John William Ellis

John William was born to early feminist, Ellen Elizabeth Ellis (née Colebrook), and Oliver Sidney Ellis (a builder) in 1853 at Guildford. His two younger brothers died in their childhood. They emigrated to Auckland in 1859, where his mother encouraged her sons to learn Māori and play with Māori children, so that John became an interpreter, then a teacher. He and his mother returned to England in 1864. She left him at boarding school when she returned to Auckland in 1865.

John William Ellis in military uniform in 1870s

John returned when he was 14 and worked in a stationer's shop in Auckland.[1] Around 6 years later (in 1900 he said he'd been in the King Country for 26 years, so about 1874) he opened a general store at Moawhango.

By 1875 he had Motakotako store, just north of Aotea Harbour.[2] Much of the trade exchanged goods for pigs, which he shipped to Auckland, at one stage owning a schooner,[3] which was wrecked in 1877.[4] In 1880 he was described as, "acquiring a reputation for honour and probity, alike from European and Maori, which a prince might envy; and his sleek teams of ten or more bullocks drawing his heavily laded American waggon (an innovation which caused much needless speculation as to its usefulness), as seen winding along the ill-formed roads of the unkempt wilderness".[5] John sold the Motakotako store in 1882.[6]

At Motakotako John taught Wiremu Tauira's daughter, Te Remi Kauki Tauira, European ways and, despite attempts to discourage a romance, in 1877, he and Kauki seem to have been approved in a Māori hui 'marriage'. A daughter, Lucy, was born in 1879. John and Kauki separated in 1885 after she was called home by her family.[7] She died at Rukumoana Marae in 1922. Lucy married John, son of Rev. J. H. Gray.[8]

John's father, Oliver, died on 12 March 1883 and his mother, Ellen, on 17 April 1895. John burnt most copies of his mother's 1882 feminist novel, believing his father to be an occasional drinker,[9] rather than the drunkard portrayed in the novel.[10]

Te Tokanganui-a-noho originally stood at Motakotako, with Ellis (right of centre) and his first wife (right)

The sources are sometimes not quite in agreement as to dates, or people over the next decade, but it seems that in December 1882[11] (or 1883),[1] John and Kauki moved to Kihikihi, where John built a new store.[7] J.W. Ellis House is now a heritage building at 37a Whitaker Street, Kihikihi.[12] Henry Valder joined as a partner in 1884.[13] The old store and home at Motakotako burnt down about 1885.[8]

John's first venture into timber milling seems to have started at Ōrākau, near Kihikihi in 1884,[14] though other sources say it wasn't until 1886.[1] He then employed 4 men on 2 saw benches, powered by an 8 hp portable steam engine.[15]

John moved to Otorohanga in 1885, where he became postmaster and opened another store[7] with Valder[16] and John Taonui Hetet,[17] of Ngāti Maniapoto descent.[18] J T Hetet & Co[19] built the first building in Te Kuiti,[20] then joining with John,[21] also just before the arrival of the railway construction gangs, though still there when a raid at the store resulted in a police invasion in 1890.[22] Between the mid 1880s and mid 1890s Ellis Bros & Valder stores[13] were set up at Tokaanu, Taupo[23] and followed the navvies up the North Island Main Trunk line as it was built, with stores at Hunterville,[13] Ōhingaiti and Taihape.[24] Valder sold his interest in the stores in 1900 and returned to England, but was soon to reappear in John's business life.[13]

In 1888,[7][25] or 1889[8] (though his obituary said he was 33)[1] John married his second wife, Manawa Hinewai (her obituary said she was born in Tauranga, daughter of Major F Francis[25]), of Kihikihi (a close relative of Ngāti Maniapoto chief, Rewi)[1] and they had 4 children, Stanley, Percy, Marjorie[8] (Mrs Rickets)[26] and Sidney.[8] Sidney, was wounded near Cairo in 1916[27] (or in the Dardanelles in 1915)[28] and returned later that year[29] to be a timber merchant.[30] Stanley became an engineer, Percy a farmer at Puketarata, near Otorohanga,[31] and Sidney, who was back by 1919,[32] stayed in sawmilling.[33] Stanley died on 3 February 1946, aged 58.[34]

Having started in 1884, John seems to have left further expansion in milling for a few years. Coulthard Bros had a mill at Ohaupo, which they moved to Rahu, Te Awamutu in 1882.[35] Graham joined the mill in 1883,[36] Stephen N Westney in 1885,[37] then John seems to have joined them at Rangiaohia from 1889[38] to 1890.[39]

John's first experience of local government was his election to Karioi Highway Board in 1876.[60] The family moved to Hamilton in 1905,[1] where John and Manawa lived in a large villa, Muriaroha, on the corner of Lake Rd and Tainui St, in Frankton borough. He got permission for a boathouse in 1906.[61] He was on Frankton Town Board from 1912 and then on its Borough Council.[25] In the words of Councillor John Fow, John William Ellis "was one of those who made the Empire great".[3] During the war Mr Ellis gave generously to patriotic movements, including a Returned Soldiers' Club, resulting in his Order of the British Empire award.[1] In March 1917 he accepted nomination as mayor[62] and on 4 May was elected Mayor of Hamilton,[63] but died after only 15 months in office.[8] Ellis Street was named after J.W. Ellis.[64]

John William Ellis grave in Hamilton East Cemetery, with timber theme

John died at Muriaroha on 6 August 1918. He had been ill for some months, and in his last fortnight was confined to his room, suffering carbuncles and diabetes.[1] The funeral cortege had over 60 motor vehicles.[3] He is buried in Hamilton East Cemetery.[65]

Manawa stayed at Muriaroha until[3] 1926,[66] when the house became Braemar Hospital, demolished after the hospital moved in 2009. Manawa died at Rotorua[25] on 23 July 1955 aged 91,[67] outliving all their children.[25]

Ellis & Burnand. 1953 jubilee year: half a century of progress in the timber industry of New Zealand. Hamilton, 1953