New Lynn's brickmakers memorial

Latest update:  6 November 2022.

Spontaneity, as my mum would say (I'm paraphrasing a bit here), is the spice of life. She was definitely into being spontaneous. So, when Tony from the NZ Pottery forum mentioned in an email today that the late Richard Quinn had mentioned that there were Aussie bricks in the New Lynn brickmakers memorial, erected by Rotary late last century -- I was intrigued. Intrigued enough to guess that there might be enough light for me to hop on a train today, and head into New Lynn town on a seek-and-find mission in Auckland twilight.

It's a nice memorial, still -- but also a victim of time and vandals. Many of the bricks are almost unreadable.

This is a piece of Carder Bros. pottery from Hobsonville/Limeburners Bay. What you can see of it behind the scratched perspex ... (although, around 2013-2015 since I first wrote this, the memorial has been smartened up, the perpex replaced) ...

The map and guide to West Auckland brickworks is in a sad state. Difficult to read (and historically inaccurate in places).

So ... are there Aussies in the memorial? (As at 17 January 2011 -- two Aussies have been identified). The list of those I noted tonight indicate that, when it came to gathering up the bricks, anything would do.

Known West Aucklanders

"ALF WAY, Bricklayer" 

(Alf Way worked for A B Bricks Ltd. In 1984 he erected the stack and the walks of the memorial, and made this special brick.) *


Glenburn Avondale (St Georges Road)

NZ Brick,New Lynn

Archibald Whau

Additional: James Archibald's first brickyard in the area dated from c.1873, on the western side of the Whau River. In 1882, he leased around 3 acres of a railway reserve in New Lynn from the Government, and operated a brickyard in that area until at least 1889-1890.

NZ Brick Co, New Lynn

This from dwing (see comments below)

"Talked to Ian Crum today and he confirmed that the 'NZ Brick Co, New Lynn' brick was made by Albert Crums factory. The impressed design was made with a hand carved roller, carved by Albert himself. Oil applied to the roller made it non stick and last longer. Dated about 1915-1922ish. Also stamping too many words in the frog was not a good idea hence the abbreviated branding. The pipes made that time also seem to have the same abbreviated words, I have an example here. So these bricks were not fired in a Hoffmann type kiln, but rather a down draft salt kiln."


Crum (Great North Road, New Lynn)

W Hunt (first brickmaker at Glenburn)

NZ Brick Tile & Pottery (See this post.)

Carder Bros & Co (see this post)

Exler Avondale

BTA Brick, Tile (Auckland) Ltd ... A variation from the Avondale works at St Georges Road.

"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)

According to the NZ brick database, J M Melville and J Fletcher purchased the J J Craig brickworks 16 July 1920, on behalf of BTA, Brick-Tile Auckland, then in the process of forming as a company. A Supreme Court ruling saw the name change to Glenburn Fireclay & Pottery Ltd 14 May 1923.

Henderson (at Te Atatu Peninsula) Note the backward "s".

R O Clark (Hobsonville)

Waitakere

Anthony (Tony) Petrie was born Ante Petric in 1882 on the island of Hvar in Dalmatia. He arrived in New Zealand around 1900, got involved in a feud near Kaitaia in 1905, ran foul of the law over that and served time at Waiotapu Prison Camp near Taupo. His sentence was reduced, and by 1911 he had become a gumbroker in Auckland, the start of a lifelong career in business.

Fast forward to 1924. He arranged the formation of a company called the Waitakere Brick & Tile Co, near Waitakere Station, witnessing the signatures of the original subscribers and selling the company 50 acres of land in Waipareira parish for £3000 cash and £7000 in shares. However, this company went into voluntary liquidation in 1925.

 Undaunted, Petrie went in for brickmaking enterprise No 2: the New Era Pressed Brick and Tile Company, Ltd in 1927. The company was launched with £50,000 capital, made up of 100,000 shares, and things looked bright. Petrie was one of the main shareholders. However ... this was at the start of the recession that slumped toward the depression in the following decade. A chap named Robert Ernest Odd, who had been contracted to build the works in 1927 and 1928, was unemployed by 1929, and went bankrupt. He claimed that the company owed him a total of £7000, for extras to the original building contract, plus loss of profit, and took them to court. By October, shares were being put up for sale in the newspaper classifieds, and in January 1930 Odd was advertising for "dissatisfied shareholders" in the company to contact him. On top of this, a worker at the factory died when he fell into one of the machines in March 1930.

Although there was a spirited attempt at revival with the promotion of a debenture issue in November 1930, it really was the end. New Era was no more beyond that, although Petrie did use the works for a time making bathroom ware. I've also seen references to a "Waitakere brickworks", briefly, in 1937 and 1938. The building was still there in 1940, but all trace is gone today. Tony Petrie died in 1969 at the age of 86. (Information from family history by Hazel Petrie, and Papers Past).

Laurie Bros(they were also in Newton originally)

Hartshorne (Te Atatu)

Malam

Avondale B&P (at St Georges Rd, Avondale. See Glenburn)

GBP (Gardner Brothers & Parker, New Lynn. See this post.) *

AB&T 

(Auckland Brick & Tile. * They operated briefly in the 1880s on the east side of Te Atatu South)



J J Craig (see Glenburn)

Elsewhere

Kamo (Northland)

R & R Duder,Devonport, North Shore.

Robert Humphrey and Richard Wolloughby Duder, twin sons of Thomas Duder, operated a general store at the bottom of Church Street in Devonport from 1870. The brickworks in Ngataringa Bay (formerly Little Shoal Bay) began around 1882, as part of their land agency, building material supply, grocery and (later) bloodstock interests, and eventually a dedicated wharf was built for off-loading coal, and loading bricks for Auckland and other local wharves. The brickworks, however, had periods of activity, followed by inactivity. After first one brother died in 1923 and the other in 1933, the brickyard fell into disuse and ended up being totally dismantled and sold off by 1951.

George Boyd (Newton)

Dolphin, Arch Hill

A better example of the Dolphin-style brick here, photographed on Clark street, New Lynn, 6 November 2022.

Gas Co.

J Granger & Sons 

(19 December 2011) Just recently found an article in the Auckland-Waikato Historical Journal, April 1984, No. 44, pp. 21-24 on John Granger and his Whitford brickworks.

According to the article (by Rev R Hattaway), Granger arrived in Auckland in 1865, from Nottingham, on the ship King of Italy with his wife and family. After trying his luck on the Thames goldfields, he returned to his trade back in England, brickmaking (apparently, he had managed a brick and tile factory on the Duke of Portland's estate.) He at first managed Spencer's brickworks at Buckland's Beach from 1869-1878, then when Spencer sold the works Granger purchased the equipment and moved to Turanga Creek (the former name for Whitford). The site of the first brickworks was selected on the east side of the creek, with the means of transporting the product ready to hand: by the creek, and then the harbour to Auckland. He settled his family there that year.

From the article, "... a private road extended from the public road past the front of the house, to a wharf above which the brickworks and kilns were situated. Here the bricks and tiles were conveyed in a trolley on rails from the kilns to the wharf where they were loaded into the boat. There were two trolleys connected to a wire rope that revolved around a drum at the kilns. As one trolley full of bricks proceeded to the wharf, it automatically hauled the empty trolley up the incline to the kilns. The wharf was also used by local residents from Waikopua and near by, travelling by steamer to and from Auckland, until well into the nineteen-twenties."

In the early 1890s, Granger shifted his works to a new site upstream. Here he employed some 23 to 25 mostly local men. The bricks impressed with "Granger" in the frog were so marked with a hand-operated machine. His bricks were used in the construction of the Whitford Brick School (1894), the first Auckland Blind Institute building, Karangahake railway tunnel (1900-1905), and the inner walls of the Auckland Ferry Building. (1912) A wet winter put paid to more of Granger's brick being used for this latter contract -- his bricks couldn't be dried in time.

Competition from the up-and-coming New Lynn brickworks, along with a fall-off in demand for field tiles (most of the surround areas  of Mangere, Papatoetoe, East Tamaki and Pukuranga by the 1920s being now well-drained), spelled the decline of Granger's brickworks. Shortly after May 1926, the machinery was dismantled and carted away. A farmer then took possession of the remaining buildings, demolishing the kilns and using the bricks from them to metal his gateways and pave the stockyard.

Rev Hattaway, at the time of writing his article, counted seven buildings in Whitford and at least two in Howick constructed with Granger bricks.

Peter Hutson & Co (Wellington) *

According to Progress, 1 September 1906, the brickworks began c.1872, and was taken over by Peter Hutson & Co c.1891. New brickworks were erected at Newtown some time before 1906.

Peter Hutson seems to have been a bricklayer and lime dealer in the early 1880s, selling bricks on the side. He was in partnership with John Moore; when that dissolved by March 1885, he continued to trade under the name Peter Hutson & Co. By 1891, he was Wellington's sole agent for Wilson's hydraulic lime -- and also went bankrupt. By the close of the year, however, he traded his way out of the reefs, Peter Hutson & Co advertising as "cement, lime and pottery merchants".

The business seems to have faded out during World War I.

Garratt, Enfield, Australia.

Tony, from NZ Pottery, has found the following: "In Turn of the First Clay - our brickmaking heritage by Allan M Hackett, 2009 there are two photos of Garratt bricks. One has two rounded edges so perhaps used to cap a fence or for some other architectural feature and has the impressed words GARRATT and ENFIELD - the author dates it circa 1910. The other is a standard shape with GARRATT in a rectangular frog wth rounded corners - dated circa 1890s.")

H&G

(More information from Tony: "In And So We Graft from Six to Six - the brickmakers of New South Wales, Warwick Gemmell, Angus & Robertson, 1986 - there's an entry "Hart and Gallagher [1886 - 1912], New Canterbury Road, Petersham. The firm was a prominent pottery manufacturer as well as producer of bricks. Semi-plastic bricks impressed H & G were probably made by this firm.")

Austin, Sydenham (Christchurch) 

Tony from the NZ Pottery forum located a Trade Me listing  today (17 January 2011) for a Austin, Sydenham brick, said to have been linked to Austin, Kirk & Company of Christchurch. Probably not completely accurate, but close enough.


Walter Austin & Henry Bland Kirk began making earthenware drain pipes early in 1872 in Colombo Street south, Christchurch. By 1874, they were advertising for brickmakers. In 1876, they were in Tuam Street. In 1886, they were part of the collection for brickmakers in Christchurch uniting together to form the first New Zealand Brick, Tile and Pottery Company (not to be confused with Crum and Friedlander's later northern enterprise.

The amount of support accorded by the public to the newly-formed New Zealand Brick, Tile and Pottery Company has been so liberal that it has been decided to commence operations at the Company's works at once. These works compise the four manufactories formerly carried on by Messrs Austin and Kirk, W. Neighbours, J. Brightling and J. Goss. It appears the members of the abovementioned firms have taken up 350 £5 shares in addition to the 1177 paid-up shares which they have received for the purchase of their premises and stock-in-trade. A large number of shares have also teen subscribed for by the public, and applications for others are still coming in freely. By the amalgamation of the business of the four factories, the saving effected on the former cost of working will, it is estimated, be very considerable. Judging from their former experience, the members of the firms concerned have every confidence in the success of the undertaking. 

Christchurch Star 1 February 1886

The first company didn't last long, and by the 1890s, Kirk and Austin were no longer partners. Indeed, they were anything but: Austin’s earthenware factory was at Sydenham as at August 1895 when Kirk sued him for patent infringement. (ChCh Star 19 August 1895) It's possible that Austin made bricks as a sideline, and therefore his work in that field could be quite uncommon.

W Mouldey

William Mouldey operated Bricks & Pipes Ltd in Palmerston North until his death in 1941, according to this site. He appears to have started in the first decade of the 20th century at least. He built houses as well, such as this one in Featherston Street (sadly now demolished.)

More notes from Tony:
"It looks as if the W Mouldey brick has "P N" on it with the N, possibly inadvertently, reversed. A quick google suggests that Brick and Pipes Ltd owned the Hoffman Kiln from 1919 until kept firing it until 1959.

NZHPT have a pdf file on it accessible via http://citylibrary.pncc.govt.nz/historic-places-in-palmerston-north.html

It says the Brick and Pipes office is also preserved.

http://www.historic.org.nz/>TheRegister/RegisterSearch/RegisterResults.aspx?RID=194

which references a link back to Jack Diamond: 'Report on the Hoffman Oblong Continuous Kiln, Brick and Pipes Ltd., 615 Featherston Street, Palmerston North', J. Diamond, December 1980, NZHPT File 12020-013

A book has been written about it:  'Nine Thousand Bricks a Day; The Hoffman Kiln and the Brickworks of Palmerston North', Lundy, J., Palmerston North, 2005"

Clayton & Co, PATENTED 

Henry Clayton (1814-1884), born in Marylebone, Middlesex, England, built his "Patented hand-driven brick and tile making machines" from the mid 1840s, and they ended up going all over the British Empire and America. His father, also named Henry, may have initially started the business making agricultural equipment. Henry jnr won a first class prize for his brick machinery at London's Great Exhibition in 1851, which would certainly have helped with its promotion. He obtained a US Patent in 1855. After Clayton's death in 1884, the business was run by Francis Howlett for a time, but then in 1902 the business was acquired by Brightside Foundry and Engineering Co of Sheffield, and the Clayton Howlett machinery shifted north. Brightside underwent reorganisation in the mid 1920s, and production of Clayton's brick & tile machines ceased from that time.

Much more here:
Henry Clayton & Co. - Manufacturers of Patented Brick Making Machines

And -- thumbnails of the collection.

NZ Memorials register

A link worth checking out: the NZ History.net.nz's Memorials Register. They've even included my image from here of the Avondale RSA memorial .

There's also an interesting article on our land wars memorials.

Crown Lynn on New Zealand Pottery site

Just a bit of reciprocating here -- Tony, from the New Zealand Pottery site asked if he could use the photo I took of the old Hurstmere Road Crown Lynn sign. Of course, I said yes. I'm delighted something here has helped.

Paparoa: dates on gates

Last weekend, I made a break for it and headed north for a few days with Liz of the Mad Bush Farm blog. While up North, she took me through Paparoa one day. The stop that sparked off the first lot of these photos came about because she spotted scarecrows in a hedge. First thing I spotted, though, were the gates with the dates: 1862 and 1962.

Ah, ha! A centenary. And yes, the accompanying plaque backed that up.

Paparoa's first settlers arrived in the spring of 1862, with the first land sales in December that year. It was termed the "Paparoa Special Settlement." According to a report read to the first meeting of the settlers on 9 October 1863, this was because: "... we are physically separated from the Oruawharo or Albertland, and must exist under a separate local government, and be responsible for our own social arrangements and asdvancement, we decline to adopt the term Albertland. Paparoa forms a settlement, and not a limb of any other settlement." (Albertland Gazette, 2 December 1863)

By October 1863, they were making plans to erect houses of worship, were involved with clearing the namesake stream to make it navigable (but a broken dam didn't help matters), hade been granted a weekly postal service, and even had a collection of books as a library -- although the folks at Oruawharo felt the books were for their own exclusive use, much to the chagrin of the Paparoa settlers.

The gates lead through to the North Kaipara A&P Showgrounds. Still actively used, as can be seen by the sign ...

...but with an interesting neglected look to the structures, due to rampant overgrowth. Almost relics, but not quite, not yet.

Next to the showgrounds, the former Paparoa Bowling Club. Not a bowling club anymore though ,so Liz told me. The club still does exist, but just not there anymore.

Could this be where there was a bit of a to-do at the Paparoa Bowling Club in 1937 over inebriated players?

Mr. E. A. Fenwick at a meeting of the Paparoa Bowling Club alleged that on visiting days there was too much liquor on tap. He said it was getting absolutely over the odds, and they now came to a question of drinking or bowls. He alleged that on one occasion when the club was visiting a neighbouring club two players became incapacitated, as far as bowls were concerned at any rate, in his opinion. The club should drop liquor on visitors' days. The proposal met with a storm of protest, speakers stressing that the club members were temperate, and that the Paparoa Club could not be blamed for the sins of others. The proposal lapsed.

(Evening Post, 22 June 1937)

If so, I don't know how well-lubricated players would have handled this -- the ArtyFarties makeover of the old clubrooms. Complete with a door labelled "Jacks" and another "Kittys".

Where players plonked themselves down in the sun waiting for their turn on the green -- that's taken a multi-coloured turn as well.

And then -- there are the scarecrows.

The Welcome to Paparoa signs are part of a series guiding tourists along their way in the district. I personally think the artwork is cool, even if stylised and a bit liberal with geography.

One feature on the artwork is the former National Bank, now the Sahara restaurant. It isn't doing too bad today, seeing as it dates from 1914.

The other iconic image from the signs' artwork is the Paparoa Store. Websites, usually connected with the Sahara, describe it as "historic", but they are not terribly helpful with details as to how historic. Still, it used to have a petrol bowser in front, one of the rectangular ones Shell Oil ones, as can be seen by the marks still on the concrete, and the metal Shell cap still fixed into the surface.  Plus, it looks very cool. Hopefully someone has a date somewhere. My guess would be around the time the bank was built.

Hurstmere chocolates and butterflies

Hello all. I'm still around, just busy completing some commission projects before a certain annual festival takes hold. I spotted the above (click on the thumbnail for larger view) on the footpath along Hurstmere Road in Takapuna. Cleverly done, thought I -- here's hoping we see more to brighten our dull grey urban existence.

New Zealand Legal Information Institute

Another reference site, made known by Brian Rudman of the NZ Herald when he made a foray into the morass that is the Auckland Domain's history of land nibbling. Rendell McIntosh from Parnell Heritage gave me a head's up on the site: New Zealand Legal Information Institute.

An unweildly title, to be sure, but -- it allows keyword access to not only current legislation, but historic stuff as well. In doing the Zoo War for example, I'd have found this a blessing, as I was tracking back on acclimitisation and exotic anilmal legislation here.

New Zealand's Lost Cases Project

Having a bit of a nosey around the 'Net this morning, I stumbled across the New Zealand Lost Cases database, produced by Victoria University law department. Always great to see another online reference source.

Pukekohe Train Station

While in Pukekohe on 6 November, I took some shots of the Pukekohe Train Station with my friend, Bill Ellis.

Old and new are in juxtaposition here, at one end of Auckland's suburban line.

The present-day train sets wait for the new week behind high fences and beneath security lights. For when they can clatter up and down between the stations once again.

While beside them, the old pedestrian access remains. Bitumened and reclad to stop slipping in the wet, but still there.

According to Auckland Trains,  the station building itself dates from 1913. Back in the 1860s, the Auckland Provincial dreamed of making it all the way down to Drury, but never got past Newmarket with their rail scheme. It took Vogel, and the imported Brogden, to see the dream become reality. They saw the rail first come through the district around 1874.

Sean Millar, in his Passenger Railway Stations of Auckland's Southern Line, remarks on Pukekohe's "unusual western awning" (right side of photo). I've seen the same awning style in Whangarei.

Apparently, there are plans to move the station building westward. I hope they treat it kindly -- but I do like the timber platforms. So much more atmospheric than concrete.

The Point of Historical Awareness

In the latter part of 1923, a movement came to be in the Auckland suburb of Point Chevalier. Led by Michael J Coyle, local politician and luminary both to that suburb and the neighbouring Mt Albert, a committee of determined souls went door-to-door, canvassing almost all of the over 800 ratepayers, and obtaining over 500 signatures to a petition asking the Auckland City Council to change the suburb’s name to Brighton.

What exactly they had against the existing name, I’m still not certain. I’ll be doing some more digging, when I can, for a piece I’ll put in an upcoming issue of the Point Chevalier Times. There were vague references to the name being less than attractive, full of negative connotations, and hindering progress.

In response, another committee was set up, bent on thwarting the first committee, and they too went around the neighbourhoods. They gathered just over 400 signatures. A win to the name-changers, you would have thought. But unfortunately for Mr Coyle and co, their enthusiastic helpers visited the same people in around 200 cases, crossing over each other. With a real total of just over 300 signatures, (many also signed the retention petition later), the Brighton-naming cause was lost.

This incident, though, is an important one. Much more important than at first glance. In the course of heading around and gathering signatures, the retentionists asked the people, “Do you know why Point Chevalier is so-named?” When the answer was “No”, they provided the information: the traditional story of Lt. George Chevalier’s marksmanship in a contest with Lt. Toker, somewhere in the district, possibly the late 1850s or perhaps 1861. How Chevalier won, and the men present that day huzzahed and declared their camp’s name as Camp Chevalier. People who had just started moving in to the suburb, at the beginnings of its development as a working-class housing area, were being informed as to its heritage values. All in order that one side would win the argument.

Along with this door-to-door campaign of knowledge spreading, the two Auckland papers and their editorial letters columns became a battleground between the two sides from the middle of November to early December. Out of that came published recollections from people who were alive back in the days of Chevalier and Toker. Those connected by family ties to the 65th regiment, the one both lieutenants were attached to. Those who recalled seeing old cottages, and remembered when Lt. Chevalier visited the homes of their families. From that forgotten debate a flow of information came which I’m still in the process of assessing and sorting.

I found the debate via a single file in Auckland Council archives containing only the pages of pro and con signatures, and the final Council decision on 5 December 1923 to go with the status quo. It was like finding a piece of pottery on an otherwise empty landscape, only to dig down further and discover value beyond measure.

There is also an untold message in all the words on the printed pages now photographed and viewed on a microfilm strip. That message is: in late 1923, Point Chevalier became aware of its history. It seems to have been a start of a series of start-stop phases for the suburb. Before then though, people had been finding relics linked with Point Chevalier’s past, and bringing them to the attention of the media and the community at large.

The tale of a button found on the battlefield of Waterloo is scarcely so interesting as the story of another of these ornaments to military tunics, and, indeed, almost a twin to that from the fields of Waterloo. This button may be a souvenir, or it may be part of the equipment of an historic regiment. At any rate, it was picked up by a resident of Point Chevalier on the grounds where the troops had their camp in the Maori War. The button is as the other in that it has "India”, a tiger or lion, "14" and "Waterloo" on its face, but the only decipherable letters the back are "London," the maker’s name being too much clogged by filth. The finder of this button is of opinion that it is of great historical value and he reads the inscriptions, together with the place where it has been found, as meaning that the brass fastener has been through at least three campaigns.

(Evening Post, 28 October 1919)

The button came from the 14th Regiment of Foot, stationed in New Zealand from around 1860. The maker was P Tait & Co, and the big cat emblem was a puma. Dating from 1751, the regimental history spanned campaigns both in India and the Napoleonic Wars, hence the Waterloo reference. Today, they are part of the West Yorkshire Regiment.

City Councillors used the traditional story when opening places of note in the suburb, such as Ellen Melville in November 1926, three years after the debate.

The story of how Point Chevalier got its name was related by Miss Ellen Melville at the opening of the new Point Chevalier Library on Saturday … The old Maori name was Te Rae, meaning, "the headland," but in 1860 and 1861 Lieutenant G. R. Chevalier, instructor of musketry in the 60th Regiment of Foot, set up a rifle range at the Point for training the regulars and the militia prior to the departure of the regiment for Taranaki, and the place has been called Point Chevalier ever since.

(Evening Post, 25 November 1926)

The next big phase of heritage recognition was 1961, nearly fifty years ago, when A H Walker put together Rangi-mata-rau. The Pt Chevalier Community Committee, established in the early 1970s, had periods of heritage appreciation, the latest one this past decade finally spawning the Point Chevalier History Group (encouraged by Padmini Raj of ther Pt Chevalier Community Library),  and later Historical Society. But those weeks in late 1923 – that was when, I feel, The Point (a shortening of the place name Mr. Coyle didn’t like at all) came to be aware more fully than ever before that it is an area with a history.

Oh, and if you need info on M J Coyle, leader of the Brighton committee, here’s his obituary as published in the Evening Post, 25 March 1941:

The death has occurred at Auckland of Mr M J Coyle, who had a notable record of public service on many local bodies for a period of over 40 years. Mr Coyle was born at Mount Eden 76 years ago, and spent all his life in Auckland. After passing through the Grafton School he learned the trade of coachbuilding, and set up a business of his own in Eden Terrace. Mr Coyle became one of the best-known men in public life in Auckland. His first experience was gained as chairman of the Mount Albert Road Board for seven years, and when Mount Albert was constituted a borough he became its first Mayor, and was twice reelected to that office. To the Auckland Hospital Board Mr Coyle gave 23 years' service, including 4½ years as chairman during the war period. Mr Coyle was one of the first members of the Auckland Drainage Board, and was chairman of the Point Chevalier Road Board, when that district joined up with the city. He served on the Auckland City Council for 10 years, on the Metropolitan Fire Board for seven, and on the Transport Board for three.

Aurora's End

Updated 9 March 2011.

I took the photos here in April 2006, when the old Aurora Hotel was still standing. Today, it isn't. Earlier this morning, the wreckers moved in, demolishing it as it had developed severe structural cracking.

The Aurora Hotel was a complex of four buildings: a three-storey hotel building at the corner of Federal Street and Victoria Street West, a two-storey building facing Federal Street to the north, another two-storey building facing Victoria Street West, and a two-storey building at the north-eastern corner of the site. There's a carpark immediately to the north off Federal Street, making up the rest of the site. The original hotel here was wooden, dating back 1851, when it was built by Captain William Currie first as a grocers store, then obtaining a licence the next year. Patrick Gleeson, 19th century publican of some renown, had title to the property from 1874. He owned a number of Auckland's hotels in their heyday, and would lead the St Patrick's Day procession through the town each year "resplendent in Wellington boots, grey suit, grey topper and grey beard atop his black hat," according to the online history of the Empire Hotel, another of his chain.

A couple of brick additions were made to the old wooden hotel by 1880, then there was a fire in 1884. Lease documents between Gleeson and William Lynch included the following agreement:

“And also shall and will before the thirtieth day of November 1884 at his and their expense own cost and charges erect build and complete for occupation and use upon the said parcel of land … a two-storey messuage or Hotel in substantial accordance with the plans elevations and specifications already submitted between the said parties hereto …”

The use of the term “messuage”, usually meaning a dwelling house complete with land and outbuildings, has been used in terms of accommodation hotels since the 1600s on legal documents.

 Two storeys, however, became three storeys. Exceeding the letter of the law in this case, wasn't illegal.

NZ Historic Places Trust dates the building from 1884, Peter Shaw in a Metro magazine article in 1990 said 1905, but the truth appears to be somewhere in between. There were two extensions added, in 1907 and 1911, lending the whole complex the label of "Edwardian Baroque". They say Edward Mahoney was the architect, but I've yet to see anything hard and fast regarding that. Yes, he was Gleeson's architect of choice, and his work dots the landscape in terms of hotel architecture (Mahoney is fascinating, being architect both of "dens of iniquity" and, as a Catholic, houses of the Lord for that sector of the community.)

Gleeson leased the hotel to Moss Davis in 1891, so it followed from there that it became a Hancocks Hotel, later in the name of the Captain Cook Brewery from 1898. Dominion Breweries leased the hotel from 1936. Patrick Glesson died in 1916, but it wasn't until around 1961 that the family finally relinquished title to the site.

Various owners and lease holders since then, and various names. Paua Palace around 1993. The Palace Casino. Simply ... The Palace. Garish neon applied to the corner gave it the appeatrence of a grand lady suddenly adorned with a cheap coronet and diadem from a $2 shop to some observers. When the bus stop to Blockhouse Bay was just up the road on Victoria Street, the old building was a familiar sight.

Earlier this year, there was disquiet over the plans by the old lady's current owners to convert the building into a brothel, conveniently close to the Sky City Casino. Now, we'll just have to wait to see what arises from the rubble.

An update: Yes, the fellow I mentioned who gave me a call was a journo. Stuff.co.nz have recognised Timespanner. I didn't say all that I was quoted there as saying, but -- wow.

Further update: the demolition on You Tube, and via TV3. The second link's footage is both rivetting and saddening.

Another update, 9 March 2011: Auckland Council have issued a report on the collapse.

Shackleton's Dogs

A very good post from Liz over at Mad Bush Farm on the unhappy fate of Sir Ernest Shackleton's dogs.