Tom Muir, 1912-1999

Thomas Richard Muir (Tom) was born at Thames in 1912, the son of Robert Henry Muir and Sarah Maude Muir, née Allely, whose family was associated with Tauranga. After spending part of his childhood in Auckland and Ōhura, he worked briefly for the Post and Telegraph Department before joining New Zealand Railways as an apprentice in 1928. He completed his engineering apprenticeship, and was grateful to remain employed while many others lost jobs during the Depression. He worked in railway workshops and the department’s Wellington head office. During the Second World War he served in the South Pacific instructing servicemen and on returning to New Zealand, resumed working at the railways before deciding to enter teaching. He completed a one-year specialist teacher-training course in Auckland in 1946 and was appointed to Tauranga College on 1 February 1947 as a technical teacher. The recently established co-educational college had about 250–300 pupils, a small staff and limited facilities. He taught metalwork, engineering and technical drawing, mathematics and general science, and helped senior pupils construct and equip the school’s first metalwork room.

He also taught evening classes for apprentices and later became head of engineering, supervising technical classes and apprenticeship training. He remained on the same site as Tauranga College expanded and became Tauranga Boys’ College after Tauranga Girls’ College opened in 1956. For about twenty years he commanded the college cadet unit, which grew to battalion strength, and he assisted with athletics, swimming, musical productions and stage construction.

He also served in the Territorial Force, becoming officer in charge of the 51st Light Battery, and sat on a national cadet advisory committee. In 1965 Muir became foundation chairman of the committee campaigning for a community college in Tauranga, an institution that developed into the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic. He continued pressing for its establishment despite political and administrative resistance and later regarded the campaign as one of his greatest challenges.

He retired in either 1971 or 1972.

His community service included twenty-five years as secretary of the Gate Pā Domain Board, membership and a term as president of the Tauranga Rotary Club, foundation membership of Equity Workshops—later Avalon at Te Puna—and service with apprenticeship committees, the Kaimāī Youth Camp Society, the Bay of Plenty Officers’ Club and Tauranga theatrical organisations. He built scenery and stage equipment for school, choral and operatic productions and was secretary of the committee responsible for the 1964 Gate Pā centenary. Muir married Winifred May McDonald and they had two children.

He received the Queen’s Service Medal for public services in 1982. He died at his Tauranga home on 3 October 1999, aged 87.