How many times have you been out and about and busting for a loo?
Well, Mary Josephine Player knew what it was like, so she did something about it.
Mary was a battler for better conditions for women. She advocated for factory workers and for a well appointed rest room in the middle of Wellington for women to use.
At the time, women had to use shop facilities - not always available or semi-private ones if someone would let them.
Mary Josephine Crampton was born in 1857 to Patrick Crampton and Mary O’Brien in County Kilkenny in Ireland.
She received a little schooling and at 16, signed on to come to New Zealand in 1874 as a general servant by assisted passage. She was one of many many girls who wanted a better life. They were also more likely to get married in New Zealand where men greatly outnumbered women.
And in 1877 she was married to Edward Player at St Mary of the Angels church.
Edward wasn’t wealthy but he was a hard worker, running a grocery store for a while and then became a milkman and then a signwriter.
Mary worked too, often as a midwife. She had a warm and generous nature and was often helping disadvantaged women.
She became a member of the Wellington Ladies’ Christian Association which ran a home for unmarried mothers , the Alexandra Home for Friendless Women.
In 1894 she found the Women’s Social and Political League and became its first president.
The league had lofty objectives 'to spread knowledge amongst the women of Wellington on the political questions of the day'. Its platform included the enactment of equitable laws affecting marriage, divorce and the custody of children; the adjustment of women's wages and their hours of labour, and the appointment of inspectors to monitor these; and the appointment of women to hospital boards, charitable aid boards and other public bodies.
In part, because of them, a women’s branch of the Department of Labour was set up.
Mary wasn’t universally popular and after a challenge to her leadership she set up the Women’s Democratic Union as a break away group. But here Mary’s lack of education and political experience left her ill equipped to deal with infighting. She resigned from the union.
Despite this she continued to try and improve working conditions for women - including the restrooms in Wellington for women.
Edward died in 1905 and Mary’s world fell apart. It left her and her children homeless - she had had seven.
She continued to take any work she could before moving to Nelson to live with her youngest daughter.
Mary died on January 5, 1924 with a coroner’s inquest saying it was suicide by drowning while suffering from mental depression caused by serious internal ailment.’
She is buried with her husband at Karori Cemetery.
Photo by Tim Mossholder.​

Dedication has seen kākāpō numbers in New Zealand now at their highest levels they have been in decades. And the chubby funny-faced parrots are delightful.
Their distinctive booming used to be heard throughout the bush.
But now imagine that same bird - but much much bigger. So big in fact it just about came up to your waist.
At the former gold and coal mining town of St Bathans (formerly Dunstan Creek) scientists have for years been excavating the bones of ancient birds and animals.
Among their discoveries was one of the biggest swans to have ever lived, a type of duck, and a raptor.
One of the biggest was Heracles Inexpectatus - the Hercules parrot.
Weighing about 7kg it lived about 20 million years ago. It was also, like its modern day cousin, flightless.
A research team in the Central Otago area have found up to 40 new species and unveiled the Hercules parrot in 2019.
The fossil layer is partly exposed around the St Bathans area. It is named after the Scottish border village of Abbey St Bathans by early surveyor John Turnbull Thomson whose surveying in the South Island saw the creation of whole towns.
He was born on August 10, 1821, in Northumberland, England to Alexander and his wife Janet. After his father died when he was young, he and his mother lived in Abbey St Bathans.
He studied engineering and his career took him to Singapore where he improved the water supply and made elaborate surveys of the Straits of Singapore, carried out repairs on the Coleman Bridge, as well as the architect and builder of the Horsburgh Lighthouse, the first bridge across Kallang River as well as other famous works.
He came to New Zealand in 1856 where he became Chief Surveyor of the Otago province and then Surveyor-General of New Zealand.
He travelled many miles on horse with little equipment, sketching as he went in a notebook. Many of those were later turned into oil paintings, creating many of early New Zealand, many of which are at the University of Otago Library Hocken Collection.
It was Thomson who was the original surveyor of Invercargill.
He named Mt Aspiring, Mt Pisa, the Lindis Pass and other rivers and features. Thomson produced the first map of the interior of Otago.
In October 1858 he married Jane Williamson and his descendants still live in the South Island.
Thomson also published a number of articles and six books, including one about his life as a surveyor in the East and in New Zealand.
He died in Invercargill on October 16, 1884, some months after suffering a stroke and is buried in Saint Johns Cemetery with a rather impressive monument.
Picture from the Birmingham Museums Trust.​

Henry Funcke was insane and it took a jury only 15 minutes to agree.
Angry at being denied what he wanted he pulled a gun and fired it, and although he wasn’t aiming, shot to death Constable Neil Mcleod.
Mcleod had been on board the steamer Minnie Casey with his wife and family heading to Auckland - he had recently been appointed there after being in charge of the Dargaville district.
Also on board was Henry Funcke, a gumdigger from Mangawhare. He had boarded at the very last whistle and was drunk.
And he was armed, very armed. Along with a gun, he had a revolver and a sheath knife.
Funcke entered the main cabin carrying the gun. He was loud and obnoxious and when another constable spoke to him, a tussle started.
The steamer - only just underway - returned to the dock and Funcke - minus his gun, was put ashore.
As the steamer pulled away Funcke shouted at it, wanting his gun. Then he pulled the revolver and fired at the steamer.
The first two shots went wild but the third struck McLeod through the heart.
A couple more shots fired hit the wall of the women’s cabin.
Despite getting help, McLeod had been killed outright.
And when armed men arrived, Funcke was found still on the wharf firing his revolver.
He looked as if he would fire on them but was shot instead.
After an inquest he was sent for trial.
Neil McLeod had been born on the Isle of Rona, Invernesshire on June 15, 1846 and come to New Zealand with his family in 1865. Initially the family went to the goldfields but Neil went to the Waikato where he joined the police.
He had been married twice, once to Rebecca Henry ( who died having their fifth child) and then to Elizabeth Williams.
He was the first police officer killed in the line of duty in New Zealand - his police number was 91.
Neil is buried at Waikumete Cemetery.
Funcke went to trial. It was not the first time he had been in front of a court, he had been arrested for breaking into a post office.
At trial the medical evidence that Funcke was insane was strong. So much so that the jury had no difficulty finding that conclusion.
Funcke was sent to an asylum where he lived out the rest of his days, dying in 1897. He is also buried in Waikumete Cemetery.​

​Mushroom poisoning has been in the news recently and in 1926 a possible case in Wellington was making the news.
Twenty five year old Ethel Pilkington, who had moved to Wellington from Akaroa, was found lying unconscious on the kitchen floor by the pantry door in a Severn Street house in Island Bay.
She had been staying with the family of her fiance, Arthur Preston who was awakened about 3am when she was found.
A doctor was hurriedly called who thought it was mushroom poisoning and gave her something to make her vomit but she died later that morning.
Uncertain what had killed her, an inquest was begun and she was examined by Dr P P Lynch (who we have written about before).
He was unable to find what killed her and when a witness at the inquest said she liked to eat raw mushrooms, the idea of mushroom poisoning rose again.
Lynch - who was always noted for his precise work - said he was unable to confirm that and would need to consider her stomach contents.
The inquest had to be adjourned as he went to find out.
By the time the inquest resumed several weeks later there was much more evidence. Ethel’s mother Mary Eleanor Pilkington was a widow. The pair, who only had each other, had recently moved from Christchurch to Wellington.
At the second hearing Mrs Pilkington said that earlier in the year Ethel had suffered a seizure and had since had several more. They were often like fainting spells and she was better after resting.
The doctor who had treated her then told the inquest that she was breathing heavily when found with some frothing from her mouth.
It was what Dr Lynch needed to know.
He had found nothing that indicated poisoning - and with the new evidence he was certain that she had died from asphyxia due to a seizure brought on by epilepsy.
It was not the only time mushroom poisoning made the news.
The most common poisoning comes from mistaking the poisonous death cap mushrooms for field mushrooms. But death caps are relatively recent, supposed to have come to New Zealand as spores on oak seedlings.
Native to Europe, they spread - often with humans as their method of moving - across the world, being identified in the Americas by about 1918 and one of the first mentions of them by name - a warning - in New Zealand was in 1966.
So the deaths of William Watkins in 1887 from mushrooms was a different species, as was the deaths of the three young children from the Hayes family in Mokai in 1916.
Ethel Pilkington is buried in Karori Cemetery.
Photo by Annie Spratt.

​In a strange twist of fate New Zealand Railways engine driver Angus Tait’s seemingly needless death from influenza during the pandemic in 1918 saved the lives of many passengers in a train crash - two days after he died.
While curious tales are part of our bread and butter, this is one of the strangest we have come across.
Angus McMillan Tait was born on 5 January 1885 in Herbert, Otago to John Tait and his wife Sarah McMillan. He married Lucy Wansbone in 1908 and, with his job for the railways, the couple and their children moved around New Zealand.
In 1918, while living in Ohakune Junction, Tait contracted the dreaded “Spanish Flu”. He died on 6 November.
Arrangements were made for Tait’s body to be taken to Oamaru for burial.
A mortuary car was hitched behind the engine of the Auckland to Wellington Express train and his coffin was loaded up in the early hours of 8 November.
Behind this was the mail car in which postal employees John Hercules Williams, 31, and Raymond Martin, 30, were sorting post.
Hitched to the mail car was a second-class smoker carriage in which 78-year-old Henry Welch was happily puffing away his time, and the car behind this was a second-class passenger, which carried several people, including Whanganui blacksmith Francis James Johnston, 44.
This was then followed by several other passenger cars.
As the express travelled south through rolling farmland, rain poured steadily down. At about 6.20am the train rounded a bend just north of Mataroa and the engine ploughed headlong into a massive slip which had fallen onto the tracks.
The mortuary car, the mail car and two subsequent passenger cars were smashed to pieces. Williams and Martin were killed instantly.
Welch suffered severe injuries. On being informed he probably would not survive, he asked for a cigarette, which the doctor kindly provided. He died while it was still lit.
Johnston died the following day.
Reports after the crash pointed out that without Tait’s mortuary car to buffer the impact of the crash, the death toll would have been much higher.
Amazingly, Tait’s coffin was thrown from the car on impact and was recovered from a nearby gully completely intact. It was transported to Oamaru, where he was buried on 11 November.
Now you might think this is the end of this curious tale, but it’s not.
Seven months after Tait’s death, his wife Lucy gave birth to a son, whom she named Angus McMillan Tait, after his father. If you live in Christchurch, or work in IT, you may be thinking the name Angus McMillan Tait may ring a bell – and you’d be right.
Angus Tait, junior, founded Tait Electronics, one of New Zealand’s largest and most important radio communications companies. The company, now Tait Communications, is a global brand. Angus junior was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1992 and a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (for services to technology, manufacturing and export) in 1999. Sir Angus died in 2007.

What’s the difference between a bull and a lawyer?   
A lawyer charges more.
I’m sure we have all heard lawyer jokes - there are plenty around.  Despite the jokes, everyone wants a lawyer on their side when there is trouble.
The first lawyer in New Zealand was Richard Davies Hanson, who stepped off the boat in Wellington, New Zealand in 1840 and the law firm he founded is still going today.
Hanson was born December 6, 1805, in London, the second son of Benjamin, a fruit merchant who nevertheless managed to have Richard go to a private school, and Elizabeth.  He was admitted as a solicitor in 1828, practising in London where he became a pupil of Edward Gibbon Wakefield.
After working in Canada, he came to New Zealand having been appointed by the New Zealand company to draft legal documents and seek investors.
He came to New Zealand aboard the Cuba.  A bit of a rebel, he helped colonists organise protests against the company’s delay in making land available. It ended with a ruling that  the company's land agreements with Maori chiefs should be confined to blocks of 100,000 acres (40,469 ha) in which individual settlers were to select their sections.
 He worked as a Crown prosecutor and set up a law firm with Robert Hart and Patrick Buckley  - who went on to the Supreme Court.
Hart went on to become a politician and Hanson went to Australia.  
The firm went on to be called Hart and Buckley then after being joined by Charles Treadwell, the name underwent several changes over the years as it merged with other firms before being known just as Treadwell’s - with its home in Panama Street in Wellington having been its offices for over 100 years before it moved to its current offices in Johnston Street.
In Australia Hanson served as Advocate General and Attorney General, then became Premier from 1857.  Later he became the Chief Justice..
He married Ann Scanlon in 1851 and was knighted in 1869.
Hanson died on March 4, 1976 and is buried in West Terrace Cemetery in Adelaide.

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Screeds have been written about the voyages of the well to do immigrants who came out of New Zealand seeing the new country as a land of promise.
But few of those from the working class detailed their passage to New Zealand - not all could write and a great many never thought to do so.
But the detailed diary and letters of one, Jessie Campbell, gave an extraordinary insight into a months-long trip from the Old Country, to a new land.
There was a huge movement to bring people to New Zealand.  Workers were desperately needed.    Advertisements were run and people urged - even paid - to come to New Zealand to work.  Many were promised land.
Jessie Campbell was born in 1807 to John and Louisa Cameron in Inverness, Scotland.   She married Moses Campbell (from Perthshire) when she was 20.
 In 1840, the family boarded the Blenheim headed for New Zealand along with their five young children.
Jessie wrote about the voyage, both in a journal and in letters to friends back in Scotland.
She painted a picture of a bland diet (even though the Campbells took their own food supply in the form of live animals), of the separation of people - married couples with young children often in one bunk while older children were kept separate.  Single women in particular were overseen by a matron.
Washing day on the ship was a Sunday, everyone was herded (weather permitting) on to the deck to wash clothes and themselves.  Food and water was allocated every day - and while often it was bland rice and potatoes, seemed to be plentiful.
Sickness was everywhere.  Doctors were employed to check those embarking but often whole families with contagious illnesses got on board.  Doctors were paid per passenger that survived.  
Children were often born on board but just as often died.    Indeed, Jessie’s daughter Isabella died during the trip.
Jessie and her family landed in Wellington only to discover the land they were promised was actually in Whanganui but was still being surveyed. 
The journal of the journey ended with a comment on Wellington’s weather, 
`The climate would be delightful but for the high winds which prevail'.
 It took nearly a year for the family to be able to take another ship to Whanganui and eventually end up on the land they wanted near Lake Wiritoa.  
It was Jessie who realised that rather than finding work, her husband and her cousin John Cameron should farm.   Jessie herself supplemented the family income from her own dairy produce by making cheese.  Cash was rare and bartering was more common.
The pair had four sons and three daughters 
Jessie Campbell died on October 18, 1885, aged 77 of bronchitis and is buried in the Heads Road cemetery.
She was the great grandmother of celebrated New Zealand composer Douglas Lilburn, who was born on the family farm.
Picture by Marcos Paulo Prado.

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With the mysterious loss of the ship Glenmark went a king’s ransom in gold - all from New Zealand.
The Glenmark had made the round trip from England to New Zealand eight times, bringing immigrants out and taking back goods.  She made her first voyage in 1864 and was one of the fastest ships - making the trip in 83 days.  She had been built in an Aberdeen shipyard especially for the New Zealand trip.
The ship was initially captained by John Thomson, a weak grumpy man,who was eventually replaced after several dangerous incidents.
Plushly appointed, it had first and second class cabins (although passengers had to bring their own furniture) and a concert hall with two pianos.
Immigrants travelled in relative luxury - compared to those on other ships - and arrived quicker.  The ship still suffered from the usual complaints - like disease, but it was often in the newspapers when she arrived so the public could go and view her.
On February 1, 1872, the Glenmark left Lyttelton carrying 50 passengers and filled to the brim with wool, sheepskins and £80,000 in colonial gold.
In today’s money that's well over $1.5 billion.
The Captain was now Lieutenant Richard Wrankworth, born in Cape Town and with a good reputation after having been in the merchant navy his whole working life.
He had gained his master’s certificate in 1851.
The Glenmark set sail with no issues.  But after 154 days with no mention of her arriving, concerns grew about her fate.
Two other ships had left Lyttelton about the same time, the Robert Henderson and the Natal Queen, whose captain wrote that something must be very wrong.
He had also noted the very bad weather off the Falklands and rumours of a ship foundering.
Another ship, the Sir Humphrey Davies, had left Sydney for England shortly before the Glenmark left New Zealand.    It encountered a cyclone and on the second day of the storm came across a debris field in the ocean.
The storm prevented them from examining the debris.
After a year there was no hope.  The Glenmark was lost with all hands.
The watery grave of all on board is unknown to this day.
Photo by Jingming Pan.

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Wellington’s beautiful Oriental Bay has a glowing beach, wonderful harbour views and pricy homes.
But would it be quite so flash if it was called Duppa Bay?  Which it was originally.
It was all because of the first European resident George Duppa.
George Duppa was born in 1819 in Maidstone in Kent to Baldwin Duppa and his wife Mary.
In 1839, he purchased eight properties in Wellington for £800 from the New Zealand Company in London and at 21-years-old set off across the world.
On arriving in Wellington on January 1, 1840 - then Port Nicholson - he found, like a lot of others, that the surveying had not been done and he could not have the land.  In fact it was in the Wairarapa, on land that had not yet been purchased from the local Iwi.
After an initial attempt to clear land in the Hutt he was defeated by a flood, an earthquake, then a fire.
So he moved to what would become Oriental Bay and built a house.  He had had the prefabricated home brought out from England.  It sat just below where the monastery is now.
He was the only one there - the area was considered a dreary looking spot that was only used as a quarantine area  with a tent and a nurse on the beach and whalers.
In 1841, his brother Bryan suggested a second settlement to the New Zealand Company.  It would go on to become Nelson.  George was requested to go with a ship to report on the area.
Meanwhile George could not get his land in Wellington recognised so opted to leave.
He imported cattle from Australia and squatted on unoccupied land at Allington in the Wai-iti valley.
George was also granted 200 acres in the Waimea and an 8000 run in the Upper Wairua Valley  then granted the lease of part of the Lower Peaks country forming the foundation of the St Leonards station.
He wasn’t, however, always a good guy. He encouraged his sheep to graze on neighbours land as well as avoiding paying his annual dues to the Commissioner of Crown Lands along with an attempt to defraud Robert Ross, the manager at St Leonards.
In 1862, he sold St Leonards for a huge amount and returned to England and bought back his ancestral home in Kent.  That gave him the life of a country squire.  He married society beauty Alice Catherine with whom he had a son.
George was considered one of the first men to have made his fortune in New Zealand.
He died on January 5, 1888 and is buried at the All Saints graveyard in Kent.
And Oriental Bay ended up with the name because the Oriental was the ship George arrived in.   Duppa Street in Berhampore is named for him.

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