Cabinet 1: Introduction: Ernie Webber
Scrapbook depicting ‘Master Webber’, Bassett-Lowke envelope, 20 May 1916, and an earlier photograph (n.d). MS-3333/084;
‘Rail’ was in Ernie Webber’s blood. His father, Frederick Webber, left school and was employed as a carpenter for the Railways on the main trunk line in the North Island. He helped construct the Mangaweka viaduct, which when built in 1903-04, was 288 metres in length and the longest viaduct in the North Island (It was dismantled when the new 7-kilometre deviation was constructed in 1981). After residing in Ohakune, Webber senior worked for the New Zealand Railways Maintenance Department in Dunedin and Invercargill. He retired to Auckland. At the age of 11, ‘Master Cyril’ was receiving letters from model makers Bassett-Lowke in London. Below is a smiling, curly-headed Webber, aged about three.
Photograph of Ernie Webber as a child, c.1908. MS-3333/18.