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Onekaka Iron Works

Mr Graham Bell

It is nearly 50 years since I left Onekaka where I had gone in 1928 on my return from England. It was a great change from London to Golden Bay and its ironworks. I went there as a draughtsman and surveyor – very good experience for me. The drawings and construction of the pipe foundry and the wharf, the surveying and alignment of the ropeway from the quarry to the works, the construction of an earth dam for a reservoir up the hill, drawings and building of half-a-dozen staff houses, construction of a dam and pipe-line, powerhouse and transmission line to the works, and various odd jobs kept me very busy. My brother Owen, who was a carpenter, came down to join me after the first few months. He worked for the contractor on the pipe foundry job first and then, with a partner, built the houses on contract. We lived in a 16 by 10 foot hut just opposite the blast furnace and had our meals at the cookhouse which was run by the Mason family. We both played football for the Works team at Takaka and Collingwood and enjoyed the trips to town. It was a rough life, but I would not have missed it.

The men were a mixed lot, including a good many who were on the run for one reason or another. The policeman from Collingwood came out about once a month to look the mob over. There were a number of Maoris, particularly on the coke ovens, where they worked in gangs on shifts. The work was semi-skilled, and they were proud of it. They were treated the same way as the others and there were no racial distinctions or friction. Owen and I were welcome in their houses and got on well with them.

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The big earthquake happened while we were there. I was up the hill running a line for the pipe to the new reservoir. There were no big trees near us, so my chainman and I sat down and watched the ends of the spurs on the other side of the valley being sliced off in succession. Down at the works a man who was working for Owen painting a roof rode the ridge of the new house like a jockey. Only a week before Owen's partner had questioned the need for thorough diagonal bracing of the walls. I had simply said that this was earthquake country, little dreaming that one was to come so soon. The schoolmaster at a place on the road to Takaka showed great presence of mind. It was a one-roomed building with a porch. The fireplace and chimney were adjacent to the porch. The master held the children in the school until the chimney fell, so that none of them were hurt. There were small after-shocks for a couple of weeks after the big quake. Lying in bed we would hear a rumble far away in the hills, increasing in intensity until the wave passed under us, and then dying away.

It is a pity that the works did not succeed. The failure was partly due to mismanagement of the blast furnace, so that the quality of the iron was not consistent, but the onset of the depression finished the venture off.

I left at the end of 1929. Heskett, the manager, and I got on reasonably well, but we had been trained in different ways. He called me a "Rolls-Royce engineer" because I did not think it good practice to use second-hand materials unless it was absolutely necessary. We parted by mutual agreement, and remained good friends. I was lucky enough to find a job in the University at Auckland – he started a works in Huntly making slag for fertiliser.