Early history of the site
Kaeo lies beside the Kaeo River, which flows into the Whangaroa Harbour. According to Ngāti Whātua traditions, the latter was explored by the waka Māhuhu-ki-te-rangi during early Māori settlement of Aotearoa New Zealand. The Whangaroa area was settled by descendants of Te Māmaru and Mataatua waka crews. The harbour’s name comes from the lament ‘Whaingaroa’ (‘what a long wait’) uttered by Rauru-iti, whose warrior husband had departed on an inter-tribal foray, or taua, to the south. By the late 1700s, there were two primary hapū in the area: Ngāti Pou centred around the Whangaroa Heads and Ngāti Uru further inland.
Pohue pā, at the eastern entrance to Kaeo, was established by Ngāti Uru following the hapū’s move from the Bay of Islands. The pā may have been created for largely defensive and ceremonial purposes, with cultivation and settlement occurring on lower ground beside the Kaeo River. In the early nineteenth century, Ngāti Uru was involved in important events in the history of Aotearoa New Zealand, including destruction of the merchant ship Boyd following the onboard mistreatment of one of its rangatira, Te Ara, in 1809; and establishment of New Zealand’s first Wesleyan Mission station at Kaeo in 1823. Known as Wesley-Dale, the latter was abandoned after a raid by warriors of Ngāpuhi leader Hongi Hika in 1827.
During the 1830s and 1840s, a large area of land straddling the river - including the current site - was obtained by William Spickman (also known as Spikeman or Spackman), a former convict and Church Missionary Society employee who became involved in the area’s emerging timber trade. A small European settlement subsequently developed, which in the late 1850s contained one of only four sub-post offices in Northland. In 1857, Spickman became Kaeo’s first postmaster, housing the office in his general store. Prior to the twentieth century, postal services outside the region’s main settlements were generally situated in settlers’ homes, general stores or teachers’ residences rather than purpose-built structures. These places frequently became a hub of community life where people could socialise or do business, as well as deliver and collect mail.
In 1874, Spickman’s duties as postmaster were taken over by kauri gum trader Richard Edward Gibbs (1838-1876). Gibbs’ store and post office was situated on Allotment 12 - a subdivision of Spickman’s land - fronting Kaeo’s main thoroughfare, Leigh Street. Two years earlier, in 1872, Gibbs had erected a family dwelling on a directly adjoining part of Allotment 12, within the rear of the current post office site. This consisted of a one-and-a-half storey timber structure, with a gabled, shingle roof and front verandah. After Richard Gibbs died in 1876, his wife Miriam (née Lane, c.1843-1934) took over the role of postmistress. For the next twelve years, Miriam Gibbs lived in the residence while operating the adjacent store and post office - situated immediately to the east of the current post office site. The Post Office had been a pioneer in women’s employment in New Zealand, although females were paid less than their male counterparts and required to resign at marriage.
First post office on the site (1888-1910)
In 1888, Miriam Gibbs sold the store and moved the postal business to her residence. Initially, the post office was situated in a side lean-to, then a rear skillion of the house. By this time, Gibbs’ duties as postmistress also included the registration of European births, deaths and marriages. In 1893, she was one of several women in Kaeo to sign a nationwide petition seeking the right for women to vote in parliamentary elections - enacted later that year as the earliest such legislation passed by a self-governing nation in the world.
Postal and related services in New Zealand increased substantially in New Zealand under the first Liberal Government (1891-1912). This reflected both higher public demand as the economy expanded, and an expanding civil service to facilitate the delivery of the government’s legislative programme, which included many social reforms. Post office buildings provided an important state presence, especially in smaller communities, carrying out a range of essential tasks that included the collection of government duties, taxes and fees; payment of pensions and advances; and operation as agents for government bodies such as the Public Trustee. At the time, they were often seen as symbolic of community progress, and wider advances in the British Imperial enterprise. A major period of new post office construction in New Zealand took place in circa 1900-1914. In Northland, the wider period between 1900 and 1930 has been referred to as the ‘golden age’ for post offices in the region - when more than 200 were erected.
In 1903, the Post and Telegraph Department purchased Gibbs’ one-and-a-half storey timber residence and its associated eight-acre section. After a new postmistress, Ellen Stephenson, was installed, the department initially converted a bedroom and bathroom to accommodate an enlarged post office in 1905, rather than electing to erect a new building. However, the number of deliveries carried out at Kaeo continued to increase as its population expanded during the area’s shift in emphasis from timber production to dairying. By 1910, plans for a new purpose-built structure on the site were underway. This formed part of a wider improvement of services in Far North centres: new offices in Kaitaia, Kaikohe and Kawakawa, were similarly planned.
Construction of the current post office (1911-12)
Initial designs drawn up by the Public Works Department were for a single-storey building. Approved by Government cabinet in July 1910, this was intended to be in broadly the same location as the 1872 residence. Prior to January 1911, however, new plans were produced for a two-storey, timber structure and associated outbuilding further west, directly next to the main thoroughfare. The revised plans bore the stamp of John Campbell (1857-1942), who was in charge of the architectural design of government buildings between 1899 and 1922, and formally Government Architect from 1909 onwards.
Campbell is a significant figure in the development of New Zealand’s ‘architecture of state’ in the early twentieth century. Endeavouring to standardise design as a way of accommodating an upsurge in demand for government structures, he established Edwardian Baroque as the official style for such buildings. Widely used in Britain and elsewhere, Edwardian or Imperial Baroque referenced the achievements of earlier powers such as the Romans through its use of classical idiom; and in a New Zealand context especially emphasised connections with Britain and other parts of the imperial network. The many post offices designed during this period has been seen as particularly emblematic of Campbell’s standardising approach, and perhaps the major means through which Edwardian Baroque was established as a distinctive government style. Although considered unlikely to have personally designed all small post office buildings, in particular, Campbell is credited with creating a specific post office style, including through developing the architectural vocabulary used in their design and approving their construction.
The design for Kaeo post office was based on one of two standard approaches for smaller post offices, which consisted of a two-storeyed block of three bays with a hipped roof. Unlike earlier examples of this type, which generally emphasised the middle bay by incorporating a central gable and front porch, it was more aligned with designs created in the second decade of the 1900s which provided an entrance in each of the end bays and paired windows in a central bay. At Kaeo, the design dispensed with visual symmetry, incorporating a public front door in the western part of its front elevation and a secondary entrance for staff in a set-back bay on the east side. Like many of the later examples, its appearance was simpler and less ornate than the earlier types. Its timber construction differed from Campbell’s general preference for more durable materials, although many Northland post offices of the period were similarly erected of wood. Its two-storey design contrasts with many of Campbell’s timber post offices, both in Northland and elsewhere, which were generally a single storey in height.
Internally, the building layout was divided into work and living quarters. The post office occupied the ground floor, and contained an internal porch, a public office, a telegraphic bureau room, a large mail room and a small telegraph exchange. The Postmaster’s residence was upstairs, encompassing a sitting room, two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a scullery. Fireplaces heated several of these spaces as well as the ground floor mail room, reflecting the care taken to provide comfortable accommodation and working conditions for employees. A washhouse and other conveniences were contained in a separate outbuilding.
Following the evident removal of the earlier residence and excavation of sufficient land beside the road, the post office and its associated outbuilding were erected between August 1911 and January 1912. They were built by local company, Hare Brothers, whose offices were located on the adjoining section to the east. Early converts to Seventh Day Adventism in New Zealand, brothers Joseph Hare junior (1849-1935) and Wesley Hare (1853-1933) were shipowners, kauri gum dealers and general merchants, who had previously undertaken other building work in the region. Joseph Hare junior is said to have imported the first marine oil engine to New Zealand and was also a notable local politician, serving ten years as chair of Whangaroa County Council. During construction, the post office interior was especially admired by local commentators, with its rimu and tōtara linings being considered when polished to ‘look more like a handsome piece of furniture than a public office’.
The new building opened for business in May 1912.
Initial use and alterations (1912-38)
The structure’s earliest occupant was a female employee, postmistress Emily Adams. From 1914, her role included registering Māori births, deaths and marriages in the area. At this time, the Post and Telegraph Department was one of the largest employers in the country, with more staff than the rest of the public service combined. Although the overall number of female employees was increasing, pressure from many men within the service had led in preceding years to more country post offices being placed in the charge of male officers.
In 1916, the New Zealand Post and Telegraph Association passed a remit supporting equal pay for female employees, a principle that the Public Services Commissioner agreed with ‘where the duties are equal’. Occurring at a time when jobs were being filled in even greater numbers by women due to overseas conflict during the First World War (1914-18), many men supported this proposal in the belief that it would lead to them being preferred over women for the same position. In the same year, the first permanent male postmaster was appointed to run Kaeo’s post office. Male employees were to hold this role for the following 63 years.
Changes to the post office building immediately after the war improved residential and work conditions for the postmaster, and also expanded the services provided. A rear extension erected in 1919-20 incorporated a telephone exchange and postmaster’s room on the ground floor, and enlarged, reconfigured accommodation above. Built of timber provided by local shipbuilders Lane and Sons, the addition encompassed a first-floor walkway that provided access to the embanked rear garden and a new washhouse, erected in 1920. The earlier washhouse was evidently converted to a lineman’s shed associated with the telephone exchange. A single-storey porch at the front of the post office, encroaching on the adjoining road reserve, was also likely built at this time. All additions to the main structure were erected in a similar style to the initial post office design.
The new telephone exchange opened in September 1920, with 42 subscribers. Its manual switchboard was operated predominantly by female employees, some as young as fourteen years in age. This facility formed a coordination centre in local emergencies, for example in requesting assistance for childbirths, medical emergencies and fires. Reflecting the growing importance of motorised postal delivery as well as telephone facilities, a detached, timber garage and line store was added immediately to the north of the main building in 1926. Mail to and from Whangaroa had been transported by coach between 1904 and 1924, but was afterwards carried by car. Until 1918, mail between Kaeo and the gum fields at Otoroa and Matauri Bay was carried by horse, and this method continued to be used for Pupuke until 1933. Stabling was located on the west side of Leigh Street. By 1950, only 170 km of Northland’s roads had been sealed.
Economic depression in the 1930s led to few further modifications other than refurbishment, necessary repairs and the erection of a rear porch in 1935.
Later use and modifications (1939-current)
During the Second World War (1939-45), the post office fulfilled important functions for incoming servicemen to the area as well as local residents. The telephone exchange connected servicemen at nearby army, navy and air force camps at Kaeo, Whangaroa Harbour and Radar Hill respectively with their friends and family. Numerous parcels for local servicemen serving overseas also passed through the mail room. The postmaster at this time, Percy Miller, was generally the first to be notified of a local soldier’s death and visited bereaved families to inform them of their loss.
In 1941, an additional storey was added to the front porch to incorporate a sun room for Miller’s accommodation. Due to wartime restrictions on materials, its roof initially consisted of bitumastic material rather than corrugated iron, and subsequently required replacement after the latter became available.
Informal roles undertaken by staff during the immediate post-war period included translation between te reo Māori and English for older Māori residents drawing their pensions. Until the early 1960s, separate registers for Māori and non-Māori births and deaths were maintained. Changes to the building in the 1960s included the insertion of a strong room (1961) and construction of an addition for extra counter space on the western side of the main building (1962). The latter removed the earlier lineman’s hut and garage, and a new garage appears to have been erected to the east of the main building. A lean-to extension may have also been added to the east elevation of the post office structure at a similar time. A chimney and other parts of the building suffered minor damage during the Whangaroa earthquake in 1963.
Mail volumes at Kaeo reached a peak in the 1970s. At this time, the post office provided a wide range of services to the community, with Savings Bank duties representing a significant part of behind-counter work. In order to assist accounting, the business was the first in Kaeo to have a computer. In the global fuel crisis of 1979-80, the post office issued ‘Carless Day’ stickers as part of government attempts to economise consumption. Weddings were carried out.
The residential quarters above the post office were occupied by the postmaster and his family until at least 1979. During the liberalisation of government services under the fourth Labour Government in the 1980s, the functions of the Post Office were replaced by three State-owned enterprises: New Zealand Post, Telecom Corporation NZ and PostBank. Kaeo Post Office closed for most business in May 1989. The manual telephone exchange in the building remained in use until November 1989. Still operating some party lines, it was the last of its type to be used in mainland New Zealand: only exchanges on Great Barrier Island and the Chatham Islands retained similar manual technology.
In 1990, the property was purchased by the Far North District Council. Some ancillary structures have since been removed. The main building was initially occupied by the Whangaroa Community Trust, and for a period, the Whangaroa Museum and Archives Society. Refurbishment in 2012 was undertaken to commemorate the building’s centenary, and a celebration involving local politicians and former post office employees was held nearby. Since at least 2012, the place has held an important community role as a library and service centre. Upstairs rooms are currently (2020) occupied as offices by a variety of private consultants.
