Gardener salt of the earth
Edward Exelby 1841-1896
In August 1892 the Waikato Times commented on ‘‘Mr Exelby’s splendid load of ‘‘broccoli’’. One, with all the superfluous leaves taken off, turned the scale at 141⁄2lb’’.
A few years’ later, Edward Exelby grew broccoli heads weighing from 10 to 15 lb [4.5 to 6.8kg] each. And earlier, in 1889, it was reported that a Chinese gardener from Auckland was so impressed with Exelby’s magnificent broccoli that he offered Exelby £7 per acre for his land.
That 1892 news item put broccoli in quote marks, as if it were an oddity, but a quick search on Papers Past (the National Library’s website with searchable newspapers) shows it was being grown in New Zealand as early as 1842.
Maybe it was just not common in the 1890s. Edward Exelby came to the Waikato in 1880, one of three families sponsored by Richard Dillicar.
Richard Dillicar was a man of substance – he was an iron works’ owner at Rosedale Abbey in Yorkshire and later a shipping providore at Hull.
Dillicar paid second-class passages for his family plus steerage passages for two married couples, Johnson and Exelby, with their children, and a single man, Langdale.
The Exelbys were Edward, his wife Elizabeth, and sons Edward and Cecil.
The Exelbys later had a daughter, Eliza. All four families settled in Hamilton, initially on land Richard Dillicar purchased in the Dinsdale Rd-Ellicott Rd area. Exelby worked for Dilllicar then bought land a bit further north by Lake Rotokauri.
His 52 acres [21ha] was in timber, so he had a tough few years clearing and cultivating.
But clear it he did, by ‘‘steady plodding’’ and reclaiming swamp land and developing a market garden in which he grew broccoli, vegetables and fruit.
Although electoral rolls list Exelby as a farmer, it was his vegetable growing that he was known for, not just for the impressive heads of broccoli, but for blackcurrants ‘‘large, well formed and the flavour splendid’’ to paraphrase the Waikato Times.
Edward Exelby won prizes at the Waikato Horticultural Show, for instance in 1888 for peas, potatoes and apples, a tradition kept up by his son Cecil, who won prizes in 1897 for dessert apples, peas, red beetroot, cabbages and rhubarb.
Another son, also Edward, continued with the market garden business after Edward’s death.
Exelby Rd was named after him as it led to his farm.
But the Exelbys gave us the name of another road and suburb, Nawton - it was the name of Elizabeth’s home in the United Kingdom. Edward Exelby junior was reported by the Waikato Argus in August 1913 as saying that his father had a lot to do with the opening up of Norton Rd, which extended from the dairy factory at Frankton to Rotokauri Lake, but that it should be spelt ‘‘Nawton’’.
The road name was changed from Stoke’s Bush Rd to Nawton Rd in 1891, but the spelling alternated between Nawton and Norton.
From 1890 Exelby was a member of Waipa County Council. Prior to that, he was a fenceviewer for the Highway District, checking that fences were constructed along legal boundaries, and also a member of the Hamilton Road Board.
In the late 19th century farmers were experimenting with the use of lime, and Exelby was one of the growers who reported favourably its use.
Lime altered the appearance of crops and trees, ‘‘destroying the slugs and leech and invigorating the trees’’; his name was used as endorsement by local lime producers Cannell & Co. in their advertisements.
In 1893 he was praised for the vigorous manner in which he attacked the furze [gorse] nuisance.
Furze was planted as hedges but quickly became a weed, and in places the furze reduced the width of roads to one lane.
In mid-November 1895 Exelby was in Waikato Hospital with an internal ailment and in ‘‘a very precarious condition’’.
He remained there until his death in February 1896.
Elizabeth died in 1905.
They were buried in Hamilton West Cemetery, quite close to the Dillicar graves.