Ōtautau & District Business - Thwaites Shoe Store
Shared by Central & Western Murihiku Southland Archive
History on Leo Thwaites Ōtautau Shoe Store and later family owners: Photos have been kindly donated by the following people for the Ōtautau early history project, "Between River & Stream" as follows - 1. Poster of Leo Thwaites selling shoes, from Thwaites Family members. 2. Pa Saunder's buildings, later the Crown Hotel, Leo's first shop was here. 3. Advertisement from Otautau Town & Around magazine of shoe shop. 4. Leo Thwaites new shoe store, at this point Robertson's School of Dance - from Peter Campbell 2012, licensed CC BY (attribution if sharing thanks). 5. Black Galoshes from Thwaites Shoe Store, by Suzie Best - author of "Between River & Stream", licensed CC BY (attribution if sharing thanks). THE THWAITE'S SHOE STORE DAYS: Many of the Ōtautau locals from days past, will fondly remember Leo Thompson Thwaites. Born at Otara in the Catlins, to Annie & Joseph in 1913, Leo had a number of siblings, 2 brothers and 4 sisters! On leaving school, Leo who had TB in his hip which left him limping for life, learned the Cobbler’s (shoe & boot making) trade, from Mr Ferry in Invercargill. After relocating to Ōtautau in 1932, Leo opened a Shoe Store in the Crown Hotel shops, built in 1910 by 'Pa' Saunders (see above old B&W photo). The original Shoe Shop Leo Thwaites first operated out of in Ōtautau from 1932, was one of the adjoined shops pictured in this same image, attached to the last Crown Hotel building, which was pulled down to build flood banks in 1987. In 1940 Leo married Elizabeth Ailene Walker known as 'Betty' in Ōtautau, where they had 4 children. First up was Ian, then Ngaire, Brian died at 5 days old and is buried at Ōtautau Cemetery, and finally Russell was born last. Ngaire worked for her dad until she married. Later she came back again and worked for Ian when he owned the store. Both of the Thwaites Shoe Store owners advertised their wares in local news bulletins, such as the one seen above, from the "Otautau Town & Around" Businessman's Publication. More than a decade after his marriage, Leo Thwaites had taken over the ownership of a section next to where his old shop was, the original buildings on this were burned down. Land records show that Leo became the owner of the property on 22.5.1951 and he got a new shop built here, which we believe was in 1952. This is also shown above, and (still) sits on land which is part the first original 10 acre grant made from within the Aparima Hundred, for land where Ōtautau was eventually surveyed off as a town, much later. In total, Leo was in business for 47 years, before the business was passed on to his son Ian. When his new building sold to Valmai Robertson for her “Robertson School of Dance” after Ian closed up, she also ran her dance school here for nearly 30 years. Window decals from the Dance School can be seen in the photo above, with the "Show Store" sign still above the door. From an old poster sent by Thwaites family descendants, it appears Leo never forgot the town of his birth. Advertising as seen above, shows him returning to Otara with boots & shoes to sell to the settlement. However, sadly the poster isn't dated. It appears Leo went from being a bootmaker to being a shoe seller, as our footwear started to be more mass-produced. This was eventually to spell the death-knell of the business, as reported below. Leo retired in 1979, and passed away in 1990. He is buried in the new Ōtautau Cemetery, beside his wife Betty, who passed in 2003. Son Ian who had worked alongside his father for years, took over the business for some years. The Thwaites Shoe Store Ltd Company was eventually struck off the NZ Companies register and dissolved, in 1991 as seen in place notes below. Before closing up the business himself in 1989, Ian had expanded into both Gore & Te Anau. The importing of cheaply made factory processed shoes had taken its toll. Ian also passed away, in 2001. Some shoes left at the store on its closing, were later donated to the local museum by the family. More information on the Thwaites family itself will be in another entry soon, this one is focused mainly on the history of the Shoe Store that they ran. Much of the 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. Thanks also to the Thwaites family for some personal details. Hopefully this entry will be added to as more information comes to hand. If you or anyone you know has any more information or photos to share or accounts of Thwaites Shoe Store during the years, please do share this with us in the comments section. You can do this by making a comment in the space provided under the image page. Or you can make contact with us as per the archive front page.
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Details
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Title
Ōtautau & District Business - Thwaites Shoe Store
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Maker
Various, see photo information at top of page
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Date made
1913-2012
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Subject
Ōtautau, Business & Industry, Ōtautau Businessman's Association, Retail Businesses, Thwaites Family, Thwaites, Leo & Betty, Crown Hotel, Ōtautau, Aparima Hundred, Robertson's School of Dance, Robertson, Gray & Valmai, Thwaites, Crown Hotel, Flood Banks, Otautau, 'Pa' or William Saunders, Otara Caitlins, Boots & Shoes, Footwear, Valmai Robertson, Dance, Galoshes, Otautau Town & Around, Otautau Businessman's Association
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Additional information
Digital only image in archive Some images have paper copies on file
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Rights
Attribution (cc)
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ -
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Location
Main Rd, Tūātapere, next to the old Railway Station. We also belong to the internationally recognised 'Safe Space Alliance'.
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Central & Western Murihiku Southland Archive
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Text adapted with permission from Te Papa and Digital NZ
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