The President of Fendalton

 

Yesterday, we went to town. Christchurch, that is. We don't often venture there. Its sixty years since I lived there. And the time is gone when we took our horses to Addington Raceway. But yesterday we were on the track of something that couldn't be had in Rangiora: a brand new car!  We found our way through the streets with the aid of the-lady-who-talks ... made our purchase  ... and I discovered that I could remember a much simpler way home ... Hagley, Fendalton, Papanui ...

This morning, while having my teatime stroll through ebay-land, I struck a New Zealand carte de visite of a baby.

I don't normally look into babies, but this one was from ... Fendalton, Christchurch! So ...

William Gordon Victor Fernie, aged 1 year and 8 months.

Jessie was his mother. Jessie Williamina Fernie née Crombie (b Peebles 26 December 1866; d Auckland, 25 September 1953) daughter of the one-time Peebles stationmaster, who had emigrated and become stationmaster at Dunedin.

Jessie had married David Fernie, son of a ship's carpenter/stoker ('Pomone'), from Dumbarton (d Auckland 11 June 1961), in New Zealand, 13 June 1900, and little Willie had been born, in Dunedin, 5 September 1901.

I imagine that 'dear Aunt Mary Ann' was Jessie's younger sister.

It must be embarrassing for public figures when their baby photos turn up. W G V was originally a schoolmaster, but he worked his way into Positions of Confidence, and became President or Director of the most unimaginably huge lists of Associations and Companies. In no particular order, here are but a few: President of the Canterbury Radio Traders Assoc; President of the NZ Furniture Manufacturers Assoc; General Manager of Calder, Mackay; Director/Chairman of Bunting & Co; Director of the New Zealand Refrigeration So; President of the NZ Retailers' Federation; President of the New Zealand Employer's Federation; Chairman of the Hire Purchase Association; President of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce ...

He married, firstly, one Mary Ann Gallaugher (1927) by whom he had a son and a daughter before she walked out on him, and secondly Eveleen Dorothy Bannerman (8 June 1938) who apparently gave him another daughter.

Daughter Roma Vee married a Mr Hugh Macintosh Macdonald, bred and divorced. Son Kay Livingstone may have also married ...

W G V died in Auckland 3 September 1975.

Anyway, next time I pass through Fendalton, I shall look out for 52 Wroxton Terrace and 20 Wairarapa Terrace and say hello to his ghost ...