This history of the founding of our Society was written by Gavin McCabe and originally published as a series in Blast Pipe in 2020.
I was asked by the Editor would I consider writing how the Club was established, as it is now 60 years since the inaugural meeting was held, and could be of interest to the current membership. But where to start? At this point I should mention that in Model Engineer magazine during late 1938 a short note advised that a Club had begun in Wellington called Wellington Model Engineering Club. In 1956 Mike Coghlan got some information on possible members from the then owners of Modelcrafts and Hobbies store. His searching drew blanks so it can only be surmised that with the onset of WW2 that the club never really got established. As to our own Club, perhaps some of my own background in developing an interest in the hobby would be a good place to begin as I was so involved with its establishment.
I have had a life time interest in Railways. How this interest ever developed I can not say. None of my family were ever involved with the industry. However being born in Dunedin, with my Mother being from a pioneering New Plymouth Family, I loved going back there. So right from my first year I was bundled in to a portable bassinette and travelled by train from Dunedin to Christchurch, then a night journey on the Ferry arriving in Wellington in the morning, then on to the Express to New Plymouth. After two weeks there, the reverse journey began. The whole was repeated a year later. So by the time I was approaching 3 years old I was a well travelled rail fan!
In the meantime my Dad, who was a Display Artist in one of Dunedin’s Department Stores, was involved in making automatons for the children’s Christmas grotto display. Progress through the cave ended with meeting a Father Christmas. Dad developed quite a talent for these displays. Not long after I was born he was conscripted into the Army. With Army policy not to employ you in your civilian occupation, from the few choices available he chose Motor Mechanic. That involved being transferred to Trentham Camp and 18 months training at Ford and General Motors assembly plants where the schools were conducted.
My family then moved from Dunedin to Wellington to be near my Father. At the end of training he was shipped off to New Caledonia where both the American and New Zealand Armies had extensive repair facilities for equipment damaged in the Pacific fighting. It was there that he built a model steam boiler from spent shell cases and a stationary engine from scrap aluminium. As they fitted in his Kit Bag he was able to bring them back to New Zealand after his deployment. Thus at the age of 5 I was introduced to true model Engineering although I was not allowed to play with the equipment unless fully supervised by my Dad. In fact I had little interest in it as it was not a railway engine.
Some two years later my Dad started buying copies of ‘Model Engineer’. Being a weekly publication there were soon a number of issues lying around the house. At that point I was not very interested in the engineering articles but liked looking at pictures of steam locos, gradually progressing to read “Lobby Chat” articles by a fellow who signed his name as ‘LBSC’. Up until Intermediate school age I had expanded my railway interests to “OO’ gauge model railways, meeting up with other kids with similar interests.
At Intermediate I was introduced to Metalwork where we were instructed in basic use of tools and how to use a Brazing torch to join two pieces of steel together using a piece of Brass wire as a filler material. Not only that, but the metal work teacher was a model railway enthusiast as well! I really enjoyed the Metal work class and got good marks for the work I did. That awakened my interest in using metal and I started to go through back numbers of Model Engineer reading LBSC construction notes, “Words and Music” as he called it, on building a Live Steam Loco.
While in the first year at High School I learnt of the existence of a local Model Railway Club from older students within High School. This was named The Hutt Valley Model Railway Club, (absolutely no association with the present day Hutt Valley Model Railway Society established years later.) The Club was a youth Club run under the auspices of a service organization called Toc H, spanning the ages teens through to early twenties. It was here that I first met Lindsay McDonnell, who later became a foundation member of our Society. Lindsay introduced me to the New Zealand Railway and Locomotive Society where I met for the first time Mike Coghlan, Graham Bennett, Keith Walker and Phil Davis.
The Hutt Valley Model Railway Club was desperately short of funds as all members were either secondary school pupils or varsity students. By now there were sufficient layouts amongst us in some form or other to mount an exhibition so the Railway Social Hall was hired for three days in the May school holidays. As an addition Phil Davis allowed us to display his recently completed 3 ½ inch gauge GWR 1000 class tender loco. Compared to the OO gauge trains it was a huge engine.
That exhibition brought into the open a number of people that were building large scale railway engines. Introduced to me were Colin Scott, Stan Hicks, Maurice Burrell-Smith, and Bob Walters. By this time at age 16 my Dad had bought a second hand Myford ML7 lathe so the possibility of my constructing a Live Steam loco started a diminishing interest in OO gauge models. Also not having any space in my house to build a layout did not help either.
By this time Model Engineering Clubs had been started in Auckland, Hamilton and Wanganui. New Plymouth’s one had been established for a few years and had already a raised railway track for 2½, 3½ and 5 inch gauges along with a substantial Club house. They had implemented an annual open weekend incorporating the Labour Day Monday. The NZR had relief Expresses covering travel to the provinces over holiday periods. The one to New Plymouth departed at 10pm on Friday arriving in New Plymouth at around 8am Saturday. A few of us decided to make the journey.
During that weekend I had my first drive of a model steam loco on a continuous track – a 2½ inch gauge NZR Ab class loco built by George Sutherland. Being built to ¾ inch to the foot scale it was a surprisingly large Loco for its gauge.
The homeward journey departed New Plymouth at 3pm on the Monday. By chance the front carriage was a rather elderly wooden car with lift up windows and equipped with gas lighting. The toilet and basin were in the centre of the carriage effectively dividing the seating into two compartments. We left New Plymouth with no other passengers in the leading compartment so it was up with some of the windows so we could hear the exhaust beat of the Ka locomotive. Strangely we had that compartment to our selves for the whole journey.
From the chatter and discussions that followed throughout the journey it was decided that we now knew enough people with live steam interest to call an inaugural meeting to form a Model Engineering Society. Those in that carriage were Lindsay McDonnell, Mike Coghlan, Graham Bennett, Keith Walker, Peter Anderson, and the writer of this, Gavin McCabe. As my parents had a large lounge, the meeting would be at 6 Tilbury St., Lower Hutt.
The Inaugural meeting was held sometime between Labour Weekend and 18th November 1959. I can’t remember if any minutes were taken at that meeting. Not only that but the Minute Book recording the activities of the monthly Club meetings that ensued cannot be found. However the Committee Minutes and the Accounts Books are in existence so with reference to those two journals, I can piece together the initial membership of the Society.
At the Inaugural Meeting the name “The Hutt Valley Model Engineering Society” was adopted along with Maurice Burrell-Smith as President, Mike Coghlan as Secretary and Lindsay McDonnell as Treasurer, the Committee being Phil Davis, Keith Walker, Graham Bennett, Frank Schneider and Gavin McCabe.
The first Committee meeting was held at Keith Walker’s Residence in Koro Koro on Wednesday evening 18th November 1959. The Subs were set at one Pound for adults, and ten Shillings for Junior and Country members. Club meeting night to be the 2nd Thursday each month. The meeting venue was in the Petone Skating Club Rooms, strangely right next to our existing tenure of land, for a fee of 2 shillings and 6 pence per evening.
The first Club Meeting was on the evening of 10th December 1959 with 13 members present. Emphasis was placed on raising funds to build a portable track to take to various school Fetes and other venues, selling rides to bolster the Club’s income. Remember that the Society was founded on the need to have a permanent continuous oval of track to run model steam locomotives, thus during this formative period largely ignored other facets of Model Engineering.
So there you have it, the formation of your Society.
The Hutt Valley Model Engineering Society Inc 