Calling for volunteers in
nineteenth century Thames was more likely to get you a group of keen military
recruits than a group of enthusiastic helpers with time to spare.
‘Volunteering’ during that period had a different connotation; a volunteer
tended to be thought of as someone who willingly signed up for military service
instead of being conscripted to do so.
However, this didn’t mean that
Thames was entirely bereft of folk willing to muck in for a good cause. Ladies’
Benevolent Societies were an increasingly common feature of colonial New
Zealand, mainly focusing on helping women and children out of poverty. Benevolent
Societies were also formed to help the elderly and sick, and Thames’ Benevolent
Society was no exception.
The Hauraki Ladies Benevolent
Society aimed to help ‘relieve the wants of the poor, particularly females and
destitute children by supplying them with food and other necessities.’
Operating under the auspices of the Thames Hospital and Charitable Aid Board,
the Hauraki Ladies would fundraise through donations and subscriptions, and
meet every second Friday and decide how to allocate their funds. Some of their
work helped to build and modernise the hospital, while other funds went to help
individual cases of people in need in the region.
The Hauraki Ladies Benevolent
Society would often fundraise by organising social events and competitions, or
persuading other groups to run events on their behalf. The Burns Club of Thames
was one such collaborator, providing an evening of ‘popular entertainments’ to
support the Hauraki Ladies’ fundraising efforts. Roping in the Naval Band for a
night of highland revelry at St. George’s Hall, the Burns Club raised £32 2s 6d to help the
Benevolent Society.
The mayor Mr. Radford,
reported the Thames Star, ‘said that none but those connected with the
charitable aid institutions could form any idea of the poverty and want at
present existing amongst the poor of the town and the public owed a deep debt
of gratitude to these ladies for their cheerfully rendered services in
relieving the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and in many other
ways giving consolation and relief to our suffering poor.’
A note from the author: I’d like to take this opportunity to
give a special shout-out to The Treasury and Papers Past, who recently
digitised and indexed eighteen years’ worth of The Treasury’s Thames Star
collection. Papers Past now has digital copies of pretty much every issue
published of the Thames Star, right up to 1939. Papers Past is one of my first
ports of call for researching Adventures in the Archives every month, so this
means I can now check, at the push of a button, what our ancestors were reading
during the 1920s and ‘30s. I am VERY excited.
Comments
Post a Comment