Caesar Roose

He was born on 29 July 1886 to Mary Ashley (died 16 Nov 1942, aged 82), who moved from Shropshire in 1898,[3] and Ceasar (Caesar) Henry Roose (died 29 July 1925, aged 77), who moved from Germany in the 1880s.[4] Their eldest son, Caesar junior, helped on the 67 acres (27 ha) Tuoro Island (in the Waikato River) family farm[5] until he lost an appeal against military service[6][7] and had to go to Trentham and Featherston military camps in 1918. In 1913, as his shipping business flourished, he had a 5-bedroomed kauri house built on Tuoro Island.[5]

His younger brother, Maurice, who was also qualified as an engineer on small launches,[8] was wounded in World War I[9] and died in 1922.[10]

His sister, Mary, married Eric F. Taylor, of Papatoetoe[11] and lived in Claudelands.[4]

On 3 March 1931 Roose married Australian-born Gladys Ethel Fortescue Wiseman (née Hoare) at Glendale, California;[12] their only child, a daughter,[5] Jeanette Thomas,[13] was born in 1934. He spent his honeymoon observing oil wells and shipping in the United States and Europe. Caesar and Gladys divorced in 1946,[5] a year after her mother died,[14] and on 8 April 1947 he married Fanny Hill (died 1956) in Auckland; there were no children of this marriage. He died in Epsom on 6 July 1967, survived by his daughter. He is buried at Mercer public cemetery.[5]

Caesar borrowed £100 to buy his first boat in 1902. In 1904 he ordered the Rawhiti from the shipbuilders Bailey and Lowe,[5] of Auckland.[15] He had a motor launch in 1908.[16]

He earned his river steamer master's certificate in 1909, his engineer's certificate in 1911 and started a regular shipping service between Port Waikato and Cambridge in 1915, but became the representative[17] for a new cooperative,[18] the Waikato Shipping Company (WSC), selling his 2 steamers, 3 launches and 7 barges to them in 1916.[5]

In 1918 he built and launched the Aurora to cater for picnickers, duck-shooters[5] and fishermen.[19]

When WSC went into liquidation in 1922, Roose Shipping Co was formed to buy all the viable assets,[20] including the Huntly coal mine[21] and 6 vessels, which continued regular services on the Waikato and its tributaries.

The largest in the fleet was the 1894[22] 400-passenger steamer, Manuwai, brought from the Whanganui in 1920.[23] In 1924 it ran a Cambridge to Port Waikato excursion 2 or 3 times a year, taking 12 to 14 hours downstream and a few hours longer upstream.[24] Manuwai sank at her moorings in 1938, but was taken to Mercer for repair in 1939,[25] where she was converted to a barge.[26]

In 1924 Caesar visited Glasgow, where he ordered a 400 horsepower (300 kW),[27] 210 feet (64 m) long, 33 feet (10 m) wide, steamer, with a 17 feet (5.2 m) wide stern paddle,[28] also named Rawhiti,[5] assembled at Mercer in 1925.[29] She was able to steam at 11 miles per hour (18 km/h) in still water.[30] Rawhiti and Manuwai carried passengers and goods.[31] In 1926 the Company assembled a steam tug to tow barges.[32]

The hulks of former steamers of the Caesar Roose fleet, lie on the Waikato bank opposite Mercer - 2019 photo

Trade on the river was also helped by improvements to Hamilton wharf, by Northern Steamship starting a Port Waikato-Onehunga route in 1926 and by Holm Shipping linking to Lyttelton in 1923.[33][34][35] Services were disrupted in 1927 by low river levels, partly caused by filling Arapuni.[36][37] Whilst on honeymoon in Germany in 1931, Caesar bought the Argus (later the Holmglen - not the later ship which sank, MV Holmglen) on behalf of Holm Shipping, in which he was a major shareholder, until Union Steam Ship took control of it.[38] He began a ferry at Mercer in 1932.[5] By 1939 there were 4 ships and a dozen barges.[39] The timetabled services ended in 1946[40] and the Rawhiti was converted to a barge.[41]

In 1947 an American tank-landing ship[42] became the third of Caesar's ships to be named Rawhiti. It could carry 3,000 tons of cargo[5] to Australia[43] and the Pacific islands and Roose liked its roll on/roll off capability as a means of avoiding the cost of unionised stevedores.[44] In 1948 he founded C. Roose (Fiji) Ltd, but, after the 1951 waterfront dispute, sold the Rawhiti.[5]

Several of the old steamers remain under, or beside the river,[45] including the Manuwai,[46] 1925 Rawhiti[47] and Freetrader, on the west bank just south of Mercer.[48]

Caesar took several photos for the Auckland Weekly News between 1905 and 1908.[49][2] In 1906 he bought a flax mill on the Waikato.[5] By 1922 he had a timber mill at Mercer[50] and also Katikati, later supplying a box factory in Tauranga with kahikatea. In 1933 he patented the Roose–Atkins Grab, used for coaling ships, loading and unloading barges, and salvage work; Roose Shipping Co manufactured the grabs in a workshop on Tuoro Island. The Roose Shipping Co bought a coal mine in 1922, started an open-cast one in 1945, built Fairfield Bridge (1937), helped to build Ngāruawāhia bridge (1956) and formed a trucking fleet.[5]

He unsuccessfully stood for election to Mercer Town Board in 1914.[51] His lifelong association with Te Puea Herangi began at Mercer School[5] and, in 1921, he helped transport her and about 170 of her people from Mangatawhiri to Tūrangawaewae.[52] In 1924 Caesar was appointed to a provisional board to control the river.[53] During the 1960s he campaigned vigorously for the dredging of the Waikato, in 1939 campaigned for a dam at Taupo[54] and always supported building a Waiuku–Waikato canal.[5]

Photos -

• 1925 PS Rawhiti
• 1949 Caesar Roose
• 1972 Roose Industries yard at Mercer