Heywood Melvill & Frances Crispe & their 9 surviving children
Heywood Melvill Crispe (known as Melvill) was Bessie and Heywood Crispe's first born son, born at Mauku, had his early education there and spent almost all of his working life there closely involved with his community.
He started his working life as a carpenter in Rotorua, but after his marriage to Frances Burrows of Pakuranga he returned to the Mauku area and built a house on his father's property at Stanlake, calling his own home Te Mahoe.
Melvill operated a land agency (real estate) business out of Waiuku for 25 years. He was involved in the local community as an enthusiastic cricketer, and as president of the Waiuku Railway League - working to get the branch line established from Paerata to Waiuku which opened in 1922.
He was secretary of Mauku School, where his children had their primary education, and was on the organising committee for the 50th jubilee in 1933. The school was opened in 1883 and Heywood Melvill's father Heywood Snr was the chairman of the school committee that officially handed the opened school over to the first teacher, Miss Bischoff.
Melvill shared his mother Bessie's love of history and writing and compiled the souvenir booklet for the 80th jubilee of St Bride's Church. (First services at St Bride's were held in a slab shed where the church now stands in 1860)
He was a regular correspondent for the Franklin Times and had an excellent memory for recalling his travels on horseback over old bridle tracks before they became formed roads. He once put a "message in a bottle" spontaneously on one of these excursions on horseback to the Hunua Falls, inserting his business card into a random bottle discarded at their lunch spot. It was found and opened 22 years later on the mudflats of the Wairoa River at Clevedon by Mr R J Hales, whose property backed onto the river.
Heywood Melvill Crispe's dates:
Born 5 May, 1876, Mauku
Died 18 Nov, 1953, Mauku
He started his working life as a carpenter in Rotorua, but after his marriage to Frances Burrows of Pakuranga he returned to the Mauku area and built a house on his father's property at Stanlake, calling his own home Te Mahoe.
Melvill operated a land agency (real estate) business out of Waiuku for 25 years. He was involved in the local community as an enthusiastic cricketer, and as president of the Waiuku Railway League - working to get the branch line established from Paerata to Waiuku which opened in 1922.
He was secretary of Mauku School, where his children had their primary education, and was on the organising committee for the 50th jubilee in 1933. The school was opened in 1883 and Heywood Melvill's father Heywood Snr was the chairman of the school committee that officially handed the opened school over to the first teacher, Miss Bischoff.
Melvill shared his mother Bessie's love of history and writing and compiled the souvenir booklet for the 80th jubilee of St Bride's Church. (First services at St Bride's were held in a slab shed where the church now stands in 1860)
He was a regular correspondent for the Franklin Times and had an excellent memory for recalling his travels on horseback over old bridle tracks before they became formed roads. He once put a "message in a bottle" spontaneously on one of these excursions on horseback to the Hunua Falls, inserting his business card into a random bottle discarded at their lunch spot. It was found and opened 22 years later on the mudflats of the Wairoa River at Clevedon by Mr R J Hales, whose property backed onto the river.
Heywood Melvill Crispe's dates:
Born 5 May, 1876, Mauku
Died 18 Nov, 1953, Mauku