McLean’s Trading Post

McLean's Trading Post, 27 December 1963
Colour 35mm slide, Photographed by Robert Gale
Courtesy of Tauranga Heritage Collection, Ref. 0005/20/1

Donald (Don) McLean was a well-known and hard-working Tauranga businessman born in Oropi in 1921. His father was the head teacher at the local school for several years and Don was the only son following five sisters.

Prior to serving in the Air Force in the Solomon Islands during the Second World War he worked for Gamman’s Sawmill at Mamaku. Following his return to New Zealand and starting a family Don, a master builder, in conjunction with two brothers-in-law, Charlie Merriman and ‘Poodle’ Ake, helped construct many homes in the Patton and Sylvester subdivisions (Hampton Terrace, Oxford Street and Baycroft Avenue). Don also built the first four shops in ‘Merivale’ (Parkvale) and the family lived in a flat above one of them. First there was a grocery/dairy, a hardware outlet was added, followed by the drapery and lastly, he built another grocery store.

On the opposite corner, across Kesteven Avenue was the McLean and Co. joinery workshop and local joiner/carpenter Claude Hewlett became part of the construction team, also helping to building the houses. The other half of this building was unused except for the storage of an old Chev motor vehicle and spare timber – it had no floor in that side of it. He had more building material stored around the building plus an old tractor. Don’s work vehicle was a 1928 faded blue Chevrolet. He also had a small Commer truck and in the 60s it was replaced by a “J” model Bedford truck.

Another building venture was McLean’s Trading Post on the east side of Cameron Rd between 9th and 10th Avenues. The concrete floor was laid in 1960 and the iconic horse and wagon installed on the roof of  this and all subsequent ‘Trading Posts’.

Don, employees and other helpers manhandle the horse and wagon on the roof of the 10th Avenue Trading Post
Image courtesy of the McLean family

The wagon was an old farm one rebuilt to look like a pioneer vehicle. The “horse” was drawn by local character and artist Michael Hodgkins and made by Claude Hewlett. In 1964 Hayman’s Hall opposite the Boys College was up for sale. It was purchased and for a short time second-hand goods were sold from there. Once the new McLean’s Trading Post was established on Grey Street in the centre of town, the Hall was once more used as a dance and meeting venue, and later a licensed restau-rant, until its demolition in the 1970s. Various members of the wider McLean and Merriman clans, including the Akes and the Rodgers, worked in the business especially on auction days.

Sales of local produce, fruit trees and flowers were held during the day every Friday, and the main auction was the same evening. There were large auctions of found and unclaimed stolen goods by the police, and the usual deceased estates. A former staff member recalls there being many free-standing wardrobes which were often dismantled on site by buyers who only wanted the mirrors —  the ‘robes’ being left on Don’s premises. There were also dozens of concrete laundry tubs as house-holders upgraded to stainless steel.

The Grey Street mart is where the writer first remembers seeing the horse and wagon on the roof when taken there by her grandfather. He was a regular customer, as were many others keen for a bargain.

McLean’s Trading Post as supermarket site
Bay of Plenty Times, 17 December 1963
Courtesy of Pae Korokī, Gifford-Cross Collection, Ref. Photo gcc-5513

Christies Furnishings bought the building and McLeans’ temporary premises were located in the former Ellis Motors Ltd on the corner of Devonport Road and First Avenue. The writer’s husband recalls going as a schoolboy to an auction there, hoping to buy a book on Gamman’s Mill but it was bought by Mrs McLean herself. He was disappointed as he had played the ‘wag’ from school especially.

In 1970 the last and largest premises was constructed on three levels at the intersection of Second Avenue and Cameron Road. In the mid-70s this became Simons Furnishings and is presently Greenslades.

Information for the compilation of this article has kindly been provided by members of the McLean family.

Sources

The Ngawaro Regional Historical Review (2005) by Jim Pendergrast

Oropi - The 100 years following the Confiscation of the Land (2019) by Robert Craig Scott

Oropi School Centenary and District Reunion (1899-1999) Edited by Annie Rae Te Ake Ake

Merivale Tauranga — Proud of it, Merivale-Tauranga Oral History Project (October 2000) Compiled by Belinda Leckie & Helen Unsworth, Merivale Community Inc.   

McLean’s Trading Post (1978) by Jessie A. Parry, Journal of the Tau-ranga Historical Society, No. 62, December 1978

Halfway House, Ngawaro

Halfway House, Rotorua-Tauranga Road, c. 1897-1900
Large format mounted gelatin silver print by Thomas E. Price of Masterton & Tauranga
Hocken Collection, Image courtesy of Tony Rackstraw and David George

While conducting research previous articles about hand-coloured photography published on this blog in August, I came across this illuminating image which originated from a descendant of Tauranga photographer Thomas E. Price, [i] and now resides in the Hocken Collection (Dunedin). It depicts Halfway House (alternatively spelled Half Way, and sometimes with a hyphen) at Ngawaro, a refuelling stop on the direct route between Tauranga and Rotorua, popular in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. Judging by the style of leg-of-mutton sleeves worn by the woman standing among the five men, a boy and a dog in front of the veranda, it was probably taken around the time of Price’s arrival in Tauranga from Masterton in late 1897-early 1898. [ii]

Hand-drawn “military” map of country around Gate Pa, Tauranga, c. 1864
Courtesy of National Library, Ref. MapColl-832.16hkm/[ca.1864]/Acc.1869

Early maps and accounts of movements in Tauranga Moana demonstrate that the direct route between Tauranga and Rotorua via the Oropi Bush was already well established by the time of the settlement of the Te Papa peninsula in the 1830s by the CMS missionaries. Botanist William Colenso rode a horse via this route in January 1842,[iii] and by the early 1870s excursionists to the Hot Lakes district were travelling by steamer to Tauranga and then by horseback via the new “Oropi road.” [iv] In December 1873 Charles Spencer, a few years later Tauranga’s resident photographer, walked as a teenager with some friends from his home in Thames to the Rotorua Lakes and back via Tauranga, probably through the Oropi Bush via the Mangorewa Gorge.[v]

The opening up and gradual improvement of the original foot and horse tracks through the area may have been one of the reasons why Edward “Ned” Douglas and Korowhiti Tuataka settled at Ngawaro soon after their marriage in 1870, building a home which they named the Halfway House. The route was surveyed by Captain A.C. Turner and then gradually improved by gangs of constabulary, with the first official coach service making the journey in July 1873. In the following year, the Douglas family rented their house out to coach proprietors and moved to Mohaka in the Hawkes Bay for six years. The mail[vi] and passenger coaches,[vii] as well as cartage contractors,[viii]used the Ngawaro stop as a convenient place to rest and water passengers, drivers and animals, even to change horse teams, and the traffic reputedly increased tenfold between 1874 and 1877. It is not clear, however, whether it was offering overnight accommodation during this period.

Bullock team and four-in-hand coach at Halfway House, Ngawaro, possibly 1880s
Copy print of photograph by unidentified photographer
Courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. Photo 06-138

In late 1873 the Oropi Hotel had been built by John Marshall in a location close to where Oropi School now stands, to “supply a want long felt, and be a great boon to travellers”,[ix] and was operated by Edward Durand as a popular lunch time and overnight stop[x] until it burnt down in August 1883.[xi] The Douglas family returned to Ngawaro in 1882, after a two year stay at Rotoiti where Edward had built a barge and was employed as a mill manager. Sensing the need for increased accommodation options, he erected a new building opposite Opakapaka on what was by then known as Douglas Flat, [xii] applying for and being granted an accommodation licence for what he now called “The Bush House” in July that year.[xiii]

In May 1883 Douglas leased the premises to J McKinlay for two years, the latter reverting to the use of its original name, the “Half-Way House Hotel.”[xiv] It appears that, although his family were living as Ngawaro, Edward was still very much occupied with the Rotoiti enterprise, travelling backwards and forwards frequently between the two locations.[xv] Although McKinlay erected a 15-stall stable alongside the hotel in November 1883[xvi] – probably the long, single-storey building visible in the centre of the above image – his tenure does not appear to have been particularly successful,[xvii] and the licence reverted to Edward Douglas in May 1885.[xviii]

By early 1887 the quantity of traffic through the Oropi Bush had declined considerably. The reasons for this were complex: the high rainfall and stormy weather, particularly during winter months, often rendered the road difficult to negotiate or even impassable,[xix] the constabulary had moved further afield, and the Council was reluctant to continually provide funding for repairs, while tourist traffic to the Lakes had all but ceased after the catastrophic eruptions of Tarawera and destruction of the Pink and White Terraces. Douglas concentrated “on developing his property of 160 acres which he and his wife had worked so hard to acquire, by planting out an orchard and maintaining a substantial garden.” [xx] They gave up the accommodation license, but still catered to the substantial through traffic:

“Soon the Half Way House is reached. In other days when the traffic was larger this house boasted a license. Now there is none. The coach changes horses here and the traveller has time to have a cup of tea, with some bread and butter and boiled eggs served him by a buxom half-caste girl, who is one of a large family. Some distance beyond the half-way House the road enters the Mangorewa Gorge.” [xxi]

In 1888 the hotel was once again leased, this time to coach operator George Crosby, who installed Charles Russell Fielder as manager, [xxii] while the Douglas family moved to Galatea in June 1891, where they built a general store and established a cartage business.[xxiii] Fielder grew vegetables very successfully all year round at Ngawaro, presumably selling them in Tauranga or Rotorua in addition to supplying meals to coach customers at Halfway House[xxiv]but it appears that the lodging house may have been closed in the early 1890s.

Halfway House, Ngawaro, c. Winter 1901
Mounted gelatin silver print, photograph possibly attributable to Mary Humphreys, Tauranga
Collection of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. Photo 99-348

In February 1898 the hotel was reopened by Messrs MacDonald and Inglis, heralding what appears to have been its longest continuous period of operation as a lodging house, probably helped considerably by the clearing and development of blocks of land for settlement between Taumata and Mangorewa since 1895.[xxv] In August 1903, they were able to accommodate a party of 32 guests for dinner,[xxvi] presumably the midday meal, since the main building only had seven guest bedrooms at the time of Douglas’ licence application in 1885. The view above, possibly taken by Tauranga photographer Mary Humphreys in the winter months of 1901, shows the remains of the stable buildings just visible beyond the main hotel building and between the two coaches.[xxvii]

By December 1903, when Mr Hamilton Grapes reported that the direct road from Tauranga to Rotorua via the Mangorewa Gorge and Oropi “presented no difficulties” to the journey of his six-passenger Darracq motor vehicle,[xxviii]substantial improvements to the road’s surface, the several bridges and regular upkeep no doubt assisted with the flow of traffic.

Halfway House, Tauranga-Rotorua Road, c. 1909-1916
Real photo postcard by Frederick George Radcliff, Auckland (Ref. 6164)
Courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. Photo 16-098

In late 1910, after a twelve year stretch as proprietor, Mrs Macdonald leased the Half-Way House to Mrs T.J. Davenport,[xxix] who continued to offer furnished or unfurnished rooms to a variety of customers. [xxx] A school was erected by the Education Board at Ngawaro in 1916,[xxxi] and in February 1919 the regular Tauranga-Rotorua coach run was replaced by a service car.[xxxii] In 1924 and 1925 Norman Collett, then proprietor of the Royal Mail service cars, advertised that he would stop at Half-Way house where “first-class accommodation” was offered.[xxxiii]F.G. Radcliffe’s postcard view above, probably taken around the beginning of the Great War, shows a gradual clearing of the surrounding bush, while the stables, so necessary during the coaching era, have completely disappeared.

Fireplace and chimney of the second Halfway House, January 1971
Black-and-white instamatic (126-format) print, photographed by John Green
Courtesy of John Green, Private Collection

Mentions of the Halfway House at Ngawaro in the newspapers appear to cease from the mid-1920s, but is known that after its demise, a second Halfway House was built nearby, on the hill closer to the current intersection of SH36, which replaced the old unsealed direct road in the 2000s, with No 2/Mangatoi Road. The ruins of the latter were described by G.D. Vercoe in a Bay of Plenty Times article in 1961.[xxxiv] Recollections of the remnants of this second building, predominantly the old chimney and fireplace (since completely gone), have also been provided by John Green (personal communication), who was taken there in the early 1970s and provided the above photograph. Nothing at appears to remain of the original Halfway House built by Edward Douglas and his family, the location probably lying within land currently designated as the Taumata Scenic Reserve.

References

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[i] Tony Rackstraw, “Thomas Edward Price,” Blog, Early New Zealand Photographers (blog), January 2012, https://canterburyphotography.blogspot.com/2012/01/price-t-e.html.

[ii] Brett Payne, “Visiting Price’s Corner Studio on The Strand,” Blog, Tauranga Historical Society (blog), October 3, 2014, https://taurangahistorical.blogspot.com/2014/10/visiting-prices-corner-studio-on-strand.html.

[iii] Jim Pendergrast, The Ngawaro Regional Historical Review, 2005.

[iv] Anon, “Untitled [The New Oropi Road],” Bay of Plenty Times, October 30, 1872, Volume I Issue 17 edition.

[v] Alison Drummond, ed., The Thames Journals of Vicesimus Lush, 1868-82 (Christchurch, New Zealand: Pegasus Press, 1975).

[vi] Anon, “Tauranga, This Day,” Thames Star, April 20, 1877, Volume VII Issue 2585 edition.

[vii] Anon, “Untitled [Oropi Bush Road],” Bay of Plenty Times, May 26, 1877, Volume V Issue 490 edition.

[viii] Anon, “The Oropi Road,” Bay of Plenty Times, November 7, 1877, Volume VI Issue 537 edition.

[ix] Anon, “Untitled [Acommodation House at Oropi Bush],” Bay of Plenty Times, December 13, 1873, Volume II Issue 134 edition.

[x] Anon, “Untitled [Durand’s Hostelry at Oropi],” Bay of Plenty Times, April 1, 1874, Volume II Issue 164 edition.

[xi] Anon, “More Destruction by Fire,” Auckland Star, August 16, 1883, Volume XX Issue 4088 edition.

[xii] Anon, “Ngāi Te Ahi Hapū Management Plan,” June 2013.

[xiii] Anon, “Maketu Licensing Court. Tuesday, June 6, 1882,” Bay of Plenty Times, June 8, 1882, Volume XI Issue 1291 edition.

[xiv] Edward Douglas, “Notice of Application for a Transfer of License, Edward Douglas, 14 May 1883,” Bay of Plenty Times, May 17, 1883, Volume XII Issue 1533 edition.

[xv] Pendergrast, The Ngawaro Regional Historical Review.

[xvi] Anon, “Untitled [Mr McKinlay],” Bay of Plenty Times, November 13, 1883, Volume XII Issue 1610 edition.

[xvii] Anon, “Untitled [Mr J McKinlay],” Bay of Plenty Times, March 13, 1884, Volume XIII Issue 1660 edition.

[xviii] Edward Douglas, “Notice of Application for an Accommodation License,” Bay of Plenty Times, May 12, 1885, Volume XIV Issue 1837 edition.

[xix] Anon, “The Bush Road between Tauranga and Ohinemutu,” Bay of Plenty Times, September 15, 1881, Volume X Issue 1091 edition.

[xx] Pendergrast, The Ngawaro Regional Historical Review.

[xxi] Anon, “Tauranga to Rotorua,” Bay of Plenty Times, August 22, 1887, Volume XV Issue 2179 edition.

[xxii] Pendergrast, The Ngawaro Regional Historical Review.

[xxiii] Anon, “Untitled [Mr Douglas Closing Half Way House],” Bay of Plenty Times, June 8, 1891, Volume XVII Issue 2690 edition.

[xxiv] Anon, “A Holiday Trip to Rotorua and Taupo,” Bay of Plenty Times, January 17, 1889, Volume XVI Issue 2382 edition, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18890117.2.40.

[xxv] Anon, “Untitled [Blocks between Half Way House and Mangarewa],” Bay of Plenty Times, May 20, 1895, Volume XXI Issue 3267 edition.

[xxvi] Anon, “Untitled [Football Team at Half-Way House],” Bay of Plenty Times, August 24, 1903, Volume XXXI Issue 4490 edition.

[xxvii] Anon, “Untitled [Photographs by Mary Humphreys Published in Christchurch Press],” Bay of Plenty Times, October 9, 1901, Volume XXIX Issue 4210 edition.

[xxviii] Anon, “Arrival of Mr Hamilton Grapes’s Motor Car,” Bay of Plenty Times, December 28, 1903, Volume XXXI Issue 4542 edition.

[xxix] Mrs Macdonald and Mrs T.J. Davenport, “Advertisement, Half-Way House, Ngawaro,” Bay of Plenty Times, February 22, 1911, Volume XXXIX Issue 5617 edition.

[xxx] Anon, “Untitled [Rooms at the Old Half-Way House],” Bay of Plenty Times, December 23, 1910, Volume XXXIX Issue 5593 edition.

[xxxi] Anon, “Untitled [Erection of School at Ngawaro],” Bay of Plenty Times, March 31, 1916, Volume XLIV Issue 6654 edition.

[xxxii] Alan Charles Bellamy, ed., Tauranga 1882-1982, the Centennial of Gazetting Tauranga as a Borough (Tauranga, New Zealand: Tauranga City Council, 1982).

[xxxiii] Norman Collett, “Advertisement. Collett’s Royal Mail Cars,” Bay of Plenty Times, November 22, 1924, Volume LIII Issue 8745 edition.

[xxxiv] Anon, “Remains of ‘Halfway House’ Lie in Fern,” Bay of Plenty Times, January 18, 1961, Tauranga City Libraries Archive Microfilm.

Laura Dunnage, photographer

On 1 July 1901 an article on page 2 of the Bay of Plenty Times announced the arrival of a Miss Dunnage who would be staying in town “for a few days.” On the next page an advertisement appeared in which she presented her credentials – Christchurch School of Art and holding South Kensington certificates – while offering tuition in drawing, painting and landscape sketching from nature. What pearls of artistic wisdom she may have imparted to the community is unknown, as no contemporary accounts of such lessons are known. However, it was a large wooden case in her luggage that she neglected to mention which afforded a much more tangible legacy to her stay in the Bay of Plenty.

Laura Constance Dunnage (1874-1957)

Who was the eminently qualified Miss Dunnage? Laura Constance Dunnage was born in 1874 in Papanui, Christchurch, the youngest of eleven children of farmer George Dunnage (1830-1904) and his wife Louisa née Bowron (1831-1905). Her schooling in West Christchurch was accompanied by the usual array of “commended” awards, as well as prizes for her hand bouquets and cut flower displays at the annual summer flower shows. As implied in her advert, she then attended the Christchurch School of Art between 1892 and 1896.

She probably came to Tauranga because one of her older brothers was Walter Henry Dunnage, a former government surveyor who had been living at Waipapa – near Aongatete – since 1895 and working on various contracts in the district and further afield.

1st Avenue, Tauranga, 1901
Photograph by Laura C. Dunnage from the Dunnage-Hartree Family Album
Courtesy of Jan Hartree & Tauranga City Library (Pae Koroki) Ref. 00-651

Laura Dunnage brought a field camera – probably half-plate – with her to Tauranga, and demonstrated that she was already quite proficient in its use by capturing a series of views of the townscape. In this image of three children amusing themselves with a pony and sled in 1st Avenue, her open camera case is seen at right in the foreground. By 1901, she would have been using the readily available dry plates, which could be safely stored in the box after exposure, and then processed when she returned home in the evening.

Tauranga Harbour, 1901
Photograph by Laura C. Dunnage from the Dunnage-Hartree Family Album
Courtesy of Jan Hartree & Tauranga City Library (Pae Koroki) Ref. 00-659

A view of the Tauranga foreshore at low tide with Mauao on the skyline is captioned, “Moonlight on the harbour,” which would have been quite an achievement although, judging from the detail visible in the dark areas of the image, it seems more likely that it was actually taken mid-morning.

Sulphur Mill, Tauranga, 1901
Photograph by Laura C. Dunnage from the Dunnage-Hartree Family Album
Courtesy of Jan Hartree & Tauranga City Library (Pae Koroki) Ref. 00-662

Her scene of the derelict sulphur works on the Spit, which later became Sulphur Point, is so atmospheric it seems almost haunting. The photographer’s companion, a young woman, waits for her in a one-horse gig, carefully positioned adjacent to a rough track in the foreground. The tall chimney and building of the former fertilizer factory are framed by Karewa Island and Mauao on the skyline, and a narrow foot jetty has been left high and dry by the receding tide.

Miss Dunnage wasn’t the first woman in the Bay of Plenty to venture into the decidedly male-dominated pursuit of photography. Emily Surtees, daughter of Katikati pioneer George Vesey Stewart, brought a camera with her when she returned from England with her husband in late 1898, and photographed family, friends, homes, social events and local scenes in the Katikati district before they returned to England in 1900. Mary Humphreys took up photography, probably soon after her husband died in May 1898, and her circumstances most likely dictated a more professional direction. A year later in May 1899, she was confident enough to photograph the Governor’s reception in Tauranga, offering prints for sale as mementoes of the event at bookseller Thomas Duncanson’s Novelty Depot next to the Commercial Hotel on The Strand. By December that year she was supplying images for publication in the Auckland Weekly News.

Scene on the Kaimai Track to Cambridge, photograph by Laura C. Dunnage, 1901
Published in Auckland Weekly News Supplement, 19 Dec 1901
Courtesy of Auckland Library Heritage Images, Ref. AWNS-19011219-3-4

Laura Dunnage remained in Tauranga for a good deal longer than the “few days” originally planned, and decided that she too might able to derive some revenue from what had hitherto been a leisurely pursuit. One might speculate that she may even have been given a nudge in that direction by Mary Humphreys. It was, after all, a small community. On 14 December she boarded the SS Clansman bound for Auckland armed with a portfolio of her scenic photographs, and presumably met with a favourable response. By the time she returned to Tauranga in late January, having spent Christmas with her family in Christchurch, her photograph of the Wairere Stream above the falls on the track across the Kaimais to the Waikato had been published under her byline in the Auckland Weekly News.

Beaching the Whaleboat, Motiti, c.1901-1903
Photograph by Laura C. Dunnage from the Dunnage-Hartree Family Album
Courtesy of Jan Hartree & Tauranga City Library (Pae Koroki) Ref. 00-671

She rented Gray’s Cottage in Willow Street, next to Hammond’s timber yard, and again advertised her services as an art teacher. A collection of oil paintings, including some by Miss Dunnage, were exhibited at the Chrysanthemum Show in April. She also demonstrated and instructed in Indian Club exercises, the 19th century equivalent of aerobics or zumba. Together with a party of friends she made an expedition to Motiti Island in the yacht Hopara, probably in December 1902, returning with at least two dozen exposed glass plates, although some may have been taken on other trips to the island. She pasted prints of these in an album that was later digitised for the Tauranga City Library, and include two which were subsequently published by the AWNS on 26 March 1903.

Large gathering at Te Hiinga-o-te-Ra wharenui, Motiti, c.1901-1903
Photograph by Laura C. Dunnage from the Dunnage-Hartree Family Album
Courtesy of Jan Hartree & Tauranga City Library (Pae Koroki) Ref. 00-669

Apart from scenes showing the visiting party in their yacht, and picnicking and bathing in Orongatea Bay, she also took pictures of local residents at Tamateakitehuatahi and Te Hinga-o-te-Ra wharenui and outside their whare.

A “bush whari,” Oropi, c.1901-1903
Photograph by Laura C. Dunnage from the Dunnage-Hartree Family Album
Courtesy of Jan Hartree & Tauranga City Library (Pae Koroki) Ref. 00-658
Also published in Auckland Weekly News Supplement, 13 Aug 1903 (link)

Her brother Walter had in May 1902 married Caroline Kensington at Holy Trinity, Tauranga, she being from a large Oropi family. Their first child was born at Tauranga in April 1903. Laura Dunnage presumably took the photo of a “bush whari” during a visit to Oropi around this time and submitted it to the AWNS shortly after leaving Tauranga on 8 July 1903.

Spraying potato crop, Patoka, c.Dec 1908
Photograph by Laura C. Dunnage from the Dunnage-Hartree Family Album
Courtesy of Jan Hartree & Tauranga City Library (Pae Koroki) Ref. 00-665

After a brief stop in Gisborne she returned to live in Christchurch. Further photographs compiled in the album (1905-1906) and published in the AWNS (Sep 1910) demonstrated that she was still active with her camera. In late 1908 she produced a flurry of images of farming scenes around Patoka and Rissington, north-west of Napier. The man spraying the potato plants in the image above is probably Henry Harper Hartree (1883-1976) who she married at St Augustine’s, Napier on 3 June 1913. They had a son Harry Nelson Hartree born at Napier in 1917. It is unknown whether she continued with her photography after her marriage.

“In the track of the bush fellers, Patoka, Feb 1909”
Photograph by Laura C. Dunnage from the Dunnage-Hartree Family Album
Courtesy of Jan Hartree & Tauranga City Library (Pae Koroki) Ref. 00-711

A final image from the Dunnage-Hartree album includes a possible self portrait (at left). Laura C. Dunnage died at Napier in 1957 and is buried in Taradale Cemetery.

References

McCauley, Debbie (2020) Emily Surtees, a Snapshot of Katikati
Indian Club, Wikipedia
Heritage Images, Auckland Library
Pae Koroki, Tauranga City Library
Papers Past, Alexander Turnbull Library
Family Trees from Ancestry.com