First Service Car to Russell 1930
Original photo © Russell Museum

We say Russell has a village feel, and an island quality. Until the 1930s the main access to Russell was by sea. The coastal steamer, the Clansman, brought supplies and passengers twice a week. During the depression years work camps of unemployed people did much needed public works including the completion of a coastal road from Whakapara to Russell.

The first car made the trip in May 1830, a vehicular ferry started between Paihia and Russell, and the Domain became a motor camp.

This photo shows the First Service Car, Russell to Whangarei, driving through a rather deep puddle on 3 December 1930. Stuart Partridge is driving for the Northern Motor Bus Company. The road was hilly, dusty or muddy (depending on the season) and one passenger counted 329 bends in the 64 km ride.

Later the Ngaiotonga bush section was replaced by a coastal route. The back road was sealed about five years ago and is becoming an attractive alternative to locals and tourists. Mud and dust are no more and there are a lot less bends!

Orongo Homestead before renovations in the 1980s

It’s hard to recognise Orongo Homestead in this plain, unpainted two storey house, photographed in the 1960s. Today it is a luxury tourist destination set in landscaped gardens.

The L shaped house with a shingle roof was built in 1870 for James White who had been appointed an American consular agent to look after the commercial interests of American whaling ships in the Bay.

The house has had many owners and users over the next one hundred years – as a farmhouse, a home for the manager of the Tikitikioure manganese mine, as a store, a hotel and a part time school. Later it was used for church services, as a dairy, and a motor camp, even a hay store. It was Harm and Ottalien Muller who saw its potential in the 1980s and restored it, replacing a demolished wing and building another house on the hill nearby.

It doesn’t have any bullet holes like its famous older cousin, but the Methodist Church never-the-less has a wonderful rich history.  Early Methodist history records the Wesleyan missionary Rev. Samuel Leigh visiting New Zealand in 1819. Seeing a need to establish a Methodist mission in the Bay of Islands he returned to England and pleaded with the Wesleyan Methodist authorities to send a missionary to New Zealand. Rev. Leigh was dispatched as that missionary and in 1822 he established a church in Paihia. Methodist services were soon being conducted at Kororareka in the open air, inside the palisades of what was to become Rewa’s pa, at the south end of Kororareka’s foreshore. Attendees were Maori and often, not so willing seamen.

Much later through locals such as William and Horace S. Williams, convert John B. Williams and a supportive community who donated their time, money, services and furnishings such as the carpet, pulpit hangings, pews and kerosene hanging lamps, the Methodist Church was built. The architect Mr Wiseman of Auckland gave his services free of charge and the church was built by Mr Deeming. The original fibrous plasrter panels and oiled rimu batten interior have survived in excellent condition. The belfry (photo) however did not. It was removed in 1930-32 as it caused the roof to leak.

In 1957 a hall, originally a billiard saloon and then the Russell Swordfish Club office, was added. Sunday school classes, church and community activities were held. The first service took place after its dedication by Rev. G. Bond on Saturday 19thg April, 1913 and regular Sunday services have been held since.

References: The History of Methodism in New Zealand by Wm. Morely, Northern Advocate articles 23/01/58, March 1957, Russell Methodist Church Jubilee 1913-1963 Booklet

Russell Lights – Vol 7 Issue 19 – Sept 2004

This frail and damaged photo shows Tapeka in the early 1900s, when the land was farmed. To the right are the Norfolk Island pines planted by Samuel Stephenson in the 1830s, which still survive on the reserve.

Near the trees stands the small shingled roof cottage owned by Samuel Stephenson with a wing each side to cope with a growing family and a lean to at the back.

It later became Mrs Woolley’s Girls School in the 1860s and later still the home of the Wood family before being demolished about 1908.

On the left is the “new house” where Mrs Wardell, known to many older Russellites, lived in the 1940s. The flat areas show extensive vegetable gardens.

For years there was only a bridle track over from Russell, road access being put in by the army during World War Two.

The modern subdivision dates from 1967 when a colourful brochure offers 98 sections for sale on deposit of 10% and balance spread over 5 years. Prices ranged from £1,300 to £2,100.

Russell Lights - Volume 10 - Issue 13 - June 2007 # 35

This photo of Cape Brett lighthouse was taken from a set of glass plates given some years ago to the Russell Museum by Lillian Woodcock. They date from the 1920s. The photos were developed for us by Laurence Aberhart.
Cape Brett lighthouse was built in 1909 and electrified in 1955. It was manned by three keepers who lived on site with their families until installation of an automated light in 1978.  Supplies came in by sea and there was a rough track to Rawhiti.
Major restoration over the last few months included removing layers of old paint, new glass, doors and ladders, and better access to the boat landing. Department of Conservation who care for  the lighthouse hope to have open days later in the year.
A book that tells of the lighthouse life (including Cape Brett) has just been reprinted by its author Mabel Pollock and will be available from July in the Russell Museum shop.

Russell Lights - Vol 11 - Issue 24

On the edge of the Russell museum grounds, by the York Street frontage, there stands an elegant lamp post.  A bit weathered, it now plays host to a few lucky spiders and the occasional bird looking for a resting place.  Originally from Auckland, the lamp post was brought to Russell by the Garlands in the late 1940s and early 1950s.  The Garlands were photographers and lived in a house (now South Sea Arts) next to the Four Square shop block/doctor’s dispensary.  As the house passed from owner to owner, so did the lamp post.  When Mr Des Smith bought the house he decided the lamp post, which still bore the sign “The Studio” wasn’t needed, and gave it away.

Two young artists, opening up their art gallery on the corner of York and Chapel Street on the 17th December 1967, were the recipients.  James or Jim, as people called him, and Pauline Yearbury, had the lamp post installed outside their art shop, “The Colonial Gallery”.  This talented team of artists contributed to the art world in creating their now famous incised and stained wood panels of Maori legends and the book with poems titled “The Children of Rangi and Papa: The Maori Story of Creation”.  Jim and Pauline also inspired the Russell community, especially youth who spent time with them: they encouraged them to be creative, to understand that knowledge was their friend and to be resourceful.  The art gallery was pulled down to make way for the Tavern car park, and Jim and Pauline shifted the lamp post to their Matauwhi home.  When Pauline died in May 1977, Jim gave the post to the Museum and a lamp, made by Roley Johnson and Gerald Wall was added.  Farewell Jim.

Recent & Past Exhibitions

The Legacy of Zane Grey was held in Russell Museum.

Excerpt from Zane Grey’s

“Tales of the Angler’s Eldorado”

“What a fish! I, who had loved fish from earliest boyhood, hung around that marlin absorbed, obsessed, entranced and sick with the deferred possibility of catching one like it for myself. How silly such hope! Could I ever expect such marvelous good luck? Yet I knew as I gazed upon it that I would keep on trying as long as strength enough was left me…Oh the madness of a fisherman! The strange something that is born, not made!”

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