During the 1850s the original Riwaka Hotel, not to be confused with the present-day hotel of the same name, was run by E. McNabb, who worked both as publican and ferryman, transporting people across the Motueka River.
Adolphus Dodson took over the hotel around 1856, but in August 1859 he vacated the premises and moved across the road to the corner of Lodder Lane and Main Road to reopen the Riwaka Inn. He continued to operate the ferry from this new location.
Dodson’s family life was marked by tragedy. In early 1861 he lost his twelve-month-old son, and almost a year later his wife Sarah, aged 27, died of consumption.
By 1878 the Inn appears to have taken on a new name. Dodson was granted a renewal of the licence for what was now called the Britannia Hotel, on the condition that the stable was kept in good order and that he continued to run the ferry until the new bridge was completed. Once the bridge opened, he was expected to attend to it during floods to prevent logs and debris from lodging against it.
Dodson died intestate in December 1884. At that time his daughter Annie Maria and her husband Charles Burch held the hotel licence. Twelve months later Burch filed for bankruptcy. At the first hearing he said he had been in business for only a year and was already in debt when he took over the hotel from Dodson, although the property now belonged to Annie Maria. He blamed his financial collapse on the downturn in the hop industry and poor advice. Burch had taken out a mortgage of £500 on the property and had tried, unsuccessfully, to borrow more against it.
In October the hotel, along with land, hop kilns and stables, was put up for sale, including the goodwill of the licence, which ran until June the following year.
Charles Tafner became the next publican, but when the licence renewal came up in 1886 he was formally cautioned after a complaint from a constable that he had supplied liquor on Sundays. A year later he was charged with allowing a game called Yankee Grab to be played on a Sunday at the hotel, although the case was dismissed. Yankee Grab was a dice game often used to decide who would pay for a round of beer.
In July 1886 the hotel was the site of a suicide when Frank Brown, a journeyman, drank Rough on Rats mixed with beer in front of several patrons. A coroner’s inquest found Brown had taken his own life while under the influence of alcohol.
New management arrived in November when Henry Stevens took over, but within six months he also applied for bankruptcy, saying he could not make a living because traffic was bypassing the hotel thanks to the new Motueka Bridge.
Manuel Smith became publican in December 1890 and advertised the hotel as fully renovated for travellers and visitors. However, in 1893, when he went to renew the licence, the Board ruled the hotel was no longer needed. The building was subsequently put up for sale. Its days as a licensed premises came to an end when it was purchased by Henry Budden, who turned it into a private dwelling and established extensive plant and bulb gardens, naming the property Tuba Flora.
