She was publicly recognised as a proprietor of the Caroline Bay Tea Rooms
Life dates: Not yet identified
Known in Timaru:1928
Caroline Bay Tea Rooms, Timaru
Hospitality, catering and women’s enterprise
Among the advertisements for Timaru businesses in the 1920s, one small phrase helps restore a woman’s place in the working history of Caroline Bay.
The Tea Rooms were operated by:
Mr and Mrs Gordon Davey, proprietors.
The wording is important. Mrs Davey was not presented merely as the proprietor’s wife. Contemporary advertisements publicly included her as one of the people responsible for the business.
By May 1926, the Daveys were advertising the Caroline Bay Tea Rooms as a venue for parties, wedding breakfasts and catered dances. The business also offered meals and refreshments to people visiting the Bay.
Their advertisements continued through 1927. One invited customers to enjoy meals within the surroundings of Caroline Bay and again identified Mr and Mrs Gordon Davey as the proprietors.
At the end of 1927 and beginning of 1928, further notices stated that the Tea Rooms were under the proprietors’ personal supervision.
Together, these advertisements provide clear evidence of Mrs Davey’s recognised place within the enterprise.
The Caroline Bay Tea Rooms were more than somewhere to purchase a cup of tea. By the 1920s they formed part of Timaru’s social infrastructure. They provided meals for visitors and spaces where people could gather, celebrate marriages, attend parties and take part in dances and other organised occasions.
Operating such a venue required considerable work. Food had to be ordered and prepared, rooms arranged, customers served, bookings managed and the premises kept ready for both daily visitors and special functions.
The advertisements do not explain how these tasks were divided between Mrs Davey, her husband and any employees. We should not assume that she managed the kitchen, kept the accounts or supervised particular workers without evidence.
What we can say is that she was publicly named as a proprietor and that the business was promoted as being under the proprietors’ personal supervision.
Mrs Davey was working within a building that had already changed several times.
The original municipal Tea Rooms opened in 1905. Extensions followed in 1913 and 1920 as Caroline Bay developed. A much larger rebuilding programme was completed in 1931, with part of the earlier structure retained behind the new Tea Rooms.
Mrs Davey therefore belongs to the middle chapter of the building’s story. She helped carry its hospitality function forward between the first small municipal Tea Rooms and the larger building that became familiar to later generations.
Like Mrs Cowan before her, Mrs Davey remains partly hidden by the way women were named in public records.
Her given name and maiden name have not yet been securely identified. Nor have her birth, death, family or earlier employment been connected conclusively to the Caroline Bay business. Gordon Davey’s full legal identity also remains unconfirmed.
This means her biography must remain focused on what the advertisements prove.
They show that Mrs Davey was not invisible to her customers. Her name appeared repeatedly within the public identity of the Tea Rooms, even though it was filtered through her husband’s given name.
She was one of the proprietors.
What changed because she contributed?
Mrs Davey helped maintain the Tea Rooms as an active hospitality and social venue during the 1920s.
Her contribution helped make possible:
meals and refreshments for people spending time at Caroline Bay
catering for parties, dances and wedding breakfasts
the continued use of the Tea Rooms as a place for public and private gatherings
the visible participation of a woman in the proprietorship of a prominent Timaru business.
Her work was part of a partnership. The evidence does not allow her contribution to be separated precisely from that of Gordon Davey or their employees. Her inclusion as a proprietor nevertheless gives us sound reason to recognise her.
Find her story in the landscape
Visit the Caroline Bay Tea Rooms and consider the many layers within the building.
The structure visible today reflects several stages of development. Mrs Davey knew the Tea Rooms before the major rebuilding of 1931. Part of the earlier building in which the Daveys operated was retained at the rear.
Her story can be found there, in a place shaped by the largely unnamed work of generations of caterers, cooks, waitresses, cleaners, managers and proprietors.
Sources
Timaru Herald, 6, 18 and 20 May 1926, advertisements, Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand.
Identify Mr and Mrs Gordon Davey as proprietors and advertise rooms for parties and wedding breakfasts, as well as catering for dances.
Timaru Herald, 29 December 1926 and 15 February 1927, advertisements, Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand.
Confirm the couple’s continuing proprietorship and promotion of meals at the Tea Rooms.
Timaru Herald, 28 December 1927 and 6 January 1928, advertisements, Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand.
State that the Tea Rooms were under the personal supervision of Mr and Mrs Gordon Davey.
Timaru District Council, Historic Heritage Item Record Form: Caroline Bay Tearooms, HHI29.
Supports the history and staged development of the Tea Rooms and their significance within Caroline Bay.
Research note
Mrs Davey’s given name, maiden name, life dates, family and previous or later employment remain unresolved. No individual tasks should be attributed to her without further evidence.