Tawa Historical Society Incorporated

The Tawa Historian

Newsletter #27 – December 2011

Best of Tawa Vol 3 should appear in the first half of 2012, completing the trilogy which makes public the serial work written over five months in 1914 by Elsdon Best, and which appeared in the Canterbury Times almost 100 years ago. It will conclude one of the best descriptions of life in this district as found by both Maori and by settlers.
Tawa History Week will be different, we hope, from those of previous years. We have made application to the Wellington City Council for funding from the Tawa Community Grants to cover the costs of reproducing 50 historic maps and photographs of Tawa Flat, and of having them mounted. We have applied for the grant because this exhibition is exclusively a service to the public, and will not generate any income for us. We are delighted that both New Zealand Micrographic Services (who will reproduce the maps and photos in A3 size) and Frame It (who will mount them), have offered generous discounts to us for this project. These two Tawa firms have come up trumps. Support them if you can! THS will provide written commentaries for each of the 50 exhibits.
Our plans are for the exhibition to be held in the Tawa Library, from 5 to 15 June 2012, so it will be a Tawa History Fortnight rather than a week! However much depends on our being able to finance the venture without over committing ourselves.
We have considered possible new publications for 2012 and beyond. Booklets featuring the Tawa Town Hall and the old Mexted farmhouse now in Rewa Terrace are being steadily worked on. Enough material has now been gathered by Mike Steer to seriously consider a booklet on the golf course, the Ranui Golf Club, which existed in Tawa Flat from 1923 to 1929. A booklet to give advice and direction to those who wish to walk along the Old Porirua Road from Takapu Station to Wall Street in Linden is another publishing possibility.
Willowbank Park is another area of interest to us, and we are working with the WCC to see the erection of an information board in the Park. The Park and the area surrounding it is full of historical interest, and we may consider a book or booklet about this area. It has Maori connections; gave the name to Takapu Valley; and saw two railway tracks built on either side of it, one in the mid-1880s, and the other in the mid-1930s. The park is a small part of the original farm of William and Elizabeth Earp, and contains the remnant of ther original farm orchard. The Bucket tree, planted by the Earps in the mid-1860s, is a Tawa icon. Nearby stood McCoy’s Stockade, built to protect those, Maori and pakeha, who were building the Porirua Road in 1846-47. More recently, Arohata Borstal was built nearby in 1944.
The Tawa Railway Station renovation continues to interest us, and Phil Harland, Pat Waite and David Parsons are taking a special interest in this possibility. We understand that there will be a public meeting on this matter in March 2012 to ascertain the level of public support for such a renovation.
The AGM of the Tawa Historical Society will be held on Monday 27 August 2012. The date of the meeting has been brought forward a week from the first week in September to allow us to meet the requirements of our Constitution. We will also host a Members’ Meeting on Monday 19 March 2012, to brief members on our aims for 2012, and our direction beyond that. We would welcome your feed back and comments at that time. We are looking to get an interesting guest speaker for this meeting.
The Tawa (Flat) Historical Calendar has been a pretty successful venture. We initially printed 100, and they sold out quite quickly. We printed another 40, and after running a stall on the footpath outside the Lotto shop on Saturday last, they have now also been sold. All we are left with are 7 of the 8 Calendars that Karol de Raad, our printer, had as an overrun, and which he kindly gave us to sell. So if you want a Calendar, ‘be in quick’ at the Library!!