The Wall Family in Pukerua Bay

Settlers, Farmers and Good Neighbours

The Wall family became significant European landowners in Pukerua. Anthony Wall (1800 -1879) arrived in Wellington under the New Zealand Company’s Assisted Emigrants Scheme in 1841 with his wife Susannah, four sons and a daughter. He was descended from several generations of English tenant farmers.

Anthony couldn’t afford a 100-acre block so at first made do with his grant from the New Zealand Company of 8 acres cut from the bush clad hills near Johnsonville in the area now known as Glenside. Back then it was known as Halfway and was a regular stopping place on the arduous overland journey from the sheltered anchorage of Porirua Harbour to Wellington.

It was not an accommodation house but Susannah was, “a kind and compassionate woman who believed in helping people” when the need arose. (Kay, Barbara (1996). Anthony Wall, Settler of Porirua: the Papakowhai Story. p39) It was at Halfway where the four Bevan children slept in front of the fireplace on the first night of their walk with the Māori guide Ropina from Wellington to Waikawa in 1845.

As well as working their own land Anthony and his eldest son George worked for other new arrivals which enabled them to purchase further parcels of land. Susannah taught herself to speak te reo so she could trade with nearby Māori.

By the end of the 1840s Anthony was the owner of good fertile land surrounding the Porirua inlet and the family moved to the Tawa/Kenepuru area of Porirua and then to Paremata on the eastern shore of Porirua harbour, to the land now known as Papakowhai. A decade after their arrival in New Zealand, Anthony extended his farming interests to Pukerua.

One of the first Europeans to leave a record of Pukerua was Edward Jerningham Wakefield. He travelled north on foot along the track from what is now Plimmerton. In Adventure in New Zealand he wrote. “Four or five miles of easy travelling brought us onto an extensive and somewhat tabular amphitheatre, cleared to the extent of two or three hundred acres for native potato gardens.” (Wakefield, 1845, p224) At that time the hills were covered with rata, rimu, miro, totara and kohekohe. Vegetation in the swampy areas included tawa, raupo and kahikatea. The potato gardens were on a spur between what is now the railway line and the northern end of Muri Road and Wakefield probably over-estimated their extent.

In 1865 the Māori Land Court was set up. Originally known as the Native Land Court, its purpose was to name up to ten owners of a block of land which had been in communal ownership, providing a mechanism for pakeha to buy Māori land. On 7 November 1871 Anthony and Suzannah’s third son, also called Anthony Wall, Anthony II (1837-1901), gave evidence relating to the Pukerua Block at the Māori Land Court hearing, Ikaroa District, Wellington. It was not that unusual for pakeha to give evidence and although Wall was a te reo speaker his evidence was given in English. He stated that in either 1851 or 1852 his father rented land at Pukerua from Nopera, Ngahuka and Potete for £5 per year. He pointed out on a plan the extent of the leased land which was “from a point beyond Wainui extending along the beach to the Waimapihi Stream.” (Māori Land Court, Ikaroa District, Wellington, Minute Book 1871 – 1873. p305) He was uncertain of the inland boundary. The first lease was for seven years and the subsequent one was for ten years.

Later that same day Anthony Wall Senior (1800 – 1879), known to Māori as Te Uoro, was sworn in and confirmed what his son had told the court earlier. He had paid the £5 annual rent to Te Rapihana and to Tamihana Te Rauparaha. In the afternoon session Tamihana Te Rauparaha produced a lease document dated 8 April 1863 showing that he and Te Rapihana had leased the Wairaka block to Anthony and James Wall (Anthony and Suzannah Wall’s two youngest sons) for ten years at an annual rental of £6. The court hearing was adjourned with no certificate of ownership being granted as further evidence was needed.

Anthony II gave evidence at another case which began on 5 February 1873 relating to the Wairaka Block. Other witnesses were Tamihana Te Rauparaha and Hohaia Pokaitara. Anthony’s brother James Wall (1838 – 1922) later gave evidence relating to the boundaries of the Waimapihi Block in a court hearing that began on 20 November 1896 at Otaki.

Tamihana Te Rauparaha’s Wairaka block which Anthony II and James jointly leased from 1863 onwards for £6 per year was divided into 16 strips, extended along the western hills from Te Umukoura (Marble Arch) to a point south of Wairaka Rock and inland to the Māori track.

Barbara Kay wrote:

“The good relations between these Māori, who had a vested interest in Pukerua, and the two Wall brothers, who were prepared to live there, worked to the advantage of both parties for some thirty years. Their father, Anthony left the farming to the brothers, who were leasing all of the Pukerua land well before his death.” (Kay, 1996, p95)

Anthony II was aged about fifteen and James about fourteen when their father first leased the Wairaka land and they were aged twenty-five and twenty-four respectively when they took on the lease in their own right. As there was no bridge between Paremata and Mana until 1936 the Wall men would have ridden with their basic provisions from the family’s home base at Paremata around the head of the Pāuatahanui arm of the Porirua harbour and up the Horokiwi Stream valley, along what is now the Paekākāriki Hill Road, and climbed over the hills and down into the Pukerua basin. The government survey blocks along the Horokiwi Stream formed the eastern boundary of the 1863 lease. An alternative route would have been by ferry from Paremata to Mana, then from Plimmerton, then known as Taupo, by the Taua Tapu or Māori Track which led to the Pukerua pa. A third alternative was by sea by Maori canoe. James Wall built a whare on the top of Wairaka Point, which looked over the sea. The bricks used at the entrance to the whare may still be there. Anthony II had two whares at different points beside the Waimapihi stream. At first the Walls grew wheat in the Māori clearing. “The ground was hand-dug with a spade; the seed sown by hand and the wheat was winnowed in the Pukerua wind.” (Kay, 1996, p89) The greater part of the Pukerua land was in standing bush; there were no fences: the sea, hills, forest and streams were natural stock barriers.

Anthony II married Charlotte Stace of Pāuatahanui in 1866 and they had two daughters and seven sons (but two sons died in infancy.) Anthony II’s brother James Wall married Emma Floyd of Porirua in 1867 and they had four sons and one daughter.

Anthony Wall senior’s wife Susannah née Dowdswell died in 1873 followed by his death in 1879.  Anthony Wall’s obituary was published in the New Zealand Times:

“We regret to have to record the death of an old and respected settler, who has been for many years well known in and near Wellington. Mr. Anthony Wall came out to Wellington some 40 years ago in one of the first ships which arrived in the colony. It was not long before he took up land in the province, and he has now lived for a great many years at Porirua. The deceased was the owner of a good deal of property in the district. There are very few of the early colonists who have been so completely and entirely identified with the Wellington District as the late Mr. Wall. He attained the good ripe old age of 78 at his last birthday.” (New Zealand Times, 11 February 1879, p2)

In 1873 the Native Land Court divided the Pukerua Block into two:  the Waimapihi Block and Pukerua Block, separated by the Taua Tapu or Māori Track.  Sometime after their father’s death in 1879, Anthony II was able to purchase the Pukerua Block, to the east side of the Māori Track, calling this farm Mt Welcome. The Mt Welcome land, named from the heady days of gold prospecting in the late 1860s, is the highest and steepest along the hills east of Pukerua Bay. Around the same time James Wall acquired the East Haukopua Block, which stretched west-east from the Taupo Stream to the Horokiwi survey blocks, calling this farm Tawa Tapu. James later went on to purchase, in conjunction with his third son, Albert “Joby” Wall (1872 – 1947) parts of the Wairaka Block as they came on the market from the various Māori owners. These were extended holdings. As Anthony II had inherited his father’s land at Paremata, his home farm base was still at Papakowhai and as James had inherited his father’s land at Tawa/Kenepuru, which James named Brailsford, his home farm base was still at Porirua.

Native bush was felled or burnt off by the Wall family to enable them to create pasture to make a living.  Visible evidence of the results of these controlled bush burn-offs is described in the 1935 Dominion Supplement of Holiday Reading by New Zealand Writers:

A Philosopher’s Journey – By Rail to Palmerston North by “Dinkum”

As the train goes plodding up-hill to Pukerua more thirsty-looking sheep country keeps coming into the picture, with the charred remnants of old-time monarchs of the bush scattered up and down the hillsides or lying across the gullies. The spirit of the wilds must somewhere lie wandering over these scattered lands crying out over the ruthlessness of man and the ravages of fire. (Dominion, Supplement 24 December 1935, p6)

The earliest cattle acquired by the Walls came from Twofold Bay on the south coast of New South Wales. “These Long Horn cattle, characterised by their long curving horns, were of a good constitution, good milkers and useful cattle in those days when bush was everywhere.” (Notes by Percy Wall, 1946) The family used the cream to make butter, heavily salted to preserve it for the long journey to the Wellington market.

The first sheep grazed in Pukerua came from Kapiti Island. Five hundred two-tooth ewes (16 – 18 months old) were bought from Andrew Brown, a grazier on the island. The Walls paid twenty-five shillings each. After shearing, Māori waka were used to take the wool from a sheltered bay just south of Wairaka Point to be off-loaded at Paremata and shipped on to Wellington.

The Wall brothers, cousins and their workers used Clydesdale horses, hill ploughs and harrows to contour the land and a phosphatic fertiliser called basic slag to improve the fertility of the Pukerua soil. Basic slag, a mixture of iron residue and lime, was very heavy and horses were used to sledge the sacks out to dumps before it was spread by hand from a sack apron. It was a back-breaking task but the land was noticeably better after it was spread.

In the 1885 Sheep Return Anthony Wall II had 2200 sheep and James Wall 2400 sheep. (New Zealand, Sheep Returns, Owners and Officers, 1879-1889 The New Zealand Gazette, p.1266) Anthony II held significant shares in the Gear Meat Preserving and Freezing Company Ltd, established in 1882 when the first refrigerated meat was successfully carried from New Zealand to London. James Gear’s homestead was close to the Wall’s Papakowhai homestead. Percy Frederick Wall (1878 – 1953), Anthony and Charlotte Wall’s fourth surviving son remembered:

…going as a teenager to the Wharemoko-Waikanae area with his father in about 1897 to buy six or seven hundred sheep of the same strain, which, like the first, had been brought over by boat from Kapiti. Sheep raised on coastal land, facing into the wind, off the sea, were regarded as good-doers. If they did not do well, there were no drenches to save them from certain death. (Kay, 1996, p98)

Anthony II saw the potential of rail and put money into the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company’s private venture. After the line between Wellington and Longburn was opened in 1886, it became a vital part of Pukerua farming operations. Horse-drawn sledges were used to cart the wool from their woolsheds to the railway cutting, close to Whenua Tapu, where the train would stop and wait for the bales to be loaded onto wagons. The route that the line took through the Waimapihi block was to cause issues with the road which Anthony II and later Reg Wall and Roderick Mulhern used to access their properties and the station.

Anthony Wall II died in 1901 and his wife Charlotte died in 1932. His obituary in the New Zealand Times read:

Mr Anthony Wall, a very old settler of Paremata, died on Monday after a short illness. The late Mr Wall was sixty-four years of age. He was born in Etwall, Derbyshire, and came out to this colony with his father and mother in the ship Lord William Bentinck in 1841. The family settled at Paremata, and has been engaged in farming pursuits in that locality ever since. The late Mr Wall was not a politician, and took very little part in public affairs, but he was esteemed as a good neighbour and a sterling settler. He leaves a widow, five sons and two daughters. (New Zealand Times, 9 October 1901, p5)

Anthony II’s brother, James Wall, had an appreciation of the finer things of life. His mother considered him to be the most engaging of her children. James was a keen photographer. Sadly his large collection of glass plate photographs was destroyed after his death as his family did not know what to do with them.

James Wall died in 1922. He left his Tawa Tapu farm (the East Haukopua Block) to his only daughter Sarah Emma Laidlay née Wall (1869 – 1961) who had married Charles Etheridge Laidlay (1864 – 1938) at Tawa in 1894 and to his third son, James Everard Wall (1870 – 1949), known as Jim. Sarah and Charles did not have children. Jim married three times, having been widowed twice. His five sons and two daughters were the children of his first wife.

Jim Wall of Tawa Tapu farmed alongside his cousin, Reg Wall of Mt Welcome. Reg’s daughter Barbara Kay wrote of the man whom she and her siblings called Uncle Jim:

He was a big man in physique and character…Jim was not the sort of man to be shut away in the routine life of a hill country farmer…when he had the alternative to face and conquer new challenges in an exciting world of people. (Kay, 1996, p180)

Jim entered into many ventures, some of which turned sour on him. In 1932, after his King Country run known as Waitoru had been taken over by Dalgety and Co, he went back to live at Tawa Tapu at Pukerua. He had been made a government assessor for farms. This important job entitled him to travel first class and he wore a special medallion on his watch chain to prove it. The Reg Wall family, who never aspired to such luxury, travelled separately in the second class carriages, parting from him at the station. Jim was a born raconteur:

“Few could equal his storytelling, which he used to entertain both family and guests…He continued to dispense stories and laughter from his large armchair at his home at Tawa Tapu to the end of his life.  He was the best after-dinner entertainer any guest could wish for.” (Kay, 1996, p181)

Jim’s second son Gordon Mac Wall (1902 – 1971), known as Mac inherited Tawa Tapu from Jim. Jim’s widow Ruth remained at Tawa Tapu until her death in 1973. She lived in the formerly pale-pink painted corrugated-iron-clad cottage on the rise above the road across from what is now the Whenua Tapu cemetery. Ruth was as much a character as her husband. Mac Wall farmed Tawa Tapu until he died in 1971. Sometime after his death Tawa Tapu was sold out of the Wall family.

Sarah and Jim’s father, James Wall (1838 – 1922) had his worries where his Wairaka land was concerned. He had purchased it in conjunction with his fourth child, Albert Wall (1872 -1947), known as Joby. Joby married Florence Henson in 1909 and they had one son, James Rangipo Wall known as Rangi (1910 – 1997) and two daughters. Joby and Florence built their home on the Wairaka land close beside the railway line between Pukerua and Whenua Tapu. This house was burnt down in the 1930s but there are still bricks and pieces of the coal range visible. The original bush directly behind their house survived the fire and is now called Rangi’s Bush.

Both Joby and Florence had a weakness for the ‘demon drink’ which worked against them. In about 1914 Joby made over ownership of his share of the Wairaka land to Florence. But within a few years she sold it to Charles Gray, another significant land holder in Pukerua, who was intent on increasing his footprint in the area. Joby’s father James took evasive action, leaving his own major share in the Wairaka land to his grandson Rangi. As Rangi was only twelve when he inherited his grandfather’s Wairaka land in 1922, his uncle Jim Wall of Tawa Tapu leased and farmed it for ten years. But Rangi had inherited the curse of his parents. The final land transfer of the Wairaka land to Charles Gray was achieved by him in 1932 through rather devious means. Over a bottle of Gray’s home brewed parsnip wine Rangi was persuaded to sign the deed of sale of his grandfather’s land.

Following Anthony II’s death, it was his fifth surviving son Reginald Stace or Reg Wall (1876 -1945) who inherited the Mt Welcome land, then a total of 837 acres (339 hectares) along with stock valued at £669. Reg grew up in Anthony II and Charlotte Wall’s Papakowhai homestead. He attended Porirua School, which was within walking distance, but when older he made the train journey to attend Wellington College. Before his marriage Reg Wall made a trip to Britain where he bicycled around the country and visited family at Etwall. When his father died in 1901 he took on the management of the Papakowhai land at Paremata land for his widowed mother.

Reginald Stace Wall married Isabella Shine, known as Belle (1881 – 1952) of Wellington in 1903. Belle was a city girl of Scots-Irish extraction, the daughter of a men’s outfitter and a seamstress. She worked in a company office before her marriage. Reg built a four-room cottage on the Mt Welcome land for himself and his bride. This cottage was built in heart totara and had a kitchen, a sitting room and two bedrooms. There was no bathroom, only a basin on a bench at the back door. It was the first house to be built on the Mt Welcome land. This cottage was used much later by a farm manager, at the time when the land was owned by Peter Hunt and called Huntleigh. Later the land was renamed Mt Welcome by its subsequent owners.

Reg and Belle’s first daughter was born in 1906 at Kairanga, Reg’s other land, which he had bought before his marriage. Their second daughter was born in Wellington and by 1912 the family were back in Pāuatahanui where Reg also owned land and where they built a new home. This large wooden house was called Bromley. From Bromley Reg could continue to supervise his mother’s land and his own at Pukerua.

Between 1914 and 1923 Reg was able to purchase the last, north-west, section of Mt Welcome which he placed in his wife’s name. Belle’s land was later to become known as Kerehoma Farm. With his loyal workers, men from Porirua and Paremata, Reg continued Anthony II’s work. They cleared more bush, cut fence posts from the felled trees and made concrete posts for significant boundary markers. The men lived in galvanised iron whares each with an open fireplace and chimney at one end and a bunk at the other end. Arthur Collins who cleared most of the high ground on the farm had a whare at the bottom of the hill and another at the top. He carried in sacks of flour and sugar to each whare and killed his own meat. There were other itinerant workers who stayed on as the Walls were known to be good bosses.

In 1907 improvements to the stations on the Wellington-Manawatu railway line included a long siding at Pukerua, “where a good deal of wool was loaded”. (New Zealand Times, 20 March, 1909 p7.) In the 1907 report of the London Wool Sales mention was made of the crossbred Lincoln wool from Pukerua. (New Zealand Mail, 3 July, 1907 p38)  In 1911 the Dominion newspaper reported:

“A member of a deputation to the Minister for Railways yesterday, Mr. Wall, of Pukerua, near Plimmerton, said that his grandfather had first settled in that district in 1848. It seems a long time from that to the present day, but yet one of the descendants of that pioneer was asking yesterday for railway facilities for the holding that has come down to him. Mr. Wall fattens 4000 sheep a year and he has to pursue a round-about process to enable them to be shipped to Wellington.” (Dominion, 15 March, 1911 p6.)

Stock yards and a siding were built beside Pukerua Station in 1912.  Stock was driven from the farms to the yards and the loading bank at the station.

“The farming families depended totally on the railway and the railway depended on the families who staffed the railway station. The stationmaster, who operated the signals manually from his signal box, brought all the trains in and out from the station as well as putting trucks on the siding for unloading.” (Kay, 1996, p106)

The trains carried anything and everything. One of the guards who lived in Paekākāriki kept a house cow but had no bull. Once a year he would put his cow in the guard’s van and bring it down to Pukerua and the Mt Welcome bull. In due course he would take it back the way it came, in the guard’s van.

In the early 1920s, with a growing family and tired of the rampant gorse, Reg sold the Bromley farm and house. After living temporarily in Plimmerton, he and Belle built a new homestead on the Mt Welcome land in 1926.  As a prevention against fire:

The house was built of reinforced concrete, with the walls in one with the foundations, making a continuous width of six inches. The shingle for the concrete was brought down by train from the Otaki River then sledged with horses from the station to the site. Victor Allen and Horrie Ames, both of whom were employed on the farm, mixed the concrete by hand on a wooden platform, ready for the builder to pour for the boxing. (Kay, 1996, p209)

Heart rimu was used for the interior walls and heart matai for the floors. This house is now known as Kerehoma. Belle Wall created the homestead garden within a shelter of ngaio and lacebark (houhere). “She took the initiative in extending the garden walks into every dip around the house.  She introduced unusual native trees to this area, such as puriri, ake ake, whau and kauri.” (Kay, 1996, p179)

Reg chose to run a New Zealand breed of sheep called Corriedale and went on to develop a significant Corriedale stud. Corriedales were first bred about 1882 by James Little, a South Canterbury farmer who crossed Merino and Lincoln Longwool sheep. The aim was to produce sheep able to graze on the grassy flats, which suited the British breeds, and on the sparse dry hill country grass preferred by the Merino. The breed was officially recognised in 1911 and has been exported world-wide. The Corriedale is reared for both meat and wool which is used to make blankets, rugs, military uniforms, knitting wools, tweeds and worsteds.

During the slump years of 1929 – 1934 farmers had a tough time. “Wool prices dropped considerably. Reg took the bold step of sending his wool to be sold on his own account on the London market. It went for fourpence a pound, better than the current price in New Zealand.” (Kay, 1996, p103)

In May 1935 Reg Wall hosted a visiting party of Japanese naval officers. The Dominion reported the visit of two ships from the Japanese Naval Training Squadron to the port of Wellington:

Visit To Sheep Station – Rear-Admiral Presented with Puppy.

Rear-Admiral Nakamura and four of his officers, accompanied by Mr. G. Iizuka, of Mitsui Ltd., wool buyers, of Sydney; Mr. C. G. Prevost, of Prevost and Co., wool buyers; and Mr. J. K. Staples, of the New Zealand Farmers’ Co-operative Distributing Co., Ltd., visited the sheep station of Mr. R. S. Wall, at Pukerua Bay, and watched with interest crutching and dipping operations. Prior to leaving the station, Mr. Wall presented Rear-Admiral Nakamura with a six-weeks-old purebred collie puppy, which will be taken back to Japan. After an enjoyable time at the station, the Rear-Admiral and his officers rejoined the squadron prior to its departure for Auckland. (Dominion, 20 May 1935, p10)

In November 1931 Reg took a case of “specific performance” against Charles Gray in the Supreme Court over land which Gray had agreed to buy but subsequently reneged on the agreement. Specific performance is a legal term which requires the defendant to carry out a promise made or to be held in contempt of court. The claim also included “£60/16/3 for special damages.” In 1927 Gray had signed an agreement to buy 18½ acres of land at Pukerua Bay at £15 an acre from Reg as a consequence of the realignment of Muri Road. Gray refused to carry out the purchase although Reg was still willing to sell. Gray alleged in court that there were verbal conditions as part of the contract to purchase but judgement was found for Reg with costs and witnesses’ expenses. In addition Reg was entitled to set off £39/14/3 against the purchase price of the property. (Evening Post, 1 December 1931, p11)

The first wool sale of the 1935 – 1936 season held at the Wellington Town Hall on 7 December 1935 was said to be the best clip for years. Special mention was made of Reg Wall’s Corriedale wool which fetched 15 ¼ pence per pound. (Evening Post, 7 December 1935, p6) Then in a 1940 report of New Zealand Stock Shipments Overseas:

“Several lines of quality sheep have been shipped to Sydney recently by the stud stock department of Wright, Stephenson, and Co., Ltd. The complete Corriedale stud of Mr. R. S. Wall, of “Mt. Welcome,” Pukerua Bay, Wellington, has been sold to a South African purchaser.  Mr. Wall founded his stud in 1933 by the purchase of ewes from the famous “Hui Hui” stud, (Harwarden, north Canterbury). Additional ewes from this stud and from the stud of Mr. W. Anderson, of Waiau, were secured from time to time. The only sires used were quality sheep purchased from these two studs.” (Evening Post, 22 June 1940, p13.)

From 1930 until his death Reg Wall was a Justice of the Peace. In 1934 Reg Wall, as a permanent resident of the Bay, was a member of the Pukerua Bay Ratepayers Association and also a member of the Paremata Bridge Association. Once the Paremata Bridge was opened in 1936 Reg purchased an Austin car, but he still needed to drive through Plimmerton to Karehana Bay and along the road formed in 1927.

Reg and Belle Wall had seven children. Ronan, Rosemary and Reginald (Rex) attended Plimmerton School. They either went by train or walked to Plimmerton beside the railway line. When Pukerua Bay School opened in February 1927 the three  Wall children were enrolled but only for a short time before thy returned to Plimmerton School. Pukerua’s one teacher, only twenty-one years of age, with twenty-seven pupils ranging in age from four to twelve, would have been significantly challenged.

Later that year Reg Wall wrote to the Railways’ District Engineer asking for a more convenient gate for pedestrians crossing the tracks at the station. The engineer considered the request was reasonable as, “a number of women and school children use the gateway and experience difficulty opening and closing the heavier 12’ gate.” (Pukerua Bay – Yard 1908-1965. NZ R11071353.  Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga)

Reg and Belle’s youngest daughter Barbara was enrolled at Pukerua Bay when she turned five but she only stayed for three months before learning from home.

Both Rex and Barbara returned to Pukerua Bay School in 1933 for their final two years before going on to Wellington College and Queen Margaret College respectively.

In October 1936 there was high excitement in the Wall household. Debutante Rosemary Wall was presented to the Governor General Lord Galway and Lady Galway. The Dominion reported:

“Government House was a blaze of lights last night and its white and gold ballroom was filled with a large crowd of young people, when their Excellencies the Governor-General and Lady Galway gave a ball at which 26 debutantes made their curtsey to them…Miss Rosemary Wall, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Reginald Wall, Pukerua Bay, was also

presented by Mrs. Moodie. She wore a white moire taffeta frock made on Victorian lines, with puff sleeves and yoke edged with narrow silver lace. The tight-fitting bodice and full skirt had a row of covered buttons from neck to hem. She carried a posy of white flowers.” (Dominion, 24 October 1936, p6)

Five years later Barbara Wall was one of the debutantes presented to Miss Irene Wilson, their former principal at Queen Margaret College. Before the dance Mr and Mrs Wall hosted a dinner party in the Grand Hotel, Wellington for some of the debutantes. The Evening Post reported:

“Eighteen young girls who have recently completed their schooling made their debut into adult society last night at the Queen Margaret College Parents’ and Old Girls’ Association’s debutante dance…The dance was held in St. Francis Hall and there was everything necessary to make it a memorable night for the debutantes – their own lovely frocks, the beautiful decorations of the hall, and the great number of friends and relatives present. Being a debutantes’ dance, there was no shortage of young men to partner the girls, as the majority were their contemporaries and therefore under military age. There were a number, however, in uniform, including some of the members of the Parents’ Association.” (Evening Post, 31 May 1941, p12)

Barbara was her college dux in 1940 and went on to complete a Masters degree in History at Victoria University.

Mrs Isabella Wall, Belle, was the secretary of the Plimmerton Branch of the Women’s Division of the Farmers’ Union. In 1925 while their husbands attended the Farmers’ Union Conference a group of sixteen women shared their experiences of the often hard and lonely times on the farms. Their stories of loneliness, illness and lack of support prompted them to form the Women’s Division of the Farmers’ Union to improve support systems for rural women and provide community and friendship. Belle often hosted meetings in her home at Pukerua Bay. In 1939 following the declaration of WWII the Plimmerton Red Cross was set up to provide training in first aid, home nursing and hygiene. Isabella Wall was elected to represent the Pukerua Bay district on the executive committee. (Dominion, 16 September 1939, p7.)

In September 1942 a Home Guard base was built on Mt Welcome Farm within view of the homestead. The hut included a bunkroom, cookhouse and ablution block. At the time of the school jubilee a long-time resident remembered:

…each family making tents from sacking and practising walking (we had many toddlers) up to Mr Wall’s bush. All pushchairs were left at the fence, which worried some as it would have pointed the way to our camp. This was of course during the war when it was expected a landing would be made behind Kapiti.”(Pukerua Bay Primary School Golden Jubilee 1927-1977)

Further south on a hilltop on what was Jim Wall’s Tawa Tapu farm a zigzag trench used by a mounted troop from the Hutt Home Guard still exists.

Scouting was established in Pukerua Bay in 1941 and when the threat of Japanese invasion had passed Reg allowed the scouts to meet in the Home Guard hut. In the early 1970s after it had become unsafe this hut was demolished by the family.

The Wall family played a significant part in the Anglican Church in Pukerua Bay. It was a family tradition. Thomas Hollis Stace (1820 – 1890), Reg Wall’s grandfather, had given the land for the first chapel, “for all denominations of Protestant Christians at Pauatahanui.” (A Transcription of the Deed of Trust of land for Chapel and Burying Ground at Pauatahanui). Reg’s mother Charlotte Wall née Stace (1844 – 1932) had built an interdenominational chapel in memory of her husband Anthony II on their Paremata land. It was consecrated in 1916. This chapel was later gifted to the Anglican Church and moved to a site on Paremata Crescent in 1953. At Pukerua Bay the first Sunday School was held in the home of Isabella Wall at Mt Welcome Farm. So few people lived permanently in the Bay that her own children formed the nucleus of the Sunday School. The children of the farm workers and from the railway houses joined the Wall children. When the numbers grew and the school was built in 1927 they moved to the schoolroom, “where there were enough to ‘Hear the pennies dropping one by one’.”

By the early 1950s Pukerua Bay was changing from a farming and railway settlement with baches for week-enders, to a suburb for growing families. Anglican Church services were held in the school room or even under the pine trees if the key could not be found. On 28 May 1950, a meeting of the local church committee accepted and acknowledged the gift of Mrs Isabella Wall of a building site for the church in Rawhiti Road. A Church Building Fund went into action. The building was dedicated by Bishop E. J. Rich on 30th June 1956. In the course of a forceful address, Bishop Rich made one significant observation that he was glad to see St Mark’s Church Hall opposite a school, ‘a most desirable site for a church’. (Blair, M. (2011) Pauatahanui Parochial District – More Than a Hundred Years.)

Reginald Wall died in 1945.  His youngest daughter wrote that he:

…had a boundless capacity for management and organisation. Beneath this ability were his deep love and underlying concern for people and an even deeper love for his family and the land which gave them a home. Reg saw land as the solution to everyone’s future [He] loved people and enjoyed company and he never lost his gentle sense of humour. He belonged to the new era of jazz and played his piano by ear, waking his family up at six o’clock every morning and filling in for the Parata family pianists during the supper interval at the local dances held in the Pukerua Bay Tennis Club hall in the 1930s. Reg did not have the placid nature of his father, but he inherited his honesty and generosity and kept the friendship of the local Maori. (Kay, 1996, p177, p180)

As Reg had settled his eldest son on his Kairanga land and his middle son on a farm near Foxton, it was Reg’s youngest son Reginald Faulkner Wall, known as Rex (1838 – 1992), who inherited the Mt Welcome block. Rex built a house for himself in the Woolshed Bush with direct access to the main road north. Following Belle Wall’s death in 1952 the land in Isabella Wall’s name was left to her three surviving daughters with the hope that Rex would farm it alongside his land, on their behalf. But within a few years Rex sold the Mt Welcome block and his house to Jim Gray and left the district. As a result, the sister’s land and the Mt Welcome homestead were leased out for eleven years.

In 1969 Reg Wall’s youngest daughter, Barbara Helen Kay née Wall (1923 – 2001) organised the termination of the lease and took over management of the land on behalf of her sisters and herself, renaming the land and Mt Welcome homestead Kerehoma. She and her family moved into the house. As well as taking on this hands-on farming role, Barbara continued her part-time work as a secondary school history teacher, commuting into Wellington by car.

Initially Barbara ran Kerehoma with the help of a farm adviser and a part-time manager and in conjunction with her northern neighbours, Jean and Margaret Mulhern of Springhill. Women farmers were unusual at this time so they stood out at the local stockyards. Barbara stocked the land with Coopworth sheep and a few head of Angus cattle.  Coopworth were a sheep breed developed in New Zealand and provided a combination of lean meat and high-quality crossbred wool. When it came to raising a bank loan to buy the stock, Barbara, as a married woman, had to take her historian/artist husband along to give his permission and endorsement. Barbara earned top prices for both her meat and wool.

The Government’s plans for the road north from Wellington cast a long shadow over Kerehoma during Barbara’s lifetime. Kerehoma was too small to be an economic farming unit. The 1978 Supplementary Minimum Prices scheme to assist sheep farmers helped for a while but Barbara needed to raise capital. Her ability to do so through selling sections for housing was hamstrung when the Ministry of Works put a proclamation over the best part of the land to take it for a bypass. In 1987 Barbara, with the help of an able young lawyer, took a case against them to the Environment Court. She won and the Court bought down a landmark decision that the Government could not put an indefinite proclamation over land. They had either to buy the land or lift it. The proclamation was lifted and part of the Kerehoma land zoned residential. But before Barbara could take advantage of this, the issue came up again. This time around there were two options on the table for the road north: developing the coastal route which included a major bypass through Kerehoma or a new inland route through Transmission Gully. The Wellington Regional Council hearings into this decided for Transmission Gully. One of the many reasons cited in their report not to develop the coastal route was that the Pukerua Bay bypass would destroy the ecologically important Waimapihi Wetland on Kerehoma Farm.

Barbara was happy for the St Mark’s Ladies Guild to use the front lawn and garden for annual garden parties and for the Pukerua Bay Girl Guides to hold summer camps in the paddock above the homestead. Local children were encouraged to adopt mis-mothered and orphaned lambs, bringing them back to the flock when they got too big to look after. In 1993, to celebrate 100 years of Women’s Suffrage the Guide camp held at Kerehoma was based on skills such as baking bread and making butter. Charlotte Wall and her eldest daughter Emma (Barbara’s grandmother and aunt) had both signed the Suffrage Petition in 1893. Another challenge was to walk to the highest point in the community. In all 74 people aged four to seventy years walked up to the top of Mt Welcome 440 metres above sea level.

In 1991 the Wall family celebrated 150 years since the family arrived in New Zealand. To mark this, Barbara researched and wrote the book Anthony Wall, Settler of Porirua, the Papakowhai Story, which was published in 1996.  Barbara died in 2001. Her family sold the Kerehoma homestead in 2005 but continued to own and manage the land until November 2022. With its sale, ownership of land in Pukerua by the Wall family and their descendants was bought to an end.

The Wall family were early conservationists. The Otaki Mail for 20 April 1928 recorded appreciation of the president of the Levin-Waiopehu Tramping Club for a cheque for £1 1s from Mr R.S. Wall with a quote from his letter, “My wife and I, with two friends, went up and spent the night, but next morning the view was not clear. The bush is truly magnificent.”

Substantial blocks of the original forest such as The Hundred Acre Bush were not cleared and were fenced off from stock. Wind breaks of macrocarpa were planted to encourage the growth of native trees.

“A second significant area spared the axe was the ngaio bush of the farmland. Ngaio does not grow under a bush canopy, and botanical scientists believe this growth became established where once the Maori had cultivated a clearing in the bush. Maori were known to have cultivated peaches in the paddock where the ngaios grow, which explains the name of Peach Hill given by Reg Wall to that part of Kerehoma.” (Kay, 1996, p179)

Other areas on Kerehoma that have deemed of ecological significance are known in the family as Belle’s Bush in the gully on the northern side of the Kerehoma woolshed, the Tank Paddock Bush, the Kohekohe Bush and Back Track area south of the homestead.

The largest piece of protected bush on Kerehoma some 47 hectares, known as The Hundred Acre Bush, was placed into a covenant with the Department of Conservation by Barbara Kay and her sister Charlotte Elizabeth (Betty) Wall (1908 – 1989), with the covenant being registered in 1990. This is a private reserve established for conservation reasons and access by the public is allowed only by permission of the owners. DOC work in controlling possums and rats has greatly improved the health of this forest and the number of birds. In 2000 Barbara and her husband Robin Kay placed the Waimapihi Wetland (4.5 hectares) on Kerehoma Farm, the headwaters of the Waimapihi Stream, into a Queen Elizabeth II National Trust covenant.

Reg Wall’s Mt Welcome Woolshed Bush (4.8 hectares) and Rangi’s Bush (8 hectares) on what was James Wall’s Wairaka land in the western hills have also been covenanted with the Queen Elizabeth II National Trust.

These remaining areas of native bush which include matai, totara, rimu, kohekohe, tawa, pukatea, rewarewa, mahoe, kaikomako, kahikatea and nikau, are a lasting legacy of the Wall family in Pukerua Bay.

By Margaret Blair