The dead tell tales
James Treloar c.1882 - 1945
New Zealand’s dairy farming progress would have been the poorer without James Treloar’s inventiveness and ingenuity. He developed a range of milking machines and associated apparatus from the 1910s onwards, some
50 inventions. Two-cow and three-cow milking machines, buckets and vacuum pumps were amongst his products.
James Treloar with his parents, James and Catherine, came to New Zealand in 1904 to join his brother Seymour Pope Treloar. His first job was at A&G Price Ltd, the ironfounders at Thames, building locomotives. In 1910 the brothers set up an engineering workshop in Hamilton. James senior was also an engineer, while Seymour was a creamery manager for several years. By
1912 the Treloar Milking Machine was on the market and on display at the Waikato Winter Show.
An advertisement in a 1928 booklet Waikato New Zealand describes the phenomenal success of the Treloar Clutch Pulley: ‘‘the Treloar damps out all jerky uneven action caused by engine shocks and sudden bursts of speed ... it enables your separator to run at the same steady speed all the time’’. Better separation meant more cream meant a bigger cream cheque. In the ad, a happy farmer, ‘‘John Brown’’, says: ‘‘Yes, the Treloar has made a vast difference in my life. No longer am I a slave to handmilking’’. Farmers were urged to send away for a free copy of a ‘‘most interesting’’ booklet, ‘‘The Land of the Free’’, that described how the Treloar milking machine could increase profit.
The growth of the business necessitated shifting premises, from Victoria Street to Bryce Street and later Hood Street in what is now Diggers Bar.
In 1932 another of Treloar’s inventions amazed visitors to the Waikato Winter Show. The show was usually opened by a VIP, but in 1932 it was opened by mechanical man ‘‘Jason’’, made by Treloar. The aluminium robot spoke by means of a recording device hidden within it. Powered by electric motors, it could stand, move its arms, bow and sit down.
James Treloar was the president of the Winter Show Association in 1932 and
1933: ‘‘one of the youngest presidents the association has had, at the same time he is one of the oldest exhibitors’’.
He was described then as: ‘‘a keen, alert businessman’’. In his opening address in 1932 his message was one of encouragement for town and country people ‘‘to talk to each other in amity, sympathy, and with genuine respect each for the other … to cement together the people of the Waikato in one solid body … labouring devotedly for the welfare of the district’’ (Waikato Times June 1,
1932). He exhorted people, particularly the unemployed, to see the show had a message of hope and inspiration.
Treloar was a staunch member of the Methodist congregation in Hamilton. According to the Waikato Times’ obituary (April 6, 1945) he had 34 years’ unbroken service among the youth of the Methodist Church, including 25 years as superintendent of the Sunday School.
He was an efficient local preacher, taking services at several Methodist churches, including St Paul’s in London Street.
Treloar was a president of Hamilton Rotary Club, the Waikato Society of Arts and the Milking Machine Vendors’ Association, as well as being on educational boards and the YMCA. He was a Hamilton Borough Councillor from May 1941 until his death in April
1945. His funeral was held at St Paul’s with a large congregation.
Treloar had promoted the idea of a lawn cemetery, just coming into vogue, but could not have known that a heart attack would make him the second burial in the newly-opened lawn cemetery in Hamilton East.