Monday, September 29, 2008

Of Hypnotists, and Chimpanzees

One of the puzzles every retailer faces at some time or other while they are in business is – how do I attract the customers? Where early butchers in Avondale would simply put a pig’s head in the window to advertise their wares, or as in the case of Watson’s Chemist decorate the front window with Ranfurly Shield paraphernalia, there have been others who took things to the next level.

Take Lawrence “Larry” Tierney, for example. From just after World War I, he ran a billiard saloon and barber shop at the corner of what is now Crayford Street and Great North Road. After local rivals opened their barber shops in 1923 and 1932, Mr Tierney may have felt the need to boost business. One day, inquisitive school children found to their delight and wonder – a man asleep in the window of Tierney’s barber shop, hypnotised by a visiting practitioner of the art, covered only with a cloth. Good enough to stick in the memories of a few of our local identities, and maybe good enough for business.

In the 1960s came Chimpanzee Week, at Stuart North’s Avondale Paints and Paper Ltd. To quote from Heart of the Whau:

“One of his more famous promotional campaigns involved a family of three chimpanzees owned by a Mr Alan Horobin, arranged through Dulux Paints. The father chimp did painting in the store during the week-long promotion holding a brush with a hind leg, or in the mouth. Local children from the school were so keen to see the chimps that the teachers had trouble controlling them”
A local television show of the time even took the chimps’ paintings and showed them to passers-by in Albert Park as a stunt. None seeing the paintings had the slightest idea that they were the work of ‘amateurs in the field’.

I wonder what the Avondale retailers of today will come up with?

First published in Spider's Web, August 2001

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Oruaiti Chapel

Earlier this year, I went on a Railway Enthusiasts excursion by train from New Lynn up to Whangarei. Very exciting to me, to have the opportunity of travelling along the Northern line which has been closed for so long to ordinary passenger traffic.

Once there, I went on the side-trip to the Whangarei Museum and Kiwi House. It was raining that day, a pity, as there is quite a few historical objects and buildings up there to look at -- but the rain did add a mood which wasn't entirely out of place.

A friend here in Avondale mentioned the Oruaiti Chapel, so I went looking for it. According to this site:
"One of the most remarkable Mangonui settlers was Thomas Ball, a chemist from Brigg in Lincolnshire. Born in 1809, he was the son of a bookseller. In 1834 he married Jemima Abraham who died before he left for New Zealand ... Some of the Ball Party, as it became known, remained in Auckland to seek employment and gather resources to purchase land. Those who accompanied Mr Ball to the north on the 'Dove' settled in and around Mangonui village, mainly in the Oruaiti Valley. Approximately 20 others of predominantly Wesleyan faith followed this party on the 'Phoenix', leaving England on 12 October 1859, some settling in the Mangonui area.

Methodism was alive and well when John Wesley blessed the walls of a large octagonal chapel in Heptonstall by preaching there in July 1764. Other such chapels followed at Rotherham, Whitby, Chester, Edinburgh and elsewhere. The buildings were designed as preaching houses. After attending the conventional church, dissidents covertly went to their 'preaching houses' for their preferred sermon. The logic was that the architecture dictated that the buildings could not be mistaken for churches. It was understandable that Mr Ball's group of Wesleyan adherents should set to on arrival and build an octagonal chapel for themselves in the Oruaiti Valley. This was achieved by 1861."
Quoting the museum site:
"Oruaiti Chapel, c1859
Believed to be the world's smallest Methodist Chapel, this building was moved to the property from Doubtless Bay, North of Whangarei. The octagonal chapel was built in 1859 from a single kauri log and services are still held here on special occasions."

The Rewa ... from composite

In 2007, when visiting the Maritime Museum in Auckland with a friend and historical accomplice (you know who you are, if you're reading this), I spotted the Rewa, a good example of a mid-19th century cutter. Similar to those which once entered "Thomas' Channel", the mouth of the Oakley Creek, servicing the cargo needs of John Thomas' Star Mill (and George Thomas, then Thomas & Barraclough after him) as well as the later Garrett Tannery.

Trouble is, (a) the Rewa isn't a small boat, and (b) there's not a lot of room where it's housed at the museum for a classic step-back-and-take-the-wide-shot approach to digital photography. Hence, the composite image above. In no way perfect, and put together using time, patience and my good ol' workhorse for this sort of thing (MS Publisher) -- but, I think it conveys how cool the Rewa is. It dates from the 1870s/1880s, according to what I can find online at the moment.

Living heritage/hitori @ Avondale Primary School

Within the last couple of years, I was involved, along with another Avondale historian Ron Oates (head of the Avondale History Group and author of Challenge of the Whau, back in 1994) in Avondale Primary School's Living Heritage project. It was a blast. Avondale Primary is my old school (I was there from '68 to '74, just in case you're interested, and was the youngest person at last year's Primary School Reunion in November. Not that I cared about that!)

Local history should have a higher profile in our education system up to and including secondary level than it does today. Yes, I know, I'm biased because I love the stuff, but seriously -- a study of local history can and does involve knowledge in the subjects of and not limited to: social history, technological progress, geography, geology, computer literacy, and just out-and-out logical thinking. At least, there's more interest today regarding including the subject in the school curriculum than there was when I was younger. This is a good thing -- but it can be better, folks.

A brief history of … the Excelsior Chambers

In the Avondale of 1922, the only shops of note at the main intersection of Great North and what is now Rosebank Road were McKenzies General Store (where the Fearon Building now stands), the two-storey wooden shop serving as a fishmongers and confectionery shop operated by the Shaws, and Stewart’s Garage. The main centre for retail here was the old Five-Roads intersection, where the roundabout is now. The Great North Road was still uneven metal, an impediment to travelers from the city towards West Auckland through Avondale. This was the year of the start of the short-lived Avondale Borough, where the main landmarks of note along Mainstreet Avondale were the Page’s Building built in 1903, and the Avondale Hotel from the late1880s.

It appears, going from references in the Borough Council minutes, that one George Hosking, of a land agents firm Hosking & Hosking, owned the land at the south-east corner of the intersection of Great North Road and Browne Street (now Rosebank Road). Hosking built the retail shops at 54 and 56 Rosebank Road, and subdivided the corner section in 1926. By the late 1920s, his business had been taken over by W J Tait (who had the Unity Buildings constructed in 1932). The land was paddocks and blacksmiths’ outbuildings (the last blacksmith there being George Downing before 1915), and was still largely open in 1924 when Charles Collier set up his ironmongery store just up the incline from where the shops were later built in c.1925-26.

The NZ Herald reported in January 1926 on the planned construction of “two large blocks of shops” at the Great North-Rosebank intersection – one of these was most likely the Excelsior Chambers. The construction was obviously taking advantage of the newly concreted Great North Road

The original building was from numbers 1880 to 1886 Great North Road, with five businesses according to the directory of the time: Cecil Western, draper, at No. 1880 (he remained there until the mid 1930s); Harwood Clifford Hemus, chemist, at No. 1882 (there until 1932); a solicitor John V. Mansill and confectioner Miss Margaret H. Maddren at No. 1884 (neither there beyond a year); and Charles Collier at No. 1886 (he left by the time if the Depression, but opened up his own block of shops across the road, the Collier Buildings.

Around 1929, no. 1890 was added onto the original building, and no. 1892 added around 1937-1939.

Well-known shop owners in the Excelsior Chambers over the years have been the Martin family (Mrs. A Martin started there as a pork butcher in 1932, then Rebecca Martin opened up a furniture dealership in 1933); Charles Funnell from 1956 who bought the business from the Martins. He in turn was there to at least the late 1980s; and Sam Lowe, the fruiterer there from 1937 to the 1970s.

Seventy years of keeping Avondale one step ahead in style

It was around 1933 that Philip Toucich opened his bootmakers shop in the Excelsior Chambers, at no. 1886. The business was one of Avondale’s longest lasting in the footwear trade, passing to F. Zoricich by 1940, then to Vince Zoricich a decade later, and finally settling as the Central Shoe Store in the 1960s. I recall the shop when my mother and I would go on the annual hunt for shoes for school – the high step from the footpath was a climb for a youngster, and the shop was lined floor to ceiling with boxes of shoes in the narrow little area, with displays of shoes and shoe boxes in the front window. These days (2003), it is part of Pacific Gear. There never seemed to be a lot of room there to take time, try on shoes until you found the one that suited you best.

From around 1962, Allen Shaw Shoes opened at 1892, and is still a place for buying quality shoes in Avondale, since being renamed Avondale Shoe Store in the 1970s, and since 1997 being under the management of Hamant. Hamant, originally from Fiji, had a shoe shop there for 12 years before coming to live in New Zealand and taking over Avondale Shoe Store. His father was also in the footwear trade, so he has quite a vast experience in behind him when it comes to helping his customers find just the right shoe for them. “When a customer walks in, “Hamant says, “he won’t get out without buying shoes.”

I remember the store from my childhood as Shaws Shoes. It was my first experience with being able to sit on comfortable chairs, to try on various types of shoe until the right size and style was reached, checking for width across the broad part of the foot, and space for the toes. “Charlie Blacks”, shoe horns and a shop seemingly filled with an infinite variety of footwear are parts of my memory of the shop we now know as Avondale Shoe Store.

For over 70 years, the Excelsior Chambers has been the base for shoe stores excelling in keeping the feet of Avondale, young and old, both men and women, well protected from all seasons, and for a reasonable price.

The Early Days of Avondale's Law and Order

The Police

Avondale prior to 1906 had no purpose-built police base. Instead, the district came under the wider area of West Auckland, which extended up to Kaukapapa. By 1905, one Constable O’Grady was stationed at Avondale, although to date I haven’t been able to find out exactly where.

In that same year, a young woman named Rose Thomas, aged 18, was attacked about 200 metres from the then Avondale Hotel and grabbed by the throat by a man who had “rushed upon her out of the darkness, caught her by the throat, and making an improper suggestion threatened to blow her brains out with a revolver, which she said he held in his hand at the time.”

After dragging her down the road her down the road and throwing her into a ditch, he would have done much worse if not for some ladies who were walking by and disturbed him. He ran off but Miss Thomas “made a complaint to a passer-by, and information of the assault was conveyed to Constable O’Grady, who is stationed at Avondale. He saw Miss Thomas, and gathered a description of her assailant from her. Yesterday Inspector Cullen received information of the arrest of a young man who resides at Avondale, who, Miss Thomas alleged, was the man who assaulted her. He will be brought up at the Police Court this morning.” [NZ Herald, 30/1/1905]

The first purpose-built Avondale Police Station was erected on Great North Road, next to Page’s Building, in 1906. Initially there were 3 separate buildings: constables residence & office (still standing), lockup and stable. The District Engineer of the time, in charge of the work, was C. R. Vickerman, while the builder was Robert Kay. Total cost was £740. Dressed timber for the buildings was supplied from Government mills at Kakahi. The land was purchased on 28/8/1903 in preparation for the building.

Constable O‘Grady reported, “that the section purchased by the Police Department at Avondale for Police Quarters would be very accommodating for Troop horse here by it being fenced, as the present stable yard where he runs when out of stable is very small and of no comfort.” [“Report of Constable Thos. O’Grady, No. 649, relative to Police Station at Avondale suitable for Troop Horse accommodation by being fenced,” 15/12/1903, National Archives. Both items from Mike Butler report, Heritage Planning, 2001]

Rangers and Traffic Officers

In the 1880s, it was not easy being the Ranger. This was an unpopular position, despite being one of the first of the paid positions under the Avondale Road Board’s control. The Board expected the Ranger to stop cattle and horses straying into the roads, while the populace at large strongly objected to seeing their stock impounded for such misdemeanours. It was a common practice for farmers in the district to let their stock roam at will, grazing along the roadsides. In June 1887, there was a strong protest against impounding of cattle, and the Board capitulated for a time.

The Ranger was also expected to keep an eye out for human nuisances as well – gumdiggers seeking gum by digging up the public roads were warned off by prominent notices put up, and that the Ranger stood to earn £1 for each conviction.

By the end of 1887, the Ranger was Mr John Lupton, who lasted in the job only two years. Next came John Ellington who left by February 1890, after several run-ins with locals, replaced by Mr Owen McGuise.

At the turn of the 20th century, the Board and the Ranger expected full co-operation from the police constable of the time (Constable Crean, and his successors), in prosecuting owners of straying horses and cattle.

By the early 1920s, the Avondale Borough Council altered the position of Ranger to incorporate two further roles: that of Noxious Weeds Inspector and Traffic Inspector. The only man to fulfill all three roles during the period of the Borough (1922-1927) was George Thomas Chandler from October 1924, earning £1 per week for each position. As Traffic Inspector, Chandler was in charge of policing the speed limit (15 mph in the Shopping Centre), parking (no parking allowed on Great North Road after the concreting in 1925), no smoking on buses in the Avondale Borough, and by-laws related to vehicle lights.

As the Ranger, he frequently had differences with Constable Douglas of the Avondale Police Station regarding Douglas’ cow being impounded. These led to “foul words” and a civil action, ending with the Borough Council demanding the removal of Constable Douglas by the Commissioner of Police. It is uncertain whether they were successful with their appeal to the Commissioner.

From 1927, after amalgamation with Auckland City, traffic regulations in Avondale were policed by Auckland City Council’s own traffic enforcement division.

Shake, rattle & roll: the Avondale Earthquake of 1885

At around four minutes to 7 in the evening of 22 December 1885 – the ground shook violently and for a prolonged time beneath the feet of Avondale’s residents. One shocked settler headed straight for one of the district’s telephones and reported to the NZ Herald, telling them that the quake had lasted a full four minutes. It was distinctly felt by neighbours contacted by the informant, and “in two or three instances it had caused considerable alarm.”

The Herald was quite perplexed and dubious. “The shock”, they advised, “if shock it was, must have been confined to Avondale, for although we caused inquiries to be made, we were unable to learn that it had been felt beyond that district.”

The Star, however, did some sleuthing and their inquiries found that a Mr. Thomas Reid had been working a quarry that evening on the Gittos tannery property (possibly part of the former quarry land at the end of Soljak Road off New North Road). It appears he fired “an unusually large blast” of 400lbs of powder. “This,” the Star informed readers, “no doubt explains the phenomena.”

Such was the Avondale Earthquake of 1885.

Stop! Look out for the engine!

Level crossings, where road crosses rail, have always been areas of potential hazard and danger for road users. In Avondale, we know of problems arising from the crossings at St Judes Street, Chalmers Street and St Georges Road – but before 1914, there was a fourth crossing, just to the east of the railway station, between the ends of Trent and Tait Street. These small stub streets actually started out as the detour connecting Station Road, leading from Great North Road, and Manukau Road (today’s Blockhouse Bay Road). The overbridge didn’t exist then; people and carts had to head down the side streets, carefully cross over the tracks, then head back up the other side. The rule was that the rail line had to be crossed as walking pace, so that drivers could watch for trains coming. At that point originally, however, the line curved considerably; trains coming in from Mt Albert were out of view until almost at the level crossing. In 1908, this almost proved fatal.

Henry Farrar was a young man operating a waggonette service at the time. This was an uncovered wagon with seats extending along the sides, designed in some cases to hold up to eight people plus the driver. It was summer, 13 January, and good weather to convey his two passengers to Onehunga from Avondale Station: Thomas Horton, a nurseryman from Pahiatua, and his friend William Shepherd, from New South Wales. The waggonette must have come down Trent Street, and started to cross over the railway line – when the train rounded the bend.

The engine driver, Frank Skillen, had sounded the usual crossing whistle, then saw the waggonette and applied the brakes. Farrar had almost completely driven over the line when one of the passengers panicked and reached for the reins, pulling the horses up. At that point, the rear of the waggonette was still on the line, and the engine smashed into it. Sheppard was the most seriously injured. He had been propelled from the smashed vehicle, and ended up “in a sitting position” on one of the pipes connected with the engine’s Westinghouse braking apparatus. He suffered internal injuries. Farrar had a dislocated shoulder; while Horton had a scalp wound (it may indeed have been Horton who panicked). The injured were carried by train to Mt Eden Station, and then on to Auckland Hospital.

A month later, Farrar appeared in court with one arm in a sling, on charges of failing to “Stop! And look out for the engine”, and driving over the crossing at more than a walking pace. As it was seen that he already suffered considerably due to the accident, he was let off simply with a conviction and costs. The Avondale Road Board campaigned for years to have that crossing replaced by an overhead bridge – and when the railway station was altered in 1914 to that of the island-type configuration we still see today, the bridge was completed as well and the crossing dispensed with.

Death in the rush-hour

David Daniels was a well-liked 73 year old married man in 1916, a resident in Avondale since the 1890s, still going to work in a boot factory in Kingsland at his advanced age. He lived in Brown Street, today’s upper Rosebank Road, and was closely connected with the nearby Methodist Church. Travel to work for Mr. Daniels was by train at 7 o’clock in the morning, and usually he’d walk up Station Hill to the overhead bridge and then down the pedestrian ramp to catch his ride, despite moving with a limp, some said because of his tender feet.

On Thursday 16 March 1916, however, he was running a bit late. He’d been a bit poorly recently, a touch of the ‘flu, and the train was soon to arrive. On that morning, he took the alternative shortcut, a pathway with a turnstile just off Layard Street (likely close to the RSA today) which led across the city-bound line on the northern side of the platform. By then, since 1915, there were two lines around the station building (the building most will remember, which is now at Swanson, was brand new with the redevelopment that year). The rail authorities created the Layard Street entrance for people to use, and around 100-150 people used it each day. Most kept their eyes open, and listened for trains before crossing the line.

David Daniels, however, not quite well, in a hurry, and partially deaf, didn’t hear the train making its way up the grade past Crayford Street, nor did he hear the shrill whistle when the driver saw to his horror what was about to happen.

He was struck by the engine’s cowcatcher, and dragged about a carriage-length underneath the engine along the tracks. His body was so entangled, they had to use jacks to lift the engine off his remains. The back of his head was stoved in by the initial impact. The coroner ruled that death was probably instantaneous, but witnesses claimed that Mr. Daniels saw the oncoming train when it was just a yard away and tried to flee.

In his ruling, the coroner laid no blame on the train driver, but said that the Layard Street entrance was hazardous. It may have been because of this tragic accident now long forgotten that the entrance was fenced off and only the ramp at the overhead bridge is the legal access to the station in 2008. Yet just before I wrote this, one Saturday afternoon, I saw a passenger who had alighted from the same train as I did make his way along to the end of the platform, past all the signs stating “No access”, and then across the same part of the line where Mr Daniels met his death, to head for what is now an unofficial shortcut to Layard Street and Rosebank Road.

As I said, David Daniels and his fate have been forgotten. While we forget tragedies such as his, we never learn.

Avondale's future/past railway

Above is the site of Avondale's future railway station. Part of Ontrack's Project DART, or "Developing Auckland Rail Transport". (I guess the acronym DARN, if they'd used "Network" instead of "Transport", didn't go down too well with the decision-makers.) Anyway ...

All the bits an' bobs about the project are here. They're still working out how best to plan out a pedestrian crossing across Crayford Street (it's been closed to vehicular traffic since the 1960s or so) where it is already a pretty steep drop from Crayford Street East to Crayford Street West. Anyway ...

I'm not here just to relay the blurb from the powers-that-be as to what they're going to do here in Avondale. See that photo? Imagine if the house with the blue roof just behind the vegetation on the left wasn't there. And the vegetation, the grass, the auxiliary box at the left -- and if a lot of that verdant slope was bare, and covered with ballast. Complete with four lines of rail siding.

Back in 1914, the Avondale Railway Station yards (at the present site closer to Blockhouse Bay Road) were redesigned. According to plans I've photographed (with permission) from Archives New Zealand, along with the now-familiar island platform layout, with our station renovated, enlarged slightly, and given not just one verandah as they'd done in 1908, but two verandahs. A signalbox was added, and the goods shed extended, as extra lines in the station yard were laid doiwn between the clay banks. An overbridge was constructed in 1913 across Blockhouse Bay Road, and a footbridge (still there) led from the road to the station platform. For a while, a pedestrian pathway led from Layard Street (I'll post another piece I wrote about a tragedy there which stopped that crossing. Ironically, the railway planners intended putting in a pedestrian subway from Layard Street, but that never happened.

Anyway ...

At Crayford Street (called Cracroft Street in those days), the railways also planned the sidings, and proposed taking another half-acre to accomodate them (hence why I said the blue-roofed house wouldn't have been there.) The reason for the sidings? The passion and the popularity in those days of going to the Avondale races. The sidings would have been for queuing up the race-day trains. It may have made it easier for folks to get off and go down to the racecourse via either Crayford or St Judes Streets. The local Road Board had already expressed disquiet at the practice of some trains to stop in the middle of St Judes Street to let off passengers, thus blocking the traffic (what it was then).

The sidings, though, were never created. The land was left empty, barring the trees which look very nice, but they'll go once the work begins soon during construction of the new rail station.

Just another of the "might have beens" of Avondale's railway story. We might even have had a direct rail link, from Chalmers Street, to Green Bay via Portage Road if a 1900 plan I was also able to copy had left the drawing board (can you imagine Green Bay possibly as a light industrial centre, serviced by the line which would have plowed through the land which later became Clark's Potteries along Taylor Street in Blockhouse Bay, so that would never have existed there ...)

Extra: This post has been updated here, regarding the raceday trains and a special platform in 1899.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Remnants of a Wolverine

Up until the late 1960s to early 1970s, part of the Avondale landscape included a wooden shed built by J J Craig in the late 1890s at his brickworks on St Georges Road, now known most commonly as Glenburn. In those days, if a supply of teak and oak timbers came floating into Auckland harbour and was there for the salvaging, why not take advantage of it, buy a stack of it, and then reuse it to increase output in what was then Auckland’s largest brick and pipe making operation?

The timbers came from a Royal Navy full-rigged corvette named Wolverine, launched in 1863. It was built from a composite structure of teak and oak planking, and was launched right when steam was rapidly replacing sail as the motive power for ships. As such, although she was a sailing ship, she also had a steam engine aboard. The ship served in both the West Indies and Australasia. In 1893, the aged Wolverine was retired by the Royal Navy and sold for £2200 to one Peter Ellison.

Under her new ownership, she was converted to a cargo ship, intended to convey coal, tallow and copra from Australia and the south seas. Her first voyage in her new role was to prove her last. Sailing from Sydney on 24 February 1895, a Tasman gale caused her to start leaking in more places than could be adequately repaired.

The Wolverine was diverted to Auckland in distress, and limped into the Waitemata Harbour. The news here from the shipbuilders who inspected her was not good – the old lady was beyond repair. Ellison sold the hulk to Devonport shipbuilder George Niccol for £1000, and she was broken up for salvage.

Along with J J Craig’s purchases for his Avondale brickyard, many of the ship’s girders were used in building the Shaw Savill & Albion woolstore close to The Strand in Parnell. Furniture and several small boats were built from her timbers as well. Once everything valuable had been stripped, the remains of the Wolverine were allowed to slowly decay into rust.

Getting to the Train on time – the early Avondale-Blockhouse Bay buses

Today, there are three ways folk in Avondale can get to Blockhouse Bay by public transport, and vice versa – along Blockhouse Bay Road or St Georges and Taylor Street with the Urban Express buses, or via New Lynn Transport Centre (the long way around, via Green Bay). Before established and regular bus services were begun between the two suburbs around 1922, however, there were just the feeder services. These carried workers and shoppers from Blockhouse Bay, up the steep hills at Glenavon, to meet the trains at Avondale Railway Station. Professor E M Blaiklock, writing under his pen name of “Grammaticus” for the Weekly News 12 July 1971, described a dash made by two of Tommy Goulton’s horse buses up Blockhouse Bay Road in stirring fashion.

The horse buses were replaced by motorised versions by the time of the First World War, and one operator named Frank W. White ran a service using a small motor bus. One Saturday at midday in April 1921 he waited by the train station at Avondale for his next load of passengers to arrive, when he noticed two local boys in the bus. He ordered them off, and probably thought little more about them, as the train arrived in the rain and his passengers began to board.

 One of the boys however climbed back on the outside of the bus, balancing on the step as it drove off, unseen by the driver. Another man in a gig near the station saw the boy, eight-year-old Andrew Strong from Bollard Avenue, hanging on – and then, a few minutes later, noticed the boy lying motionless in the road about 100 yards from the station. Apparently, young Andrew had tumbled off, and a rear wheel of the bus went over his stomach. No one in the bus saw the accident. Andrew Strong died from his injuries at Auckland Hospital the next day.

 In those days, getting an ambulance to an emergency like this was, to those of us today, a long-winded and rather odd process. Dr. Carew was summoned to examine the young boy, and wrote a note to the police station to summon the ambulance. The constable on duty in Avondale wasn’t in at the time, so his wife made the call just before 1 pm, only to be told by a hospital orderly that the doctor himself had to personally phone in the request for the ambulance. Word was then sent back to the doctor, who arrived at the police station half-an-hour later to call the hospital and confirm the order for the ambulance. One finally arrived to take Andrew to hospital at 2.15 pm.

The police, according to the last report I have on the case, were investigating that life-threatening delay.

Hassall’s mistake: explosion in 1883

Last post update: 31 October 2014

Avondale in 1883 was getting used to its new name from being known as the Whau (so were some of the newspapers of the day). The railway through to West Auckland had been in place for three years. Large farms on Rosebank Peninsula and up towards the new station were either being sold or about to be sold in residential subdivisions. A year later, a new Anglican church would be built.

A carter named Henry Hassall (also spelled Hazell by some sources) lived close to Avondale. There, it seems he operated his service. One wet winter’s day in July 1883, Mr Hassall went scouting around inside and headed up to the loft, of all places, which he hadn’t been in for some years. There he found a lump of about 6lbs of “black dusty stuff in an old biscuit tin”, as later reports described it. Thinking that it looked like some old coal, he took it downstairs to the fire and poked it onto the grate.

There was a fizzing sound suddenly -- and then an explosion which shook the house.

John Bollard was the first at the scene, possibly alerted by Hassall’s grandson who was in the room at the time but escaped with only slight injuries. Bollard sent a message through to Dr. Young at the Asylum, who sent a lotion for Mr and Mrs Hassall, both severely burned. Mr Hassall’s face was said to have been so swollen that he couldn’t see, but fortunately he hadn’t been blinded by the blast. Anglican Rev. John Haselden was passing by and dismounted upon being told by John Bollard of what had happened; the reverend stayed at the house for the next hour and a half continuously applying the lotion to the stricken couple and dressing their wounds. A few days later, it was reported that Mrs Hassall and their grandson were progressing well, but Mr Hassall was still in critical condition.

As for the lump of black stuff Mr. Hassall found in that biscuit tin? It turned out that it was actually around 6lbs of blasting powder, left up in the loft back around 1879-1880 by his son-in-law who was employed at that time on the Kaipara Railway. It was thought that when the son-in-law realised some of the blasting powder he had been using had become wet, he thought the best thing to do was take it home to the Hassall residence, and let the powder dry off in the tin up in the loft. However, he forgot all about the powder, and it remained up in the loft until that day in July 1883 when Mr Hassall curiously opened the old biscuit to see what was inside. Fortunately for Hassall, the powder was well past its full strength through age, but how well he recovered, if at all, remains uncertain.

This man shouldn't be confused with George Hazell/Hassell, who owned land at Sandringham for a while in the 1870s until 1882, and ran a riding school at the corner of Charlotte Street and New North Road in Eden Terrace from 1883 until he died in 1886.

Glenburn: Avondale's "Fire on the Clay" (1882-1972)

There had been earlier brickyards in Avondale and immediate districts: Daniel Pollen’s on the Rosebank from c.1855-c.1875, other smaller concerns on both sides of the Whau River … but William Hunt was to initiate one of the biggest in West Auckland.

William Hunt: 1881-1887

On 24 April 1882, James Palmer transferred title to William Hunt for 19 acres of land at the southern end of Allotment 85, bounded then on three sides by one Government Road (now St Georges Road), Wolseley Street (now Wolverton Street) and another Government Road (now Blockhouse Bay Road). It is likely that Hunt was already in occupation there before the title was formerly conveyed, as was a common practice in those days. William Hunt came from Wellington in Shropshire, England, having brought himself, his wife, and their family of eight sons and two daughters to Auckland in March 1880. He is said to have done rather well for himself with a small fortune made during the Industrial Revolution (supposedly around £60,000 in capital).

From the NZ Herald in February 1884: “Mr. Hunt has now got fully in operation his new brickworks, the machinery of which will turn out about 16,000 compressed bricks per diem. He has ordered from Glasgow another machine – a die plastic machine – which will give an additional output of 25,000 bricks per day. Two kilns are in work. The clay is run into the works in trucks, by rail, working on an endless chain. Mr. Hunt has erected residences for his men, and put in a lengthy siding from his factory to the Kaipara Railway. His expenditure on buildings, machinery and improvements, has already amounted to many thousands of pounds, and it is to be hoped that he will reap the full reward of his enterprise.”

Dick Scott, in his book Fire on the Clay describes Hunt’s success thus: “Hunt’s arrival in Auckland coincided with a boom that created a surge of inner city building of banks, hotels, shops, offices and factories. It encouraged him to pour his money into modern brickmaking machinery. He was the first in New Zealand to introduce mechanization to the industry and his bricks were superb. In excavating old building sites today their quality, the crispness of outline, the uniformity and density, instantly put them apart and makes most of their fellows seem warped and woebegone.”

The “lengthy siding” fits with a suggested layout of Hunt’s brick works proposed by J. T. Diamond in 1983: a long, sweeping railway siding from the main rail line about halfway between Chalmers Street and St Georges Road, to lie alongside Hunt’s Scotch kiln (for bricks, fireclay) and a bottle or hovel kiln (for pottery). An internal tramway is believed to have run alongside a long rectangular covered working area, connecting that with rows of stacks in a drying area, and forming a connection between the works and a clay quarry just to the east, across a small watercourse running approximately north to south (one of the tributaries to the Whau Creek watershed.) A dam across this watercourse would supply the works with water, and also flush away excess ingredients of the brick making process. It was a much smaller operation than would later be seen on the site. Hunt, after all, had only 19 acres, compared to the later extent of over 50 acres, but he would have had land use agreements with his northern neighbours, possibly John Buchanan, in order to run that precious rail siding from the main line to his works.

By 23 July 1884, Hunt had already created a substantial brick yard on the site, judging by the details disclosed in his mortgage agreement at the time with Philip Hawe Mason: “machinery works, buildings, kilns, furnaces, engines, rails, turntables, roads, trams, wagons, trucks, implements, tools, plant, working stock and other estate.” According to Dick Ringrose in a conversation with J. T. Diamond in 1940, Hunt brought all the machinery with him from England. 1 flywheel alone weighed 7 tons. Around 30 men were employed there.

He had purchased the land for £450 in 1882 from Palmer: just over 2 years later, he took out a mortgage for the lot to the value of £3500, agreed to be repaid on 23 June 1887. Hunt took out a further mortgage with Philcox on 1 September 1885, but appears to have been unable to repay either mortgage by the end of 1887. The building boom, on which he must have relied upon, collapsed. On 9 December 1887, he conveyed “equity of redemption” to J. Bycroft & Co for £5300, the total of the two unpaid mortgages.

Hunt’s manager was Tom Murray (who had worked at Arch Hill). Hunt’s was the first local works to utilise a rail siding. Hunt was also able to install a steam engine after about 5 years operation, replacing a horse-drawn pugmill used to mix the clay. His daily tally in summer was said to be 25,000 (in summer), with a kiln turnover of 150,000 per week. During the Hunt period, the bricks made here are said to have been used “extensively” in the building of the Catholic Church of Ascension in Onehunga’s Church Street, and the entire original Custom House building in the central city, although this was built over the course of 1888-1889. The bricks may have been made during Hunt’s time, but the profits belonged to Bycroft & Co.

William Hunt retired to a 600 acre farm near Ngaruawahia, and died in the Waikato on 1 October 1907. In the obituary for his wife, published in 1925, it was recorded: “Mr. Hunt founded the brick works [at Avondale] and worked at Avondale for seven years. He then sold out and took up farming in the Waikato. In those days trouble was rife among the Maoris, and the Hunt family had many anxious times. However they won the esteem of the Maoris by attending to them when they were ill or injured, and undoubtedly saved many lives. When Mr Hunt died the tribes wanted to take him down the river and accord him the honour of a chief’s burial. This request was not acceded to.”

J. Bycroft & Co: 1887-1896

Between 1887 and 1896, Bycrofts purchased two more lots, enlarging the total land holding to 30 acres. By the time the company sold the property to Joseph James Craig on 2 June 1896 for the bargain rate of £1000, plus a total of £3000 plus interest on unpaid mortgages (including part of Mason’s mortgage dating back to William Hunt’s time in 1884), it was nearly at its greatest extent but must have cost Bycrofts dearly.

Within two years of purchasing the brick works, Bycrofts had bricks included as part of their stand at the Dunedin Exhibition of 1889. “Bycroft’s biscuits placed in suggestive contiguity to his equally good bricks.” They had installed Mr. C. Ingram as working manager buy 1891. The business was now “Avondale’s Patent Brick Works … Manufacturer’s of Hunt’s Celebrated Building Bricks”, turning out fire bricks, fireclay goods, ground fireclay, “patent pressed fancy and ornamental bricks”, “terra cotta”, chimney pots, etc. Fireclay is a mined underclay found in association with coal seams and known for its suitability to withstand high temperatures, so this may have been brought into the works at Avondale via the railway from places such as Huntly in the Waikato.

Why would a biscuit and flour making company buy a brick yard? Between 1880, when John Bycroft senior (the firm’s founder) died and 1891 when his son and co-director of the company, also named John, died – Bycroft’s appear to have been following a policy of diversification. Aside from Hunt’s brickworks, they were involved with: the NZ Dairy Association; the Merchant and Shipping Agency business of Stone Brothers; and a tannery and fellmongery at Onehunga. Local wags passed on a rumour though that perhaps Bycrofts were having a spot of bother with their bakery kilns, with biscuits coming out hard and inedible: the purchase of the brick yard ensured these could be sold as quarry tiles!

J. J. Craig / Avondale Brick and Pottery Company Limited: 1896-1920

J.J. Craig initially kept Ingram on as manager. The yard was enlarged, a Hoffman kiln installed (this kiln can be seen clearly in the c.1898 photograph of the yards, from Special Collections), and the works became the first in the district to make glazed pipes with a small hand machine first used by Ward in 1895, then Vazey in 1902.The bricks made at the yard complimented the hydraulic lime mortar also sold by Craig which was used in many buildings of the period. At the Auckland Exhibition of 1898-99, Craig was awarded first prize for cream jars, spirit jars and plain glazed flower pots and waterfilters”, and was highly commended for “design of garden fountains, flower vases, and flower pots.” The firm received second prize for “facing and pressed bricks, moulded and air bricks, chimney tops and plain Rockingham tea pots.”

On 22 February 1900 Craig sold the site to William Elliot and the Avondale Brick and Pottery Company Limited. According to the deed, Craig had agreed to sell the land to the company for £800 “some time since” but the latter had not been formed or incorporated until early 1900.

A brief description appeared in the Auckland Star, 1903: “In the Southern portion of Avondale there are the large brick yards formerly owned by Mr Hart [sic], but now run by a limited company. These works employ a great number of men, the majority of which have cosy little homesteads of their own.” The Cyclopedia of New Zealand in 1902 refers to the brick yards as still being owned by Craig, so the agreement with George Elliot could well have only been in the nature of a lease, or as a subsidiary of the J.J. Craig company. The works were described by the Cyclopedia as: “said to be the largest in the Colony, with a capacity of 90,000 bricks per day, besides fire-bricks, fire clay blocks, oven tiles, stove linings, drain pipes, chimney pots, roofing tiles, ridgings, sanitary appliances, filters, jam jars, acid jars, cornices and ornamental work, flower pots, etc.” By 1913, the marvel was reported that the works were “lighted by electricity, so that work can be carried on night and day, and kilns thus be examined at a temperature that would be dangerous with almost any other form of light.” 100 men were employed, around 20% of Craig’s total workforce.

By 19 December 1910 the Avondale Brick and Pottery Company Limited was in liquidation, their agent William Elliot now acting as their liquidator with his brother George Elliot. The land was passed back to the Craig family (JJ Craig by then deceased) in the name of his widow Jessie and son Ernest on 12 September 1916. JJ Craig had purchased the property from the company for £3000 on their liquidation but no formal conveyance was arranged. Craig had died in July 1916. By now, the total property was around 52 acres, the largest area it was to encompass, as further land to the north was apparently purchased between 1900 and 1910, in the name of the Avondale Brick and Pottery Company.

Brick Tile (Auckland) Limited / Glenburn Fireclay and Pottery Company Limited: 1920-1929

"It is said of the London clay that inevitably it spells ruin to the brickmaker not thoroughly familiar with its nature, for it is too strong —that is, it presents great difficulties in manufacture owing to its excessive shrinkage. Yet when properly worked, no bricks are better able to withstand the severe conditions to which bricks are subjected than those made from the London clay. A precisely similar difficulty characterises the clay deposits at Avondale. It has long been held by the local "wise heads" that these clays, and particularly those at the Avondale works, are not fit for the manufacture of bricks, yet it would on evidence appear that the unfitness was not attributable to any peculiarity the clay possessed. It has however been conclusively proven that, under capable management, by the abolition of "rule of thumb methods" and the substitution of expert knowledge that the huge deposits of clay on the property of Brick, Tile, (Auckland) Limited, is just the very class of clay a competent and experienced management would desire for the production of a '"better brick." The new double pressed bricks now being made by the Company are branded BTA. It may be interpreted by those who are uninitiated as "Beats Them All" or "Better Than Any" which would be a not altogether unexpected exclamation by those who see them for the first time, which are in substance solid facts. It will not be necessary to remind the architectural professor and the building trades generally of these facts. Those gentlemen of keen observation will at once say they are indeed good and if by the clean, smart appearance of the brick with its sharp arrises, the initials might pardonly be interpreted as "Beats Them all."' The BTA. is put on the brick merely that one and all may know it is the production of Brick, Tile, (Auckland) Limited." (Auckland Star, 2 October 1920)

On 16 July 1920, the Craig family came to an agreement with John Melville and James Fletcher (of Fletcher Construction fame) for the latter partners to purchase the site under the name Brick Tile (Auckland) Limited. On 14 May 1923 by order of the Supreme Court the company’s name was changed to Glenburn Fireclay and Pottery Company Limited. The Craig family eventually formalised the sale on 16 February 1929 for £8000. Part of the land was sold the same day to William Anderson (corner of St Georges Road and Wolverton Street). Two days later, Glenburn went into liquidation, and a resolution was passed to sell the property to Amalgamated Brick and Pipe Company which then in the process of incorporation. The purchase price was £42,274 8s 6d, an amazing sum, considering the value of the buildings and land together, as assessed by Auckland City Council in 1927 was only £5760.

Amalgamated Brick and Pipe Company: 1929-1969

From 1929, while the works was known on plans and to locals as “Glenburn”, officially it was simply No. 3 Pottery, Amalgamated Brick & Pipe Company. The depression of the 1930s hit hard. From around 1934, the works was only operational part time. There were apparently only 9 employees at the works by 1930.

The days of the Avondale brick works however were numbered. More land was nibbled away from 1949 when the company sold sites along Blockhouse Bay Road and Wolverton Street for residential use, and more sites along St Georges Road from 1956. The site was rezoned as M2, or light industrial in the change in the District Plan in 1968, from the previous designation of “Burnt Clay Products Zone”, and sold to developers Associated Group Securities Limited at the end of 1972. Orders for bricks from the Glenburn works ceased 22 August 1969 and the last buildings and chimney demolished soon after. Today, much of the original Avondale Brick Works site forms the Lansford Crescent industrial area.

A wrong step in the dark : the death of Rev. David Hamilton (c.1844-1873)

Updated: 10 September 2019

In a corner of the little graveyard beside St Ninian’s Hall (formerly the Whau/Avondale Presbyterian Church) a sturdy obelisk monument stands guarded by rusted metal railings. Once this monument was in danger of collapsing, but former Avondale resident and then-Minister of Internal Affairs, Richard F Bollard, noticed and saw to it that the foundation around the stone was strengthened. And so, it has survived to stand today in a quiet suburban churchyard.

This is the grave, hard between the old church hall and modern playgrounds and the present-day picket fences, overlooking the Mobil Service Station, of the Rev David Hamilton (1844-1873). His father, also named David (c.1804-1860) came from Ballynahinch, to the south-east of Belfast in what is now Northern Ireland. In 1827, David Hamilton senior was licensed to preach at the Connor Presbyterian Church, and ended his career serving at York Street Church in Belfast from 1840. When he passed away from typhus fever, he left a widow (Eliza) and six children, including David and elder brother Thomas.

David Hamilton junior began his own career with the Presbyterian Church in Belfast in 1869 when he was licensed to preach at May Street church.

Back in 1848, the Ulster Presbyterian General Assembly set up a Colonial Mission in 1848, under the leadership of William McClure of Derry, to deal with the "religious destitution of emigrants" to the colonies. In May 1871, McClure offered a call to mission work he was organising in New Zealand, in conjunction with noted St Andrews, Auckland minister Rev David Bruce, to David Hamilton. At that point, David's brother Thomas had a position at their father's York Street church. On 3 August 1871, David Hamilton was formally ordained by the Presbytery of Belfast as a missioner to the Colonies. The York Street congregation held a farewell for Hamilton in early October, and he set off, embarking with Bruce aboard the Caduceus for Auckland.

They arrived on 2 February 1872. Hamilton proved that he was an enthusiastic minister of the Presbyterian Church in this country; he was well known for travelling widely to outlying areas, and preached even on the Coromandel Peninsula in late May 1872, the month after the parish at the Whau (Avondale) called for him to be their new minister.

The little country church had been without a minister of their own since 1867. Once word had reached them of this fine young enthusiastic Irishman, and Hamilton had visited them to give service at one point in the Whau and at Titirangi, the parishioners convened a meeting on 18 April 1872, and put Hamilton‘s name to a “call“ or formal request from the congregation to the Presbytery. The “call” read:

“We, the undersigned elders, other office bearers and members of the united congregation of the Whau and neighbouring districts, in the province of Auckland, being Protestants, desirous of promoting the glory of God and the good of His Church, being satisfied, by good information and our own experience of the ministerial abilities and of the suitableness to our capacities of the gifts of you (the Rev David Hamilton) have agreed to invite, as we hereby do invite, and call you to undertake the office of pastor among us, promising you all dutiful respect, encouragement, and obedience in the Lord, and engage to pay a stipend of not less than £160 per annum, in witness whereof we have subscribed the call before the Presbytery of Auckland, on the eighteenth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-two years.” There were 141 signatures to the call.

A collection of districts contributed toward the stipend, as these were then the areas of the total parish: the Whau, £60; Riverhead, £40; Hobson’s Villa (Hobsonville) £30; Henderson’s Mill £15; Titirangi £15; Huia, £20; and Cornwallis, £7. As can be seen, this added up to £187, £27 more than the base stipend.

The Auckland Presbytery agreed to the call, and appointed Hamilton to the vast Whau Parish, stretching from Avondale through to Riverhead. They joined the congregation on 21 May 1872 for the formal induction service at the Whau Church.

During the remainder of his life, Hamilton applied himself diligently to the task of supplying ministration to the outlying districts of the parish, from the Whau to Riverhead and the Manukau coastline. But as later came to light, his parishioners and friends found that he was not a good horseman, having fallen from his horse more than once along the road; he was also absent-minded and not very observant (Constable Bullen described him as always being in a "deep study"), with little “bush sense” (hardly surprising, coming directly from Belfast to the wild colonies). His health was given as good, but he was not “robust”.

In February 1873, Hamilton expressed his concerns regarding service to the mill workers in the out-districts of the Waitakere Ranges. At a meeting in Avondale that month, he said he “found it impossible to give attention to the Huia and Cornwallis Districts, and attend to the other parts of his charge at the times to which the people had been accustomed to expect him. He desired to hear if any concession could be made in this respect, so that he might be relieved of those out-districts and have more time to devote to the other portions of his large district.” The meeting moved to make the Huia & Cornwallis visits an exception to his expected ministerial work, while David Bruce said he and other brethren were inclined to offer to fill in so Hamilton could visit the out districts on a quarterly basis.

At the annual meeting of the congregation in July 1873, Bruce remarked on the difficult roads Hamilton travelled on his ministry, and “how fortunate [Hamilton] had been in escaping accidents so long.”

A week later, Hamilton was reported missing.

The reverend set out on Wednesday 9 July 1873 from the Whau to conduct service at the Manukau Heads, at Whatipu. He reached Huia safely that day, styayed overnight, then headed on horseback for Robert Gibbons’ new sawmill at the Heads. The distance between Huia and Whatipu was said to be only four miles, a relatively short distance via the coastline and a trek along a rock-strewn path, but as it turned out Hamilton took to travelling through dense bush, in the midst of a rainy, cold West Auckland winter. When he hadn’t arrived back at the Whau on Saturday 12 July, the alarm was raised. Whau settlers James Archibald and John Todd started out on Sunday the 13th along the route believed to have been taken by the reverend on his last journey. Six miles out, they reached Little Muddy Creek (near Laingholm), and found his tracks. They followed the creek, up over ranges to Big Muddy Creek to the southwest, finding the track about five feet wide, “a very bad one.” Following Hamilton’s trail, they arrived at Woodman’s Hotel, learning there that Hamilton had passed by on horseback. They then followed the beach track, and saw signs that Hamilton had dismounted at that point, leading his horse because of the hard, stony nature of the beach.

At Mill Bay, three miles from Woodman’s Inn, the two searchers were advised by the workers at the mill there that Hamilton had passed safely by. His footsteps were traced two miles further on, to Kakamatua Stream and the site of the Cornwallis Sawmill. At that point, the reverend was remembered as having passed, “all right, and well”, as far as the workers recalled. From Kakamatua Stream, he travelled west to “Big Huia”, or the Huia Stream, and Mrs. Bates’ hostel. He’d remained there the night of 9 July, in good health and holding a service there that evening.

The searchers picked up Hamilton’s tracks leading south towards the Manukau Harbour, leading his horse towards the mouth of the Karamatura stream and another of Gibbons’ sawmills there. He had been expected further on at the new mill on Whatipu stream on for divine services on Thursday 10th July but hadn’t arrived. The countryside in the area was described in 1873 as being “rugged and broken, nothing but barren rocks and bleak cliffs; a dense bush and dangerous sidelings running along the edge of the Manukau Heads. Precipices from 400 ft to 500 ft abound …”

The manager at Gibbon’s Niagara Sawmill at Karamatura claimed to have seen Hamilton passing by on the afternoon of Tuesday the 15th in one report, but this was an example of the news reports at the time, provided to an increasing concerned Auckland public, becoming rather tangled in terms of details, dates and geographic locations. Hamilton passed the Niagara Sawmill around 2 pm on the afternoon of 10 July. Around 2.30 pm, “he spoke to two sawyers working a hut on a hill … He was then on a very dangerous track, where a horse might slide down for a hundred yards or more. He was inquiring about the track, and was subsequently seen by them in the distance leading his horse,” according to Constable Bullen. This was the last time Hamilton was seen alive.

After two and a half miles from Huia Stream and the first Gibbon’s mill, the tracks stopped. With the help of the men from the Karamatura mill, Archibald and Todd found a fresh set of tracks leading to a log at the back of Little Huia, at Desolation Gully, where the reverend apparently sat down to rest, possibly as night was closing in on him, and tried feeding himself on the inside of nikau ferns. His horse was located 400-500 yards from the log and the reverend’s last known footprints, tangled up in supplejack, starved, and obviously stuck there for some time before the searchers found it.

On Tuesday 15 July, over 40 men from the mills from Pararaha through to Huia engaged in the search for the missing man. John Bollard, Hepburn and Harper from the Whau joined the search parties the next day. On Thursday, the search continued along the coast, between where the horse was found and the log, and then from the coast back to the mill. Local Maori reported that they’d heard “cries in the bush” on Thursday the 10th, and thought they were the call of an “atuati” (the report may have meant “atua” or spirit) so would not go out to investigate, though their dogs barked loudly.

A £25 reward was posted by Rev Bruce and John Buchanan for the recovery of Hamilton’s remains. Two days later the body was discovered on Sunday 20 July by three labourers (James Davis, Patrick Ready and Robert Dunn) from the Whatipu Mill. The discovery was described later by Davis, the only one of the men who testified at the inquest: “I found the body in a sitting/semi-upright position, in a waterhole near the creek. The face was downwards. A white handkerchief was tied around the head, in consequence possibly of having lost his hat, which was missing. I did not discover any marks of violence on the body. The skin of the body was sodden, as though it had been in the water, or washed by rain … It is a difficult route, almost impassable in some places for a horse … My impression is that the deceased had been walking in the night, and had fallen over a rock to the place where the body was found. I did not find the horse.” “No smell of putrefaction … I suppose life must have been extinct six, seven or eight days. I believe the body had been washed to the position in which I found it by the heavy rains which fell on the Friday night before I found it. In lifting the body I suspected that the left arm was broken. I did not discover any marks of external violence, rather than a little blood about the face.”

This was about a mile from where his horse was found, and a mile and a half from Gibbons' Whatipu Mill and his possible salvation. According to Constable Green, from Onehunga, when Hamilton's silver watch was found in his vest pocket, it had stopped as 10:40.

At first, it was intended that the body be taken to Onehunga, and then overland to the city, but the sawmill workers took it upon themselves to carry the body overland by way of the ranges themselves. They reached the Whau on the evening of 22 July, and were met with warm gratitude and refreshments. A coffin was prepared and the body conveyed to St Andrews Church for inquest the next day, followed by the sombre journey back out to the Whau and the little church at the five roads intersection. The hearse, decorated with black plumes, was followed by around a dozen carriages. Several shops closed along the route from the city, and extra mourners joined he procession as it passed. “These,” said one report, “as the destination was neared, numbered close upon 50, and assumed the appearance of an attendant escort of cavalry.” By the time they reached the Whau township at 3 pm, the procession stretched for nearly a quarter of a mile, numbering 200-300 people. “A number of foot passengers had come out to meet the funeral, and remained ranged on either side of the road with raised hats as it passed … Every shop [in the township] was closely shut, and business was suspended in sympathy with the solemn occasion.”

The words around the four stone sides directly beneath the obelisk, now faded and damaged by time and perhaps vandals, reads:

“Rev. David Hamilton B.A., Clergyman of the parish, who after a pastorate of 15 months, died from exposure in the Manukau Forest, in the month of July 1873, a. 29. ‘To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.’ The above words, which aptly describe his career, are those from which he last preached the gospel to his people. He left his home on 9th July for Huia, to conduct Divine service, and proceeded on the 10th for Manukau Heads, but missed his way in the darkness. His body was found on the 20th and interred here on 23 July 1873.

“Erected by his parishioners and friends, in affectionate remembrance of his goodness as a man and his devotedness as a Christian minister.”

A bit of a footnote to the tragic tale -- on 25 July Patrick Ready, one of the three men from Whatipu Mill who found Hamilton's body in the stream, appeared before the Auckland Police Court "charged with kicking up a row in Queen Street." He told the magistrate that he'd been one of the men who'd found Hamilton, and "it had caused him to be excited." Given that he'd have received a third share of the £25 reward posted by Rev Bruce -- and £8 or so would have bought quite a bit of alcohol from the Queen Street pubs -- it's probably no wonder he got "excited". As Ready had previous good character, and said he intended to leave Auckland "if he lived that long," he was discharged without conviction.

Wharekura, Matariki and Awataha – Avondale’s lost place names

In three parts of Avondale, there are people living in the former workmen’s settlements or hamlets of Wharekura, Matariki and Awataha. But they’d never realise this, unless they came upon old subdivision plans for the government scheme from the turn of last century – and saw the replacement names which these areas became: Cradock Hamlet (Powell and Cradock Streets), Kitchener Hamlet (Holly Street) and Methuen Hamlet (Methuen and Bollard Roads).

Right from the 1850s the government of the day wanted to encourage settlers to live in certain areas of economic development. John Balance had a scheme in the 1880s offering an incentive to settlers to build their own homes, but it wasn’t a success. Come the late 1890s, the Liberal government tried again, with a workmen’s settlement scheme, buying up large acreages of land and putting up sections for lease. Applicants for the leases had to have property worth less that £150, be over 21 years of age, and engaged “in any form of manual, clerical, or other work for hire or reward”. Applicants had to show they had the means to erect their own home on the land, and were both “deserving and suitable”.

Local MP John Bollard from Avondale campaigned in Parliament for the establishment of some of the hamlets in Auckland – and got three for Avondale. All of the workmen’s settlement hamlets around the country had Maori names – the ones sited in New Lynn and close to Henderson retained their original designations, New Lynn’s one known as Hetana. But here in Avondale, the Maori names were superseded by stout British Empire names, probably due to the Boer War happening at the same time (1900-1902).

So, we never did see Methuen Road called Awataha Road, Cradock Street with the euphonious Wharekura Street name, and if Kitchener Street had been known as Matariki Street, perhaps it would not have had to have a name change in the 1930s to that of the British plant, Holly.

How successful were these settlements? The Avondale ones may have been more successful than those in other parts of the country. Methuen Hamlet for one was occupied completely within 10 years of the lease offer, but the government had to make things more attractive by offering freehold over time, on payment of mortgages, instead of simply having the system of renewable leases. The Avondale hamlets were just three subdivisions of many happening in and around the village township from just before World War I until the beginning of the 1920s, but they were the start of suburban settlement in New Windsor, Avondale Heights and the area around Avondale College and Avondale Intermediate today.

An update here, regarding Hetana and Waari Hamlets in the West, and Plumer Hamlet here.

The Helpful Arsonists

There had been at least two earlier small blazes that September in 1922 – but the one which might have claimed the old 1880s original wooden Primary School building was a shock and cause for great alarm to the residents of Avondale. The blaze began in the basement of the building, started in a pile of flammable material placed under the flooring, but fortunately spotted by passers-by around 8 pm. “It was only the prompt turn-out by the recently formed Avondale Fire Brigade,” the Auckland Star declared, “that saved the building from being enveloped in flames… the save by the volunteer firemen was a creditable one indeed.”

How red the faces must have been then, when the truth came out just six months later. Three men appeared before the Auckland Police Court on 29 March 1923, charged with setting three fires in central Avondale, including the one at the primary school. Leslie Watson aged 18, Livingstone McNair aged 23 and William Braithwaite aged 21 were all members of the Avondale Volunteer Fire Brigade.

The Brigade had been formed in July 1922 soon after the Avondale Borough Council came into being. Right from the start, however, some of the residents felt that the brigade was unnecessary, possibly an extra municipal extravagance. Watson, McNair and Braithwaite decided to prove the doubters wrong – by lighting fires to show that there was indeed a need for the brigade.

On 4 September 1922, the young men set fire to a patch of gorse at the corner of Elm Street and Rosebank Road, then dutifully rang the firebell, and got the reel out to extinguish the fire. Encouraged by how well this worked, they moved on a few days later to the decision to start a fire in a shed at the Methodist Church in Rosebank Road (today the site of the Nafanua Hall). This wasn’t so successful – some papers were set alight, but the flames apparently went out. The three men waited some time, but no fire alarm call was given.

Then, after brigade practice on September 20, they decided to set fire to the school. A paint tin and wood were obtained from Watson’s house, along with some paper from Braithwaite’s. Watson went under the school through a manhole, built the fire, and applied the match. Then, all three went home. Watson, the Herald reported, “was at his home getting undressed when he heard the alarm, and he immediately ran back and helped other members of the brigade to put out the fire.”

Watson was the one held to be the ringleader of the three. The charges against Braithwaite were later dropped due to lack of evidence beyond the word of Watson and McNair. McNair was put on probation for two years and ordered to find a £100 surety for his good behaviour, after testimonies from Avondale residents as to his good character were presented to the court. Watson was already serving time at Mt Eden Prison for another offence, and pleaded guilty to the charge of stealing £8 9s 6d collected on a bus while he was a conductor. For the arsons he received three years detention for “reformative treatment”.

Hardly an auspicious time for the brigade.

The township that never was: Whau Bridge

Have a look at a map. From the former Three Guys site, along Great North Road to the Ray White offices, then on down to Elm Street until you reach the racecourse; on down further over the fields where horses compete and kids play sport until you reach the Whau River. Then look along the river’s eastern bank until you’re almost at the new subdivisions at the bottom of Wingate Street. All of that area was once a well laid paper township called “Whau Bridge” which existed (but only truly on paper) from October 1859 until 1871 when, finally, the curving streets and cross-hatched pattern was eliminated from the land record.

An entrepreneur named James McKenzie purchased part of one of the original large farms in the district in 1859, that of the McDonald brothers. (The other part of the McDonald’s farm was leased from 1861 by John Bollard, from another owner). Across his purchase, McKenzie mapped out a bold scheme of a grandly curving road called Princes Street starting at Rosebank Road (the line of today’s Elm Street), continuing down almost to the river where a landing reserve was laid out (Whau Terrace), then up again back to Great North Road as Queen Street, close to present-day Racecourse Parade. Cross streets were drawn in: Spring Lane, Manukau Street, Middle Road and Albert and Victoria Streets. It is likely that McKenzie was hoping to cash in on the Whau Canal idea which was first proposed around 1858, and in the early 1860s was eagerly awaited. Much of what we now know today as the Avondale Racecourse would have been dense residential development had McKenzie’s venture paid off, and the canal built.

There were some early purchases – the Priestley brothers set up their Whau Hotel on the Rosebank-Great North Road corner, and possibly also the first post office near the Elm Street corner in a general store; a Frederick Prime purchased land around where the BNZ building is today, and tailor Charles Burke over time purchased the rest (including the streets, when the Whau Bridge layout was finally deleted from land records). But, the area is on a floodplain; traditionally, Charles Burke and his wife are said to have had to drain a raupo swamp there to create their farm, which was later to become the racecourse. There never was a canal. And, across the road, Thomas Russell and Michael Wood from 1863 were selling better sections, on clay, as “Greytown”.

After 1871, only three parts of the Whau Bridge township roads remained. Princes Street abruptly ended at Victoria Street, and became first Princess Street, and then Elm Street from the 1930s. Victoria Street remained just as a paper road, extending around where the Peninsula Inn is today, through to what remains of our Queen Street (called Leslie Avenue after Frederick Leslie who owned the BNZ corner site, then Racecourse Parade from 1925.) All the rest is now the racecourse.

Culvert Complications: bridging the Oakley Creek (1897-1901)

Over a hundred years ago, what is now Auckland City was made up of a number of borough councils, road boards, as well as the city council. Any major works on roads which crossed the territorial boundaries of authorities who depended heavily on what rates they collected in their own area to determine what they could or could not afford was bound to create discussion and sometimes even argument. So it was when the old wooden Oakley Creek bridge between Waterview and Pt Chevalier had come to the end of its days.

This may have been the same wooden bridge constructed by the Auckland Provincial Council in the 1850s, to serve the needs of traffic over the then barely-formed Great North Road, used mainly for movement of stock from West Auckland. Waterview resident Mina Cox even captured the bridge in a well-known painting now lodged with the Auckland Art Gallery. But by 1897, it was considered dangerous to heavy traffic. The Avondale Road Board was the first to make a move, and through the whole process led the project to replace the bridge. When the government’s district engineer C. R. Vickerman condemned the bridge later that year, the Avondale Board through John Bollard (MP for Eden) urged the Public Works department to replace it. Instead, the department issued a warrant allowing for the work to go ahead – to be done by the local authorities.

Another engineer named Boylan was called in. His plans were approved by both Avondale and Pt Chevalier, but the latter raised the valid point that, as the government owned a substantial amount of land in their district, they should pay at least a third of the cost. Unfortunately, the government initially disagreed with that point of view. Into 1898, and the two neighbours disagreed even as to how the bridge should be repaired. Now it was 1899. A senior magistrate named Thomas Hutchinson was appointed to run a commission of inquiry about the bridge and how it should be funded. Whatever the conclusions of that inquiry were, Pt Chevalier felt they were unjust, and were in a huff by early 1900. Avondale went ahead and repaired the bridge as best as they could, but late in 1900 a breakthrough: the government, under pressure from Bollard, relented and agreed to pay two-thirds of the cost of constructing a culvert to replace the old bridge. Avondale asked other local bodies to contribute: Waitemata County (declined), Grey Lynn (£30), Arch Hill (£20), Auckland City (declined) and Pt Chevalier (£19 and 3d). The total contract (initially) came to £936 12/-.

Things were still not trouble-free yet. The contractor who won the tender in March 1901, David L. Cochrane, came to financial grief by July of that year, unable to pay his workmen’s wages. The Avondale Board had to tender for the remaining work (completed by a Mr. Henry by October 1901). Finally, there was a permanent connection, spanning the Oakley Creek, between Avondale and Pt Chevalier. The culvert remains there today, under one of the busiest roads in Auckland, only altered by Auckland City Council in 1956 by an extension further west along the creek, at the time of the construction of the North-Western motorway.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Pt Chevalier history

Yesterday, I attended one of the few Auckland City Heritage Festival events I'll be able to get to this year (as usual, I'm busy researching history, and can't get round to most of the stuff happening right now. Sad, but true. There's always next year, though.) Anyway ... I promised a librarian at Pt Chevalier library, Padmini Raj, that I'd show up at a triple-speech presentation of Pt Chevalier history there, along with (hopes and fingers crossed) the start of the formation of a history group for the district.

It was a good morning, with speeches from David Verran, the local history expert at Auckland City Libraries; Leigh Kennaway, Deputy-Chair of the Western Bays Community Board and one of the leading lights of Pt Chevalier's history revival; and Pam Burrell, past member of the Pt Chev Community Committee. At the end, I suggested to Padmini, as she talked about forming a history group to the packed room, that she circulate a pen and paper and get folks there to put their names down if they'd like to be part of the group. That went down well -- last I saw the paper, as I left around 1pm, there was a page of names, and they were starting on page 2. I've offered to prepare and distribute a bit of a newsletter around to those interested; someone else said they were keen to be a facilitator of the meetings, until folk felt confident enough about chairmen, committees, etc., and another person mentioned a steering committee forming.

Hopefully, I've witnessed the birth of a new history group here in Auckland. It was amazing to see the enthusiasm, to be sure. All that's needed now is to keep that enthusiasm stoked up.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

The Centuries Meet



Photo taken 6 February 2008, at Olympic Park, on the Avondale side of the border with New Lynn (the other part of the park, although recently Waitakere City Council purchased the area from Auckland City for a nominal fee).

I call it "The Centuries Meet". My thanks to my dear friend (you know who you are!) for the suggestion of having it as my profile photo.

Cheers.

Christchurch tram terminus, 2007



Sorry, another tram photo. No more for a wee while, I promise.

Trams rule

"How long," folks who know me would ask, "will it be before she goes sticking a picture of a train or a tram in that Timespanner blog of hers?" Well, the answer is four days. Mainly because I restrained myself admirably from showing to the wide world that I do love trams.

I rode the tram circuit at Christchurch in 2007, small though it may be, a number of times. If I get to go down there again, I'll be back on them, because I love trams. I was entranced in Melbourne, 2006, watching trams passing, outside the central library there. The sights, the sounds -- loved it.

Trams to me are like time travelling. I've been very kindly shown around MOTAT workshops by the volunteers there, and taken on board carriages they were working on at the time. Magic stuff. Something about trams to me just illustrates the story of Australasian urban history. A lot of people have ridden in the old trams lovingly restored in this country, both before decommissioning and restoration, and since. To me, trams will always rule.

The Last Spike

In case you, the reader, were not aware, 2008 marks the centenary of the completion of the North Island Main Trunk Line. Feilding & Districts Historical Society are publishing The Last Spike at Labour Weekend for $45 plus p&p. Even if you're not a rail fanatic, this is still a reminder of one of the truly important events in the country's history.

Coat hanger view


This view, seen from the slope of St Mary's Road, made me stop in my tracks. On a fine Auckland day, with the waters of the Waitemata sparkling in the sun, a view of the harbour bridge and the lines of moored boats in the marina close to where St Mary's Bay used to be, just seemed awesome to me.

Along with Rangitoto Island, the oldest icon, and the Skytower (newest), this view means Auckland to me. Which to me, of course, means home, so no wonder I have a bit of a soft spot for cliched symbols like the ol' Coat Hanger. If I'd have been alive when that bridge opened (and old enough not to be in a stroller), I'd have gone over that bridge on opening day. My mother had been in the country 11 months by May 1959 when the bridge was completed, but I don't think she joined the walkers. That must have been an amazing day.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Sunken dreams

The plaque alongside these amazing sculptures in Ponsonby's Western Park reads:
"Permanent trisculptural installation by New Zealand sculptor John Radford. These works have been inspired by the changing face of Auckland's urban landscape. Each of these three sculptures (and the interiors inside sculptures One and Two) are based on Auckland buildings demolished in the 1980s. Vic, Sculpture One, based on the building that stood at 48-53 Victoria Street, Auckland, 1880s-1985. Teatube, interior of Sculpture One, a reinterpretation of the Skyroom which existed on the 5th floor, 125 Queen Street, Auckland, 1929-1984. TIP was funded by an anonymous benefactor, 1999."
I haven't yet been lucky enough to see that interior. Last time I tried, I think the lightbulb was burned out or something. The lawn around the plaque could do with a bit of a trim as well. Still, I do like the sculptures. I'll bet tourists wonder what on earth happened in that part of Western Park, with all the sunken buildings ...

St Mary's Road precinct sign

Spotted this sign on St Mary's Road in Ponsonby today. I had a bit of a hand in it, providing the research that went toward the write ups regarding the Leys Institute and gymnasium, the old Ponsonby fire station building (the sign is in the council reserve next to the station building, now a restaurant), and the Ponsonby Post Office building, also a restaurant.

So, to date, I know of three signs (two in Avondale, and now this one) where stuff I've researched either on commission or as part of the Avondale-Waterview Historical Society has been included.

My name's not on any of them, but I don't mind. It's almost like knowing that, in some way, I played a part in changing the landscape of my city. I like that.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

The aspirated Whau

While I was waiting for a really nice lunch I had today, I was reading Why the Hibiscus? (see earlier post). One bit, amongst many, caught my eye:
"Although 'f' is the currently fashionable pronunciation of the Maori wh, one of the first Europeans to know Whangaparaoa, Dacre's partner Gordon Browne, spelt the name with the h before the w, suggesting it was an aspirate." [Footnote, p. 17]
As someone who has lived all my life in a district by a river with one of those wh names, I say "Yes!" All my life, the Whau River has been the Wow River, and I can certainly accept an aspirate better than an "f". Most of the crew trying to be modern and correct about the whole thing mangle it anyway, not even saying "foe", but "fow" (rhyming with that sound you make when hammer hits thumb.)

Recorded spellings for the river (and the district, pre-c.1865) were "Wao" and "Wahu", the latter sounding more that that aspirant than the letter after "e".

I'm not worried, however, or especially fussed. Modern people say "foe", I respond with "wow" --- communication and understanding still takes place, and all's well. I know I'm an historian, and they probably think I'm practising for curmudgeonhood.

Life, in the Whau, will never be dull.

Why the Hibiscus?

I've just received, from the Silverdale & Districts Historical Society, a wonderful brand new book called Why the Hibiscus?, subtitled Place Names of the Hibiscus Coast by Robin Grover of that society. In 64 pages, A5-size, it manages to convey an excellent overview of the general area, as well as specific information on: Silverdale, Whangaparaoa, Orewa, Hatfields Beach, Waiwera, Wainui, Dairy Flat, Stillwater and Tiritiri-Matangi.

Even though I already have way too many books, this one is a must have in my opinion.

Blockhouse site

On Saturday 20 September 2008, a sign was unveiled at the corner of what was once a defence reserve in Blockhouse Bay, here in Auckland. The reserve was set aside with the intent of being a defence centre for a "Whau South" township from the bay overlooking the Manukau Harbour to present-day Wolverton Street. But, although a blockhouse and stockade were built in 1860, the settlement didn't appear around it. As more successful subdivisions were taking place in the late 1880s, the defence emplacements and buildings on the reserve - bordered by Gilfillan, Endeavour, Wade Streets and Blockhouse Bay Road -- disappeared from history. By the time a community had formed in the early 1890s, the blockhouse buildings became part of local lore.

Only one map exists which appears to locate the blockhouse, somewhere close to the Wade-Blockhouse Bay Road corner. The local historical society in the Bay area believe the blockhouse was along Gilfillan Street. I'd like to find out more, even though I'm part of the neighbouring society, simply because the blockhouse was part of the whole district's history, right from the Manukau shoreline at Blockhouse Bay, to Pt Chevalier (which has its own military heritage associations). I'll work on it.

The two gentlemen, by the way, are dressed in the uniforms of the 65th regiment, one which was based for a time at the blockhouse and stockade in the 1860s.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Whau Portage

I like this sculpture in New Lynn. It also reminds me that historians like J. T. Diamond reckoned that the Whau Portage, via the Whau River between the Manukau and Waitemata Harbours, was not as important to Maori as the Tamaki Portage, named for the river of that name out east. Why? Mainly because of a pesky geographical feature, a fairly steep ridge running from Green Bay to Blockhouse Bay. Said ridge helped put the kibosh on the Whau Canal idea from all the way back to the 1850s. It'd be one heck of a hike carrying a waka up over that ridge all the time. That's not to say it didn't happen -- after all, we do have a Portage Road in New Lynn -- the Tamaki, though, is generally flatter.

But ... I still like the sculpture.

Last night, I dreamed ...

... that I wanted to start a blog. And here I am, 5.05 am local NZ time, doing just that. More to come over the next few days as I get my thoughts together, but -- here's the beginning. Everything needs a beginning, otherwise we'd all start in the middle and get terribly confused by the end.

The Zoo War


I research history for a living, and I research history for fun. In the latter category comes The Zoo War, which was published 1 September 2008, and involved 6 months of research into news clippings, photos, land records, from the North Shore of Auckland down to Christchurch. I'm glad I did it, and so far it's had a good response.

Primarily, it is about a Wellington builder who retired and decided to become a zoo supremo on a national level, named John James Boyd (more often known as J. J. Boyd). He started at Aramoho north of Wanganui in 1908. extended to Royal Oak in Auckland in 1911, and eventually came to grief by 1922. Some of his animals went to the new Auckland Zoo at Western Springs.

However ...

The Zoo War is more than just Boyd's story. It covers the following topics (which don't appear to have been listed in library catalogue entries for the book:)
W. H. Foley (and wife) -- their travelling circuses and menageries 1855-1860s
Barlow's Circus (1875)
Cooper and Bailey's Circus (1878)
Wirth's Circus (various tours)
Auckland Acclimatisation Society gardens in the Domain (1867-1882)
Robert Graham's Ellerslie Gardens (1874-early 1880s)
Devonport "Bear Garden" (1881-1898)
Wellington Botanic Gardens menagerie (1881-1882)
Wanganui Museum menagerie (1896-c.1905)
Newtown Zoo, Wellington (from 1906)

A great research tool for all this was Papers Past at the National Library site. Without that site, I doubt I would have been able to get even half of the information which I was able to use, or find out as much as I did. Staff at libraries, museums and archives in Auckland, Wanganui, Christchurch and Cambridge were fantastic.

I should take a break after doing this -- but I doubt it. Once a history addict, almost always a history addict.