Hawera is located within the rohe of the iwi Ngāti Ruanui who take their name from the tupuna Ruanui, the grandson of Turi, leader of the Aotea waka. Within a few generations Ruanui’s descendents dispersed to become the main tribe in south Taranaki, in the area between the Whenuakura River and the Oeo Stream. European whalers initially arrived along the Taranaki coast in the first half of the nineteenth century, and generally integrated themselves relatively harmoniously with the local Maori communities. Organised European settlement at Taranaki was first instituted by the Plymouth Company in 1839–1840, who arranged to purchase land around the New Plymouth area for the settlement of immigrants from Devon and Cornwall, although this purchase would be much disputed in the future.
The series of prolonged conflicts during the 1860s and early 1870s, now most commonly known as the New Zealand Wars, were waged between the Crown and Maori in response to Maori efforts to retain their land. Major military actions in South Taranaki occurred at Otapawa, Turuturumokai and Te Ngutu o te Manu. Ngāti Ruanui joined forces with Te Āti Awa to fight against the British Crown to protect their land, with the military leader Tītokowaru playing an important role in the conflict. However, the government eventually gained control of the land and imposed land confiscation policy that created loss and hardship for the people of Ngāti Ruanui.
Development of Hawera
The town of Hawera grew up around a military blockhouse built in 1870. The town took its name from a Maori village nearby called Te Hawera. Grants of 50-acre blocks had been given to settlers who had given military service, but being in outlying districts many chose to settle near the blockhouse, where they had the option of acquiring 10-acre blocks. In 1871 the first ‘Cobb’s coach’ arrived in Hawera on its way to New Plymouth – the premier, Sir William Fox, being one of the passengers. The first meeting of a town board was held in the blockhouse in December 1875; the census of March 1874 showed there were 257 Pakeha residents in Hawera and 438 in the Hawera road board district. The Maori census was conducted separately and recorded 993 people for Ngati Ruanui in 1874 (446 men, 303 women and 244 children).
The block Charles Major’s Office (Former) is located on was surveyed in 1877. By March 1881 there were 1219 Pakeha residents in the district, of whom 943 were resident in the town. The 1881 census figure for Ngati Ruanui recorded a decline from the 1874 figure – to 756 in Taranaki and 13 in Wellington. The Hawera borough was constituted on 2 January 1882. The railway from New Plymouth had reached Hawera in October 1881 and was opened south to Foxton in March 1885. The land in the region proved good for farming and during the 1890s the Taranaki region's population grew faster than anywhere else in New Zealand. The town centre of Hawera developed accordingly, with retail and commercial premises located along High and Princes Streets, which had been officially given those names in 1879.
Charles Major
Charles Edwin Major (1859–1954) arrived in New Zealand in 1871. Shortly after, although still only aged about 12 or 13, he took charge of a store at the Manawatu frontier settlement of Oroua Bridge. He then worked in legal offices in Wellington and Gisborne, before moving in 1880 to Hawera where he worked with Mr Parrington (a solicitor) for six months until setting up in business on his own as a land broker and estate agent.
In 1884 he stood for mayor against William Furlong but lost. However, he won the mayoral election in 1886 and went on to serve as mayor three times: 1886-88, 1892-96, and 1897-1901. He was then the local MP from 1902 to 1908.
As well as his contribution through local politics, Major was active in many sports; he was a noted runner, played rugby football for various provinces and was a supporter of horse racing (as an owner and spectator). He was also on the Patea Harbour Board, and was District Coroner for many years. However, his reputation would have suffered in 1910 when he was one of a few people subject to a parliamentary inquiry into conduct over some land sales to the government made when he was an MP. Although cleared of any illegality the select committee report found him guilty of improper conduct. He was also divorced in December 1910. Although he did not sell his office building until 1914 it is likely he moved from Hawera in 1910 or early 1911.
Charles Major’s Office
Charles Major’s Office (Former) is located on Princes Street opposite the Hawera courthouse and post office, which were often used in advertisements as landmarks to describe the location of the buildings opposite. It is unclear exactly when the building was built. The Certificate of Title was issued to William Furlong (a land agent) in 1879. Nevertheless, Furlong advertised as being located in the Bank Chambers in Princes Street in July 1881 and in December 1882. Furlong was mayor of Hawera between 1884 and 1886. He owned Charles Major’s Office (Former) until 1885 when he sold it to James Mitchell, but after Mitchell died in 1889 Furlong purchased it back in 1890 and leased it to Charles Major. However, Furlong died that year and in 1893 Major purchased the property from his estate and retained it until 1914.
Charles Major set up his own business in Hawera in 1881, the Cyclopedia of 1908 noted, ‘in the offices he still occupies’. If correct, he must have rented Charles Major’s Office (Former) from William Furlong and James Mitchell until taking the lease in 1890; this also implies that the building existed in 1881. From at least early 1882 he was advertising as being located in Princes Street, although this is not conclusive evidence that he was in this building.
Fires were a constant concern in nineteenth-century towns largely comprising wooden buildings. In 1884 two shops in High Street had been damaged by fire. Also in 1884 the Empire Hotel (later the White Hart) on the corner of Princes and High Streets was damaged by fire and one man died. In June 1887 the Club Hotel next to the post office in Princes Street burnt down and some damage was also noted to two buildings across the road – the Union Bank and a shop called ‘Hawera House’. The biggest event was in August 1895, when a major fire – sometimes called the ‘Great Fire of Hawera’ – killed two male hotel boarders and destroyed about 17 buildings in the Hawera town centre, including the new post office and courthouse. The fire began in a drapery business next to the Egmont Hotel, which was on the corner of Princes and High Streets, and was said to have spread to Nimmo Scott’s (stationer), Kemp (baker), Cohen, Cummins (draper), Lewin (hairdresser) and Caplen’s (solicitor), in Princes Street, where it was stopped by a concrete wall. Harry Caplen’s office was next door to Major’s office. Despite the newspaper report not mentioning any damage to Major’s office, the front of both Caplen’s and Major’s offices were in fact damaged by the fire.
By January 1896 it was reported that a new façade had been built for Major’s office, designed by architect George R Card. Card also designed the Public Library (Category 2, Register No. 841) the same year – like Major’s office it was in timber in a neo-classical style and designed to give a ‘convincing appearance of masonry construction’. Major was Hawera’s mayor at the time and like his neighbour Harry Caplen chose to rebuild in the fashionable neo-classical style. This was a popular style especially for banks and public institutions for its associations with stability, permanence and dignity and thus the desire that it would inspire confidence in the institution or company occupying the building, especially in the ‘precarious economic climate of New Zealand’s small provincial towns’ as architectural historian Peter Shaw has noted.
The date on the second storey of Charles Major’s Office says ‘Established 1881’ and this is when Major set up his land agent business (as he noted in his advertisements). The ‘1881’ date would have been added when the façade was rebuilt after the 1895 fire and cannot be taken to be the date the building was constructed. A further difficulty in identifying the date of construction is that the gap between Major’s and Caplen’s buildings is only about 10 centimetres wide and yet the side of Caplen’s Building would appear to have been plastered. The gap is too narrow for someone to have plastered it if Major’s building had been in situ and complete at the time – this side of Caplen’s Building possibly dates from 1884, although further additions were made after the 1895 fire including a new façade. In summary, while it is most likely there was a building on the site of Charles Major’s Office (Former) from at least the early 1880s, it is unclear how much of this building has survived – the façade, at least, dates from 1895. Nevertheless, if the structure behind the façade has survived from the early 1880s, this would make Charles Major’s Office an early building for Hawera. A verandah was also added at the same time as the façade was rebuilt – this continued to be seen in photographs until the 1920s but is no longer in place.
In 1914 Athol Grant bought the building and used it for his real estate business. In a 1974 article written when he was still alive it was said that he had started as Mr Major’s office boy in 1900. Grant had been advertising from mid-1910 as an agent ‘opposite the Post Office’ so he probably took over Major’s business and office premises then (this was the year Major was subject to the Parliamentary inquiry). In November 1914 Grant went into partnership with James Campbell. James Campbell served as mayor of Hawera between 1933 and 1939 (when he died in August 1939 his body lay in state for two days in the Borough Chambers). The partnership with Campbell lasted until about 1925 – in 1926 the street directory recorded the business name as Grant & Co, which it remained until the mid-1940s when it became Grant, Henderson & Co, ‘established 1910’ (Raymond Henderson was an accountant). Grant owned the building until 1956. Mr E Becquet Black bought it in 1957 and used it as a storeroom for his wool shop – his family owned it until 1983, since then it has had several owners and has been used as a handicraft store and a florist at times. A two-storey building was built at the rear in 1989 but this is not physically joined to Charles Major’s Office. The current owners bought the property in April 2011 and are using it as a residence, having restored some of the internal walls that had been removed for its commercial usage.
