 Nearly everyone will have used a Hansells product. Remember Jungle Juice?
You probably have one in your kitchen right now. Check the baking soda, or food flavourings. It is still operating after 88 years - at the same Masterton premises where it was opened in 1934. The man behind it was Leslie Beauchamp Maunsell, son of John Frederick Maunsell (whose father Robert came from Ireland with his wife Susan in 1835) and Emma. Maunsell was born August 18, 1835, in Tinui, Wairarapa and enlisted when World War One broke out. In 1916 he was reported as having been gassed and taken to an Italian hospital where he recovered. Later that same year he was shot in the chest while in action in France. He received the Military cross for bravery. He met and married Catherine Jane Martyn-Johns in Sussex in 1917. He recovered enough from his wounds to return to light military duty. Back in Masterton he co-founded a company with a chemist only known by the name Hansen. They combined their names to make Hansells. Initially they were making experimental products in a chicken shed on the property with the first products being culinary essences. Many of the brands were household names: Vitafresh, Thriftee, King Traditional Soup, Sugromax, Sucaryl, Hansells and Kings. It was best known for flavour essences, but other products include food colouring, gravy browning, drinking chocolate, drink powders, pancake mixes, baking goods and mousse. The factory was also the family property and staff - who bottled and packaged many of the well known products - were also considered family. Sports were often played on the ground and weddings of staff were held there. Hansells and its various brands were acquired by Old Fashioned Foods Group in 2006. Maunsell died August 18, 1953 and is buried in the Masterton Archer St cemetery. And what about the chemist Hansen? Well, the rumour was that he was wanted in Australia for bigamy so left the company in the early days. Without a first name it's hard to track him but a newspaper article in The Brisbane Telegraph from 1937 lists a Joseph Nichol Peter Hansen, 42 as having appeared in court charged with being married to two women at once. He appears to vanish from sight after that.
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 The iconic Norfolk pines on Napier’s Marine Parade were the brainchild of mayor George Henry Swan.
He had a vision for Marine Parade after many, many years of problems with the ocean, pounding right up to houses and storms sweeping away anything on the foreshore. Planting began in 1888 and originally there were 82 of the trees which now tower over the parade. The trees, as well as being decorative, had a purpose - they were designed to stop sea spray coming from the ocean. Many also had benches built around them for walkers. The 1931 earthquake changed the foreshore, raising it considerably and altering the development that would be done. Now work would not have to compete with the encroaching sea. The seawall had already been built by the time the earthquake hit but now the land beyond the seawall could be reclaimed. The gardens and rock gardens were the first to be completed and later things like the Soundshell - and much later - in 1954 - the equally iconic statue of Pania. The trees of course survived the earthquake and even now drivers travel beneath the shade of the massive trees. Swan had been born in 1833, in Sunderland, England, and went to Australia in 1854 before settling in New Zealand in 1857. He had initially trained as a chemist but became interested in photography. Arriving in Wellington he became a photographer then moved to Napier where he opened a studio which continued until 1870 when he sold it to his assistant. He then became a large shareholder and managing director of the Hawke’s Bay Brewing company and in 1869, it purchased the White Swan Brewery in Hastings which he ran for many years. He became Mayor of Napier in 1885 and served until 1901 (at the time being the longest serving mayor in New Zealand). As mayor, he started process for the public salt-water swimming baths as well as the changes to Marine Parade. He was also chairman of the Napier Hospital Board, and of the Hawke's Bay United Charitable Aid Board for many years, and a member of the Napier Harbour Board for seventeen years. He represented Napier in the House of Representatives from 1890 to 1893. Swan married actress Frances Stopher in 1884. There is a bust and plaque in the wall of the pool on Marine Parade dedicated to Swan. He died in Whanganui on July 25, 1913 and is buried at the Old Public Cemetery in Whanganui.  This is an unusual grave story. For a start it's not about a person - although a whole generation of kiwi kids might disagree.
It’s about beloved icons whose incredible story is so full of twists and turns it’s a little hard to believe. Every day in the afternoon a distinctive television show’s theme began to air. “Here's a house. Here's a door. Windows: one, two, three, four. Ready to knock. Turn the lock. It's Play School!” Yes, we are talking about Big Ted, Little Ted, Jemima, Manu and Humpty. For nearly all of them this ‘grave story’ ends with those beloved characters safely stored at New Zealand’s national museum Te Papa. But for Little Ted it’s a far more dark sinister tale, full of plot twists. Little Ted - or at least a bit of him - is at the Otago Settlers Museum. His body in fact. It’s charred and decapitated. And there is no trace of his head. So what hideous crime allowed this to happen? On the final day of filming of the show in New Zealand, the crew were playing pranks. Among them was stuffing Little Ted’s head with explosives. Before there are too many gasps of dismay - this version of Little Ted was an old, already retired one. Several were always kept on hand so that no one version got too worn out. Predictably the head got blown off and for many years tales were told about what happened to it. But in 2009 a phone call to a reporter came from a man who claimed he had the head. He refused to give further details and it wasn’t until years later that another investigation by another reporter tracked down a man who claimed he had the head. (There is no way of knowing if it was the same man both times). And he got a result. This time a photo of a little bear head was sent to the reporter along with a newspaper of the day as “proof of life.” As it happens several searches for any of the other versions of Little Ted to preserve him have come up with nothing - or at least nothing public. So the beheaded version is apparently the only one of the original left. Where the head will end up is anyone’s guess.  New Zealand has some of the strangest creatures on earth. From flightless birds to the prehistoric looking weta.
And one of the freakiest is the giant carnivorous snail. Considered endangered, it’s unlikely they get noticed. To a nation of gardeners, snails are the enemy, but these native wonders aren’t eating your cabbages. They’re eating your earthworms, sucking them up like strands of spaghetti. There are 16 species and 57 subspecies. A small colony even lives in the Wellington suburb of Khandallah. Reaching up to 9cm, they are considerably bigger than the average snail and can live to the 20-year mark. Legally protected but not cute or quirky like other endangered NZ species, their conservation has been haphazard. The Powelliphanta genus of snails is named for the New Zealand scientist Arthur William Baden Powell, born on April 4, 1901 in Wellington, to Arthur Powell and Minne Sablofski. Powell was educated in Auckland. After a printing apprenticeship and being a commercial artist, he became absorbed by shells, beginning his lifelong passion of conchology. By age 20, he had published his first paper on mollusca and by 29 was appointed to the Auckland War Memorial Museum as conchologist and palaeontologist. Snails were a specialty, including giant flax snails and the tiny rissoid sea snails. He used his art to good effect, with beautiful illustrations. During his trip on the British research ship Discovery II around the Northland coast he revealed 128 new species in 1937 and in 1940 another 66. He also conducted studies at Stewart Island, the Chathams and the Kermadecs. Over his lifetime he named hundreds of species (over 800) and created exhibitions for the museum. He received an honorary science doctorate and only six years before he died was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to marine science. He married Isabel Essie Gittos on December 19, 1928 and they had a son. She died in 1976. He remarried two years later, Ida Madoline Worthy. Powell died on July 1, 1987 and was cremated and his remains interred at Purewa Cemetery. Photo of snail from the Te Papa collection.  When Queen Elizabeth II bit into the red apple, it was immediately clear she liked it. She asked for more.
The apple was a variant of the most famous New Zealand apple ever and that moment with Her Majesty gave it its name. Royal Gala. While it was missionary Samuel Marsden who bought and planted the first apple trees in the country, it was James Hutton Kidd who is directly responsible for the variety of apples we know and love today. Born on September 12, 1877, in Northumberland, England to James and Harriet, the family emigrated to New Zealand when he was a child, starting out in Christchurch before heading to Whanganui. Known as Hutton (rather than James) he trained in horticultural work before becoming interested in orcharding. He and his brother Wilfred set up small orchards. In 1906 he moved to Greytown, initially buying a five-acre-block before expanding it into 20 acres and in 1916 married Ethel Laura (Lola) Gilbert. They had no children. He began experimenting with new techniques in growing apples and advocated research into disease prevention - supporting the establishment of the then DSIR Plant Diseases Division. But what was to make him iconic was the recognition of the need for new varieties of apple. Unsatisfied with the flavour of new varieties on the market - mainly from America, he began a breeding programme. He kept diligent records and had success with a cross pollination of Delicious with Cox’s Orange Pippin. Called Delco, he sold the propagation rights to a nursery. But the apple that would become synonymous with his name came after his death. Before he died he transferred seedings from his apple-breeding programme to the DSIR to be evaluated. By 1950 there were a couple of varieties viable but one stood out. It was sent for trials in Havelock North and was declared outstanding. The Gala. It was released on to the market in the 1960’s and quickly became one of the world’s most popular apples. Its red variant is the one we know as the Royal Gala today, given the name after its approval by Queen Elizabeth II. Kidd died October 12, 1945 and is buried in Greytown Cemetery. With great sadness for a great woman. RIP Your Majesty.  The invention of instant coffee, dissolvable in hot water, was credited to a Japanese chemist working in Chicago in 1901.
Turns out, it was a Kiwi - more 10 years earlier. David Strang, who owned a coffee and spice works factory in Invercargill, applied (and got) a patent for soluble coffee powder in 1889 under the name Strang’s Coffee. But until recently it was a barely known fact until the Historic Places Trust registered the house owned by one of his sons, James. Strang was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1847, and one of his first jobs was in a coffee warehouse. He was only 16 when he boarded the Barwood to come to New Zealand in 1863, landing in Bluff. He worked in several trades until in 1872 he established a coffee factory in Esk Street, Invercargill. The business grew quickly, expanding into other foods including spices sold around New Zealand and Fiji. Strang’s products began winning awards around the country and in Australia. In 1889, he applied for the patent for soluble coffee, the first of its kind in the world and began selling it. With sharp marketing in mind, he sent samples to newspapers to get the word out. The Otago Daily Times reviewed the substance: "Strang's soluble coffee powder requires no boiling, but is made instantly with boiling water. Then, again, it can be made in a breakfast cup and requires neither the use of pots nor the employment of experienced cooks." He was also one of the first people to successfully claim a patent under New Zealand law. He said he used a ‘dry hot air’ process to make it, essentially blowing hot air over liquid coffee until it reduced to a solid. Strang also filed patents for a "coffee-roasting apparatus of novel design" and Strang's Eclipse Hot Air Grain Dryer. He was also credited with making mocha. He married Mary Jane Ramsey in 1877 and they had five sons and six daughters. Strang died aged 69 on July 19, 1916 and is buried in Eastern Cemetery in Invercargill with his wife  How much do New Zealanders love their pies? And coffee? And chocolate fish?
Well, while Richard Hudson did not invent any of those things, he is the one the men behind these things being as popular as they are. Richard Hudson was born Daniel Richard Bullock in 1841 in Chippenham, Wiltshire, England to John and Susan Bullock. By the age of nine he had been orphaned. He originally worked in a locomotive and carriage building business before going to sea as a cabin boy. He came to New Zealand in 1865, landing in Lyttelton where he learned to bake under the eye of John Griffin. After a short stint trying his hand in the gold fields he ended up in Dunedin in 1868, where he worked as a pastry cook. He would take his biscuits down to the docks to sell and his reputation spread. He married Mary Ann Riley in 1868 and they had eight children. Several of the children had the surname Hudson-Bullock but in 1874 Bullock was dropped altogether along with his first name. In 1884, he opened the first chocolate manufacturer in Moray Place. After a trip to Europe in 1885, where he saw the technical advances, he brought them back to New Zealand. He launched a biscuit, cake and confectionary bakehouse. He is believed to be the first trader to sell a pie and a cup of coffee for sixpence. Hudson was one of the richest men in Dunedin and Hudson’s had become a household name. Remember Cookie Bear - well that was Hudson’s. The factory was on a block of land bounded by Cumberland and Castle Streets. Hudson was an innovator and a firm advocate of the eight-hour working day. He also banned working on Saturday afternoons. In 1930, Hudson’s merged with Cadbury’s. While it can’t be said definitively that Hudson was behind the chocolate fish - excavation of the old factory unearthed a chocolate fish mould. The first mention of chocolate fish was in the Feilding Star in 1926 when a sweet shop in Whanganui was burgled. Tooth marks were found in the chocolate fish. The little marks seemed to be from children. Hudson died April 10, 1903, aged 61, and was buried in Dunedin’s Northern Cemetery. He had said he wanted no memorial - so there is no headstone on his grave, however it is surrounded by a beautiful cast iron fence.  Most Wellingtonians have a memory of the great department store Kirkcaldie and Stains, at the centre of Lambton Quay. For me it was the magical Christmas windows. For others it might have been the legendary sales (which were held twice a year since 1887), having the doorman usher you inside or the ritual of tea in the second floor tea shop. Kirkcaldies closed in 2016 and David Jones took over with a similar type of shop. From tomorrow even that is gone, and with it, a type of store that barely exists anymore. John Kirkcaldie and Robert Stains started the store in 1863. Both men knew parts of the sales industry, Kirkcaldie as a draper and Stains who was a retailer. Kirkcaldie was born in 1838 in Fifeshire, Scotland and apprenticed to a draper before moving first to Dublin then London. In 1861 he emigrated to Australia where he met Englishman Robert Stains in Sydney. They recognised a need for such a store in the fledgling city of Wellington. With £700 of capital (a king's ransom in those days) they opened the first store - although it was in a different spot on Lambton Quay, where the Old Bank Arcade is now. Indeed, part of the shop was built from the timbers of the wrecked ship known as Plimmer’s Ark. The shop moved to the corner of Lambton Quay and Brandon Street in 1868 and reigned over the middle of Wellington’s retail district. It was known for its high quality products and exceptional service. The three storey shop we know today was built in 1909 - 1910 on the site that had held the original store, which even now shows the Italianate style it was known for. Whole generations of families have shopped for years at Kirks as the shop was affectionately known. Its history includes numerous fires (although nothing that destroyed the store), an attempted murder in the tea rooms - we have previously told that story - a Bechstein grand piano on the stairwell - playing for the customers. It has survived wars, depressions and earthquakes. Kirkcaldie married Stains’ cousin Mary Anne Hall and had eight children. Stains himself returned to England where he died in 1912. Kirkcaldie left his chairmanship of the shop in 1918 then as a director in 1919. In September 1920 he and Mary celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in the shop’s famous tearooms. Kirkcaldie died on October 3, 1925, and is buried in Karori Cemetery. Do you have a favourite memory of the beautiful shop? Photo from Te Papa's collection.   Which was your favourite? Jelly tip? Trumpet? Rocky Road?
They were some of the Tip Top flavours of our childhoods. And we admit we still love them today. So where did they begin? In 1936, Len Malaghan and his wife Ann opened a store specialising in milkshakes and ice creams on Wellington’s Manners St. The Home of Tip Top ice cream. And was so successful that within months they had a string of stores. Leonard Aloysius Patrick Malaghan was born in Queenstown on February 18, 1906, the son of Patrick and Nellie. He is now better known as the man the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research is named after. He had Hodgkin’s disease, which he died of in 1967 and his wife Ann donated £200,000 of shares of the company to the Wellington Medical Research Foundation. The gift was used to establish what is now the Institute. As a young man Len was a cheese and butter maker at the Tapanui Co-Operative Dairy Factory. He was qualified to become a manager at 20 but was considered too young. Instead, he was given the opportunity to train under a visiting ice cream manufacturer from the US. Ice cream became a passion and he created his own recipe. While he opened the store with his wife, he and his friend Albert Hayman (a customer of his ice cream) created the company. By 1949 they had a fleet of refrigerated trucks with the iconic Tip Top signage on them. It was in the 1950’s that they started making the ice creams on a stick that we all remember. The first was the Topsy (rumoured to be named after Len’s favourite cow) - a simple chocolate coated vanilla ice cream. Then, in 1953 a factory was opened in Johnsonville. The Eskimo pie was launched in 1954 then the Strawberry Toppa. The Wellington and Auckland arms were initially separate but in 1960 they merged, becoming General Foods Corporation with Len as the managing director. The Trumpet launched in 1964 before the company was bought by Watties. Popsicles didn't come about until the 1970s. Remember them? The Popsicle band where each flavour represented a different rocker. It was in 1985 that one of the most famous ads in New Zealand aired featuring a 16-year-old Rachel Hunter and a trumpet. Since then collaborations with Whittaker’s chocolate have been massively popular. He died at his Khandallah home on December 25, 1967 and his legacy is proudly carried on by his family today. He is buried in the Queenstown Cemetery, along with his wife. Which Tip Top product was your favourite? (The photo shoot for this post was brutal. All the proceeds have been eaten.) No one watching William Henry Broome walk the streets of New Plymouth - exceedingly dapper in his three piece suits and hat - would think he was the inventor of one of New Zealand’s most iconic pieces of rugged clothing.
Broome was born in Leek, Staffordshire, England on September 30, 1873, the fifth child of Joseph Broome, a shoe manufacturer, and his wife, Elizabeth James. His father died when he was only a few months old. At the age of 21, William came to New Zealand. A tailor and clothier, he set up his shop, a clothier and outfitters called The Palatine on Devon Street, New Plymouth. On 12 June 1902, in New Plymouth, he married Maud Margaret Freeth; they went on to have four children before Maud died in November 1909. Then Broome met Ivy Ruth Hooker, a tailoress and married her in 1915. They had three children. William was always dressed to the nines, showing off his goods but his interests extended well beyond high fashion. He knew a good many of the men of New Zealand worked on the land, often in rugged conditions and he undertook to create a work shirt. William designed a (then) short-sleeved, long in the back woollen overshirt with a laced front, creating it for New Zealand conditions. He immersed it in a special - and still secret - waterproofing formula. He patented his invention in 1913 and also created the now famous Swanndri logo - a swan in a circle. The shirts were initially manufactured at the Bruce Woollen Mill in Milton, Southland, but the water proofing was done at William’s home in Doralto Road. A side effect of the waterproofing was that the shirts were sometimes imperfect in size, so William decided to sell them as one size fits all. He began selling them from his shop. He would set up a shop’s dummy wearing one then turn the hose on it to prove it was waterproof. They became, with the outdoor lifestyle of New Zealand, a huge hit. It became well known for its warmth and waterproof properties. In 1935 he went into business with C W Lynch to establish a men’s outfitting store, Broome and Lynch on the corner of Liardet and Devon St. William was also an active member of his community, playing tennis, cricket, bowls and golf. He sang in a male choir and a member of the New Plymouth Operatic Society. He died on June 8, 1943. His son Brian took over the Swanndri label and licensed it to tailor John McKendrick who added a hood and long sleeves and created the original olive green colour. His firm, Jack Mack Limited, began to produce the shirts and paid royalties to the Broome family. The trademark was later sold to Alliance Textiles who now manufacture the iconic shirt. Broome is buried at Te Henui Cemetery in New Plymouth. |
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