WATERS, Frederick Valentine
Born 1860; died 27 November 1918; cremated 29 November 1918; age 58
Frederick Waters might have been born in Greymouth, or perhaps Melbourne, depending on the informant: his obituaries all opt for the West Coast origins but the affidavit sworn by John MacDonald, solicitor, appointed to administer the will, states that Frederick was born in Melbourne. There are two snippets of evidence that could support the Australian connection. The first is contained in an Index to Children’s Registers of State Wards in Victoria which includes ‘Frederick V. Waters’ said to be born in 1859 along with ‘Benjamin B. Waters’ born in 1861 (perhaps Frederick’s brother Benjamin Barrington Waters). The second snippet is an Outward Passenger List from Victoria for an unidentified ship sailing in 1869 from Melbourne to various New Zealand ports including Hokitika, with two boys among the passengers: F Waters, aged 8 and B Waters, aged 6.
The boys’ father, Frederick Barrington Waters, was enrolled as a voter in the Grey Valley District in 1870 and lived in that town for the rest of his life. For some of that time he was a hotelkeeper, for some a bookseller, and for a brief period, from December 1893 until his death less than a year later, Mayor of Greymouth.
By then, Frederick had long since left town. When he finished school in 1874, at the age of 14, he began working in Greymouth in what was then the Postal Department. He was transferred to Oamaru in 1875 and three years later, he moved to the GPO in Wellington and began his steady climb to the top of the hierarchy of what became the Post and Telegraph Department.
Born 1860; died 27 November 1918; cremated 29 November 1918; age 58
Frederick Waters might have been born in Greymouth, or perhaps Melbourne, depending on the informant: his obituaries all opt for the West Coast origins but the affidavit sworn by John MacDonald, solicitor, appointed to administer the will, states that Frederick was born in Melbourne. There are two snippets of evidence that could support the Australian connection. The first is contained in an Index to Children’s Registers of State Wards in Victoria which includes ‘Frederick V. Waters’ said to be born in 1859 along with ‘Benjamin B. Waters’ born in 1861 (perhaps Frederick’s brother Benjamin Barrington Waters). The second snippet is an Outward Passenger List from Victoria for an unidentified ship sailing in 1869 from Melbourne to various New Zealand ports including Hokitika, with two boys among the passengers: F Waters, aged 8 and B Waters, aged 6.
The boys’ father, Frederick Barrington Waters, was enrolled as a voter in the Grey Valley District in 1870 and lived in that town for the rest of his life. For some of that time he was a hotelkeeper, for some a bookseller, and for a brief period, from December 1893 until his death less than a year later, Mayor of Greymouth.
By then, Frederick had long since left town. When he finished school in 1874, at the age of 14, he began working in Greymouth in what was then the Postal Department. He was transferred to Oamaru in 1875 and three years later, he moved to the GPO in Wellington and began his steady climb to the top of the hierarchy of what became the Post and Telegraph Department.
In 1885 Frederick married Agnes Mansfield DYER at St Paul’s Cathedral. Agnes, born in Sydney in 1859, was the second of nine children of Joseph Dyer and Margaret Isabella née MANSFIELD who married in 1855. Joseph had brought his family to Wellington in 1870 when he was posted to New Zealand as Resident Secretary to the Australian Mutual Provident Society until his death in 1877. One of Agnes’ sisters, Annie Burnell Dyer, had married Harold BEAUCHAMP in 1884, so that in time, Agnes became the aunt of Kathleen Beauchamp, later renowned as Katherine Mansfield.
Frederick was not her first suitor. Three years earlier, in 1882, Agnes’s planned marriage to one W M Lewis was called off after the wedding guests had assembled because the intended groom had attempted to take his life.
Agnes and Frederick had two sons, Gustavus Joseph Barrington Waters, usually known as Barrie within the family (and later, as Barrington in his professional life), in 1886, and Eric Frank Barrington Waters, in 1890. The family was initially living in Tinakori Road but by 1896 at the latest, had moved to Hatton St in Karori.
In the electoral rolls and Post Office directories, Frederick was usually referred to as ‘clerk’, a generic term that obscured his rise through the ranks until in 1910, he emerged as Chief Clerk for the Post and Telegraph Department. The Dominion on 24 December 1912 reported that he had been appointed as one of two Assistant Secretaries, and at the end of July 1915, he became the First Assistant Secretary.
Busy though he would have been, Frederick also found time to pursue musical interests, serving for many years as choirmaster at St Mark’s church and later in the same role at St Mary’s Anglican church in Karori. He sang baritone, frequently as soloist, with the Wellington Liedertafel from its first concert in 1893 until at least 1915 when he was a soloist in a concert at Trentham Camp. He also took a prominent role in the Wellington Musical Union from its founding in 1904, as a member of the committee, ‘sub conductor’, and as singer and soloist. The Union’s concerts were frequently held in the then new Town Hall, with a repertoire specialising in oratorio and large scale choral works such as Handel’s Israel in Egypt and The Messiah. On more than one occasion, he appeared as a soloist on stage with the Auckland-based contralto Mrs Daisy Basham, later famous as radio’s Aunt Daisy.
Both Fredrick’s sons inherited his passion for music and performance. The older of the two, working under his professional name as Barrington Waters, developed a career as a theatrical impresario, initially as an agent for visiting entertainers before becoming a theatre manager for the firm John Fuller and Sons in Wellington, then in Dunedin and subsequently in Perth and later Brisbane. Meanwhile, Eric developed as a pianist, teaching at the Nelson Academy of Music as professor of pianoforte for a time before serving with the army overseas and, on his return, picking up his career as a pianist initially back in Nelson and then in Auckland.
One of the challenges during the war for senior managers like Frederick Waters was minimising the impacts of service reductions that were inevitable with a quarter of the male staff serving in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. Staff numbers were further reduced when the influenza struck, with postmen being especially vulnerable, perhaps because of the number of people they met during the course of their work.
Post Office staff played important roles in Wellington during the flu epidemic in 1918, with telephone operators based at the Town Hall helping to coordinate relief efforts and four mail trucks being used to carry bodies to Karori cemetery, 16 at a time. In October, Frederick travelled to Auckland with his brother-in-law, Harold Beauchamp, to meet the latter’s daughter Vera, travelling home from Canada on the ill-fated Niagara. When the ship docked on 12 October, Vera had already caught influenza and both men then caught it as well. Vera and Harold both recovered, but Frederick, her ‘Uncle Val’, succumbed and he died at home back in Wellington on 27 November.
News reports of the time talked of his working life but also picked up on his personal qualities: ‘in every sense of the word a gentleman’ said the Evening Post on 28 November 1918, ‘a gentleman of culture’ said the Dominion, ‘affable, genial and of [a] bright and happy disposition’ in the words of Free Lance.
Frederick was also vividly described in a book written by John Middleton Murry and Ruth Elvish Mantz [1], published in 1933 by Constable and Company Limited, 10 years after Katherine Mansfield died. The full text of this publication is available at:
http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-ManLife-t1-body-d5-d3.html
A full choral funeral service for Frederick was held at St Mary’s Anglican church in Karori, with many notable people paying their respects. In June the following year the church was crowded again, this time for the unveiling and dedication of two stained glass windows subscribed by parishioners. One of these represented St Cecilia, patron saint of sacred music, and the other King David, psalmist of Israel. In his sermon, Bishop Sprott was reported to say: ‘Mr Waters had many good qualities that might well have been commemorated, but the church had chosen one quality and one service that he had rendered – his love of music and his work as choirmaster’. (Evening Post, 16 June 1919). The window inscription reads:
To the glory of God and in
Loving memory of
Frederick Valentine Waters
For thirty years a lay reader &
Choirmaster in this parish.
Erected by the parishioners 1919.
Frederick’s ashes were interred in the churchyard of St Mary’s, and there is a grey granite cross and pedestal against the wall of the church (as per photo below).
Frederick was not her first suitor. Three years earlier, in 1882, Agnes’s planned marriage to one W M Lewis was called off after the wedding guests had assembled because the intended groom had attempted to take his life.
Agnes and Frederick had two sons, Gustavus Joseph Barrington Waters, usually known as Barrie within the family (and later, as Barrington in his professional life), in 1886, and Eric Frank Barrington Waters, in 1890. The family was initially living in Tinakori Road but by 1896 at the latest, had moved to Hatton St in Karori.
In the electoral rolls and Post Office directories, Frederick was usually referred to as ‘clerk’, a generic term that obscured his rise through the ranks until in 1910, he emerged as Chief Clerk for the Post and Telegraph Department. The Dominion on 24 December 1912 reported that he had been appointed as one of two Assistant Secretaries, and at the end of July 1915, he became the First Assistant Secretary.
Busy though he would have been, Frederick also found time to pursue musical interests, serving for many years as choirmaster at St Mark’s church and later in the same role at St Mary’s Anglican church in Karori. He sang baritone, frequently as soloist, with the Wellington Liedertafel from its first concert in 1893 until at least 1915 when he was a soloist in a concert at Trentham Camp. He also took a prominent role in the Wellington Musical Union from its founding in 1904, as a member of the committee, ‘sub conductor’, and as singer and soloist. The Union’s concerts were frequently held in the then new Town Hall, with a repertoire specialising in oratorio and large scale choral works such as Handel’s Israel in Egypt and The Messiah. On more than one occasion, he appeared as a soloist on stage with the Auckland-based contralto Mrs Daisy Basham, later famous as radio’s Aunt Daisy.
Both Fredrick’s sons inherited his passion for music and performance. The older of the two, working under his professional name as Barrington Waters, developed a career as a theatrical impresario, initially as an agent for visiting entertainers before becoming a theatre manager for the firm John Fuller and Sons in Wellington, then in Dunedin and subsequently in Perth and later Brisbane. Meanwhile, Eric developed as a pianist, teaching at the Nelson Academy of Music as professor of pianoforte for a time before serving with the army overseas and, on his return, picking up his career as a pianist initially back in Nelson and then in Auckland.
One of the challenges during the war for senior managers like Frederick Waters was minimising the impacts of service reductions that were inevitable with a quarter of the male staff serving in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. Staff numbers were further reduced when the influenza struck, with postmen being especially vulnerable, perhaps because of the number of people they met during the course of their work.
Post Office staff played important roles in Wellington during the flu epidemic in 1918, with telephone operators based at the Town Hall helping to coordinate relief efforts and four mail trucks being used to carry bodies to Karori cemetery, 16 at a time. In October, Frederick travelled to Auckland with his brother-in-law, Harold Beauchamp, to meet the latter’s daughter Vera, travelling home from Canada on the ill-fated Niagara. When the ship docked on 12 October, Vera had already caught influenza and both men then caught it as well. Vera and Harold both recovered, but Frederick, her ‘Uncle Val’, succumbed and he died at home back in Wellington on 27 November.
News reports of the time talked of his working life but also picked up on his personal qualities: ‘in every sense of the word a gentleman’ said the Evening Post on 28 November 1918, ‘a gentleman of culture’ said the Dominion, ‘affable, genial and of [a] bright and happy disposition’ in the words of Free Lance.
Frederick was also vividly described in a book written by John Middleton Murry and Ruth Elvish Mantz [1], published in 1933 by Constable and Company Limited, 10 years after Katherine Mansfield died. The full text of this publication is available at:
http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-ManLife-t1-body-d5-d3.html
A full choral funeral service for Frederick was held at St Mary’s Anglican church in Karori, with many notable people paying their respects. In June the following year the church was crowded again, this time for the unveiling and dedication of two stained glass windows subscribed by parishioners. One of these represented St Cecilia, patron saint of sacred music, and the other King David, psalmist of Israel. In his sermon, Bishop Sprott was reported to say: ‘Mr Waters had many good qualities that might well have been commemorated, but the church had chosen one quality and one service that he had rendered – his love of music and his work as choirmaster’. (Evening Post, 16 June 1919). The window inscription reads:
To the glory of God and in
Loving memory of
Frederick Valentine Waters
For thirty years a lay reader &
Choirmaster in this parish.
Erected by the parishioners 1919.
Frederick’s ashes were interred in the churchyard of St Mary’s, and there is a grey granite cross and pedestal against the wall of the church (as per photo below).
He also has a less usual memorial, serving as the model for the jovial character of Jonathan Trout in Katherine Mansfield’s At the Bay [2].
Frederick’s wife Agnes died in 1936, at the age of 77. Son Barrington predeceased her, dying in 1929 [3] while Eric lived until 1954.
Researched and written by Max Kerr
[1] Mantz wrote the first biography of Mansfield in 1933, in conjunction with Mansfield’s husband, John Middleton Murry, who was brought in as a co-author by the publishers. The finished biography was not what she originally intended to write. She spent the rest of her life writing numerous unpublished manuscripts reworking the events of Mansfield’s life into book form. All her papers are now in Texas, and offer a fascinating insight into Mansfield’s first biographer. http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/9762/
[2] Yska, Redmer, A Strange Beautiful Excitement, Otago University Press, 2017, p 152
[3] There is also a plaque for Barrington against the wall of the church, referring to him as Barrie.
Frederick’s wife Agnes died in 1936, at the age of 77. Son Barrington predeceased her, dying in 1929 [3] while Eric lived until 1954.
Researched and written by Max Kerr
[1] Mantz wrote the first biography of Mansfield in 1933, in conjunction with Mansfield’s husband, John Middleton Murry, who was brought in as a co-author by the publishers. The finished biography was not what she originally intended to write. She spent the rest of her life writing numerous unpublished manuscripts reworking the events of Mansfield’s life into book form. All her papers are now in Texas, and offer a fascinating insight into Mansfield’s first biographer. http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/9762/
[2] Yska, Redmer, A Strange Beautiful Excitement, Otago University Press, 2017, p 152
[3] There is also a plaque for Barrington against the wall of the church, referring to him as Barrie.
The Beauchamp family, taken by an unknown photographer circa 1896.
Left to right: Agnes Waters, Charlotte, Leslie, Jeanne, Valentine Waters, Eric or Barrie Waters (?), Kathleen (Katherine Mansfield), Harold, Annie.
Ref: 1/2-044572-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22699896
Left to right: Agnes Waters, Charlotte, Leslie, Jeanne, Valentine Waters, Eric or Barrie Waters (?), Kathleen (Katherine Mansfield), Harold, Annie.
Ref: 1/2-044572-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22699896