Thomas Langdon Joll Memorial - 1915

Thomas  Langton  Joll (1859-1908)

Joll's parents, Samuel and Elizabeth, arrived in New Plymouth in 1842 on the Plymouth Company ship, Timandra. Thomas was born in New Plymouth in 1859. In the 1880s he founded a chain of private dairy factories, based in Ōkaiawa, which became the T.L. Joll Co-operative after his death in 1908. The co-operative eventually had 10 major branches which, in 1963, merged with the other south Taranaki factory chain, the Kaupokonui Dairy Co-operative, to form Kiwi Dairies – now part of the dairy giant, Fonterra.

Thomas Joll was selected as a Taranaki rugby representative in teams of 1885, 87 and 88.

He was also a member and chairman of the Hāwera County Council and on the executive of the National Dairy Association.

Joll died following a traffic accident in Wellington in 1908. His public funeral, at the Ōkaiawa Cemetary, was possibly the largest very held in South Taranaki at the time.

Text on monument reads:

This

Monument has been erected

1915

And this Park dedicated

to the Public

As a perpetual Memorial

to the Memory of

THOMAS LANGDON JOLL

Who died May 1st 1908

As a tribute of Love and

Gratitude for many deeds

of Kindness

Let Love , and Truth and Peace alone

Hold Human Hearts in Thrall

That Heaven its work at length may own,

And Men be Brothers All.