Notes taken during a visit to Mrs S.L. Simons (1975)

NOTES TAKEN DURING A VISIT TO MRS. S. L. SIMONS (née REBECCA V. GRABBE), 405 CAMERON ROAD, TAURANGA, on 16th July 1975.

Mrs. Simons' grandfather, Mr. George Alfred Crabbe, came to New Zealand early in 1864. His parents had a grocery business in Edgeware Road, London, but he became very restless when many of his friends enlisted to serve in the Crimea War. His short-sightedness prevented him from being accepted for service, but an opportunity to travel presented itself when he heard that some valuable pedigree sheep were being sent out to New South Wales, and he was given the job of caring for them on the long voyage out. His aim was to continue on to New Zealand after delivering the sheep in New South Wales; and this he did.

At Drury, he was accepted for service with the First Waikato Militia (who were enlisting businessmen in the hope that they would eventually wish to settle in the country) and was posted to Tauranga to take part in the Māori Wars. He was present at the Battle of Gate Pā, although he did not take an active role, since most of the militia remained stationed at the Brown Street camp, and others were placed at the rear of the Gate Pā battle site where they were not involved in the actual fighting. However, Mr. Crabbe did take an active part in the Battle of Te Ranga, which occurred six weeks later.

The First Waikato Militia remained in Tauranga, apart from a period when they were stationed in the Thames district, and Mr. Crabbe served with them until 1867. During this time, he was engaged, together with other soldiers, in building a stone jetty at the Mount, in Pilots Bay, between the end of the beach and Pilots Wharf, of which only a very little can still be discerned.

Meanwhile, his wife and young son came out to join him in Tauranga in 1865. Two sisters accompanied Mrs. Crabbe on the journey from England; one had been recently widowed and had gone into a decline. The doctor advised that only a sea voyage would save her. It did, in fact, bring her back to health, and, having settled in Auckland, she eventually married again, to the step-father of Mr. Johnny Walker, who started the pet shop in Queen Street.

In Tauranga, Mrs. Crabbe settled in with the other servicemen's families in the Brown Street camp. Here they lived in bell tents, in what must have been very difficult conditions. While Mr. Crabbe was absent in Thames, the little boy died, together with a number of other children, possibly from diphtheria. Archdeacon Brown buried him, but when the father returned to visit the grave in what was originally the Mission Cemetery but later became the Soldiers' Burial Ground, he was distressed to find no specially marked grave—as indeed seemed, for some reason, to be the practice then—and he refused to have any other member of his family buried there.

Mrs. George Crabbe bore another son, Charles, on 21st September 1866, while the family were still in the camp, and a girl was born four years later.

It was hoped that the men enlisted in the army would, on their discharge, wish to settle in the new country, and to encourage them to do this, they were granted pieces of land. Mrs. Simons' grandfather was given fifty acres at the top of McLaren’s Falls; he also bought other pieces of land as a speculation. In addition to a rural allotment, the soldiers were also granted a quarter-acre of town land, but strangely enough, Mr. Crabbe's allotment was in Ōpōtiki. He refused to take it up, requesting instead—and receiving—a quarter-acre in Sixth Avenue, near to Edgecumbe Road.

Here, Mr. Crabbe and his family built a home and started a shop. There were at that time only a few houses in the avenues, but apparently, the business did well.

One of Mr. Charles Crabbe's most vivid recollections of this period was of the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh to Tauranga in 1870. He was then only four years old, but he clearly remembered the excitement of running with his mother, his baby sister in her arms, up to the corner of Cameron Road to watch the Duke and his retinue pass by, all on horses and looking very gay and colourful in their uniforms. A crowd of people from Auckland also accompanied the Duke, so that it was a most impressive cavalcade. The horse the Duke was riding was a splendid animal, and in later years, Mr. Crabbe would remark on any horse that in the least way resembled it. The Duke and his party went on to Maketū and eventually to Rotorua.

The half-acre section on the corner of Cameron Road and Seventh Avenue was not taken up by the officer to whom it was allotted, and Mr. George Crabbe was advised to take it up, which he did, probably in the early 1870s. The shop that stands now on this section was built in 1877 by Mr. Conway, who built the Holy Trinity Church. It had two rooms upstairs, and there were living quarters at the back. The shop itself consisted of a grocery department and a drapery. Mr. Charles Crabbe took the shop over from his father in 1900, and Mr. George Crabbe died in 1905. The house now standing beside the shop, on the corner of the section, was built in the 1890s, also by Mr. Conway.

Mr. S. L. Simons eventually bought the property from Mr. Charles Crabbe, whose daughter Violet he had married. There was a large garden with many trees, including a chestnut and a walnut, and poplar trees marked the boundaries. A quarter-acre of the garden was later sold.

Regarding the Holy Trinity Church, Mrs. Simons' grandfather donated to it a harmonium, which, when new, would have cost about fifteen to eighteen pounds. This has now been replaced by a pipe organ, and Mrs. Simons has lent the harmonium to the museum. It is still in fine order. She mentioned that in earlier days, rents were paid for the pews in the church.

Mrs. Simons remembers travelling to Rotorua in the coach, with Mr. Amos McDuff as the driver. Another driver whose name she recollects was Mr. Charles Wilmott. The Halfway House at Ngawhāra was a large place, with about eight bedrooms for travellers.

Mrs. Simons showed us a photograph, which it is hoped to have copied, of the shop and house, dated about the 1890s. There was a post box in the front window. The newspapers were brought by horseback from the Bay of Plenty Times office (then next to the present Bank of New Zealand in Wharf Street) to the shop, where people would come to collect their copy. Mrs. Simons remembers that when the message came through that war was declared (1914), her father put big posters announcing the news in the shop window. The shop, and the pavement under the front verandah, was a favourite meeting place, especially during an election. In fact, people had the habit at all times of gathering there to talk and exchange news.

Mrs. Simons has an old and very interesting map, showing the town and district of Tauranga, dated "1866-1881." Unfortunately, it would be very difficult to have a copy made of it.

Mr. Charles Crabbe and his sister, as children, attended a school in Harington Street. Mrs. Simons herself attended the Tauranga Primary and District High School. Mr. Bowden and Mr. Law were headmasters whom she remembers, and Mr. Southey during that time was a young pupil teacher of Standard 2. Miss Fanny Taylor was teaching in the High School. Mr. Law did much to improve the school while he was headmaster, including beautifying the grounds by planting trees. Two holly trees were donated by Mrs. Simons' father. There were school picnics to the Mount, and functions of one sort or another at the Domain, and school concerts.

Mrs. Simons remembers that the girls at the school wore navy gym slips, white blouses, black stockings and shoes, a black and red tie, and a black and red band around their straw boaters. Dancing classes were run by Mrs. Jordan in the old Theatre Royal (where Guinness's Wholesale Liquor Store is now); Mrs. Hinks would play the piano.

Mrs. Simons well remembers the gas lights; electric light was installed, street by street, shortly before the First World War. During the war, she went about with Miss Allely (by the light of lanterns in the evenings). The latter was giving lectures and first aid demonstrations, and people would gather in different homes to knit balaclavas and tear up cloth for bandages. During the influenza epidemic, people were asked to queue up at certain points where they were given formalin to inhale, to prevent the spread of infection. Families who could were kept busy making soup for those that were sick.

The "Yorkshire Gray" was a licensed hotel on the west side of Cameron Road, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. It lost its licence about the end of the century and was then taken over as a private school, "Queen's College," of which Mr. Murphy was the headmaster, later to be followed by Mr. and Mrs. Coles. When the school closed, it was bought by Mr. Mountfort for a private residence.

Mrs. Simons would have liked to take up teaching, but as was the custom in those days, the older children were expected to follow their parents' course, and she had to help in the shop. However, she was able to start training in nursing in the 1920s, being a probationer with Nurse Chappell. Mrs. Chappell at first had a nursing home where the Plaza Shopping Mall is now. Later, she had built a house and nursing home just behind the place where the Waratah Garage is now on Cameron Road, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. (On the sign outside the nursing home was the name "The Palms," but Mrs. Simons recalls that some wit had changed the name to read "The Pains.")

In time, Mrs. Simons became fully qualified and started a nursing home of her own at the corner of Cameron Road and Eighth Avenue West. Her licence permitted her to take in four patients, but in fact, circumstances often obliged her to accept more. The nursing home was called "Launceston," and it operated from 1927 for well over twenty years. During part of that time, the Chappell nursing home and two or three others were also kept very busy. Then, the Annexe at the hospital was opened, which greatly relieved the situation.

It is interesting to note that Mrs. Simons' husband was the second man serving as a driver for the St. John Ambulance. As early as 1902, lectures and training were given in first aid and nursing, although it was not a properly organised service until much later.

In respect to Mrs. Simons' mother (née Rebecca Johnston), there are some interesting facts to record. The Johnston family came to New Zealand on the "Carisbrook Castle," travelling with Mr. George Vesey Stewart, and Rebecca Johnston was but a babe-in-arms at that time. In the re-enactment of the landing of this party of early settlers, performed as part of the Katikati Centennial Celebrations, the baby carried in the boat represented Mrs. Simons' mother.

The Johnston family settled in Katikati, buying land and engaging in farming. The eldest son set up a shop, known as the Pioneer Store. Although Miss Rebecca Johnston was a very clever pupil at school and would have liked to take up teaching, she was given no option but to help her brother in the shop when her school days were over. However, her parents eventually sold the Katikati farm and moved to Tauranga in the 1890s, buying a property on the east side of Cameron Road between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, next door to Canon Jordan's home. In time, Mr. Noble Johnston sold this property to Mr. H. H. Clemson, and part of the old homestead is still standing there today.

While Miss Johnston was helping her brother in the shop in Katikati, the husband of her sister in Dannevirke died, and Rebecca joined her mother in going to help in the post office and shop the couple had been running. On returning from Dannevirke, Rebecca went to Tauranga, not Katikati, and on 19th July 1899, married Mr. Charles Crabbe.

It is also of interest to learn that Mrs. Simons' husband's parents were among the first four families to buy land from Captain Crapp in Ōmokoroa. Their farm was the one on which Sir Keith Holyoake, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, had at one time lived as a child. One recollection, above many others of the Simons family, was the time-consuming necessity of having to use a rowing boat to come to town!