The enigma of Robert Chisholm

Image of Chisholm's estate, from LINZ records.

Updated 15 July 2016

In April 1874, a “rather large and handsome” imposing house burned to the ground. The owner, Robert Chisholm (1797-1877) and his manservant John Turnbull saw the blaze as they worked in a nearby paddock, somewhere close to the site of today’s Heron Park, but were only able to save some blankets, the fire spread so quickly. The fire was a puzzling one, in more than one respect. Some of his best furniture, including a piano, had already been removed a week before. Newspapers reported that the back door had been locked – something unusual for the rural area that was Avondale. The Southern Cross advised that “only a few of the neighbours went near to offer any assistance, Mr. Chisholm, unfortunately, not being a general favourite in the district.” This was most unusual for 19th century Avondale, a district where neighbours usually came readily to help whenever a calamity occurred.

It seems likely, however, no matter what a section of Avondale’s sparse population thought of him at the time, that his 300 acre estate would have been the enduring inspiration behind today’s name for what was once Avondale’s agricultural, now industrial centre.

Much that is known about the enigmatic Mr. Chisholm comes from the research by the historian for Clan Chisholm, Audrey Barney. He was born in Melrose, Scotland, in 1797, and moved north to Edinburgh as a young man, marrying there and taking up the occupation of flesher. By 1851 he had his own business and a household servant – and two years later the family made their plans to move to Australasia. They sailed from Greenock in May 1854, and arrived in Melbourne, stayed four months, then journeyed from Sydney to Auckland, leaving two of the daughters behind (most likely with relatives).

Purchases of land at the Whau were completed almost immediately. Allotments 6 & 7 on the Whau Flat peninsula was bought by Chisholm in November 1855; part of Allotment 5 in 1858. (Another part, breaking up the continuity of Chisholm’s estate, would come to be owned by Daniel Pollen from 1868, then potter James Wright in 1872 until 1879, and then eventually by Enoch Althorpe. This was possibly because the eastern half of Allotment 5 was the closest point to the shellbanks of Traherne Island across the mangroves.) Chisholm’s purchases of the area near Heron Park were made in 1861 (Allotments 14 and 15). Robert Chisholm took out a number of mortgages on these farms, as his over 383 acre landholding came together – but also gave Dr Thomas Aickin finance for part of the Aickin farm across the road on the peninsula in 1865. A portion of Allotment 62, across the Great North Road from the Heron Park area (close to today’s Lions Hall site) was also bought by Chisholm in September 1865 (DI 13A.571). So, from 1855 to around 1868, Chisholm slowly developed into becoming a landholder of some note in the Whau district. But, all this time, he actually lived in Parnell, at what is now 4 Burrows Avenue, a grand two-storey gentleman’s residence which still stands, surrounded then by a substantial estate called Hope Park.

The earliest sign that he had a connection with the community at the Whau over to the west comes in March 1867, when his name appeared on a public notice along with those of John Bollard, O. A. Rayson, Thomas Aickin, William Motion and John McLeod regarding a £25 reward for information leading to the apprehension of a blighter killing their sheep and carrying away the carcases). Come October 1868, and Chisholm put his name up as one of the first trustees for the new Whau Highway District: a short-lived term of office, however, as he was struck off the Board in 1869 for refusal to pay rates. By July, he appeared to have either sheep or connections with livestock merchant Alfred Buckland at “Windsor Park” (the only farm by this name at that time I have found was in Waiuku, the property of an E. Constable). Chisholm, though, seemed to have connections, and to have been in the livestock business in a big way.

Chisholm’s residency at Parnell , according to Audrey Barney, seems to have finally come to an end around 1870. His Whau homestead may have been built c.1868, but probably served as a country house until Chisholm made the final move from Burrows Avenue. At his Whau estate in May 1874, Sir James Fergusson, the Governor of the colony, along with Sir Charles Du Cane, Governor of Tasmania, along with “four other gentlemen, shot over the grounds of Mr. Chisholm on Saturday last, and met with very good sport. The party afterwards proceeded to Dr. Pollen’s ground.” Hopefully, the sheep moved out of the way.

By the time Chisholm died, though, it appears his wife had been living down south for a considerable time; she was not referred to in his will. Chisholm was buried in the Presbyterian section of the Symonds Street cemetery, undisturbed therefore by the carving of the motorway through the cemetery in the late 20th century. His son John William Chisholm joined him there in 1881, while his wife Isabella died in Wellington in 1887.

According to Audrey, in Chisholm’s will, “he turned over all his affairs to a group of eleven executors, who were the Manager of the Bank of New Zealand, two Insurance Managers, three Presbyterian ministers, a farmer, another banker, and John Logan Campbell.” They were required to liquidate his shares and assets (other than his Whau holdings) and invest the proceeds, and to lease the Whau farm out for 25 years, investing the income “wisely”, and only at the end of that period sell the land at public auction. At the end, everything was then to be divided up among his living children and grandchildren.

Twenty-five years would have meant a grand sale of the 383 acres at the Whau in 1902; instead, the two remaining Trustees in 1882, banker John Murray and insurance manager George Pierce, broke the trust and arranged Chisholm’s estate into town and country allotments, dubbing it “Rosebank Estate”. This appears to be the earliest known use of the name “Rosebank” in terms of the peninsula, and is likely to be the reason why the road, which wound along the boundary of the estate, has the name today. (An earlier “Rosebank”, the house of John Buchanan in the late 1860s, was in reality just off St Georges Road). Perhaps they’d made a deal with Chisholm’s family to cash out the trust and take advantage of the speculative trend of the time to sell off the larger estates ringing the young city of Auckland, just before the coming bite of the Long Depression. Nothing is known for certain, however, as to what transpired. Avondale’s story, however, may have been somewhat different had the trustees waited until 1902.

This post updated here.

NZ Federation of Historical Societies

A new site has been launched, this one for the New Zealand Federation of Historical Societies. The Avondale-Waterview Historical Society has belonged to the Federation since 2003, and at the moment I'm on the executive committee, edit and produce their newsletter Keeping In Touch, and co-edit New Zealand Legacy.

"Memories from the Great War"

Interesting article on Gallipoli and its effects on both Australia and New Zealand published today in the NZ Herald.

"It is the stories of the wives and mothers of "boys" who perished on the battlefields of Europe that bring a catch to Professor Bruce Scates' voice. The acclaimed historian has spent years bringing together memories of the Great War. His research stretches from soldiers' letters of 1915 to emails and interviews describing Anzac Day at Long Pine at Gallipoli nearly 90 years later.

But it is the grubby, decomposing files from a Melbourne mental asylum, with their accounts of women who had literally gone mad with grief, that proved the most ambitious part of his book, Return to Gallipoli: Walking the Battlefields of The Great War.

As he says, these women waved their young men goodbye fully expecting them to be "home by Christmas". The Australian - and presumably New Zealand - authorities were so certain the war would be a non-event, the soldiers' identity discs were made of compressed cardboard. And when they were mowed down in the trenches and their identity discs rotted into the mud, their mothers, sisters and girlfriends collapsed."

Read more here.

Our Warden of the Hundred: William Edgecombe

Image from NZ Graphic.

Updated: 30 April 2013

Arguably, Edgecombe was Rosebank's first gardener. It was he who placed the following advertisement in the Southern Cross in March of 1855:

Turnips and Potatoes Grown at the Wahu

Parties interested in bets respecting the measurement and weight of Turnips and Potatoes grown on Mr. Edgecombe's Farm at the Wahu, to be decided at the Exchange Hotel, Auckland, on Saturday, 31st inst. May see the same growing on the Farm as above, on Friday, 30th inst.
March 27th, 1855.

At the time he had his Avondale farm on Rosebank up for sale in October 1858, it was described as:

"A choice Farm of 200 acres, on the Whau, far and favourably known as Edgecombe's Farm. This is a property of no common description, Fenced and Cultivated, well and picturesquely Wooded, and abundantly Watered, bounded on one side by the Whau River, in which a vessel of 30 tons may load alongside the banks."

Even taking into account the exaggerations of land agents of that time and this, Edgecombe does seem to have created from an area where sheep farming was probably the best commercial use anyone could get out of the area (both John Kelly and Robert Chisholm were sheep farming in the early 1850s and 1860s-1870s respectively) -- a veritable farming paradise.

William Edgecombe (1814-1895) was born and christened in North Devon, the township of Milton Damerel, according to a family historian, Alan Taylor. According to Taylor, Edgecombe sailed to New Zealand with his wife Ann and arrived at New Plymouth in 1841, leaving in 1846 for Auckland. Another William Edgecombe had preceded him to New Plymouth, but remained there. The Auckland William Edgecombe eventually made his way north, setting himself up first as a butcher at Mechanics Bay, then a storekeeper, then as a cattle owner. He left the colony for a time in 1850, heading to California, but was back by 1852. Around that time he may have taken out a lease on Allotment 10 of the Parish of Titirangi, which was to become his Whau Farm, purchasing it outright in 1856. Certainly in March 1854, he was successful in the election for the Wardens of Auckland (sharing the job with John Russell and Benjamin Turner). In that position, he administered the isthmus cattle runs, particularly those in the Whau district. During a court case in 1854, where one Samuel Fleming breached a new bylaw made by the Wardens of the Hundred, Edgecombe deposed:

"I am a settler living at the Wahu; I am a licensed cattle holder for the district of Auckland; my cattle are mostly all running at the Wahu..."

(Note the spelling of "Whau" in those days of the mid-1850s.)

So, in amongst his cattle-dealing, his warden duties -- William Edgecombe found the time to grow some turnips and potatoes. "So what?" some today might say, but this was a very important thing back then, considering the Whau, along with much of West Auckland, was considered inhospitable to crop growing in any form back then, the soils declared to be "sour" and only good for grazing (hence the cattle and the sheep). It could be, ironically, that very system of agriculture which provided the start of the fertilisation and redevelopment of the Rosebank Peninsula into the later market gardening goldmine it became by the end of the 19th century. Back in 1855, Edgecombe was advertising a diversified land use for the cattle and sheep paddocks of Avondale which, one day, would prove to be an icon for our history.

But, by 1858, Edgecombe had had another career change come to mind. Land at what would become Western Springs, opposite Low and Motion's mill, came onto the market, so he put his Whau Farm up for sale and purchased the site of his Great Northern Hotel. (The buyer was Dr. Thomas Aickin, another experimenter in the agricultural field amongst others -- and in the 20th century, after subdivisions, Hayward Wright was to use 10 acres of the former Edgecombe land to develop new commercial fruits and plants, including the Hayward cultivar of kiwifruit.) Edgecombe's story doesn't stop there, of course -- his fame hit even greater heights with his hotel, fondly known still as the Old Stone Jug. But even there, on the scoria outcrops of Western Springs, he never quite forgot about the Whau. The initial boundaries of the Whau Highway District in 1868, at his instigation, included his Western Springs land for a time.

An additional note (21 January 2009): William Edgecombe's surname, over the course of his lifetime, went through a variety of spellings. This may have been due to assumptions, or changes in style -- one version, in the 1881 Newton electoral roll, is simply a straight-out typo. Here's a brief list of the varieties:

Southern Cross, 8 March 1850, p. 2 (public notice inserted by him) - "Edgcombe"
In the deed between him and Dr. Aickin back in 1859, his name is spelled Edgecombe.
In the 3 May 1879 death notice for his son (also named William) (NZH), it's "Edgcumbe".
Boylan & Lundon's plan of the purchase of his property (waterworks reserve) - "Edgecombe"
1881 Newton electoral roll: "Edgemnbe"
NZ Graphic 22 October 1892, p. 1046 -- "Edgcombe"
His own death notice: "Edgcombe"
Auckland Provincial Index offers "Edgecombe" and "Edgcombe"

His isn't the only name this happened to (Bernard "Barney" Keane is another -- Keane / Kean / Kane and probably also King). Ah, the joys of historical / genealogical research ...

The Ah Chee family on Rosebank

In 1904, as the result of two purchases from the Wymer family, a man known only as Ah Chee on the land titles purchased just over 26 acres at the corner of Eastdale and Rosebank Road. His sons William and Clement Ah Chee purchased another 10 acres or so on the other side of Eastdale Road in 1917, and then received title to the original 1904 purchases from their father in 1922, two years after he had returned home to China. By 1929, the family had lost all the Rosebank property due to defaulted mortgages to Turners & Growers, and the Ah Chee name passed into Avondale legend.

The Ah Chee family had quite a bit in common with Turners & Growers, apart from both being associated with the fruit and vegetable line. Both owned sections of land in Auckland on which produce was grown (Turners getting more into that field in Avondale from the late 1920s). Both had outlets for their produce, and were involved with the markets in the city. By 1913, according to the Evening Post who interviewed William Ah Chee, Auckland had 250 Chinese market gardeners, many working for the Ah Chee family, including overseers.

The family’s actual surname is Chan – the Ah Chee who emerged as a successful merchant and market garden owner was known as Chan Dar Chee (1851-1931) in his native village of Tarp Gwong. He arrived in New Zealand in 1877, became a naturalised citizen in 1882 (the year he took out a mortgage on a piece of Domain land which is part of the old Carlaw Park, site of recent archaeological investigations), and brought his wife-to-be Rain See to New Zealand from Canton to marry her in 1886. He was fined in 1892 for receiving stolen marine stores. But, for the 1890 jubilee celebrations, he and other Chinese businessmen contributed two barrow-loads of Chinese crackers for the occasion, and by 1896 he proudly displayed a sign in his shop window: “Ah Chee, you are appointed Purveyor of Fruit and Vegetables to the Earl of Glasgow.”

In 1907, possibly including his Avondale property, his workers were charged with gardening on a Sunday. The charge was later dismissed, by explanation of necessity rather than any flagrant disregard of the Sabbath.

He left New Zealand, never to return, in 1920. His son William died in 1929, possibly sparking the mortgage crisis. William had managed the firm since 1914; his son, Alec, served in the RNZAF during World War II. A grandson of Chan Dar Chee, Thomas Ah Chee, would become one of the founders of the Foodtown chain of supermarkets, begun back in 1958.

Part of the old Ah Chee market garden on Rosebank became the fields facing Eastdale Road for Avondale College. Apart from that, and some brief notes in Road Board and Borough Council minutes over the years complaining about Ah Chee and his overhanging trees, there’s little left to remind us of a piece of early Chinese New Zealand history in our own suburb.

Update and correction, 25 April 2009:
Originally, going by the newspaper references from Papers Past, I had written as part of the above post "His grocery store in Wakefield Street was the subject of police raids over the years; in 1887, they found and seized cases of Chinese brandy and other liquors, as well as finding an opium den in the back room and another used for fan tan gaming." But, as Ah Chee is not noted as being on Wakefield Street at any time during the 19th century, and an actual shop owner there named Ah Yeal Gong (according to directories) is probably the same as one there named Ah Gong Kee (Observer, 4 July 1885), then it is likely the newspapers of the time mixed up "Kee" with "Chee". My thanks to David Wong, who inspired me to look further into the Ah Chee story. (This information now known to be incorrect - Ah Chee did have a Wakefield Street shop. See further post).

The first settler on Rosebank?

Image from NZ Observer, 1 October 1881.

According to research for a history of the Kelly family in 2003 by Warwick Clay, and from what I’ve found as well in LINZ records, John Kelly (c1806-1883) purchased four allotments by Crown Grant in the Parish of Titirangi (2 at Rosebank, 2 on the Mt Albert side of Oakley Creek) from 1843-1845. There was at least a fifth purchase from a crown grant holder in 1847, Allotment 3 on Rosebank, which completed his landholdings there just alongside the government reserve at the tip. Up until 1849, he lived at Mt Eden, but then, in September 1849, his wife gave birth to a son “at the Wahu.” That son was John Stewart Kelly who advised reporters on the occasion of his 87th birthday at his home in Mt Eden that he had been born at Avondale.

“There was not a house within miles of their Avondale home, and he remembers how the furniture was carried out across the countryside on horse-drawn drays. There was no bridge across Oakley’s Creek in those days, and the drays had to be hauled across one at a time with a full team of horses. There was no school within reasonable distance, and so a teacher lived at the house and gave the children their daily lessons.” (Auckland Star, 26 September 1936, p. 10)

In describing coming across the Oakley Creek, it seems that Mr. Kelly was indeed describing a home to the west of that waterway – and from what is known of John Kelly’s land dealings (of which there were many, all over Auckland, North Shore, East Tamaki, Howick and West Auckland), Rosebank may have fitted that description. In 1855, all three Rosebank allotments were sold by Kelly to Daniel Pollen (a former partner of Kelly’s from days at Kororeka, according to Warwick Clay), and the Kelly family moved west to Waitakere. Perhaps Pollen’s home at the Whau had once been Kelly’s home? Hard to say, this far away from the 1850s.

John Kelly was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, entering the Royal Engineers as a young man, learning the trade of surveying. He journeyed to Australia to oversee government works in Tasmania, New South Wales and other colonies, before retiring in 1836 from the service and coming to New Zealand, in the days before we were even a colony. He witnessed the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, and acted as guide on one occasion for a British regiment during the threat of a Ngapuhi attack on Kororareka. With Hobson transferring the capital to Auckland, Kelly arrived in the young township and began buying land almost immediately. He built a house at Mt Eden, where he lived, off and on, for over 46 years until he died. Another influential partnership of his was with Frederick Whitaker, who was to become Premier of New Zealand (as was Pollen for a time). Even his Rosebank land had a story of its own. Part of John Kelly's Rosebank farm was become, from c.1860, West Auckland's first brickyard.

He certainly led a colourful life, did this early settler in Avondale. At Kororareka, he was involved in not just one duel, but two, and with the same opponent, William Brewer. At the first event, Kelly’s wig was shot away. At the second, the ball from Brewer’s pistol passed through Kelly’s left whisker.

(More information on duelling in New Zealand, including the Kelly-Brewer duels, at Te Ara, and The Smell of Gunpowder, A History of Duelling in New Zealand by Donald Kerr (2006).)

Pt Chevalier history group newsletter 1

Same good friend who convinced me that Blogger is a good thing (and she was right) has also waxed lyrical about Scribd. Well, I listened, and today I signed up, to put the first Pt Chevalier Times newsletter online: Point Chevalier Times.

I'm hoping that this initiative might assist the earlier initiative begun by the Pt Chevalier Community Library on 25 September to spark interest in a history group forming in Pt. Chevalier. It's definitely worth a shot. Hopefully, I'll get the hard copies out in the post today.

If anyone reads this and is interested in joining the group -- sing out. My email's in the profile.

Memories of a Monkey Apple tree

(Photo credit: Western Leader, 12 June 1984.)

I well remember the Monkey Apple tree (acmena floribunda) on Rosebank Road, outside the old (1904) Methodist Church. It gave us shelter as we waited for the bus into town, with its 10-metre height and broad expanse. It was a landmark as I made my way up the hill each day, walking up from Avondale Intermediate and Avondale College to home. Come 1984, though, it was felled and disappeared from our view forever, along with the church behind, both replaced by the modern-day Nafanua Church and hall complex for the Avondale Union Parish. The present church is a nice one, but -- there are still times when I look out across at that part of Rosebank Road, and can't help remembering a very lovely tall tree.

View from "Banwell" early 20th century

Possibly the same company picnic -- the view is down the slope towards the north-west, over the railway reserve area, towards Avondale township and Rosebank.

History of "Banwell" (part 3)

Above: Grey & Menzies company picnic at "Banwell", Avondale, turn of the 20th century. Photo from Avondale-Waterview Historical Society collection.

James Palmer took out a series of mortgages on the property from 1867 through to 1879 – from a Mr Russell for 2 months in 1867, Mr Lyell in 1868 (perhaps to build the second hotel?), from Mr Greenway in 1873 (perhaps to build the third hotel?), and finally from John Grey and Mr Campbell in 1878. By the time John Grey (of John Grey & Sons, “aerated water manufacturers”) bought the northern sections from Palmer in 1879, the house on the sections was described as “mature”, even if only four rooms.

Perhaps, the sale of the northern sections of Allotment 85 to the Grey family, later creating “Banwell”, came about as part of a mortgagee sale.

(It would appear likely that the four-roomed house appeared sometime between 1849 and 1879. J Comrie could well have started it, and James Palmer added slightly to it, until the Grey family extended it further in the early 2oth century.)

From this point on, James Palmer was involved with either selling off his property in the Whau district (1882, selling the southern end of Allotment 85 to William Hunt, who created a brickworks there – now Lansford Crescent industrial estate), or giving it away (1884, donated land to the Anglican Church in order that the church could build St Judes). By 1887, he was in financial trouble, unable to pay the local Roads Board rates on his property, and having to be helped out by a friend and offered a discount for his previous community donations of land. He died, in 1893, while the Great Slump of the late 19th century was still rolling on (1886-1897).

John Grey apparently arrived in Auckland relatively late, in 1869. He founded John Grey & Sons, operating from Eden Crescent from 1874, which later became Grey & Menzies in 1902 until close down in 1964.

John Grey died in 1898, leaving his estate to his son Charles who went on to run Grey & Menzies, become a Mayor of Auckland, and passed away in 1925. His widow Fanny lived at Banwell for many years, until the late 1950s. According to Ron Oates in Challenge of the Whau, it was Charles Grey who named the estate “Banwell”.

In 1960, the four sections were subdivided into residential lots, and Acton Place was formed.

History of "Banwell" (part 2)

(Updated 14 January 2015)

From 1849 to 1865 apparently came a succession of occupiers of the land at Allotment 85 who, unlike John S Adam, certainly made their mark on the history of the district. There was first Mr James Comrie:

Among the early settlers in the Whau district were several members of St. Andrew's congregation, but the distance was so great and the roads and the means of transport so poor that regular attendance at the central Church was not possible, and services were desired in their own neighbourhood. The first of these of which there is a record were held in the dwelling house of Mr. James Comrie (later of Pukekohe during the 2nd New Zealand War in 1860s), and were conducted by his brother, Rev. Wm. Comrie, of Auckland, who preached on 16th January and 6th February, 1859, from the texts John 3 :7 and Phil. 3 :13, 14. From that time a weekly service was aimed at, and, subject to a good many breaks owing to weather and other conditions, services were held there until the Church was built. Mr. McCall and other laymen from Auckland gave valuable assistance.

(From The Presbytery of Auckland, by W J Comrie, A.H. and A.W. Reed, 1939)

Later, another elder of the Church, Mr John Buchanan, who also ran a warehousing business on Karangahape Road in the city, is listed as having been a tenant of Adam on the allotment. From 1863, he was on the Whau School Committee. He was later the first Chairman of the Mt Albert Highways District (1867) and on the Whau Highways District Board from 1868. Along with an elder from Riverhead, he donated land to the Presbyterian Church, in order that the present-day St Ninians Hall could be built for services.

Part of Allotment 85, Sections 5, 6 and 7 were sold by John Adam to Buchanan on 2 July 1866. These were the central portions of the allotment.

And finally, just before 1865, James Palmer came to the site.

James Palmer (1819-1893) left Plymouth bound for New Zealand on 4 December 1842 on the Westminster, arriving 31 March 1843. He gave his age as 22, and that of a “Maria Palmer” as 18. Before coming to the Whau in the mid 1860s, he was the keeper of the Royal Hotel in Eden Crescent. He is more noted, however, as being the owner of two of the three Whau Hotels – one built in the 1860s before he arrived in Avondale, and the replacement in 1873 after the first one burned down, (See The (first) Whau Hotel.)

He would also be known as the donor of land for the Whau Public Hall (1867), and for St Jude’s Church (1884). Present-day Donegal Street was once called Palmer Street after him.

In 1866, it became necessary for John Adam, absent in Australia, to arrange the subdivision and sale of his lands in the Whau. The Government Road had been formed (present day Chalmers Street-New Windsor Road, around 1863) and had changed the holdings. Wolseley Street (Wolverton) was formed to the south, while Manukau Rd (Blockhouse Bay Road) and St Georges Rd remained the east and west boundaries respectively. While selling sections 5 to 7 to Buchanan, he sold 1 to 4, along the Government Road line, to James Palmer on 27 February 1866. The future “Banwell” possibly sat on Section 2, the second from off the Manukau Road.

It appears likely, from looking at later title documents, that Palmer also owned the Wolseley third of the allotment (south end), but possibly bought this from the Adam family at a later date.

Adam is recorded as having ownership interests which he transferred to Palmer in Allotment 13 also around this time, possibly including the site of the two Hotels Palmer would erect in the village-to-be. (Adam and his sisters, according to Challenge of the Whau also sold parts of Allotment 13 to William Forsyth, builder of the Public Hall, and John Tait, father of future Avondale Mayor W J Tait.)

In February 1867, Palmer is noted as having land in the village centre which he lent out in order that the Whau Minstrels stage their inaugural public performance, and another in early March which helped fund-raise toward the building of a Public Hall. In April, he donated land (site of the present-day Hollywood Cinema) for the new Hall to the community. By late 1870, the second Whau hotel was built on the corner of Windsor Road (Wingate Street) and Great North Road – this was to burn down in December 1872, only to rise again and be reopened on July 4 1873.

On 22 May 1878, part of the sections was taken by the government for the railway (completed 1880).

History of "Banwell" (part 1)

(Note from 2003) While interviewing for "Heart of the Whau" in 2001, a resident living next door to "Banwell" contacted me, and invited me around to her place to view papers she had borrowed especially from the current owners of the house. To Mary Fitzpatrick, I remain infinitely grateful. Part of the following formed a contributing source for the book.

The “Banwell” story begins in 1836, with the reason why John Shedden Adam and his brother and sisters would have come to a land half a world away from their home in Scotland.

On 11 January 1836, soon after Ngati Whatua had returned to the pa called Karangahape near Puponga Point on the north shore of the Manukau, one Thomas Mitchell, assisted by the Methodist missionary, William White, secured the marks of Apihai Te Kawau, Kauwae, and Tinana Te Tamaki to a deed purporting to sell forever the whole of the Tamaki Isthmus between the Manukau and Tamaki `rivers' on the south and the ‘Waitemata `river' on the north, and from the Tasman sea to the Hauraki Gulf. The price was 1000 pounds of tobacco, 100 dozen pipes, and six muskets.

On 3 November 1838, following Mitchell's death by drowning, the title was purchased from his widow for £500 by a group of largely Scottish entrepreneurs under the name of the New Zealand Manukau and Waitemata Land Company.

(www.knowledge-basket.co.nz, sighted 2001)

With wonderful promises of mild climate and fruitful harvests, the Scottish businessmen, led by Patrick Matthews, set out glowing prospectuses in 1839 to their fellow Scots, who bought shares in land in a country they had never seen. It was expected by one and all that Cornwallis was to be the future for the Auckland isthmus. The transport offered to the new land, however, was less than expected.

The first chartered ship, the barque Brilliant, was little better than a coffin ship. It left Glasgow on 31 December 1840 and was almost wrecked before clearing the coast of Scotland. The captain put into Cork Harbour where he and all the crew – except for an apprentice and the cook – walked off. Some passengers followed. A less particular captain was found, on one account a more sober one, another crew was signed on and the longest voyage made by any ship at any time sailing between Britain and New Zealand was again underway. With calls at Sierra Leone (and here the cook deserted), Cape Town, Melbourne (where more passengers left) and Hobart, the Brilliant did not reach the New Zealand coast until 27 October 1841 – 301 days after leaving the Clyde.

(Fire on the Clay, by Dick Scott)

While James Adam arrived on the Brilliant after that interminable voyage, his brother John Shedden Adam (1822-1906) arrived on the Jane Gifford, accompanied by his sister Elizabeth. The Adams family had come with £1200 total land shares from the Land Company. But almost immediately they were met with disappointment. The settlement at Cornwallis was scarcely that – no fine roads, no houses ready to be lived in. Instead, local Maori took pity on the hapless immigrants, building huts for them as shelter.

And also, there were questions as to the true ownership of the land at Puponga Point.

Following the establishment of British sovereignty the company's claims were presented to the Land Claims Commission by Captain W C Symonds, its New Zealand agent. But no Maori witnesses appeared before the land claims commission in 1841 to certify the deed. Meanwhile the company had sold subdivision sections to settlers in the United Kingdom, as if it did have title, and immigrants were actually on their way out in the ship Brilliant. At the request of the Secretary of State in London, Lord John Russell, the executive council in New Zealand, decided, on 18 October 1841, that the Manukau Company would be granted four acres for every £1 it had spent on colonisation, in the area where it had any proven valid claim. The formula of the Pennington awards to the New Zealand Company was thus applied to the Manukau Company. On the figures of expenditure presented this would have entitled to them to 19,924 acres. However, soon after this decision, W C Symonds was drowned and, lacking an effective local agent, the company's claims before the land claims commission languished.



On 3 July 1843 the commission reported that no Maori witnesses having presented themselves during three advertised hearings, the company's claims were not proven. Meanwhile the settlers of the Brilliant had arrived, distressed and bitter at having no titles. The New Zealand administration gave them permission to squat on a defined area at Karangahape, pending the hearing of their claim (which at the time, was expected to be at least in part in their favour). Many dispersed but about 30 settlers huddled in bush material huts on the land, presumably with Ngati Whatua agreement

(www.knowledge-basket.co.nz)

By now, James Adam had drowned (in the same incident as Symonds), and John S Adam decided to cut his losses. In 1843, the immigrants were offered an acre of Crown “waste land” for every 4 acres they held in Cornwallis. John S Adam took up the offer, and was granted Allotment 85 in the Parish of Titirangi, in the Whau District. This is a remarkable fact, in that previously the earliest known settlement of the Whau District, which included modern day Avondale, had been after the Auckland Land Sales of 1844, waiting for 1845 before men such as Henry Walton and Daniel Pollen started building their homesteads in the district. But, it would seem, due to the connections of either Adams, the rest of the Cornwallis settlers, or both – the government of the day gave part of their “waste land” area as a grant ahead of schedule.

According to A Man of Many Parts by Graeme Adam, John S Adam was “determined to make a life for himself and to help his sister and James’ widow … had a small farm and a house on the hill to match.”

It has been theorised that this original house on the site was a kit house, with kauri beams having been shipped to England, dressed to size, roofing and other items added and then everything shipped right back to New Zealand, with a design close to that of Australian styles of the era, with deep verandahs. However, considering that the Adam family were “well-established” by 1844/1845, I question the amount of time the above arrangements would have taken. Adam most likely had a small, colonial-style house, perhaps similar to Acacia Cottage (presently in Cornwall Park, the dwelling built by Campbell and Brown). After all, in other notes found in the T. Lowe papers from 9 Acton Place, it is said that John Adam “had a powerful lobby of friends” which included John Logan Campbell, the builder of Acacia Cottage. It is said that the building had 3 fireplaces, timber-beamed floors and “an overall feeling of homely elegance”. This would have been Adam putting his skills to work – as he was “a skilled surveyor and architect of considerable wealth”.

On 1 December 1845, his father wrote to him from Edinburgh:

I am glad to see that you are at work with potatoes and pumpkins. I wish I had the opportunity of giving you lessons on farming.

I do not think the place you have chosen is as pleasant as one would be with plenty of water.

I think if you decide on remaining in New Zealand at all, you should look out for a pleasant situation of about 50-100 acres near the seaside, and having a stream of water, and purchase it and sell your ownership.

As it was, John Adam felt his talents were wasted as a “yeoman farmer”. In 1846, he settled up his affairs in New Zealand, and moved to Sydney, never to return. However, his allotments, now including much of allotments 83, 84 and 13 (much of New Windsor and Avondale Central bought during the actual land sales of 1845), still remained in the combined ownership of himself and his sisters.

In the Lowe papers, there is a brief reference to the house being removed and sent to a Mr Russell, apparently a business partner of Adam, perhaps in Australia. If so, then Allotment 85 holds no real remnant of that early 2 year occupancy of J. S. Adam.

Avondale Racing Pigeon Club

Update 22 May 2021 -- the Pigeon Club building was demolished in April 2021.

 An update to this post.

I contacted a couple of members of the Avondale Racing Pigeon Club this morning. Ron Tucker told me that the building presently at Trent Street was originally a small clubhouse building, constructed by the members themselves, before 1963. It was located initially on the railway land along Rosebank (perhaps the site of what was once the firewood dealer before this year, or the composting depot, near the old goods shed.) In 1963, they obtained permission from Railways to shift the clubhouse to Trent Street, and then they extended the building.

He didn't know exactly how long the club had been on Rosebank Road -- that may have to be some delving for another day.

Avondale Station, c.1954. Courtesy Les Downey.

16 January 2018

This, from a Facebook comment by Verdun Douglas Haig Lake:

During the 1940s & 1950s the Avondale Racing Pigeon Club used this station [Avondale] as its club room. Pigeons had a numbered rubber ring placed on a leg, all were locked in a large box and transported by train to various towns across the country where they were released by railway staff at a given time and place which was on a Saturday morning. Well trained birds would go straight into the loft on arriving home, we took the ring off the leg and inserted it into the sealed timing clock, slid the cover closed which started the clock going. 

We all attended the Station room where the time showing on the clocks were read to determine the winner of the race. ( the clocks could not be tampered with as they were sealed, the seal had to be broken to obtain the numbered ring). I still have some certificates of race wins plus some Champion Show Certificates. Dad was a fanatical Pigeon fancier, we had two lofts with 120 birds, Dad kept the breeding history in a large book. Dad was the only person ever to specifically breed yellow racing pigeons!! We lived at Range View Road, Mount Albert........ Lovely memories of an exciting era/lifestyle of the post war years, 40s/50s.

(His father also drove Transport Bus Service buses, and taxis.)

An inventive district

Yesterday was one of those times when, as I look in a resource for one subject (a blockhouse in Otahuhu, by the way), I find something completely different. And then, as this is the way I think, I then go chasing off across the paddock of knowledge after this new, tantalising bit of info.

The product of this latest diversion is this post.

I found a set of names of people who lived in the Avondale, Waterview (and Blockhouse Bay) areas who had taken out patents for their ideas and inventions. Now, I have next to no further information just yet on these people in most cases, but here's the list (from NZ Gazettes):

John Drummond Anderson (New Zealand Distiller)
1896: An invention entitled "Anderson's Hydrochloride Gold-saving Process."

Alfred Jerome Cadman
(nominee of James Lyle, Surrey, England)
1903: "An improved continuous retort for the destruction of small or finely divided vegetable substances".
1903: "An improved process and combination of ingredients to produce smokeless fuel briquettes."

J. Ellis
(no date): game

James Ferguson, farmer
1894: "An invention for an improved weed-extractor."
1894: "An invention for improvements in seed-sowing implements."
1897: A railway-crossing automatic electric alarm.

Edward Gifford (of Avondale South)
1902: With Robert Ridley Holmes of Newmarket, "An improved wire-strainer, staple-drawer, and wire-cutter."

John Henry Grattan
1902: Saw stripper and regulator.
1902: Single and multi purchase [purpose?] attachable gear for controlling horses and other animals.

C. D. Grey (well-known manager of Grey & Menzies, Mayor of Auckland 1909-1910)
1910: Packing-case lining

John James Haslam (of Wharf Road)
1887: "A Horse-power Earth-elevator and Self-acting Tipper."
1887: "Patent for an Invention for receiving and conveying Silt, Sand, Gravel, Scoria, Rock, or Stone, &c., named 'Haslam's Twin Self-discharging Hydraulic Hopper Pontoon.'"
1889: "... an invention for improvements in Haslam's patent twin self-discharging hydraulic hopper pontoon for receiving and conveying silt, sand, gravel, scoria, rock, stone, or other such material, and self-discharging same."
1897: "A duplex self-discharging silt-punt."

Daniel Pollen of Whau Flat

In the George Maxwell Memorial Cemetery at Orchard Street and Rosebank Road, there is a headstone for one of the colony of New Zealand's Premiers: Daniel Pollen. He held the position only from July 1875 to February 1876, but fulfilled a number of other important roles, including that of Colonial Secretary (equivalent to today's Minister of Internal Affairs). He also lived on the Rosebank Peninsula for part of his life, dying at his homestead near the tip of the area in 1896.

His Avondale story begins in 1855, after he had served as a medical officer on Kawau Island for the copper mining companies, and as he was beginning his political career in the Auckland Provincial Council. That year, he purchased from Mr. Kelly Allotments 2, 3 and 4, just down from the reserve area at the end (which is the present-day karting track). One of his sons was born on the property a year later. By mid 1860, however, a daughter was born at Eden Crescent -- possibly an apartment used by Pollen while he was engaged in his political career.

Around 1860, he had engaged John Malam as manager/brickmaker on his Rosebank property, facing the Whau River. By 1863, Malam's position belonged to John Ringrose. In the same year, a time when the Waikato War was beginning and the government sought a means to maintain good lines of communication with the troops heading to Ngaruawahia and beyond, another opportunity presented itself to Pollen: pottery. More precisely, telegraph insulators. A potter of skill arrived in Auckland in September 1863: James Wright. Pollen snapped him up and put him in charge of his pottery kilns, responsible for meeting the contract requirements. By 1865, this proved a failure. James Wright seemed to be more interested in using Pollen's kilns to produce fancy goods for display in exhibitions than he was the more humdrum work of insulator manufacture. The arrangement between Wright and Pollen ceased, and Wright went his own way, starting potteries in New Lynn, Ngaruawahia and Paparoa.

In 1864, Pollen had lost a tender for producing 900,000 bricks of various colours and shapes for the new Lunatic Asylum, but picked up much of the contract from 1865 after the winning brickmaker, John Thomas of the Star Mill, defaulted. Later that year, his brick yard was in full production, and a cutter named Whau carried the product to Auckland, where it helped to fill a need for bricks for new buildings under construction during the small war boom in the local economy. By 1866, advertisements for "10,000 bricks, Pollen's best Auckland make" appeared as far away as the Taranaki Herald.

By 1868, a potter named Storey, originally from Onehunga, had set up at Pollen's yards producing domestic earthenware and the insulators. By then, however, competition was fierce in both the brick and pottery field, with John Malam setting up just across the Whau River, and Joshua Carder's Waitemata Pottery Works producing good quality pottery. The latest advertisement I've found so far for Pollen's bricks in 1871; it is quite likely that his works beside the Whau River operated only from 1860 to that date.

Daniel Pollen has left his legend behind in Avondale's history. Basic knowledge of our past almost always includes a mention of Pollen's Brick Yards, even if none of the other brickmakers are recalled. Whether he began the enterprise just to see if he could, or as an attempt at a canny investment -- he certainly left his mark on our story.

An update (18 December 2008) here.

Further update: the Pigeon Club building

Previous post here.

Just a brief update: seems the pigeon club in 1963 obtained the building from the railway yard (according to Council records), so I take it that it may have originally been one of the station's outbuildings. Hard to date how old that original part might be, with rail records still a bit fragmented, but -- there you go.

Post updated 9 October here.

"The Life and Times of Auckland"

Launched last week, Gordon McLauchlan's The Life and Times of Auckland has me hooked. A popular history of Auckland and its origins, so far it's a very good read, and well written. Check it out at the library to see what I mean.

Actually, on impulse (and because I've been waiting for it since I heard it was in the pipeline), I've also recently bought Urban Village, the history of Ponsonby, Freeman's Bay and St Mary's Bay. A massive 444 pages doesn't quite manage to cover the area in as much depth as it should at first glance, but this is still a creditable effort and certainly helps to fill in a gap in our knowledge of the history of Auckland isthmus.

An update (5 November): I've finished Gordon McLauchlan's book -- and one word describes it -- disappointing. This was how a friend of mine and fellow Auckland historian referred to it,. and I have to agree. It is patchy in detail, the most written about are the topics that appear to hold McLauchlan's interest. But the book is a collection of essays, rather than a cohesive whole, and the essays are riddled with errors and historical inaccuracies. I now see why he has sub-titled it "The Colourful Story of a City" -- "colourful", but without real substance except in isolated patches of clarity.

Fracas in New Lynn

This is one of my favourite stories from early New Lynn. Comes from the Evening Star, 21 January 1886.

The Police Court was occupied for some time to-day with a prosecution for assault arising out of a neighbours' quarrel between Messrs Smith and Meurant, residents of New Lynn. Henry Meurant was charged with assaulting Henry Smith on January 14th by striking him with a stick and knocking him down.

Mr. Thorpe appeared for complainant and Mr. S. Hesketh for defendant.

The facts, as stated for the prosecution, are these. Complainant is the owner of an orchard, and is annoyed by frequent pilferings of fruit. Not only is the fruit stolen, but the branches of trees are broken down and the trees themselves injured. Smith believed that Meurant's children were the offenders, and he remonstrated with him on the subject. Meurant asked him to let him know which of the children had committed the depredations and he would correct them for the offence.

Next day complainant was told by a little girl that Meurant's children were going down the road with apples which must have been taken from his orchard. He went to Meurant's house again, and after some words, Smith expressed his conviction that Meurant was encouraging his children in the alleged thefts.

Blows were then struck, and Smith found himself outside of Meurant's house. He was, however, minus his chapeau, and called to Meurant asking him for it. He alleged that Meurant got the hat and threw it at him, at the same time striking him a heavy blow on the head, which injured his skull and knocked him down.

Dr. Girdler deposed that he found complainant suffering from a wound about an inch and a half long over the left eyebrow. The bone was injured, but not seriously, while the patient was suffering from slight concussion of the brain.

Alice Goldie, a little girl, related the circumstances of the fracas. The defence was that Smith used anything but pleasant language, and after some words, Smith, either accidentally or otherwise, trod on Meurant's bare foot. In stooping down to examine his foot Meurant was pushed over. A scuffle took place, and subsequently Smith used very offensive epithets towards defendant.

The two men had a second tussle, pea-sticks being used as weapons. Meurant did strike Smith on the forehead with a pea-stick, but throughout the whole affair Smith was the aggressor. Meurant and his son Edward related the story for the defence.

The case was dismissed, each party to pay their own costs.

Update: the truth behind the Coast Guard Hall

Updated from this earlier post ...

In 1922, with the formation of the Avondale Road Board District into a borough, the council agreed to find a place in the district for the new volunteer fire brigade to call a headquarters. There was a triangle of land alongside Trent Street, itself once the way that vehicles and people could cross the railway lines before 1913-1914 and the building of the overhead bridge. The Railways department agreed to lease the land to the borough council, and a two-storey fire station and bell tower were constructed.

"Outside was a tower which held the fire bell. This bell was rung to call to duty from their homes and workplaces the voluntary brigadesmen. There was some confusion because of the similarity of the sound of this bell to those used by some Chinese market gardeners. In 1926 Mr. Ah Chee was asked to change the tone of his to make it distinct from the fire brigade's." (Challenge of the Whau, 1994, p. 102)

Once Avondale amalgamated with Auckland City in September 1927, the volunteer brigade disbanded, and the district came under the command of the Auckland Fire Board. In 1933, a new brick and concrete fire station was built further along Blockhouse Bay Road, but by 1929, Auckland City Council had assumed the lease agreement (No. 14287) which the Avondale Borough Council had taken out with NZR. Both Challenge of the Whau and some later council staff members were incorrect when it was thought that the city council owned the land -- it was and still is a railway reserve.

In 1932, Stanley H James of the Avondale Unemployment Association applied to use the old hall. After correspondence among councillors and staff members, during which it was discovered that although the building could in theory seat 60 people, with dodgy foundations and insufficient bracing for the walls, 30 was by far the safer number to allow in the room at any one time. The Association were also advised that there was to be no dancing, drilling, or similar actions; four casement windows had to be altered to allow the sashes to open; and suitable bracing was required for the front of the building. The records remain silent as to whether the Association took up the offer after all.

In 1933, the Council sub-leased the building instead to a Mr. Finlay, a bootmaker, then in 1939 a painter named McPhail used the building. The Coast Guards came into the picture around 1941, with a 10/- sub-lease agreement. During World War II, an EPS shed was also on the site, adjacent to Trent Street.

From 1945 until its demolition, the hall became the home for the Waterview Scout Group, another (like the Coast Guards) who seemed a distance from their area of operations with a headquarters next to the Blockhouse Bay Road overhead bridge. In 1946, W J Lydiard did try to apply to the Council to use the hall "for the purpose of manufacturing footwear uppers," but he was turned down for two main reasons: that the hall was in a residential area, and the Council had no intention of turfing out the Scouts. "The building," wrote the City Engineer, "is supplying an important need of the youth of the district ..."

In early 1948, calamity: a piece of steel from the old bell tower broke off and lacerated the arm of a railway worker below. The Council took action and authorised the demolition of the tower, what materials as could be salvaged to be taken to the council's depot.

In May 1949, the Scouts wrote to the Council, aware of plans being considered for a new railway scheme (perhaps the later realignment in the 1950s) and asked the Council if an alternative site was available should they lose the hall. Council offered them a site on a plantation reserve at Seaside Avenue, but eventually the Scouts settled on a property at Fairlands Avenue. By 1957, though, the Scouts were still in the old fire station building at Trent Street, although their new hall was under construction. Now even the combined branch of the NZ Labour Party in the Grey Lynn Electorate expressed keenness to take over the lease in place of the Scouts, but by now the Council had had just about enough of the old building. The City Engineer recommended demolition in August 1957, and this finally happened once the Scouts moved out at the end of 1958.

Challenge of the Whau had it that this same building continued on but in 1963 the Avondale Racing Pigeon Club took out a permit "to erect and extend a club house" at Trent Street. The rather forlorn building there today is the 1963 replacement for the old volunteer fire brigade building. Hopefully, some time, old photos of the building may surface from out of someone's collection.

Of course, all this back-story will become meaningless when the temporary platform is created there at Trent around December or so. But, it's still history.

(Information obtained from Auckland City Archives files on the old Avondale Fire Station building at Trent Street, plans and permits, and valuation field sheets.)

Updated 8 October here.

A furry story from the Old Stone Jug hotel

A recent post in The Mad Bush Chronicles regarding certain four-legged Aussie immigrant overstayers from the 19th century brought the following little bit of lore from the Great Northern Hotel (aka the Old Stone Jug) in Western Springs to mind:

Strange bedfellows are sometimes met with. This was exemplified the other night in the Northern Hotel. A son of Mr. Edgecombe, the proprietor, went to bed as usual in the upper story — three stairs up — but during the night, or early in the morning he was awakened by more than ordinary warmth on one side of his head and near his throat. He felt something unusual beside him and was slightly alarmed. However he got up and lighted a candle. On examining the bed he discovered an oppossum lying coiled up in the bed, under the bed clothes. This is the first occasion on which such an animal has been seen in the neighbourhood, and how it got there, is at present a mystery . Some time ago, however, an animal having the appearance of a cross between an opossum and some other animal was shot amongst the scoria rocks near Mr. Edgecombe's hotel. Some people entertain the idea that opossums exist in the locality in a wild state, but this has not yet been proved. The animal was captured, and is being well cared for by Mr. Edgecombe. The family were once of opinion that the opossum found in bed may have been the one belonging to the Acclimatisation Society's gardens, but it is stated that they have since learned that such is not the case, and the whence of the opossum at Mr. Edgecombe's hotel still remains to be answered.

(Southern Cross, 16 August 1873, p. 2)

The Acclimatisation Gardens were those at the Domain here in Auckland from the late 1860s to the early 1880s. This piece is interesting to me, in that it comes from a time when Aussie possums were seen as a curiosity and valuable commodity, rather than the out-and-out pest we know them as today.

That, and the son was lucky not to have been clawed to ribbons ...