When it comes to inventions, New Zealand is right up there with the rest of the world, the electric fence, the egg beater, bungy jump - all famous ones.
But there is one that you are all using whose inventor’s name is barely remembered. And all because he forgot to get a permanent patent.
John Eustace had been born in 1855 in Helston, Cornwall and came to New Zealand on board the Chile in 1862.
Not a big lad, he nevertheless had a quick mind despite a lack of formal education.
Initially he worked on a cherry farm and then help print and deliver some of the first issues of the Evening Star.
At 12 years old he became a blacksmith’s striker then began an apprenticeship as a tinsmith - starting by making tin match boxes.
He married Martha Emma Hoskings and they settled down, having three daughters and one son.
In 1896 he started his own tinsmith business making kettles, trays and other goods.
He was kept busy during the South African War with huge orders.
It was during the early 1900s that he was asked to find a way to making paint cans that did not leak.
He said it took him a sleepless night trying to figure it out but the next day he created an airtight lever lid for a paint tin.
That lid is still in use today.
It was so successful that orders began flooding in. not just from New Zealand but all over the world.
He took a patent out with some help from painter Robert Fergus Smith for “An invention for hermetically closing tin boxes with th 3 lid without soldering."
and began the process of creating a die to mass produce the tins.
Except he did not know the patent - an interim one - ran out after six months and from then it was a free for all, with companies all over the world producing their own lids.
Smith and Smith, the company that had asked him to make the lid in the first place, promised they would only buy their lids from him and did so while he and his son ran the company.
It enabled him to expand the factory and employ many men.
At one point he was called an idiot who had lost a fortune - but Eustace replied that ‘Well, I’m happy, I’ve got a good family, I get three feeds a day, I can only wear one suit at a time what would I want with a fortune?’
John died on August 2, 1944 and is buried in Andersons Bay Cemetery in Dunedin.
Picture by Sven Brandsma.​

It’s impossible to predict how someone might die. And every year the way people meet their end gets weirder and weirder.
About 450 people a year die falling out of bed, 150 by falling coconuts and 24 suffered death by champagne corks.
Some seem so strange that it’s hard to believe, like the couple trampled by their own camels while the owner of the world’s longest beard tripped over it and broke his neck.
Then there are ones that make you roll your eyes. Like the lawyer who tried to demonstrate that a victim could have shot himself by picking up the gun and accidently shooting himself. Or the owner of a wool mill who fell into the machine and was wrapped to death in 800 yards of wool.
Yes, some are (tragically) hilarious.
How they died is immortalised in the stories. And sometimes this is reflected on their headstones.
Mel Blanc - the voice of Porky Pig - says That’s All Folks. William H Hahn Jnr’s reads I told you I was sick. Frances Eileen Thatcher’s reads Damn, it's dark down here.
Then there are the types of memorials. Jules Verne has a sculpture of himself climbing out of his grave and Harry Houdini has a bust of his own head.
On visits to cemeteries we have found creepy decapitated angels, a gravestone with a window in it (no we don’t know why), crosses made of rusted iron, or slowly eroding wood.
Then there are the ones with no headstone at all. It’s not uncommon for those found guilty of murder or have committed suicide not to have a headstone and even to be buried outside the normal bounds of a cemetery.
Some however have poetry, wise sayings, words of love and then some have an epitaph that leads to a story.
Like the headstone of John Riddall which not only says dearly beloved husband of Ada but also Who met his death whilst skylarking. (so Ada might have been a bit exasperated.)
Riddall was 32 when he died - he had been at the Carlton Hotel in Wellington’s Willis Street.
He had been sitting on a railing of a balcony on the fourth floor when he overbalanced and fell on April 26, 1919.
Riddall had been a grocer’s assistant and relatively new to Wellington. He had been president of the Auckland union of grocers assistants three years before.
He is buried in Karori Cemetery.​

John Martin wanted to not just own a town, but to mark it with his personal history.
As a consequence the town is not just named for him - Martinborough - but is set out in the shape of the Union Jack.
And the streets off the central square are named for places he had been like Oxford, Texas, Kansas and Cambridge.
John Martin was born on November 11, 1822, in County Londonderry, Ireland to clergyman John Martin and his second wife Sarah.
They both died on typhus in 1838, so the 11 Martin children set out for New Zealand on the Lady Nugent landing in Port Nicholson - Wellington - in 1841.
As a young man John worked hard as a pick and shovel hand and carted ammunition to militia in the Hutt Valley.
On September 14, 1847, he married Marion Baird with whom he had 10 children.
He went into partnership with his brother-in-law on some land but the licence for the land was cancelled in 1861 when gold was found on the land.
John and his brother-in-law took advantage of it, selling their stock for meat and transporting the gold.
John returned to Wellington with a small fortune and bought land in Taranaki St, set up as a merchant and built a residence called Fountain Hall in Ghuznee St.
He tried politics but had too much of a temper and failed several times.
In 1864 he sold part of his Taranaki St land and bought the 12,698 acre Otaraia station in the Wairarapa.
In business he and a partner bought out the New Zealand Steam Navigation Company.
He added to his holdings in the Wairarapa by buying another 24,878 acres in the middle of an existing holding, meaning the owner of the surrounding land, Daniel Riddiford, was later forced to buy it - but became John’s enemy.
Whatever his business dealings, he was known as a generous host and in 1875 he was responsible for a drinking fountain being put up on Lambton Quay - where the water was mixed with whisky when it opened. It was six metres tall and offered drinking water to anyone. Considered a Wellington landmark for a time, later it was moved and then scrapped when it became too corroded.
Later that year, he left for a tour of Europe and America - on the steamer Taranaki, he owned.
On his return he was made a justice of the peace and then was called to the Legislative Council where he made no impression at all.
Then in 1879 John bought the 33,346 acre Huangarua Estate in the Wairarapa for £85,000 in gold.
The land was split into 334 small farms and the township of Waihenga was renamed Martinborough and divided up to be sold.
John had a grand vision - laying out the central square with roads radiating from it - but the land auctions were a failure.
Nevertheless - over time Martinborough gained a niche reputation and today is known for its vineyards.
John also left his mark on Wellington's urban landscape in the form of Martin Square; Marion, Jessie and Espie streets were named after his two youngest daughters and his mother.
His wife Marion died on February 11, 1892 and John on May 17 the same year. He is buried in Karori cemetery.​

St Thomas’s church in Meeanee has survived earthquakes, floods (including the most recent) and disinterest - but now at 137 years old it’s been sold.
The pretty little church has been on Meeanee Road since George Rymer donated the land in 1886.
The Anglican church was built for £344 after George wanted it “Given upon trust that the same shall be used as a site for a church for the celebration of divine worship according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England in New Zealand.”
Designed and built by Frederick de Clere - who built many of New Zealand’s most historic churches - it was opened in 1887.
About 150 people attended the opening - more than could easily fit into the little church.
In typical Clere style it has a gothic style with a belfry and a natural timber finish inside.
The belfry dates from 1911, the church got electricity in 1929 just before the earthquake.
The church actually survived well but needed some shoring up.
In 1997 the church was saved from sale when the residents rallied around it, but now the church has been sold.
Rymer, who was a bit of a daredevil and liked to take a chance, would not be happy that his gift to his community was now gone.
Rymer was born in 1844 in Yorkshire. He arrived in New Zealand in 1863 with William Stock and originally was heading for the gold fields. Like so many he found it was not a good way to earn money. Along with Stock he came to Hawke’s Bay and started a stables and early coaching service.
He had settled in Meeanee and ran the service between there and Napier, Ahuriri and Awatoto.
He was the first to run coaches along the newly opened Taradale Road in 1873. He was also paid by the Government to run the mail through to Puketapu.
In 1881 with a road opened between Napier and Kuripapango (up the Napier//Taihape Road) Rymer began a service. Kuripapango was being touted as a resort for its fresh air. He also won the royal mail warrant for the route.
But he had competition from Alexander Macdonald and the two companies’ coaches would race each other for business. It got so intense that people would gather to watch and bets were made. It led to quite a few accidents.
Rymer married Annie Harvey in 1868 and they had five children.
He retired from his business in 1902 selling it to the Hawke’s Bay Motor Company for £10,000 - well over a million now.
He went on to serve on the Hawke’s Bay County Council for three terms.
Rymer died on April 7, 1917 at his Marine Parade home and is buried in the Taradale Cemetery.
Rymer St in Meeanee is named after him.​

Like any hotel, Napier’s Masonic Hotel has seen some things.
Earthquake, fire, a visit from the Queen, Mark Twain and ballerina Anna Pavlova, deaths - which led to ghosts apparently.
The big art deco hotel is an anchor stone of Napier’s history, it's been there so long it wouldn’t be Napier without it.
It was Joseph Gill who owned the first Masonic Hotel on the foreshore site, opening on September 14, 1861. It was smaller than it is now.
It was expanded to cover the complete section in 1875 by which time it was owned by Alexander Dalziell.
But on May 23,1896, fire destroyed the hotel. There was some controversy as the fire bell was not rung until 15 minutes after the fire started even though smoke was throughout the hotel.
Within a month, plans were underway to rebuild the Masonic, with three storeys with the stables alongside. Another two storeys were later added.
It was huge and one of the most up to date hotels in the country but it all was for nothing when the 1931 earthquake hit and the hotel was again reduced to rubble, mainly from the fire that ravaged through Napier after.
For a while it was replaced with a temporary corrugated iron building. Then the building we all now know was built. Architect William John Prowse (or Prouse) designed it as a simple hotel but with the elegant upper storey pergola and the big Masonic sign in art deco design.
The hotel is now considered one of the jewels in Napier’s Art Deco crown.
Ghostly occurrences have been reported many times. Strange lights, music and cold spots.
Like any hotel there have been deaths on the premises. Two are supposed to have left the hotel haunted - a chef who died in a bathtub and a guest who would stay for weeks at a time in the same room every year.
The hotel has also had its fair share of royal visitors to its royal suite. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip and the Duke and Duchess of York (who became King George and Queen Elizabeth, the queen mother).
Joseph Gill was born in 1826, in Cornwall, England and came to New Zealand on the Sanford in 1856.
He married Ellen Palmer in 1859 and they had seven children. He went on to run several other hotels in Hawke’s Bay.
Joseph died on June 21, 1870 and is buried in the Old Napier Cemetery along with three of his children who died in infancy.​

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.