‘The crack driver of the Australian colonies’ THE DEAD TELL TALES
Last week’s Dead Tell Tales introduced WK Carter’s life story, establishing his reputation as one of the noteworthy local coach drivers of the late 19th century. Karen Payne of the Cambridge Museum wrote, following research: “King Carter … was a tall athletic American. He was always smartly dressed, usually in a brown frock coat with wide brimmed hat, carrying a gold-headed walking stick and sporting a white Van Dyke beard and flowing moustache.” She also found that he used carrier pigeons for sending messages between his stopping places and Cambridge.
“Phaeton” in the New Zealand Herald in August 3 1918: “When W.K.C. took the driver’s seat on one of Cobb and Co.’s well-equipped coaches, handling a team of six horses, such constituted a picture to be committed to memory by young and old alike”.
Newspaper articles that mention Carter also describe the road conditions, and travel times.
For instance, it took nearly two hours to travel from Hamilton to Cambridge; the trip from Hamilton to Pirongia took all afternoon as the return trip started at 8.30am.
In May 1879 the Cambridge to Piako Road, Victoria Rd, was opened by a party of dignitaries from Hamilton, Morrinsville and Cambridge and at least 50 others.
A picnic was held at Pukemoremore, even though it was drizzling − the viands were spread in the lee of the coach. The coach for the “excursionists” was provided free of charge by Carter.
The Waikato Times, on March 18 1880, reprinted with a little sarcasm about the ability to spin a long yarn out of very little, the Star’s account of “the Waikato Jehu” driving a big coach on the road from Cambridge to Stanley, a 70km journey.
The road was slippery, undulating and steep in parts, but once the cavalcade reached the straight “the horses were sent along at a much greater speed … Especially worthy of mention was the driving of Mr W.K. Carter… Carter shone in his driving of the big coach and five horses... He is well known as the crack driver of the Australian colonies. He has performed prodigious feats in the rolling prairies of America, but Thursday’s efforts surpassed them all. His great shouts reverberated from range to range at Hinuera... There certainly was rain enough, and wind enough, and Carter supplied the thunder.”
“Jehu”? A fast or reckless coachman, originally the commander of chariots for Ahab, a king of Israel. Many columninches were devoted to Carter’s personality and his “handling of the reins”. Photographic evidence is less forthcoming, but the DM Beere photo from the Alexander Turnbill Library collection, shown here, illustrates the state of the Cambridge-rotorua road in Carter’s time.
Carter is shown with his distinctive top hat and white beard; presumably the building with the open wide doorway was his stables, where he changed horses.
When the Te Aroha goldfields opened, in late 1880, Carter started a line of coaches between Hamilton and Te Aroha, carrying freight as well as passengers. In January 1893 the Bay of Plenty Times stated that Carter’s business was “ever alert to the needs of the travelling public in providing a firstclass turn out, of any description.
The vehicles are of the most modern and improved style… living monuments of good care and attention”.
Carter also owned several racehorses, including Alaric, who won the Auckland Steeplechase in 1886.
In November 1878, though, it was his Miss Whiffler who he rode in a trotting match in Cambridge to win by a chain [22 yards, 20 metres]. Carter was no lightweight: he “turned the scales at 17st 5lb” (that’s roughly 110kg).
Carter married late in life, to widow Mary Ann Carr in 1875; she was about 20 years younger than him.
Readers of this column may recall an article about Thomas Carr, Carter’s stepson, who managed Carter’s business for a time as well as driving coaches.
Carter retired in 1903, having sold his business to Crowther and Bell of Auckland. He and Mary lived in the area now known as Carter’s Flat.
Mary died in 1899 and was buried in Cambridge Cemetery at Hautapu.
After William Carter’s death “at the ripe age of 95” in 1918, he was buried with her. Several newspapers ran obituaries describing not just his driving career but aspects of his personality plus his “fine physique and commanding appearance”.