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Flora Christeller, 1923 – 2004
Flora McDonald grew up in rural Hawkes Bay, in wide landscapes, surrounded by trees and animals. From these experiences came her love for nature, hills, plants and flowers, stimulated by her father’s caring attitude to their environment. Flora was also influenced by her father’s compassionate and sharing values towards people, values that she continued to show throughout her life. Flora’s interest in plants was further stimulated by her friendship, while studying for Diploma of Fine Arts at Canterbury University, with Helen and Tony Druce. This friendship proved to be an enduring one. After her marriage to Gerald Christeller, they moved to Pinehaven in 1950 where the Druces were living and the two couples raised their families together.
Flora’s involvement with Wellington Botanical Society will have dated from around this time. She and her family were regular members of the many botanical excursions, initially in the lower North Island and later throughout northwest Nelson. An early example of Flora combining her love of art and the New Zealand flora can be seen by society members on the covers of Bulletins Nos. 28-30 published in the late 1950s. These comprise hand-printed multi-coloured linocuts of Carmichelia, Gahnia and Coprosma species.
Her twin loves of art and nature developed into her life’s work as a potter. Clay proved to be the perfect medium to express these feelings, reinforced by her exposure to the Japanese pottery tradition. Although she loved to experiment and develop new ideas, her work could be typified by large bowls and jars, decorated by incision and overlays, and painted with botanical motifs of flowers such as Celmisia, kowhai and rata. Typical too were more whimsical items such as her native bird whistles and little blue penguin statues.
Flora’s last tramp was to Fenella Hut in January 2003. She died a year later, after a too brief tussle with multiple myeloma.
John Christeller.
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Erice Adelaide Goble, 1915 – 2004
On Monday 22 March Wellington Botanical Society lost one of its long-standing members when Erice Goble died just a month before her 89th birthday. Her brief illness of less than three weeks followed a very full and active life.
The only child of Arthur and Ethel Goble of Wellington, Erice grew up in Kelburn, attending Kelburn School and later Wellington Girls’ College and Marsden Collegiate School. She graduated with a BSc from Victoria University and trained as a teacher at Wellington Teachers’ College.
During the war years Erice taught at Wairarapa College in Masterton, and Sue Wild, the daughter of her teaching friend Janet Wild, and Janet’s husband Richard, tells how her mother and Erice travelled about the Wairarapa by bicycle and even cycled out to the east coast. Erice’s main teaching positions after this were at Wellington East Girls’ College, and later at the Correspondence School, Wellington.
Erice loved the wilderness and its plant life and enjoyed walking trips with friends. At home, she transformed an unpromising sloping back yard into an attractive and interesting garden. She was an active member of “Bot Soc” for many years, attending many of the talks and trips on offer. Olaf John recalled at her funeral her particular enjoyment of the Christmas field trips and her flair for photography.
Friends recalled at her funeral how wide and varied Erice’s other interests were, whether she pursued them through books and performances, or as a participant. Erice was a member of various societies at different times in her life, including the Victoria League, the Navy League, the Wellington Wine and Food Society, the Federation of University Women, the Shakespeare Society, and the Academy of Fine Arts. She was a frequent attender of films, drama, ballet, opera, concerts, and art exhibitions, and she was a keen bridge player and tennis player. When she moved to a house at Parkwood in Waikanae recently, she joined in Parkwood and Kapiti activities as well, including the local Probus group.
At Erice’s funeral her friends related some of the ways in which she had been a caring and supportive friend to them over many years. In my own case Erice offered to share her home with me when my parents went on study leave during my third year at Victoria University. We had barely met before this so I was very touched by her kind offer. I was soon to appreciate Erice’s zest for life, her sense of humour, her wine-making skills, her ordering of avocados from Hawkes Bay when they were still a real novelty in Wellington, and her tolerance of my burgeoning plant herbarium. The latter cluttered up her dining room for several weeks while I sorted, mounted, and named plants for my collection, in order to submit a herbarium as a terms requirement for third year botany.
Although Erice spent most of her life based in Wellington in the family home at 14 North Terrace, she loved travel and her numerous trips abroad took her to England and Europe, Russia, Turkey, the Middle East, China, North and South America, Western Samoa and Alaska. She also visited her UK-based relative John Jackson at his various postings abroad, in Papua New Guinea, Switzerland, and Sri Lanka. Indeed Erice had planned further travel at the time of her death. Her enthusiasm for travel could be infectious. I was so inspired by her account of her travels in Turkey, especially her visit to Cappadocia with its underground cities, that it was not long before a friend and I followed in her footsteps - and returned equally enthusiastic.
Farewell good friend. We have enjoyed your friendship and your appreciation of the natural and cultural world.
Margaret Gordon.
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Donald Ross McQueen, 1927 – 2004
Ross was born in Dunedin in 1927 and moved with his family to Wellington in 1937. Ross attended Wellington College and then moved on to Victoria University College in 1948, where he gained his BSc and MSc in Botany and Geology. His Masters thesis was on regeneration of burned bush country in the Tararuas, above the old Dobson Hut. This project enabled Ross to indulge in two of his passions: botanical research and tramping. He was a keen member of the University and Tararua tramping clubs.
After several years working as a paleobotanist in the Geological Survey, Ross and his wife Pamela spent many years in England, France, Sudan and Nyasaland, punctuated by several years working as a forest scientist at NZ Forest Products at Tokoroa. During two satisfying years at the University of Montpellier in southern France, Ross gained his doctorate in plant ecology, and in the process became a confirmed francophile. Ross’s first stint in Africa led to his being rudely dumped for treating the natives as he treated Maoris, and therefore accused of being Communist. On his second stint he played chess with the local French-speaking bishop and was accused of being a Christian missionary. Neither of these two accusations was true but one suspects the latter would have rankled more.
Ross and Pamela returned to Wellington permanently in the late 1960s, Ross to teach in the Botany Department for more than 20 years. Ross was a congenial supervisor. He was very supportive of his students, pushing hard in the Botany Department for space and resources for them. Ross loved travel and revelled in seeing his students in the field. Their study sites were far-flung, but there were few which Ross did not visit.
Ross was interested in vegetation and all its surroundings: the soils, the geological substrate, the landscape, the animals. This was a truly landscape ecological approach, probably stemming back to his tramping days, his early career working in Geological Survey and then his travels in Europe and Africa. The landscape approach has permeated the work of his students, many of whom have gone on to make diverse and substantial contributions to natural history and resource management work.
Ross was justly proud of this legacy and after retirement he kept in touch with many of his students and colleagues. He continued to carry out fieldwork in Central Otago, and to publish. He and Pam also travelled extensively in New Zealand and overseas over the following decade. The destinations reflected his interests in wilderness areas, geology, archaeology, high country vegetation, beech forests and trains.
Even after he became less mobile, he was interested in the ecology revealed in the wonderful view from his Whitby house. Vicky Froude had a lively phone conversation with Ross 10 days before his death, fittingly about the ecology of fire in the Tararuas, a subject which he studied as a student 60 years ago.
Olaf adds: “Ross and I met at Alloway Hut on a VUC Tramping Club trip. We also met through Pam and I working as Art Advisers in Wellington schools from 1952 onwards.
“My wife Daphne and I visited their various homes starting with Prof Bobby Munro’s boat shed at the now poetically enhanced Bottle Creek at Golden Gate, Paremata. We visited them at Ross’s parents’ home in Karori, at their Titahi Bay house for wonderful outdoor barbecue meals, then back to Paremata with an impossibly steep section but a fabulous view. Pam was a very good exotic cook, Daphne and I swapped visits and meals and always had an enjoyable and memorable time. I can recall tales of their caravan trips with their two cats and a canoe.
“Through our BotSoc interests I was invited on numerous field trips with Ross’ students and regaled with tales of his African times and of his South American visits.
“Ross was President of BotSoc in 1975 and on the committee some years before then. I appreciated Ross’s good advice when I became a BotSoc committee member and later on, when becoming President.
After Ross retired we still did field trips together until his ill-health prevented it. We worked together on Pam’s book and visited fairly regularly until his last weeks.” His friendship enriched our lives and we will remember him fondly.
Paul Blaschke and Olaf John
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Mavis Melville Davidson (née Gedye), 1910 – 2004
Mavis Davidson, a foundation member of our Society, died on 29 May 2004 after a lifetime of extraordinarily varied and fruitful activity.
She was born in Poverty Bay and, after some further education in Auckland, worked for a while in Auckland and Wellington as a shorthand typist / ledger keeper. In 1940 she started studies at Victoria University of Wellington for a science degree. Like many others she was sidetracked by WWII. Mavis served in the WAAC in Coastal Artillery for several years before going back to Victoria, where she graduated with a B.Sc. in 1946 and completed an M.Sc. in zoology in 1950. She worked for a while in the T.A.B. organisation and in 1958 entered the Forest Service as a biologist.
Before long she was doing major research into sika deer and spending long periods in the field in the Kaimanawa and Kaweka Ranges. She became an acknowledged expert (if not “the” expert) on this subject. She retired at 65 and with her husband, Bill, shifted to Leigh in North Auckland where, from time to time, she was visited by quite a few friends. Bill died in 1990.
Interwoven with her education and working career, were tramping and mountaineering. Mavis joined the Tararua Tramping Club in 1934 and tramped and climbed over a great deal of the New Zealand back country. She led the first all-women ascent of Mt Cook in 1953. She held office many times in the Tararua Club and in the Federated Mountain Clubs of NZ. She co-authored two books on New Zealand mountains and contributed notes and articles to many New Zealand journals and other works. Her major writings, however, were the fruit of her research on sika deer in many New Zealand and other publications. Mavis was also an expert photographer, illustrating much of her own works and reports.
Her name lives on in the specific name for the fungus Hygrophorus mavis. (although the species description “silky, white, dry and fragile” hardly fits the Mavis Davidson we knew.)
She was a great tramping companion and general conversationalist. There was not much about the bush and mountain and their inhabitants that Mavis did not know, and about many other things besides. Bill, usually carrying his axe and sometimes her axe, could enlighten one also about a variety of outdoor matters. His pet subject was tracks – the laying and use of them. We have particular memories of Mavis discoursing on such esoteric matters as the origins of “scroggin” and the great rain god “Hughie”.
New Zealand has lost an outstanding citizen and a great “Character”, the thought of whom brings a warm glow to the memory.
For more detail of Mavis’s life and career see the Dominion Post obituary of 10 June 2004 and the tribute by A.D. Thomson in the New Zealand Botanical Society Newsletter of December 1997. The use of information from these publications is gratefully acknowledged.
Ted Williams
The following obituary was published in the Ecological Society Newsletter, No. 110, August 2004.
Obituary – Mavis Davidson
Mavis Melville Davidson (nee Gedye). Ecologist, tramper and mountaineer. b. 10 Feb 1910; m. to William Earnest Davidson 1939 (d. 1990); d. at Leigh, North Auckland, May 27 2004.
Mavis blazed trails almost throughout her life. Born at Te Karaka, she attended Gisborne Primary School, Wairoa Secondary school and college in Auckland. She began her working life in an office in Wellington, then in the late 1930s set her sights on a degree in Zoology at Victoria University College, Wellington. This was interrupted by four years of military service in the Women’s Royal Army Corps as a subaltern. She then returned to “Vic” to finish her Masters in Zoology and taught in the Department for several years.
She then turned her attention to one of the most contentious of possible career paths of the late 1950s for either women or men, when she joined the NZ Forest Service’s Animal Research Section of Forest Research Institute to work on the then “noxious animals”. She participated in a survey of deer damage in the Tararua Range, and carried out pen trials on possums with the then novel poison, “1080”. Much of what followed was built on what she and Ralph Kean discovered during those few years.
In 1963 she submitted proposals for work on sika deer, the top priority for research on ungulates in the North Island. We all admired her tenacity at the time. She was 53, an age when most of us would be angling to spend more time in the laboratory. She decided to work in the sika heartland of the Kaimanawa and Kaweka Ranges of Central North Island. Thus began the long task of unravelling their natural history, their impact on the bush, their interactions and hybridisation with red deer and possible strategies for their control. Even after she retired in 1975 and moved with Bill to Leigh, she kept working on her beloved sika and writing for journals in NZ and Europe.
Her other great love was tramping and mountaineering. Women were spurned as “serious” or capable climbers during her post-war years. She was not invited or permitted to go on tougher NZ Alpine Club or Tararua Tramping Club trips in the Southern Alps. The blokes didn’t want to be saddled with a mere woman. So she organised her own parties and trips, culminating in 1953 with leading the first all-women climb of Mt Cook. She followed that with an all-women climb on Mt Aspiring and another on Mt Avalanche. In 1971 she walked with a party to the base of Mt Everest. She found it uncomfortably civilised, with stone dwellings up to 17,000 feet.
She was: a Member of the New Zealand Ecological Society; a Fellow of the NZ Institute of Foresters; a Life Member of NZ Alpine Club for services to mountaineering; Holder of the Gold Badge of Honour of Internationale Gesselschaft Sikawild for research on sika deer; Forest Research Institute Jubilee Award winner as “Pioneer” in her field, and; the award she cherished most, an OBE in 1992 for services to science and mountaineering.
She bore the burdens of advancing age with stoicism. Her husband Bill fell prey to Alzheimer’s disease and Mavis nursed him for several years. She lost a leg above the knee to amputation about five years ago. Then just a couple of months ago when it seemed that her other leg would also have to be amputated, Mavis said to her friends and admirers that she had had enough, and she died peacefully a few days later in their company.
C.L. (Les) Batcheler.
The following obituary was published in the FootNotes - DOC Wellington Conservancy Newsletter, No 22, December 2004.
O B I T U A R Y – M A V I S M. D A V I D S O N 1 9 1 0 – 2 0 0 4
Mavis Davidson was one of the first women to join the former New Zealand Forest Service, a predecessor of the Department of Conservation, in 1958. She specialised in researching the biology of deer and their impacts on forests and grassland ecosystems. She made an important contribution to the Wellington Conservancy in the field of ecology and wild animal management. Her paper Establishment of red-deer range in the Tararua Mountains, published in the NZ Journal of Forestry (1960) with biologist R. I. Kean, meticulously documented the history of red deer, and is still a valuable resource for the conservancy. The conservancy archives hold many reports which testify that Mavis was a skilled and insightful observer of nature. Mavis was also a keen tramper, and led the first all woman party to climb Mt Cook / Aoraki in 1953. [Readers are referred to her obituary in The Dominion Post, Thursday, June 10, 2004, page B9].
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Bill Winstanley, 1937 – 2003
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Bill Winstanley with a giant dragonfly, 2003. Photo: Neil Price.
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Otari-Wilton’s Bush enthusiast and guide. Otari-Wilton’s Bush lost one of its staunchest supporters and advocates when Bill Winstanley died from cancer just before Christmas 2003.
Chairperson of the Otari-Wilton’s Bush Trust and head guide, Bill had previously always enjoyed robust good health.
Bill embraced life with enthusiasm and lived it to the full. He was born in Liverpool but emigrated to New Zealand as a young man and had a variety of jobs in Government departments including forestry, where his great interest in New Zealand native plants and animals probably began.
As a mature student he studied biology at Victoria University, gaining an honours degree in zoology. He was a member of the zoology staff at the university for several years teaching a range of classes.
During the next phase of his life, he and his family moved to Motueka. Here he soon became involved in environmental issues and was appointed to a number of boards. He played a leading role in the establishment of Kahurangi National Park.
When he returned to Wellington a few years ago Otari- Wilton’s Bush became his primary interest. This was when I got to know him best. I have been guiding groups at Otari-Wilton’s Bush for many years and Bill joined me in this activity with enthusiasm. We often worked together and developed an act which involved making disparaging comments to each other as opportunities arose to the amusement of all. One younger member of a group said the “plant stuff was a bit boring but the jokes were great”, hardly a ringing endorsement. Another older man thought we should have a TV show, but then followed that with “it could be like The Two Fat Ladies”. I’m still puzzling over that one. On the serious side, we were always greatly encouraged by the enthusiastic response to our stories of the fascinating ways plants live their lives in the forest.
Bill strongly promoted Otari-Wilton’s Bush as place of national importance, being the only botanic garden entirely devoted to New Zealand native plants. In recent years visitor numbers have increased considerably. Groups coming for guided tours, including those from cruise ships, have also increased markedly. This encouraging trend is partly due to improvements made by the City Council three years ago – a new alpine garden, an improved information centre; and, most attractive of all to many people, the Treetop Walkway. It is also due to the setting up of the Otari-Wilton’s Bush Trust as a voluntary support group. The enthusiasm of a number of individuals, including Bill, has been another key factor. Bill has gone but the impetus of his ideas, particularly for an education centre, lives on.
By Dr John Dawson, head guide and member of the Otari-Wilton’s Bush Board of Trustees.
This obituary was published on p4, Volume 11 : Summer 2003 issue of Branch Out, the newsletter of the Wellington City Council, Parks and Gardens Department.
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Frank Philip Hudson, 1918 – 2003
Frank Hudson was born in Herne Bay, Auckland, on 4 February 1918. He lived all his life, apart from war service and his last few years, on the family farm at Kaipara Flats. He was in the army when war broke out, but transferred to the RNZAF. After training in Canada, he flew with the RAF as a rear gunner in Bomber Command, and flew 18 operations over enemy territory.
Frank’s first involvement with Auckland BotSoc was when fellow Warkworth resident Lucy Moore (1906 – 1987) was asked to lead a trip to Logues Bush at Labour Weekend 1984. Frank offered to take people in his car. Sandra Jones looked at Maureen Young in astonishment when she identified Bulbophyllum tuberculatum, although Maureen hadn’t seen it before, and then Frank found two large totara side by side, and proceeded to give a lecture on why one was Podocarpus totara, and the other was P. hallii. We were then instantly accepted as the right sort of people, and both joined Auckland BotSoc after that trip.
Wellington BotSoccers had the pleasure of the company of Frank Hudson and Maureen Young, who were also Wellington BotSoccers, on several New Year field trips. In fact, Frank and Maureen established a record in travelling from Warkworth to Borland Lodge, Southland, a big distance indicative of their enthusiasm for native plants and fascinating natural areas.
Adapted from obituary in Auckland Botanical Society Journal, Volume 58(1) June 2003 by Maureen E. Young and Ewen K Cameron
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Dr Isobel Morice, 1909 – 2003
Isobel, one of the oldest and most devoted members of BotSoc, died on 18 June 2003. Apart from her last few years at Malvina Major Retirement Village, she had lived at the home in which she was brought up, in Wadestown, from which, nevertheless, she had gone forth at times to many parts of the world. She was a well-known Wadestown identity, and a long-time worshipper at Wadestown Presbyterian Church.
Isobel had led an adventurous and interesting life, and had travelled to many countries. Her chosen field was science, and her working life was spent in Department of Agriculture research , mainly in the Fats Research Division of DSIR. When she “retired”, she spent much time in the office of the Royal Society.
As an avocation she took up botany. Her name is commemorated in the Astelia genus (“Astelia moriceae”). It is interesting that she did research on the fats in the seeds of Astelia and other plants, including Phormium spp, in her DSIR persona.
Above all, Isobel was devoted to the activities of Wellington Botanical Society, of which she was a long-time member, and held several offices, including secretary for thirteen years, and president for a year. She seldom missed a meeting or a field trip. Indeed, her knowledge of past activities was encyclopaedic, and if anyone wanted to know when we went to, say, the Heaphy, or Ngamatea Station, and what we did there, they got full details immediately from her.
Many members will have in their mind’s eye pictures of Isobel in the forefront of a hill climb, or a stream crossing, accompanied occasionally by a Nepalese protégé. Also of course, pictures of her scrubbing billies or stirring the pot.
Isobel always pulled her weight in Society activities, and indeed, more than her weight (she wasn’t very hefty). No one could have had a better tramping companion or tent mate than her. Isobel gave a lot to the Society.
EW (Ted) Williams
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Betty Fitzgerald 1917 – 2003
Betty Fitzgerald died on 15 April in her 86th year. She was a longtime member of the Society who had taken part in many of its expeditions.
Betty came to New Zealand from England, via Australia, in the early 1940s. She worked first in the Nelson-Motueka area, and quickly developed a love of the bush and the mountains. Coming to Wellington, she soon became familiar with the Tararuas, in which mountains she met Frank, whom she married. They set up their home in Days Bay, later building a house of their own, in which they have remained.
Betty was known for her literary taste and her ability with languages and, at one time, set up and managed a translation service. Her main language, after English, was German. She was involved in many community projects in Days Bay, and was an enthusiastic gardener, sharing her produce with her many friends. She tramped over much of New Zealand, and quite a bit elsewhere in the world, but of course was particularly acquainted with the local hills.
Above all, Betty and Frank were hospitable, and many people have stayed in their little annex, popularly known as the “mouse house”. Betty will be sorely missed by Frank, by her two daughters and the grandchildren, and by a wide circle of friends, both here and abroad.
EW (Ted) Williams
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Pauline Constance Mayhill, 1924 – 2002
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Pauline Mayhill. Photo: Audrey Eagle |
Pauline was feeling fit and looking forward to the botanical societies’ New Year camp at Lakes Pukaki and Ohau, when on that fateful journey south, she was killed in a car accident at Blenheim. Being a person who expressed so much life and enthusiasm, it was difficult to comprehend that she would no longer be a part of these most enjoyable occasions.
Pauline was born in Tauranga. Her father was a keen vegetable gardener, but a neighbour encouraged her to grow flowers and native plants, and to learn their Latin names. She was a member of botanical societies in UK, USA and South Africa, and participated in their seed exchanges. Her garden was always a treasure-trove of interesting plants, many of them NZ natives. There will be many people who will have memories of Pauline growing in their gardens as a result of her generosity.
She was also interested in native orchids, and had photographed them in the wild, both here and overseas. She was at an NZ Native Orchid Symposium at Iwitahi in December.
Early in Pauline’s life she was interested in conservation. I had first met her and her family about 35 years ago on Forest and Bird Protection Society trips in the Waikato. I was impressed by her ability to learn quickly the names of native plants, and found years later that she would retain not only the names, but recall the places where she had seen a particular species. Her three children all developed an interest in the native bush through her, which they retained as adults.
About 20 years ago, Pauline and I joined Wellington Botanical Society as country members, and together with Keith, we started attending the annual New Year camps. These well-organised camps to see interesting plants in exciting places, in the company of knowledgeable and warmly friendly people, have always been a highlight of the year for us.
At about the same time, Pauline had developed an interest in land snails. She already had knowledge of some of the almost microscopic sea snails found on our northern shores. It was amazing how quickly she learnt the names of the land snail fauna, eventually becoming familiar with most of the 1200 or so species and varieties found in NZ. Not a easy task because most of them are less than 5mm in diameter. Pauline could never have attained this knowledge without the help of Keith who, particularly after he retired, spent much time travelling the country with her. The Wellington and Auckland museums and scientists in this field must be greatly indebted to Pauline for her indefatigable work which has helped to expand their knowledge and their collections of land snails.
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Pauline Mayhill. Photo: Val Smith |
A brief mention of another of Pauline’s attributes – by profession she was a dietitian. She produced beautiful meals and was a great asset to Waikato Forest and Bird members by her catering for the many camps we had over the years. She and Keith also organised camps to exciting botanical areas. The most adventurous was to the Auckland Islands, aboard Acheron in 1982. This was before tourism found this destination.
This cannot be an impersonal obituary because of the long period of our friendship, and the support we gave each other in our respective fields of endeavour. Her memory is very dear to me.
Let us rejoice for a life lived to the full, for the knowledge she so generously shared, and for her enthusiasm for plants, birds, snails, and of course people.
Audrey Eagle
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Dave Peebles, 1912 – 2001
BotSoc, tramping, mountaineering, Forest and Bird, and deerstalking were among Dave’s many interests. He will long be remembered in conservation circles, especially for his work on projects run by Lower Hutt Branch, Forest and Bird. Dave was respected for his botanical knowledge. He gave talks and guided walks during Department of Conservation and Wellington Regional Council Summer Programmes. BotSoccers will recall with pleasure having Dave on several trips, accompanied by Beryl, including the trip in December 1998/January 1999 to Golden Bay. Perhaps his most notable achievement was helping to form the Kaumatua Tramping Club.
We offer our condolences to Beryl Tuppin and Dave’s family.
Chris Horne (based on article by Bill Milne in Hutt News).
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John (Jack) David Coulter, 1918 – 2001
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Jack Coulter on Milford track - age 71 |
Into the 83 years of his life, Jack packed an enormous amount of experience and fulfilment, and travelled a great distance geographically, intellectually and socially.
Jack’s home town was Kaitangata. He had his early education there but had to travel to get his secondary education and later, his university training. He took up science and found his forte, but like so many people of his generation, his early career was interrupted by the war, during which he served in the Pacific as an Air Force meteorologist. He would later revisit this area more than once.
The war over, Jack returned to meteorology as his chosen profession, and eventually attained senior status in the Weather Office. But all this time he was doing a host of other things - marrying, building a house, raising a family, getting involved in botany in Botsoc. He also took a deep and informed interest in music, photography and books. Jack built up a splendid library, covering not only scientific and historical subjects but virtually the whole field of literature, including poetry. At different times he climbed, tramped and sailed. He did a lot of gardening, with a good collection of native plants. Later in life he was able to travel over a good part of the world.
And far as BotSoc was concerned, Jack was a hard-core stalwart, and much of what was said of Kingsley Brown (see Obituary below) might be said of Jack. Memories of him come back of many a track and many a camp-tramping, lighting fires, cooking, cleaning billies, singing, philosophising, botanising.
In just about all the activities, Jack was accompanied and supported by Iris. They were a constant couple. Later, he often had the company of children and grandchildren. For many years Jack and Iris and a circle of friends went for a tramp, with mild botanising, each Sunday. There are few areas within 20–30 miles of Wellington that they did not traverse.
Jack’s tramping extended throughout New Zealand and over many parts of the world. He lived life to the full and made no mean contribution to New Zealand society as a whole. His memory will be widespread and enduring; not least to Wellington Botanical Society.
E W (Ted) William
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Albert Kingsley Brown, 1909 – 2001
Kingsley died at the age of 92 on 24 September 2001. He grew up in Auckland and in 1993 completed his accountancy examinations. From 1993-39 he worked as a book-keeper at Westfield Freezing Works. Then followed war service from 1939-45. After capture on Crete in 1941, Kingsley was placed in Stalag 383 in Bavaria, where not only did he survive, but managed to take correspondence courses from the Bodleian Library University of Oxford, the Red Cross providing the courier service. Despite difficult circumstances, Kingsley completed his B.Com. NZ, studied economics with distinction, and passed his final examinations for the Chartered Institute of Secretaries. He managed to keep fit by walking round camp and skating on skates received in a Red Cross parcel. In 1949 he was awarded a rehabilitation bursary to study Public Administration at the London School of Economics.
On returning to NZ in 1947, he joined the Public Service and worked in Treasury. His first BotSoc trip was in 1962, from South Makara Road to Te Ika a Maru Bay. Two years later BotSoc began to benefit from his professional training and disciplined experiences, when he became Treasurer, a role he held for 25 years, during which he wisely and carefully managed our funds.
Kingsley contributed to our Society in many ways. He looked after the projector and transported members to meetings. However the most significant development was his becoming a very good, keen botanist. Always very fit and thoroughly prepared and equipped, he was a mainstay of the “BotSoc Irregulars”, who tramped up challenging mountains and screes, over passes, rivers and wild landscape with gorges and cliffs, seeing rare plants throughout this country in their diverse habitats. Hebes and Celmisias were his special interest. Tony Druce’s trip books record that from 1962–89 Kingsley went on 62 trips led by Tony, Mildred went on 37, and daughters Margaret and Valerie on 2 each. This is in addition to trips he himself led and those led by other BotSoccers. This very impressive number shows his enthusiasm and enjoyment of the company and tough lifestyle of fellow botanical explorers.
In 1972 Kingsley trekked in Nepal with a BotSoc party. After returning, there was more time for his absorbing interest in all the living organisms which he observed on trips. He was also a skilled photographer, regularly contributing to Members’ Evenings. The greatest of his presentations was in 1997, when at the age of 88 he addressed the Society on “The Alpine Plants of NW Nelson”, showing highlights of his many remarkable, botanical expeditions.
Thank you Kingsley for sharing so much of your long life with us.
Helen Druce
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