Peter Josland Collection

Content & arrangement

Archives TypeDigital OnlyDescription

This collection of "digital only" photographs pertain to Upper Hutt local man, Peter Josland (1929-2026), and his time in the Upper Hutt Pipe Band.

Peter was one of the founding pipers of the Upper Hutt Pipe Band, joining the band in 1945 as a 16 year old learner, not long after it was established at a meeting on 15 August 1944.

Peter Josland in his Upper Hutt Pipe Band uniform in the late 1940s.

Details

Archive Reference2026/15Date range1940s - 1950sQuantity7 "digital only" photographs

Provenance

HistoryPeter Josland was born in Dunedin on 29 June 1929. He was the only son of the bacteriologist Sydney Josland and Elsie Railton, a shop assistant. His father transferred to the Wallaceville Animal Research Centre in Upper Hutt later that year. Josland married Rewa Prince on 10 October 1960 and they had two sons. He died in Lower Hutt on 15 January 2026.

Josland’s pipe band career commenced when he joined the Upper Hutt Pipe Band as a teenager in the 1940s. The Pipe Major was George Wakefield (a carpenter) and fellow Band members included the pipers Dr Ira Cunningham and Lou Evans (who both worked at the Wallaceville Animal Research Centre – Cunningham was the Director and Evans was a laboratory technician), John Frater (an electrician), the bass drummer Tam Blewman (a milkman), and the side drummer John Styles (a barber). The Drum Major of the Band was a policeman (possibly retired) by the name of Jock Griffiths. He facilitated the first Band uniform jackets (or doublets) which were old Police jackets. Other Band members were Dave Ashworth (a barber who worked for John Styles) and Matt Cleaver (a printer). The Band practised in the Municipal Band Room at Maidstone Park in Upper Hutt. The President of the Band was a butcher named G. Wood who organised the funding.

Moving to Auckland for work, Josland was a member of the Auckland & District Pipe Band in 1949 and 1950. This Band won grade two at a band contest held in New Plymouth in 1949 and won grade one at the contest held the following year in Auckland. The Pipe Major was Len Amor and the Drum Major was the champion mace flourisher, Noel Fussell.

While living and working in the South Island, Josland was a piper in the North Otago Highland Pipe Band in 1952 and the City of Christchurch Pipe Band in 1955 and 1956. In the latter Band, he played alongside the legendary piper William (Billy) Boyle as well as Jack Hadfield (Drum Sergeant), Gordon Ogilvie ONZM and Rolan Troon.

Work took Josland back to the North Island, and while living in Upper Hutt in the late 1950s, he visited the home of the legendary musician Freddie Gore. Gore, who had spent time with jazz bands in the United States of America in the 1930s, toured New Zealand extensively with his bands which also performed regularly on the radio. Josland quickly learnt the tenor saxophone, and it wasn’t long before he was performing with fellow aspiring young big-band players in various Gore-led orchestras in the Hutt Valley and Wellington. He played alongside Laurie Barnes and “Digger” Dawson, and knew the talented trumpeter Alan Henderson who was found dead in his car in a Wellington side-street in August 1965. Henderson had died as a result of heroin use. Barnes, Dawson, Henderson, and Josland performed together in the 20-piece Freddie Gore Band in the Wellington Musicians Club’s second public concert called “Jazz for Listening” in the Concert Chamber in the Wellington Town Hall on 2 December 1957.

Moving to Carterton in 1960, Josland was a member of the Wairarapa Caledonian Pipe Band in the 1960s until 1972 when he and his family moved to Hamilton. He joined the Hamilton Caledonian Pipe Band in 1980 and played under Pipe Majors Trevor Andrews and Andy McKay. Josland became a life member of this Band in 2017. In his early 90s, he played for the Hamilton Highlanders with his good friends Ray Miller, a former Drum Major, and Jim Wilson, a former Pipe Sergeant, who had also been in the Hamilton Caledonian Pipe Band.

Items

Item Listing2026/15/01-07 Upper Hutt Pipe Band digital photographs

About

OrganisationsWallaceville Animal Research Centre / AgResearchUpper Hutt Pipe Band

About the original

LocationDigital only

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Peter Josland Collection