Ōtautau, Community Organizations & Events - Wallace A&P Association Showgrounds

Shared by Central & Western Murihiku Southland Archive

Current day photos (2022) of the first site the Wallace A&P Showgrounds owned, as well as some of their later shows at Holt Park. IMAGES: Photo 1 - Wallace A&P Show, we think during the late 1930's at Holt Park, kindly gifted by Peter Campbell for the 'Between River & Stream' early Ōtautau history book project. No known Copyright. Photo 2 - Wallace A&P Show, we think after the show was re-established in the 1950's at Holt Park, kindly gifted by the Paterson Family for the 'Between River & Stream' early Ōtautau history book project. Licensed CC BY. Image 3 - Copy of an advertisement from the Ōtautau Standard news, advertising the Annual Horse Parade at the Wallace A&P Showgrounds, on 3rd October 1913. Provided thanks to digitisation from PapersPast. No known Copyright. Photos 4 to 6 - the first site the Wallace A&P Showground's owned from 1906, their exhibition shed is still standing today. Photographed by S Best, author and researcher of 'Between River & Stream' early Ōtautau history books. Licensed CC BY to this project. WALLACE A&P ASSOCIATION HISTORY: Many different accounts from various people abound on the background of the Wallace A&P Association. A lot of the early information written on this group was generalised and seemed to mix them up with the Western District A&P Association who also held earlier events in Ōtautau over but this was a different group. So, I did more digging to try and find the details. The Wallace A&P Association itself was only started in 1904. There had been earlier shows put on in the township, by the Western District A&P, but these were only held on a rotational basis with other towns across the district, by the earlier formed Western District A&P Association. This caused consternation from local exhibitors and breeders, who wanted to see a show held at the more central location of Ōtautau on an annual or at least alternate basis with Riverton. The Association refused their request, so interested parties met to form their own group. On Friday 3 June 1904, a meeting was held at Kelly’s Hotel to discuss the formation of a local A&P Association for permanent shows to be held in the centrally situated district of Ōtautau. However, inclement weather precluded the attendance of many of the district farmers, although the following gentlemen were present: Robert Acheson, David Clark, Robert Cupples, T Dyer, John Ewan, Nicholas Kelly, Stephen James, James Noble, Patrick Joyce, Robert Seatter, Robert Sweetman, John Swap, Joseph Swap, Thomas Walker, William Walker. D Clark was voted to the chair while T Dyer was appointed temporary Secretary and the group organized to reconvene on June 17th to discuss results of a deputation which would be sent to meet with the Western District Association about their request, in the interim. To date I have not found out their response, but it seems to have been unfavourable due to the following events. Whatever the case or cause, in late 1904, the Wallace A&P Association was both formed and incorporated under the Agricultural and Pastoral Societies Act 1877 and notification of this was also gazetted. At their first show, which was held on 30 November 1904, about 1800 souls attended, said to be a good number, considering it was the first show held in the town in about seven years. This first A&P event was held at Robert Seatter’s Paddock in Ōtautau township. It was the second show in 1905 that was held at McGarvie’s Paddock in North Ōtautau, wrongly claimed as being the first show in earlier historical writings on the town. By the time the newly formed Association’s first AGM was held in May 1905, there were over 50 people present at that meeting. Shows continued successfully and the Association soon opened permanent Showgrounds to north of the township, from 1906 until 1935. This site is just before Kings Yard (2023) going north, on the right, where the large original exhibition shed still stands, which is photographed as above. There was also an Agricultural Showgrounds Reserve marked on the old Township map, situated between the south end of Rye and Eton Sts, where the old Mill was, now owned by Rabco, which is noted as being gazetted in 1894. But it is unclear whether or not this land was ever used as an Agricultural Showgrounds. A photo of this map will appear in the early history book. Research into this site will also continue as well. The new site, purchased off Robert Cupples jnr, was just outside of North Ōtautau, and this was around 12.9 acres or 5.2306ha. The association’s move to these new grounds in 1906 was quite an achievement, but it also involved a lot of work. The secretary at that time, NA McLaren, was in charge of collecting tenders for fencing the new Wallace A&P showgrounds, which entailed about 20 chains (just over 400m) of fencing, these closed in August of 1906. While a ‘Grounds Committee’ to get the Associations new site planted, fenced and show pens erected (for not more than £100), consisted of the following gentlemen: William Affleck, David Clark, John Findlay, James King, John Lindsay, Robert Story and Joseph Swap. The show that year was said to be a very successful one and the only thing left to do for the new grounds was tree planting. By 1908, the show was advertising that they now had a “well equipped” building which was suitable for dairy produce displays, as well as having “ample provision” to exhibit stock. The building referred to here, is the barn shown in photos above, built between 1906 and 1908. There were special trains put on for their events, as well as others in the township, from both the surrounding districts and also from Waihōpai Invercargill. NZ Railways advertised the Wallace A&P Show, “near Ōtautau” and noted that all trains would stop beside the new Showgrounds. This new stop off would have been very helpful for those attending by train. But interestingly, there were reported traffic jams on the Ōtautau bridge on show day, which led to the building of a foot bridge, to help move pedestrian traffic. The Government of the day gave a subsidy of £50 in 1907 to help erect this. It served the township for many years. The Wallace A&P Association or ‘Ōtautau Show’ as it was commonly called, was also held in high regard not just by the exhibitors, but also by the judges, especially with regard to the horses on show. At the 5th Annual Show held in 1908, it was noted by judges that the quality of draught horses was superior even to what they had seen at Oamaru and in the light horses, improvements were coming through in these classes too and the standards could now be compared with what was being shown in the Northern Districts. Sheep too were noted to the point it was considered that the Western District would give the upcoming Invercargill Show a run for its money and comments made that the fat sheep were of equal splendour to those shown at Canterbury. All round, there was a marked increase in quality. By 1912, attendance at the Ōtautau Show was lauded as being a record number. Their takings were listed as being over £70. Entries were also listed as being a good number, with figures for the four previous years as comparison, quoted as being those below: 1908 - 521 1909 - 544 1910 - 469 1911 - 673 1912 - 505 The new Ōtautau Show Grounds of the Wallace A&P Association had an Annual Horse Parade as well. In 1913 this was advertised as shown above, along with a reminder to Stallion Owners about the Sires’ Produce Stakes. At this time John Fisher was Secretary. I have been trying to find out if this Annual Horse Parade was what the track at the grounds was for, or if this was a later feature, but so far have not come across that information. So, if anyone knows if the track was there from the start of the Show Days, please let us know. After running without a break other than the year of 1917 during the worst shortage of manpower of WW1, a mortgage made against the property in 1922, by the association. However, even though the A&P Show was not held at the associations showgrounds during 1917, the Red Cross held a large event there instead, and raised about £1500 from a Fair and Sports Event, which also had sold donated livestock. On Wednesday 27 November 1929, the Wallace A&P Association’s 25th or quarter century show was held. It was a sad fact, that the deep depression years between the wars, caused the show to finally falter and fold for a time, as the 1920’s and early 1930’s continued to be a very real struggle. Farmers were simply too busy trying to survive. There was a break during the 1930’s, with no show held during 1931 to 1935, then the Wallace A&P Show eventually voted to proceed with their purchasing ground adjoining what was the Recreation Ground (now Holt Park) with the A&P shows to start again from 1936, in an effort to gain more local support and attract a larger audience to their shows. It was also noted that the distance outside the township of their previous show grounds, was a problem for attendance and support by town businesses. The directors of the Association had also resolved that the new grounds be vested in the Ōtautau Town Board, who were operating it as a Domain and while the Association was responsible for leveling and grassing the site, the Board would construct a deviation to the road to accommodate the grounds and also ensure they were fenced. The way Holt Park is now, incorporates the original Recreation or 'Rec' Grounds and those adjacent that were purchased by the Wallace A&P and combined, with the road moved. The news of the day reported that unemployed labour was being used to undertake work on the grounds as needed, and that this had been very ably carried out by all concerned. Association member J Dodds also passed away this same year and had left a lasting legacy in his will as a bequeath. Peter Campbell noted that with the advent of WW2, the show was once more forced into recession. And he believes it was not re-established again until the 1950’s. The show carried on into the 1990’s, but once again due to lack of local support, the revamped show was forced back into recession, and was never to recover. As their showgrounds site was closed down with the event moving on to Holt Park, the Associations original grounds were valued down to £200 for the land, and in 1938 these were sold off to Michael O’Brien, Crown Hotel proprietor of Ōtautau. He was a great lover of horses and the Birchwood Hunt, and always a part of the very popular Ōtautau Races for many years. On Mick’s death, the ownership transferred to his wife Delia and then she sold the land to George Fraser who held it for some years, before it was inherited by Robert Matthew Strang and then came into the ownership of the Drakes. The Wallace A&P Show also had an associated Ram Fair which was held from the early days, then again from 1955 onwards according to Peter Campbell who was on the committee. This was run as a way to help raise money for the show day. In 1964, over 300 Romneys and more than 650 Southdown Rams were sold, which took the best part of a whole day to sell. As a reflection of the changes in local farming practices locally, the last ever ram fair held was in 2002 and this only had 90 rams in it, and these sold in less than two hours. Yet another associated part of the Wallace A&P Show was the Heifer Competition, which was where recently passed long time Dairy enthusiast Jim Flett, started to exhibit his Friesian dairy stock in, from the 1950’s. After the Wallace A&P Show itself went into its last recess, Jim carried on with the heifer competitions, and these were eventually made a part of the South Island Wide Event in 2002. The Southland A&P Show agreed to include the Wallace Section of this competition in their own show. There are very few A&P Shows still running compared to the 'old days'. It was in the same year, 2002, that the last of the remaining three stalwarts left of the local association, then had to make a heart-wrenching decision to close down the Wallace A&P Association. The eventual end of the “Ōtautau Show” as it was affectionately known, was a sad day for the three remaining gents associated with it, as they had put their hearts and souls into the event for many years. These were the late Jim Flett from his dairy exhibiting and dairying association, John McLeish who recalled his involvement over 50 years and Peter Campbell having been hugely involved with the ram fair and the show itself. It was the decision of the directors on winding up the association, that the local museum be gifted all the cups and trophies, and these were for many years, displayed in a beautiful glass fronted cabinet there. Information above is researched by and copyright under a CC BY Licence to “Between River & Stream”, early history of Ōtautau book, and is kindly gifted by that project to our online community archive so everyone can view it. If you or anyone you know has any more photos, information or accounts of the Wallace A&P Shows in Ōtautau during the years, on any aspects of other different shows that took place here in the township or local area, please do share these in the comments section. You can do this by making a comment in the space provided under the image page. Please let us know if you have more photos, as they add the history of the property. Note: these entries are compiled with information provided by donors with the records, from locally reported news, from national and occasionally international reports in publications, from personal records made by the people themselves - such as their electoral enrollments, wills, war records etc., also from government and council held records such as births, deaths and marriages or cemetery information, and lastly, from community memories, such as those passed on by friends, family and contemporaries. It is not always possible to verify memories from others, so please let us know if you believe we have any incorrect information. If you believe that any public or personal record information quoted is wrong, if you can provide proof of any alternative fact to us in a document showing evidence of the correct details, that would be very helpful to us. Thank you.