Writing and writers of the Southern Bays 

Possibly the first literary mention of Island Bay came in 1892, with the publication of the novel  Matthew Redmayne : a New Zealand Romance by Oliver H. Growden, published in London. It is described as “A thriller involving a woman falsely accused of murder, an insane sister, secret correspondence and bigamy”. The author was Australian, and sets part of his work in Wellington including Island Bay, where his hero is aboard a moored yacht. There is not a great deal about the area in the work, but it was well-reviewed in the Grey River Argus in 1894:

“The story … ought to be very acceptable to the average novel reader, as it is good without being at all commonplace. Among the fair sex especially it ought to find great favour, as there is much In It that will appeal to the emotions and imaginations of woman generally”.

Other early works in which we rate a mention include S Percy Smith’s History and Traditions of the Māoris of the West Coast North Island of New Zealand Prior to 1840 [1910], which includes the account on which most versions of the history of Tamairangi, Kekerengu, Tapu te Ranga Island and Ngāti Toa are based. A few years later Lt-Colonel Thomas Porter published the seven-page The legend of Island Bay: Motu-Tapu-te-Ranga, dealing with the early reputed discovery of the region by Kupe. The Physiography of Wellington by WLS Britton and The History of Wellington by N.A. Byrne, were published together as one work in 1931 and give a brief geology and history of Wellington, specific references to Island Bay [uplift of coastal platforms in 1855 earthquake], and to Red Rocks, including reference to early Māori traditions. 

The making of Wellington 1800-1914 by David Hamer and Roberta Nicholls [editors] [1990] is a valuable series of essays on the development of our city, providing the best short account of the Māori occupation of the region and the conflict and relationships between different peoples. The essay Te Whanganui-a-Tara: phases of Māori occupation of Wellington Harbour c.1800-1840 by the historian Angela Ballara puts the well-known account of Tamairangi and her ‘last stand’ on Taputeranga into detailed scholarly context, much needed to dispel the ‘they won, they lost’ accounts we see so often. 

There is information about early Māori placenames and associations in The Great Harbour of Tara by Leslie Adkin (1956) and all interested in Māori history should read Elsdon Best’s famous and much- quoted The Land of Tara and they who settled it : the story of the occupation of Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara (the great habour of Tara), or Port Nicholson, by the Maoris published by The Polynesian Society on 1919. All early writings about Māori history should be checked against modern research.

James Ritchie was raised on the corner of Eden and Medway Streets, and with his wife Jane Ritchie was a leading influence in teaching and child psychology. Together they published seven books, and were leaders in the movement to end corporal punishment and other violence towards children. Professor Ritchie was also a leading advocate of Māori rights, and as a Pākehā represented Tainui in many of its dealings with the Crown.

The novelist Ian Cross later lived very close by for a time at 129 Eden Street. He is the author of The God Boy [1957]; two other novels and an autobiography and was the editor of The New Zealand Listener. 

An Island Bay boy will be in the news again in the years ahead with the centenary of the First World War, Lieut.-Col C Guy Powles C.M.G. D.S.O.  Powles enlisted from Island Bay for World War l and had previously attended Island Bay School. His work The New Zealanders in Sinai and Palestine [1922] remains an important reference. The book, of course, is about the Middle East, not the southern bays, but it provides an account by the most senior of the many men and women of the southern Bays to take part in the Great War.

An Island Bay resident David Scott published a memoir The Disillusioned in 2004.

Perhaps our most prolific local writer is Sheila Natusch, of Ōwhiro Bay, who has published dozens of works on botany, the New Zealand coast, Southland, Ruapuke Island, the Lutheran Missionary Brother Wohlers, poetry and the Natusch family.

Local education is represented in Southern Bays literature with two histories of Island Bay School: Island Bay School, diamond jubilee, 1900-1960 [1960] and Deborah Hannan’s From Slates to computers: Island Bay school children tell their stories [2000]. There was a small 75th jubilee publication for Saint Madeleine Sophie’s School, published in 1980 and a fuller account in Saint Madeleine Sophie and Saint Francis de Sales Schools, 1905-2005. Celebrating 100 years, [2005]. Ōwhiro Bay School also has a good history: Ōwhiro Bay School: souvenir of the 50th jubilee celebrations, 1930-1980. Erskine College history is accessible through school magazines and more general accounts of the Society of the Sacred Heart. A Mother-General of the order, Janet Erskine Stuart, for whom the college is named published a number of books, but was not personally a Southern Bays resident, except on a visit in 1913. A full history of the college and some of the local and influential families associated with it would assist efforts to save the old buildings.

Our beautiful bays have inspired literature arts and artists. There is a range of writing illustrating this.  One inspiring work, now long out of print, and in many cases out of its plastic ring-binding, was Writing Island Bay, edited by performance artist Alan Brunton for the Island Bay Residents’ Association in 1997. It features extracts from famous writers such as Katherine Mansfield and Robyn Hyde, both of whom touch on the bays in their work, especially Hyde, who lived in Berhampore, and others such as Anne Kennedy, Eileen Duggan, and Alan Brunton himself. It is also illustrated with images of the area in early days. A further edition is needed! 

There are some minor works of literature, which reward a visit to the library, ranging from 

The Island Bay collection: sixteen Scottish country dances devised by members of the Island Bay Club [1996] to Songs from the sea : a collection by poets from Miramar, Kilbirnie and Island Bay in honour of Wellington Public Library Centenary, 1893-1993, Kirsten Forrester [editor] Peter Gainsford [illustrator], [1993]. Odes to the bay: a selection of poems by the children of Island Bay [c1999] is a collection of poems written by children of Island Bay School and St Francis de Sales School, for the 1998 Island Bay Festival. The collection Standing at the water's edge was published in 1989 by Norma King of The Parade. 

Among visual artists the late John Drawbridge, was perhaps our longest-standing resident artist, and his works are beautifully displayed in John Drawbridge [2008] by writers, Dr. Damian Skinner and Robert Macdonald. The famous painter of the 19th and early 20th century, Petrus Van der Velden was a local resident for a time, and his works well-described by T.L. Rodney Wilson in Van der Velden [1976]. But Rita Angus is perhaps the most famous non-resident historical artist associated with our area as a result of the ubiquity of her famous painting of the fishing fleet at Island Bay. Among the many works dealing with her art is the recent biography Rita Angus by Jill Trevelyan [2008].

Our local painter Michael McCormack has added to the art literature of the bays with his 10 years in Wellington [2011], still in print and featuring Michael’s splendid response to his adopted city and suburb.

I have so far not tracked down many published works about sport in the bays. 

Island Bay Lifesaving and Surf Club (Inc.): 60 years of service [1972], records something of a locally important group. Members of the society gathered the Club’s archives and deposited them with the City Archives some years ago, so the fuller history is there, waiting for its historian! There is also Island Bay Bowling Club Inc. Golden Jubilee, 1917-1967 [1967] offering 21 pages on this successful venture. There may be other sporting history published about the bays, and if you know of any – please let me know. 

People sometimes note that Island Bay seems to have a fair number of churches, and our local literature is slightly weighted towards religion also.

There are short histories of several churches including The Parish of Island Bay, St Hilda’s Anglican Church 75th anniversary (1909-1984) [1984]: following the earlier Parish of Island Bay: 50th anniversary [1959]. Lindsay Clark’s Faithful people: the story of the Island Bay Presbyterian Church, 1898-1998 followed Island Bay Presbyterian Church jubilee souvenir and programme [1948] by William Comber. St Francis de Sales, Island Bay : parish history, 1906, 1920-1990 by Patricia Hutchison [editor] 1991, and its 1999 update are the major sources on Catholic parish life, and  Sowers and Reapers - A short history of the Society of the Sacred Heart in New Zealand, 1880-1980, by P. Goulter [RSCJ] [1982], has some information about Erskine college. Cyril R. Bradwell in 1991 produced Fighting for his Glory A History of the Wellington South Corps of the Salvation Army 1891-1991, an extensive and well-researched work of incredibly interesting detail about the Salvationists of the south and social conditions which includes many fascinating photos. I hope the next edition – and there should be one – includes an index!

Then there is the very large amount of material about Island Bay’s candidate for sainthood and the only person known to be interred here, Suzanne Aubert. Most important is Jessie Munro’s great biography The story of Suzanne Aubert  [1996].  This is a major, award-winning work that contains detailed accounts of her work in the development of the Home of Compassion, Island Bay, and the community based there. Jessie Munro followed this up with Letters on the Go The Correspondence of Suzanne Aubert, [2009], a beautifully-edited selection of letters to and from Suzanne Aubert and the least and the greatest among her contemporaries. There is significant material about the Home of Compassion in Island Bay. Other writings about Suzanne Aubert, her work and congregation include Never let go! : the remarkable story of Mother Aubert by Patrick Marie Rafter [1972], and Audacity of faith: centennial of the Sisters of  Compassion, 1892-1992 [1992] . Lord, where do you dwell? come, and see! extracts from the writings of Suzanne Aubert [1984] is among the other smaller works published.

And although it was written before she came to island Bay, we should also include and claim as our own the best 19th century Māori teaching grammar, published by Suzanne Aubert in 1885. New and complete manual of Māori conversation: containing phrases and dialogues on a variety of useful and interesting topics: together with a few general rules of grammar and a comprehensive vocabulary. This material was later taken over and adapted by Sir Apirana Ngata and continued publication under his name for some decades. Sentences from this work introduce each chapter of Jessie Monro’s biography

It is in the nature of bays that they have ships and in the nature of ships that they are wrecked. Local maritime disasters are recounted in Full Astern! An illustrated History of New Zealand Shipwrecks, by Gavin McLean [2007]. It includes details, with several photos of the wreck of the Penguin in 1909, and the scuttling of HMS Wellington as a dive wreck in Island Bay. The book provides a general context for local historical groundings. The Wreck of the Penguin by Bruce E. Collins [2000] is a wonderfully integrated story of words and pictures recalling our greatest local disaster. Jack Churchhouse’s Leonard Robertson, the Whangaroa & La Bella [1982] has important local information and images about the wreck of the La Bella. And for context C.W.N Ingram’s New Zealand Shipwrecks 1795-1982 [1984] is encyclopaedic and authorative.

Two notable autobiographies are those of Allan Atkinson Island Bay: a scrapbook of my life in Island Bay, Wellington, 1906-1994 [1994] and Ron Smith’s Working Class Son [1994]. They could hardly be more different. Allan Atkinson was a State Services Commissioner, and Ron Smith was a communist and peace activist. But they paint entirely compatible pictures of life in Island Bay, and their different perspectives illuminate our history.  Two other biographical works of locals have a similar ideological divide: the story of Island Bay resident Ron Brierley is told in Yvonne Van Dogen’s Brierley The man behind the corporate legend [1990]. He grew up in island Bay, and Brierley includes a touching scene of him as a child sitting by the fire in Island Bay ‘polishing his pennies’.  Unite union leader Matt McCarten’s story is told in Cathy Casey’s book Rebel in the Ranks [1996], but it includes disappointingly little about his time as a child in the care of the Home of Compassion, an experience he remembers fondly. To this list of biographies of ‘our’ people, we should add John Mansfield Thomson’s A Distant Music The Life and Times of Alfred Hill 1870-1960 [1980], a composer who lived here for one part of his eventful life. 

Two Labour Party leaders have lived in Island Bay but only one has a full biography: Nordy: Arnold Nordmeyer: a political biography, by the well-known local writer Mary Logan, was published in 2008. It is an important contribution to New Zealand political history. 

In the early 2000s Eric W. Maffey wrote Island Bay A Brief History which collates a wide range of material about the suburb and its history. It is a most useful reference, but as far as I am aware was published only as spiral-bound photocopies in very limited numbers. 

H Gary Tonks has written a number of works focusing in part on his families’ association with the southern bays, and especially the Ōwhiro bay Quarry.  Early Events from Seatoun to Sinclair Head [2009] is a must-read for local history with excellent photos, and maps, especially of the World War ll era, wrecks, and the Ōwhiro to Sinclair Heads, as is Early Events from Seatoun to Sinclair Head and Tonks of Early Wellington [2007] which includes excellent photos and accounts of the Tonks’ quarry at Ōwhiro Bay. Tonks and the Bypass, [2007] is Gary Tonks’ account of his family’s association with the Upper Cuba Street by-ways of Tonks Avenue and Tonks Grove. There is a different perspective on the quarry in The Story of Ōwhiro Bay Quarry by Lucy Atkinson and Brian Bouzaid [2004] prepared for the Wellington City Council.

An author with a wider Wellington view is the prolific Graham Stewart, whose work 

Wellington Portrait of a Region [2006] is brilliantly executed, juxtaposing 19th century and later photos of Wellington with modern shots. There are several ‘old and new’ photos of Island Bay, including the tram terminus at the corner of the Parade and Reef Streets. The author has also written books on Wellington’s [and other cities’] history of tram transport, which was so important to the development of Island Bay from 1905. These include Around Wellington by Tram in the 20th Century, [1999] which is a place-by-place and suburb-by-suburb photographic history of Wellington’s trams. It features excellent photos, not often seen elsewhere, of trams in Island Bay, and the route from here to Wellington. His classic The end of the Penny Section [1973] is essential reading for those interested in the public transport which led to the development of our area

Several books place the bays in their context of one of a number of suburbs of Wellington, including Adrian Humphris and Geoff Mew’s Ring Around the City, Wellington’s New Suburbs 1900-1930 [2009]; David Johnson’s Wellington by the Sea 100 Years of Work and Play [1990]; and On the edge of our city by J.M. & B.M. Kenneally [1984] which includes much on Island Bay, Berhampore, Newtown, Kilbirnie, Lyall Bay, and the Miramar Peninsula.

The Southern Bays appear in a number of scientific works, usually as the place at which various plants or sea creatures were found. There are a few works dealing specifically with the area from a science perspective, including the Royal Forest & Bird Protection Society’s Ecological restoration in the Wellington Area: proceedings of a workshop held at Manawa Karioi, Tapu Te Ranga Marae [1995]. There is also Rodney Grapes and Hamish Campbell’s Red Rocks, which includes all you are likely to want to know about our small scientific reserve. Graham Stevens’ On Shaky Ground [1992] provides geological context for the whole region.

Applied science features in Island bay Medical Centre, A Short History, by Phillipa Werry [2010], a very good read about successive doctors who have cared for us, and provided a focus for the community. 

The Taputeranga Marine Reserve, edited by Jonathan Gardner, with James Bell  [c2008] is an important and substantial contribution to our understanding of our watery environment.

In 1997 the Home of Compassion reprinted its Book of Recipes first published in 1936, beginning with directions in English and Scots on how to make porridge. There have been several other Church-based collections of recipes. 

We should certainly claim as our own the seven books of the renowned food writer David Burton, who lives in Island Bay. His New Zealand Food and Cookery [2009] is a classic; a cross between a social history, a recipe book, and an introduction to New Zealanders and their land. 

We live in a much-written-about part of New Zealand. We are also a much-photographed suburb. There is more than enough basic material here to develop a local history curriculum for our schools, and possibly a small text as well. We should consider a joint venture between the Historical Society and schools to achieve this.  There are books touching on us and our area which I have not mentioned here simply for reasons of space, and because we feature only tangentially, or in a minor way. And I am sure I have overlooked other, more significant writing. I would be happy to cover these in future editions of Southern Bays, and in the annotated bibliography I hope one day to complete, or at least abandon!