Grant Middlemiss, who has stepped down as president of the Cambridge Historical Society, will retain his society membership alongside his wife Vicki Jacobsen.
Grant Middlemiss’ late 2023 departure as president of the Cambridge Historical Society doesn’t suggest for a second that he is less inclined towards chronicling the history of this place.
He plans to remain a member and wants to continue researching and recording as much material as he can.
“I’ve already got folders of information tucked away.”
Grant joined the society around 2007, not long after he and his wife Vicki Jacobsen moved north from Wellington. Always keen on exploring the past, he was soon transfixed by the local history – it is an interest the couple share.
“There are some amazing, quirky stories in this town, and as I spent more time travelling around this area, I discovered there are a lot more still to be told,” he said. “I want to carry on doing that.”
Looking into things is in Grant’s DNA. His career was as a police inspector, and it was via an extension to that role that he came to Cambridge in 1990 as the visiting Queen Elizabeth’s personal protection officer.
“I was with the New Zealand Police’s Diplomatic Protection Service at the time,” he said. “That was my first trip here. Later, my daughter married and came to Cambridge… we used to visit at weekends.”
Once settled here, he got involved with the historical society, taking on the role of secretary for two years and president for five.
Things looked bright in 2018 when Grant Middlemiss, Cambridge Museum manager Kathryn Parsons, Ngāti Koroki Kahukuru representative Hinerangi Kara, Mike Pettit, Eric Hill, Julie Epps, and Bruce Hancock celebrated an early thumbs up for the museum project.
One of the biggest projects under his watch was the move several years ago to build a $2.4 million extension to the existing Cambridge Museum. Grant and his colleagues worked tirelessly to get it off the ground and his disappointment when it fell over is evident. He sees any museum as a shop window for the society it serves, and believes Cambridge deserves the upgrade.
Almost a decade ago, around Waikato’s sesquicentennial anniversary, he wrote and self-published a book called “The Waikato River Gunboats – New Zealand’s First Navy”. It told the story of eight purpose-built river gunboats deployed in 1863 … a flotilla that came this far inland and helped shape Waikato’s history.
Grant is now ready to pave the way for “new blood”. “I’d like to think I’ve left the society in good heart. This is the right time for me.”
See: Museum battle lost.
