EARLY THORNTON DAYS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 235, 8 November 1940, Page 8

EARLY THORNTON DAYS

PROPOSED HOTEL LICENSE OPPOSITION FROM SETTLERS Not many people know that nearly a quarter of a century ago there was a proposal to establish a licensed hotel at Thornton. There was considerable opposition from settlers to the proposal, so that Taneatua got the hotel instead. In further interesting reminiscences of the early daj's of the Thornton settlement, Mrs Laura H. Sheaf, who now resides in Auckland, tells of the stir in the community created by the hotel licensc application in 1917. "For some time we had heard rumours that a movement was on foot to transfer a publican's license from some backbloeks hotel at Galatea or Atiamuri, to Thornton. At that time Thornton was a more populous community than it is to-day, because hundreds of .men Ave re engaged in land drainage both for the Lands Department and for settlers, and the flaxmill on the banks of the Rangitailu gavo employment to several dozen millhands, flaxcutters and launch men. The railway route had not then been surveyed beyond Matata, and some people urged that the rails should keep to the coast,, passing through Thornton to Whakatane We never believed the rumours to anj r foundation until one cold winter's afternoon the ReA r . William Piatt, Presbyterian Minister at Whakatane, alighted from his ?iorse al our door. He AA'as obtaining signatures to a petition opposing the transfer of a publican's license to Thornton on the grounds that a hotel Avas not Avarranted bctAveen Mat-, ata and Whakatane, and also that it Avould ruin the Maoris'of thn di<=-

trict. We signed the petition as we thought our quiet hamlet did nol Mant a hotel. Mr Piatt explained that a new landowner at Thornton who had bought out Mr Alfred Thome's 400 acre block of land, had planned that his manager (a Scotsman) was to apply for a publican's license, and that already a copy of the application had been affixed to the door of the manager's residence, We drove down to Thornton and sure enough the notice was on the door. There was such a stir in our conv munity over the affair, and so much opposition, that the proposal Avas defeated when it came before the licensing authorities. Soon after this the license was actually transferred to Taneatua, Avhich until then had only a boardinghouse for the accommodation of the public. So Taneatua got its hotel license, a matter that AA r as vieAved with mixed feelings by the older settlers of the Whakatane Valley. At a later period it Avas found necessary to station a police constable at Taneatua. The fact that a Scotsman Avould have been "'Mine Host" of- the proposed Thornton hotel stirred our imagination, and so for a long time AA r e called his house "The Blue Bell," supposing that in the event of the license having been granted his liouse would have been knoAvn "by tho sign of the Blue Bells" (of Scotland), after the manner of village inns in the Old Country. We Ave re thankful that Thornton remained "dry, " for at that period Matata had a most unenviable name for drunkenness, as indeed had so many little, baekblocks settlements where there Avcre hotels but

no police supervision. Note: In connection Avitli this incident in the early days of the Whakatane County it must.be borne in mind that the question of "License" or "No License" was a much more vital issue 25 years or. so ago. A 1 that period '.he 1914-18 war was in its most serious stage, and a great section of New Zealand people urged that liquor consumption be prohibited or curtailed as a means towards securing victory. In 1917 a monster petition to Parliament resulted in the passing of the six o'clock Closing Bill (previously hotels had been open till 10 p.m.). and of the "No Shouting Law,'' which made it an offence to "treat'" in hotel bars. A special liquor referendum on April 10, 1919, resulted in Prohibition securing a small majority of votes cast in New Zealand? but the soldiers' vote overseas later gavo a small majority for Continuance.