Charles Carrington Southey, 1889-1976

Charles Carrington Southey (1889–1976) was a New Zealand educator and soldier. Born in Hāwera, he was the great-grandson of poet Robert Southey. He attended Greerton Primary, became a pupil teacher at Tauranga Primary, and later trained at Auckland Teachers’ College and Auckland University College.

By 1913, he was headmaster of Paengaroa School. In August 1914, he was still teaching there when war broke out. He tried to enlist in October but was rejected for medical reasons. In March 1916, he was accepted, initially joining the Auckland Mounted Rifles before transferring to the New Zealand Cyclist Corps.

He served in France, where the Cyclist Corps laid signal cables, built roads, and assisted in battlefield communication. In June 1917, he helped construct a track across no man’s land at the Battle of Messines. At Passchendaele in October, he maintained frontline signal lines under fire, earning the Military Medal. Later, near Valenciennes in 1918, he was awarded the Military Cross.

After the war, he returned to teaching, resuming his role at Paengaroa School before moving to Whakatāne School in the early 1930s. In 1942, he became headmaster of Tauranga District High School. When Tauranga College was established in 1946, he became its first headmaster. During World War II, he also served as a temporary Captain in the school’s cadet corps.

Outside education, he was an active member of the Tauranga Historical Society, writing extensively about the region’s past. His contributions were recognized with the naming of Southey Field in his honour.

During the Second World War, he recorded a speech for his students, quoting Lord Rosebery (Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery), a British statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1894 to 1895. The recording is preserved online: https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/74838

He married Betty Harding, and they had four children. He died in Tauranga on June 19, 1976.

"Boys and girls,

I'm going to read to you something that was written by a British statesman, Lord Rosebery, many years ago—long before the First World War—but which is as true today as it was when it was first written.

I hope that it will be, as he himself expresses it, an inspiration to you, as it has been to me.

It is entitled The Union Jack.

What does this flag stand for?
Of course, it stands for the British Empire.

But it is because it stands for justice, liberty, and Christianity that we honour this flag.

It is not a thing simply to hang up and look at, or to watch waving in the wind.

You boys may have to fight for it someday.

Some of you may become soldiers, but whether you are soldiers or not, you may be invaded.

God grant that it be not so, and then every one of you would have to do something to defend your country.

The flag also represents to you a great honour and a great privilege.

It reminds you that you are citizens of no mean city.

Do you know what an inspiration is?

It is something that seems to come from above—higher and better than yourself.

And I want you, when you see this flag waving, to let it be an inspiration to you.

If any of you, at any time, should be tempted—as we all are tempted—to do something mean or base, or cowardly, look up at that flag, and remember me."