Discovering that one of the early members of the Ladies Committee of the Takapuna Boating Club had kept an album of clippings attracted the interest of long-time sailor and club member (and recent North Harbour Business Hall of Fame inductee) Rod Slater. Perhaps it might reveal some of the history of the club, and why members and the community are now so passionate about the imperative to rescue and restore the old building? Christine Young explored the album’s ephemera, and discovered much about the album's creator, Maude Ward, and about the Takapuna Boating Club.
Maude Ward’s album, with its clippings dating from the early 1920s, is a much-thumbed and precious family record. It is also much more. Its contents were probably initially chronologically arranged, but having been added to over the years, it has become a cornucopia of eclectic historical as well as personal records of her interests and activities. Featuring strongly among these are programmes, letters and media clippings about the Takapuna Boating Club, which provide invaluable insights into not only the role Maude Ward played in the club but also the role the club played in local society. Takapuna Boating Club was a popular venue for socials, recitals, arts and crafts exhibitions, dances, fundraising events and, even more recently, jazz nights.
Maude was actively engaged in all kinds of community activities, and letters in the album attest to her generosity in giving, as well as of time; she was highly regarded for stepping in to assist whenever needed. One letter to her begins: “Dear Mrs Ward, what a good sort you are...” And her album indicates that nowhere was she more involved or committed than in the activities of the Takapuna Boating Club.
Her overflowing album includes, among many other miscellaneous items:
Other clippings and records show Maude was also interested in gardening (cards from prizes from the Hataitai Horticultural Society in 1920, just before the family moved to Bayswater) and a letter advising of a sewing award. It’s clear there was more to Maude Ward than being on the Ladies Committee of the TBC. Entries indicate that she used the album as a diary record of events and activities she was involved or interested in: newspaper clippings recording an art award, or swimming lessons; invitations; fundraising concerts; a programme for musical and theatrical shows (mostly amateur; these were the before days of abundant professional theatre); dances at the boating club.
There is even a copy of the four-page ‘The Spanish Onion, The “Officious” Organ of the Takapuna Boating Club’s big Carnival’. A quote from the lead story could have been written today: “The ferry appears to be the most popular place for the airing of grievances and it is surprising the amount of information one can pick up in a single trip. What is most surprising however, is the loud tone in which the information is broadcast. Some folks (apparently fond of limelight) proclaim to all and sundry their ideas on the latest topics….”
But to return to Maude and the album. Maude and her husband Horace and their three teenage boys, Horace (Hal), Percival (Perc) and Edgar (Ted) and younger sister Marjorie moved to Baywater in 1921, and must have joined the club very soon after. Maude was a member of the Ladies Committee from 1921 or ’22 until at least 1934. As early as 1927, she was made a life member of the club for her work. She had by then been integral to the staging of dances and events, and was providing refreshments for regattas held at the club. Her album shows a number of letters of thanks from successive commodores for her work, her time as a volunteer to organise events and help fundraise for the club that her family was a part of.
“Maude’s records from the twenties and thirties make it clear that the boating club was a big part of Bayswater and Takapuna life,” notes her great-granddaughter, Jane Wright (who is keeper of the family history).
With a separate yacht club in Devonport, Takapuna Boating Club was for the residents of Takapuna, Hauraki Corner, Belmont and Bayswater. As her family settled in, they became part of the Bayswater, Takapuna and wider Auckland sailing community. As Jane notes, this was a time when neighbours and friends helped to build a boat for young boys wanting to sail. And there was also the occasional horse race up the Bayswater straight (now Bayswater Road).
Horace and their sons were actively involved in yachting throughout the 1920s and ’30s – and beyond. Takapuna Boating Club was responsible for the establishment of Z and Finn class boats in New Zealand, and Perc and Ted owned one of the first 12-foot Z class yachts (ideally suited to sailing in the shallow waters of Shoal Bay). There are also photos in Maude’s album of a mullet boat under full sail – possibly sailed in Takapuna Boating Club races by the Ward boys. Horace sailed (and raced), generally as crew on others’ yachts. Hal, Perc and Ted were also, according to family lore, involved in helping move a tannery building across Waitemata Harbour for it to become the Takapuna Boating Club base. According to a ‘Yachting New Zealand’ article marking the 2020 centenary of the club’s formation, the clubrooms were “completed in 1925 after the purchase and relocation of an Irelands Tannery building from Panmure. As much as 40,000 feet of timber was barged across the harbour and construction took five months…” with members working voluntarily at weekends to undertake the construction. The resulting building boasted lower-level boat storage, a middle-floor meeting room, and a grand upper-floor dance hall – all of which were, as Maude’s album attests, much-used by the community as well as the yachting fraternity.
The family connections to the club are strong – and their connection to sailing has continued. Maude and Horace’s daughter, Majorie, met her husband, Eric Winstone, at the club and lived for many years in the magnificent Winstone homestead on Takapuna beach. Marjorie and Eric later commissioned and built the 51 ft A-class keeler ‘Tuatea’, while the boatshed on Takapuna beach at the bottom of their garden served as a base for Jane Wright and her younger sister Kate to sail a Laser class yacht during their teenage years; both later crewed aboard ‘Sundreamer’, a 60-foot catamaran.
Jon Ward, Perc Ward’s son, remains an avid sailor; he has sailed and had yachts all his life and at the age of 82, now races a 1m racing yacht three times a week, at Lake Pupuke and Westhaven. His four yachts have all been named ‘Men At Work’ in incarnations I, II, III and IV, and the first is a well-known yacht on the Waitematā harbour, much respected on the racing circuit. Jane Wright’s parents, Jan (nee Ward) and Peter Wright, and North Shore-based Lesley (a cousin) and Rod Slater jointly owned a 25-foot Reactor class yacht. Rod and Lesley subsequently built and bought several yachts, big and small. Daniel Slater, their son and Jane Wright’s cousin, is a three-times Olympic yachtsman, and America's Cup sailor. He is now a performance sailing coach, and races in Europe on vintage America’s Cup yachts. Hal Ward, Maude’s eldest son, was not a sailor during his later years, but loved, and restored, many kauri clinker dinghies.
Maude’s album, with its clippings, letters and invitations, marks the start of the family’s sailing exploits, and gives unparalleled insight into how the Takapuna Boating Club was about more – much more, especially for the women in Maude Ward’s day – than the sailing or racing. It is a valuable reminder of how the building, as well as the club, was the social centre for what was, prior to the completion of the harbour bridge in 1959, a small and very interconnected community. In those days, people made their own entertainment, and enjoyed the theatrical and musical entertainments presented by (mostly) local groups. Beyond sailing, Takapuna Boating Club was a magnet for socials and events. The building’s restoration should allow it to resume offering similar community events and connections to those fostered in the days of Maude Ward’s album.
