“We will hold our centenary in 2021,” said Bill Batchelor, the Hawera Park Bowling Club’s genial manager, surveying the host of mid-week bowlers relaxing over their afternoon tea. Already there are reminders of the upcoming event in the clubhouse as a novelty Fine Box beside the wall for players delivering wrong biased bowls.
The establishing of a second bowling club for Hawera was an expression of the post World War I desire to have sports facilities available to the residents of the town.
There was already the Hawera Bowling Club, 25 years old, well established, and regularly hosting teams from major centres throughout New Zealand but local sentiment was that a second club was needed at the western end of town.
The Borough Council was already aware of this and had planned a site on the Camberwell Rd side of the park for the Park Bowling Club, that only waited for an organiser.
Charles Curtis was a well known local man, partner in the coach building business Curtis and Spragg, and had been bowling for the Hawera Bowling Club for some years and answered the challenge.
He called a meeting on the December 22, 1920 where he explained to the 25 present the value of having a second bowling club for the town. A committee was elected, Patron, the Mayor Mr Dixon, President Mr Curtis, vice presidents Messrs Lewis and Black, Treasurer Mr Westerway, auditor Mr Stannard, Committee, Messrs Card, McPhillips, Butler, Burrell and Stannard.
The initial subscription was set at two guineas and 30 names were handed in for would-be members.
They wasted little time ploughing their allocated site at the park, the green prepared and sown, registering the club as an incorporated society and applying to be accepted by the Taranaki Bowling Centre.
The next thing was to have plans for a pavilion that were quickly accepted by the borough council, the architects Duffill and Gibson called for tenders, which were won by Mr Burrell on July 16, 1921.
He set about providing the club with a pavilion that would last until burnt by a disastrous fire many years later when it graced a new green in High St.
Mr Curtis, as President of the Park Bowling Club, responded to invitations to the opening days of the numerous clubs throughout South Taranaki during October 1921, meeting bowlers at Pihama, Auroa and Opunake; Hawera opened on October 6, but the park club was delayed by rain until November 2, when representatives of Hawera, Patea, Waverley, New Plymouth and Inglewood were present.
The brilliant sunshine of Wednesday, November 2, brought out a large crowd of enthusiastic bowlers and visitors who heard the welcoming speech from the club President Charles Curtis, where he told of the hard work the committee and the supporters had put in over the past 12 months to be able to have their own green and pavilion.
He concluded by giving advice to bowlers’ wives, when he said that if their husband was not in the best of humour they should send him off to the bowling green because there was no better cure for a ‘grumpy hubby’ than a game of bowls.
Mr JD Sole, the president of the Taranaki Bowling Centre spoke next and after congratulating the new Park Bowling Club told the assembly that in the current year (1921) there were 13,301 bowlers in New Zealand of whom more than 1000 lived in Taranaki, the third largest bowling centre in New Zealand.
After the speeches and a game “a bountiful afternoon tea was provided by Mrs Curtis of which several hundred people took part”.
Arthur Fryer
https://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/lifestyle/74445175/arthur-fryer-hawera-park-bowling-club-gearing-up-for-2021-centenary