By Roselyn Fauth
Possibly about 1896 to 1899 "The town of Timaru is about 100 miles from Christchurch, and 128 from Dunedin, and is the principal town of South Canterbury. Among its fine buildings and institutions, there is not one of which the citizens are more proud than its Hospital, the subject of our illustration, and for convenience and good management, it can hold its own with any in the colony. It speaks well for a young colony, when the alleviation of the physical sufferings of its inhabitants is one of the first things to be provided.”
Christchurch City Libraries - The imperial album of New Zealand scenery, page 238 https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/publications/imperialalbum/ccl-cs-39434 No known copyright
I have been on a deep dive into the Gabites corner. It used to be where the Oxford Building is today. and on that site generations of Gabites sold fabrics and clothes to the locals.I have been learning about a father and a son, both literly woven into the fabric of early Timaru.
Dr George Edward Gabites was born in Christchurch in 1867, but his roots were very much Timaru ones. He went to Timaru Boys’ High School. He headed to Edinburgh and earned his B.Sc in 1889, followed by his medical degree in 1893, and held several posts in the Royal Infirmary and the Royal Maternity and Simpson Memorial Hospital. By 1896 he was medical superintendent of the Edinburgh Provident Dispensary. Not bad for a local lad aye?
In 1899 he came home to take up the job of surgeon superintendent at Timaru Hospital.
Instead of setting out on his own, he moved back into the house on the corner of George and Barnard Streets, where his father, also George, lived. The elder George Gabites had founded Gabites’ store and was well known in the neighbourhood. Father and son both served on the St Mary’s Vestry. George senior lived there until his death in 1914 at the age of 86.
The younger George married Mary McLachlan in 1903, and around this time he sold part of his George Street property to the Borough Council for £1,150. I think that sale might have made it possible for the Public Library to be built there, and later the Council Buildings. And the sale may have helped him fund and build his private practice at 9 Elizabeth Street.
George Gabites signed over his property portfolio to George Jr as a wedding gift for his pending marriage. But this was with agreement of what was to happen to part of it. George and his wife stayed living there also until their death. So the story goes.
His career stretched beyond Timaru.
He served in the South African War from 1901 to 1902 and came home with the Queen’s Medal and four clasps. He threw himself into ambulance work. He helped form the Railway Ambulance, then played a key role in setting up the St John Ambulance Brigade in South Canterbury. When the local corps was finally large enough, he became its first superintendent. The Earl of Liverpool later invested him as an associate of the Order of St John, a quiet but significant honour.
During the First World War he took charge of the New Zealand Medical Corps training camp at Avonside from 1917 to 1919, then moved on to serve as Assistant Director of Medical Services for the Otago Military District. The Order of Companion of the British Empire followed, along with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the reserve.
At home he served on the Timaru High School Board and was known for treating people who could not afford to pay. He seems to have been the sort of doctor who worked hard, said little, and simply got on with whatever needed doing.
His death came suddenly on 6 January 1926. He had been working the day before. Timaru responded in the way small communities do when someone well respected is lost. Flags came down to half mast across shops and at the Boys’ High School where he had once been a pupil, and later a board member.
So that is the story hiding behind Gabites Corner and a medical practice that used to be on Elizabeth Street. but who was George's father? Well he was a draper, shopkeeper, councillor, community man.
Dr George Gabites Grave Timaru Cemetery - Photo Roselyn Fauth
George Gabites Senior (1829–1914) was a steady early Timaru figure.
Born in Lincolnshire in 1829, George trained in the drapery trade in England, apprenticed under G. Bailey of Bawtrey. Like many young men of his generation, he tried his luck on the Australian goldfields and owned his own drapery store there, before selling up, and making his way to Timaru New Zealand to scout out the opportunity before his family boarded a ship and moved here too. His early years here included time in Canterbury’s rural districts, and by 1869 he was in Timaru, managing the established merchant business Clarkson & Turnbull.
When George arrived, Clarkson & Turnbull was still recovering from the devastating 1868 Great Fire that destroyed most of the commercial centre. The partnership dissolved shortly after, and in 1871 George and his brother Robert purchased the business. Later the corner of Stafford and George Streets became known as Gabites’ Corner.
George’s leadership helped reshape the store into one of Timaru’s early commercial anchors. The business expanded into Temuka, and the Gabites brothers ran a recognisable, reliable enterprise during a time when the town was still rebuilding itself in stone and brick.
Through the 1870s he traded under the name Gabites & Plante Ltd after partnering with merchant Thomas Plante. Even when the business later went through voluntary liquidation in 1880, the Gabites presence in Timaru retail continued. His younger brother Arthur reopened a menswear store known simply as “The Corner”, a business that would be run by Gabites family members until the 1970s.
George also served on the Timaru Borough Council in 1879, 1883–1886, 1892, and again in 1900, contributing to the shape of a town still finding its identity. He belonged to a generation of practical, forward-thinking settlers who helped establish everything from municipal rules to public services.
He was also a long-serving member of St Mary’s Vestry, a connection he later shared with his son, Dr George Edward Gabites.
Around 1904, George was living at the well-known family home on the corner of George and Barnard Streets. His son, newly returned from Edinburgh in 1899 to become surgeon superintendent of Timaru Hospital, lived there with him. The house was a fixture in the neighbourhood until George’s death in 1914, at the age of 86.
One of the more curious crossovers is that George once owned Kingsdown Station, having purchased it from the Rhodes brothers. When he later sold it to Thomas Hall, he unknowingly connected himself to one of Timaru’s most infamous court cases. Hall was later tried for the alleged poisoning of his father-in-law, Captain Henry Cain, and attempted murder of his wife, Kate Hall. It is one of those unexpected threads that shows how intertwined early settler lives truly were.
Although George did not leave behind grand monuments, I think he left something more enduring: a corner that became a landmark, a family business that lasted more than a century, and a son who went on to become one of Timaru’s most respected medical figures.
Through steady work, civic involvement, and a life rooted firmly in community, George Gabites Senior helped shape the commercial and social heart of nineteenth-century Timaru. His story sits quietly beneath the surface, ready to be brought forward again as part of Timaru’s wider heritage tapestry.
About the lives of a father and son who helped shape the early town. A shopkeeper, a surgeon, two vestrymen, a family home, quiet service, and a thread of care woven through decades of community life. It is remarkable what you uncover when you pause long enough to wonder about the names we pass every day.