The dead tell tales
Bessie Holden 1856-1943
Visitors to Hamilton’s Lake Rotoroa who have lifted their gaze away from the ducks and busy-ness of the walking track may have noted Lake House on the lake’s western side: a two-storey colonial weatherboard house with slate roof and tall chimneys. Lake House is one of the oldest extant structures in Hamilton, though when built in
1872-73 it was in a rural setting, not surrounded by houses as it is today. For many decades it had a more commanding presence, set in a long sweep of lawn up from the lake edge.
Lake House was built by James Williamson and Arthur Cox as the main residence for their 23,000 acre
(9308 hectares) property, Rukuhia Estate. The estate stretched for a considerable distance to the south and west, encompassing what are now the suburbs of Glenview and part of Melville and extending past Rukuhia Rd and west to Koromatua. Rukuhia Estate was a speculative venture to buy up confiscated land.
The first residents of Lake House were Cox and his large family of 13 children. The house was designed by Hamilton’s first architect (and first mayor) Isaac Vialou. It was a major undertaking, a ‘‘splendid mansion’’, with 17 rooms. The Cox family lived there for just six years, entertaining Hamiltonians with picnics in the spacious grounds. Most of the Rukuhia Estate was swamp with a few small lakes – damp in other words, and requiring drainage before it could become profitable farmland. Cox saw the project would also drain his finances, and got out of the partnership in 1879.
Williamson’s son-in-law Harry Bullock-Webster took on the role of gentleman-manager (the estate had a hands-on manager as well). The Bullock-Websters lived in the house from 1884 to 1895, after which the land was subdivided and ownership changed a few times. In 1908 Bessie Graham Holden purchased Lake House with just ten acres [4 ha]. Bessie and her husband Thomas Holden came north from Hunterville where they had owned a 4000-acre farm, ‘‘Braemore’’. They came to Hamilton to retire but also, according to family, to give the children (who were already adults) better opportunities for employment. Their choice of location may have been influenced by Bessie’s brother Ewen [Ewan] McGregor – he had bought some of the Rukuhia estate, also in 1908, around what is now McGregor’s Road.
Thomas and Bessie had five children. Their oldest son, Jack, worked for the BNZ until he joined up for service in WWI - he died in
1915 of injuries received at Gallipoli. Two daughters, Ida and Isabella, trained as nurses at Waikato Hospital; the third daughter, Elsie, worked for a dentist until she married Dr George Gower (the subject of a recent ‘‘The Dead Tell Tales’’) and with him undertook medical work in Britain during the war. The youngest son, Norman, also served overseas; after the war he became the Vacuum Oil Co. agent in Hamilton. Thomas died in
1920. Norman and his family lived in the top floor of Lake House from the mid 1920s, and after she broke her leg a downstairs room was adapted for Bessie as her bedroom. In 1928, Bessie subdivided the Lake House grounds and gave each of her children two acres. Houses were built by at least three of the family.
Bessie Holden died in 1943. She was buried with Thomas in Hamilton East Cemetery’s Front block.