John Watson’s trees: the Boy Who Ran

At 63 Riversdale Road in Avondale, there stands a protected, heritage scheduled Norfolk Pine. About 80 metres away in Riversdale Reserve stands another Norfolk Pine that isn’t heritage scheduled. Both, though, appear to be linked to a single story. One man owned the land on which both trees now stand, from 1907 through to 1919, when the part now included in Riversdale Reserve was sold to another owner. It is possible that both trees are over 100 years old. The one at 63 Riversdale Road, at least, is definitely connected with the man I’m about to talk about, seeing as he died in 1929, and his family finally relinquished the rest of his property in the late 1940s.

That man was John Watson, born 4 August 1845 at Llanbryd (now Llanbryde) near Elgin in Morayshire, Scotland. He was the eldest son of John Watson and Margaret née Proctor. In 1859, John Watson senior left his family in Scotland to take up a job as farm manager for an Auckland merchant named James Burtt, on Burtt’s farm near Paerātā (now 77 Burtt Road), north-east of Pukekohe. Margaret and the rest of the family arrived aboard the Black Eagle in November 1861, and settled with him on Burtt’s farm.

The early 1860s was a traumatic time for the area around Pukekohe, with the simmering forces boiling over to all-out war in the Waikato, following on from the Taranaki conflict in 1860. The Watson family, and the name Burtt’s Farm, are now part of New Zealand Land Wars history. One of the iwi with mana whenua at Paerātā are the Ngāti Tamaoho, whose pā tauā, Te Māunu a Tūmatauenga, stood atop a high ridge of ground. It had been a place of many battles over centuries. The site would see another battle in September 1863, due to the fact that when the Crown had taken over the land in the 1850s, selling it to local farmers and city speculators, the ridge and the pā site became part of Burtt’s farm, and there he had a house built, up on that same ridge, for his manager, John Watson and Watson’s family. The ridge became known to settlers as Burtt’s Bluff.

What exactly triggered the attack on the farmhouse on 14 September 1863 is still not absolutely clear. Most of the information about that day, during which a church at Pukekohe East was also attacked and besieged, with a number of deaths on both sides, comes of course from the narrative of surviving settlers and later commemorations in the media. According to a report prepared by Ngāti Tamaoho themselves from February 2021, their papakāinga and maara kai had been looted and destroyed back in July 1863 by “colonial militia from Pukekohe, Patumāhoe, Mauku, Paerātā and the surrounding lands” so the attack on Burtt’s Farm was in response to that action. Another report, by Te Tupu Ngātahi claims that “the battle began after the farm manager Mr Watson was spotted erecting fences on Ngāti Tamaoho land.”

On the morning of the attack, around 10 am (according to the account by Land Wars historian James Cowan, published early 1920s), Mrs Watson was lying ill in her bed in the house, while her husband John was out fencing with another son Robert, and another farm worker named Hugh McLean was ploughing a field toward the west with eldest Watson lad John, aged 18. The attack began with shots fired at John Watson senior and 14 year old Robert at the fence line, mortally wounding the latter. The Maori attacking that day surrounded the farmhouse with a dozen men, cutting it off from both John Watson senior’s party, and Hugh McLean with the younger John Watson. McLean and Watson apparently faced 10 attackers, McLean firing on them.

Young John Watson had left his own rifle at home that day, so taking off his work boots, he left McLean and ran barefoot to get help, finding his brother William working elsewhere on the farm. Together, they reached Drury and sounded the alarm, an armed force quickly setting out from that settlement.

Meanwhile, those Maori who were besieging the farmhouse fired into the doors and windows, Mrs Watson diving under her bed. One of her two daughters there with her, Mary Ann, got away, and freed the family’s dog to rush at the attackers (the dog was killed). Mary then ran to one of the neighbours, but they’d already heard the shots, and were coming with their employees to the rescue, all armed. The attackers were driven off.

The Watson family and their workers were escorted into Drury, where Robert died later in a military hospital. McLean’s body was found later in a swamp. He’d been shot through the heart and his rifle taken. Later, once the war had ended, the Watson family returned to the farm, but in 1874 Burtt sold the property. This is probably when John Watson senior and his wife Margaret moved to Buckland further south, where Margaret died in 1878, and where he died in 1895. James Burtt, the man who probably originally brought the Watsons to the country, died in 1908.

Meanwhile John Watson the younger married Irish-born Bridget Tobin in 1868. While John had been baptised in a Scottish Presbyterian church, from that point on his own family were Catholic. He appears to have settled in Puni, to the south-east of Pukekohe, and lived there through to 1907. One son, William, died in 1891 aged only seven. Another, his eldest son Alexander aged 25, met with a tragic accident in 1894 while driving a wagon along the Piako Road at Hamilton. Something frightened his horse – some reports say it was the sight of a Maori sitting beside the road – and it bolted. Alexander fell, and one of the wheels went over him. He died a few hours later in hospital. Another son, named John, died aged 35 at Puni in 1905.

John Watson bought the Riversdale Road property from the estate of George Willey by April 1907, but the deal would have been finalised months earlier, as he’d sold up his farm goods at Puni in February that year. He would be known to his last days, off and on in the press when someone brought up the siege at Burtt’s Farm, as the boy who ran to get the troops.

In July 1919, he transferred half, seven and a half acres, to Harry McLeod, and that part went to Auckland City Council in 1990 as part of Riversdale Reserve, after being designated in 1977. When Watson died, the remaining seven and a half acres at 63 Riversdale Road was left to his two unmarried daughters, Margaret and Annie Watson. When Margaret, who lived there in the 1930s and 1940s died in October 1946, Annie inherited her sister’s share and in 1949 transferred the land to the Auckland Catholic Diocese. Half of that was taken for state housing in 1950, and the remainder was subdivided by the church authorities in the 1960s.

So, two trees on an Avondale street, one scheduled, and the other not. There’s probably no way of knowing how old they really are, but I do think that if one is scheduled, then the other on the Auckland Council reserve, even more of a streetscape landmark in the neighbourhood, should be protected as well. They are two remaining links we have with both the market gardening and orchardist heritage of Rosebank Peninsula – and with those events in that tragic war that took place on our island nearly 160 years ago.

Cecil Herdson, and his gold-toothed dog

From around 1926 to late 1935, Cecil Hastings Herdson and his dental practice was part of the developing suburb of Avondale. He used the rooms above Arthur Maxwell’s pharmacy next to the police station on Great North Road, taking over from Robert Allely, Avondale chemist-dentist from the 1910s. A breeder of hunting dogs, his name lived on in many of the minds of those who had been in Avondale then as not only the local dentist, but the man who gave his dog golden teeth.

According to the story, related to me by a number of people back in 2001, Herdson’s hunting dog lost its teeth in an accident, so Herdson fashioned and fitted another set of teeth for the dog, made from gold. The story went further that when the dog did eventually pass on, Herdson buried the animal secretly, in case anyone came after the gold in his pet’s mouth.

Did it happen? I doubt we’ll ever know for sure either way. Dentists were, indeed, giving dogs gold crowns over their teeth at the time, filling cavities in dogs’ teeth with gold, and fashioning gold dental bridges for beloved canines. This seemed to have been a faddish trend from the early 1900s to the 1930s, in Britain, Germany and America, and the newspapers reported on it with fascination. If anyone ever digs up a dog’s skull in Avondale or Mt Albert with that certain glint attached — that might be Herdson’s beloved animal.

So, who was Cecil Hastings Herdson?

He was born the youngest of three children at Waiuku on 1 August 1888, to stockman Montague James Dayrell Herdson and Elizabeth Doncaster Herdson, née Oldham. Montague Herdson died at the age of 47 in 1909, and lies buried at Waikumete Cemetery. Elizabeth married again, this time to William Edward Maugham, on 22 December 1909, nearly a month after her first husband’s burial. Two years later, 23-year-old Cecil Herdson was working as a dental assistant in Waihi, then took up working for dentist A E O’Meara in Hastings, just before the outbreak of the First World War.

Herdson enlisted almost immediately, on 11 August 1914 with the B section of the 8th Mounted Field Ambulance, Hastings. This was the first unit to mobilise from the Hawke’s Bay region. Herdson served with the unit at Gallipoli in 1915, and was promoted to Lance-Corporal in August that year. By December, he was promoted again, to Sergeant, and then in February 1916 transferred to the NZ Dental Corps. He worked in Egypt until sent to France at the end of 1916. Another promotion, to Staff-Sergeant, came in 1918. He served throughout the rest of the war, and was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal in 1919, just before he returned to New Zealand towards the end of that year.

It appears that Herdson stayed as a lodger with Mrs Gertrude Duvall at 13 Highbury Street from around 1921 until 1927, when Arthur Maxwell took up the lodging in his place (and remained a friend of Mrs Duvall, living there through to her death in 1967). Herdson had two suburban dental practices at one point. As well as his Avondale one, he had another in the back of Ozich’s block of shops, built 1925 on what is now Railside Avenue. A fire in 1927 destroyed the block.

He was involved in a motor accident in Pt Chevalier one night in 1928, through no real fault of his own, when a motorcyclist collided with the back of his car on a darkened Pt Chevalier road. The motorcyclist later died in hospital, but Herdson, who was driving with friends, was not held responsible.

Herdson was breeding Gordon Setter puppies at Avondale by 1926, and Irish Setters by 1931. His love of the dogs, hunting and fishing were obviously well-known in Avondale, and form part of the lore that led to the story of his golden-toothed dog. One particular dog, an Irish Setter named Lorna Doone from which he bred puppies until around 1934, seemed to be a favourite.

The 1930s, despite the Great Depression, seemed to be the decade when Cecil Herdson would do very well in both his life and his career. He got married in 1931, bought investment property in Avondale and elsewhere, his dogs were a success, and his practice profitable. In December 1935, he set himself up with an office in the prestigious Dilworth Building in the city.

Then, in 1937, Cecil Herdson went blind. His dental practice ceased. I don’t know why he went blind, that hasn’t been disclosed publically. It may have had something to do with his war service, but there isn’t anything on the surviving file that refers to an incident or illness that would have clearly led to it. The Defence Department did refer to his death in 1963 as being war-related — but as his death registration shows he suffered from arthrosclerosis lasting years, even that isn’t very clear. But, with his life so drastically altered, Herdson still managed to make the most of things.

This from the Auckland Star, 11 November 1944.

“To men newly-blinded in this war it must surely be encouraging to hear words such as these from a man who lost his sight when approaching middle life: "Blindness doesn't make a lot of difference. One can still lead one's ordinary social life, keep up many of one's old interests, and take up new ones also."

“The speaker was Mr Cecil H Herdson, of Great South Road, who was well known as a dentist in Auckland before he went blind seven years ago. The way in which he has adapted himself to his new world proves the truth of his own courageous words. Moreover, the fact that he has, in the last year, taken up a new hobby—that of making toys—should be an inspiration to younger men compelled through blindness to devote themselves to new careers. “Before he lost his sight Mr Herdson was quite competent at doing odd carpentering jobs about the house, but he had never made children's toys. Now he can display an attractive selection of doll's prams, small wheelbarrows (though one was large enough for a grown person to use with ease), scooters, tip-trucks, rocking horses and little carts, gaily painted in red, green, cream and yellow. “About a year ago he procured some iron and repaired a scooter and a pram. The idea came to him to try his hand at making wooden and iron toys, and four or five months ago he set up a workshop at his home. One of his first efforts was a wheelbarrow, a small, solid affair. Pointing out that it had faults, he said to-day that wheelbarrows were very hard for anyone to make.

“All his toys are solidly constructed with thorough detail that makes one marvel at the seeing fingers that guided the cutting machine. His tools include a drill and sanding machine. Particularly attractive (and for Mr Herdson one of the most difficult to make) is a doll's pram in cream painted wood, with rubber wheels, smooth chromium handlebars and pink lining.

“In his collection are several scooters in red and green-painted iron, and a splendid tip-truck with a jack for changing the wheels, a winder to make a satisfying clanking noise, and bushed wheels with iron axles. The rocking horses are of wood, unpainted as yet, but Mr Herdson is planning to make another type which will fit into an iron cradle and give a lifting motion. This will save wear and tear on carpets.

“The first and sometimes second coats of paint are put on by Mr Herdson, but a friend adds the top coat and two-colour effects. The friend also put the lining in the pram. Mr Herdson said that the Blind Institute had asked if it could take his toys for selling, and commercial firms had offered to buy them; but he had plenty of friends who were anxious to buy the toys for their children. It took him three or four days to make a wheelbarrow. Recently, as a change from making toys, he built a shower box in the bathroom. The job took him about a week, though he did not then have the sanding machine. When his photograph was being taken, Mr Herdson said, with a humorous "crack" at his former profession, "This is a worse ordeal than going to the dentist!" On discovering that a flashlight was being used, he chuckled, "It won't blind me, will it?"

“Mr Herdson said he still attended dog shows, in which he has always been interested, having had his own dogs at one time. He went to dental meetings, and did some insurance work among dentists. Having served in the last war, he now took an active interest in blinded soldiers' activities, he added. “A warm tribute was paid by Mr. Herdson to Sir Clutha Mackenzie for his help when he was blinded. Sir Clutha was the first blind person to visit him at his home, and presented him with a Braille watch, talking book, and a pack of cards, and later showed him over the institute. Mr. James Maguire, teacher of Braille and typing at the institute for many years, and now the teacher at Fairview, for blinded servicemen of this war, had also given him sympathetic help, for which he was deeply grateful. “Modest about his own achievement, Mr Herdson expressed keen interest in the future of blinded men of this war, and said he wanted to do all he could to help and encourage them.”

That certain Ligar Canal image ...

One thing with going back to a research project that's been simmering away for a few years on the ol' back burner, is that things can be looked at again and reassessed in wider context. That probably won't do a lot to get the description changed/altered on the three main sites that use this image, but -- here's a bit of a go.

According to the Auckland War Memorial Museum, who have a copy of the James D Richardson negative photo-of-a-photo image, this is:

"Ligar Canal, a sewer running down Queen St. Photograph shows the Metropolitan Hotel."

(PH-NEG-B5457)

That's not too bad, but it can lead folks astray -- and has done. Folks presume that the Ligar Canal, the drain built from 1843 to tap into Te Wai Horotiu at the Wyndham Street junction with Queen Street to take waters from High Street, Vulcan Lane and Shortland Street out to the west side of Commercial Bay ran down the centre of Queen Street. It didn't -- but there is an asterisk to that.

In 1849, a trench was dug diagonally across the width of Queen Street, just north of today's Swanson Street, diverting the drain's stormwater etc into another drain at the Fort Street junction. Seems really odd that they did that, considering this shifted the outflow closer to the original Queen Street jetty, but the intent may have been to allow the further reclamation of allotments on the western side of the bay.

So – the Ligar Canal was primarily along the western side of Queen Street from 1843, with part diverted across to the eastern side in 1849.

Te Ara, run by the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, picked up one of Auckland Library’s copies of the image, and put this caption on their site:

“The Ligar Canal was an infamous open drain that ran along Auckland’s Queen Street. This 1860s photo shows it crossed by rickety footbridges and surrounded by rough fences. The presence of raw sewage in open drains not only made early cities stink – it also led to high rates of disease and death.”

Yes, the Ligar Canal is an infamous drain – so infamous, folks back then and now tend to label part of the Te Wai Horotiu watershed flow by that name, even the natural watercourses south of Wyndham Street. “Ran along Queen Street” isn’t a bad description. But then they get to “This 1860s photo shows it crossed by rickety footbridges and surrounded by rough fences.” Yes, the image is from the 1860s, but they’ve missed the point as to what the image actually shows. Nothing to do with “footbridges.”

So, now we have the Auckland Libraries’ images. They have two versions of the same one online, this description is for 4-400 (I’ve used 4-9015 for the image to this post which has a simpler description):

“Looking north down Queen Street showing east side with the Metropolitan Hotel with a group of men outside on the corner of Fort Street (right) and the Ligar Canal, a large portion of which collapsed after heavy rain on 30 March 1866. Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXII, Issue 2719, 4 April 1866, Page 5: 'On proceeding up the main sewer, a considerable amount of timber and other rubbish was found collected at the junction of Fort and Queen streets. This was caused by an iron bar having been built across the sewer. At this place the sewer has suffered considerable damage, a portion of the bricks on one side having been washed out for a distance of 12 feet in length, and 4 feet in height.'”

Very detailed. And incorrect.

The diagonal diversion across Queen Street collapsed in June 1860 after heavy rains soaked the ground above the trench, which was only covered by timbers right from 1849, causing the heavy soil, mud and clay to make what was described as a gash “resembling an earthquake crack” across Queen Street. (Southern Cross 15 June 1860 p.3) This happened during the construction of the main sewer on the eastern side of Queen Street (that’s the brick sewer photographed at Fort Street corner and almost always mislabelled as the Ligar Canal).

The mess was fixed up, and the Ligar Canal diversion was used as a flush for the sewer. By 1866, the Queen Street Main Sewer had progressed up the eastern side of Queen Street – it reached Wellesley Street by 1865, and all along the way, fresh diversions from both the Ligar Canal drain and the lined watercourse for Wai Horotiu were made, until a diagonal diversion from Victoria Street West in 1865.

So no, this image showing more than just the sewer blown out at Fort Street isn’t 1866 – it’s much more likely to be June 1860, showing the only known event with a contemporary description that matches what we see here.

Really though -- more to do with the Main Sewer works, than the old Ligar Canal.

Mrs Alice O’Shea: the Blind Dressmaker

Once again, a dip into the Christchurch Press snippets online from the 1950s has brought up a snapshot of life in Point Chevalier.

“Mrs Alice O’Shea, of Point Chevalier, Auckland, still cuts out her own dresses though her eyesight was destroyed in a motor accident more than 20 years ago. Before the accident she had earned her living as a dressmaker. She cuts out her dresses to a pattern she has designed herself and sews them on an ordinary sewing machine. The only thing she uses to help her is a patent needle-threader. She puts a pin in the right or wrong side of the work, but sometimes when the pin falls out, she has to ask someone to tell her if the pattern is on the right side.”

(24 February 1956)

There was, however, quite a bit more to Mrs Alice O’Shea than her blindness and her dressmaking skills.

Alice was born Alice Walberg Olsen in 1897, one of the children of Captain Enoch Claus Olsen who originally from Christiansund in Norway. Enoch’s birth surname was Schjelvaag, but when he arrived in New Zealand he changed it to Olsen so people here could pronounce it. In 1882, he married Hermione Woodcock, and had a lengthy career on the coastal trade between Mangawhai and Auckland.

In January 1922, Alice married Samoan entertainer Mayo Hunter, who toured around New Zealand and Australia from the 1920s to 1940s as a “genuine Hawaiian” musician. The marriage was short-lived; after little more than five months, Hunter left Alice and travelled to Australia, failing to return or maintain her. She sought and got a decree nisi divorce from him in November 1925, made absolute in February 1926; before that was finalised, though, Hunter had remarried in Australia.

So, we come to Saturday 23 January 1926. Alice’s sister Bertha had married a motor mechanic named Andrew Mercer, who worked for Gilmour, Joll and Williams Ltd, Coach and Motor Builders of Newton Road. In December 1925, the firm imported and assembled a left-hand drive 7-seater Jordan limousine for a buyer in Taranaki. Mercer had the job, once it had been built, to test run it – this he did, up until 23 January. From that point on, it was garaged and meant for shipment to the new owner within days.

But Mercer decided on that Saturday evening to take it for one last spin, and to invite his friends and family along. Five joined him on the trip out that night south as far as Drury: his wife Bertha, sister-in-law Alice, a fellow engineer at the workshop named Harry Booth, and two others.

Night car-rides along Auckland’s dark and in many cases rough metal roads in the 1920s were very common in that period. Some would “shoot the moon,” driving at speed up Maungawhau Mt Eden, and back down, now and then ending the adventure suddenly with a crash into the crater. Night rides were mixed with the exuberance of youth, the jazz and other trendy music of the time (Alice apparently had brought along a gramophone), spontaneous diversion from dance hall evenings and often alcohol (although there was no evidence of the latter involved with Mercer’s trip).

Out at Drury, around 11 o’clock, the friends stopped and had refreshments by the roadside, listening to Alice’s gramophone. Then, around midnight, it was decided that they should all head back, so Mercer could park the powerful car back where he had taken it without his employer’s permission, and none would be any the wiser. Things did not work out as planned.

Mercer drove at around 30 mph along the darkened Great South Road, the weather becoming windy and “boisterous,” the road’s surface slick with rain. They reached Papakura; then, just a bit further along, at a bend, Mercer felt the right rear tyre blow out, and the car started to skid out of control. He knew not to apply brakes, but did all he could to still try to avoid crashing into a telegraph pole that loomed toward them out of the dark, as the car slid into the gutter, and then hit the pole.

All bar Harry Booth were flung out onto the road by the force of the impact. Booth, found semi-conscious on the back seat, would later die in hospital from head injuries. Bertha Mercer also had head injuries and cuts to her face, but she survived. Andrew Mercer received a cut over one eye. With near neighbours who had heard the crash running over to try to help, along with a local doctor, Mercer did at least try to get things sorted. He called his boss Lewis Joll from the nearest available phone in Papakura (that must have been a really “fun” telephone conversation. Hi Mr Joll, I’ve just crashed the brand new car in Papakura …). He asked Joll to drive there (remember, this is the first hours of Sunday morning) to help him ferry the injured to hospital. Joll passed Mercer on the road, the latter in a lorry carrying some of the injured to Auckland.

Mercer was pronounced liable at the coroner’s inquest, and two court hearings, due to careless driving. He lost his job for taking the car without permission, and causing hundred of pounds in damages to the vehicle. He was sentenced, initially, to a month in prison, but this was reduced on appeal to just 11 days.

But as for Alice …

Alice had landed with such force that her nose fractured, and both her eyes ruptured. There were concerns for days as she lay in the hospital as to how she would recover. In the end, she lived, but lost her sight completely. Her story, of course, continued.

We’ve seen already how, by the 1950s, her ability to refuse to let her blindness stand in the way of her skills as a dressmaker was conveyed as news to the public as far away as Christchurch. But of special interest is that, with her in that car that night was her fiancé Patrick Richard O’Shea, who worked at the time as assistant secretary for the Seaman’s Union. They had been courting for some time before the accident. He’d suffered a broken leg and was knocked out, but what struck me was this – five years later, he and Alice still got married, and they lived together until he died in 1965. Despite her blindness, they still managed to be together anyway.

By 1935 the couple were living at 28 Premier Avenue, then by 1941 they were at 34 Fourth Avenue. At the time of the newspaper article, the O’Sheas had made their home at 3 Katoa Avenue in Pt Chevalier. After Patrick died, Alice lived on another 23 years, passing away in January 1988.

The quite ordinary Mr Kontze of Tui Street

 

(Left) The Press (Christchurch) 2 May 1951

The news snippet at right caught my attention one day. Hard to miss a report of someone painting “SCAB” on what was otherwise quite likely a quiet, unassuming house in an Auckland suburb full of the working class.

George Frederick William Kontze had really only two brief periods in his otherwise ordinary life where the media focussed on him — this one from 2 May 1951, during the infamous 1951 Waterfront Dispute, and one pretty much around the same time, 27 years earlier.

Kontze was born in Fulham, London, England, in 1891, the son of German-born master baker Henry Kontze and Ada Charlotte née Dicks. In 1909, young George Kontze joined the Royal Navy and would serve at a number of shore establishments for 12 years, through to 1920. He married Gladys M Dye in 1918.

On leaving the navy, Kontze secured a job as an able seaman aboard the ship ss Waiwera by 1922, and it was on the Waiwera that Kontze reached New Zealand. Where he and an accomplice were caught pilfering from the ship’s cargo.

NZ Police Gazette, 1923

“Getting out of bed at 2.30 o'clock on Sunday morning, George Frederick Wm Kontze (31) and Henry William Standen (20), two seamen on the ss Waiwera, which was lying at the Queen's wharf, made their way to the hatchway of No 5 hold. They removed the hatch and descended into the hold with a lighted candle. From No. 5 they got through to No 4 hold, where they opened two cases containing women's woollen clothing. Three coats, two jackets, four robes, a roll of dress material, and six undergarments, valued at £14, were removed. “The seamen then reclosed the cases, nailed them up and replaced the iron bands. The goods which had been removed were then wrapped up in a bundle, and on the men regaining the deck the parcel was secreted in one of the ship's air-shafts. Detective-Sergeant Gourley found it there next day, when he searched the ship.

“On being interviewed the accused admitted the theft, and each made a statement. A plea of guilty was entered by Kontze and Standen when they appeared in the Police Court this morning. Mr J W Poynton, SM, said the Court could only look upon the offence as serious. They had admitted going into the hold among inflammable cargo with a naked light. They might have set the ship afire. A fine would not meet such a case. Each would be sent to Mount Eden for six months.”

(Auckland Star, 1 May 1923)

Kontze served his sentence — and then decided to stay in Auckland, obtaining work as a watersider.

His wife Gladys arrived via Wellington in November 1924, and by 1925 the couple were living in Bayfield Road, Herne Bay. In 1928 Kontze bought 32 Tui Street in Pt Chevalier, and made it his and Gladys’ home until her death in 1950, and his own in 1976.

Apart from the incident in 1951, it really can’t be said that Kontze had anything other than an ordinary life at Pt Chevalier. I asked online if anyone who lived in the area at the time remembered him, and no one had, even those who said they once lived right around the corner.

In 1949, he and Gladys travelled back to England for a trip, Kontze describing himself at that point as a carpenter. Then came Gladys’ death the following year, and a year after that, Kontze’s second brief spotlight on his life.

He was still working on the wharves in 1954 according to the electoral roll for that year. Strangely, there is a naturalisation file in his name in Archives NZ, dated 1957, even though he was born in London. It was around this time he had retired.

He and Gladys had no children of their own, so in his will, he left his assets to his brother William and a nephew, and a list of his worldly possessions, including carpentry tools, Kenwood chef foodmixer, Royal Doulton dinner and tea service, bedroom furniture, and his stamp collection. His ashes lie with Gladys’ at Waikumete, but with no plaque.

Fatal short-cut: the death of Frank Lane, 1954

The Elephant House at Auckland Zoo. Detail from Henry Winkelmann image, 1-W0652, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections

This year, Auckland Zoo looks set to celebrate its centenary in December, depending on how the pandemic goes. This year also, the zoo has said goodbye to one of their two remaining elephants, and is set (at the time of writing) to say goodbye as well also to Burma, the last zoo elephant left in the country, as soon as another home can be found for her. Back in 1954, the zoo also had two elephants: the still-well remembered Jamuna, and the forgotten Kassala, a young addition that arrived in Auckland in 1952, was sold to Bullen’s Circus in 1957, and ended up dying from poisoning in Australia in 1960. It was Jamuna who, one afternoon in August 1954, abruptly ended Frank Lane’s life.

Zoo keepers these days are well-trained professionals, who have often studied in their fields of expertise. Back in the 1950s however, those who worked with the animals at the zoo were more often than not gardeners, labourers, truck drivers, those who generally worked as Parks Staff for Auckland City Council, and did not have the same level of training. Nor the keen awareness of the health and safety hazards the jobs they carried out brought with them.

Francis (Frank) Wallace Lane was born c.1889 in Ryde on the Isle of Wight in England. His father was a farm worker, and working on the land was what Frank would do as well. Sometime before late 1911 he arrived in Auckland, and worked as a landscape gardener. By at least 1922, he had a job with the Auckland City Council, and was living at the Auckland Domain cricket grounds. Later reports said that he was one of those who worked on transforming the rough landscape at Western Springs into the Auckland Zoo grounds in time for the zoo’s opening on 16 December 1922. By 1925 he was living nearby, in Bannerman Road, Western Springs, and in 1929 married widow Florence Maud Rowntree.

The previous year, Florence had purchased land at 18 Muripara Avenue in Pt Chevalier, in behind Walker Park. The property remained solely in her name until her death in the early 1980s.

By 1954 Frank Lane was 65 and still working at the zoo, but as second man on the truck that picked up the elephant manure in the mornings from the back of the Elephant House, the grand structure built in the 1920s with a viewing area and two elephant pens. Each morning, during the mucking out, he’d bring Jamuna some bread, feeding her via her trunk, or sometimes straight into her mouth.

Jamuna’s main keeper, Albert George Barnett, died suddenly on 15 July 1954, just over a month before the incident where Lane died. Another keeper, Albert George Paddy, was being trained as his replacement, but was having time off in mid August. Yet another keeper, David Robertson, was ill, and would die in hospital three days after the incident – his absence added more pressure to second men with next-to-no training and expertise including Lane to help feed and look after the two elephants.

(Left) Jamuna, detail from Ron Clark image, 1956. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 1207-783

Jamuna arrived from India in 1923. The Elephant House wasn’t completed, so her first home was the City Council depot in Patteson Street, Freemans Bay, where she staged a number of break-outs and caused considerable damage. She didn’t like being shackled. Sadly, she was shackled when she was at Freeman’s Bay, and also at the zoo within the Elephant House. Only when she was saddled and walking the circuit at the zoo, day after day, carrying load after load of adults and children for nearly 40 years was she free of the shackles – and on her best behaviour. At the Elephant House, it was a different story.

Traffic noise from the Old Mill Road upset her in the night. She took an active dislike to certain members of the staff called in to look after her temporarily, either swinging her trunk at them, knocking them against walls, or spraying them with water. Her natural behaviour altered and hindered by the zoo environment, she developed a tell-tale swaying motion that some say points to her suffering from zoochosis, a mental illness.

On the morning of 17 August 1954, Lane was on the truck, and had brought Jamuna some bread before she started her day out on the pathways of the zoo. In the afternoon, she was brought back into the Elephant House, shackled, and Lane came in to help feed her and Kassala. Jamuna was in the eastern cubicle, Kassala next to her in the western. The standard practice set by zoo director Robert Weller Roach was to have just one man feeding elephants, but two to clean out the stalls in the mornings; however his instructions were that two men had to be present whenever it was necessary to enter the pen. On that afternoon though, the second man, John Eder, was around at the rear of the building, outside.

Plan of the zoo’s Elephant House. Kassala was housed in the lefthand cubicle, Jamuna in the right. “Plans Auckland Zoological Park Elephant House including alternative scheme showing accommodation for two elephants”. Drawings 1 & 2 JW or Jev Beggate dated 13/03/1925. Auckland Council Archives ACC 015 6132-1, 2 id. 473815, from their online exhibition.

With general complacency, those looking after the elephants had taken to using a short-cut, passing through Jamuna’s pen once feeding had been completed and closing the rear door from the outside. The feed room inside was on the western side of the elephant house, the attendants’ room on the eastern side. Lane got feed from the feed room, then he passed Kassala’s cubicle to feed Jamuna, then returned to feed Kassala. Then he came back, headed for the eastern-most side of Jamuna’s cubicle, and bent to duck under the railing for the usual short-cut through Jamuna’s pen and out the rear door. Jamuna at the time wasn’t facing the rails of her cubicle, but standing parallel to them, apparently standing just 18 inches away from the wall.

As Lane passed under the rails, Jamuna was swaying back and forth. Lane was seen to push Jamuna’s trunk aside and said “Let me get past.” According to testimony at the inquest, Lane would often reach out with his left hand to Jamuna’s trunk as he passed through the rails in front of her to head for the rear door, and would often have something in his hand to give her as he did so, like bread. In this instance though Lane hadn’t quite straightened up when Jamuna swung her trunk forwards and hit him, catching him off balance. Lane fell backward. A staff member who witnessed what happened said he tried to call Jamuna, but wasn’t not alarmed at that point because (as he said) he’d “seen the same proceeding before.” He expected it to be just one blow, and that was all, just enough to wind Lane.

But then Jamuna swung her trunk again, and moved forward. This crushed Lane against the wall from the left. His ribs fractured, the pericardium around the heart split, his lungs and arteries were bruised, and his head squashed and shattered against the wall. Lane’s body then slumped down to the floor, semi-upright, legs drawn up, head bowed forward, arms limp. Blood was seen on Jamuna later “approximately half way between her tusks and her eyes and in the centre of her trunk.”

Jamuna didn’t touch the body again, but stayed put, moving Lane’s fallen hat around with her trunk. When truck driver James Henry Large first attempted to remove the body, Jamuna swung her trunk toward him, and he backed away. Others arrived, and tried to attract Jamuna to the other side of the stall, but she refused to move. They waited for Roach to arrive – during that time, they watched as Jamuna took two loaves of bread that were behind Lane’s body and eat them. Roach finally made Jamuna move back by brandishing a pitch fork, and Lane’s body was retrieved.

Frank Lane’s funeral was held at the Church of the Ascension in Dignan Street at 1.30 pm on 19 August, he was cremated at Waikumete Cemetery, and his ashes scattered a day later.

Two things probably saved Jamuna from the same fate as the earlier Rajah at the zoo, who was found to be unmanageable and so shot in 1936. She mainly misbehaved when shackled in the Elephant House, and not on her usual rounds – Roach, who was opposed to shackling her, had the fastening ring removed from the pen. On 20 August she was taken out from her pen, and ridden around the zoo by the chairman of the Parks Committee and his family, in perfect safety, just before the Parks Committee met to decide her fate. She was soon put back to work, and Roach ensured through alterations to the Elephant House that no staff member need put themselves in Lane’s position again.

The other aspect was that Jamuna was a valuable money earner for the zoo. Valued at around £1150 at the time of the incident, in 1946 it was reported that she carried more than 24,000 children per year, at 2d per ride, earning £203 (around $18,000) for just £95 in upkeep. In 1958, her earnings were up to £512 per annum (nearly $26,000), plus she was a drawcard in general to encourage visitors to the zoo, buying tickets and enjoying refreshments.

Jamuna died in September 1965 at the age of 58, estimated to have carried 750,000 children in her time at the zoo, but suffering from recurring chills, rheumatism and foot complaints. A few years before, she needed surgery for issues inside her great body, and at the time of her death, weighing 5 tons, was still two tons less in weight than she was on the day Lane took that fateful and ill-advised short-cut past her trunk.

The lonely death of David Snodgrass

Part of the block of West Queen Street between Wyndham (left) and Swanson Streets, from 1865. David Snodgrass' bakery would have been around the fourth building from the corner. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 4-415

Early Auckland baker David Snodgrass died, alone and far from his home, in the early hours of April 20 1895.

He was born in Leith, Scotland, on 16 March 1820, and arrived here in Auckland in 1842 aboard the Ben Nevis. By 1847, he’d set himself up in business near the northern corner of Wyndham and Queen Streets, and was there through to 1855. In 1851 he even took over the Dangar steam flour mill in Official Bay, before building his own mill on Wyndham Street above his bakery. He then detoured his career path to becoming publican at the Carriers arms on the Panmure Road, until 1861.

That was when he set up his earlier business afresh on Khyber Pass Road, obtaining the baking goods supply contract for Mt Eden Gaol. In 1869, he left to attempt to build a hotel in Panmure, then headed for Thames, taking advantage of the gold rush.

He finally settled in Paeroa, obtained swathes of land from which he earned a good income, and worked as a baker until around 1892 when he finally retired.

In April 1895, he decided he wanted to return to Auckland. Exactly why, no one seemed at all sure, including his own family.

 On the night of 19 April, a cabman named David Patterson found 75 year old David Snodgrass between 8pm and 9pm lying on his face on the footpath outside the Waverley Hotel at the corner of Customs and Queen Streets. Patterson later testified that he’d known Snodgrass 20 years, so he stopped, picked him up, and took him to the Albion Hotel in Hobson Street around 9.30 pm. Snodgrass wasn’t speaking at all, so Patterson handed him over to the Albion’s publican, James Morrice, and left.

Morrice took Snodgrass up to a bedroom, and helped him to a bed. Snodgrass’ legs were shaky, Morrice said later, but he could speak sensibly. Around fifteen minutes after settling Snodgrass into the room for the night, Morrice spotted him coming downstairs without his trousers on. Morrice took Snodgrass to his room again, but at 10 pm Snodgrass was downstairs again, insistent that he wanted to go home. Morrice gave him his boots, and Snodgrass left.

Apparently the last to see Snodgrass alive was another cab driver, John Monaghan. Snodgrass hailed him, and asked to be taken to a blacksmith named McGuire. Monaghan knew of no one by that name, so conveyed his passenger instead to the Pier Hotel in Albert Street, and left him in the hotel’s commercial room.

Around 3.30 am the next day, a watchman aboard the Melanesian Mission schooner Southern Cross spotted “a black object in the water of the harbour,” between the dry dock and Hobson Wharf. The object floated closer to the schooner, and the watchman snagged it with a line and fastened it to the vessel. Realising it was a body, he contacted the police, and David Snodgrass’ remains were identified.

After the inquest, he was taken home and buried at Paeroa.

No one testified that Snodgrass was drunk that night. He may have had something of a heart attack, or a stroke, or bumped his head. By the sounds of it, he was a confused man, with next to no money on him at the time, leaving his gold watch and chain behind at the Albion where it was later found. If he’d been kept safe that night, he might have survived, and gone home to his family.

But, the folks who came across him could probably only do so much. Not enough, though, to stop his life ending in the waters of the Waitemata Harbour.

Three faces of the United Service Hotel

The three faces of the United Service Hotel, corner Queen and Wellesley Street West, Auckland.

Originally called the Rifle Volunteers Hotel from 1860 by first publican William Baker, John and George Rayner changed the name to United Service Hotel in late June 1861.

The wooden first hotel (left) was destroyed completely in the September 1873 fire, but rebuilt in brick in 1874 by John Hancock (centre).

From 1878, Henry Nathaniel Abbott took on the lease, and tied the hotel in with his Abbott's Opera House just up the road. The name of the hotel changed to that of the Civic Hotel in 1959, and the exterior (as well as likely the interior) was modernised at some point to the way it looks today (right).

The London Bar opened there in 1969. The pub closed in 2006 for a time, reopened, then finally shut down in 2009. The Maze Restaurant & Bar that has taken over the space does not appear to have survived the 2020 pandemic. 

Images: left -- 4-86, and centre -- 4-346, both Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections. Right is from Google streetview.

Anton Seuffert's first Wellesley Street workshop

 4-86, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections [detail]

The highlighted building in this c.1866 image of Wellesley Street West was Samuel Henry Webb's "Royal Harmonium and Pianoforte Saloon", with the United Service Hotel (the original wooden version, to the right, at the Queen Street corner.) But from 1860 to 1864, this was the site of the first workshop run by Bohemian craftsman Anton Seuffert, master furniture-maker.

By September 1864, despite his fame as the designer of a secretaire desk that had made it all the way to Queen Victoria, Seuffert still needed other income streams to keep his head above water. His wife ran her own fancy goods store, and his three-storey workshop became a dancing studio in the middle floor, while he retained workshops in the basement and second storey. It was when the dance studio became a warehouse for flour, let out to CA Stone & Son to store flour, that calamity struck. Too much flour was apparently loaded onto the floor -- the rear of the building gave way one day and collapsed, tumbling into the Wai Horotiu gully behind. Fortunately, there was only one injury, a Mr White who was struck by some of the timber as it came down.

Seuffert couldn't rebuild, so shifted his business across the road to around where the Bledisloe Building is today, and his lease was taken up by Webb. Webb, in turn, set up his harmonium shop, which evolved into a dance hall and exhibitions building, up until the 1873 fire which destroyed it, along with the rest of the block.

In 1879 the publican at the rebuilt United Service Hotel, Henry Nathaniel Abbott, bought the Seuffert-Webb site from Thomas Russell, along with the other two sites leading up to Elliot Street, and in 1881 built his "Wellesley Opera House", soon to be renamed "Abbot's Opera House", and known as such through to his death in 1899.

In 1909 his widow sold the opera house to the Fuller family. Fuller's Opera House was destroyed by fire in 1926, and the site was subsequently purchased by Smith & Caughey.

Collapse of the Beehive Toy and Fancy Repository, 1865

 536-Album-285-10-1, c.1864, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections

The old Market Reserve block on Queen Street (at right, Aotea Square to Civic Theatre).  Not just street numbering shifted there, but legal descriptions as well.

Anyway, while researching the Wai Horotiu stream, I spotted The Beehive store in a couple of images from the mid 1860s (centre, highlighted), and wondered what that was about.

Turns out it was a sub-lease to one John Moginie, who had previously had a shop on the other side of the street at a corner with Wakefield Street up until he shifted to the position shown here in December 1864. He sold "wedding presents, birthday presents, and presents suitable for girls and boys, also Berlin wools, finished and unfinished, Fancy Needlework, patterns and canvasses ..." His Beehive Toy and Fancy Repository seemed set to be a long-term feature. It wasn't.

In 1864 to 1865, the City Board (ancestor of the City Council) was hard at work fixing the Queen Street levels in this part of the town. As you might be able to see, Queen Street had a bit of a gully problem, and wasn't smooth going. It was determined that the levels on the western side needed to be raised for better drainage etc, and if the businesses didn't want surface flooded shops, they needed fixing as well.

Problem was, at the back of the shops that included The Beehive lay the Wai Horotiu watercourse, so the ground at that time tended to fall away sharply at the rear.

One day then, in May 1865, while contractors were busy raising Mr Moginie's store to restore it to street level -- someone slipped up, a support was knocked, and the back of the store collapsed into the gully.

The store's shutters burst open and fell into Queen Street. The stock inside, mainly toys, were thrown from their shelves and broken. The structure itself, tilted up now at the Queen Street side, was badly twisted. Oh, how I wish someone had taken a photo that had survived!

That was it for Moginie as far as that side of the street was concerned. He moved back across the road, and did reopen his store there, but doesn't seem to have stayed in Auckland as a storekeeper much after that.

The assault on Daniel Caley, 1868

View looking along Queen Street from near Karangahape Road, c.1860s. 4-399, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections

One Saturday night in March 1868, at 10 pm, bakery owner Daniel Caley finished up for the night, left his shop beside the Thistle Hotel on Queen Street, locked the door, and started his walk home, up the hill toward Karangahape Road and his home and family.

Caley was born on the Isle of Man around 1817, and arrived in Auckland with his family in late 1859. But instead of taking up a farm in the Kaipara district as intended with other Manx settlers, he settled in to business as a baker in central Auckland instead by early 1860. He was a kind, gentle and well-liked and respected member of the community.

On that March night, however, he had a feeling he was being followed. He stopped along the way to talk with a friend, then continued on. Until up near the top, by the cutting at the junction of the two main streets, he was suddenly set upon by two men who beat, garroted and kicked him to within an inch of his life, and left him bleeding on the road. All for a pocket watch one man yanked off the chain, and a few silver coins, shillings and pence he was taking home with him that night to share out among his children.

Once Caley had been found, taken to a nearby house and the police alerted, the latter were onto it smartly. A house-to-house search through the streets and by-ways which “suspicious characters” frequented led them to Barrack Street and the home of two “notorious females” as the newspapers described them, Elizabeth Kelly and Mary Mininex. Inside were Joseph Bryant and Henry Kersting, both fresh out from completing two years each in Mt Eden Gaol.

Bryant, a soldier with the Military Train who was now absent from his barracks, had been found guilty of garroting a man, while Kersting stole watches and pigs. On Kersting, the police found Caley’s watch.

While Bryant and Kersting were held on remand, they joined up with another highway robber, William Goldsmith, and all three assaulted a prison warder. Before they could make their escape, however, they were captured.

All three men were later found guilty of the two attacks, Bryant and Kersting for the one on Caley, and Bryant and Goldsmith for the one at the gaol, and sentenced to up to eight years hard labour and 25 lashes each. Bryant and Kersting received their flogging, but simply shrugged it off, one saying that it was no more than he’d get from his mother.

Goldsmith’s flogging wasn’t due to take place until he’d complete one of his sentences – but then the authorities realised that if there was a delay of more than six months, the law stated that the flogging would be waived. He probably did miss out on that part of his punishment.

As for Bryant and Kersting – they successfully escaped from Mt Eden in November 1868, and disappeared. The public were outraged.

Daniel Caley recovered, returned to his business, was burnt out in the 1873 fire without insurance, and decided to retire to the Waikato. He did return to Auckland around 1890, though, and died here in 1900, aged 83. He was buried in the Wesleyan section of Symonds St cemetery.

Harriet Powley, and the Queen Street Fire of 1873

 4-418, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections [detail]

The highlighted building, I believe, was the one used by Harriet Powley for her millinery and drapery business. It had three storeys, the two you see here, and a lower cellar, and in a sitting room on the ground floor, behind the main shop (each storey had two rooms), the great 1873 Queen Street west fire started in unexplained circumstances behind a staircase.

Today, this is the northern-most part of Smith & Caugheys.

Thomas Elwin/Elvin/Edwin Powley (the middle name varies from record to record) was born in Norwich, England, around 1813. He enlisted with the 96th regiment in 1830, and in 1838 married Harriet Guyton, before the couple left with the regiment the following year, bound for Sydney. His obituary says Powley was discharged in 1848. He seems to have then joined the constabulary in Tasmania, and come across to Auckland in 1851 with three others to escort transportation prisoners, according to a file held in Wellington’s Archives NZ office.

Sometime between then and 1858 he and his family came to settle in Auckland, and by 1858 Harriet had set up a drapery and millinery business with her son-in-law Edward Johnson in Shortland St, under the name of Powley & Johnson. Most references though seem to credit Thomas as being the one in business as a draper, not Harriet. In the late 1850s, Thomas worked as a bailiff.

By 1862, the Powleys had shifted, now living on the east side of Queen Street, between Vulcan Lane and Durham Street, and the business came with them. In June 1863, however, their shop and a number of others, including the Duke of Marlborough Hotel, burned to the ground, the fire seeming to start somewhere in the vicinity of the Powleys. They were insured, however, and rebuilt.

In 1869 however, things changed. Edward Johnson accidentally poisoned himself. He was suffering from a chest infection, and mixed up two prescriptions he had from his doctor – one for a cough mixture, and one for a chest rub, not to be taken internally as it was poisonous. The Johnson-Powley partnership was officially dissolved a year later, and by November 1870 Thomas Powley was bankrupt.

Harriet, though, kept the business going, at that stage the family’s only income. She shifted over to the west side of Queen Street by September 1871, and was doing a good trade, up until the fire in September 1873 which razed all Queen Street businesses on that side from the Thistle Hotel at the northern end, right through to the Anchor Hotel to the south.

In the aftermath, Thomas’ military pension finally came through. He and Harriet quit business, and lived quiet lives, until his death in December 1901, and her own in September 1902.

Interestingly, their son George Henry Powley, after a bit of a stint as a publican in the Kaipara at Batley, returned to Auckland in the early 1880s and took over a clothing factory in Shortland Street. In partnership with Macky, Logan, Steen and Co, he renamed it the Cambridge Clothing Factory, and shifted it to Victoria Street West in the 1890s, finally selling his shares in the business in 1904. Today, Cambridge Clothing still exists, and once had a factory in New Lynn.

William Smithson, and his Ship Inn

 Image: 4-415, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections [detail]

The Trafalgar Inn on Queen Street, 1860s, between Wyndham (left) and Swanson Streets. From 1908, this was part of the Milne & Choyce building. Before it was the Trafalgar, it was the Ship Inn, built by William Smithson in 1842 after the local pub keepers refused to buy Smithson's products from his first brewery set up in 1841 beside the Queen Street gaol.

With the Ship Inn Smithson, a former inhabitant of the Australian penal system, hoped to be able to break in to the market. It helped that his landlord, McGarvey, had his cooperage to the rear of the hotel. Smithson intended starting a theatre at the hotel, but that idea came to nought.

With tinsmith Archibald McPherson's help, Smithson was able to install a coal-burning system at the hotel which provided enough coal gas to make the light over his doorway (necessary for customers to navigate the footbridge over Ligar's Canal) bright enough that it not only served its purpose, it was blamed for blinding people so much with its dazzle that folks were falling into the ditch anyway. This has been held up to be Auckland's first gas light, with the coal coming from seams found in the Mahurangi area, some of which Smithson claimed as his.

However, his hotelier days were brief, ending by 1844. His land claim was disallowed, and led to numerous petitions that lasted beyond his death in 1853, and ceased only with the drowning of his widow in the harbour in 1861.

Whether his gas lamp remained in use is doubtful -- importing coal was expensive, and it would be another 20 years before the Auckland Gas Company started up. By then, there was a proper footpath in that part of Queen Street, forever burying Ligar's Canal, while the natural bed of the watercourse in behind was filled in and converted to becoming just more basement space for Auckland's rising infrastructure.

Ephraim Mills, and his Market Hotel

 Detail from 4-53, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections

The Market Hotel mid 1860s, at the corner of Cook Street and Grey Street (later Greys Ave), Auckland. The original version dated from 1865, and the last version closed in 1969, demolished early 1970.

The originator was one Ephraim Mills, born in Gloucestershire in 1836. He arrived in Auckland in 1855, and took up work as a builder and contractor. In December 1856 he married Mary Ann Neale, daughter of Henry Neale who owned a substantial amount of land in Grey Street including part of the later Myers Park. Neales Lane was named after Mills’ father-in-law, and today is part of the Council carpark beside Mayoral Drive.

One tributary of Wai Horotiu (what I term Waihorotiu East) flowed through the gully between Queen and Grey Streets (Myers Park), then out onto Grey Street itself close to the hotel site. This was channelled by a culvert and bridge across the street to flow in behind the hotel site. Another tributary (Waihorotiu West) between Grey and Vincent Streets joined up with the eastern flow, went across Cook Street just right of the hotel site you see here, and on into what is now Aotea Square and beyond, slowing just after the crossing (also channelled and bridged) to become a swampy gully area. The Market Hotel was able to exist, as you can see here, because both bridges (dating from the early 1850s) had by 1865 become part of passable roads.

Mills had gone in for the publican business the year before with the Governor Grey Hotel, and his period with the Market Hotel, the building of which he supervised, was also brief (1865-1867). But he was certainly a colourful businessman.

In 1867, he ran foul of the regulations at the time against any form of singing, music playing or dancing in pubs. A regulation in place to stop pubs attracting people to, well, you know – drink.

“Ephraim Mills, of the Market Hotel, was charged with a breach of the 29th clause of the Licensing Act, which provides that "no person holding a publican's license under this Act shall suffer or permit any music or dancing for public entertainment to take place in the house or on the premises for which such license shall have been granted without the sanction of any two justices of the peace for the special occasion named."

“… Police-Sergeant Murphy deposed: I know defendant. He is the holder of the license for the Market Hotel, Grey-street, He produced the license to me. On Friday, 23rd August, I was in the hotel about a quarter before nine at night. I was accompanied by Constable Jackson. Before I entered I heard the sounds of music and dancing proceeding from the house. I went upstairs to a large room over the bar. There were about twenty men and two women in the room. A man named Henry Chambers were playing the piano. In the centre of the room six women and two men were dancing. At the last end of the room is a bar, and I saw liquors taken from it to the customers. The piano is at the other end on a raised platform. I sent for Mr. Mills, and he came. He said that I had spoiled his game at pool in the billiard-room. I spoke to him about the music and dancing. He said it was not with his permission. He did not say he had taken any means to prevent it. I have frequently seen music and dancing going on in the house, and have frequently cautioned Mr. Mills. He did not take any steps to prevent the music and dancing. Sometimes, they would be stopped while I was there, and as soon as my back was turned they began again. Mr. Mills did not lock up the piano, or take any measures to stop the dancing or music. He went downstairs again.

“Cross-examined by Mr. Joy: The playing had been stopped before Mills came into the room, as the man playing stopped when he saw me. I saw the people dancing when I went upstairs. I have an option which public-houses I go into. I was in three or four public-houses that night. I was in Rose's, Carter's, and Mackenzie's that night. There were musical instruments in all three. I did not lodge information against any but Mills’. I have frequently cautioned others besides Mills. They have music, but I have not seen dancing in their houses. I know a man named Macrae who keeps a public-house within a few yards of the Court-house. I was in there the night before last. I have heard music there, but I have not seen dancing. I consider Mills' the worst-conducted house in town.

“By Mr. Gillies: My reason for reporting Mills in preference to the others was because he keeps the worst-conducted house in town. I did not drive people out of the other houses into Mills'. It is easy to hear from the billiard room the music and dancing going on upstairs.

“Constable Jackson corroborated the evidence of Sergeant Murphy. George Lawton deposed : l am barman at the London Hotel, Mr. Carter's. On the 23rd of August I was waiter in the room at Mills'. I was waiting that night in the large room upstairs. I was in that room when Sergeant Murphy and the constable came in. When they came in music was playing, and some girls and some men were dancing. The dancing had not been going on long when the constables came in, but the music had been going on for some time. I had been for some weeks in Mr. Mills' employment before. I have often seen music and dancing in that room. There was music every night. I have heard Sergeant Murphy caution Mr Mills. In the billiard room, one could hear the music and dancing. I have seen Mr Mills in the room when the music was playing and when a man was step-dancing. He never said anything about the music. “Cross-examined by Mr Joy: l am in Mr Carter's employment now. He has a piano and music night after night. I have never seen the police in the room where the music is. There was a man step-dancing there since I have been there, but no girls dancing. He was dancing for his own amusement. There was a man-of-war's man dancing once. A man called Henry Chambers was playing the piano. I do not know that he is a professional. He did not do any waiting that night. He was not a waiter. I have received orders from Mr Mills not to allow girls to dance. I told Chambers to stop playing. I could not stop the dancing. My orders were not to allow dancing.

“By Mr. Gillies: It is an open room, fitted for dancing. If there were a few tables put in, it would stop dancing. “This concluded the case for the prosecution.

“For the defence, Mr Joy called Henry Chambers, who deposed: I was in Mr. Mills' employment on the 23rd August. I am hired as barman. There was dancing going on when the police came in. I received orders from the last witness to stop the dancing. I have acted as waiter repeatedly in that public-house. I was not engaged professionally to play the piano. L am not a professional musician. I did not see Mr Mills in the room while the dancing was going on.

“By Mr. Gillies: I was in the habit of playing the piano in that room. Mr Mills was aware that I did so. Mrs Mills was attending to the bar downstairs while I was playing upstairs. Mr Mills did not give me orders not to play. There has been dancing on other nights. I was in the room when the police left. I re-commenced playing shortly after the police left. There was no more dancing that night.

“By the Court: There were liquors supplied while the music was going on. His Worship said that the words in the clause under which the information was laid were very stringent. [His Worship then quoted the clause, as given above.] Now, that there was music and dancing going on that night was beyond question, and that Mr Mills had no license for that was also certain. The defence apparently was that the music and dancing was not with the consent of the proprietor of the house. But evidence had been given, at all events, that the music and dancing could not have taken place without its being heard in the billiard-room; and Mills, being in that room, must have known the fact that it was taking place. One of the witnesses stated that he had received instructions not to suffer dancing, but he stated that he could not put a stop to it. There had been nothing in the evidence to show that the police were ever required to put a stop to the dancing; on the contrary, the police gave evidence that they had over and over again cautioned Mills about what was permitted in his house. The object of music in a public-house was to attract people and people never assembled at these places without drinking, and thus grist was brought to the publican's mill. There would be neither music nor dancing if it were not to encourage drinking and other vices. The case cited by Mr Gillies was very much to the point, and in passing judgment he would read a case to show how necessary it was for a publican to be careful as to how he acted, and which it was desirable they should know. … He would find the defendant guilty, and inflict a fine of £10-and costs.”

(Southern Cross, 7 September 1867)

And, on top of this – Mills was also before the Court the same day for allowing prostitutes to be in his hotel.

“Ephraim Mills was then charged with a breach of the 16th clause of the Municipal Police Act “by suffering prostitutes to be assembled in the Market Hotel." Mr. Gillies appeared for the prosecution, Mr Joy for the defence.

“Mr Gillies said the present complaint had reference to the same time as the last case and the women were some of those who were dancing. The prosecutor, however, would not press the case, on the defendant stating that he would prevent the assembling of such characters in future, and, if need be, call in the aid of the police.

“Mr Joy would undertake to say, on behalf of Mr. Mills, that in future, where he had the slightest cause of suspicion for believing that any woman was a prostitute, he would then and there have her ejected, The real difficulty was to say who were to be designated prostitutes. There were hundreds of women who were drinking in the public-houses of Auckland, and it was not easy for Mr Mills to tell who were prostitutes unless he had the evidence that was in the possession of the police. The moment the police pointed out a prostitute, she would be turned out at once.

“His Worship said he was sure the defendant would find no difficulty in getting the assistance of the police. On the occasion in question, if he had sent down to the police-station he would soon have got assistance.”

(also Southern Cross, 7 September 1867)

Mills would go on to have two bankruptcies in his career, and a period working on the Coromandel Peninsula in the early 1870s, before returning to work in Auckland, then finally leaving to live in Fiji. He died there in 1893.

King David Sykes and his Turkish Baths

"Looking south along Queen Street from the Wellesley St intersection, showing the premises of R H Bartlett, R Hobbs, F Hewin and Brother, the Army and Navy Hotel and the firebell tower on the corner of Greys Ave (centre)." [Detail, c.1875] Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 4-67 

Somewhere on the left side of this image, a man named King David Sykes started Auckland’s first Turkish Baths business.

He might not have been the first at all. An earlier planned Onehunga Turkish Baths company announced intentions with a hiss and a roar in the newspapers, with prospective directors shoulder-tapping prospective shareholders in the street.

 “Several times I have been importuned by a very highly respectable timber agent in Auckland, to take a quantity of shares in the Great Onehunga Turkish Bath Dictating Company. The same gentleman tells me that the shares are in great demand, and will all very speedily be taken up, (£5 shares) as no doubt the Company will be one of the most successful ever started in the southern hemisphere. He knows the public will flock from Melbourne, Sydney, Dunedin, &c, to receive the benefits arising from the above establishment. Thus, sir, may be all very true; the antecedents of the gentleman would prevent me doubting his word, but I have not heard one single word of it through the papers - not one advertisement, and I have not even found it a subject of serious conversation in Onehunga.”

(Southern Cross, 8 January 1874)

The ads did appear, shareholders meetings were announced, but … it was all over a year later.

“The Turkish bath scheme at Onehunga has fallen through, owing in a very large measure to the unwillingness of Auckland people to cater heartily into a scheme for erecting baths on a site so far removed from the city, on which it would have to rely for support. Can nothing be done to revive such an admirable project?”

(Auckland Star, 7 January 1875)

Well, yes. Enter our man KD Sykes, a watchmaker by trade, originally from Manchester. By the beginning of September, Sykes had set up his own Turkish baths establishment, a few doors south of present day Airedale Street junction with Queen Street. In it he installed two “sudatoria” or sweating rooms, a tepid bath massage room, and cold water shower-bath. After that, the customer stretched out on a couch wrapped in towels until dry. It started out as a men-only thing, but later on women were allowed to partake of the benefits on select “women only” days.

 Sykes had an uphill battle. This was, of course, the height of the Victorian British Empire, with all the attitudes toward anything that involved naked adults in a public building.

“We learn that Mr K D Sykes is about to extend the Turkish Baths to meet the requirements of bathers. He also intends to reduce the prices, as the baths become more largely patronised. He informs us that he is not without hope that a public company may ultimately take the matter up and erect a hydropathic institution that will be a blessing to the public, and a credit to the city. Mr Sykes has fought the battle of the Turkish Bath against a good deal of ignorance and its value is becoming more generally recognised. He has shown a commendable determination to advance as circumstances justify, and improve his establishment. One of the chief advantages of Mr Sykes' baths is the fact that the proprietor, who has had great experience in hydropathic institutions is always in attendance, and bathers are thus preserved from the evil consequences which might result under an ignorant control. An apparatus is in course of construction to supply the baths with pure oxygen gas. Bathers will then come out like fairies, and frisk like kittens.”

(Auckland Star, 20 October 1877)

Sykes even renamed his business slightly and grandly, to the Auckland Turkish Bath and Hydropathy Institute. He had endorsements put into the newspapers from satisfied customers.

“In leaving Mr Svke's Establishment after a stay of eight weeks, I feel it my duty, both to him and the Publlc generally, to testify to the great success of the Turkish Bath in my case. In February last I had a severe attack of Rheumatic Fever, which left me in a helpless condition, and my friends thought I should never recover the use of my limbs. In Auckland I was recommended by a friend to take some Turkish Baths. I thought I would try them as a last resource, and feeling too weak to walk there I took a cab and called upon Mr Sykes, who advised me to place myself under Hydropathic treatment, and as my case was a bad one arrangements were made for me to reside in the house. After the first week I felt great relief, and continued to improve steadily every week. I have given Hydropathy a fair trial, and I now leave Auckland cured of Rheumatism and able to perform my duties. I have met friends in Auckland who look upon my recovery as a miracle. I may add that during my stay I witnessed many cures, three remarkable cases of Rheumatism, and leave others progressing favourably. My best thanks are due to Mr SYKES for his kindness and constant attention, and to Mr COGLAN the chief Bath attendant, for the cheerful and faithful manner in which he carried out his instructions. FREDK. JOHN BLAKE, Reserve Division, Armed Constabulary Force Cambridge, Waikato.”

(Auckland Star, 31 July 1879)

Sykes sold his enterprise to the Auckland Turkish Bath Company in 1881, and he retired to his home on Mt Eden Road, just across from Maungawhau Mount Eden. His house caught fire however in January 1886, and two weeks later King David Sykes, himself of a delicate constitution (a large part of the reason behind his fascination with Turkish baths) passed away.