "
This land purchase was  under the Land Settlement Act 1908 and the Discharged Soldiers Settlement Act with the land being made available to discharged soldiers returned from WW1. January 1921 saw the Farmers' Cooperative  Auctioneering Company advertising a clearance sale of all livestock and farm equipment for George Turnbull Niccol.  The New Zealand Herald reported on the ballot held 26 October the same year and wrote:-

"SETTLEMENT AT TAIRUA. SECTION'S FOR EX-SOLDIERS. Two areas of land in the Tairua, district, part of the Hikuai. settlement, were balloted for yesterday at the office of the Auckland Lands Board. The land, which formerly was the property of Mr. G. T. Nicol, of Auckland, is situated about eight miles from the port of Tairua. The total area is 7129 acres, comprising 2014 acres of first-class land, divided into 15 sections, and 5115 acres of second and third-class land, comprised within four sections. The first-class land was available for discharged soldiers only, the other lands being available for general applicants, with a preference to discharged soldiers. For the first class land there were applications from 38 returned soldiers. Practically every applicant made an application for every section. There were three applicants for the four other sections." ( NZ Herald 27/10/1921)

Successful in the ballot were, JW Gribble, G Petersen, W Johnstone, JR McCall, WE Paterson, GH Hamblyn, FP Miller, W Phillips, EA Hammond, GE Coxon, WW Ogston, F Russell, IV Lowe, J Bruce, A Potts.

Also in 1921, Ernest John Niccol the nephew of George Turnbull Niccol  farming at Hikuai, was appointed to a Commission to inquire into and report on the kauri gum industry. Ernest was to remain in the valley farming for a few years until his retirement in Auckland.

The hills of Tairua Valley towering above Hikuai - photo Chris Ball October 2015

George Turnbull Niccol ( 1858 - 1940 )
As to George Turnbull Niccol , involvement with shipping companies and shipbuilding was continued. Managing Director  of the Kaipara Steamship Company and also prominently involved in the management of the Northern Steamship Company. Atua - his last vessel in 1932 - became the Northern Steam Ships Company's Waiotahi II. This also marked for Niccol, an end of the shipbuilding business, which was said to employ 80 in its heyday. Factors deciding this were Economic Depression Years, changed coastal transport with road and rail to the fore.

 Niccol died September 1940, leaving two married daughters - Beatrice Mavis Carr and Kathleen Jean Hanna. ( Kathleen Jean sister - in -  law of Phyllis Edith Hanna ( nee Macfarlane - my first cousin) His death marking an end of an era which was a significant part of the past NZ History.

Reference Source:
           UPPER TAIRUA  Thames Star,14 September 1912, Page 1
           THAMES COUNTY COUNCIL Ohinemuri Gazette, 8 March 1916, Page 4
           Page 3 Advertisements Column 4 Ohinemuri Gazette,17 January 1921, Page 3
           BALLOT FOR LAND. New Zealand Herald, 27 October 1921, Page 5






Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)