Jack Scott

John Cairns Scott, known to his friends as Jack, was born in Scotland in 1876 and came to New Zealand when he was seven. He worked as a ganger for the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company and then, after the Government purchased the company in 1908, he became a New Zealand Railways employee. As a ganger he was responsible for the men who maintained the railway track. On 7 February 1906 John Scott, sixth son of the late Mr and Mrs David Scott of Oamaru, married Ellen Geraldine Stunnell, second daughter of the late Mr and Mrs H Stunnell of Feilding. The wedding took place at the home of the bride’s parents. After the wedding the couple lived at Pukerua in a railway cottage, known officially as “House No. 24” north of the later Muri Station.

Correspondence in Archives New Zealand gives an insight to living in a Railway house during those times as this letter shows:

10-12-19
General Manager
House No. 24 Pukerua

The occupant of house No. 24 Pukerua, Surfaceman J.C. Scott has applied to have a sink with drainage provided also to have water laid on.
Good drainage is available and the estimated cost of the work is £16.
Will you please instruct.

Chief Engineer

The work was approved “Provided the occupant is prepared to pay an additional rent of 6d per week.” Seventeen years later while living in “Cottage No. 23” the lack of modern amenities was too much for the Scott family as this letter shows:

Pukerua Bay 14^th Sept 1936
The District Engineer
Railways
Wellington
Through Inspector Permanent Way
Palmerston North

Sir
I hereby make application for leave to vacate Cottage No. 23 Pukerua Bay and to occupy a private house at Pukerua Bay.
As there is no electric lighting in above cottage the application for installation not having been approved. Also there is no bathroom attached to the house and no hot water service.
The bath at present is in the washhouse and is unsatisfactory.
Hoping you will consider this application favourably.

Yours faithfully
J.C. Scott
Ganger

It is unfortunate that when New Zealand Railways took over the Wellington and Manawatu Railway all correspondence was destroyed and many insights into the lives of railway workers and their families was lost.

When they eventually left the cottage in 1943 Jack and Ellen lived in their own home in Haunui Road. They were both very active in the community. John was the first chairman of the Pukerua Bay School Committee in 1927 and a trustee of St Luke’s. Ellen was a foundation member of the Pukerua Bay Plunket Society in 1930 and member of the Women’s Institute and Methodist Guild. Their son Rex was a first day pupil at Pukerua Bay School when it opened on 1 February 1927.

In 1958 the couple celebrated their Golden Wedding at the Pukerua Bay RSA Hall. They were escorted into the Hall to the music of the Wedding March before musical items were performed and speeches given. Mrs Charles Gray presented the couple with an electric cake mixer, a brass fire screen and an electric iron. They received telegrams from the Governor-General Sir Willoughby Norrie, the Prime Minister the Rt Hon SG Holland and the MP for Otaki Mr JJ Maher. Jack’s reminiscences were recorded in the February 1958 Kapi Mana News:

Pukerua in those days was not a settlement of comfortable homes set in picturesque gardens as it is today. The hills were covered in bush and scrub, the only access over the hills being bush tracks, the residents being railway people and Maori families. Meat and stores were not the simple matter of popping into a shop, the order was put into a sugar bag and sent on a long train journey to Johnsonville, the guard throwing off the full bag from the up train. Medical attention came from Porirua, the doctor at that time (Dr. Graham Robinson) cycling along the railway line to visit his Pukerua patients, there being no road access whatever. The first road came from Karehana Bay over the hill as far as Taua Tapu camp. This road still exists as Pukerua Road (now Airlie Road) and joins to the Main Highway. As time went on people from Wellington built baches on the beach, many of which were on marine ground and had to be moved when the present Beach Parade was formed.

John Scott had been a Pukerua Bay resident for 70 years when he died in 1976 and was remembered as a fine old gentleman with a shock of white hair and twinkling blue eyes.