History – History in a bottle – Kauri Museum

Bottle collecting wasn’t just a pastime for Hilda McCarroll – it was a passion spanning 50 fruitful years, producing a collection of over 2000 glass objects.

It all began quite by chance with her first find, a Lea & Perrins Worcester sauce bottle and stopper. Strolling the beach at Pahi, where Hilda, Don and their children holidayed, she noticed a partially submerged glass object. Closer investigation revealed a glass stopper. Spurred on, she dug around and found a matching bottle, also in perfect condition. Hilda unearthed an impressive variety of bottles and jars, once used to store a plethora of consumables dating back to the mid-1800s, such as cosmetics, preserved foods, medicine, beverages, motor oil and so on. Early glass containers had embossed labels, making it easy to discern what was inside and raised patterns were embossed on bottles that contained poisonous products to ensure that in low light, one could feel the bottle before taking a swig! These glass containers came to Aotearoa in the thousands, carrying essential supplies to early settlers. 

Hilda found most of her objects submerged in the Kaipara Harbour, spending countless hours at low tide, fossicking around in the mudflats of her favourite local spots at Whakapirau, Batleys and Pahi. Her preferred tool was a gardening fork. Hilda tried a fishing spear in the beginning, but it wasn’t very good because it didn’t cover much ground. She enjoyed her time out there in the mud. In her own words: “I’d get lost out there in the mud, right up past my knees.”

Not only did Hilda discover, excavate and clean all of her finds, she also lovingly displayed them in the family home in Taipuha. She grouped them according to colour with bottles and jars of all shapes, ages and sizes sitting congenially in groups of green, amber, blue, white, aqua, violet and black. This effective technique was later used to display her collection at The Kauri Museum, when she donated it in 2004.

Hilda May McCarroll is a local icon. Born in Hokianga in 1918 to Charlotte Tipene and Frederick Peter Davison, the family moved to Whangārei during the Depression when Hilda was 10. Three months later, they moved to Pahi, where they enjoyed a simple rural life during very lean times. She travelled to school at Whakapirau in a Kaipara punt, and when the family moved to Marohemo, she rode her bike to school. At 15½, she left school and did odd jobs for local farmers. She met Don McCarroll, and they were married in 1936. Their four children were all born at the Paparoa Maternity Home. Hilda passed away in 2019, aged 101.

History in a Bottle, The Hilda McCarroll Collection, A Love of Bottles is a testament to a focused, passionate collector who amassed a wonderful collection, providing evidence of the significance of utility glass in early Aotearoa life.