Graham Beard and the NZ Beekeeping Industry

Graham Beard was the General Secretary for the first NBA Conference I attended, in Timaru in 1975.  He held that role for over five years. 

He was Secretary through the critical mid-1970s, a time of major changes to the NBA rules, voting procedures and the way the NBA conference did its business, as well as the development of the Hive Levy.

But Graham had direct involvement with the beekeeping industry more than 20 years earlier, when he was the Government’s representative on the Honey Marketing Board.  I’m not sure many people ever knew that.  It may have been he just didn’t talk much about it, or it may in fact have been known by such people as Ivan Dickinson, who worked closely with him in the middle/late 1970s.

Graham Alexander Beard was born in Dannevirke on 12 August 1917.  He was raised in the Kiwitea area, south of Palmerston North.  He was regularly mentioned in relation to a number of Rangiotu School events and other activities, including a calf day and a fancy dress (he went as a cripple…).  He appeared in a school production in a number titled “Ten Little Nigger Boys”.  He had a local reputation for his rugby skills.  

Graham’s father Ernest Graham Beard was a farmer, and at times was described as a plumber, involved in the district’s affairs generally.  He was once taken to court for inadequately controlling the rabbits on his farm.  The charges were later dismissed.

By 1938, twenty-one year old Graham was living nearby at Oroua Downs, and described his occupation as “cheesemaker”.

In 1940 he was on the Ballot List for war service, still living in Oroua Downs and still a cheesemaker.  In the early 1940s he remained in the area, in later years living with others of the Beard family, and he was always described as a cheesemaker.

In 1942 he married Joan Althea Forbes.

In 1943 he joined the army as a GNR (gunner), enlisting in Palmerston North.  Though Graham’s last NZ address was given as that same Manawatu area, his wife’s address was in  Miramar, Wellington, an address used by Graham and Joan after the war.

I have not located his military service record, though there is a later (restricted) archives file related to rehabilitation records for former servicemen after their return from the war.  I don’t have any clear idea of what he did during the war, or where he was, though I do know that he was “overseas” in December 1943, but arrived back to Rangiotu by the middle of 1944.

In December 1943 Ernest Graham Beard of Rangiotu (Graham’s father) died.  He left widow Margaret (Graham’s mother), 4 sons and a daughter (Graham was the second youngest).  

At some point between 1938 and 1943 Graham obtained the qualification of a dairy factory manager’s certificate. 

He joined the civil service in 1944, not even two years since he had joined the army.

In 1946 Graham was living at 553 Broadway, Miramar, Wellington with wife Joan.  He was a civil servant.  By 1949 they had moved to the Khandallah area, but he was to remain a civil servant for the nine years he worked for the Marketing Department.

In his work for the Marketing Department, Graham managed a number of elections for newly established marketing boards such as the Nelson Raspberry Marketing Committee, the Hops Marketing Committee and the Honey Marketing Committee, his first involvement with the beekeeping industry.

Graham’s first election as the Returning Officer for the Honey Marketing Committee in October 1948 was not auspicious.  The honey industry was somewhat unhappy that the Minister had appointed the first Honey Marketing Committee, rather than going back to the industry for elections.  And the whole concept of such marketing committees was still somewhat new, being a move away from the controls on marketing during the war.

There was, it would seem, one premature attempt to hold an election, with the call for nominations going out in the Gazette (with Graham as Returning Officer).  But then, there was a second call for nominations in the Gazette a few months later.  At the NBA Executive meeting after the election, Garnie Fraser, the NBA’s active and vocal General Secretary claimed the election had been critically damaged.

Fraser claimed that only the three initial committee members had been informed that the nomination period was open.  In fact, a notice had appeared in the Gazette and in at least some of the major NZ newspapers.  

The Executive called in the Returning Officer to explain…  And Graham attended, explained, apologised and seemingly brought them around to realise it had not been so fault-worthy as the NBA General Secretary had claimed.  But he did say he agreed that the NBA should be specifically notified in the future of such nomination and election events!  

In February 1950, Keith Holyoake appointed Graham as the government representative on the Honey Marketing Committee.  He would later serve the same role on the Central Council of Raspberry Growers.

He was on the Honey Marketing Committee for three years.  His departure was through another series of errors by Holyoake, who was a master at placating the industry.  When Holyoake failed to allow for a non-supplier to stand for the election, he calmed the waters by appointing Ted Field (then the NBA VP) to be the ‘government representative’ role on the Honey Marketing Committee to replace his own civil servant.

Graham resigned from the Marketing Department (which was being transitioned into a range of marketing authorities and statutory bodies) in 1953.  He went to work as the Executive Officer (also named as superintendent and chief technical officer) for the NZ Pig Producers Council, later to become the Pork Industry Board.

By 1954 he and Joan were living in Linden, Wellington, and still a civil servant but by 1957 he was most often described as an executive officer or secretary.

In December 1962 he was elected to the licensing committee of the Wellington Licensing District.

In 1965 he became a Justice of the Peace.  In 1971 he was a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust awardee.  He traveled through 13 countries and reported on pig production, marketing and related topics in 1972.

Graham became the General Secretary for the NBA in 1974, taking over from E.R. Neal.  The NBA Executive at the time described how his involvement with the pork industry would be of a related value to beekeeping, but no mention was made of his previous beekeeping industry involvement.  The NBA president was Ivan Dickinson, the VP Percy Berry at the time of Graham’s appointment.  Percy Berry would have known of Graham’s previous bee industry work, for sure, as he was commercially beekeeping by 1948.

Graham’s first meeting as the NBA General Secretary was for the September 1974 Executive meeting.

He was the returning officer for the HMA elections of September 1976, September 1978, October 1979, though he was not, strictly, a part of the HMA, but rather appointed by the NBA.

In the middle of 1976, his position was changed from being referred to as General Secretary to Executive Secretary, appearing first in the 1976 NBA Annual Report.  The change came about through  the rule changes adopted at that time in May 1976.

He was the secretary for the NBA for six NBA Annual Conferences, from 1974 through to his final conference in 1979.  Palmerston North (1974), Timaru (1975), Taupo (1976), Dunedin (1977), Hastings (1978) and Christchurch (1979).  By March 1980, he had retired, resigning from both his Pork Board role and working for the NBA.  He relinquished the role of Executive Secretary of the NBA to David Dobson, also from the Pork Industry Board, ending Graham’s second involvement with the beekeeping industry.

Following the 1980 NBA Conference at Tauranga, the NBA Beekeeper magazine erroneously reported that Graham Beard had been awarded an NBA Life Membership.  It was simply an error in reporting, with Graham being mistakenly reported on instead of Don Barrow.  Rather, Graham was acknowledged as retiring as Executive Secretary and presented with a cheque, a matter corrected in the next journal by Assoc Editor Simon Hill.  Executive minutes recorded that $102.50 had been received from branches for the presentation to Graham, but it may have been a bit more than that finally.  The presentation was made by Paul Marshall, with Ivan Dickinson and Percy Berry both speaking to pay tribute to Graham’s work for the NBA.

He had been General/Executive Secretary with NBA presidents Ivan Dickinson, Percy Berry, Mike Stuckey and Paul Marshall, during a tumultuous period of the industry’s history and development.

In 1993 Graham became a trustee as part of the vesting of the Hutt Valley Energy Board.

He died in Wellington on 15 April 2000 and there is a plaque in his memory at the Karori Cemetery and Crematorium, in the Rosegarden area.  Joan, who died about 3 years earlier, has a plaque there as well.

Graham Beard (second from the left at the top) along with three brothers and his sister in 1940.

Graham Beard on the left, with his sister and brother in 1988.