Two domes in Beresford Square

Just off Pitt Street and close to Karangahape Road, on the edge of Freeman's Bay, two domes serve as landmarks for passing traffic and pedestrians. I've often wondered about them.

They feature here in a mid 1920s photo by William Archer Price (image from Wiki Commons). The three distinctive buildings are, from left: men's quarters extension to first Pitt Street fire station (1912), the Auckland Gas Company showrooms building (1923-1924), and the rest of the first Pitt Street fire station (1902). Of the three, only the 1902 building has been altered markedly. Another view can be seen at the Auckland Library's site. You can see its current appearance here. It is, apparently along with the Beresford Square building, registered by NZ Historic Places Trust as Category I. Not the Gas Company building, though. One thing I notice with the NZHPT registration entry is that they keep referring to a date as 1912 for construction, and only have an image the Beresford building, not the Pitt Street Building. I checked with Council Archives  yesterday-- according to the valuation streets for Pitt Street, and apparently the fire brigade's own records, the Pitt Street building was erected 1902, at a cost of £9583 (pricey, but there would have been more than one building on the site, perhaps.) The men's quarters at Beresford Street cost £5528 in 1912.

The Auckland Gas Company in 1923 were fighting to keep their market share, no longer a monopoly as an energy supplier with the introduction of electricity to the city. The formation of the Auckland Electric Power Board in 1922 may have been the incentive to have their showrooms here on the corner of Pitt Street and what was then Beresford Street -- close to K'Road, and major public transport routes. I'm still trying to see if I can find out the original architect for this building. So far, scans of the plans on aperture cards at Auckland Council archives show a name "John Anderson [illegible], Ferry Buildings, 24/11/1923". I'll work on it and put up an update when I have further information.

According to the Karangahape Road Heritage Walks booklet (.pdf online), this was called Wembley Buildings. "It is said that the Auckland Gas Company refused to have electricity in this building which, if true, must have made it one of the last buildings in New Zealand ever fitted with gas lighting."

Number One, Beresford Square, the 1912 extension to the Pitt Street fire station. According to this site, it was designed by architects Goldsbro' and Wade. Quite possibly (although I'd love to see the documentation): another credited to that partnership is the Marine Workshops Building in Quay Street, and the Ponsonby Fire Station.

In November 1944 the total fire station site, fronting both Beresford Street and Pitt Street, was sold then gifted, via Sir Frank Mappin to the Order of St John, and became the Auckland central ambulance station. According to the late Graeme Hunt in his book First to Care, 125 Years of the Order of St John in New Zealand (2010), Mappin was a serving brother and later knight of the order. The ambulance station opened in 1945, and from 1977 was home to the National Ambulance Officers' Training School, funded by a Telethon held two years earlier. The school operated from 1978. A new ambulance station was built further down Pitt Street in 1995, and the old buildings had new uses. The Pitt Street building is now the base for a flower merchant, and the Beresford Street side professional offices.

Back to the corner. This image (another by William Archer Price and likely taken at the same time as the other period shot above) shows one of the early bus services to Avondale and Blockhouse Bay in the 1920s. I'm not sure which one yet. Interestingly, this corner remained as a bus stop right through to 1964, as shown by this detail below of an image from Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Library (used here with kind permission).

Not for much longer beyond the date of this photo, though.

 

Today, the motorway scythes across Beresford Street, blocking the Pitt Street end from Freeman's Bay. Access today is via Pitt, Day and Hopetoun Streets. In 2002, according to the library's streets database, the eastern-most end off Pitt was remained Beresford Square (two other parts, beyond the motorway, are called Beresford Street Central and Beresford Street West.

The Costley Ward Time Capsule revisited

Back in December last year, I did a post on the memorial to the Costley Ward time capsule at Auckland City Hospital. Sandy posed the question in the comments: "I wonder what was in the time capsule?"

Bless your cottoned socks, Sandy. Just keep those questions coming. It may seem that I forget about folk's questions (and at times, yes, I need a short sharp nudge with a pointy thing to remember), but this time, I have the info.

From the NZ Herald, 2 December 1993:

More than 150 former nurses, doctors and modern-day health officials watched as the lead capsule was opened. Inside was a New Zealand Herald dated July 11, 1898; a handful of coins, and a parchment scroll detailing the bequest made by Mr Edward Costley which funded the building, the names of the hospital board members, and the names of the architect and builder  ... Once the capsule contents have beenn photographed, they will be resealed in another container with 1993 memorabilia and buried in a memorial to be built on the hospital site.

So, the time capsule still exists, and is under the memorial? Only time will tell ...

I must say the Costley Building time capsule fared way better than the one for St Paul's ...

Old cinema sign re-emerges in K'Road

Image from Wikipedia.

The Norman Ng Building in Karangahape Road has undergone a refit. For decades last century it was a fruit and vege shop. I knew it as the Brazil restaurant in the 1990s, then it was a hamburger place -- and now Theatre Cafe. The refit is wonderful -- the arched ceiling is revealed inside once more and outside is in the process of being done up as well.

Then, I noticed something behind all the scaffolding.

This would be the point where anyone accompanying me at the time would see me gape, then point with shaking finger, "See that? See it? That's an old Fuller's Cinemas sign!"

This narrow little building started out in 1925-1926 as the Karangahape Entrance for the Prince Edward Cinema in Pitt Street south, around the corner (the cinema proper became known as the Mercury Theatre, and the street as Mercury Lane).  According to Jan Grefstad in his unpublished Auckland Cinemas (2002), John Fuller & Sons opened the original King's Theatre in 1910. Ben and John Fuller continued to operate the cinema from 1922. In 1926, and American showman named Bud Atkinson "looked at the King's Theatre and diagnosed why it was not doing spectacular business; it had no entrance on Karangahape Road. Plans were prepared by April for an elaborate. marble-tiled entrance, a long corridor opening into a lounge foyer."

From the Auckland Star 15 July 1926:

Chief among the alterations is a new entrance which gives direct access to Karangahape Road.  The general trend of the new entrance is extremely artistic. The price paid for the land for this entrance was £15,000. Two short flights of steps lead to an upper and lower foyer both of which have been lavishly furnished ...

 From the NZ Herald, 12 July 1926:

Have a careful look at the new entrance on Karangahape Road. If you find that the splendour of this beautiful edifice has been overstated do not buy a ticket because maybe we would be equally untruthful about the quality of the entertainment we promise to provide ...

The cinema became the Playhouse from 1948, which was closed by Kerridge in December 1967 and completely altered to become the Mercury Theatre in 1968.

The Karangahape Road entrance was sold off as separate title and became the Norman Ng fruit shop According to historian Helen Wong, the shop was "said to be the only fruit shop with a marble floor." The fruit shop closed in the early 1990s.

Part of an old floor preserved

One of my discoveries today on a day basically spent rambling through history from Karangahape Road to Parnell and then down to near the Auckland waterfront, is this: Levy's Building, corner Commerce Street and Customs Street East.

There is information on the building, which dates from 1896-1897, at the Heritage New Zealand site (it has a Category II registration).

But, what makes this building the subject of a post here, is this:

Set in the beautifully polished floor of the Lonely Dog Gallery on the ground floor, is a remnant, specially conserved and preserved, of blocks of wood which made up part of the floor of the original 19th century warehouse which was once here. The gallery staff member on duty today very kindly gave me permission to take a photograph (it's at an odd angle because I was trying not to get any of the art on display in the shot, and therefore infringe copyright.)

To access the display, go into the gallery (oohh and aahh over the art, it's quite beautiful -- check out the YouTube link), turn left at the entrance, and you'll see the inlaid case in the alcove there.

The sign in the case reads, in part:

The blocks in this case are made from the wood of the Kauri tree ... and were once part of the floor laid in a warehouse that occupied this building in thev late 1890s.

Gilmore, Younghusband & Co, tea merchants, leased  the Levy Building for over twenty years (1897-1918) ...

The Levy Building's Art Deco facade (refurbished in 1934) disguises the building's original appearance as it stood in the commercial hey-day of this part of Auckland City. Erected in 1897, the perimeter walls are of unreinforced brick masonry, typical for the era and purpose for which it was built.

The blocks are the only known remnants of this kind of flooring to have found in the city ... When found in late 2005 many of the kauri cobbles had sustained major structural damage caused by the intermittently damp ground conditions at the site. Conservation work was carried out in 2006 at the University of Auckland ...

Demise of the herons

My apologies for the blurred image -- shot this afternoon from inside a moving bus. This is the intersection of Blockhouse Bay and Great North Roads, at the boundary between Avondale and Waterview. Heron Park is to the right of the photo -- just about the only part of the scene still reflecting on the local herons and their habitat here, with the demise of the former painted control box. That's the replacement in the centre, between the traffic lights and the street sign.

Paul from Auckand-West blog earlier alerted me in the comments section of the previous post on the previous control box.  I rang Auckland Council, and found out from them that the box had been replaced on 5 December 2010 during a planned upgrade, as the old box wasn't big enough. Actually, I think the reason  could also be because Auckland City, since the Super City amalgamation, now appear have a new contractor for their traffic control systems. It isn't CSL any longer -- I'm not sure who it is, but there's a different logo.The new box doesn't seem all that drastically bigger than the previous box.

I know mural art is transitory, but ... Anyway, here's the lesson, from ol' Timespanner folks: PHOTOGRAPH THE PUBLIC ART. You never know when, overnight, it may just simply vanish, as if it never was.

The art was by Doug Ford (thanks for the info, Paul.)

Chris McDowall's animated map of Auckland's public transport network

I felt this was worth linking to -- helps answer the question I often get from folks as to how I manage to get around Auckland without a car ...

The animated map.

Too many John Campbells

No, I'm not talking about the one who is probably New Zealand's most famous present-day John Campbell. It's the historic ones who make me sigh deeply.

Back in 2007, I was asked to pull together a quick broad-brush summary of the developmental history of the early North Shore of Auckland. This meant gathering information which appeared sound enough, but to do so quickly. One of the sources I found at the Auckland Research Centre in the Central Library was Ralph Johnson's “The Conception and Birth of North Shore Suburbs from Mother Auckland in the Nineteenth Century”, an RCJ Stone research topic, 1991 (unpublished). In it, it repeated an oft-told story how the original surveyors of the North Shore's Mahurangi Block from Maori in 1841 was Alan O'Neil and ... John Logan Campbell. And I fell for it.

John Logan Campbell, "Father of Auckland" and dozens of other claims to fame here in the region,  was  a lot of things but not a surveyor. Johnson got the guff from earlier borough anniversary books from the North Shore, which in turn probably came from assumptions that the most famous John Campbell must have been the only one here, so he had to have been the one ...

I don't mind finding out I got things wrong. It's galling, sure, but finding out the right information makes up for it. Trouble is -- there are too many John Campbells.

I've found three possibles. None of them have any hard-and-fast evidence attached to them saying "yes, he's the one."

John Campbell No 1.

This one has the most going for him as the John Campbell surveying in Auckland in 1841 -- but it isn't known whether he was up here, or whether he came in as part of the New Zealand Company settlements around Wellington. He died early, as well.

At Wellington, on the 2nd instant, John Campbell, Esq., formerly of Edinburgh, aged 29. Mr. Campbell was originally bred to the profession of the Law, but having emigrated to New Zealand, he was employed as a Surveyor by the Local Government, for which his scientific acquirements particularly fitted him. Subsequently he was appointed Protector of the Aborigines at Taranaki, and it is much to be regretted that the liberal and enlightened views which he entertained as to the relative position of the European's and Natives, and his anxious wish to promote the interest of both, have been frustrated by his premature death. He was much respected by all who knew him; his funeral was attended by most of the officials connected with the Government and the New Zealand Company, and upwards of a hundred Natives.

NZ Gazette & Wellington Spectator, 15 November 1843

John Campbell No. 2

This one could be one man, and it might even be two. On the plus side, he was documented in Auckland in 1849 (New Zealander, 10 March). On the minus side, the next reference is to a John Campbell, surveyor, dying in a hotel in 1866.

John Campbell, a surveyor, fell down while standing at the bar of the hotel where he was residing on August 27 and died shortly after. It was found that serous apoplexy was the cause of death.

Southern Cross 1 September 1866

You start to realise as well, after reading of the John Campbells through Auckland's early history who seem to feature prominently in the court reports for drunkenness and larceny -- why John Logan Campbell held on to that middle name of his.

John Campbell No. 3

This one left behind a will attached to his property records that is so detailed (because he was concerned pretenders might crop up claiming a share of his estate due to made-up familial connection) that he essentially included his genealogy in the document, along with all the long list of property he held in this country.

This is the Last Will of me, John Campbell in the Supreme Court of the Town of Auckland in the Colony of New Zealand, [illegible], and I do hereby revoke all wills by me made heretofore. I employ the term “will” in this instrument as extending to and including every kind of testamentary disposition whereas there are many persons of the name of Campbell, my surname, and it may happen after my decease that persons bearing that name but not related to me by consignment, or affinity and of whose existence I have no knowledge may appear claimed to be legatees or devisees upon this my will. I do hereby make the following statement touching my family and relatives (none of whom are now in this Colony in order that no persons may derive any interest as such legatees or devisees [illegible] and [illegible] only the several persons for whom the same is intended.

That is to say my father John Campbell was a small farmer and the son of a small farmer and was domiciled in the townland of Coole in the Parish of Clonol (?) in the County of Tyrone in that part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland called Ireland. He has been many years dead. The farm which he rented in the said townland belonged I believe to the Earl of Blessington and the townland itself formed according to report a part of the “Mountjoy Estate”. My mother Elizabeth Campbell was the daughter of Matthew Campbell and his wife Mary Lapin. My father was the son of Brien Campbell and Catherine Morris or Maurid, commonly called Kate McMaurrish. Whether Brien or Bernard was the Christian name of the said Brian Campbell I cannot say but he was called and best known by the said name of Brian Campbell and his mother whose maiden name was Develin was the author of some ballads and other poetical productions in the Irish language. The mother of the said Kate McMaurrish was the daughter of one McRory and the mother of the said Matthew Campbell, the father of my mother was the daughter of one Ottagan, and the mother of the said Mary Lapin was the daughter of one Woods.

My father was twice married, first to my mother the said Elizabeth Campbell, and secondly to Bridget Hagen, a widow, whose maiden name had been Bridget Cory. By his marriage with my said mother Elizabeth my father had four sons and one daughter, namely Bernard Campbell, myself John Campbell, Neal Campbell, Matthew Campbell and Mary Campbell. My said brother Bernard died about the age of fifteen years, and my said sister Mary died about the age of two years. My said two brothers Neal and Matthew are, I believe, now living.

In the month of February, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-three, when I left Coole aforesaid to enter into the service of the ordinance survey at Dungannon in Ireland aforesaid, my said brother Neal was married and had one son named John Campbell. My said brother Matthew married since I left Coole aforesaid. After my return [illegible] for Australia in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-one. One Catherine McGuinness and both he and his said wife Catherine visited this colony about the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-two whence after a residence of about five months they returned to Ireland. They had no children there nor have I heard of their having had any since.

By his marriage with the said Bridget Hogan my father had but one child, a son named Thomas Campbell.

I left my father’s house at Coole aforesaid in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-three to enter as aforesaid into the service of the ordinance survey of Dungannon aforesaid under one Captain George Dalton, and upon my retiring from such service in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty, I was serving in the division of one Lieutenant Beatty. I left Coole aforesaid for Sydney in New South Wales by way of London about the month of April one thousand eight hundred and forty-one and I arrived in Sydney aforesaid in the ship “William Turner” in the month of October. Thence next moving in the early part of the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-two, I left Sydney aforesaid in the ship “Challenger” for Auckland aforesaid where I landed in the month of February in the same year, and permanently settled. In the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty, I sailed from this colony in my own schooner the “Sir John Franklin” for California, whence I returned after an absence of about thirteen months by way of New South Wales aforesaid.

My said half-brother Thomas Campbell entered into the service of the said ordinance survey in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-four or in the year thence next ensuing, and upon my retiring therefrom at the time aforesaid he was serving [illegible] under the said Lieutenant Beatty.

My said father John Campbell and his said father Brien Campbell were also commonly called and known by the names of John Gealtha and Brien Gealtha respectively, a cognomen given according to tradition to the members of our family ever since the time that Gealtha Gooth, one of its ancestors (and the Galgarius of Tacitus) an Irish general, repulsed the Roman legions commanded by Agricola at the foot of the Grampian Hills in Caledonia towards the close of the first century ...

And only then did he talk about who was going to get what and why.

His main estate here in Auckland, Campbellville, was bounded by Wallace Street, Jervois Road, Shelly Beach Road and the Waitemata Harbour. He's on the list only because, yes, in Ireland he served during the ordinance surveys there -- but that doesn't make him a surveyor, and by the time he got here, he was effectively retired. He was, though, quite wealthy, a good Catholic, and had a lot of problems trying to keep pleasure-seeking, pheasant-hunting, shell-gathering and Christmas pohutukawa blossom-nabbing Aucklanders off his land.

Southern Cross 18 March 1862

Dog Nuisance.
John Campbell, of Campbellville, Shelly Beach, was charged with a breach of the 14th clause of the Dog Nuisance Act, by suffering a dog to attack a boy named Thomas White, on Shelly Beach on the 21st instant. The Commissioner of Police put in the Gazette proclaiming the boundary.

Thomas White deposed : I saw defendant on Sunday, the 21st instant, about half a mile from Shelly Beach — this side of it. George and John Hunter was with me. We were coming round the beach. The tide was out. Mr. Campbell called us and we waited until he came up; he had a dog with him, I cannot say it was his dog. He struck me and the dog flew at me, tore my trousers and knocked me down. The dog did not bite me; he took the buttons off my waistcoat with his paws. Mr. Swailes came round the beach, and Mr Campbell left off beating us and the dog went away with him. The dog went up the hill with Mr. Campbell and lay down on the verandah of Mr. Campbells house.

Cross-examined by defendant: The dog was a brown one about eighteen inches high. The dog threw me down before you struck me.

George Edward Hunter deposed: I know the last witness. I live in Victoria Quadrant. On last Sunday week I was walking towards Shelly Beach with the last witness and my brother John Hunter. We had been round the point, and coming back, when within 40 or 50 yards of Mr. Campbell s place, he called after me; he had a brown dog with him; the dog flow at Thomas White and tore his trousers and some buttons off his waistcoat, and pulled him down on his knees. When Mr. Campbell went away the dog followed him up to his house. The dog afterwards came out of the house with another man.

Examined by defendant : l am not aware that I had been on your ground. We did go inside a fence to get a drink at the well. I am sure that White was not climbing up the pohutukawa tree. I saw White fall by the dog. You struck me first and then I got out of the way. I did not run a way to the far end of the beach. I did say I would summon you. I do not know that White fell himself upon the slippery rocks.

Corporal Smith deposed: I know Mr Campbell’s residence; it is within the boundary of the Dog Nuisance Act.

The same defendant was then charged with assaulting the same witness by striking him with a stick. He admitted that he beat the boy with a rod, and complained that his property was trespassed on and the trees injured. He was at great expense to preserve his trees, and the boys would not give their names so he beat them. He was sorry he did not give the big boy more, and also sorry he gave the complainant so much.

The Court said that, although the dog might not have been defendant's, it being in his care at the time he was liable for its acts. He was fined 40s. and costs; and in the second case— the assault— he was also fined 40s. and costs, or fourteen days' imprisonment.

Southern Cross 30 December 1862

Southern Cross, 11 November 1865

Mr. Thomas Batts, of Springbank, writes complaining of the treatment he received on Christmas Day from Mr. Campbell, of Shelly Beach. Mr. Batts admits that he was trespassing on Mr. Campbell's paddock, and that he had his wife and children with him, but he states that he had been led to believe that the public had a right of way. From our correspondent’s statement, it would seem that he was undeceived in a very menacing manner. However, there is this much to be said, that Mr. Campbell suffers much about holiday times from trespassers breaking and destroying his shrubs and young trees, and we dare say his patience was pretty well exhausted when he encountered Mr. Batts. Indeed, we know that there has been a great deal of wanton mischief done to Mr. Campbell’s property; and it is difficult for anyone in his position, at all times, to draw the line as to who should be courteously received and who should not.

Southern Cross 28 December 1867

THANKS. THE LADY SUPERIOR of the NAZARETH INSTITUTION (for Natives and Half-castes) desires to return THANKS to Mr. J. C. CAMPBELL, who presented that Institution with an Acre of Ground at Shelly Beach, for building purposes. Mr. Campbell on a former occasion laid another institution under similar obligation.

Southern Cross 13 January 1870

Southern Cross 25 March 1871

The funeral of the late Mr. John Campbell, of Shelly Beach, took place yesterday, and was followed by no less than 300 citizens. The body was interred in the Roman Catholic Cemetery, Symonds-street. The Rev. Father Norris read the funeral service at the grave very impressively, and the Rev. Fathers W. McDonald and Golding also took part in the obsequies.

Southern Cross 30 October 1871

His estate was subdivided up c.1874, although his Pt Erin land (he named it after his home island of Ireland) has remained more or less intact -- as a public reserve. Some of the street names dating from the time have remained: Wallace, Sarsfield, Curran, Emmett. Others though were changed around 1883:

Washinton Street - now Jervois Road
Fingal and Nial Streets - now Shelly Beach Road
Grattan Street - now Sentinel Road
O'Connell Street -- now Hamilton

But -- this still doesn't help sort out just which of these John Campbells surveyed the Mahurangi Block.

Sigh.

Chaos in the Milk Zones

My mother once ran a dairy in Taylor Street, Blockhouse Bay (called the "Bounty Dairy") in the early 1960s. She told me of a day when she apparently ran out of milk before 3pm (the deliveries happened after 4 o'clock) and a customer, irate that when she popped in to buy a pint between 3 and 4 she found Mum had sold out, went off and complained to some authority -- perhaps Auckland City Council -- that Mum had breached her milk selling licence. I don't think Mum was fined or anything. Just told, in no uncertain terms, that to run out of milk before 4pm was something One Did Not Do.

I grew up in the mid to late 1960s to 1970s. To me, it seemed that you always just went along to the local corner dairy, or  put out tokens for the neighbourhood mobile milk vendor, and picked up a bottle of moo that way. It never entered my head that milk distributrion and supply would be so strictly regulated, and so Mum's story always sounded surreal.

One thing about local history study: the longer you stick at it, and the more you read and listen, things that seemed surreal to the contemporary mind soon become "ah ha!" moments.

Yes, indeed, milk was regulated, from cow's teat through to the corner dairy counter, here in Auckland. From 1934, actually, when the first Auckland Metropolitan Milk Act came into effect.

Auckland Milk Council. 

The appointment of the milk council provided for in the Auckland Metropolitan Milk Act is expected to proceed shortly. Advice is awaited from the Minister of Industries and Commerce (the Hon. J. G. Cobbe), who is required to confer with the interests to be represented on the council, and then to make recommendations to the Governor-General, who will make the appointments, says the "Herald." The legislation provides for the establishment of a council to organise and control the distribution and sale of milk in the metropolitan district. Although the members of the first council will be appointed, elections will be held to select subsequent members. Those elections will be held every two years, in February, the first one taking place in February, 1935. On and after a date to be fixed by the council it will not be lawful for any person or corporation to sell milk in the district, to deliver milk in the district, to bring into the district for use, consumption, or sale milk purchased outside the district, or to be in possession of milk for sale in the district, except under licence issued by the council.

Evening Post 9 January 1934

Alec Brown's book Town Milk: A History of Auckland's Town Milk Supply (1992) gives a detailed account of the history of the major suppliers, along with the history of regulation and legislation around the supply of milk. Very briefly, the regulations were revised, amended, adjusted in an almost dizzying series of moves from 1934. The basic aim was to ensure a steady supply of milk to the consumers in the region.

In November 1936, in the days of milk straight from the can by dipper off the back of the milk cart, zoning for vendors was introduced on the North Shore, Avondale and Blockhouse Bay. The result on day one on the North Shore must have been a bit of free entertainment for those witnessing what happened.

All was not so quiet in the milk zone on the North Shore this morning. The first trial of the new zoning system of milk delivery, initiated by the Auckland Milk Council, was being made, and for a while everything went swimmingly. Then a horse bolted -- and in one area at least drama broke the routine.

That was in Ewan Street, Jutland Road, Hauraki Road, Lake Road area of Takapuna. Here two horse floats were in operation on the delivery. Suddenly one of the horses, working Lake Road, took fright, raised its head and its hoofs, and was off. Down Lake Road it tore, the float swaying and jolting behind it, and the driver in late, but hot, pursuit. Rounding the corner into Hauraki Road, the pace was at its hottest, and the horse was still heading the field. But a ten-gallon can here broke its moorings, and in a clatter of can on the road the milky flood spread in a cumulating flow to the gutter.

A motor car had joined in the race, and with skill the driver, in the outside position, was endeavouring to cut across the horse's path. The horse swerved, and in a moment another can had emptied its contents. A case of bottled milk was sliding towards the tailboard and was threatening to join the rout when at last a pursuer caught up, mounted the float, and brought the quivering horse to a stop.

Here was trouble for the delivery man. Already running late, owing to the didfficulties of taking over a new round of customers, the delivery was further delayed, and in some houses the morning's milk did not come home until 8.30 or nearer nine o'clock. Many householders were caught unprepared, and colour was added to the drama by the number of pyjama-clad men and dressing-gowned women who made their way, jug or billy in hand, to the nearest dairy in search of a cow or its product.

There was one household, at least, where trouble had been expected, and its pessimism was rewarded when the tinned milk was produced amid general "I told you so!" congratulations. A dairy in that vicinity sold out, and unavailing pleas were made by the shopkeeper to a passing milk lorry driver for further supplies.

Apart from the incidents in that territory, it is stated that everything proceeded satisfactorily. Though in most cases the milk arrived at the usual time, there were cases of delay owing to the difficulties experienced by roundsmen in covering new rounds, without first-hand knowledge of where each particular container was kept, or which was the right entrance to houses.

A number of residents in Devonport and Takapuna expressed themselves as satisfied -- though there were a number of protests, too, at the introduction of the new system. Two inspectors from the milk council watched proceedings, and they said afterwards that everything went as well as was expected for the first day.

Auckland Star 28 November 1936

The milk vendor and the corner dairy reigned supreme in New Zealand until deregulation in the 1980s -- in fact, supermarkets were specifically forbidden to sell milk, and compete with the vendors, until 1986. Price controls came off in 1993, but by then only a third of customers still used the milk vendors for their daily supply. Over the next few years, the milk carts (by then motor trucks, of course, many with distinctive horn sounds to summon the customers to their letterboxes each night) faded into our history.

Genesis of Crown Lynn

The following comes from the NZ Herald, 3 September 1941. It's one of those things I picked up a while back, and tucked away -- then wondered where the heck I put it! Well, it's now found, and here it is: part of the genesis of the famous Crown Lynn brand. This report might have been read by those at the time as being just another rah-rah piece on local industry and how wonderful we do things here in Enzed, but, in context, this is a snapshot which led on to so much more.

PORCELAIN LINES

LOCAL ENTERPRISE

PRODUCTION IN AUCKLAND

WIDE EXPANSION PLANNED

With the growing scarcity of imported porcelain the provision in Auckland of plant for its manufacture on a considerable scale and using entirely New Zealand materials is of wide interest. As the culmination of four years' research and experiment, the porcelain department of the Amalgamated Brick and Pipe Company Limited at New Lynn is now manufacturing a limited range of fine earthenware goods and is planning many other lines.

The enterprise can claim to be a local one in every sense of the word. The clays are all of New Zealand origin, obtained after lengthy search from many parts of the Dominion and blended according to the product being made. The stains and glazes have been developed from local materials to suit the clays being used. The designing is all done on the spot. The plant has been built from local designs with local materials.

For about two years the company has been mnanufacturing electric porcelain and many similar products -- switches, insulators, radiator bars, stove plates and the like -- by pressure and kiln treatment with the aid of hardened steel dies manufactured on the premises, but the making of such articles as basins, mixing bowls, egg cups and jugs has only recently started.

For this work the only tunnel kiln in Australia or New Zealand has been built. The shaped clay, which has been blended, mixed, dried, pressed, cut and turned, passes slowly through this kiln in a never-ending stream at a temperature of 1240 degrees centigrade, and after glazing passes again through the kiln to emerge a finished product.

The local staff which has developed the process has aimed throughout at independence from overseas sources. Plant is being extended with all possible speed to keepm pace withn the demand. Experiment and research are bering pushed ahead continuously and facilities are now available for rapid extension in the number of lines manufactured as soon as the pioneering work is completed. It is hoped within six to nine months to be producing hotel and restaurant ware.

What went before

Valerie Ringer Monk, in her book Crown Lynn: A New Zealand Icon (2006) traced the origins back to Rice Owen Clark and the drain pipes he made from local clays to drain a boggy farm he'd bought up at Hobsonville in the 1890s. By 1906 his factory was turning out salt-glazed garden pots and urns, bread pans and storage jars. The Hobsonville works closed in 1925 when the Clark family centralised their operations at New Lynn with the NZ Brick, Tile and Pottery Company, before setting up Amalgamated Brick and Pipe Company from 1929.

During the 1930s, in order to diversify from just straight-out brick manufacture (and therefore help insulate the company's fortunes from the winds of worldwide economic gloom), Thomas Edwin Clark snr. began investigating ways to manufacture tiles. From tiles, as electricity supply increased to New Zealand homes and demand for insulated goods grew, the factory constructed at the New Lynn site for tile manufacture began to turn out radiator bars, ceramic stove elements, radio parts, and insulators for power poles and electric fences. By 1940, according to Monk, there were six men employed at the ceramics factory.

The Second World War mean restricted access to imported goods -- and the New Lynn facility was in the prime position of supplying even more of a need to the market.

What came after

In the period after the Herald article, Pearl Harbor meant the stationing of units of the American military forces here -- and they required truck loads of vitrified porcelain, thick and solid and robust enough to do the job. The New Lynn factories went into mass production around 1943, producing tens of thousands of mugs and bowls for the war effort. The the New Zealand Government placed orders for what was to become a Kiwi icon, and much sought after: the NZ Railway cups. By the mid 1940s, the porcelain department of the Amalgamated works was named "Ambrico Ware", from the initials of the parent company. A new tunnel kiln was built in 1946/1947, remaining in use right through to the close of the works four decades later. By the beginning of 1948, Ambrico was the largest pottery in the Southern Hemisphere, with 300 workers producing six million pieces a year. In that year, Ambrico was renamed Crown Lynn by Tom Clark -- "Crown" for quality, and "Lynn" for the suburb where the enterprise had begun and was based.

Albert Crum’s New Zealand Brick, Tile & Pottery Company in New Lynn (1905-1929)

The New Lynn works. Image from a letterhead held in the J T Diamond collection, Waitakere Central Library, Henderson

I started researching this because of the interest shown in the New Lynn brickworks managed by Albert Crum by the members of the NZ Pottery Forum. I suspect that this post will be updated as time progresses and more information comes to light.

The first NZ Brick, Tile and Pottery Company

There were at least two companies which operated under the grand name of the New Zealand Brick, Tile & Pottery Company, separated by around two decades and the colony’s geography, and not connected with each other in any other way at all. It may have been that when the second company was being put together, the name probably sounded suitable to adopt.

The original NZBT&P company was an amalgamation of four Canterbury firms: Walter Austin & Henry Bland Kirk earthenware and brickmakers in Sydenham, William Neighbours brickmaker, John Brightling (a night-soil contractor and gravel-pit owner) and James Goss (Canterbury Timber & Coal Depot).

“It appears the members of the abovementioned firms have taken up 350 £5 shares in addition to the 1177 paid-up shares which they have received for the purchase of their premises and stock-in-trade. A large number of shares have also teen subscribed for by the public, and applications for others are still coming in freely. By the amalgamation of the business of the four factories, the saving effected on the former cost of working will, it is estimated, be very considerable. Judging from their former experience, the members of the firms concerned have every confidence in the success of the undertaking.”

Christchurch Star, 1 February 1886

Initially, the new firm worked well, and made quite a splash at exhibitions.

“Industrial Association

The New Zealand Brick, Tile and Pottery Company had sent a collection of specimens, in various designs, of terra cotta, window and door arches, finials, garden vases, air bricks, string courses, brackets, &c, made from fire-clay and stone from the Port Hills ; also, some samples of a rich red colour, from the clay of the Malvern Hills. This handsome exhibit had been intended for the Indian and Colonial Exhibition, but had not been in time for it.”

Christchurch Star 15 April 1886

But, as with so major commercial initiatives during the Long Depression, especially new brickworks, their dream run came to an end. They tried for liquidation in 1890.

“This afternoon Messrs H. Matson and Co., associated with the National Mortgage and Agency Company, submitted by public auction, by instruction of Messrs C. Kiver and Joseph Jebson, the liquidators, the various properties in the estate of the New Zealand Brick, Tile and Pottery Company. Mr J. T. Matson acted as auctioneer, but no sale was effected. It was announced that the properties would be open for sale privately.”

Christchurch Star 12 July 1890

The Friedlanders

The next element to our story is that of the German-born Friedlander brothers of Ashburton. Hugo Friedlander and two of his brothers set up a store and dwelling “near the upper ferry of the Rangitata” by July 1872, and their business boomed. One brother, Max, became the proprietor of the Ashburton Guardian by 1881, the same year the brothers moved their store and started entering into the quarrying business at Mt Somers. This quarry they dubbed “Kolmar”, after the family’s original home in East Prussia (today’s Poland), and produced “Kolmar Stone”.

In January 1882, the brothers, Hugo, Rudolph and Max purchased the premises and brickworks of Montgomery & Co Ltd in Ashburton. (Christchurch Star, 25 January 1882, Ashburton Guardian 17 February 1990)

LOCAL INDUSTRIES.

KOLMAR BRICK AND PIPE WORKS.

[by our own reporter.]

In the young colonies of the Pacific, towns make progress so rapidly that affairs of even five years ago are matters of history. Specially so is this the case in a town like Ashburton, which, only twelve or thirteen years since, was little more than a patch of native tussock, surrounded by large tracts of land similarly covered. Thirteen years ago, Ashburton town and county seemed to have a bright future before them. The agricultural land, still unbroken and innocent of tillage, was rapidly going into the hands of men who either meant to make homes upon it for themselves and those dependent upon them, or to hold it until other men in want of land, on which to settle with the same object in view, should come along to buy at an enhanced figure.

It was in 1878 that a land ''boom" ensued in Canterbury which, although for a time it let loose much money in the district and enriched many people, brought ruin to some and disaster to many more. There are men in the county now who, although they have weathered the storm raised by the reaction that followed the "boom," are still suffering from the financial crippling they received during that time of reckless speculation, when men -- wild with an earth-hunger that could not be satisfied, and frenzied with a thirst for speculation that was only intensified and not assuaged by every fresh transaction—rushed to the crowded auction rooms, and bought land at prices far beyond the power of the soil to recoup. Men who had by hard toil earned the capital they invested, who knew land when they saw it, and could judge of its fertility—such men, in cases where they had sense not to be carried away by the prevailing panic, and paid only a reasonable figure for the land, in the market, had every chance to do well. Buying only enough to be worked by themselves, they started in true colonial pioneer style; building, often with their own hands, the rude whares in which they and their little families lived for a time, they practised economies of all sorts. An immense sum of money accrued to the Road Boards in the county from subsidies granted by Government out of the sale of Crown lands, and this money was devoted to the making of roads, and works of a like nature, throughout the country. Contracts for these works were taken by many of those who are now among our most stable farmers, and from the money so earned numbers were able to add a few more acres to their holdings, and to improve their farms by the erection of buildings and the execution of permanent works. But there were others who, with no practical knowledge of farming, no experience whatever of land or the capabilities of soil, rushed to the auction rooms, bought madly and badly, "improved," not wisely but too well and, when the time came for reckoning results, found that their ledgers did not tally to please their bankers. Then followed the usual trouble, and the land passed into the hands of other proprietors, sometimes without any " V.R. " announcement preliminary to an interview with Judge Ward; as often with 'an appeal to that officer to settle all-creditors' claims with a dash of his pen. How much in the pound that dash represented—lo, is it not written in the records of the Bankruptcy Court?

Roughly, the above is an outline of how the county was settled. The question was simply one of the man lasting: through who best knew his business, and who realised most clearly that wealth could not be reached with a hop, step and jump—that, to be successful as a farmer on the Canterbury Plains wanted both the will and the ability to work, and .that agricultural knowledge! must be in the brain of the possessor of a "Farmers' Dictionary," as well as within the boards of the manual. But for all this the county was settled with a great rush, and the town rose up with a most astonishing rapidity. The rush of farmers to the land necessarily drew on a rush of town business. Houses went up, almost in a night like Jonah's gourd, and many of them in the early time were let before the piles were laid.

Then was the builders' harvest: then was the demand for building material that has never since been equalled ; and then it was—in 1877 —that Mr Stephen Potter saw an opening for the establishment of a brick kiln. He was not the only one who ventured brick making; but he is the only one now engaged in the work in the county if we bar the private kiln on the Longbeach estate, managed by Mr Hillyer. The industry is one deserving notice, and we can hardly realise that one of such importance to townsman and, farmer alike has remained for so long unnoticed, at least to any extent, by either local or metropolitan press.

The Kolmar Brick and Pipe Works are situated on the North-east Town Belt, and are the property of Messrs Friedlander Bros. They were started in 1877 by Mr Stephen Potter, their present manager, on his own account. He was then working a kiln of the old Scotch fashion, but the then requirements of the district were such as to indicate to the managers of the now defunct Company of Montgomery and Co., that a brick kiln of greatly enlarged capacity would be necessary if the local demand was to be supplied from a local source. They bought out Mr Potter, who became their manager, and bought over his plant from his own section of land to that of the Company, which adjoined. When Montgomery and Co. wound up, Messrs Friedlander Bros, bought the whole of their Ashburton business, including the brick field, Mr Potter still remaining in charge. There are not many men in the Colony with the experience in his particular line that Mr Potter possesses. Trained in Staffordshire, that great pottery county, and working for the best part of his early manhood in Lancashire, he is acquainted with all the processes in brick, pipe, and tile work, whether in red ware, glazed, or fire clay.

THE KLIN

The kiln is the second that has been built on the site it now occupies. The first was an oblong structure, adopted contrary to Mr Potter's advice and, proving unsatisfactory, was pulled down. The present one is circular in form, and in the new well known German principle —a vast improvement on the old. process. By the German kiln there is no waste of heat, and a very much increased output of bricks or other red ware is rendered possible, with the minimum consumption of fuel. This circular kiln was built by Mr Potter himself, with the aid of the lads employed, and is of twelve "chambers," with a total burning capacity of 60,000 or 70,000 bricks.

For years the attention of the proprietors was almost wholly devoted to the manufacture of bricks, but as the farmers of the county troubled with wet land, began to find themselves financially able to attempt draining, a demand sprang up for red-ware drain pipes, and this demand Kolmar pipe works set about supplying. At the present moment three or four of the chambers of the kiln are full of 3-inch drain pipes, ready for burning, while long lines of newly moulded pipes of similar calibre are laid out in the sheds undergoing the drying process by atmospheric influence fit for the kiln.

THE YARD

The yard is on a block of fourteen acres, covering a stratum of clay admirably suited for the purposes of the works. In fact, a considerable area of the land in the immediate vicinity has good brickmaking clay quite near the surface; but the actual working yard is only six acres in extent—that is, only six acres are utilised. The clay is "got" at present between the mill race and the kiln, and in the "clay hole" the depth of the stratum is at once seen, a face of six or seven feet presenting itself to the visitor. The situation of the yard is such that on all sides water is available for tempering the clay, and several natural gullies and small creeks running through the land provide a natural drainage system for the clay holes. The raw material, after tempering, is carried on plankways to the "pug" mills, and thence to the brick moulders, who have their benches in the extreme corners of the extensive

DRYING SHEDS

There are benches for four moulders, and the sheds are large enough to store for drying all the bricks and pipes- the moulders could possibly turn out between "firings." The sheds are on either side of the kiln, and are in two sets of three: In length they run to 170 feet per shed by 17 feet wide, so that it will be seen there is plenty of ground roofed in from the weather.

PIPE MAKING

Of recent years the making of red ware drain pipes has become a specialty at the Kolmar, and perfect machinery for the purpose has been set up. "Dies" are there, capable of turning out pipes of almost any size, from a 2-inch to a 12-inch calibre, and in lengths from twelve inches up to two feet. Farmers who have been heard to growl about "sending money out of the place" have now no reason for complaint, when pipes equal in quality to any shown at the Christchurch show in November last—as the writer can bear testimony —are offered for sale at about the same price per thousand as bricks. At least £2 17s 6d was quoted by Mr Potter for 12-inch pipes of 12-inch lengths. Elbows, junctions, bends etc., for facilitating laying are also made so that a farmer can lay down his own system of drainage with the ordinary labor strength on his farm. Chimney pots of various kinds are also produced; and all sorts of rough red pottery. Even rustic firm vases for lawn and garden have been demanded and made at the works, along with paving tiles for dairy floors, baker's ovens, etc., and the sample of the latter shown by Mr Potter are a credit to him. The larger sized pipes, as indeed all the ware turned out, are of superior quality indeed, thanks to the excellent clay got from the land and the good workmanship of its manipulators. The demand for both bricks and pipes it would be a pleasure to see increased, so that the moulders should be always busy and the tall 70-feet chimney stalk of the kiln only cease smoking to admit of the chambers being emptied and refilled. The long stalk is a sort of landmark as it is to travellers, but it would be doubly so were its black throat always busy.

Ashburton Guardian 2 July 1890

The site of the Kolmar Brickworks was apparently originally owned by Henry John Tancred, in conjunction with a brother Sir Thomas Tancred and John Collins Allen in 1877 (Ashburton Guardian, 16 August 1978). H J Tancred limped and had blurred speech from wounds received as an officer in an Austrian Hussar regiment (Ashburton Guardian, 17 February 1990) although he was in fact born in 1816 on the Isle of Wight.

It should be again noted here that at no point was the Ashburton Kolmar yard involved with the Christchurch-based NZ Brick, Tile and Pottery syndicate.

The Crums

John Crum (1834-1918) was born in Monmouthshire, South Wales. It appears he arrived in New Zealand with his family in either 1878 (Ashburton Museum records) or 1875. One son, Albert (1863-1951, born in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire) was to feature prominently in the history of brickmaking in New Lynn – although, while his father was a mason by trade, Albert tried out other trades and skills, including chimney sweep in 1888. By October 1892, however, he was in business with his father as a mason and concrete contractor. In 1895, when the Friedlanders sold their Kolmar brickworks, John and Albert Crum were the purchasers.

Ashburton Guardian 31 May 1895

But still, Albert did some inventive dabbling on the side.

“An Ashburton Invention.

Mr Crum and another Ashburton resident are the inventors of an improved bicycle for which they are taking steps to obtain a patent. A machine on the lines of their invention has we see just been manufactured to their order by Messrs Curties and Co. of Christchurch, about which the Lyttelton Times furnishes the following particulars: The ordinary crank bracket, with cranks, chain wheel and chain are done away with, and two special quadrant pedal levers are arranged so as to rock up and down in arc of circle, instead of taking a complete revolution, as in the ordinary motion, thus obviating the dead centre. In operation, when one lever is pushed down, the cord pulls a clutch round, which grips and turns the driving wheel. By the connecting wire over the wheel the opposite clutch is wound backward, and, consequently, pulls up the other pedal lever ready for the next stroke. As the driving mechanism is independent of the wheel any length of stroke may be taken up to sixteen inches. By an ingenious contrivance, the taking of shorter strokes enable great leverage to be obtained for hill climbing and riding against head winds. For fast work full strokes are taken, which brings into play the longer axis of the quadrant. It is claimed that the machine is very suitable for ladies, as, apart from the advantages named, there is no danger of a lady cyclist tearing her dress owing to the pedalling being back and forth and not continuous.”

Ashburton Guardian 12 March 1896

The Kolmar Brickworks was renamed the Ashburton Brickworks, and the Crum family prospered. Albert Crum was even elected to the local Council in 1904.

In August 1905, however, Crum announced that he was leaving Ashburton to take up business in Auckland.

“Business Change.

Mr Albert Crum, who has been proprietor of the Ashburton Brickworks for many years, has sold the works, plant, stock, etc., as a Going concern to Messrs Crum Bros. and Dyhrberg, possession to be given on Monday. The purchase includes the concrete pipe making plant in Moore Street, and also the bricklaying business. Mr Albert Crum goes to Auckland in a few weeks' time to open a large brick tile and pipe making business on behalf of an influential company, of which he has been appointed manager, and in which he is largely financially interested. While we regret that Ashburton is losing a man of the proved business ability of Mr Crum, we trust he will be as successful in his business enterprise in Auckland as he has been here.”

Ashburton Guardian 12 August 1905

His business partner in the venture was Hugo Friedlander, whose family had survived the slight reversal of fortunes which caused the sale of the Kolmar works in 1895. Albert Crum and Hugo Friedlander may have had close business ties since that period, if not before. Now, with a golden opportunity arising in distant New Lynn, the partners took up a defunct business name, called their firm the New Zealand Brick, Tile and Pottery Company, and set off for northern climes.

New Lynn

1908 trademark. From NZ Gazette, 28 May 1908, p. 1580

According to Charles Gardner, in an address given in 1950 (JT Diamond collection, Waitakere Central Library, Henderson), recognising the value of the clay, especially with the establishment of the Gardners works across Rankin Avenue in 1901, a man named Charles Thomson, together with J Gardner and R O (Tonks) Gardner, started what was termed the No. 4 site in 1903 (according to a note from the Crum Collection, recorded by JTD in 1978) on what was a “decayed orchard”. This partnership didn’t work, however, and the site became part of that purchased in 1905 by Friedlander and Crum. Which part this was I’m unable to determine at this time (I might pay LINZ for a couple of application files to find out at some stage soon).

The New Lynn site for Crum and Friedlander’s NZ Brick, Tile and Pottery enterprise was in three sections, the other sections apparently purchased from Astley, Bethell and King (JT Diamond notes). 19 acres fronting onto Rankin Avenue (NA 132/249) was originally part of a farm owned in the 1880s by a chap named Foley.

Along with this, the partnership purchased 35 acres fronting Astley Avenue by 1906 (NA 131/207), and a 10 acre section fronting Clark Street, most likely from John N Bethell, at some point before the 1920s. (NA752/122)

Crum and Friedlander didn’t necessarily start from scratch. Both men had, of course, long experience with managing brickworks in Ashburton, and they certainly used their hometown resources. Ashburton suppliers like Reid and Gray were used (who tendered successfully for supply of the new brickworks’ boilers in September 1905). Ashburton brickmakers were recruited, such as Hugh Sargeant Barrett in 1908, who served as an engineer at the brickyard.

In December 1905, Crum wrote to the Brightside Foundry and Engineering Co Ltd in Sheffield, Yorkshire, ordering a brick press to imprint “Crum” on the bricks. It appears that he had dealt with the firm before, during his days with the Ashburton Brickworks.

“I may mention here that I am associated now with the NZ Brick Tile & Pottery Co Ltd, New Lynn, Auckland, and as regards this company’s bona fides I beg to refer you the National Bank of New Zealand here through their London office. The company named is just [illegible] erecting extensive works and hopes to have them in full swing in almost five months time.”

(Handwritten copy of letter, not original, on JT Diamond collection)

In February 1906, the following report was published in at least Wellington, and Christchurch.

According to Mr E Hartley, the retiring President of the Auckland Branch of the Architects' Institute, the Auckland-made bricks of to-day were not as good as they were 23 years ago, when the Victoria Arcade was built; they did not keep their colour as well, and were not as durable. This was a serious loss, both to the architects and the public, for it meant that they were constantly being driven back on the monstrous compo. It was lamentable and a disgrace to Auckland to think that if they wanted a good facing brick they had to send out of Auckland for it.

Evening Post 16 February 1906

To which Hugo Friedlander (it is believed) wrote the following response to the Auckland Institute of Architects, 16 February, on reading the report in the Christchurch Press:

“In justice to the brickworks I am connected with, I wish to say that the NZ Brick, Tile & Pottery Co at New Lynn will be in a position to supply when its works are completed as good a brick as ever was made in Auckland. It is, as a matter of fact, mainly due to the inferior quality of bricks which were being made in such an important centre as Auckland that the NZ Brick Co was floated. With an up-to-date plant that will run to something like £15,000 and a man in charge who has the undoubted reputation of being the “best brickmaker” in New Zealand there will be no difficulty to give every satisfaction to the members of your Association as regards the quality we shall supply."

(Handwritten copy of letter, not original, on JT Diamond collection)

The J T Diamond notes state:

“The New Zealand Brick, Tile and Pottery Co. Ltd under Crum’s 25 years’ management grew to its present great size and produced a wider range of glazed pipes, bricks, drain tiles and roof tiles than anything previously attempted in the North Island. Salt glazed bricks, now so well known in fireplaces were one of his innovations. The first big job to use these was the Auckland Boys Grammar School, Mt Eden. Glazed pipes were made here first about 1906 with George Holmes in charge.”

Progress, 1 March 1907 offers this description of the works:

“The works of the New Zealand Brick, Tile, and Pottery Company, New Lynn, Auckland, are being laid out with the intention of making them the most up-to-date plant of its kind in the southern hemisphere. Many New Zealanders will be surprised to hear of the extent of these works when completed. They stand upon 73 acres of land, and clay has been tested as far down as 150 ft. One machine is capable of turning out 100,000 bricks per day on the plastic system, of any colour that may be required; but though the machine has this large capacity, it is doubtful if the bricks can be removed in their plastic state as fast as the machine is capable of making them. The plastic system generally is not supposed to give such a perfectly formed brick as the various press machines, but this particular machine turns out bricks wonderfully true, square, and smooth.

"After leaving the machine they are dried by artificial heat in one day, and are then burnt and ready for market in about two weeks. The kiln is of the continuous kind, with a capacity of from 30 to 40 thousand daily; the draught is specially controlled and arranged in such a way as to be away from the workmen, making it much more pleasant to operate. Sanitary ware will be specialised, and very soon glazed bricks and tiles will be made. The larger kinds of pottery, as demi-johns, bread pans, sinks, etc., will be also made here. Fire-clay goods will constitute a fair percentage of the output, as a specially good clay is available. The abattoirs at Otahuhu are taking the first of the company's output.

"As artificial drying forms a feature in the process of manufacture, a large Hornsby steam boiler of 390 hp , working pressure 160 ft per sq in., is installed and supplies heat for artificial drying and steam for the engine, which is one of Tangyes' 105 hp.

"The managing director is Mr. Hugo Friedlander of Ashburton. Mr. A. Crum kindly showed our representative around, and we hope when these works are in regular running order to supply our readers with some views of them.”

The First World War may have been a challenge for Albert Crum. While he was a British citizen, his partner Hugo Friedlander, although probably naturalised, was viewed as an enemy alien. In Ashburton after the war, the Friedlander businesses shut down for good. 

 Ashburton Guardian 7 October 1919

It was difficult for businesses to operate in New Zealand during the war,if the proprietors were seen to be citizens of the German Empire – so, there is little wonder, then, that Friedlander’s part in establishing Crum’s brickyard has been downplayed over the years.

Added to that, business was also curtailed somewhat during the war years. During an appeal by Charles Gardner against being called up for war service in 1917, it was found:

“… there were no less than five firms carrying on the brick trade …Counsel had discovered that since the war, the firms engaged had found it necessary to curtail the output, and some had decided to close down certain of their works in common bricks with one exception – that of Gardner Bros. and Parker. The firms which had closed down were receiving a bonus as their share of the undertaking to close down.”

Poverty Bay Herald, 11 December 1917

Even so Jack T Diamond’s notes, taken from a note written in pencil in an exercise book from 1918, showing 1919 figures, has it that NZ Brick, Tile and Pottery produced 600,000 bricks, compared with 620,000 for Gardner's and 600,000 for J J Craig at Avondale (the other two were Lauries', 160,000, and Archibald's, 64,000).

In 1923, a quarter section, part of the original 19 acres fronting onto Rankin Avenue, was transferred from the company to Albert Crum himself (NA 291/293). Was this where he lived? There seems to have been small buildings on the site as late as 1940, but these were completely obliterated by 1959. Today, it’s all part of the Monier site.

The first moves towards the rise of the Amalgamated Brick & Pipe Company came in 1925, when Thomas Edwin Clark, from the Hobsonville works became a shareholder of NZ Brick Tile and Pottery. Before then, the company probably had just the partnership of Crum and Friedlander as major shareholders, and the name does not appear to have been registered back in 1905. When the old partnership liquidated to form the new company with shareholders they found that the registration was blocked, as the first NZBT&P company – yes, that one back in 1886 in Christchurch, with no connection to Crum or Friedlander – had not formally liquidated and therefore relinquished the name. This was just a slight hiccup, however. The Christchurch registration office did the paperwork, seeing as the first company had ceased operations around 35 years prior, and approval for the name NZ Brick, Tile & Potteries was finally and formally granted in July 1925. (File on the company, BADZ 5181 477, Archives New Zealand)

In 1928, just before the amalgamation, the scope of the employment at brickworks at New Lynn was as follows (from the JT Diamond notes):

Manager: James Sims Ockleston

Assistant Manager: Jack Albert Crum (Albert Crum’s son)

Burnt Pipe Dept: One foreman, seven workmen.

Unburnt Pipe Dept: One foreman, eight workmen.

Tile Dept.: One foreman, nine workmen

Claypit: One foreman, twelve workmen

Workshop: Four staff

Carpenters: Two.

Bricklayers: Two

Unburnt Brick Dept.: Fourteen staff

One engine driver

Two office staff

Burnt Brick Dept.: Eight staff

Two contract men in the brick dept.

Two crowders

Five draggers.

Evening Post 16 March 1929

After the amalgamation

With the amalgamation, of course, the name NZ Brick, Tile & Pottery faded away. Albert Crum set up his family, sons Gordon, Jack and Colin, with their own pottery business fronting onto Great North and Portage Roads in 1929, the Crum Brick, Tile & Pottery Co. This, however, was not without controversy. A deputation of ratepayers protested the granting of town planning approval by the New Lynn Borough Council in October that year.

“Mr. Putt … addressed the council. The petitions, he said, were not the outcome of any feeling of antagonism. Mr Crum was a most esteemed citizen of New Lynn and residents would never forget his generosity in the past, more particularly for his donation of land for road purposes in front of the school. ‘No one wants to see the pottery industry crushed in New Lynn, but we think such a heavy industry should be relegated to the correct quarters. It should be zoned, as far as possible, to the railway frontages.”

Mr Putt said it was proposed to erect the new works right at the gateway of New Lynn. Such a proposal should be opposed both from aesthetic and land value points of view. New Lynn would become a large residential district and they could look forward to the time when it would be a desirable place for middle-class people. If the only entrance to the borough was to be defiled by unsightly buildings, many residents would suffer, because properties would rapidly decrease in value …

Mr Crum, who was allowed to be present at the meeting, denied that land values would recede if the pottery works were erected. He had been offered an alternative side on the other side of the Whau Creek [this would have been in Avondale!], and if the council decided that the works would not be erected on the site intended, then they would be erected across the boundary in the city area.”

Auckland Star, 8 October 1929

The Borough Council, despite the opposition, granted Crum approval. (NZ Herald, 9 October 1929)

The works at Great North Road closed down in the late 1970s, around the same time as the Ashburton Brickworks, still run by members of the Crum family, put out the fires in their kilns for the last time.

My thanks to Ashburton Museum, Archives New Zealand, and the staff at the J T Diamond Reading Room, Waitakere Central Library at Henderson and the Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Central Library for their assistance with this research.