The dead tell tales
Alfred Oldham 1831-1919
Alfred Oldham was already an experienced flax miller by the time he settled in Tuakau in 1878 and set up a flax mill.
He and his wife Elizabeth and three children had arrived in Auckland in 1859, but lived at Mangawhai and Maungaturoto before he began working in Fraser and Tinne’s flax mill at Kaihu, north of Dargaville, in 1872.
He set up his own mill and a flax matting factory at Paparoa in 1878, first using imported machinery but then designing a better version himself.
Supplies of the raw material were limited so he shifted family (now numbering nine offspring) and machinery to the lush (and swampy) Waikato in 1880.
At that time Tuakau was known as the provincial main centre of the flaxmilling business.
Oldham bought an existing flax mill on the northern edge of Tuakau, close to the railway line and on a small stream. He and his sons built an additional structure to house the flax-weaving machinery; like the original mill it was driven by water-power.
Oldham divided the original water race into two, and as the new race had a fall of seven feet (2 metres), twice as much power was available. The New Zealand Herald (June 16, 1881) described the new mill in great detail, stating that the weaving loom was mostly invented by Alfred Oldham and that it could be run with hand power or water power.
It was so easy to run it could be worked by a boy, “who weaves on an average fifty yards a day”. His machine could produce two widths of matting: either 36 or 27 inches wide (91 or 69 cm). The matting was the same colour as imported coconut coir matting, but as it had more substance to it, it was hoped that it would be longer wearing.
The matting was exhibited at the Melbourne Exhibition in 1880 and the Christchurch Exhibition in 1881 and 1882, receiving bronze medals at the latter exhibition. The Oldhams won a contract with the Railways Department, producing for them a narrow mat with a central coloured stripe. Subsequently, there were issues with the contract being taken over by another firm.
By August 1881 the New Zealand Herald (August 31, 1881) could report that the matting was growing in favour and that Messrs Oldham and Sons were contemplating enlarging their premises and importing improved machinery from England or America.
Some of the sons joined Alfred in the flax business, operating as Oldham and Sons, or “the Tuakau Factory”.
In the 1896 electoral roll, three of the sons listed their occupations as “mattingmaker” and two of them as creamery managers. Later, two other sons also became managers of creameries.
Flax milling was big business in the district with many men employed at the various mills. In 1881 the Oldhams employed seven men and four boys in the matting room alone.
There were enough flaxmillers to get up a cricket team at Christmas 1881, playing against a team of farmers. Two of the Oldham brothers were in the team.
The Oldham sons also had a turn for engineering design: Arthur added a driving pulley to the flax mill machinery, and in 1890 Herbert applied for a patent for “Oldham’s improved flax-dressing, cleaning and drying machine”.
Alfred Oldham was a Methodist lay preacher, and gave sermons in the wider Tuakau district, as far away as Waiuku – mostly walking in preference to riding or driving.
Alfred and Elizabeth retired to Auckland in about 1899. She died in 1901, Alfred in 1919; they were buried in the same grave as their eldest son Frank, who died in 1881 aged 27, at Alexandra Redoubt Cemetery near Tuakau.
Flax milling and dairying were the two main industries that saw Tuakau develop into a local service centre by the turn of the 20th century, and this development owed a lot to the Oldham family.