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Military Index:
Roll of Honour - World War One
Supplementary Roll of Honour

Te Miro WW1 Soldier Settlement

In 1916 the Government purchased James Taylor's 1,200 acre Te Miro property for soldier settlement. Except for 2,000 acres of run-down pasture on the top terrace, known as 'the old race course', the block was mainly in bush, scrub and fern. Access was by way of the Sanatorium Hill and along a clay road for four miles. Later a road via Fencourt and Flume Road was formed.

The settlement was advertised as 'first class land adjoining Te Waikato Sanatorium and Fencourt and Whitehall settlements'. A portion was said to be suitable for dairying, the balance being grazing land suitable for sheep and cattle. The settlement was well watered by streams and springs and there was a creamery about three miles distant in the Fencourt settlement. The nearest post office was Cambridge, but there was a mail delivery five days a week at the sanatorium by a coach belonging to that establishment.

The first ballot was 27 February 1918 and the returned soldiers to receive farms were:-

Name	Army Number	Section	Acres
Percy Wallace Sampson	5/46	68	99
Frank Keyte	17/105	17	193
Charles Fredr Victor Roberts	13/2363	67	10	*
Stephen Christopher Kiddell	13/1694	14	102
Alfred Bergquist	13/257	5	226	#
William Septimus Bradshaw	13/9	64	11	#
David Causer Mitchell	21302	2	234	#
Kenneth Arthur Hankins	13/801	11	160	*
Jas Francis Mulholland	12/3536	12	135	*
Herbert Oliver Lamb	23/1915	13	130	#
Ivan Dyche Woodroffe	5/528	15	205
Chas Claude Craig	12/71	30	121	*
Norman Reginald Davenport	R N A S	35	389	#
Stewart Dawson Low	12/3081	38	228
Alfred Ernest Jamieson	10097	39	290
Cochrane Ferrall	7/1068	66	99
Stephen Joseph Geary	12/737	69	361
William David Rennie	46859	35	787
George Moore	2/907	40	98
Samual Neels	4/655	10	225	*
William Jas Elliot	24/1651	18	181
Alexander McInnes	11/2768	26	233
John Henry Brock	17558	4	227	*
Robert Brinkworth	13725	16	103	*
James Isaac Needham	26/126	27	316	*
Jas Henry Lonergan	2/249	28	208	*
Ernest Jas Evans		28	323	#
Henry George Rodewald	22868	22	92	#
Walter Robert Burr	22934	10	225	#
Henry Albert Print	8/4208	29	207	#
William McKee	23020	7	226	#
Frederick Ernest Walker	11/1610	69	361	#

By 1920 nine settlers had forfeited their land * and more soldiers tried their luck.

William Richard Shaw	13/851	36	80
Harold William Bennett	14/95	8, 44, 45	139
Hardrood Mackinder	17/384	34	564
Oscar Johnson	26112	1, 9	434	#
Alan Stuart Grey	13/62	20	227
Reginald Willson Brown	10138	66	99
Harold Kidd	42124	31	332	#
Andrew Curnow		29	207
David Forde Livingstone	23/812	33	166
Jas H S Bamforth	10/954	65	102
Hugh Pierpont Hewitt	21152	(21)22,23,77	(142)461
Bernard Parker de Lautour	9/2029	32, 70	669
Andrew Christie	25261	1	227
Percival John Hill	24/1077	30	121	#
Bessie Keyte	22/134	14	102
John Henry Scarlet	34440	11	162	#
William Lionel de Lautour	9/30	28	208
Victor Harold Lynds	12/401	2/27	159	#
John Anderson Thompson	26717	13	130
Archibald Paton	15766	41	79

By 1925 another sixteen soldiers had forfeited #.

Ref: Register of Returned Soldiers at National Archives Wellington

Many factors were responsible for the initial failure of the settlement and the abandonment by many soldier settlers of their farms. The main reasons were the lack of financial assistance by the government and the depression of 1921 when butter was 8d a pound and wool dropped to 6d a pound. They had to pay £80 per ton for wire while cartage cost for timber exceeded that of the material. In July 1921 the settlers again asked for a remission in rent.

Another setback was a plague of rabbits, and with deer and pigs crops just disappeared over night. It was not until the Maungakawa Rabbit Board was formed in 1920 that it was possible to farm more economically. Mr Bamforth, in a talk to the Cambridge Historical Society in 1958, recalled that he 'lived in a tent for three months before building a two roomed shack'.

A number of the soldier farmers were determined to battle on and made remarkable progress in spite of predictions that the settlement was doomed to failure.

 

 

 

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