Isaac Coates (1840–1932) was mayor of Hamilton, New Zealand, from 1888 to 1892, a farmer,[1] flax-miller,[2] and a drainage[3] and railway contractor.[4]
He was born on 7 April 1840,[5] to Samuel Coates.[6] a tenant farmer at Gayles, near Richmond,[7] who died in 1863.[8] His younger brother took on their farm, when Isaac chose to emigrate to New Zealand in 1867.[5] His sister and brother-in-law, Thomas Dinsdale, after whom Dinsdale is named, came to work for Isaac[9] in 1869,[10] working on flax cutting at one stage.[11]
Isaac Coates was a relatively common name. Thus a 1942 Waikato Times obituary for Jane Meadway asserted that she was a daughter of Isaac Coates, "one of the best-known of the early settlers in the Waikato", though she was born at Akaroa in 1862, five years before the future mayor emigrated.[12] Possibly she was related to Isaac Coates, an artist, who was living in Nelson in the 1840s.[13] Another Isaac Coates was a US Army Surgeon in the 1860s.[14]
Emigration
Clipper Ship Lancashire Witch, painted in 1863[15]
Isaac arrived at Lyttelton, on the Quebec-built[16]clipper ship, Lancashire Witch, which had been carrying emigrants from England since 1856.[17][18] Isaac's recollection of the voyage was that he arrived on 21 July 1867, paid £30 for a second class berth, was seasick, short of water and that the food was "almost uneatable".[19] A report by the Immigration Commissioners confirmed problems with water and flour.[20] There was also a fight on board.[21] However, other second class passengers (there were 12, none of them named,[22] and many government assisted migrants)[23] wrote to thank the captain for their voyage and the captain reported that they left East India Docks on 2 April 1867 and anchored at Lyttelton on 29 July.[24] Their first sighting of land was the Snares Islands / Tini Heke on 24 July.[25] The immigrants reached Christchurch on 30 July.[26]
Isaac had a letter of introduction from a brother of his local MP, Sir F. Milbank, to Joseph Tetley, of Marlborough. He walked north up the coast from Christchurch to Tetley's sheep station,[27] taking several days and fording,[28] or taking a ferry across, several rivers.[29] He left the Tetleys,[30] but continued working on stations,[31] doing a variety of jobs, including rick building[32] and wool handling with Merino sheep.[33]
In 1868[4] he rode to Riccarton, took a coach to Christchurch, sailed to Wellington[34] and took the steamer Taranaki to Auckland,[35] arriving on 13 March.[36] He took a short trip to Thames to look at the goldfield[37] and spent about a year prospecting for gold at Kennedy Bay,[4] where he worked with fellow Yorkshireman, Frederick Atkinson.[38] They panned some gold, but gave up when their dam was washed away.[39] He also met up with other Yorkshiremen.[40]
Businesses
Isaac got another letter of introduction, this time to Captain William Steele,[41] whom he later described as 'Father of Hamilton'.[42] Isaac took a coach to Mercer, a steamer from there to Ngāruawāhia and then walked to Hamilton,[43] where he met Captain Steele and looked at several farms.[44]
He bought 400 acres (160 ha),[45] at Ruakura,[4] including 200 acres (81 ha) each from Dr Beale (£200)[38] and Ensign John Crawford (under £300, including a house),[9] the latter being first of the troops to land at Hamilton during the Invasion of the Waikato.[46] Isaac later extended the farm to 700 acres (280 ha) and had drains dug to convert the wetland to farmland.[47] Isaac was one of the first Waikato farmers to mechanise, getting a steam thresher in 1874[48] and also mowing, reaping, binding, and chaff-cutting machines.[4] After being refused a mortgage in 1895,[49] he sold the farm in about 1901, when flax prices were low. It was then sold to the Government[50] to create what later became Ruakura Agriculture Research Centre.
Isaac Coates' flax mill in 1898
In 1875 Isaac had a contract to build a road into the Piako swamp.[51] In 1878[52] and 1879 he and Angus Campbell were in partnership as timber merchants.[53] From 1878[54] to 1880[55] he was also trading in Hamilton East[56] as Small & Coates, grocers and agricultural merchants.[57] In 1880 he sold his own crops[58] and then started on his own account as an agricultural merchant.[59] In 1878[60] and 1881 he had contracts for swamp drainage.[61] He and civil engineer, Henry Hulbert Metcalfe,[62] also had a flax mill,[63] at least from 1886 to 1905,[64] where the Memorial Park now is, and others at Morrinsville and Maketu.[2]
Isaac had a Hamilton cottage burn down in 1903,[73] the year he started a brickworks in Collingwood Street.[74] He moved the brickworks to Huntly in 1905.[75] It was still running in 1908,[76] but seems to have been sold to a newly formed company that year.[77] Coates Street in Hamilton East[78] was built by Isaac in 1908,[79] and some buildings had been erected by 1910.[80] He was also a director of Hamilton Flour Mill,[81] was in the gum trade.[4]
Public life
His first recorded interest in Hamilton politics seems to have been in 1870, when he was on a list of supporters of Waikato MP, Captain Macpherson.[82] Isaac's first election was as a lieutenant in the Waikato Rifle Volunteers in 1871. He was elected as a trustee of Hamilton East Highway District in 1874[83] and became its secretary.[84] He was elected to the Hamilton parishvestry committee, when it was formed, in 1876[85] and to the newly formed borough of Hamilton on 7 February 1878.[86][87] In 1877 he was elected to Kirikiriroa Road Board,[88] was chairman of it in 1893[89] and resigned from it in 1897.[90] He was elected to the Hamilton East School Committee in 1878.[91]
Harold F. Coates, an architect, who moved to Melbourne in 1914[118]
Violet, who died when she was pushed out of a window,[119] when aged 6 in 1897.[120]
Isaac returned to England in 1872.[121] The family also visited England[50] and Scotland in 1904,[122] 1912[123] and 1915.[124]
In 1873 he bought a riverside section for £10.[125] Until selling the house in about 1912 to Henry Greenslade, who built Greenslade House,[126] Isaac Coates, lived at 'Wairere',[108] 1 Wellington Street, Hamilton East.[27] He had moved there when he married in 1874, and sold it when its kahikatea timbers were suffering from borer.[49] In 1922 he moved to live with his son, Harold,[127] in Canterbury, Melbourne,[128] but returned in 1924[129] and was at 9 Wellington Street in 1927[130] and 1928.[131]
Isaac died on Sunday 1 May 1932.[4] His wife, died a week before him.[132] They were then living with their eldest daughter at Pukenui Rd, Epsom and were buried at Hillsborough Cemetery.[133]
References
^"Mining Notices". paperspast.natlib.govt.nz. New Zealand Herald. 6 February 1897. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
^ ab"Our Local Industries". paperspast.natlib.govt.nz. Waikato Times. 23 December 1902. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
^"Pioneering Days". paperspast.natlib.govt.nz. Waikato Times. 9 June 1928. Retrieved 20 May 2021.
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