A small man with strong drive to serve
Benjamin Conrad Robbins was several times mayor of Hawera and twice mayor of Tauranga, never Member of Parliament but served two terms as a Member of the Legislative Council.
He had a remarkable life in public service.
Robbins was born and had grown up in the famous shipbuilding and lobster fishing town of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia on the Atlantic seaboard of Canada.
His father, Captain Benjamin Conrad Robbins 4th, brought his wife and daughters to Wellington in New Zealand returning to Yarmouth to bring his sons out to their new home.
He died before returning but his son Benjamin Conrad Robbins 5th, now aged 17, joined his mother and sisters in Wellington.
He went to work in George Denton’s jewellery and hardware store for six years before coming to Hawera to open a hardware store with Charles Pierard.
He was a small man with a strong drive to succeed in business and in voluntary organisations.
Having seen a terrible fire in Wellington and the inability of store owners to extinguish prompted to him become a foundation member and secretary of the new Hawera Voluntary Fire Brigade in 1882 to whom he gave a loud fire bell.
Ironically on 7th July 1888 his store was burnt to cinders and the Brigade’s records he kept was destroyed.
Ben Robbins was a compulsive committee man chairing the Hawera School Committee; he was a Presbyterian Sunday School superintendant, chairman of the Hawera Chamber of Commerce, member of the Whanganui Education Board, the NZ Dairy Association and others including the Hawera Borough Council. He was elected Mayor in 1901 to 1905 and again in 1907.
These were great years for a progressive mayor; an electricity company was formed, its powerhouse established on the Waingongoro River in 1902, a new swimming baths was built in Albion Street, a new public park was laid out to commemorate the accession of King Edward the Seventh, water reticulation and sewerage pipes were laid.
Many substantial stores in High Street were opened in High Street and comfortable houses for incoming residents were built on the side streets, Hawera was a progressive rural town.
Ben Robbins’s family was growing too; he had married Jane Anne Ross, daughter of a Whanganui businessman in 1887 and they had five children Donald, Conrad (died in infancy), Marie, Stella and Alice.
After his final term in office Ben decided to move from Hawera and after trying both Wellington and Auckland he decided to go to another rural town, Tauranga a borough then somewhat smaller than Hawera.
He was aged 54 and went into partnership with a land agent to learn about his new home town and its residents. This was 1911.
He was elected Mayor of Tauranga the following year and during his first two terms saw the building of the Omanawa Falls electricity scheme, water reticulation for the town, and a Town Hall.
His next spell as mayor came in 1929. A feature of Ben Robbins throughout his mayoralties had been an interest in public gardens and he was rewarded by the people of Tauranga with the naming of a recently developed park and rosegarden in 1946, the year of his 90th birthday.
In 1936 the new Prime Minister Michael J Savage appointed him to the Legislative Council. He continued his association with the United Fire Brigade Association for whom he had worked hard during his Hawera years.
In 1953 he died at the age of 97 remembered by firemen everywhere, civic leaders and political figures, as an ex Nova Scotia boy whose tenacity and determination inspired the lives of many. Puke Ariki cares for more than 110,000 images in the Swainson/ Woods Collection that were generated by the New Plymouth based businesses, Swainson’s Studios and Bernard Woods Studio, between 1923 and 1997.
Many of the photographs are still unidentified.
Check our efforts out online at http://vernon.npdc.govt.nz/ simpleSearch.jsp
If you can help identify this week’s photo, please phone the Taranaki Research Centre, 06 759 6060, or email the team at images@npdc.govt.nz