Wharf Memories

The following was written by Peter Hjorring, a good friend of mine and ardent family historian. He found this blog, I invited him to contribute -- and here is the result: a glimpse into life on Auckland's wharves. In the course of looking for ways to illustrate his article, I found an online version of the 1922 Auckland City Municipal Handbook. The King's Wharf generators image comes from that.

The Auckland City Council burnt rubbish near the city centre at their destructor facility, saving transporting to a 'tip' in the suburbs. This facility led to what is now the Victoria Park Markets. The idea of using the energy produced to power the ever growing need for electricity for trams, water pumping, street lighting etc. eventually lead to the construction of the King’s Wharf power station, opened in 1913.

My grandfather was an engineer from Glasgow. He worked in the late 1920s in Newmarket at an engineering firm somewhere then obtained a position in the King’s Wharf power station and then shifted the family to Devonport. There was a good ferry service for him and the children to the city. The extended family home was where I spent the first year or so of my life. In fact being born nearby in Pentlands Hospital in Buchanan Street below the Victoria picture theatre. Dad was with the RNZAF in the Pacific then. Later he became unwittingly involved with the Wharves. He was part of Sid Holland’s defence force personnel to break the 1951 strike. They barged them down from Hobsonville.

We moved after the war for a short period to the city, to the Council’s old motor camp in Motions Rd which was a transit camp by the Zoo waiting for a state house. Then in 1947 to 56 Fir Street in Waterview. My elder brother Brian served part (6 months) of his electrical apprenticeship with the Auckland Electric Power Board at the wharf in the late 1950s in the station. It also powered the wharf's freezing storage handling warehouse etc. for AFFCO. This was an ammonia based refrigeration unit during WW2 and before. My father in law Jack Robertson worked as an engineer there during and after the war.

Some memories I had on the waterfront are next. There was a large number of employees of the Auckland Harbour Board. Those used to repair mainly damaged wooden pallets crates etc were called “chippies”. My Uncle Alex William’s son was one. Those concerned with electrical lighting, power winches etc. were called “sparkies”. There were also many tally clerks inside the sheds and at the gates/entrances in little wooden boxes/offices by the red wrought iron fences. Many of these fences are still there -- and possibly will be preserved?

And then there were the “seagulls” (as well as the feathered variety). Around the wharves of course these were the casual wharfies on high hourly rates. They were on hourly notice to go with this! Picking up what work was left. The number depended on work to be done after the permanents; they were very good hourly pay rates especially for poor University students. All the wharfies received high rates of pay I think in those days. It was those first there at the Stevedore's offices in the morning that got the work.

However the reality was that those with permanent positions were taken on first, many ex war veterans. At that time often there was no work for our trucks. If there was no ship in port we mainly unloaded bananas, fruit and veges etc, from the Pacific Islands and other places. We were told to get 'lost' but still hung around as we were on call over the ‘RT.’ We were on a wage so we would park up on the end of a wharf, say at the end Princess Wharf reading a book with the steam ship tugs like the SS Daldy for company. The SS Daldy likewise was waiting for their services.

Alternatively, there was watching the draw bridge for the Viaduct basin being hoisted up and down for water fishing boats and road traffic. There was a cafeteria above Princess Wharf for Harbour employees mainly, now part of the Maritime Museum.

There was a fumigation station on Queens Wharf mainly for pineapples, grapes, mangoes, and other exotic fruit and veges from Hawaii, Fiji, Samoa,and Tahiti. The boats Matua and Tofua were frequent Island trading boats. Fumigating for mealy bug spiders and other nasties the fumigant Methyl Bromide (CH3Br) was used in the fumigation shed on the wharf (Queens). This was a carcinogenic substance frequently used then but now banned. They were subject to at least 24 hours exposure and resting periods.

 Left: the Tofua.

Another event on the wharves was the so called “Six O'Clock Call”. I think it worked like this: the wharfies worked in gangs, piece meal, being assigned say two or three gangs for a ship to unload a ship or part of it for that day. Turn around time for the ship was important, many pounds in berthage fees etc. which they would be paid for the full day so often in the heat of the day in the hold or wharf's siding shed things were done slowly. Time for a game of cards, reading or what ever. Hence the apparent lazy cushy number they apparently seemed to have. A misconception of them by the public in those days. Then when the day’s target was given, usually around or after meal time say 6.00 pm things speeded up very quickly so they could complete the day’s work and get home. Often we might also need a number more of say banana cases unloaded so we could finish up our day by getting a full load for the day as well. Then, within a short time by 8-9 o’clock I guess? We had all we needed.

One other thing: the truck drivers and other cars and pedestrians shared the wharf’s entrance on leaving where the trains in those days used or straddled Quay Street too (there were rail lines in the middle and along of the street blocking say from Queens Wharf to the Queen Street Ferry buildings!) Mainly goods wagons before being shunted to the nearby Inwards and Outwards covered terminal. We would get stuck not able to get across Quay Street back to our destination.

The ripening cellars for bananas were below the floor of the city markets and produce for the market floor. They used Ethylene CH2=CH2 gas to speed up the process, I understand from a vege buyer. I know they still do this.

By Peter Hjorring.

{Based on my experiences as an occasional flat top truck driver for Turners and Growers Auctioneers produce suppliers at the Auckland city markets in the1960s.}

Ironbank: future heritage?

There have been miles and miles of blurb about Ironbank in the local media just recently. Actually, since 2007-2008, even before completion. It's been described as resembling "haphazardly stacked, rusting shipping containers" and it isn't hard to see why.

That's the Cross Street side. The Karangahape Road side makes more of an effort to fit in with the older neighbours.

Well, almost ...

Ironbank has won awards, even international ones. I just wonder if I'll be alive long enough to see if the building becomes as much of a heritage icon for its architectural style as others in the history of this city. That for me would be the real test, over and above any awards it is earning now.

Personally, I think it's interesting. The near-jumbled look isn't something thrust into the eye each time you walk down Karanghape Road. This lady keeps all that neatly tucked away, with just a hint showing. You have to actively go looking for the full impact of that architectural dare-to-be-different view.  Still, it doesn't make me stop and wonder as much as the likes of this near 100-year-old relic from the past.

Yeah, yeah -- Edwardian mercantile. Lots of it around back in the day, still a fair amount of it around to be taken for granted. But what caught my eye are the two stone curls at the front. I think this building, quite utilitarian really, is also beautiful.

Heritage, and what it means for future generations, will be in the eyes of beholders to come.

Mr. Seddon's 59th birthday do

Click to enlarge.

I spotted this card in a rare book sellers shop, Anah Dunsheath on High Street. It hadn't yet been priced, but I took a liking to it -- a piece of Richard Seddon's life! Anyway, the proprietor went off to value the card, and I thought up a figure in my head (not a lot, I'm not rich by any means) beyond which I'd let it go. I guessed right -- it was bang on.

Here's the report on the function, from the Evening Post, 23 June 1904. As above, click on the image to enlarge.

 

Two years later, Seddon died while returning from Australia to "God's Own Country."

Francis Gittos and the Domain at the Bay

Image of Francis Gittos, donated to the Avondale-Waterview Historical Society in 2004 by Murray B. Gittos.

I've been gathering up stuff on Avondale and districts history now since about 1983. Over that time, and especially when I get a chance to sit at a reader machine at the Auckland Central Library, there have been days when the pan I dipped into the current just holds gravel at the end of the day. But -- a happy but -- there are wonderful days which keep me doing this stuff I do, and I see the glitter of real gold amidst the rest.

Today was one of those days.

I've found out heaps, so much it'll take me a while to analyse it all, but this I just have to post up.

In 1890, Francis Gittos leased the Avondale South Domain and started up Blockhouse Bay's earliest known industry. Previously, it was thought he started a tannery. Even I thought that, considering he was marginally involved with the family business at Oakley Creek, then from 1885 at the succeeding "Bridgenorth" works in Westmere as manager (NZ Herald, 16 May 1885).

But -- no. The business he set up at the Bay was a wool-scouring works.  This would follow on naturally from his father Benjamin's own subsidiary wool-scouring works alongside the Oakley Creek tannery. Thanks to today's find, from the Herald, 26 February 1890, I even know that he had a partner in the venture, a Mr. J. Greenwood. Later, perhaps early in the 20th century, Francis found the business too much, and reverted to tanning in a smaller scale operation. Stan Gittos, in The Gittos Story of Leather, certainly associates Francis with the latter trade.

There have been recent publications giving the starting date of Francis Gittos' involvement with Blockhouse Bay as 1884. Possibly, this may be a carry-over from Peter Buffett's research, published two decades or so ago. The following article, though, sets the year firmly at 1890.

AVONDALE SOUTH

PROGRESS OF SETTLEMENT

ERECTION OF WOOL-SCOURING WORKS

Notwithstanding the depression, no district near Auckland has made more progress by way of settlement during the last few years. Some six years ago the Avondale Road Board induced the Government to open up this district for settlement. A road from the Avondale railway station was opened up, hills cut down, bridges built, and a considerable portion formed and metalled. The land was cut up into small farm sections, and sold at from ₤5 to ₤25 per acre. A large number of settler’s houses have been built, sections fenced in, trees planted, and considerable portion brought under cultivation, and now producing very fair crops.

At the time the block was cut up the Road Board secured a recreation reserve containing 38 acres, adjoining the Manukau Harbour, at a place called Green Bay [present day Blockhouse Bay – note]. A large portion of land is also reserved all around the Bay,. Now called the Marine Parade. This place is now becoming a fashionable resort for picnics during the summer months and several families from Auckland and suburbs camp there to enjoy the benefit of sea air and sea bathing. It is quite common to see 400 and 500 people there now on holiday, and several tents pitched there for weeks together.

On the recommendation of the chairman of the Road Board the Government has proclaimed the reserve a public Domain, and appointed a Domain Board. The Board, with the consent of His Excellency the Governor, has leased the Domain for 14 years to Messrs. F. Gittos and Greenwood. The lessees’ contract to substantially fence the Domain, plant a belt of trees all round, and numerous clumps within the ground, also to plough up and lay down about seven acres on a level part as a cricket ground, etc., all rights to the public for the purpose of recreation are reserved. It is also the intention of the Board to erect dressing-rooms on the beach for sea bathing and other places of accommodation for picnic parties.

Messrs. Gittos and Greenwood have with the permission of the Board erected buildings for wool scouring on the south-eastern corner of the Domain, and on Friday last [21 February – note] they, in order to inaugurate the opening of their works gave a social gathering in their large wool-shed. Settlers with their wives and families from Mount Roskill, Avondale and Auckland, to the number of about 150 [here, the number needs to be confirmed, the copy of the paper filmed was creased at this point - note], sat down to an excellent tea, including all the delicacies of the season, to which ample justice was done. After tea speeches were delivered by the chairman (Mr. J. Greenwood), and Messrs Bollard and James Walters, after which an entertainment was given by the local talent of the district named, consisting of instrumental music, songs, recitations &c., in a very pleasing manner. At about ten o’clock the large room was cleared for dancing for a few hours, when everybody wended their way home in their various traps and on horseback, having thoroughly enjoyed themselves, and wishing success to Messrs. Gittos and Greenwood in their new industry.

Mr. Francis Gittos, of Messrs. Gittos and Greenwood, is one of the pioneers of the district, as twenty-five years ago with his father, he started the first tanyard in the district [here, the writer refers to the Benjamin Gittos tannery beside Oakley Creek, from 1864]. Ever since that time he has been associated withy Mr. Bollard and others in every good work for the benefit of the district. The settlers wish himself and his partner every success in their new undertaking.

It is pleasing to note the activity of the Road Board in this district. They are building bridges and culverts, grading and forming roads, and preparing metal to lay on in all directions, under the able engineering skill of Mr. John Boylan, C.E.

The Blockhouse Bay and Avondale-Waterview Historical Societies have been appealing to Auckland City Council through the Avondale Community Board to re-name the Avondale South Domain to Gittos Domain, to stop confusion (Blockhouse Bay hasn't been Avondale South for over 60 years) and to honour not only Francis Gittos who had such a lot to do with the good of the community for both Avondale and the Bay, but also his family (father Benjamin, and brothers John, James, and Rev. William Gittos.) Up until late last century, Parnell Rise was called Gittos Street after Rev. Gittos. It's time the name returned to Auckland.

There has been a history of trying to get the Domain renamed since 1998. The Avondale Community Board endorsed the suggestion last month. Here's hoping the Council committee agrees.

Update: On 2 December 2009, Auckland City Council's Arts, Culture & Recreation Committee approved the renaming  of the Avondale South Domain to Gittos Domain.

Down at the Hall in Matamata district

Here's a piece I wrote about this book for NZ Legacy:

Matamata Historical Society have produced another of their informative books about their region: Down At The Hall: Celebrating Matamata Country Halls, by Joan Stanley. Country halls are landmarks for New Zealanders around the country, not just in terms of their familiar presence within our communities but also in terms of the history they represent, and what they have meant to generations over the course of time.

Joan’s book offers a lively glimpse, via the memories of those who used the halls or were associated with them, of the stories behind twenty-four halls. The recollections range from community socials, activities and movie showings, to examples such as the past life of Gordon Hall: once one of the local school buildings used as a base during the search and rescue operation for the 1963 DC3 Airliner crash in the Kaimai Ranges.

Cost: $20, plus $2 p&p within New Zealand

Available from:

Matamata Historical Society Inc, 12 Totara Ave,

Matamata 3400

Softcover, A5 size, 92 pages.

As an extra, Joan Stanley asked the Matamata-Piako District Council to send up a copy of their latest Heritage Trail booklet. If you're ever thinking of going to that district for a spell, get a copy ($5 from the district council). It is an extremely well-written and well laid out information booklet which highlights the heritage of the district well. Needless to say, Joan worked hard contributing toward it, as well.

Hotel scene traffic control box art

 

The Naval and Family Hotel at the corner of Pitt Street and Karangahape Road in Newton has been going a long time. Outside, the control box artist decided to reflect what happens within. The artwork is looking a bit sad, the worse for wear with tagging and posters applied then ripped away, but it's holding its own. Apologies for the bluriness of the last shot -- the box is very near the kerb, and the intersection is a very busy one. Your humble photographer decided to play it safe ansd take a photo from the other side of the street.

 

 

 

A "Sellebration" of old ads from Kiwi telly days past

Check out the NZ Film Archive website, and their "Sellebration" collection of old telly ads. Even though I'm only of 1963 vintage myself -- I still recognised quite a few of the 1960s ones. Off now to watch the 1970s batch.

Still more old photos

Following on from the previous post.

 

 

I'd love to know the location of these four photos following. Cadets marching on an airfield? Any suggestions most welcome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Old photos (again)

Two old photo albums were waiting for me in my letterbox this last week. The following photos can't be classed as "lost", really, as I know which family they came from (a West Auckland clan) -- but many of the faces and locations are lost to time.

These two (above) caught my attention. The dangers of a high and frisky wind while trying to get a good shot. Not sure if they came from the same day (or involved the same hat), but they might have.

I'dc say the way the two women are well rugged up, along with the wee kiddy, and said kiddy may well have been in the midst of complaining about posing so long in the cold.

The photos are in many cases in quite a sad state. Here's one example of a before, and after I did some adjusting. More following.