Tom Parker passed away aged 78 in 1946. Tom Parker Ave, Marewa, is also named for him.
Michael Fowler is a Hawke’s Bay author and historian.
OPINION
Napier mayor, Charles Morse, was used to deputations “waiting upon him” to complain about matters affecting his town. The latest was from retailers in December 1936, concerned about the opening of Napier’s newest attraction – a fountain on Marine Parade.
Christmas Eve, 10pm, would have seen the switch thrown to light up a light-coloured fountain.
Not wanting to upset the retailers, who believed that Christmas shopping on that night would be brought to a premature end because of people leaving town to get vantage points to witness the fountain’s ceremony, a new date – December 23, 1936 was agreed upon.
The fountain’s beginnings occurred when local menswear and tailor retailer, Thomas (Known as Tom) Parker agreed to give £1000 (2024: $140,000) towards the cost, with Napier Borough Council contributing the balance of costs ($254,000).
With Napier’s trams never to run again after the 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake, funds in the Tramway Depreciation Fund for asset replacement were drawn upon for the fountain.
Inspiration for the fountain was a visit by Parker to Great Britain, where the only fountain of this nature existing there was at Bournemouth.
Not unsurprisingly the gift was greatly received by the Napier Borough Council, and the site chosen would be the site of the children’s playground on the former Marine Pde foreshore, opposite Herschell St.
In New Zealand the Great Depression had a “long tail”, and work schemes continued.
The men in work scheme No. 5, under the control of the council, were first engaged to remove the playground and build “the lake” in which the fountain would reside. The Government subsidy saved the council £384 ($54,000) in labour costs for the men.
Problems occurred when these men wanted a 40-hour week – more than they were currently getting – and went on strike at the end of August 1936. Local MP W E Barnard requested they return to work with the promise of him placing the matter before the Government, which resulted in the men receiving an uplift to fulltime hours a few weeks later.
To get the Government No. 5 work scheme subsidy for a project, it had to employ 80% of men on the scheme.
Dissatisfied, at the progress with the fountain Morse managed to get this figure down to 50%, and the balance made up of the council’s, it is assumed ‒ more productive employees.
An order was placed in September 1936 for the fountain’s working mechanism in New York and was to arrive in Napier in early November. Meanwhile the lake and fountain’s base construction, from a design from Napier Borough Council’s architect, J T Watson.
Just what to call the fountain was the subject of a Napier Borough Council meeting, and as often can be the case minor details can tie up council’s in knots.
This discussion resulted in the name “Tom Parker Fountain” after its generous donor – not as it was currently known as the “Parker Fountain” or by his proper name of “Thomas Parker” – with Councillor Maybe stating, “We all know him as Tom Parker, if we referred to it as Thomas Parker some people might not know who we meant.”
Napier Borough Council’s Faraday St depot would be where the apparatus for the fountain would be assembled.
There was some concern when the packages arrived from New York on November 27 as some of the parts were missing – these however turned up in early December.
The electricity for the fountain was connected from the corner of Browning St and Marine Parade.
When the description of what the fountain could do was revealed, the Hawke’s Bay Tribune got very excited as “it would have a more brilliant display than expected.”
There would be 10 combinations of the colours of amber, red, green and blue and six different water display effects by using the main fountain nozzle, eight lower nozzles and a ring containing 65 jets.
There would be a 20-minute cycle, and initially operated for four hours per day.
Retailers were right to have requested the night of the opening be shifted from Christmas Eve to December 23. The main ceremony was held at the Soundshell, with people crowed for 1.6km, and “so closely packed were the people that movement was necessarily very slow.”
Morse stated, “People will come from all over the North Island to see the Tom Parker Fountain, which will be the only one of its kind in New Zealand” (The Bowker Fountain – the Southern Hemisphere’s first electric fountain, was established in Christchurch in 1931).
Parker turned on the fountain from a switch in the soundshell, with the Hawke’s Bay Tribune describing it as “a revelation of fascinating beauty.”
The ground upon which the fountain was established was once a shingle foreshore before the 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake, over which earthquake masonry was deposited, followed by limestone from the Bluff Hill slip, then clay and topsoil before being grassed.
Spray from the fountain caused subsidence as the moisture caused the overlayed material to settle on the masonry and shingle. The fountain jets were reduced to avoid spill over on to the grassed area over the fountain’s lake.
The Tom Parker Fountain was responsible for between 70,000 and 80,000 postcards being sent overseas during 1937, with one Napier photographer saying he had sold 12,000 of them (hand-coloured in those days).
Hastings, normally muted towards its praise of Napier, declared to widespread approval at a Rotary meeting in early 1937, when J S Butler mentioned the beauty of the fountain at Genoa, Italy – he then said “I have seen a more beautiful one since then, and no doubt most of you Rotarians have too, for it is only about 13 miles away.”
As Morse predicted, the Tom Parker Fountain received much national attention – much to the alarm of Palmerston North, and one gentleman suggested if their Square had one “Instead of going all the way to Napier, young people from Wellington, Whanganui and Taranaki etc, would come here, and the results would be good for business.”
Tom Parker passed away aged 78 in 1946. Tom Parker Ave, Marewa, is also named for him.
Eighty-eight years to the day, this Monday, December 23, beginning at 7.30pm, Napier Mayor Kirsten Wise will again switch on the Tom Parker Fountain after significant maintenance to the site.
Michael Fowler’s Stories of Historic Hawke’s Bay is available from Beattie & Forbes, Plaza Books, Wardini Books, and Whitcoulls.
