Guy and Winifred Groves

GUY GROVES

Walter Guy Groves, a quiet and unassuming contributor to the Tinui community,  was secretary to the Tinui Parish for 50 years and a member of the Castlepoint County Council for 29 years.  

A very capable writer, the vestry minutes he prepared give a very full account of the life and times of Tinui Parish and the wider Tinui community.

Guy Groves also served on the Castlepoint County Council from 1915 to 1944.

Born in 1878, he was the son of John Groves and his second wife, Harriett Cripps. Guy married Winifred Eliott in St James' Church in Lower Hutt, in 1912. Winifred was the daughter of prominent public servant Huntly Elliott.  

Guy and Winifred farmed at Bushgrove, where Guy had lived since his father left Castlepoint when Guy was six.  They had two children - Jack (John) Groves and Jean Smith, nee Groves.

In 1956, suffering ill health, and with his son Jack picking up his father's load on the Vestry, Guy Groves retired. This tribute to his work appeared in 'Church and People', in June 1956.

Parish Treasurer's Half-century of Service at Tinui

An era in the Tinui parish came to an end at the recent annual meeting of parishioners when Mr. W. Guy Groves announced his retirement from the office of parish treasurer.

Speaking about Mr. Groves's service to the Church, the vicar, the Rev. H.C. Arnold, said that it was more than half a century since Mr Groves was first appointed to the vestry, and 33 years since he became treasurer. During his long period of service this very thinly populated parish (it now has only 150 Anglican families) had grown from a struggling parochial district into a fully-fledged parish. To no one was this achievement due more than to Mr. Groves. Year after year his quiet letters appealing for special offerings, his gentle reminders about outstanding subscriptions, had gone out to parishioners, and always the needs of the parish had been met.

Mr. Groves is a member of one of the best-known families in the Wairarapa, whose forebears landed at Castlepoint, on the lonely east coast of the Wellington Province, more than a century ago. His service to the Tinui parish has been marked by a quiet dependability and total absence of self-assertiveness; and the success with which his work has been blessed is a testimony to the power of patient persistence.

He became a member of the vestry during the incumbency of the first vicar, the Rev. (later Canon) J.H. Sykes in 1906; and treasurer in 1923, during the longest incumbency the parish has known, that of the Rev. B.D. Ashcroft (1915-27). He has thus served with all 11 vicars of Tinui, and has been the right-hand man of eight of them.

During 1955 Mr Groves suffered much from illness, and this has prompted him to lay down office. But he may still be active behind the scenes in parish affairs, since his successor is his son, Mr J.G. Groves, who has already served for several years as a vestryman and synodsman.

Guy Groves died in 1963.

Sources:
Tinui Parish Vestry Minutes,
Church & People,
Wairarapa Daily Times.