Jack is the only brother for whom I have no obituary or personal information, but according to Robert he became Northern Wairoa Manager for the Kauri Timber Company. The 1908 electoral role has him and his wife Hannah living in Aratapu, south of Dargaville. The couple had five children.
Jack was a member for 18 years, and chairman for eight years, of the Kaipara Hospital Board, a member of Hobson County Council for 17 years, 20 years a member of the Kaipara Licensing Bench and a member of the North Auckland Power Board since its inception.
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The Kauri Timber Company (KTC) was a major operation in its day. According to the New Zealand Herald (16 June 1888) KTC was a wealthy Australian syndicate that after months of negotiations acquired massive interests in the New Zealand Kauri industry — 430,000 acres of land (part freehold, part leased), twenty-eight sawmills and sixteen hundred million feet of timber.
Interestingly, Robert McCarroll claimed to have cut 10m superfeet of Kauri from the family’s 8-10,000 acres, or 1000-1250 feet per acre depending on what the acreage actually was. KTC, on the other hand, was expecting 3-4 times that yield per acre. Even though deals had been made for the supply of additional timber from independent sources, maybe the syndicate members were oversold.
KTC became the fifth biggest land owner in New Zealand. One result of its operations was to centralise milling around its sixteen New Zealand branches, rather than through small mills like the McCarrolls’.
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The Vanishing Kauri
Timber industry dying. Prices increasing rapidly.
On 28 March 1913 the New Zealand Herald wrote:
It will not be many years before the kauri forests of the North are altogether depleted. Further and further back the axemen are going. No trouble is spared to push the logs down to the nearest rail or waterway, and where only two years ago in some instances stood giant kauri trees, there are now primitive homesteads, with cattle on the hills round about.
Yesterday the Hon. W. Fraser [Minister of Public Works at the time] and his party made a trip into the heart of the timber country in the Northern Wairoa districts, when it was seen that the clearance that is being made day by day will very soon leave the hills barren and desolate. A visit was made to a 50-acre cluster of kauri trees, known as Kauri Park, which formerly belonged to Mr. C. Trounson, but which was handed over to the State recently. The quality of the kauri trees is disappointing. The ravages of fire have left the dump scarred and patchy, but notwithstanding this the value of the timber is estimated at £17,000 [$870,000 in 2024 NZ dollars]. The Ministerial party was within a mile to-day of the Waipoua State forest [the largest remaining tract of native forest in Northland today] but shortage of time prevented a visit being made, or even a glimpse of the big bush area being obtained. To show the present value of the kauri timber industry it is only necessary to mention that a log which was cut out of the bush in the vicinity of Donnelly’s Crossing this week, measuring 6ft in diameter and 14ft long has an estimated value in the rough of £20 {about $1100 in 2024 NZ dollars]. Every week the price of kauri is increasing, but every week the timber is becoming more scarce, and at the present rate the experts consider that five years will see the complete depletion; of the trees, as far as their value for I an industry is concerned.
It isn’t as if people like the McCarrolls were unaware of the Kauri’s depletion. They were turning New Zealand into a settled, pastoral nation, but did want to memorialise what had gone before.
My grandfather Hugh was involved in the establishment in 1954 of what back in the day I remember him calling Trounson Park.
The Kauri Bushman’s Park was established by the Kauri Bushmen’s Association along with the Otematea County Council, Whangarei Forest and Bird and the Government. Hugh was also involved in the Matakohe Kauri Museum, which has various displays from him, including the kauri gum that as a kid I remember in a glass case in his lounge, polished to show its amber depths, luxurious to hold and smelling like heaven.
Cliff and Dorothy had a single stately kauri on their property, next to a little stream a couple of hundred metres up from the road. When they sold they were very anxious that it remain undisturbed. I remember taking Heather to see it on her first visit up north. I’m sorry to say I don’t know whether it’s still standing.
Twenty years ago, when we first visited South Titirangi a mature specimen standing alone on a ridge in someone’s garden, framed by harbour and sky, was enough to make me want to live here.