BICKERTON FAMILY OF WAINONI

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32032, 5 July 1969, Page 5

BICKERTON FAMILY OF WAINONI

Fireworks Tradition

(Specially written for "The Press’ by

GORDON OGILVIE)

A top-secret munitions plant was sited on a farm in Horotane Valley in the dark days of 1941. How it happened to be there is a complex but interesting story. Those involved in the business at the time were sworn to secrecy and apart from one or two nervous neighbours, few in Christchurch would have had the remotest suspicion of what was going on.

It is upwards of 27 years since Japanese armed invasion seemed inevitable and it should not now be any breach of security to reveal some of the details of the Horotane episode. It will also be an opportunity to look into the contribution which the Bickerton family made over a period of 70 years or so to entertainment of a quite specialised sort in this city and beyond.

The man chiefly concerned with the Horotane plant was Mr R. M. Bickerton, now in retirement at ' North Beach, and on whose property the activity took place.

Early in 1941 the army was organising the last-ditch defence of this country. Among many supplies urgently needed were signal rockets and alert bombs. Ron Bickerton, newly settled on to a market garden at Horotane, was the only person available who knew how to go about making them. This was hardly surprising for before he took on his farm in 1939 he had managed New Zealand’s only fireworks factory, a business earlier owned by his father, and set up initially by his grandfather.

“Scholar Errant” This grandfather was of course none other than Professor Alexander William Bickerton, the “Scholar Errant” of Burdon’s biography and first professor of chemistry at Canterbury College. For most of his 36 years in Christchurch Professor Bickerton was quite the most celebrated, picturesque and controversial figure around.

A younger colleague, Professor Arnold Wall, remembered “Bickie” in his memoir “Long and Happy” as a small, untidy, forgetful, excitable man: red-faced and catarrhal with a scrappy beard, always in a hurry, always perspiring and tearing about bent double over the handlebars of his bicycle. Wall once cannoned into Bickerton on a corner and both fell off their machines. “This,” said Wall as they picked themselves up, “is a case of partial impact!” The jest was in reference to an astronomical theory which was an obsession with Professor Bickerton then and which was to dominate his thinking until his death in 1929 at the age of 88. Bickerton’s belief, to explain the occasional appearance of new and brilliant stars in the universe, was that celestial bodies might sometimes be attracted into one another’s orbits and collide. If the result were merely a glancing blow, a piece would be knocked off each colliding mass. These two chunks, having developed a high degree of heat, would coalesce to form a new star. This theory was and is regularly ridiculed but nevertheless has some adherents. Professor Bickerton’s fulltime advocacy of “partial impact” led him to digress al) too regularly in his lectures and this became a sore point with the University Board of Governors. So too did his “Federative Home” (an experiment in community living at Wainoni), his outspoken criticism of the marriage institution, his socialist leanings, disrespect for the church, and his regular attacks upon university administration. After nearly 30 years’ haggling, “Bickie” and his university parted company in 1902.

This was a pity, for Bicker- ] ton was without question a . brilliant man and an in- ( spiring (if erratic) teacher. ( Sir Ernest Rutherford was . one of his pupils. Before coming to Christchurch in ; 1874, the Professor had concluded through watching Punshon and Spurgeon . preach in London—that the only way to teach successfully was to “make your class as . entertaining as a music hall and as sensational as a cir- ■ cus.” This he proceeded to do, and his lectures were regularly punctuated with bangs, whistles, smells, explosions, magic and wisecracks. The Professor was at heart a goodnatured showman kindly, generous and entirely lacking in malice, even towards his detractors. Pleasure Garden Bickerton took to entertaining his students not only in class, but from 1884, onwards, at Wainoni as well. Here on a 30 acre estate parallel to Pages Road and through the centre of which Bickerton Street now runs he created woods and gardens out of a sandy wilderness. The Professor soon saw the possibility of entertaining the general public there also, and at a profit. For after 1902some substitute had to be found for his University in-

come. The “Federative Home” was therefore wound up and the area turned into a pleasure garden. So was born Wainoni Park, one of the marvels of Christchurch in the early 1900 s. Thousands poured through the turnstiles to enjoy Professor Bickerton’s diversions: an acquarium, fern and begonia 1 houses, an art gallery, brass bands. Punch and Judy : Shows, a menagerie, balloon ascents, refreshment stalls, 1 threepenny and sixpenny tearooms, outdoor movies, theatrical performances, a planetarium, magic shows, sand weaving, mock naval battles on an artificial lake, and most spectacular of all, fireworks displays. The fireworks were made in a small factory and under the Professor’s direction by his sons and members of the “Federative Home.” His raw materials were chemicals obtained through the university, or especially imported, and foolscap lecture paper was used for the casings. The fireworks displays were conducted by the Professor’s sons and given at the lake’s edge for the benefit of spectators seated on the grassed dunes < One of the highlights of these shows used to be an artificial geyser produced by throwing a bomb into • the lake, which on exploding sent a column of water 40 or 50 feet into the air. “Splittite,” a high explosive of Bickerton’s own invention, was used for this purpose, and also for the mock sea battles. The Professor, clearly not an idle man, also ran a sanatorium for the healing of “mental and nervous disorders,” manufactured a patent ointment, made for the university and schools a wide range of laboratory equipment, and published numerous volumes and tracts to explain his astronomical theories. In 1910, Professor Bickerton left for England to push “partial impact,” leaving his wife and sons to carry on with Wainoni Park. Then the trouble started. The Bickertons had always undercharged for the value they gave and did not have enough funds in reserve to allow for fluctuations in fortune. Motionpicture theatres, just getting under way in Christchurch, began to draw the crowds away from Wainoni Park. Income dropped drastically. In 1914 the estate was sold and Bickerton’s novel enterprises came to an end. Its originator did not return to New Zealand alive. But shortly before his death, Professor Bickerton was made an Emeritus Professor of Canterbury College and his ashes now reside in a niche in the : University Hall. Running the park had 1 always been a family affair. ; Four of the Professor’s sons ’ plus their children had lived 1 on the estate, providing most ' of the labour force. Now, ■ except for Herbert, they went * their various ways. i Talented Sons 1 The Professor’s sons were ' themselves a talented lot. Alex, the oldest, took over ■ Professor Bickerton’s'' work 1 as Government Analyst for * Canterbury and the West - Coast, holding this position 1 till the mid-thirties (a father--8 son tenure of this post which 1 spanned 60 years). Richard * went to Wellington as an ; optician. William was a pro--1 fessional photographer and 8 his son. Max Bickerton, be- ' came professor of English at ? Tokyo University, Charles was 1 a painter—a pupil of Van der " Velden—and his daughter ’ Beryl, became the first ’ woman architect to qualify at ’ Canterbury University. Her- ’ bert (Ron’s father) was a I physical education instruc- , tor and champion gymnast ’ before he took over the fire- ’ works business started by the Professor.

Fireworks making was the only Wainoni enterprise to survive the sale of the estate in 1914. On about an acre of land were an assortment of sheds and huts, in which the manufacturing stages were separated for safety’s sake. The huts were three-sided so you could get out of them in a hurry. Herbert had taken charge of the fireworksmaking from about 1908. Ron had helped as part of the family work force almost from as early as he could walk—sieving sand for sandweaving demonstrations, cutting bread for the tea-rooms,

cleaning begonia pots, picking up litter, turning the icecream churn, helping on the merry-go-round, packaging up fireworks, and so on. He left high school in 1918, during the influenza epidemic, and helped his father full-time. The factory buildings were made up largely of remnants from the 1906 Exhibition. The machinery was improvised locally. While some of the fireworks ingredients had to be imported the gunpowder was bought from the army at 2d a pound. This gunpowder was old stock, some of it dating back to the Russian scare of the mid 1880 s, and was stored underground at Magazine Bay in Lyttelton Harbour. The Bickertons used to bring it over the hills in 1001 b lots in the back of their model T.

Peace Fireworks Their largest undertaking was the Peace Celebrations of July, 1919. Every town in the country seemed to want fireworks and the Wainoni factory supplied them. Young Ron, a 16-year-old, fresh out of school, was quite experienced enough even then to take charge of the Christchurch display. Herbert Bickerton did well enough from the Peace to be able to buy a farm in Nelson and move there with his family. The factory was not sold off but locked up and kept in reserve.

It was just as well for within five years farm profits had slumped so grimly that the Bickertons returned to Wainoni. The Dunedin Exhibition put them back on their feet. In 1927 Ron Bickerton married and the Professor

sent the young couple, ; amongst other things, an autographed volume of “The Romance of the Heavens,” one of his own publications and an apt enough choice for the occasion. Except for time off to train as a motor mechanic, Ron Bickerton stayed with the factory till 1934, in the last two years assuming, full control. He also began to make torch battery casings. But the economics of manufacturing fireworks present special problems, chief of which is the fact that there is little Income except over the Guy Fawkes-New Year period. So in 1934 Ron closed down the factory and joined the staff of Blackwell Motors. A few days before the Second World War started he bought a property in Horotane Valley and was just settling down nicely into the rural routine when he received a surprise visit from the Government Analyst, F. J. Grigg. It was April, 1941. Grigg had discovered from the Inspector of Explosives that Ron Bickerton was the 1 one person in the country capable of making rockets, and rockets were desperately needed. “It was all extremely hushhush,’’ Ron explains. “Grigg cautiously asked if I could make rockets. I said I could, the army wanted some that would rise to 500 feet and give off three brilliant whites so they could be seen in the day-time. I wouldn’t contract ' for the job as there was such a shortage of materials. If 1 they would supply the ingredients, I would do the work. 1 “From my own stocks I had a rocket up within a i week. Then six army huts ■ arrived on the scene. Paper 1 was ordered from Mataura. ' Saltpetre came from stocks '■ in Auckland. Sulphur from I K.P.’s. Charcoal was burnt ■ somewhere or other, and ■ black antimony was supplied ■ in crude form from a mine

near Reefton. I ground it myself." Through May and June of 1941 Ron Bickerton, with two helpers, turned out more than 100 of these rockets. Three were tested by the Government Analyst, six were sent to Wellington for examination and quite a few were put into the sky above Horotane. These latter were for altitude tests conducted by the Air Force, with theodolites. At this stage one or two residents got a little concerned, in the “Omega” manner, that the district might become a strategic target if the Japanese got any closer. One neighbour started to get up a petition, but cooled off. The army now changed its mind about the size of rockets. It wanted one that would rise to 1000 ft rather than 500 ft. Ron was unable to make them so large unless he could have specially strengthened paper casings made for him. Some were produced but were found unsuitable. So the army ordered rockets from overseas. These eventually turned up about two years after the Japanese threat had passed. Why the rockets anyhow? “They were to be issued to Home Guard units. Whereever the Japanese happened to land, these rockets would be put up to mark the spot The mobile armies situated at Burnham and Stewdrt’s Gully would then rush straight to the scene and do their best. Signal rockets would probably be the only form, of communication left.” Alert Bombs Ron Bickerton also made 200 or so alert bombs. “These were merely big Chinese bangers. They were issued three at a time to E.P.S. wardens who were to set. them off around the city as a warning that civilians had better start getting out of the way to avoid a massacre. Sirens would follow. Some of these bombs were used to good effect when the Heathcote Home Guard made a surprise attack on the Phillipstown unit one night I also heard a few let off in the Square on V.E. Day.” Mercifully, there was no need to put them to serious use.

During 1942 the army cleared its huts and stores off the Bickerton farm in Horotane. What was left of the gunpowder (an excellent fertiliser) Ron dug into his glasshouse, and life returned to normal, or as near as it can be in war time. In his spare time he invented a machine for making tomato hooks and also experimented with the forced ripening of green tomatoes by use of ethylene gas with high humidity and heat. After the war, though no longer connected with the manufacture of fireworks, Ron Bickerton set up and supervised the firing of both the Coronation and Rqyal visit fireworks displays, and assisted with the Centennial display too. Ron’s last fling at the pyrotechnics was in 1957 when with his younger son Bevan—who had helped his father before—he contracted to put on the New Year’s Eve fireworks display at Plcton.

So over a period of nearly 70 years, four generations of Bickertons have been closely associated with this vivid and ancient form of entertainment. There are no Bickertons now at Wainoni. But with a fifth generation coming along and with saltpetre practically in the bloodstream it may yet be that we will see something more of that Bickerton flair for spectacular I chemistry.