The Greatest Sacrifice

4 August 1914, New Zealand unites to support Britain’s declaration of war with Germany and thousands of young men sign up for the biggest adventure of their life. Many perish and communities throughout New Zealand are devastated by the loss. New Zealand’s largest military training camp is constructed near Featherston in January 1916. Housing up to 7500 men, the 252 buildings are constructed and finished in only five months. Over the four year period about 35,000 soldiers will march from the camp over the Rimutaka hill to board troopships for Europe.

Featherston Military Training Camp

1911
Waingawa Freezing Works opens, processing sheep and cattle formerly transported to Wellington plants. Waingawa will be Wairarapa’s largest employer for most of this century.

Sincere attempts to amalgamate or alternate the two A&P shows have failed; parochial attitudes and resource duplication will continue. Needing more space, Masterton A&P Association buys 75 acres at Solway for new showgrounds, and builds a beautiful grandstand. Their first show at the Solway grounds is held in 1911.

Castlepoint lighthouse plans

1913
The Castlepoint lighthouse is completed. Until 1900 Wairarapa’s dangerous coast has captured about 40 ships.

Castlepoint lighthouse

Percy Fisher constructs the first New Zealand built plane and then makes the first ‘controlled’ flight in the Wellington region at Gladstone.
Meanwhile, the first truck comes over the Rimutaka road.

1918
An influenza pandemic sweeps the world, and in Wairarapa 400 people die. Antibiotics have not been discovered. Temporary hospitals are set up when Masterton hospital overflows, schools are closed and 2000 men from Featherston Military Camp are hospitalised. 177 young soldiers die.

Prosperity and Hard Times

1923
The Kourarau power station opens after the formation of Wairarapa Electric Power Board. It generates about 700 kw and serves about 400 consumers. By 1930 the scheme is linked to the national grid.

Times are hard and Wairarapa churches establish children’s homes. The first to open is the Methodist Children’s Home (1921-78). The Salvation Army uses A.P.Whatman’s bequest to build its Cecilia Whatman Home (1925-80). Sedgley Anglican Boys’ Home (1926-88) and its 15 acre training farm takes boys, many from Lower Hutt.

Whatman Home

1928
British meat company Thomas Borthwick and Sons buys the Waingawa Freezing Works. They already own or use a number of freezing works in New Zealand and Masterton will be their New Zealand headquarters from 1930 to 1958.

1922
The first double-decked sheep truck in the country, thought to be the first in the world, is designed and built at Riversdale for Masterton carrier F.B. Gray.

First double decked sheeptruck

1925
The census records Wairarapa’s population at 22,424 people.

1927
Hawkes Bay supporters make up almost half the 10,000 rugby fans at the Ranfurly Shield 'Battle of Solway' match. Hawkes Bay won.

The Sugarbag Years

Share prices plunge and unemployment spreads after the 1929 Wall Street ‘crash’. Men desperate for work spend many grim months at relief work camps and children go shoeless in sugar-bag clothes. Council projects such as straightening the Waipoua River offer welcome work for some.

A nor-west gale of hurricane force damages many buildings between Greytown and Masterton on 1 October 1934. Papawai’s historic Te Waipounamu Aotea complex is seriously damaged and later it is pulled down. Near Carterton the strong wind blows over a bus full of passengers.

1937
Radio pioneer Ray Cunningham imports kerosene fridges. Through the 1940s and 50s his firm produces cabinets for HMV, Charles Begg and Norge.

Cunningham’s factory

Rebuilding after a 1957 fire, dishmasters, automatic washing machines and fridge-freezers follow. In 1963 N.R.Cunningham Ltd is one of Wairarapa’s two biggest employers, with 300 staff.

1937
The Castlepoint Racing Club is formed. The first beach races were held in the 1870s, mainly for farm workers. By the 1950s the races will be a well known annual event.