Days of Future Past: Two fatal road accidents in 1936 Hamilton

Saturday, 18 July 2026

A 5-year-old girl died after being clipped by a taxi near Rugby Park in Hamilton. The park is pictured on a game day circa 1980. HCL_M00647.26

As with any modern metropolis, New Zealand's fourth-largest city has its share of motor accidents. Ninety years ago, Hamilton's elevation to city status was still just under a decade away yet its roads were no less dangerous for pedestrians to navigate. Two tragic fatalities in 1936, with victims at the opposite end of the chronological spectrum, provoked pointed comments from the coroner. One saw a subsequent court case, the other, about which equal questions were posed, did not.

On the afternoon of May 7, 1936, taxi driver Reginald Horatio Morgan was returning to the Hamilton CBD with an empty cab, having completed a fare. He approached Rugby Park - forerunner of today's FMG Stadium - along what was then Seddon Tce. His speed was not deemed to be excessive. Witnesses would verify his claim that he was in fact travelling slowly, below the limit, by his own estimation somewhere between 20 and 25 miles per hour (32 to 40kph).

One of the reasons young Beverley Webb was said to have run onto the road was that she was chasing after her hat (file photo).

Morgan had good cause for caution. He had spotted four young children ahead of him, girls who were walking home along the footpath from Whitiora School. It was later estimated by police that he first identified them when 220 yards (201 metres) away. He honked his horn to signal his approach.

Marama St, Seddon Rd, Seddon Park and the north to northeast of Hamilton in the 1930s. HCL_01236

The girls were all about 5 years old and to judge by both their actions and the evidence they were to give, they had the logic and irresponsibility of youth. Why exactly Beverley Joy Webb decided to cross the road when she did had something to do with a game being played out in the moment. If one of her friends was to claim that Beverley's response to the approaching taxi was to say, 'here is a car, we'll run across', she was perhaps covering for what actually happened.

This narrator was possibly the “friend” who had taken Beverley's hat off her. A version of the story was told by one eyewitness, Rita Isabel George, a 12-year-old, also a student of Whitiora School, who had emerged from the Rugby Park gates as the accident unfolded, having cut through the stadium. Rita testified that one of the girls 'had two hats on and she threw one out onto the road as the taxi passed'. Evidently this hat was Beverley Webb's and the 5-year-old then ran out to retrieve it.

Rita's friend Dawn Desiree Halcrow, who had almost exactly the same vantage, gave slightly different evidence. Dawn recalled the taxi sounding its horn twice in the lead-up to the tragedy and her version had it that Beverley's friend physically took her hat across the road rather than throwing it, and that Beverley followed in pursuit. Another witness, 8-year-old Athol Steward Cruikshank, concurred.

The driver's recollection provided a third variation. Morgan claimed that it was Beverley herself who was the hat thief and that she ran across the road at an angle, with a second girl following behind, each potentially liable to be hit by his approaching vehicle. In response, he honked his horn a second time, applied his brakes, lowered his speed still further and turned sharply to the left.

Taxi driver Reginald Horatio Morgan ended up in court after his vehicle clipped a 5-year-old, who later died of head injuries.

No matter the precise circumstances of the immediate build-up, all agreed on what happened next. Beverley wore a metallic luncheon box, connected via straps around her neck. As Morgan angled his taxi to avoid collision the case caught on the front right side of the vehicle. The girl was swept off her feet, hitting the rear mudguard. When the car struck the child it was almost entirely off the road.

Morgan brought the taxi to a full stop within 42 feet (12.80m) of the collision point. He went directly to Beverley's assistance. The girl, the daughter of CL Webb, a Frankton fireman, and his wife, was lying on the grass verge in front of the stationary taxi. She had suffered severe head injuries. Morgan, together with a Hamilton Borough Council work supervisor, Frank William Allen, who had also witnessed the accident, took her to a nearby doctor who immediately ordered admission to Waikato Hospital.

Beverley would die the following day, her skull having been fractured and her brain lacerated.

FW Platts did not mince his words at an inquest into the death held in the third week of June. 'I am not going to say anything about negligence,” said the coroner, somewhat disingenuously, 'but I do say that had Morgan had exercised the care that every driver should exercise in the street when he sees school children going home, that this accident would not have happened.”

Another crash happened at the intersection of Victoria and Hood streets. Pictured is Hood St in 1907, from the post office on Victoria St. HCL_02021

The sentiment, formally part of an 'open verdict', proved sufficient for legal action to be taken against the taxi driver. Just under a month later Reginald Morgan found himself in the dock of a Hamilton court, before two Justices of the Peace, RT Reid and F Findlay. A prelude to a potential Supreme Court trial, the charge was 'negligent driving'.

Detective-Sergeant J Thompson prosecuted on behalf of the police. Details of the distance, angle and speed of the vehicle were provided by other members of the constabulary. The testimony of the youngest witnesses, Beverley's friends, was conveyed via the constable who had interviewed them at the scene, a Mr Watts. The elder children, together with Frank Allen's evidence and that of a second HBC employee, Herbert Earnest Capper, were heard in court. Allen and Capper had both been working in Seddon Tce when the tragedy occurred.

Further evidence was given by a motor mechanic who worked for Morgan's employers, Checker Cab Company. Harry Sherwood Price testified that the brakes and steering wheel of the taxi were in good working order, the latter operating at 75% efficiency, a standard deemed well within legal requirements. Price's criticism of Morgan was mild: he felt that given the state of the road and the vehicle and the circumstances of the accident, 'an experienced driver should have pulled up within 30 or 40 feet'. This distance was slightly less than Morgan achieved and possibly the differential was significant.

Regardless, Reid and Findlay remained unconvinced by the prosecution case. Morgan's lawyer, JF Strang, had argued that 'there was not a tittle of evidence to justify the charge, and while the accident had very sad results, Morgan had done everything in his power to avoid the collision'. The Justices of the Peace agreed and the case was dismissed.

It was a stormy night with low visibility when Leonard Cramp hit a man at a central Hamilton intersection.

In between the inquest into Beverley's death and the prosecution of the driver of the vehicle whom the coroner at least felt was partially responsible, a second motor accident occurred on the streets of Hamilton.

The evening of Friday, June 26, 1936, was dark and stormy. Leonard James Cramp, a motor engineer, was driving along Victoria St shortly after 7pm, moving in a southerly direction and looking to turn right into Hood St. Cramp claimed that his speed was somewhere between 6 to 8 miles per hour (9.65 to 16.09kph). In poor visibility he still maintained that the intersection was clear of both other vehicles and pedestrians and having given the appropriate arm signal and honking his horn, he completed the manoeuvre.

Passing the line of the intersection, Cramp felt a bump to the rear of the car. Stopping, he discovered a person, 72-year-old Herbert Hartle, on the ground. Hartle had been badly injured. Clearly, Cramp's car had collided with the septuagenarian, who was immediately taken to Waikato Hospital.

There were two eyewitnesses to the incident but their vision was compromised by the heavy rain and lack of illumination. George Douglas Morpeth, a passenger in a nearby taxi, saw Hartle 'fall heavily' after being hit by the right hand side of Cramp's vehicle, principally the mudguard. Morpeth could not say which direction Hartle had crossed the road from though in all likelihood he too was venturing south. Andrew Donaldson, the taxi's driver, was to give similar evidence.

Hartle lingered until July 1, thereafter expiring 'as the result of head injuries, senility and a very poor condition of health'. Such as he was able to communicate in his final days, he confessed to a Dr RJ Mcready that he had 'taken liquor during the afternoon' on the day of the accident. He was, possibly, staggering home after the 6 o'clock swill. It was earlier confirmed that Hartle lived on Victoria St and Hamilton's main road was not lacking in public houses.

Again, the coroner was the stern Mr Platts. Again, he spoke harshly, no doubt doubly sorrowful in his duties given the earlier tragedy of Beverley.

'One expects that the pedestrian would be safe on a crossing like this,” pronounced the coroner, 'and the evidence does not disclose that the driver employed the special precautions necessary to avoid danger.”

Platts lamented the fact that Hartle could not contribute to the inquest, though he felt the evidence was clear that the old man was half-way across Hood St when struck. He questioned how Cramp could have possibly failed to see the victim and cast doubt on the driver's claims of slow speed.

Platts was unapologetic about his comments, ruling that Hartle died as a consequence of being struck by Cramp's car. He declared that 'one had a duty to bring these facts under the public notice in order that the deaths might be prevented'.

The police, having lost the Webb case, were less inclined toward prosecution. No charges were levelled against Cramp, however much he had been admonished. If the sad plight of a 5-year-old school girl could not move the courts, the demise of a thirsty pensioner, albeit one still alleged to be in paid employment, doing farm and gardening work, had little chance, especially given compromised witnesses.

The unfortunate Herbert Hartle had led a colourful life. Back in 1906, when an Able-Bodied Seaman serving aboard the SS Turakina, he had absented himself without leave and suffered legal consequences. Fifteen years later, as a virtual vagrant in Palmerston North, known to have spent what little money he had on alcohol and living in stables, he helped himself to some washing on the line in an effort to sell clothing to a second-hand dealer. Clearly the Prohibition Order taken out against him as a result had lapsed by the time he took his final drink in Hamilton another 15 years further along. He would not be the last to suffer violence on Hood St.