Street Stories 16: Joan Stumbles Ave, Sandy Bay

Updated and edited 18 February 2021

A comment received this week to this post on a sign at Constitution Hill set me on another exploration path:

This reminds me of the mysterious Joan Stumbles Avenue in Blockhouse Bay. Today it is a wide beach access walkway but it is listed on maps as a road and the fence alongside it implies there were once properties adjacent to it. 

 

Detail from Roll 46, c.1890, LINZ crown copyright

The accessway known today as Joan Stumbles Avenue (circled) is actually quite old, originating from the survey of the Parish of Waikomiti from the 1850s, and possibly laid out on paper around the time of the first enthusiastic plans were similarly prepared for the Whau River Canal projects which never came to be. The government had plans for what is now the suburb of Blockhouse Bay to be a grand settlement and port on the Manukau Harbour, a sister perhaps to the already established Onehunga at the other end. But, the canal never happened, and the Manukau Harbour's treacherous entrance which destroyed the HMS Orpheus, put paid to a lot of such grand schemes.

Detail from NA 5/37, LINZ crown copyright

The 1872 title by which the Crown passed the land overlooking Sandy Bay over to the Auckland Provincial Council tells us that, back then, Sandy Bay was called Whau Bay -- another example of the almost confusing way the names of the bays, coves and inlets along the northern foreshore of the Manukau Harbour have changed over time. It was granted as a public reserve, but of course, the Provincial System came to an end in this country in 1876. The commissioners of the Auckland Education District took over from 1905, and leased out sections for income.

Joan Stumbles Avenue is a sole survivor out of three other "roads" which have been legally stopped and transformed into reserve land over the years. Powditch Street was once drawn as coming off Gilfillan Street and heading as an angle down towards the beach, where it ran, unofficially, along the foreshore and then connected with Joan Stumbles Ave. That ceased to be, along with much of the eastern end of Boylan Street. The western end of Boylan survives as Wade, but the rest is now just part of the Gittos Domain, apart from the extreme eastern end, now forming part of the lower curve of Gill Street.

Detail from DP 20399, LINZ crown copyright

In 1927, the Education authorities must have had the notion to try subdividing the land between Joan Stumbles Avenue, then still basically an unnamed beach accessway, and what remained of Powditch Street. Those subdivisions still exist on paper -- but today, all this is part of the Domain. Note the now vanished public road at the shoreline, and the accessway from Blockhouse Bay Road, our Joan Stumbles Avenue. This was described in 1937 by W S Flaxman of the Blockhouse Bay branch of the NZ Labour Party in a letter to Auckland City Council as "a steep clay track with a covering of scoria, which has the tendency to roll underfoot." The Council, then, promised that they would reseal the accessway with bitumen. The footpath was formed from August 1944.

When Ernest H R Cross approached the Council, then in charge of the reserve land remaining, if he could lease 3 acres in September 1948, his letter described the land thus: "Scattered pines, scrub and a large area of gorse with a large clearance for grazing ... has been the condition of the past 30 years ... 2 years ago the property was almost swept by fire."

A J Dickson, the City Engineer, reported on 12 March 1948 that the area was then called Sandy Bay Reserve, a little over 3 acres, comprising 12 lots (the 1927 subdivision). By gazette notice on 7 August 1940, lots 6-12 formed part of Avondale South Domain, while lots 1-5 were dealt with under Section 9 (1) of the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Act 1941, cancelling reservation as Education endowment, and bringing them under Part 2 of the Public Reserves, Domains and National Parks Act, 1928 -- adding them to the Domain. An unformed road intervened between the reserve and the foreshore, and a sea wall had been erected. Conveniences and dressing sheds existed, the area at the sea wall was planted with pohutukawas, the rest pines. During the winter, hauling of small boats was allowed onto the foreshore for a fee. He advised against leasing the area to Cross. (See file on Sandy Bay, Auckland Council Archives, ACC 219/31-329)

So, the eastern side of Joan Stumbles Avenue has always been reserve land.

What about the western side?

Detail from DP 18889, LINZ crown copyright

Lots 324 and 279 of the old Parish of Waikomiti survey form the western side.

Lot 324 was sold by the Crown to Avondale builder Robert Dakin in December 1885. He was around that time the owner of the Avondale Hotel. He died 29 June 1894, and his widow Amy inherited the land, transferring to her daughter Louisa Bollard, the wife of Richard Bollard, that year. Following the general pattern in that area, Louisa leased out the land to others: Henry John Burnham in 1896. Walter Henry King, an Auckland bootmaker, bought the property from Louisa in 1902. His widow Eliza inherited what remained of the land in 1926, and sold to Audrey Edith Cross in 1933. Eventually, after a few more transactions, a schoolteacher named Joan Dicea Lloyd purchased part of the land in 1952. She obtained title to Lots 278 and 279 in 1953 (the original Crown grantee being Ernest Cross), giving her property right down to the foreshore. In 1960 she married Colin Victor Clarence Stumbles, and died in 1987, aged 66. Her husband predeceased her in 1964, but the two of them campaigned against plans by the Electricity Department to put high tension lines and pylons across the Manukau Harbour. Their campaign and public meetings eventually forced a Commission of Inquiry in 1963. The pylons went ahead, but according to her obituary at least the Titirangi end of the harbour was preserved. Joan Stumbles taught at Avondale College. She worked with the local Progressive Association, spent 14 years on the Blockhouse Bay Community Committee, and concentrated her efforts on issues such as sewage spillages from Lewis Street, traffic safety, and harbour pollution. (Western Leader, 3 October 1987)

When Auckland Council went looking for a name for the mysterious accessway beside her home, Joan Stumble's name made an apt choice. The land is still owned by her family.

(I appreciate all the help from Eileen Rusden of the Blockhouse Bay Historical Society while researching this post.)

Old maids cats and bachelors' companions

I'm throwing this open to the floor, and ask for all and any help in terms of increasing my knowledge of weird 19th century terms -- in the context of the following, a report from the Auckland Star of 5 July 1881, regarding a fundraiser at the Whau (Avondale) hall -- just what on earth is meant by "old maids cats" and (I hesitate to think) "bachelors' companions"?

Remember, folks, this is a family show ...

The Whau is at present, in a state of commotion, caused by the very elaborate preparations that are being made for a bazaar, art union, and mid-winter tree, which are to be held in the hall on this and the two following evenings. The object aimed at by the promoters is to remove a portion of the debt with which the Presbyterian manse is burdened. Judging from the display of articles of merchandise in the hall last night, the debt ought to get a good big lift.- One side of the hall is decorated with between 50 and 60 pictures, some of which are elegantly framed in leather, of local manufacture. The tree, a real pinus insignia, is guaranteed to be richly laden with fruits in season and out of season. The "fruit" is of unusual nature and variety. A live pig is strange fruit for a pine tree to bear, yet such fruit is to be found on that tree. There are also bricks and lime, potatoes, socks, old maids' cats and bachelors' companions. Such a spread was never seen in the Whau Hall before. It is profuse and exceedingly creditable to those who provided it. This is the first night of the bazaar, and as it is something new in that suburban district, every inhabitant is expected to be present.

Landing of the trams

Check out the Auckland Trains and Transport blog for images of the refurbished heritage trams arriving at Jellicoe Wharf a few days ago, destined for the harbourside tram route.

Picnics, strawberries and bears

The following came from the Auckland Star 25 May 1932, written by "Old Timer":

Mention of the fact that the Auckland Harbour Board has vested the old signal station site on Mount Victoria in the Devonport Domain Board, reminds one that in the days gone by “the Shore” was quite a popular place for a day’s outing, and the top of Mount Victoria was one of the viewpoints of the isthmus. In those days – 30 or 40 years ago – Aucklanders had not such a wide selection of picnicking spots as they have today. Young people of the present generation do not realise what a great change the motor car made in the habits of Aucklanders. With a horse and trap one could not, in a day, make a very long excursion into the country, and moreover it was not everyone who owned a vehicle.

The usual methods of picnicking by land was to club together and hire a brake or wagonette from Pullan and Armitage in Albert Street, Crowther’s at the corner of Wellesley and Lorne Streets, or Martin’s in Parnell, just above the Windsor Castle Hotel. As a trip into the country was thus rather an undertaking, the run across the harbour to Devonport was very popular on holidays. It gave one a blow on the briny and a chance to see the view from the signal station, and it was cheap.

Auckland Star 16 January 1873

An outing without eating is no outing to the average man and his family, and to cater for the trippers there used to be "The Strawberry Gardens,” somewhere on the north-east side of Mount Victoria. In those days ferries used to call at two wharves at Devonport, “Ghost” wharf, opposite the Masonic Hotel, towards North Head, and the old wharf on the site of the present imposing ferro-concrete Victoria wharf.

The walk from either wharf to these strawberry gardens was a pleasant country affair, and for the tired one seems to remember some sort of an ancient shandrydan drawn by lean quadrupeds. Later, of course, there were the quaint little horse trams that ran from the Victoria wharf to Cheltenham Beach.

Auckland Star 5 November 1886

The beach, however, was a secondary point of attraction in the very early days – the strawberry gardens were the more popular. Away back in the past Aucklanders did not seem so keen on swimming as the present generation – a fact which probably proves that the race is changing its habits, and that the present-day Aucklanders approximates nearer than his ancestors to the South Sea Islander who spends all his spare time in the water. When the strawberry gardens existed, the luscious berry was not grown in tons, as it is nowadays on the claylands across the water, and a “strawberry tea” was considered quite a treat by little Aucklanders. The gardens must have been just at the foot of Mount Victoria, if memory be correct, somewhere among the pine trees, for one seems to recall rustic tables made of tea-tree sticks, set about under the trees. Our ancestors must have been harder than their offspring, for outdoor gardens were a common feature of Auckland in the long ago …

Of course, many more thousands of people visit the Shore today, but they make a beeline for the beaches, and the idea of a “day in the country” has quite vanished from the outing.

"Old Timer" also included this bit:

At a later date than the strawberry gardens at Devonport was the bear garden, on the waterfront, long towards the Calliope Dock, where there used to be a bear pit, with real live bears – and, of course, refreshments. This used to be an evening as well as a daytime resort, but the rustic strawberry garden, with its picnic tables was a day resort.

Back in 2008, I looked at the story of the Devonport Bear Garden -- and found then that such was all it was -- a story. But, I decided today, reading this piece, to take a look again via the Star on Papers Past.

The earliest reference found was this:

Beresford v. Devonport.—This match took place in the bear garden, North Shore. During the first spell the teams were fairly matched, and no score resulted, but after the interval the superior physique of the Devonport men began to tell, and the game finished in favour of that team by four goals to nil.

 Auckland Star 22 August 1887

Then, there was this:

THE CIRCUS.

The quarantine authorities have so far relaxed as to allow the horses to have private quarantine at the North Shore in the "band contest" grounds, or, as some people know it, the "bear garden." Here the proprietors, who, it must be admitted, have taken their ill-luck pluckily, will be allowed to erect their tent, and the circus will open in due form and with a show of great attractiveness. The Company are famous for their trained horses, and they certainly seem to be clever equine specimens by the things they are advertised to do. Six of them drill together, working , like soldiers and obeying the word of command. They dance, waltz together and separately, one horse gets in a carriage and drives the others round and round the ring. Two ponies have dinner, or rather one has dinner, and the other waits. They play see-saw, in fact do everything that men do very nearly, except talk, and they understand well what is said to them. The riding will, is said, evoke surprise and admiration. Besides the stock feats there are a number which the allied Show alone know how to do. The ferry boats will run at convenient hours. The first show takes place tomorrow evening, and a crowded tent is anticipated.

Auckland Star 30 December 1891

Nary a word about bears in a pit -- and even this said only "some people" called the area the "bear garden." Still -- could this small circus be what sparked off "Old Timer's" memories of day and night special times at the Bear Garden?

THE CIRCUS.

Messrs Hayes and Brillianso's Allied Circus opened with complete combination on Thursday evening in the Bear Gardens, at Devonport, when there was a fair attendance, considering the strong counter attractions in the city. The greatest interest centered on the horses, and the manner in which "Damon," "Jim," "Harry, and the others answered to their names, and passed the handkerchief, caused prolonged applause. Professor Organ is to be complimented upon the excellent way in which the horses have been trained, their tricks being equal, to anything yet shown here. The clever ponies, Billy and Dandy, also performed their parts well, while the bucking horse scene was highly amusing. A new feature was a horse-sitting at ease in a waggon, and driving two others round the arena. Brillianso's hurdle act was a fine exhibition of riding, and when this artist appeared later on he was greeted with applause that showed his merits had been appreciated. The clowns, Messrs Hayes and Brown, kept things lively while they were in the ring, their comic absurdities being-well appreciated by the audience. Dick Hayes further displayed his ability as a trapezist, and little R. Taylor gave a sample of "globe trotting" up and down an inclined piano, besides performing on a slack wire. Messrs Hayes and Brillianso also displayed an amount of skill in the Olympian act. Altogether the performance was an interesting one, the trained horses alone being worth the entrance fee. The Circus opens at Newton on Monday evening, and Newmarket on Tuesday.

A similar performance was given last evening, and this afternoon there was a matinee performance. Another attractive programme will be presented tonight.

Auckland Star 2 January 1892

By 1898, whatever happened out there, it was all over for that particular pleasure garden.

The piece of property at Devonport at one time owned by Mr Quick, and known as the Bear Garden, has been purchased from Mr Geo. Holdship, of Sydney, by Mr J. Dunning. The property is about five acres in area.

Auckland Star 11 January 1898

FOR SALE, BEAR GARDENS, DEVONPORT. Building Sites in areas to suit Purchasers. Exceptionally easy terms. COOKE AND BUDDLE, Land and Estate Agents, 76 Victoria Arcade.

Auckland Star 5 March 1898\

The resurrectionists

With an air of what would appear to us today, more than a century later, as classic Victorian-Edwardian Gothic horror dripping from his words, a reporter from the Auckland Star on 29 September 1902 wrote:

Time, 5.30 a.m., on a bitterly cold morning, in Waikumete Cemetery. Half-frozen, a pressman and a photographer attached to the staff of the "Graphic" make their way from the sexton's house to the furthermost corner of the cemetery, where is situated the section for Chinese and Atheists and aliens unprovided for elsewhere. A noise of hammering comes from the section, which is a good half - mile from the Anglican and Presbyterian allotments, and on arrival work found to be in full operation.

The reception of our reporter and his photographic confrere is the reverse of friendly, and an immediate wrangle ensues amongst the gravediggers, evidently on the subject of the camera fiend's presence. A Chinese halfcaste European insists on their instant ejectment. The sexton, however, who has been handed proper credentials, proves a firm friend, and insists that he, and not any Chinaman or half-caste Chinaman, is in change of the cemetery, and that he has his instructions. Things then calm down a trifle, but the work is resumed amidst much grumbling, and many vindictive and malignant glances are cast at the camera, and muttered curses uttered at the photographer as he dodges round looking for a chance shot. Once, indeed, when the shutter clicks, a furious celestial raises his pick in menace, and mutters a threat to do for the intruders, but he thinks better of it, and at the intervention of the European coffinmaker a truce is declared until arrival of "the boss." That individual presently arrives. He scans the permit gloomily enough, and bids that the photos be taken forthwith, and the photographer and pressman depart. It being pointed out that there is no picture yet to take, and seeing that bluff has no effect, all active opposition as at once and finally dropped, and no difficulty put in the way of obtaining pictures or witnessing the proceedings save in giving mendacious information, lighting fires to obscure the graves with smoke, and endeavouring to tire out the patience of the reporters, etc.

By ten o'clock four graves, are opened, but owing to the non-arrival of some solder and zinc from Auckland it is decided to open only two coffins on this occasion. The first of these contained the corpse of one Kong Shang, who died in 1891, a young Celestial of 36. It was thought that there would be nothing but dry bones there, but the stiff white clay is evidently a preservative for when the coffin, which is full of water, is .opened, it is seen that the bones have a decided covering of what had once been flesh, and though drenched in carbolic acid a sickening odour makes itself felt at intervals. Directly an attempt is made to stir the body it all falls to pieces, the decomposed flesh falling off in almost imperceptible flakes, which had doubtless been dust had the grave been dry. Very carefully the impassive Chinaman in the grave rinses and unconcernedly places on a sieve a thigh bone, then some ribs, and a skull, followed by the rest of the bones, minute search, indescribable in print, being made for the smaller bones and joints. It is an intensely gruesome spectacle, and the horror is added to by the indifference to sight and smell or sentiment evinced by the Celestial workmen.

The venerable clerk, a fine old fellow, with the face of an ascetic and a student, carefully tallies the bones which, having been rescoured in a large white tub, are finally dried and wrapped up, each duly docketed by the methodical old gentleman, who is evidently a most conscientious and probably deeply religious man. He, too, is fastidiously clean, and does not, one notes, eat as the others do in the midst of their noisome labours.

The next body is that of a man who must have been of exceptional stature and weight for a Chinaman, and who has been dead but two years and a-half. There is much difficulty in getting this coffin to the surface, and the opening thereof, and the awful stench which completely dominated all disinfectants when the body was removed to the zinc one prepared by the European tinsmith beggars description, and may be left to the imagination. None of those whose duty called them to be present are likely to forget the experience, or to desire a renewal of the same. The soldering having been completed, it must be admitted no effluvia was discernable. The zinc coffin was then put in a rude case and packed in sawdust ready for shipment. There is no reason to think the zinc coffins will not prove effective and inoffensive under ordinary circumstances and careful usage, but a fall or any accident in loading would, one imagines, have very disastrous effects.

The work ceased at noon to-day. Mr Wm. Stanley, Government Sanitary Inspector, is present., and looks after his work in so thorough a manner that no fears need be entertained by settlers or the general public. The pictures secured 'by the "Graphic" photographer are of a unique nature and the most gruesome details having been omitted, are quite without offence. They will be published on Wednesday. The custom of the Chinese at home is to .disinter bodies after seven years, and place the main bones in a large jar alongside the grave. It is in order to forward the bones to China for relatives to do this that the present exporting of remains is undertaken. 

The remains removed from Auckland's Waikumete Cemetery that chill day ended up among the between 499-584 (numbers quoted vary) zinc coffins loaded onto the Ventnor for the journey home to China. Although scarce if any mention is made of the fact that the remains of Auckland Chinese were on board when the ship foundered and sank off the Hokianga coast in October 1902.

This ill-fated cargo was the second of two great waves of exhumation of Chinese remains from New Zealand's cemeteries up and down the country, Waikumete the main site of the spectacle amongst others in the region, the rest mainly in the South Island and Wellington. The first, over the course of late 1882 to early 1883, was organised by Choie Sew Hoy, a noted Dunedin merchant, and others in the Cheong Shing Tong Society, a benevolent organisation which aimed to raise funds to send the old, the sick from the Panyu district back home, and remains to be re-interred. As at 2002, this society still existed in Wellington, according to this article (pdf) on Southern lodges.

Sanction from the Colonial Secretary, the equivalent of today's Minister of Internal Affairs, was obtained back in 1882, and the resurrectionists were sent out to each cemetery known to contain to remains of the men of Panyu. It was said that each body earned the resurrectionists £10 for their grim work, described thus  January 1883 by the Tuapeka Times (reprinted in the Christchurch Star, 24 January):

The Chinese have now nearly finished the work of exhumation of the bodies of their Celestial brethren. The modus operandi pursued is to gather together the bones of each consumed corpse into a calico bag, thereafter enclosing the same in a cornsack and putting a label thereon, so as to show the identity of the bones, four of these bags being put into a leaden coffin and afterwards enclosed in a wooden one. Unconsumed bodies are put each into a leaden coffin and afterwards into a wooden box, the leaden coffins being all well soldered together, and the wooden ones firmly screwed down. A number of professional Chinese resurrectionists who, it is said, get £10 for every body resurrected, have been engaged, and these carry on the work of manipulating the remains in an apparently nonchalant and unconcerned manner, the sight to any stranger, especially of delicate nervous organisation, being anything but a pleasant one. The coffins which had formerly held the dead are all burned.

Other sources stated earnings of £4 to £5 per week for the resurrectionists, when the average wage for a labourer was more like £2 if they were lucky. Enough for an "enormous fortune" for the workers, to enable them to return to China themselves (alive). How much of that speculation is based on fact is unknown.

One set of remains, that of Ah Chook, had somehow ended up at the university in Dunedin (University of Otago?) What seems to me to be an astoundingly insensitive letter from a lawyer supposedly representing the local Chinese to the university was published as part of an article in the Otago Daily Times, 8 February 1883.

As may naturally be expected some difficulty has attended the prosecution of these operations, and it is to to be feared that in some cases mistakes may even have occurred. The possibility of such a contretemps is especially suggested by the case of one Ah Chook, whose remains, if report speaks truly, were utilised for certain anatomical purposes at the University here. The fact of the University being mentioned as his last resting-place, however, fortunately suggested no ideas but those of ordinary burial to the minds of the resurrectionists, and to satisfy their natural anxiety the following rather amusing letter was addressed to the authorities by a well-known solicitor whose services were retained in the matter:—

"The almond-eyed bearer of this epistle has undertaken to achieve the translation of sundry defunct kinsmen to the happy land of Pon-Yu, province of Canton. Some slumbered in the Northern and some in the Southern Cemetery, but they have all been  raised," and now lie (strongly bound in teak) awaiting their departure per sailing ship. But one of the band is missing, and his brethren cannot leave him to languish alone in the land of the barbarian. It is fondly fancied that he is "bellied" at the University, but I more than suspect that his mortal remains have been sacrificed on the altar of science. He was known in the days of his flesh as Ah Chook and laboured in his vocation as a peripatetic vendor of vegetables, humble but happy, with a pronounced taste for opium and petty larceny. But de mortuis, &c. He is now a copper-coloured shade, haunting the purlieus of the University and the adjacent sewer in a fruitless search for the disjecta, or rather the dissecta membra, of his whilom self. Pray hand over to bearer as much of the late Mr Chook as is still on the premises, and for mercy's sake maintain the pious fiction of the "bellial" at the University. p.s.—I may add that the bones are essentials, and further, that the average Chinaman is not an anatomist. Verb. sap."

Whether or no the seekers in this instance have been provided with any bones answering to their ideas of their deceased friend we are not in a position to say, but the above affords an example of some of the difficulties with which the indefatigable Celestials have had to contend.

Temporary morgues were erected to store the bodies, awaiting the final collecting together in the chartered ship to take them home, the morgues termed Golgothas by the morbidly fascinated colonial press. A morbid fascination that extended to disgust expressed in some comments, such as that by the Clutha Leader's "Mudlark" correspondent, 23 February 1883:

Being a part of their religion, we will not twit the bland stranger, for we respect devoutness even in a Chinaman. The Chinese Resurrectionist is the man who exhumes the remains, and scrapes the bones clean. That's all. Viola tout! I was invited to see one of these unclean Ghouls at work, but not being of a morbid temperament, I resolutely declined without thanks. My anatomically inclined friend would, however, persist in giving me a minute description of the revolting modus operandi of the Chinese Resurrectionist, when pursuing his lucrative but filthy and unnatural calling. I am not going to reproduce the description. Hang it! No. But that to scrape the bones clean is what he is paid for doing is a fact. I merely give you an outline; fill it in, my reader, if you can. I could, but I will not. I wonder how these repulsive Molochs live! Can they have any associates. Certainly they should not have any. They should be in perpetual quarantine, else they will breed moral and physical pestilence. I am neither superstitious nor weak stomached, but I would not like to be within telescopic range of a Chinese Resurrectionist. I have persistently argued that the Chinese should not be allowed entrance to this Colony without paying very dearly for the privilege. And my arguments are very sound ones, although I am not going to repeat them here. But this is a coup de grace. A people who can procure and employ human bone scrapers should be compelled to live where they could exercise their little religious peculiarities without giving dire offence to others. After this, I'm dead nuts on Chinamen. 

The Timaru Herald, 6 June 1883, questioned how the Government could possibly allow the cemeteries to be "ransacked for dead Chinamen", describing the project as a "commercial speculation" involving "profit from his pious kinsman" by the agent concerned, claiming that (I imagine they meant Choie Sew Hoy) stood to somehow "profit" by retaining half of an estimated £6000 raised by the Society. The Herald poured scorn on the Colonial Secretary, the so-called profiteers, the resurrectionists, and anyone else the editor felt had offended public taste for disturbing the dead.

All the fuss in 1883 was over a shipment collected together of around 200 remains from the cemeteries. The 1902 operation involved more than twice the number, from up to 40 cemeteries.

Around March 1902, the process began again. This time, it was Choie Sew Hoy's son Kum Poy Sew Hoy, leader of the Chong Shing Tong Society from his father's death in 1901, who helped organise the subscription campaign which, some sources said at the time, raised around £20,000. The relatives of the deceased back in China were expected to pay the equivalent of 30/- per set of remains. An interesting point according to the reports -- everyone re-entering China had to pay a £20 penalty. The subscriptions helped to defray that cost. (Auckland Star, 27 September 1902)

It wasn't until August that strong feelings were expressed in the newspapers -- with the Clyde correspondent to the Otago Witness (6 August) not exactly mincing words:

Desecrating Our Cemetery.
About a week back our cemetery was the scene of a gruesome and scandalous practice enacted by some Chinese body gatherers who, without protestation on the part of our Cemetery Trust, proceeded to raise the remains of their unoffending dead for the purpose of transferring the bones to the land of pagodas. Is it right that such a heathenish custom should be tolerated by our civilisation? Is it not our bounden duty to protect the resting places of those who have died amongst us, and to see to it that those graves are not desecrated in the pursuance of a heathen rite which we loathe? The custom has its insanitary side, as may be imagined. The remains arc raised to the surface, the bones, scraped of all remaining muscular tissue, are tied in separate bundles, labelled, and consigned to a box fitted for their reception. The discarded fleshy and muscular parts are thrown aside, and mingle with the earth, which is subsequently restored to its former place. Where the desecrated grave is refilled much of the decomposed flesh and muscular tissue remains upon the surface, and in the ordinary way is blown about as it becomes dust under the sweltering heat of summer. The great danger to the health of the community is evident. And we tolerate the custom that would [infect?] our homes with disease, and fill our atmosphere with living organisms of filth, the inhalation of which might bring untold misery and suffering amongst our happy and contented people. Why was not our local Board of Health consulted before this gruesome rite was allowed to be enacted? I am told the Cemetery Trust had instructions from the Colonial Treasurer to permit the desecration; but I say here that such instructions did not warrant permission being given by the Cemetery Trust, the members of which might have been equal to exercising their powers to prevent the filthy rite taking place beside the sacred resting place of their friends and little ones.

I gather that there were really strong feelings against the Chinese community in Clutha and Clyde at the time. Even though one of the most iconic images from the Chinese gold prospecting days here in New Zealand came from that region.

By August, much of the work have been done in terms of disinterring the dead and storing them in depots awaiting the arrival of the SS Ventnor from Java, contracted to carry the remains to China. The main contractor for the disinterments was identified by the Auckland Star (26 September 1902) as Mee Chang, an elderly man from Wellington, in turn employed by one Ding Chong.

Image from Wreck Site.

The SS Ventnor was virtually a brand spanking-new cargo steamer, an excellent choice for the important project.

The steamer Ventnor arrived from Java this morning,and anchored in the stream. She brings a large cargo of raw sugar, and will berth at the Chelsea Wharf tomorrow morning to discharge. She is quite a new steamer, having been built as recently as 1901 at Port Glasgow by Messrs Russel and Co. for the Ventnor Steamship Company. The vessel is an iron steamer of 3960 tons gross register, and her principal dimensions are: Length 344 ft, beam 49ft, depth (loaded) 29ft. The master is Captain H. G. Ferry, and with him are associated the following deck officers:—Chief, J. Cameron; second, Q. Lamson. The chief engineer is M. McCash. The master reports .-'The Ventnor left Java on September 10, and had fine weather to entering the Torres Straits, thence strong south-east winds and heavy seas until the New Zealand coast was, sighted at the Poor Knights yesterday, followed by thick, rainy weather down the coast to arrival as above. The Ventnor will remain in port about nine days, sailing hence for Newcastle and the East. It has been also arranged that the steamer will convey to China the disinterred Chinese bodies from the Waikumete Cemetery.

Auckland Star, 2 October 1902

On Saturday evening the steamer Ventnor will leave here for Hongkong, carrying 554 coffins containing the bodies and bones of Chinamen who have died in a foreign country which are being taken to a last sleeping-place in their Motherland to satisfy the demands of their religion and a wish natural to men of all nationalities. Most of the dead that are being taken away were members of the Chong Shin Tong Society. The agreement between the society and the agents for the charterers provides that a health certificate, as required by law, and all necessary permits to land the coffins at Hongkong, shall be obtained by the society. The coffins are not to be transhipped or disturbed after leaving Wellington under a penalty of £1000, unless such transhipment or disturbance shall be rendered necessary by perils of the sea or unavoidable accident. They must be carried on the 'tween decks of the steamer, which have been fitted for this purpose, tier upon tier, and heads to the bow. Practically the coffins are all placed in pigeon holes, space being left for the body servants, of which there are six, to walk between and perform rites pertaining to the religion of Confucius. The coffins of the dead outside of the Chong Shin Tong Society have to be stored apart from others, and there are separate compartments for the casket in which is the body of Sew Hoy, a former prominent Dunedin merchant. His son, Mr. Kum Boy Sew Hoy, will superintend the stowage of his father's coffin. He is secretary of the Chong Shin Tong Society, and has been the leading spirit in the shipment of his dead countrymen. He was educated at the Dunedin University, he is a cultured scholar, and speaks English fluently.

Capt Ferry, commander of the Ventnor,  has been employed in the transhipment of Chinese bodies from various places in the East, and his vessel is one of very few which has been permitted by the Chong Shin Tong Society to fly the Dragon flag. 

 Auckland Star, 23 October 1902

According to New Zealand Shipwrecks (2007), the Ventnor left Wellington at 9.30am on 26 October bound for Hong Kong. At 12.40 am on 27 October, the ship struck a rock off Cape Egmont, somewhere near Opunake. Despite the action of pumps, and immediate reversing off the reef, the ship continued to take on water. On the morning of the 28th, the situation became dire, and by the evening the bow was too far under water for the ship to remain manageable. She sank off the Hokianga Heads.  13 lives were lost, including that of Captain Ferry, and there were 24 survivors. The steamer, along with the coffins, carried 5357 tons of Westport coal, valued at £4500.

Nigel Sew Hoy, great great great grandson of Choie Sew Hoy, wrote in 2007 that:

"When Kum Poy Sew Hoy received the sad news, he immediately engaged people to search the area. A canvas bag of bones was found washed up on Ninety Mile Beach in the Far North. This was sent to China as the only remains. The rest (of) Ventnor's unusual cargo was not recovered.

"A court of inquiry ruled that the Captain had been negligent and incompetent and responsible for the wreck because of his poor navigation around Cape Egmont. 

"Some time later some coffins were rumored to have floated ashore and to have been buried by the local iwi."

So the story of the ill-fated second great journey of the Chinese dead from New Zealand to China in 1902 is forever linked in terms of history now with the beautiful Mitimiti Beach, here illustrated on the Kamira Whanau website.

Blockhouse Bay, 1899

From the Auckland Star, 2 December 1899.

AVONDALE SOUTH.

By S.H.W.

I was surprised lately on visiting the above district to note the signs of progress that are everywhere manifest in the number of new houses, the acres under cultivation, and the great change for the better that has come over what was a few years ago a dreary waste of ti-tree scrub. The Avondale South district reaches from the Manukau Road past Craig's brick works, and away on to the Manukau Beach, and is perhaps one of the least known and most healthy of the suburban districts around Auckland, an ideal place for workmen's homes if only connected by rail with the city of Auckland.

Considerable areas of fairly good land, that can be purchased for £5 or £10 per acre, and that have been idle and untouched except by the spade and spear of the gumdigger have now been laid down in grass or oats, and a number of nice little homesteads erected, and some fine orchards planted that are in full bearing.

Mr Pace, who recently purchased some land and built a house, has gone in fairly extensively for strawberries, and has at present the prospect of a very good return for his labour. It is surprising that more of the land in this neighbourhood, lying as it does so well to the sun, and close to the city, has not been taken up for strawberry planting and vegetable and fruit growing, being as a matter of fact only an hour's drive from Auckland, without the many inconveniences arising from isolation that settlers in the districts on the north side of the Waitemata have to suffer from. The Avondale district, as a whole ought to be a great fruit producing one, being close to the market. One settler told me he made last season a clear profit of £200 off 20 acres of land, part of which was planted with tomatoes.

The blighting curse of this locality and others round the city is the fact that so much of the land is held by financial institutions and other speculators, who are far-seeing enough to recognise that in the near future the city must spread naturally in that direction when electric trams will whisk a man along to his home at the rate of 12 or 15 miles an hour.

Amongst the new residences to be noted are those of Mr Pooley, who has built a nice cottage on the main road, leading to Blockhouse Bay. Further along is a new cottage owned by his father. Close by are the residences and peach orchards of Mr Wm. Cooper, solicitor, and Mr Armstrong.

Mr J. McLeod, the well-known basket-maker, has a seaside residence overlooking Blockhouse Bay, and with others living near enjoys an uninterrupted view of many miles of sea and landscape. He is laying down a block of land alongside his residence in grass. Mr Davenport, Karangahape Road, has purchased a country home right opposite the site of the old Blockhouse that was familiar to many of our older settlers, who lived in the stirring times of the Maori war. Mr Smith, of Smith and Caughey, has a block of fairly good land on the line of the proposed canal that may some day connect the waters of the Manukau and Waitemata. This gentleman has a neat little furnished cottage close to the beach, on the site of an old Maori pah, and surrounded by a little bit of native bush, in what is known as Green Bay. Adjoining him, Mr Hoffman has a large block of land, which unfortunately is allowed to remain idle and unfenced, but it serves a good purpose in affording an opportunity for the impecunious gumdiggers who are still found on these waste lands all around Avondale. They can earn enough to buy beer and baccy and tucker. Deep water is found in the channel close by this lost named bay, and it was with a view to utilise this for the purpose of bringing steamers alongside a proposed wharf at any state of the tide that Mr John Bollard, M.H.R., brought forward a motion last session for the construction of a short line of one mile of railroad to connect with the Helensville line, as a solution of the difficulty of getting the Frisco mails for the South away with the quickest despatch. This may some day come to pass, if only to afford the people of Auckland direct communication with a bracing and invigorating Manukau beach.

Unfortunately there has been no means of communication with this district. Up to the present time those living in the locality or desiring to spend the summer months camping along the coast (as many delight to do) are obliged to walk to and from Avondale South. The enterprising firm of bus proprietors, Andrew and Sons, have, I understand, decided to put a bus on the Avondale South Road this summer to connect with their regular traffic and continue it if they find sufficient encouragement. The roads are very good, one of the last contracts let being for the formation of the road leading from Blockhouse Bay to Green Bay.

The Rev. F. Larkins has succeeded in getting a neat little church, erected nearly opposite Mr Gittos' home, and the need for a public school is beginning to be felt by parents, who have to send their children in all weathers to Avondale township. The settlers in the whole of that district have little to. complain of, they seem contented and fairly well off. Some work in town, others in the brickyard, or till their little farms. Their wants are well attended to. as bakers, butchers and grocers call at every house more or less dally, and their desire to know the passing events of the day is supplied by a "Star" runner, who goes part of the way, and ought to go right down to the settlers’ houses on the beach.

The people of Auckland have much to be thankful for in the many charming and healthy seaside resorts by which it is surrounded, and which, as the years go by, and population becomes more congested, will naturally drift further afield where eight or ten acres can be secured for the price of an allotment in a back slum of the city.

Lost in the Auckland Star: currant buns and cheering tea

The Auckland Star (formerly Evening Star) is now online at Papers Past from the above issue through to the end of 1903. They're promising more, later -- but for now ... oh, yes, it is a glorious and wondrous time as I let the floodgates go on so many enquiries in the back of my mind, so many holes I've had in my understanding and research.

Already, I've found another Avondale publican I wasn't aware was anywhere near my district -- Daniel Arkell, for a brief time in 1888, but the very first publican of the last hotel, before Michael Foley. He had a story to him, did Mr Arkell, this I already knew. Now, I can find out more ...

Such finds after all this time, after nearly 30 years of looking through papers and records and the recollections of others, still thrill me, no matter how minor they may seem. So much more to discover and explore, even within just 33 years worth of old newspapers.

I found the following in the Star, 1 January 1877. It just seemed to say so much, for something so simple -- and is quite sweet.

A CHILD RHYME.

I dreamed all night of the Domain,
Of currant buns and cheering tea;
But when this morn I saw the rain,
I wept and sighed, "Oh dearie me."
But sweet Hope whispered, "Dry thy sorrow.
The tea and buns you'll have to-morrow."

Guest post: Memories of the Ferries

John Russell emailed me tonight with his memories of Auckland's harbour ferries, in response to the earlier post on the vehicular ferries, A clock from the past. Thanks, John.

I think you have answered one of my abiding questions -- what happened to Auckland's vehicular ferries . . .

Took a great interest in reading the Timespanner article, because my first five years involved the ferries a fair bit.

Mum's parents lived in Princes Street, on Northcote Point and she used the passenger ferry for her daily transport to Auckland Girls' Grammar. Grandad (William Glover) used ferries too, for his work in Auckland as an architect. (he designed the old buildings at Greenlane Hospital and also the Astor Hotel at the top of Khyber Pass)

As a grandchild, I also did plenty of trips on both the passenger and vehicular ferries. I believe that my excess weight has its cause in the vehicular ferries. Queues on each side often exceeded three hours and I'm told that as a baby, I squawked a lot during the waits and was bottle-fed incessantly to shut me up. I can still remember the noise, rattles and smoke of the ferries.

That also makes me old enough to remember Auckland Harbour before the bridge. My grandparents'  property on Northcote Point had land carved off to allow for the first four lanes, then further land for the clipons. I still look at its proximity every time I drive past.

Mum and I also took the final passenger ferry across the harbour to Northcote Point. We were at the stern, watching the receding scenery when the ferry took a huge wave over the back rail and drenched us. I remember there being more water than air at the ship's stern for a second or two.

Mum and Dad took me for the public walk over the bridge on opening day in 1959, when I was four and a half. They also brought my stroller, which I said I didn't need because I was a big boy now. By the time we reached the centre arch, I was very glad of the stroller.

Cheers,

John.

Guest post: Lord Auckland and his hat

This image gave me a fit of the giggles tonight, I must admit. It was sent to me by Claire Gummer from A Latitude of Libraries blog, who wrote:

Your 'Aspiration' piece was fun. Have you seen Lord Auckland (outside the Auckland Council admin building) wearing a traffic-cone hat? Here he is - see attached file - as I saw him some weeks ago.

I was fascinated to learn this, albeit far too recently, about the man for whom our city is named:

Auckland, George Eden , 1st earl ( 1784 – 1849 )

Auckland was a Whig who served as president of the Board of Trade under Grey and as 1st lord of the Admiralty under Melbourne. In 1835, he was appointed governor‐general of India. Auckland pursued commercial expansion from India into Afghanistan and central Asia and was responsible for undertaking the first Afghan War, which initially was prosecuted with success and gained him an earldom. However, incautious policies towards ‘the tribes’ soon stirred revolt. In the winter of 1841 – 2, British forces were obliged to retreat and were shot down or frozen to death. Of 16,000 men who set out from Kabul only one, Dr Brydon, survived to proclaim himself, famously, ‘the army of the Indus’. Lord Auckland was recalled in disgrace in February 1842 .

- Oxford Dictionary of British History

Best wishes,

Claire G

Thanks, Claire!

Dennis Gunn and the tell-tale fingerprints

Pop across to Writer of the Purple Sage's blog Yardy Yardy Yardy for the noting of today's anniversary: Dennis Gunn, sentenced to death 28 May 1920, convicted on fingerprint evidence.

Fingerprints were first used within the British Empire as early as 1905 to convict murderers -- in that case, it was the Stratton Brothers. But as far as I've been able to find out at present, the Gunn case was the first use of fingerprints in a capital trial in Australasia.

Image: NZ Truth 27 March 1920

Looking for the beach

Ah, if this was Summer, what a welcome sight this sign would be. Beach Access!  The way to the beach! Quick, get your togs, towels and sand buckets ...

Except ... maybe not. I spotted the sign today while going past in a bus (hence the blurred result). The late autumn setting for the Beach Access sign is Constitution Hill, beside Alten Road ...

... and if you take a look at Google Maps, you'll see its a fair way to the beach from Constitution Hill (marked by the "A"). I think they meant to say on the sign "Beach RD Access", as Beach Road winds its way past the bottom of the hill. If you want to find the beach, the nearest was Mechanics Bay. The original version.

You'd be about 100 years too late.

Update 12 August 2011: This week, I picked up an info card on "Learning Quarter Micro Sites" -- and this Beach Access sign is one of a set of three artworks by Asumi Mizuo. The others are signs reading "No Swimming" and "Lookout", all pointing toward the old coastline of Mechanics Bay, pre-reclamation. So -- the sign is quite deliberate. It certainly caught my eye!

Aspiration III

First, there was a single beer bottle on Aspiration's fingers in 2009 ...

 

... three bottles in 2010 ...

... and for 2011? To heck with beer bottles: Aspiration's going for the traffic cone look.

30 May 2011: Yesterday, the final indignity for the season, perhaps -- they've put a traffic cone over Aspiration's head, alongside the one on the arm.

A clock from the past

I attended the AGM of the Birkenhead Historical Society last Saturday, and listened to the stories of Keith Peachey who had, during his career, served in the engine rooms of one of Auckland's last vehicular ferries, the Alex Alison.

During the course of his talk, he carefully took out of a bag the clock you see above these words, and gave it to the historical society for their museum. He said he had taken it off the ferry as it was being prepared for being towed to Tasmania. It hadn't come with a clock when it had initially come from Australia -- this one was, he said, bought in Auckland when the crew realised they needed to know the time.

David Balderston's book The Harbour Ferries of Auckland is part of my reference library. His chapter on the vehicular ferry era of 57 years on Auckland's Waitemata Harbour is entitled "The Floating Bridge", which sums that time up nicely. There were vehicular ferries just before there were vehicles in the modern sense of motorised transport, an answer to the problem of how to covey live animals such as horses across the waters. After the opening of the harbour bridge, ferries with magical names to the memory like  The Goshawk, The Sparrowhawk, The Mollyhawk and The Eaglehawk ended up, after their decades of service, broken up and then towed, as hulks, to "a quiet corner of the upper harbour", and burnt.

The Alex Alison was to have a different fate.

She was originally the diesel-powered Frances Peat serving  from Kangaroo Point on the Hawkesbury River in New South Wales from 1931. This is her, armoured during World War II as an American vessel AB 422, serving during that conflict in the Pacific Islands. After the war, along with her similarly-armoured sister the George Peat, the Frances Peat was purchased by the Devonport Steam Ferry Company, and made it across the Tasman under their own power, arriving in May 1946. Once here and refitted as vehicular ferries, the George Peat was renamed the Ewen W Alison, while the Frances Peat received the name Alex Alison.

Come the harbour bridge, there was no longer a need for the redundant and at times troublesome vehiculars. The Ewen W Alison and the Alex Alison were sold to the Tasmania Government in 1960 for £12,000, who budgeted £60,000 for reconditioning them for a career as vehicular ferries between Hobart and Bruny Island. The 1524-mile tow was expected to take eight to nine days, back across the Tasman .

The Alex Alison never made it. On the fifth day out on the high seas, she took on water. The next day, the Kaitoa towing her had to cast off the tow line, the situation became that perilous, and then monitored the last hours until at 1.15 pm on 30 April 1960, the Alex Alison sank.

The Ewen W Alison was more fortunate, making it across later that year. She served as the renamed Mangana until the 1980s, then as a reserve until 1991.

So Mr Peachey's clock, generously given to Birkenhead Historical Society, is likely one of our last links to the lost vehicular ferries period of our city's maritime past. 

I've held it (carefully) in my hands. It's quite a weight. Oh, and the bit of wrapped up paper sellotaped to the face? That's the key.

Grafton dramatic: the former Grafton Library

Claire in A Latitude of Libraries last Sunday posted a wonderful article on the former library for Grafton in Mt Eden Road, just down from Upper Symonds Street. A rather sumptuous Edward Bartley design, who won the competition held in 1911, just a few years before his death. It was the second branch library for Auckland City from March 1913, trumped for top title by the Leys Institute in Ponsonby -- but it was also a political statement in favour of the concept of Greater Auckland.

All the recent breast-beating about Super City and ultra-amalgamations ... as with so much in history, we can say "we've seen it all before" even if we weren't even twinkles in our parents eyes. In my case, there might have only just been the start of a twinkle in my grandfather's eye on my father's side, during the period when Auckland City mayors promoted the joys of being part of a cleaner, better organised, better watered city to the scattering of boroughs, town boards, and road board areas surrounding it.

In the case of Grafton's library, it wasn't built to serve Grafton, exactly -- the main residential centre for Grafton was back across the Grafton Bridge, to the north-east -- but it was a dangling carrot, in brick and stone, to the good folk of independent Mt Eden and Eden Terrace. Mt Eden people used it quite a bit.

It was also not simply just a library. In those days, libraries had to be multi-media centres, much like today. This one opened with a lending department, reading room, committee meeting room and a lecture hall to hold 200, capable of hosting lectures on current events during World War I. The hall was one of the headquarters of the Emergency Precautions Service during World War II.

It also served, from 1913, as the base for the Grafton Shakespeare and Dramatic Club. The club, formed in 1912, was apparently the country's first amateur dramatic societies. One of the club's members, Helen Stirling MacCormick, also a member of the Auckland Repertory Company, went on after leaving the country in 1938 to British stages and a part on the first British radio soap opera of its kind, Front Line Family. Some of her documents and keepsakes are at the Auckland War Memorial Museum.

They tried to close the library in 1954, in 1960, in 1978, and succeeded in 1990, just after the last great municipal amalgamations. Just as Mt Eden finally joined the city -- it lost its library.

Since 1996, it's been an alehouse named Galbraith's -- still a place, in a way, for a sharing of the minds.

Soapy legends

 

(Updated 14 March 2015)

I've been meaning for ages to take a photo of this restored Sunlight Soap ad on the side of the Corner Store, Mt Eden and Nikau Streets, Grafton/Eden Terrace. A couple of days ago, I made my way down Mt Eden Road from the Upper Symonds Street shops, and finally ticked this off my inner "to-do" list.

The shop's been around for ages, probably turn of the twentieth century, perhaps before. This part of Mt Eden Road was, until they opened up the rest of the Western railway line to link with Newmarket in the early 20th century, the route travellers would trek up from Mt Eden Station towards Symonds Street and the waiting trams and horse buses to take them further into the city. Haven't seen a contemporary photo yet showing the original ad on the side of the shop yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was, indeed, that same Sunlight soap one, with its "£1000 Guarantee of Purity" plug.

Evening Post, 18 September 1909

My mother's mother's family came from Leeds in Yorkshire, the Killerby family of William son of Charles, himself descended from tailors, cloth drawers, weavers, and others associated with the Leeds wool industry going back to at least the 1650s. William married Martha Watson 23 December 1854 -- and that sparked off a family legend, involving Sunlight Soap, which lasted clear through to the early 1980s. There may still be relatives of mine, out there in the world, who still believe it, because it had been told to my grandmother Elinor, and she told all her four children.

Grey River Argus, 13 August 1912

The legend was that Martha's father invented Sunlight Soap.

Poverty Bay Herald, 31 December 1920

A lot of families have legends like this. You get little kiddies sitting around the knees of grandparents, this sort of thing takes root and becomes an oral history hand-down through the generations. In my family's case, I think it happened when Grandma Elinor was a kiddy herself (born 1892), and although living in London with her father and his second wife (Grandma's mum died when she was three), she was sent to north to stay for a while with Great-great grandma Martha. Who told her something about the family on Martha's side ...

Evening Post 29 August 1922

Well, come the early 1980s, and my mother and I decided to go looking into the family background. Whatever Martha Watson had told the young Elinor, it had been so convincing to Elinor that the family name Killerby had been wiped out in her memory; Elinor thought that Watson was her mother Emilie's maiden name. Mum and I did some checking, hired researchers in England, and found out the truth.

William Killerby, born around 1829 and a cloth-drawer by occupation, married Martha Watson in 1854. She was the daughter of John Watson, a chemical manufacturer in Leeds. William eventually rose to become a wool merchant, perhaps with help from money from Martha's side, but most likely I now find thanks to his close associations with his brother Frederick, who in turn worked his way up from being a warehouseman to a director of a woolen clothing company -- but Martha, it seems, was vastly more proud of her own side of the family than that of her late husband.

Then, Mum and I contacted the makers of Sunlight Soap, who very kindly sent us a pamphlet explaining the history of the product, first marketed in England in 1884. Sunlight Soap, back then, was an amalgam of a number of soaps and chemical processes from all over England. Firms like Knights Castile, for example, contributed to the manufacture. Another to contribute toward the making of Sunlight -- was a firm of Yorkshire soap manufacturers and tanners named Joseph Watson & Sons in Leeds, dating from around 1820. Lever Brothers, Sunlight's makers, bought out the Leeds soap factory around 1912.

Evening Post 28 March 1925

That line of Watsons went on to be Barons from the 1920s, but there's no indication so far that Martha's father was a member of that family.

Meanwhile, what is now known about John Watson (1808-1854) is that he started out as a stone mason in Woodhouse, Leeds, married Mary Spenceley in May 1827 (daughter of a prominent cow-keeper, later church warden, named Simeon Spenceley), and was in a partnership with a Joseph Watson as "manufacturing chemists" around 1851. The partnership was dissolved then, but it began sometime between 1844 and 1851. Then my ancestor was in partnership with a William Watson, "prussiate of potash manufacturers". This partnership dissolved as well, in 1854. He died in October that year, after a long illness. His daughter Martha married William Killerby two months after that.

Evening Post 22 August 1940

So -- t'was merely family legend about the Sunlight Soap. I have no idea at the moment if the Joseph Watson John had his first partnership with was the same "Soapy Joe" who is said to have developed his soap as a by-product of his tannery business. But, the brand, above all others, does still mean a lot to me. Mum would swear by its wonderful ability to get at tough stains in the hand-wash, and I still use the bars today (even though, for a while, it looked like they'd go off the market, here).

Oh, and if anyone reading this finds a John Watson, chemical manufacturer in Leeds, in amongst the genealogy or the story for the Barons Manton, do let me know ...

Civic Trust Winter Series 2011

The Civic Trust and Kinder House have issued their leaflets publicising their Winter Series of talks for 2011.

June 12 - John Gundeson

Waterfront Auckland Project Overview

"John will provide an overview of the old Tank Farm project plans, timeframes, etc, now known as the Wynyard Quarter, together with the Queens Wharf RWC projects. He will cover the approach to and consideration of character buildings within the area of control or influence of Waterfront Auckland."

July 10 - Peter Reed

Restoration of an Organ

A talk on the restoration of the south transept organ from St Matthews-in-the-City, the organ rebuilt by Henry Willis and Sons Ltd, Liverpool. Peter Reed is with Salmond Reed Architects.

August 14 - Lisa Truttman

Timespanner Stories

"Her illustrated talk will discuss the creation of Timespanner, a weblog of stories about Auckland and NZ heritage, and how information for the website is prepared and then displayed to the world."

September 11 - Graeme Burgess

The McCahon House - A Conservation Challenge

"Colin McCahon moved to Auckland in 1950 to take up a position with the Auckland City Art Gallery.  By 1951 he was living with his wife Anne and their four children in Titirangi, where they remained until the end of the decade during one of the most productive periods of his career.

"The tiny house is set well below the road in the kauri. By the end of last century the house was partially decayed and much of the detail added by McCahon had been obscured by layers of paint, dirt and added materials.

"The restoration took over two years. Retaining the authenticity of the place was paramount. Graeme will describe his experiences during this project and show photos of the work."

Entry to the talks is by koha ($5 suggested), with refreshments at conclusion. Plus, of course, you are visiting one of Auckland's heritage landmarks while attending.

The old Onehunga Post Office

£2000 worth of Edwardian red-brick glory, opened 14 February 1902 -- a considerable Valentine's Day gift to the community of Onehunga back then if ever there was one! Surrounding buildings were festooned with flags as the townspeople listened to Sir Joseph Ward as he made his commemorative speech. The red bricks are now covered with modern paint, but the old Post Office still stands. Today, it serves as a Columbus Coffee place. One of the better ones, I might add. Very good English Breakfast tea in a pot.

This was another of Onehunga's landmarks where the people battled to save it from being considered for demolition -- and I thank them, for they've left all of Auckland with another of our treasures from the past for the future to enjoy. It has a category 2 listing with the NZ Historic Places Trust.