By Roselyn Fauth
Archibald McDonald (Great Grandfather of Frank McDonald) his mail and goods coach, is centre of this picture, Photo taken between 1878 and 1904. Timaru, New Zealand, by Burton Brothers. Te Papa (C.014415) Crop
I love this photo! It is on the Te Papa website and there is a tool you can use to zoom in and see the detail. I have studied this photo in the past because I was interested in the buildings... this time I was on the Ashburton History facebook page and I found a post how someone worked out the man in the middle was his great grandfather! This new clue, brought me back to the photo for another look, and instead of looking at the Old Bank, I studied the coach on the corner.
Te Papa lists it as a Muir & Moodie image of Timaru, around 1904, showing the Commercial and Old Bank Hotels. The present Old Bank Hotel was built in 1876 at 232 Stafford Street, replacing an earlier tavern on a site linked to the Bank of New Zealand agency in the 1860s. Daniel West was the architect and Henry Thornton the builder. By the early 1900s this corner sat close to the railway, the port, the main south road and the business centre. It was not just a nice old building on a postcard. It was useful.
The 2025 post in an Ashburton history Facebook group, was shared by Belinda Breeze Cimino with information from Frank McDonald. The post identified the coach in the centre of the Te Papa photograph as belonging to Archibald McDonald. According to the family information, the side of the coach reads “A McDonald City Express”.
That was the hook... and now I was off on a history hunt... The first thing to check was whether Archibald McDonald really belonged in Timaru’s carrying world. He did...
In the Timaru Herald on 31 March 1904, Archibald McDonald placed a notice headed “Thanks”. He wrote that he had “disposed of my Carrying Plant”, and thanked commercial travellers, the proprietor of the Grosvenor Hotel, Messrs McGruer, Davies and Co., and the general public for their support during his 26 years in business in Timaru.
That little notice confirms Archibald was a carrier in Timaru. It tells us he had been in business for 26 years, which points back to about 1878 if he was counting from 1904. It places the disposal of his carrying plant very close to the date of the Te Papa photograph.
But it does not quite say he sold the business. It says he disposed of his carrying plant. That wording matters. Plant could mean the practical gear of the business: horses, vehicles, harness, equipment and whatever else kept the work going. It may have included more than that, but I do not want to say “sold the business” unless another notice proves it.
Family memory identifies the coach as Archibald’s. The 1904 notice proves he was a Timaru carrier disposing of his carrying plant at about the same time as the photograph. His cemetery record later gives his occupation as carrier when he died in 1914. Those are good, solid pieces beside each other.
Still, Te Papa does not name the coach owner. Unless the lettering on the original image can be clearly read, or another source links “A McDonald City Express” to him, the honest wording is that the coach may be Archibald McDonald’s.
The Old Bank photograph shows the part of town where a carrier’s work made sense. Hotels, travellers, commercial firms, roads, rail, port traffic and shops all needed movement. Someone had to move trunks, parcels, samples, supplies, drapery, luggage and messages. The polished building front is one part of the story. The coach in the street is another.
The Old Bank says: here is money, brick, business, and a corner that wanted to look settled.
The coach says: yes, but someone still has to get things from one place to another.
Archibald’s paper trail is short, but useful. The 1904 notice names him in his working life. The Linwood Cemetery record names him by the same occupation ten years later. Some people are remembered by an office, a title, or a large headstone. Archibald’s record remembers his work.
Then there is Ellen... I'm always keen to pull the women from the margins onto the page.
The family information names her as Ellen O’Rourke, later Ellen McDonald. It says she married Archibald on 3 April 1877, had eight children, and lived her early married life in Timaru. Those details still need checking against official birth, death and marriage printouts, but she should not sit at the edge of the story waiting for the men and vehicles to finish.
A carrying business was not just a man on a coach. It was also household work, children, meals, washing, accounts, bills, illness, customers, weather and worry. I cannot say exactly what Ellen did in the business or household without evidence. But I can say that a working family’s life was bigger than the occupation printed beside the husband’s name.
There is also a problem in the records, and this got me in a bit of a tangle.
Family information suggests Ellen arrived in New Zealand as a young woman. The cemetery record says that when she died aged 84, she had been in New Zealand for 83 years. If that is right, she arrived as a baby. One of those details may be wrong. The cemetery record may have an error. The family memory may have shifted. Or there may be another explanation sitting in a certificate or passenger list.
It matters because it changes the shape of her life... I know I need to slow down and make sure I understand this best I can.
If Ellen arrived as a baby, she grew up here. Her schooling, friendships, accent, habits and idea of home were formed in New Zealand. If she arrived at 20, she came with another life already behind her. I would love to know where she was educated, but at the moment I cannot prove it. That is a proper research question, not a space to fill with a pretty sentence.
The Ashburton connection also needs caution. Family information links the Timaru carrier to a later Archibald A. McDonald, Mayor of Ashburton from 1956 to 1959. That mayoral role is documented, but the exact family line needs checking. The story that a later Archie married the nurse who treated his First World War injuries is a lovely lead, but there is a date problem if the Ashburton mayor was the Archibald McDonald born near Timaru in 1905. He would have been too young to serve in the First World War.
So that part I guess has to stay in the “not yet” box...
There is a Te Papa photograph of the Old Bank corner, taken around 1904. There is a family memory identifying the coach as Archibald McDonald’s. There is a Timaru Herald notice, also from 1904, proving that Archibald had spent 26 years in the carrying business in Timaru and had disposed of his carrying plant. There is a cemetery record that still calls him a carrier in 1914.
What I like about this photograph is that it makes the working parts of Timaru visible. Not just the buildings, but the systems around them. Hotels needed carriers. Shops needed deliveries. Commercial travellers needed luggage shifted. Families needed goods brought in and sent out. The town was not only built by architects, hotelkeepers and merchants. It was also kept moving by people whose names often survive in small notices, trade listings, cemetery records, and, if we are lucky, painted on the side of a vehicle.
And Ellen reminds me to keep looking beside the obvious evidence. Women’s work is often harder to pin down, especially when the records prefer men’s occupations and public roles. That does not mean her story is missing. It means it has to be looked for differently.
So this is where the hunt sits.
The coach in the Te Papa photograph may be Archibald McDonald’s. The family identification is plausible, and the 1904 notice makes it much stronger. Archibald was definitely a carrier in Timaru for 26 years. He had disposed of his carrying plant by March 1904. His death record still remembered him as a carrier. Ellen O’Rourke McDonald belongs in the frame, but her arrival, education and early life still need careful checking. The Ashburton mayor and nurse story may connect, but it is not ready to be treated as fact.
And that is fine... the point is not to make the photograph say more than it can. The point is to look closely enough that the small things start speaking properly.
A coach in the corner, someone finding the old notice in the newspaper... and one old Timaru street scene that still has more to give if we keep zooming in.
Photo taken between 1878 and 1904. Timaru, New Zealand, by Burton Brothers. Te Papa (C.014415)
Core sources for the blog
Te Papa Collections Online, “Timaru”, Muir & Moodie, circa 1904
Use for the main photograph of the Commercial and Old Bank Hotels, Timaru. Te Papa records the image as circa 1904, registration number C.014407, with “No Known Copyright Restrictions”.
Full link:
https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/16787
Timaru District Council, Historic Heritage Assessment Report HHI48, Old Bank Hotel, 232 Stafford Street
Use for the Old Bank facts: 1876 building date, Daniel West as architect, Henry Thornton as builder, earlier tavern history, and the site’s commercial significance.
Full link:
https://www.timaru.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/673871/Historic-Heritage-Assessment-Report-HHI48-Old-Bank-Hotel-Category-B.pdf
Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, Old Bank Tavern, List No. 3159
Use as supporting confirmation that the Old Bank Tavern is a Category 2 historic place.
Full link:
https://www.heritage.org.nz/list-details/3159/Old%20Bank%20Tavern
Papers Past, Timaru Herald, 31 March 1904, Page 1, Advertisements
Use for Archibald McDonald’s “Thanks” notice saying he had “disposed of my Carrying Plant” after 26 years in business in Timaru. This is the item shown in your clipping.
Likely article/item link:
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/THD19040331.2.2.5
Issue/page link if the item link does not open cleanly:
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/THD19040331.2.2
Papers Past newspaper title page for the Timaru Herald:
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/timaru-herald
Christchurch City Council Cemeteries Database, Archibald McDonald
Use for Archibald’s death and burial details. The record shows Archibald McDonald, died 19 August 1914, buried 21 August 1914, Linwood Cemetery, Block 45, Plot 63, occupation carrier.
Full link:
https://heritage.christchurchcitylibraries.com/Cemeteries/interment.asp?id=26544
Christchurch City Council Cemeteries Database, Ellen McDonald
Use for Ellen’s death and burial details, including the puzzle around her years in New Zealand.
Full link:
https://heritage.christchurchcitylibraries.com/Cemeteries/interment.asp?id=103778
Christchurch City Council Cemeteries Database home/search page
Useful if individual links change or you want to search the plot again.
Full link:
https://heritage.christchurchcitylibraries.com/Cemeteries/
Ashburton and later-family leads
Ashburton Borough Centenary, “And Those Who Served”
Use for the documented public-office fact that Archibald A. McDonald served as Mayor of Ashburton from 1956 to 1959 and as a councillor from 1938 to 1956.
Full link:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ashburton_Borough_Centenary/And_Those_Who_Served
Ashburton Borough Centenary, page mentioning Archibald A. McDonald’s election as mayor
Use for the detail that Archibald A. McDonald was elected unopposed in 1956.
Full link:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Ashburton-Borough-Centenary%E2%80%A2Silverwood%E2%80%A21978.pdf/41
DigitalNZ / Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph, Archibald Aloysius McDonald
Use only as a lead for the WWI/nurse thread until the family line is properly matched.
Full link:
https://digitalnz.org/records/41607530
Find a Grave, Archibald Aloysius McDonald, 1893 to 1966
Use only as a user-contributed genealogy lead, not as proof. It may help with the Ashburton/WWI thread, but needs BDM confirmation.
Full link:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/222691793/archibald_aloysiua-mcdonald
Find a Grave, Archibald “Archie” McDonald, 1905 to 1973
Use only as a cautionary lead showing why the different Archibald McDonalds need careful sorting.
Full link:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/222004888/archibald-mcdonald
Sources to chase next
NZ Births, Deaths and Marriages Historical Records
Use to order printouts for Archibald McDonald, Ellen O’Rourke McDonald, their marriage, their children, and the later Archibald A. / Archibald Aloysius McDonald line.
Full link:
https://www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
National Library of New Zealand family history guide
Useful for checking BDM, newspapers, passenger records and family-history methods.
Full link:
https://natlib.govt.nz/researchers/guides/family-history
Ashburton Museum research / heritage archives
Use for the Ashburton nursing-photo lead, local family files, business records, mayoral material and possible McDonald family references.
Full link:
https://ashburtonmuseum.co.nz/research/heritage/