OBITUARY

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22424, 10 June 1938, Page 14

OBITUARY

MR T. M. FOWKE The history of railway development in New Zealand from the pioneering days is recalled, with the death on Wednesday at the age of 90 of Mr Thomas Morgan Fowke, of Christchurch. Mr Fowke joined the railway service in 1860 and retired in 1906. Born in Tenby, Pembrokeshire, South Wales, in 1847, Mr Fowke went to sea as a lad, but after six years under sail he decided to try nis luck in New Zealand, landing in Lyttelton from the ship Indian Empire in 1865. His first job was on the West Coast road, 100 miles out from Christchurch. The wages, 11s a day, were very good for those times, but the hardships and general living conditions were indescribable —Mr Fowke found them worse than those inflicted on him as a cabin boy by a very choleric captain on a little Welsh hooker, so before very long he made his weary pilgrimage on foot back to Lyttelton, fording innumerable rivers and streams en route.

In Lyttelton in 1866 he was offered a job on a brig called The Fawn at £2 10s a month, but while he was turning this offer ‘over in his mind. Holmes and Company, who had just built the original railway line from Christchurch to Ferrymead, engaged him as a member of their tiny stall of railway workers. He was immediately assigned to the small, box-like structure at Ferrymead, which functioned as the terminal station of the few miles of track constituting the whole of the young colony’s railway service. The site of this pioneer station can still be seen to-day, to the right of the bridge over the Heathcote river on Ferry road. A portion of the original embankment, which carried the first rails, has also survived the ravages of three-quarters of a century. It was a broad-gauge line, sft Sin in width, which ran from Christchurch to Ferrymead. The gauge was determined by sheer necessity rather than by expert opinion. Holmes and Company, the contractors for the excavation of the Lyttelton tunnel, came from Victoria with a shipment of construction gear, in which was included a locomotive or two and a string of waggons, all built to a sft Sin gauge. The gear was landed from a sailing vessel at Ferrymead, and as some of the rolling stock was required for the Christchurch to Ferrymead line—a venture subsequently embarked upon—the broad-gauge railway was accepted without question, and for some of the other New Zealand lines as well, including the Lyttelton section.

In an interview with “The Press” last year, Mr Fowke said that the railway service was all George Holmes and Company in those days, and the New Zealand Railway Department nad yet to be born. Even when the Christchurch to Lyttelton line commenced operations in December, 1867, Holmes and Company were still on the box seat. The company carried on for about six months, during which there were innumerable squabbles with the Provincial Government of Canterbury, who were itching to take over the line, but would not do so until the construction work had been entirely completed. It was well into 1868 when the Lyttelton line was formally declared to be completed, and the Provincial Government proceeded to make its first appointments to the staff at the Lyttelton station. The first stationmaster appointed was Mr William Packard, who was another of the real pioneer railwaymen of New Zealand, having worked on the old Ferrymead line as chief clerk in the goods shed at Christchurch, for Holmes and Company. Mr Fowke was promoted to guard in the early seventies, and he took the first train to Rahgiflra when that section of the railways was opened in 1872. Mr Fowke also had the honour of being guard on the first train to run from Christchurch to Dunedin, and of being the guard on the trains which carried the Duke of Cornwall, later King George V, during his visit to Canterbury. When he retired from the railway service in September, 1906, he was presented with a solid silver watch by his fellow-railwaymen and a miniature of a horse, fashioned in solid gold, by the commercial community in Christchurch.

Two of his sons, Messrs Charles Fowke (Christchurch), and R. A. G. Fowke (North Island), as well as a son-in-law, Mr E. Grover (Christchurch) are on superannuation after 40 years’ service with the Railway Department. The other members of the family are Messrs Arthur Fowke, Llewelyn M. Fowke, and MesdamesE. Good and E. Grover (all of Christchurch).