PIONEER IN TRANSPORT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 10 March 1944, Page 3

PIONEER IN TRANSPORT

Death of Mr Thomas Newman FOUNDER OF A WELL-KNOWN PARTNERSHIP An Abiding Love of Horses

In 1874 when he was 15, Mr Thomas Newman, who died yesterday at the age of 84, started in the transport business with his brother Harry. Having bought a horse and dray, their first job was carting firewood from Foxhill to Nelson. They chopped all day for a load, brought it to Brightwater in the , evening and started off at 2 o’clock ] next morning with it to town, arriving i there four hours later and received! 16s for the load. The next one brought j only 14s. From that time until his retirement as the active head of Newman Bros. Ltd., of which he was a founder, Mr Newman was closely associated with horses and conveyances of one kind or another. Even when the motor car replaced the horse and coach on mail and passenger routes, Mr Newman’s principal hobby was still j horses—in the show ring or on the i racing track—or merely driving them for pleasure. He rode in cars and was ; the first passenger to arrive in Nelson and in Murchison by aeroplane, but none of these new experiences dimmed ; his love of a good horse. To watch the equestrian skill with which he handled one or a team was an experience which many older Nelsonians will recall with the greatest of pleasure. Born in 1859—when Nelson was only 17 years old —Thomas Newman was one of a family of nine. His father, William Newman, a Hampshireman, had come out in 1842 in the ship Bolton, and had settled at River Terrace (in Brightwater). There he married Miss Mary Hopgood, the family moving to the present site of the Newman home in Brightwater when -Tom was three weeks old. He went to Spring Grove school, and, passing out of the sixth standard, joined his two brothers, Harry and George (who was later

Mr fom Newman when he landed in Nelson as the first aeroplane passenger.

killed by a tram in Wellington) on the Hillersden station, Marlborough, where they were driving wool waggons. The father was also engaged in the transport business about this time, carrying goods from Nelson over the Maungatapu to the Wakamarina gold fields. During one of these treks he was accosted by the notorious Kelly Gang, but, sensing trouble, spurred his horse and rode off. He was drowned in the Branch River, Upper Wairau, when only 46, his son Harry being with him at the time. PLEDGED THEIR ALL This sudden loss threw the family on their own resources. Harry returned to Brightwater and the two brothers started out on their well-known transport partnership which has earned a definite place in the history of New Zealand and especially that of the northern part of the South Island. Following the firewood and timber preliminaries, the two brothers, with a 6-horse waggon apiece, began a service to Murchison. One of their first contracts was carting machinery for the Owen gold mine. The British com-

pany, however, failed to meet the whole of their obligations and the brothers were heavy losers. There were other compensations, however, and, as the country was opened up, there was ushered in one of the most picturesque eras o i colonial transport—the coaching days. Newman Bros, were in the van. They pledged their all to get there. The six-passenger coach built at Messrs Balme and Co.’s, Nelson, cost £l2O and. when they started out on their first trip, they owned nothing except it, the three horses and the clothes they wore. One trip a fortnight from Foxhill to Murchison was scheduled. Off they started from Gaukroger’s hotel at 8 o’clock one morning in 1878 in the first coach to bear the name of Newman Bros. It was loaded with mail but there were no passengers. Kawatiri was reached at 7 p.m. and, after sleeping with the mails in their bedroom, the brothers Newman set out for Murchison (then called Hampden) the next morning. They arrived at their destination at 3 p.m. The coach had to be left at the end of the road some distance from George Moonlight’s hotel (on the site now occupied by the Commercial Hotel). Settlers like George McNee, Lynch, John Downie, Bill Beamsley and George Moonlignt were out to meet the first mail coach and, that night, in the -hotel, set in a

small clearing in the bush, the event was appropriately celebrated. From this pioneering effort in the field of transport grew regular and dependable passenger and mail services which did so much to speed up communications, reduce distance and lessen isolation. After the first three years, in 1881, the trips between Foxhill and Murchison increased to twice weekly, four horses being used in the teams. Early the next year a regular mail service was extended as far as Lyell, this joining up with one run by Mr Job Lines. It was not long before the spring coach was replaced by the thorough-braced vehicles known as cobb coaches, so named on account of their design, which followed that of the well-known English coachbuilders, Cobb and Co. These models cost about £250 to build in New Zealand. QUALITY IN HORSES During those days, as well as later, Newman Bros, were known for the fine teams of horses they possessed. Wherever possible, thoroughbreds were used and the well-trained and carefullygroomed animals in each team were matched. The teams of five on the Nel-son-Blenheim run were widely famed. That journey of 80 miles was broken into five stages. The fii'st, from Blenheim to Okaramio, was covered with chestnuts, from Okaramio to Canvastown with blacks, browns for the stretch between Canvastown and the Collins Valley and five matched greys for the final stage into Nelson. Nelsonians of that generation will remember the fine sight of this graceful team being whipped up as the coach swung into Trafalgar Street for the final run to the Stables. The Newmans were proud of these horses, as they were entitled to be, and Mr Tom Newman could tell amusing anecdotes of his coaching days, some of which illustrated how he relished taking a sporting chance. Away back in 1882 horse racing on the Four River Plain track was the year’s big fixture in Murchison and the surrounding districts. Newmans had a thoroughbred called Daybreak in the Murchison coach team at the time while a Mr Blower in Murchison had his horse, Grey Moments, especially trained to run in the Hampden Cup. However, Daybreak was entered and, in spite of having been driven in the coach to Murchison the previous day, he was good enough to win the Cup. After the race the owner of Grey Moments was still confident of the ability of his horse to defeat Daybreak so he challenged for a race on the following day for £IOO a side. “We didn’t have 100 shillings, much less £100,” said Mr Tom Newman, recounting the incident years later, “but news of the challenge soon spread and £IOO was collected on the course by those keen to see the race and this was given to us so that the challenge could be accepted. Well, the race, which had aroused great interest, was run over a mile and a half, young Jack James riding Daybreak to victory. The £IOO was duly paid over and my brother and I thus found ourselves suddenly become rich.”

After that Daybreak left the coach for the track. About this time the Nelson races were held on the Hope Plairts course which was situated about a mile nearer Richmond than Mr L. F. Berkett’s private training track. ’At one meeting there Daybreak won two races. Newmans also had other horses, including one called Pyratus which, ridden by Mr Felix Green, won a hurdle race at Motupiko after it had carried him and Mr Newman to the course from Kohatu. In more recent times Mr Newman had Lady Desmond, which won the Nelson Cup in 1927, and Pay Roll, which performed prominently in good New Zealand company. Between the years 1878 and 1910 Newman Bros, built up a coach service which had no equal in the Dominion. Regular services were run from Nelson to Reefton, Westport and Greymouth, to Blenheim and to Motueka and Riwaka. When it was plain that the motor car had come to stay, this form of transport was adopted and developed, keeping the same tradition as that built up by the two brothers in the coaching days. It was their motto that the mails must go through if humanly possible, and at least once Mr

Tom Newman had to carry them on his back from Owen to Longfoid in pouring rain and floods, in order to keep faith. A SAD PARTING Perhaps nothing hurt an old coachman more than to lose a horse. Mr Tom Newman could quote several instances where whole teams had been drowned in the flooded Buffer, “but,” he said, several years ago, “the hardest experience I ever had was in 1918 when it came to the time to sell the last 20 of the coach horses.” These were taken by train from Reefton to Otira. thence over the Otira and by train to Christchurch. Hundreds of people went to see the horses at Hayward’s stables while they were awaiting the sale at Tattersall’s Bazaar. “There was a big crowd present,” said Mr Newman, “but there was little demand for those fine horses. The first one brought only £7 and three or four went at £l2. As I saw those horses going the tears ran down my cheeks. Some of the best I withheld from sale, but just then I received a message saying that Harry was seriously iff in the Nelson hospital, so there was no option but to sell them all and return to Nelson as soon as possible in the car we had purchased.” The last coach service to be driven in the Nelson district was between Murchison and the Glenhope railhead in 1918. Mr Tom Newman was the driver and, as he puffed up at Glenhope on the final trip, he received an offer of £35 f~r the coach and accepted it. It was in that year that Mr Harry Newman died.