"‘James Corbett had vision and 100 percent belief in the town and district of Matamata as a rising centre"
Image of Arawa Street, Matamata in the 1930s. The two storey building on the right is the 'New" Corbett Building. His name just visible on the left hand awning.
James Corbett arrived in Matamata in 1919 as a locum on the death of Hugh Kelso — and stayed 25 years, becoming one of the district's most enthusiastic gamblers on its future.
Born in 1890 to a Hikutaia farming and publican family, Corbett had barely settled in before he bought the pharmacy outright and started snapping up town sections at what everyone considered daft prices. Examples of those "ridiculous" purchases became Corbett's Building in Broadway, Corbett's new building or Professional Chambers, in Arawa street, now home to the Red Cross shop, as well as the site of the Regent Theatre.
James Corbett threw himself into everything Matamata had going — golf (with a hole-in-one to show for it), tennis, aero club, the Beautification Society, the Catholic Holy Name Society, and enough civic committees to make him a fixture at every fundraiser in town. He was even prosecuted (in the days when chemists compounded their own drugs), for over-strength camphor oil, and won — the judge reprimanded the Health Department instead.
His real passion, though, was horses. By the 1930s he was Clerk of the Course and eventually president of the Matamata Racing Club, owned a winning horse called Dark Marble, and bought a colt (The Cardinal) sired by the sire of Phar Lap (Night Raid) that went on to win the Avondale Cup. A 1938 world tour — complete with a horse purchase in Dublin — seems to have taken a toll on his health; he resigned the racing club presidency in 1939 and sold the pharmacy to his locum, Ralph Reid, in 1940.
Evening Post 23 September 1939
Equal parts chemist, property speculator, and small-town social glue — Corbett's fingerprints are still apparent in Matamata today.
James Corbett died age only 55 in 1945. The following year one of the races at the Matamata course was the J.Corbett Memorial Steeplechase.
Does James Corbett feature on the historic title of your property? See the list of known properties at the end of the James Corbett Section 4 PDF and let us know if yours is additional.
