John Hardcastle

Biography

John Hardcastle (1847–1927) spent much of his life in Timaru. After a time as a school teacher, he spent almost 40 years at the Timaru Herald. He was a keen amateur scientist, belonging to the local branch of the New Zealand Institute, and contributing a number of papers on a variety of subjects. During his lifetime his best-known publication was Notes on the geology of South Canterbury (1908).

In 1889–91 he published four important geological papers, two dealing with the origin of loess. He recognised that loess was normally produced during glacial periods, and that the Timaru loess deposits indicated several periods of cold climate. It was the first time that such inferences had been made, and it was many decades before the concept was accepted internationally. Hardcastle’s work was largely overlooked until long after his death. His importance has been belatedly recognised through the work of Ian Smalley. A special symposium at the 13th International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA) Congress in Bejing took place in 1991, 100 years after the publication of Hardcastle’s most important loess paper.

Source:Eileen McSaveney and Simon Nathan. 'Geology – overview - Quaternary coasts and rivers', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 9-Jul-13 URL: http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/photograph/8395/john-hardcastle-loess-p...

Articles Written by John Hardcastle

• On the Cause of Volcanic Action
• The Tarawera Eruption
• On he Timaru Loess as a Climate Register
• On Glacier-motion
• Origin of the Loess Deposit of the Timaru Plateau
• On the Drift in South Canterbury

Link: https://books.google.com/books?id=NVuIf1T6GSYC&pg=PA218&lpg=PA218&d...

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Excerpts taken from article by Professor Ian Smalley of the Geography Department at Leicester University here about Timaru Herald editor John Hardcastle:

John Hardcastle was born in Yorkshire in 1847 and died in Timaru in 1927. His was a proper New Zealand existence and he contributed to life in several ways. He was a journalist; he spent 40 years with the Timaru Herald, becoming editor for a brief period; and he was a geologist, an amateur geologist but a dedicated and expert practitioner.

His hammer and hand lenses reside in the South Canterbury Museum, and he is becoming more appreciated as his geological work is examined closely. His geological virtue was in careful and exact description and his descriptions are still valid and valuable.

His theories and interpretations may have proved wrong but the descriptions are useful. He was a writer, and it may be that he should be most appreciated as a writer, as a generator of a form of literature, as a real contributor to New Zealand writing. Now his writing might be described as 'popular science' and there is a great vogue for it. But there is something more about the Hardcastle writing. It is more than just popular science. There is an air of association: this is the essence of South Canterbury, this is a special look at the Hunters Hills and the other wonders of South Canterbury. Hardcastle published long pieces in the Timaru Herald. He was the right person in the right place at the right time with the ideal journal available.

John, as a boy of 16, went to Timaru, then a pioneer settlement of about 1000, to run a milk round and after that he could not settle back on the farm which, as eldest son, he was expected to do. The milk delivery business failed because of competition, and for the next few years John travelled around the South Island doing a variety of jobs. After another period at Castlewood, he went to Christchurch to train as a school teacher. This he completed in Australia on 23 April 1878.

He came back to New Zealand and was appointed teacher at Waihi Bush School near Geraldine. He spent a short period as acting headmaster of the Temuka School and became chairman of the Pleasant Valley School Committee, and it was while he was acting- headmaster at Temuka School that he ventured into journalism, with the Temuka Leader.

In 1879, in his early thirties, he became a junior reporter and proofreader with the Timaru Herald and apart from a period of about three years when his family moved to Napier, his association with the Herald was to continue for nearly 40 years - mostly as a reporter, then subeditor, and on two occasions as editor.

In the 1880s he spent time in Hawke's Bay, before returning to Timaru to take up the editorship of the South Canterbury Times, and he joined the Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Institute in 1889. His name is on the membership list from 1889 to 1898, and he rejoined at the age of 77 in 1924 and remained a member until his death in 1927. In 1889 and 1890 he presented the two papers on loess soils and loess ground which have subsequently become quite well known and are widely seen as the first recognition that loess deposits contain palaeoclimatic information.

In 1890 he did his best science and thereafter he devoted himself to writing. This transition is observed in the lives of many eminent scientist/writers, for example Steve Jones or Richard Dawkins. So for about the first 20 years of the 20th century John Hardcastle contributed his detailed essays to the Timaru Herald. In 1908 a collection of his geological material was published as a small book Notes on the Geology of South Canterbury and he co-operated with Johannes Andersen on the preparation of the Jubilee History of South Canterbury (published in 1916)

Link: http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/10266982/Observant-record...

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See John Hardcastle's Hammer in link below

Link:http://www.nzmuseums.co.nz/account/3359/object/84800/Hammer_Hand

Headstone Description

John Hardcastle "He sought truth for it's own sake" and his beloved wife Rose

Link:https://billiongraves.com/grave/John-Hardcastle/10744135?referrer=m...