Sunday, October 5, 2008

The Deliverymen

In these days of supermarket shopping and combined malls, where we expect to have to go and pick up groceries ourselves (except for the new services over the Internet, of course!), we know little of the days when butchers, bakers, dairymen and grocers would all have deliverymen and boys who would bring your order out to your door -- and sometimes even to the kitchen bench.

Albert Mason (left) was one such deliveryman, carting the bread from out of the Gibson Bakery (later Burton's) on Great North Road to all across Avondale, Waterview and Rosebank in the 1920s to 1930s. His son Ron would help him after school had finished for the day, and fondly remembered the days of horses, carts, stables, and the bread:







"My Dad was a man, with so much Horse
He taught me the Ropes, at the Stables of course
I could handle the Horses, almost like Dad.
Considering I was only a lad.

He taught me to pick, their moods by sight
By the crafty look in their eye
And when to expect, a kick or a bite
And to sense, when a horse might shy.

My father’s name was Albert, but he was Dad to me
To Avondale & New Lynn folk, he was just Alby.
He delivered their daily bread with a smile that all could see,
I shan’t forget how he called me “Son” whatever his mood might be."
(from "Dad" by Ron Mason)

There are tales to be had of the delivery horses who would bolt and pulled the customers gate behind them as they cantered back for home, cart and all (the Amos' "One-Eye") And of black Nugget, Alby Mason's horse with the wicked temper, who bit his arm one day almost to the bone. I've heard recounted how Rosebank Road was quite spooky during the escaped leopard scare of 1925, when every shadow could be imagined to conceal the fugitive big cat.

In the days of rutted roads and little or no personal transport other than feet -- the deliverymen reigned supreme. But with the coming of the motorcar and sealed thoroughfares, the days of the billy can at the gate and the meat and grocery parcels wrapped and delivered right to your door were over.

Preparations for the new (temporary) platform

The goods track now gone from the western side of the overbridge, the diggers and men were hard at work today on the eastern side. To the left, that grassy bank will be where the new platform just alongside Trent Street will go, due for completion in December this year. The old goods track bed is now a road for the trucks heading between the western and eastern sides.

I'm going to try to keep an eye on what happens -- convenient indeed that my main bus stop into town is right alongside the railway station (and then, of course, now and then I go to places by rail, anyway).

When I took a picture of the existing station shelter (I won't be sorry to see that go, truly) -- an inquisitive young lad got into the shot, then went to excitedly tell his Mum "There's a lady taking photos!" I spotted him after the shot, deleted it, and then spoke to his Mum, explaining that as the photo may get published online, I was trying not to immortalise his son as well. She helped out by holding onto him for a bit while I took another shot.


An update (9 December) here.

The old ... Coast Guard Hall?

I've always known this building as the Pigeon Club. In recent times, it's been an anti-State Highway 20 billboard, and as can be seen in these photos taken today (in the teeth of a gale force wind blowing up Station Hill, I might add) hosts other advertising and tagging.

In the 1920s, during the Avondale Borough Council period, this was the site of our volunteer fire brigade's HQ. Whether the building dates from that period, or has been altered so much it's something completely different, I don't yet know.

But in the early 1950s, an Auckland City Council cadastral map I've obtained a digital copy of says it was a "Coast Gd Hall". If that abbreviation does mean Coast Guard Hall ... oh, I do seriously need to look into this when I have the chance. It does look like something a boating club (or coast guard) would have. Well, nearer the actual coast, of course, but -- odder things have been found in Avondale's history, and odder things are yet to be discovered. One of the reasons why I just love the history of my home suburb. Stay tuned -- when I find out more, I'll let you know.

Post now updated here. (6/10/2008)

Saturday, October 4, 2008

The old goods line

At one point, in 1914, there were three goods lines as well as two passenger lines. Very soon, within the next day or so, there will only be the passenger/main lines. The existing platform will be widened temporarily, while a temporary station is constructed alongside Trent Street to the east of the overhead bridge. Then, it will be slimmed down again, as the lines lead around the bend and into the straight at Crayford Street.

Folks probably thought the removal of the old station in 1995 was the biggest change to happen to our 129-year-old railway link. No. This will be the biggest change of all.

The old goods shed, Avondale Railway Station

Could be 1920s, maybe, could be later. I'm gathering info on the old station all the time, putting pieces into place still. That old shed is a bit of a landmark around here, but it was looking sad before the firewood business leased the railway land here, and now, there's bits coming off it and long grass growing in the roof. It'll be gone, soon.

The sign, still up there after all this time, from the period when Avondale was a busy goods station (in the 19th century, that was its raison d'etre, more than anything else):
AVONDALE
OUTWARD GOODS
8AM-12NOON 12.30PM-4PM


Update: the shed was demolished 26 October 2008, over Labour Weekend. An updated post here.

Removal of the old goods line, Avondale

Sometimes, through being oblivious to what's happening around you, due to thoughts of what needs to happen in your life that day, or even in the next few hours, you may miss history happening. Well, this nearly happened to me today -- but going over the old Crayford Street pedestrian crossing over the railway, I stopped. I heard trucks, a number of them, just to my left, but a short distance away. I stopped, looked, and saw a digger with a long fork attachment carefully carrying long pieces of something, and then carefully laying them in a pile.

Something inside my head "said": "Listen for the clang." They looked like bits of wood, I just assumed it was part of the process of starting the realignment of the station platform. But ... I heard the distant *clang*.

That did it. I fished for my camera, while taking in the whole view, and realised that, after 129 years, the last of the old goods lines was being ripped up.

The next few posts will have some of the photos I took today, plus a bit of an explanation. I was going to go up Crayford Street, but instead I dodged along Layard, listening for the clanging and the sound of saws cutting through the long-run metal, chopping up the old line. Headed up Rosebank Road, and caught probably the last we'll see of the old goods shed as well.

Up on the overhead bridge, I was taking shots, when someone who knows me around here stopped with her mobility scooter right beside me and asked, "You're doing historical stuff, aren't you?"

Yes, indeed I was.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Harry Turnbull: a “Sly Grogger” in Avondale

It was during World War One, in Avondale, October 1915. The NZ Corps of engineers (known as the “Avondale” Tunnelling Company) were stationed at the Avondale Racecourse for training in the ways of Army discipline for their stint later on out on the battlefields of France. An entrepreneurial sort named Harry Turnbull saw a golden opportunity and a market waiting to be capitalised on. Which was the reason police raided his shop.

In August that year Turnbull came to Avondale township, and opened a “fish and soft drinks shop”, somewhere in the present-day Mainstreet area. He had once been a hotelkeeper. Within two months of his arrival on the scene in the growing shopping centre, the Defence Department chose Avondale Racecourse as the site for the Tunneller’s training, and nearly 400 members of the Expeditionary Force swelled the township’s population from October to December. Men who found themselves camped in a “dry” district, six miles by train from the pubs in the central city, and with wartime regulations which banned the selling of liquor to members of the “Defence Forces” or Expeditionary Force for consumption off-premises. The Turnbull case was to become the first tried before the courts in Auckland under these regulations.

Turnbull claimed in court that he had a “friend in camp” who could not keep whiskey and beer for his own consumption there, so Turnbull took it upon himself to supply the necessary liquid refreshment from his shop. He claimed that he didn’t wish to take any money for the alcohol from the soldiers who came to his shop (on hearing the news of a liquor supplier in “dry” Avondale, so close to the camp), but took it anyway after they insisted. He claimed before the magistrate that he had “very little liquor out at his shop” (a jar of whisky and six bottles of beer, it was said). The constables who raided the premises with a search warrant after a complaint from camp officers and a trip in disguise to buy alcohol there along with a real soldier, stated that, in fact, “his shop was fitted up like a miniature bar, with glasses on the counter and in the back room.” The police found “a number of empty beer and whisky bottles strewn about.” The undercover policeman and the soldier “were supplied with drink without the slightest trouble, getting three rounds of whisky, while the soldier was given a little in a bottle to take away, the price being a shilling.” Turnbull also took money for the alcohol, and gave change, “without demur.”

His legal counsel, who did not stay for the rest of the court proceedings after making one argument (leaving Turnbull to plead his own case), asked the magistrate to consider that “the intention of the legislature was that the regulation should apply to licensees of hotels” only. This, however, was dismissed. “Outside of licensees,” Mr. F. V. Frazier, S.M. said, “there are barmen and all sorts of people, to say nothing of barmaids, that might sell liquor to the soldiers, and the intention was to put down a particularly harmful practice.”

Turnbull then challenged the charges, stating that he had not admitted to selling alcohol to a soldier in uniform, claiming that the charges couldn’t stand as it had been the undercover policeman who had paid for the liquor. This was denied by the corporal there, who stated he paid the shilling, not the policeman. Turnbull was convicted and sentenced to one month’s hard labour for selling liquor to uniformed members of the Expeditionary Force.

Avondale racetrain sidings update

On going back into the vaults to hunt up the sheep on the racecourse story, I found a bit of extra info I had included back in 2001-2003 while putting together Heart of the Whau, about the provisions for racetrains in Avondale (posted previously).

Apparently, according to the minutes of the Avondale Road Board in 1899, the rail authorities had installed a "special racecourse platform" on their land between Cracroft (Crayford) Street and Blake (St Judes) Street. (November 1899 when all this was being reported by the Board's clerk, was the first time Blake Street had been called that in 31 years, but I digress.) The Road Board had a problem with this, and they intended opening up Layard Street (whether they meant opening it up to development, or doing something about the part between St Judes Street and Chalmers Street that is still, today, just an unformed if still official road -- I have no idea.)

There were also issues with the raceday trains stopping at St Judes' crossing to let the patrons off so they could make their way down to the races. This practice tended to block traffic. The platform, and sidings, ideas were abandoned.

A plea for an Archives New Zealand bus stop

If anyone reads this, please spread the word.

The Auckland office of Archives New Zealand is at Mangere. Their new building is great, the service fantastic, the staff utterly choice, and Timespanner's a big fan of their tea-room and the honesty-cow system of $1 for a cuppa and a chance to have your bring-your-own lunch when visiting all day there. And with the amount of really cool stuff on offer to peruse and research, an "all day" is kind of mandatory. Time flies, believe me.

One bug-bear though -- and that is the lack of public transport to the archives. They're down the end of Richard Pearse Drive, and the nearest bus stop is more than a kilometre away. Those of you who drive wouldn't have a big problem, but older researchers, and non-drivers like me, have either a hike on our hands, maybe a cadged lift, but if we want real independence, it means a taxi there and back to Onehunga or Mangere Town Centre.

A friend of mine is starting an awareness campaign among researchers about this. I've left a message with Maxx on their website. Anyone else reading this who thinks we should have a bus stop closer than the existing services to enable easier access to some of our part of the North Island's heritage records -- let them know.

Cheers.

Additional, 11 February 2016:

They did finally put in a bus stop after the Super City amalgamation of 2010. The Auckland office of Archives NZ is today accessible via the Airporter route between Onehunga and Manukau City.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

The 1914 Night Soil Protest at Waterview

The following is from notes of a speech I gave in 2004.

Just outside where the Waterview Church stands today, across the width of the Great North Road, a protest was staged in 1914 against the use of the Cadman Estate (now part of Heron Park) as a night soil depot. It was a sure sign that settlement had picked up markedly in Waterview – settlers here were not going to put up with what might have gone unnoticed in a more rural environment.

The Tamaki night soil depot was closed in late 1913, and Health Department officials went looking for alternative sites. The local authorities on the isthmus were all keen that there should be another depot, but not at all keen that it should be in their districts. It was decided that the Cadman Estate would be ideal, and legislation put through meant that the Department didn’t have to listen to local authority concerns.

20 January 1914, Auckland Star.
“Forced to look for a new site, the Public Health Dept. decided that Avondale provided a satisfactory way out. The residents of that district received an unpleasant surprise yesterday, when it was discovered that the sanitary carts had during the night been brought into the township, & the matter had been distributed over a well-known property, on which was situated a large boarding house. The owner of this property, it is further stated, runs cows over his land, & holds a license to supply milk throughout the district.

“A member of the Avondale Road Board, in imparting this information to a Star representative this morning, said it was obvious that the site was an impossible one for the purpose. The ground was too hard in that locality to permit of proper ploughing, with the result that the matter was only partially covered, & with the prevailing wind blowing in the direction of a fairly thickly populated area, the residents were considerably alarmed. Already the member for the district has been interviewed, & asked to intercede with the Minister of Public Health.

“The Board's solicitors have also been instructed to take immediate action, & a public indignation meeting is to be held forthwith. When inquiry was made at the Public Health Office this morning it was ascertained that the site was regarded as the best available. The information was further imparted that it was only to be used as a temporary depot, though no idea could be given as to how long it would be necessary to continue sending Auckland night soil into the Avondale district.”
23 January 1914, Auckland Star
“During the small hours of Monday morning last residents in Waterview, a portion of the Avondale district, were rudely disturbed by rumbling noises & queer odours emanating from no one knew where.

“At the back of a property, the estate of the late Sir A J Cadman, & presently leased to Mr Harrison, several loads of nightsoil had been deposited, & a man was busily employed in ploughing it in. It was soon apparent that Pt Chevalier had succeeded in getting rid of their sanitary depot, & that Avondale had been chosen to replace it. At a meeting of the Road Board last evening, ratepayers attended in large numbers & expressed their indignation in an unmistakable manner.”
On the 26th of January, an open air meeting was held outside the Avondale Post Office, at the present day Avondale Roundabout. 200 men attended, angrily demanding that the Avondale Road Board do something. On 28 January, the Brownes Road and Cameron Street barricades went up.

From the NZ Herald:
“Residents of Avondale erected two barricades on the roads used by the sanitary contractors & since Friday last the deposits have had to be placed elsewhere. At each barrier was a notice to the effect that the road was closed to traffic. Counter moves were made last night, under the direction of the District Health Officer, Dr. Makgill.

“Accompanied by Senior-sergeant Rutledge & four constables, the health officer proceeded to the locality where the barricades had been erected, in order to remove them.

“Browne's Road, at the extremity of which one of the obstacles was placed, was reached by motor-car shortly before midnight. The party then went afoot to the second one, situated in Cameron Road, about a quarter of a mile nearer to the foreshore. Heavy timbers had been used in the building of both barricades, and though the police were reinforced by the mounted constables stationed in the district, they could not commence operations, being without tools. After a brief interval, however, the contractor (Mr Burke) arrived with two assistants who brought crowbars & other implements with them.

“Dr Makgill, in order to place the subsequent procedure on a legal basis, was the first to make an attack upon the formidable barrier, which was roughly nailed together here & there with 6in nails. This done, the contractor’s men and the constables soon made short work of the remainder, & a gap was made through which, 20 minutes or so later, the first of six sanitary carts passed safely to the depot. No opposition was experienced in the work of demolition of the first obstacle, though one individual from behind an adjacent hedge uttered a warning to the effect that the police had better not touch the barricade unless they produced their authority. Some female voices also were raised in protest from the outer darkness.

“At the Browne's Road barricade, half a dozen residents appeared on the scene & raised verbal objections to the proposed removal of it. The Health Officer thereupon proceeded to the residence of the chairman of the Road Board (Mr J Potter) with whom he was conferring at an early hour this a.m.”
More barricades were erected on subsequent nights. I haven’t yet found out exactly how things turned out, but I’d say the depot turned out to be very temporary indeed.

The Day the Sheep raced at the Avondale Jockey Club

The author of the Mad Bush Chronicles Blog requested this story during a comments discussion at the end of the James MacKenzie post. Well, here's the tale, from Heart of the Whau (2003):

Everyone thinks only horses race at the Avondale Jockey Club but in 1962 all that changed. You see at 1883 Great North Road behind Arthur H. Nathan Home Appliances (now Westforce Credit Union) George Pilkington, the building owner, used to graze two sheep called Snowy and Dolly.

Well that summer the two sheep decided they liked the look of the vegetable garden over the fence. With considerable determination they both pushed their way under the wire fence and after a lovely time they exited onto Elm Street.

They soon spotted the green grass of the Avondale Race Course and a fine banquet of food. So off they went slowly nibbling down the main straight and were somewhere near the start line. By now it was just after 3'o'clock and unfortunately for Dolly and Snowy some children returning home from school discovered this unusual sight. That's when the first race on the card got under way! It was led by Snowy and Dolly and followed by six excited children. The sheep fleeced the field on the first lap but on the second were caught by the children who knew to where they should be returned.

Snowy and Dolly were led up Elm Street into Great North Road and the front door of Arthur H. Nathan Home Appliances. Snowy was an obedient sheep and went through the shop and out the back door returning to her original pasture. Dolly however was very stubborn and eventually a little force had to be used to encourage her to go through the shop and out the back door. Well the fun of the big day had made Dolly a little loose and she left an unwelcome trail from the front door to the back door. The proud store manager could certainly see a line that separated the white ware from the brown ware of that home appliance shop.

And so ended the day that Snowy and Dolly the sheep raced at the Avondale Jockey Club.

["The Day the Sheep raced at the Avondale Jockey Club", Bruce Pilkington, December 2001 (email to the author)]

Death of a publican: the suicide of John Rebbick Stych (1845-1898)

An old tale that floated around Avondale for years, from whispers in the playground to legends recounted to wide-eyed visitors, was that the last publican of the Avondale Hotel committed suicide by hanging himself in the basement when the hotel lost its license in 1909. Thanks to Mrs. Vera Crawford, in an interview while I researched Heart of the Whau, the legend was disproved: to a point.

The last publican didn’t kill himself in 1909 or in 1910 when the hotel closed its doors that year. It was another man, just before Christmas in 1898, who in a dazed and desperate state headed down to the cellars to end his life with a shotgun blast.

Serious trouble came to the Avondale Hotel and its licensee on the afternoon of 20 December. John Abbott, a financier from Parnell, had asked his son that day to present a cheque for £125 at the National Bank in Onehunga, one signed by a Mr. Clark of Onehunga, and endorsed by John R Stych of Avondale, but the cheque was found to be a forgery. Abbott hastened to Avondale with his son, arriving at 4.30 pm to find that Stych was already talking with another man, an agent William J Boylan, regarding financial matters. Boylan stated later that “he had not threatened to deal harshly” with Stych. Abbott interrupted this discussion, and met with Stych in a private room. During the next two minutes, Abbott later declared at the coroner’s hearing, he told Stych that steps had to be taken to clear up the matter of the forgery. Stych, according to Abbott, gave no answer. “He appeared”, according to Abbott, “to be in a dazed and dejected state, with a wildness in his eye.”

Abbott thus came to the conclusion that it was going to take longer than he had thought to discuss the matter of the cheque with Stych. He asked for help detaching his horse from his trap waiting outside, so that his son could come in, and everything could be further discussed calmly. The last words Stych said to Abbott was that he’d send a boy out to help sort out the horse, a few minutes before 5 pm.

Coming back from taking his horse to the stable, Abbott said he saw Stych come out the back door of the hotel (possibly Wingate Street side) and then go back in again. Shortly after that, Abbott claimed he heard a “faint explosion, like the shooting of a cork.” He didn’t hear the full blast, as he was hard of hearing. Going back into the hotel, he asked Emma Stych where her husband was. She thought he was still with Abbott, and sent one of the sons, Arthur, to look for his father.

Checking the cellar, Arthur discovered his father lying dead, a wound just below the right ear from a double-barrelled shotgun that had been held close to Stych’s skull. John Stych had made his way to the cellar, fully determined to end his life. In case the shotgun hadn’t worked, he had a loaded revolver in one pocket, and an extra shotgun cartridge in another. A Dr. Girdler was summoned by telephone to the scene (the nearest telephone in those days was miles away), and pronounced that death was instantaneous, while Constable Crean took charge of the weapons found with the body, and reported the tragedy to the district coroner, John Bollard (then MP for Eden). The inquest was held on the afternoon of the next day.

John Bollard was a good friend of Stych, and objected to Abbott’s use of the term “forgery” to describe the cheque which couldn’t be honoured at the Onehunga bank. Bollard declared that there was no evidence presented at the hearing that the cheque was a forgery, and that Abbott must have meant that the cheque had been returned unpaid, and marked in the corner “signature unlike”. Bollard said he raised this “in justice to the deceased.” Abbott, later in a letter to the NZ Herald. protested this strongly declaring that the coroner’s tribunal was not the place to determine whether the cheque had been forged or not. “However much I was disposed to soften its effect, so that his representatives might not be pained, I had no alternative but to speak of things as they were.”

The verdict of the inquiry was “suicide while suffering from temporary insanity, caused by financial difficulties.”

John Stych had been very popular in the Avondale district, not only as the village’s hotel publican, but also as an enthusiastic gardener and member of the local horticultural society. He used to carry off prize after prize at the local shows. For many years prior to moving to Avondale, he worked at the Bycroft mills in Auckland. He left his wife, Emma, and three sons. Emma continued on as the licensee of the hotel until June 1903, when she transferred the license to William Baker (who may, indeed, have been the last of the Avondale Hotel publicans). At the time, the police stated that the hotel was in good order and well conducted. Her husband was buried in Rosebank (now the George Maxwell) Cemetery, his headstone giving no indication of his sad, untimely demise.

The Country Chemist: Robert Joseph Allely

The early days of Avondale were marked by a strong sense of community, our area before the 1940s being little more than a semi-rural backwater, the typical “small town”. One story which underscores that now almost outdated aspect of life is that of Robert Joseph Allely (born c.1867). He was in business in Avondale possible only a little more than 10 years, but helped to save the community in a time of great crisis.

The only monument in our town to this man, our first local pharmacist, is the Allely Building at 2000 Great North Road. The older, two-storey section on the right hand side was the original chemist shop (ground) and dental surgery (top storey). Both were used by Allely because he was, indeed, a combination from time to time seen in his days: pharmacist, dentist, and first-aid doctor. After Dr Aitken in the previous century, he was Avondale’s second source of general medical help, Avondale’s “doctor” of the time.

Robert Allely was born around 1867, the son of immigrants from County Monaghan, Ireland, who had moved to Australia, where Allely was born. Mrs Vera Crawford told me in 2001 (while I interviewed her for Heart of the Whau) that Robert Allely was a little child on the same ship on which her grandmother MacDonald came on, the Queen of the Nations. His family apparently decided to try New Zealand around 1874 (the only time the Queen of Nations came to New Zealand).

They settled in Tauranga, where Allely became apprenticed to a pharmacist. According to Reg Combes in his 1981 book Pharmacy in New Zealand, Allely “showed a willing spirit and business aptitude, and in the late nineties became shop manager with a certificate of registration bearing the early number 548.” It was while he was at Tauranga that he would cycle forty-five kilometres over clay roads to receive tuition in dentistry in Waihi, and in time was granted authority to practice.

From there, he moved to Auckland. He declined an offer of a position in a Queen Street business, instead deciding to set up his own business in Avondale. As Reg Combes said in his article on Allely, the community doubly welcomed a man who was dentist as well as a pharmacist to their village.

In 1910 there was a wooden shop on the site at 2000 Great North Road, beside the (then) new police station. This was replaced by the brick building owned by Robert Alley in 1911. On July 22 that year, the first prescription is recorded as being filled there, on the day Allely’s original pharmacy opened. At the end of the first week, Allely began to have doubts as to the wisdom of turning down the Queen Street position, and a reliable income, for striking out on his own at Avondale. Takings for that first week were only £9. But his wife was apparently a tactful, persuasive soul. She convinced Allely to hang on and have patience with the situation. She was right. The community came to regard Robert Allely as part of the fabric of the town, and called him “Joe”.

His shop would be open until 9 pm. This meant long hours dragging between customers, so Allely invited friends to join him in the back room of the shop, and there they engaged in long, involved conversations on all manner of topics, both local and national. It became known as “The School”, and soon rumours abounded that the group might be “suspect”, a bed of conspiracy and dangerous intrigue. The local constable was sent next door to investigate and stopped to listen at the outside door to the room. During a lull on the conversation, the men inside heard a suspicious sound. Allely rose, opened the door with a rush, and found an embarrassed constable there. The policeman remained to become another member of “The School”.

Robert “Joe” Allely is a forgotten hero of Avondale. During the influenza epidemic of 1918, Allely stepped into the breach that existed in Avondale, with no resident doctor, the nearest hospital distant miles and rough roads away, and people around him living in fear of death striking them down. With volunteers, including his wife, he set up a field hospital on the grounds of the Avondale Racecourse, and called out from his shop to visit the sick in their homes, leaving his shop open and packaged up medicines on his counter for his customers to pick up. Those who could pay anything towards the cost of their medicine dutifully left money in the till. If they couldn’t, they remembered, and paid up honestly after the crisis was over.

Bruce McLaughlan, in his book Blockhouse Bay – A Village within a Town, recorded one memory from that time, about Allely, and his makeshift hospital out on the paddock: “Bob and Vera Blake were both attending school at the time of the influenza epidemic of 1918. A hospital was set up at Avondale racecourse and the local chemist of Avondale, a Mr Allely, ran it. Bob said of the epidemic: “People would go in and say, ‘Haven’t seen old Bill Brown about lately.’ So one of them’d take off and go down and they’d find old Bill Brown either dead in his hut or so ill that he couldn’t get out. And they’d get a cart and get him off to the hospital.”

According to Reg Combes, Allely standardised his formulas, made up bulk preparations, and travelled the length of the district (Blockhouse Bay, Avondale and Waterview) by bicycle with instructions on how to nurse the afflicted, and making arrangements to send the desperate cases to the emergency tent hospital he’d set up. “A Medical Officer of Health was despatched to inspect his makeshift hospital, set up in spite of regulations prohibiting such temporary quarters,” Combes wrote. ”But Robert Allely knew what he was about. The Medical Officer of Health unofficially congratulated him and gratefully left him to carry on in his own way, which he was able to do with the help of his voluntary aides.”

The district was grateful to a hard-working man who had done much to ease people through the epidemic, and helped to keep the death rate down for this area. Allely and his wife were duly presented with an illuminated address, a souvenir booklet containing the names of all the subscribers; a gold watch chain and pendent; and to Mrs. Alley a beautiful case of silver knives and forks. Arthur Morrish, editor of Avondale’s paper The News, wrote in the 25 January 1919 edition:

“The public presentation in Avondale on Wednesday evening … to Mr. R. J. Allely was a fitting tribute to a gentleman who for a period of several weeks during the late epidemic worked night and day in his endeavours to help suffering humanity. Avondale, in common with other places, was without the services of a medical man, but in Mr. Allely the district had a good substitute. His knowledge of medicine and his ability to diagnose symptoms were freely placed at the disposal of anyone needing his services, and it it no exaggeration to say that the number of visits he made to all parts of this and surrounding districts ran into the hundreds. Not one of these visits were charged for …”

The Auckland Star on 23 January 1919 reported on the presentation at the district’s Town Hall (present day Hollywood Cinema), and the comments made by Avondale Road Board chairman Mr. R. B. Nesbitt, who said, “… he was proud to be presiding at such a function, proud to be a friend and fellow citizen of a man who, through his untiring and unselfish labour had done so much for the sufferers of the disastrous epidemic. Towards the latter part of the visitation, Mr. Alley finally collapsed and had to take to his bed and it was with great difficulty his wife kept him there, for he wanted to be up and doing …”

It is sadly likely that the strain of his efforts during that epidemic took their toll on him. Early in the 1920s, he sold his business and left the district, never to return. The business he started still continues, passed from owner through the years and is now the Avondale Pharmacy. The old brick building still stands, remaining as Robert Allely’s only enduring mark upon the history of our suburb. That, and the story of the lives he helped to save in those dark days of 1918.

James MacKenzie statue at Fairlie

The above statue in honour of the legend of James MacKenzie was unveiled in Fairlie, South Canterbury, in 2003. The photo comes from a visit in March 2006, with other members of the executive committee of the NZ Federation of Historical Societies.

According to the sign alongside the statue, MacKenzie arrived in 1855, a Scottish immigrant seeking a better life. He took up a lease near Edendale in Southland, but one of the requirements of the lease was that he stocked the farm with sheep – which he didn’t have. He learned of a route through the mountains from Otago, leading to the basin which today bears his name.

He rustled 1000 sheep from the Rhodes Brothers of the Levels Station near Timaru in the dead of night, and this sparked off a high country pursuit with the law hot on his trail. He was caught a few days later, 4 March 1855, but made his escape. Eventually apprehended, he was sentenced in Lyttleton to 5 years hard labour. His case by now, though, had considerable national notoriety. His frequent escapes from custody added to the legend. He was pardoned in 1856, and left New Zealand forever.

450 kilograms of bronze was used by sculptor Sam Mahon to cast the statue, which is described as “James MacKenzie and his collie dog looking down upon their stolen flock. He faces into the wind, hand held above his valuable “eye dog” poised to do its instinctive duty of silently herding sheep.” The rock on which the statue stands came from the MacKenzie Pass.

"A Record Flight "... on the Kaipara rail line

From the Waitemata News, 19 June 1913.

"Regarding the fine recently imposed on a New Lynn settler, a good story is told of a contractor and the County Engineer, who were travelling on the Kaipara line, on which it is fitting that the incident should have taken place, owing to the velocity of the trains there.

"It is a regulation of the Railways Department that gelignite should not be carried at any cost, and it is a punishable offence for a passenger to take this explosive into a railway carriage. Gerald met Mac at the Auckland station, and both were carrying parcels of like size and wrapping. Gerald's contained gelignite and Mac's contained a plum cake, probably with which to regale the Helensville girls with. Both stood on the platform next the guard's van and placed their respective parcels at their feet.

"All went well, till the train was about to leave one of the way stations -- which we will call Whakapukatitree, for the sake of argument -- but here the starting jolt of the train caused one of the parcels to fall directly in front of the wheel of the guard's van. Both sports noticed this, and to the astonishment of the guard both hopped with alacrity off the train. Mac beating Gerald by an eyelash in a hundred yards sprint for safety.

"Fortunately, it was the plum cake that was cut in half and not the explosive, and a calamity was averted.

"On seeing what had really resulted, the pair speedily overhauled the train, now moving out of the station, and explained to the guard that they had simultaneously seen a coin lying in the road and had contested for its possession. They escaped a fine, but -- all men are liars."

Raceday rail tribulations: 1885

From the NZ Herald, 7 April 1885.

"The railway management in connection with the Ellerslie races was not so good yesterday as on Saturday, possibly because there was a larger crowd to handle. Still, when a train takes over an hour to run five miles, and gets into town long after the cabs and omnibuses which started when the train had left the racecourse platform for Auckland, even Job himself would growl.

"Last evening a train left Ellerslie about ten minutes to six o'clock, leaving 300 people on the racecourse, and got stuck at Remuera. After some delay a train came out from Auckland and passed it. A fresh start was then made for Newmarket, when another long delay occurred, apparently waiting for a second train to come out from Auckland, during which interval the delayed train could have gone to Auckland four times over.

"Some people got out and walked to town.

"At last the town train came out, and the Ellerslie train got in motion, but only to make a retrograde movement under the Remuera bridge, and thence shunted to the Kaipara line siding. This was the last straw which broke the camel's back. Hundreds in the train began to hoot and yell. There were loud calls for the Railway Manager, but that functionary, if about, prudently kept out of view.

"In a few minutes the train got underweigh again, and, amid a chorus of hootings and groans, moved out of the station. At the Auckland railway station, which were reached past seven o'clock, three groans were given for the Railway Manager, which were given as heartily as it was possible to do, and having thus eased their feeling, they separated to their several homes."

A curious case of mistaken identity ...


From the Auckland Star, 7 April 1920.

"A curious case of mistaken identity comes from the Henderson district. A farmer missed his cow from a paddock, and nowhere could the cow be found till some time later, on passing through Avondale he saw what he took to be his missing crumpled horn quietly grazing in a field by the roadside.

"Full of righteous anger he straightaway accused the owner of the field with being in wrongful possession of his best milker. The new possessor just as hotly denied any evil, declaring he had brought back the cow at a local sale of farm stock, and declined to be summarily dispossessed.

"The owner thereupon sought the aid of the police, and subsequent inquiry bore out the story of the new proprietor. It appears that when the sale in question was being held a drover was sent to Henderson to bring in an outlying cow to the sale. He failed to discover the animal in the paddock, but while returning saw one tallying to the description feeding in a cemetery, and without more ado gathered her in, and she was duly sold.

"When the police instituted inquiries to clear the mystery the cow for which the drover was sent was discovered grazing in the paddock in which she was originally supposed to be, and upon the two animals being compared they were found to be as like as Siamese twins. The tangle was unravelled by the purchaser consenting to an exchange."

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

The End of the Music: the Passing of the Gluepot Pub

Something I wrote many, many moons ago, in response to someone wanting info for a school project.

The Gluepot Pub, on the corner of Jervois and Ponsonby Road in Ponsonby, Auckland, started in 1903 under a more august name: The Ponsonby Hotel. However, over the 91 years it existed, it also went by the name Three Lamps, after the local landmark demarcation point for the city horse buses then trams in the first half of the 20th century, and especially after the local businessmen’s association had an imitation set affixed to the front of the building in the early 1950s, following the demise of the original set.

But, to Aucklanders in the main, it was the Gluepot, derived from a glue factory next door which “served many timber joiners and furniture makers in the area”, according to the Auckland City Harbour News (1994).

Dominion Breweries bought the pub in the early 1940s, and rebuilt it in concrete in 1947 apparently after the wooden verandah was demolished. It was later expanded to provide extra storage and cooling facilities, and by the 1970s had two bottle shops, a wholesaler and five bars. One of the bars, the Vista Bar, held special memories for quite a number of local residents. One, Kerry Bracewell of Herne Bay, wrote in June 1994 in the local paper: “[it was] one of the few old fashioned public bars in the area where a working class person can go after work and relax in a comfortable atmosphere. It also fulfils a similar role for a number of elderly, less well-off members of the community. It is also irreplaceable as a serious live music venue.”

It was as a music venue, after the advent of the “rock’n’roll era”, that the Gluepot achieved legendary status in the minds of many Aucklanders. It was a well-known base for local bands, such as Hello Sailor in the 1970s, and saw other artists and bands such as Graham Brazier, DD Smash and Blam Blam Blam play there. International stars such as Mick Jagger, Midnight Oil and Canned Heat were also hosted. The sound of drums beating into the night is still fondly remembered.

However, around the Gluepot, Ponsonby was changing. The former working class suburb started to drastically alter as the district was seen as upmarket, the place of residences for professionals and the well-to-do. Wally James, a staff member who had worked there for 24 years, told the local paper that “it was on the cards” that the pub would be sold. “Once 5 Polynesians came in for 5 crates of beer. Now you get 1 yuppy for a bottle of wine and a six-pack”. In its heyday, the Gluepot had 78 staff. By mid 1994, that was down to 30.

A concerted effort was tried at the last minute to try to save the pub. Dominion Breweries negotiated the sale of the Gluepot in early May 1994 to Westmark Investments, and from then until the end of October, when it closed over Labour Weekend, ‘Operation Gluepot” ran a frantic campaign of faxes and letters, appeals to Auckland City and local politicians, as well as appeals to the Historic Places Trust for heritage protection, especially on the grounds of a 140-year-old well believed to be under the site. The sale went through on 30 October, and in early November the Historic Places Trust announced it could only offer a category 2 status – not enough to prevent the Gluepot being gutted for redevelopment. Ironically, and perhaps tragically, the full protection status only came through in early January 1995, after the building effectively was no more.

The first Whau publicans: the Priestley brothers

On 28 July 1861, land agent Michael Wood sold seven sections of land partly bounded by Great North Road, Rosebank Road, a new road called Princes Street (the stub of which is now called Elm Street), and a cross-road which no longer exists called Victoria Street (around where the Peninsula Inn is today). The buyers were traders, brothers John and Charles Priestley, who arrived in Auckland on the Imaum from Hobart in 1854. They were based in Opotiki for at least the next five years, where Charles was convicted and fined £6 16/- 8d including costs for aggravated assault and knocking out five teeth of one William Wilcox in 1856.

The brothers purchased the corner site, in the heart of the future Avondale Shopping Centre, for £200. By April 1862, John Priestley had secured the first hotel license in West Auckland for the Whau Hotel, described in 1863 as “the large and handsome two story house of 10 rooms, well finished, painted, and papered,” complete with outhouses, stables, and a “well of good water” (from the spring which still runs down from Station Hill and on along part of the Rosebank Peninsula), and two acres of land. The brothers were onto a good thing: with no other licensed hotel between Edgcombe’s Great Northern at Western Springs and the Waitakere Ranges, along with the military blockhouse just a few miles distant on the Manukau Harbour and the promise of a Whau Canal, they stood to be quite successful in the enterprise of hotel-keeping in this district.

The Priestleys’ hotel was associated with another more tragic first: West Auckland’s first documented case of possible death by drinking. Hugh Henry of Titirangi went off on horseback to Auckland city on the 15th of November 1862. On the way there, he stopped at the Whau Hotel, and Charles Priestley served him with ginger beer. Henry returned from the city in a spring cart pulled by his mare, and met up with Priestley and one of Priestley’s friends driving back in Priestley’s cart. All three had “a nobbler of brandy each” at the Great Northern. Arriving at the Whau Hotel, Henry stayed there two hours, drank three glasses of rum, and took 1½ pints with him when he left. He returned 10 minutes later, saying he had broken the bottle, and asked for more. He was found the next morning in a gully near his home, underneath his overturned cart, the mare still attached. He died shortly afterward at his home.

The Priestleys decided to sell the hotel in June 1863. But, by September the hotel remained unsold, and now William Swanson forced a sale. In December, the hotel was sold – and the Priestleys left the district. The hotel was to remain on that site, now that of Ray White Real Estate and adjacent buildings, until at least 1870.

Freeman's Bay in 1872

Before the Auckland Gas Company set up shop along Beaumont Street (indeed, probably a bit before there even was much of a Beaumont Street), before the main reclamation which extended beyond Drake Street to create the Auckland City Council destructor site (now Vic Park Market), Victoria Park itself, and the Wynyard Point harbour board land extending out into the Waitemata, obliterating completely the inlet once called a true bay ... someone working for the Auckland Evening Star wrote a description of a little place called Freeman's Bay, a small suburb of the young City where the streams were still visible and open to the sky, and the rich had not yet established themselves on the Ponsoby ridge looking down upon the working people's homes below. The only pollution concern in the early 1870s was a bone-and-dust mill. From a decade later, the black soot and tar from the gas company works would darken the neighbourhood, as more and more small houses were built to be the dwellings of workers for the surrounding industries. But, that was the future. The following comes from the 15 November 1872 edition of the paper.

Freeman’s Bay, or rather the line of houses and stores bearing the name in front of the actual bay, lies innocently enough in the sleepy hollow between Victoria-street and College-road, and has a character of its own. The inhabitants, all independent voters, are a peculiar people, with their little whims and dogmas, and love of scandal.

The place was famous a year ago for its noisy dogs and curly innocents, but the animals have mostly disappeared, and the children are a trifle nearer maturity. The Bay community claims with some degree of pride the credit of occupying one of the most ancient of Auckland’s peopled settlements, which had its appellation from an old squatter, who reared its first domicile, and lived a freeman there among savages.

The many-shaped houses, with the hues of time upon them, at once strike the eye, and impress the beholder with the idea that this retired locality, resting half-way up Fortune’s hill, is the retreat of a separate and distinct people. The shops, it is true, are not of the liveliest description, but they are sufficiently stored for the modest wants of the Bayites. The round-about views, intersected with patches of green sward, are agreeable, and might, without exaggeration, be termed picturesque.

On the water you may sometimes observe dingies, cargo, and other boats, which at low tide are mud-fixed, and then you see small mud-larks wading knee-deep after nothing. Farther out on the gleaming water you observe formidable yachts floating, and the little Gemini steaming to and fro between the wharf and Riverhead with its freight of merchandise, whilst far beyond, if the summer sun be in a smiling mood, you descry the shingled roofs of Stokes’ Point, and nearer still St Mary’s Convent, and the Church of All Saints.

Overlooking the bay stands the old block-house with its martial memories, and lower still the busy woodman plies his dividing saw that the wood may be fairly distributed among the neighbours. The facetious Bay people call the lorn, empty immigration barracks the “salting-down-house”, in honour of some honest bacon dealer who once used the place for salting purposes. They love a joke, are fond of niceties, and take water-cresses and cake with their tea, as you will find it if you are lucky enough to sit down at one of their luxurious tables.

The white bone-and-dust mill does not add to the rustic beauty of this locality of self-supporting people. Freeman’s Bay has its butcher, baker, crockery-man, green-grocer, dress-maker, tea-dealer, water-poet, tavernist, and happy brace of working shoe-makers, who can sing a song and talk politics with the firm belief that there is nothing like leather.

The Bayites generally are an amiable people. Now and then on a Saturday evening or on flush days there is a local buzz, and a small row is usually softened down at the bar of a by-house. These infrequent deviations from the straight line will occur, but it is encouraging to observe that the Bay people, in conjunction with the highway authorities are mending their ways, so that that which is crooked will ere long be made straight.