The Eye of New Windsor

Photographed this artwork by Sean McCarthy (2012) yesterday along Whitney Street, New Windsor. It's quite cool -- but how many would like to have a painted eye across the street from them?

The tragedy of the "Mystery", 1866

This year being the 150th anniversary of the wreck of HMS Orpheus, attention is focused on that tragedy by many heritage groups around the Manukau Harbour and wider afield. But last night, in a phone conversation, Colin Freland (President of the Onehunga & Fencible Historical Society) brought up another tragedy on the harbour, one involving a civilian craft and the death of ten people; possibly one of the greatest civilian losses of life on the harbour. This happened when the cutter Mystery took on water and capsized in the middle of the harbour, on a regular ferry trip between Awhitu and Onehunga, one day in August 1866.

The half-decked four-ton cutter Mystery was sailed by Henry Mitchell under a contract from the Auckland Provincial Council since late 1865 (nine months before the accident), to connect Awhitu with the northern coastline of the Manukau Harbour, and Auckland. Opinion was expressed later during the inquest that four tons was not a big enough vessel to handle the harbour’s dangers; a larger vessel was apparently used at first, but then this was replaced by the Mystery. Mitchell seems to have also had a reputation for rum drinking, on or off the water (although the survivors attested to his sobriety on the day of the accident). That day he was working the sails with the use of only one hand, the left disabled by a gunshot wound. His assistant was a boy named Thomas Reed, son of a carpenter, who had only had seven weeks sailing experience, and was almost totally deaf (although he said he could hear Mitchell’s commands). He had made ten trips with Mitchell on the Mystery before the accident.

Their passengers on 13 August 1866 were 22-year-old widow Frances Westfold (her late husband George, a sawyer, had died three days before and the family were accompanying his coffin on the ferry for burial in Onehunga) and her three children George (4), Ellen (6) and Francis Edward (six months); William Reynolds, his wife Sarah, and their son Edward William; William Lucas; a Mr Murphy; and Nelson Spaulding, a storekeeper from Onehunga.

Ballasted with pieces of iron, the Mystery set sail from Garland’s Creek at 11 am for the 20 mile journey to Onehunga, going with the tide and a nor-west breeze, but also with strong squalls and a high sea. The mainsail was hoisted with one reef, along with the jib, as the boat travelled down the channel, close to the southern coast of the harbour, for the first three miles. The passengers sat on a seat described as running round the circumference of the boat.

Then, with the tide stating to turn, and the wind blowing in, the sea became heavier, right at the point when Mitchell swung the Mystery onto a direct course across the harbour toward Onehunga. The going for the passengers became increasingly uncomfortable. Water sloshed in now and then, and young Reed was set the task of bailing, leaving the handling of the sails and rigging to the one-handed Mitchell. The sea became rougher as the boat continued, the women reported as being quite seasick, and Mrs Westfold, quite ill, took shelter with her three children beneath the half deck. Seven miles along the course, in the middle of the harbour, a combination of the wind plus the heavy sea capsized the Mystery around 2.30 pm, leaving it floating on its side. The Westfold family, trapped beneath the deck, had no hope of survival.

Mitchell’s last words as the boat went over were recalled as, “Let go the anchor.” He was flung into the water, floated for a while, then sank. Reynolds hung onto the rigging, trying to support his wife who clung in turn to their infant son.

Spaulding held onto to the mast, and made his way along that to the hull of the vessel. Apart from Spaulding and Reed, who had also made it to the hull, all the passengers in the water gradually sank “from sheer exhaustion … the sea washing over them.” Murphy, who had briefly joined Reed and Spaulding on the hull, then asked the others whether it was best to wait to be saved, or try swimming for the bank. Despite their advice to stay put, he slipped into the water to try for land anyway … and drowned.

The capsized Mystery floated for around three hours toward the Papakura bank, grounding there in two feet of water around 5.00pm. There, Spaulding and Reed righted the boat and bailed her out with an old butter box throughout the night. It was then they discovered the bodies of the Westfold family inside.

The following morning, Spaulding made a distress signal by flying a flag from the boat. This was seen by August Olberg on Awhitu, who organised with William Graham and two other men to go across in a boat around 9.00 am. With their assistance, the Mystery was taken to Onehunga, arriving there finally at 11.30 am. On arrival, Spaulding was reported to have had “the flesh chopped off his legs clinging to the wreck.”

Nelson Spaulding served as main witness at the inquest held in Onehunga’s Royal Hotel on 15 August, before the laid out bodies of the Westfold family. At that point, no other remains had been recovered. Spaulding’s story in New Zealand is interesting enough, even before the Mystery incident. Born in the American state of Maine, he followed the mining fever of the California goldrush in 1849, then decided to head for the Victorian goldfields in Australia in 1853. In the spring of that year, however, when the ship he took for the journey across the Pacific stopped off at Auckland on the way – he decided to stay here, and joined the timber firm of Roe, Street and Co. He was later credited with being the first to institute tramways to convey the cut logs instead of the more hazardous and tedious method of floating the timber downstream on a fresh using trip dams, using “his practical knowledge of railroad working.” He was also said to have introduced the American style of sawmill at Huia and Coromandel for the company (a company who also employed Long John McLeod and Cyrus Haskell, later rebuilders of Henderson’s Mill.) Around 1863, Spaulding left the firm and retired to Awhitu.

Spaulding felt that the Mystery’s sails should have been reduced in the rough weather, and that Mitchell should have kept to the safety of the southern coastline of the harbour for a longer distance, before striking out across the water to Onehunga. He raised the issue of Mitchell’s disabled hand, and Reed’s deafness, as possible contributing factors, but also the fact that the Mystery was too small by at least two tons.

The jury found that both Mitchell and Reed were “incompetent for the service in which they were employed,” and that the Provincial Government should provide a safer means of crossing the harbour.

A search for other bodies was started as soon as authorities in Onehunga were notified of the tragedy, inlets and creeks in the vicinity of Puketutu Island, Puponga Point and Awhitu all scoured. George Westfold’s coffin, with his body still inside, was found by fishermen near South Head on 22 August and buried above high water mark on a beach at Awhitu. On 29 August, police at Onehunga were informed that a dead body was seen floating in the harbour. After a search, the body was found “cast upon the beach, near the White Bluff …” It was later identified as being that of Henry Mitchell, and was interred at Onehunga on 30 August. Mitchell’s remains was apparently the only body both recovered and identified from the passengers that had perished in the chill waters two weeks earlier.

The last victim of the Mystery's accident may have been Nelson Spaulding, a little more than 10 years later, when he died “of an affection of the bronchial tubes, and an internal disorder contracted some years ago, on the occasion of the wreck of the Mystery …” He left a widow, but no children.

Sources
Report on the accident, NZ Herald 15 August 1866 p. 4
Inquest report, Southern Cross 16 August 1866 p.5
Search for the bodies, NZ Herald, 17 August 1866 p. 3
The coffin found, NZ Herald 27 August 1866, p. 3
Mitchell’s body found, NZ Herald 31 August 1866 p. 5
Spaulding’s obituary, Auckland Star 20 October 1876 p.2

What's in a name change? - Saxon to Kuaka Reserve

At the Avondale-Waterview Historical Society meeting in December last year, a few came up to me remarking on the renaming of Saxon Reserve, a piece of green space at the corner of Saxon Street and Oakley Avenue, to Kuaka Reserve. I was also surprised that the name Kuaka had been chosen by the Albert-Eden Local Board, considering the strength of the ties of the Goodwin family (who owned part of the now-enlarged reserve, land fronting Alford Street) for much of the last century (see Tony Goodwin’s article in the November/December Avondale Historical Journal.)

Well, they officially opened the renamed reserve in December — and I went looking through the agendas of the local board to find out how the name Kuaka got into the mix.

Eleven iwi had been contacted. According to the report submitted to the local board (5 September 2012), eight didn't respond, one was “happy for other iwi to do it”, and "two, Ngati Whatua and Ngati Te Ata-Waiohua, wrote back in support of a non-ancestral name, and suggested ‘Kuaka’. This refers to the Bar-tailed Godwit (Limosa laponica), which has been a traditionally valuable food source for Maori. Kuaka is well documented as a champion long-haul migratory species that flies over this part of the Waitemata Harbour en route to the Kaipara Harbour, before returning to its breeding sites around the China Sea, and in Kamchatka and Alaska."

The choices presented to the public on voting papers were therefore these: 

Oakley Park: “The original name given to the park when it was gifted to the Crown in 1922.” (True — due to the adjoining Oakley Avenue.) 

Saxon Reserve: “The existing name of the park. The original name of Oakley Park was changed to avoid confusion with nearby Oakley Creek Reserve. There is no historical significance attached to this name.” (Except, of course, that a lot of folks in Waterview knew the original reserve by this name, and Saxon Street is right there.) 

Goodwin Reserve: “Mr John Goodwin and his descendants owned the land that was recently purchased by NZTA to enlarge the park since 1907.”  

Kuaka Reserve: “Kuaka is the Maori name for the Godwit, a wading bird that migrates to Waterview from Alaska every year. This bird was a valuable food source for Maori and can still be seen over our summer months feeding in the nearby intertidal zones.”

According to nzbirds.com: “Populations of the godwit embark on some of the longest migrations known among birds. They start arriving here in New Zealand about mid–September and disperse throughout the country including the Chatham Islands. They flock in a few favoured places, including the Firth of Thames and Ohiwa Harbour. They leave New Zealand in March and early April and arrive in the northern hemisphere in May and early June.” The godwit is therefore not specific to Waterview — if anything, it has and has had more to do with the Manukau and Kaipara Harbours. One might as well have suggested any other NZ bird name — it would have had just as much local relevance.

Now, not that I'm against Maori names on our landscape -- I tried to get the Avondale Community Board to go with "Motu Manawa Place" instead of "Jomac Place" on Rosebank a few years back. But when only two iwi responded with a suggestion (one of which simply backed the other), and more people connected with Waterview or that particular piece of land responded saying they either wanted no change, or the name Goodwin if there had to be a change ... we are now left with a generic name for a reserve. I challenge anyone to tell me godwits landed there, when they're more likely to have headed for the shellbanks of Motu Manawa Reserve. “Kuaka” is more a Rosebank heritage name, rather than Waterview.

At the 11 August community open day to put in votes for a name for the reserve, there were only 22 votes cast: Oakley Park (2 votes), Saxon Reserve (6 votes), Goodwin Park (8 votes) [five family members voted, as the staff noted], Kuaka Reserve (4 votes), Taylor Park (2 votes) [another former land owner family], and Goodwin-Taylor Park (1 vote). According to the Council staff's report: "The fact that local community feedback from the 11 August open day produced 23 responses indicates a lack of broad community support or concern for a specific name. The Local Board may wish to regard this as evidence in support of no change, or it may decide in favour of one of the names voted on at the open day."

And so, as I said earlier, the Albert-Eden Local Board decided to go with Kuaka Reserve. Farewell, Saxon Reserve — it was nice to have known you.

The building of Mob 6: 1943-1944

Avondale College when it opened, 2 February 1945 (Auckland Star). Builders' ladders still in evidence, with conversion work still ongoing.

In March 1943, the US Naval Operating Base in Auckland wrote to the New Zealand authorities requesting that Mobile Base Hospital No 6 (Mob 6) be constructed. The Public Works Department received instructions to prepare plans for this, the second American Naval Hospital to be built in Auckland. An area at Avondale bounded by Rosebank Road, Victor Street and Holly Street was chosen, a portion of the site (closest to Holly Street) already designated by the government as land for a future school. Because of this, Tibor Donner’s design (the project overseen by the department’s resident architect in Auckland, Eric Price) incorporated a ready conversion at the end of the facility’s military and medical use to being that of a primary and intermediate school (later this was changed to an intermediate and technical high school). Construction began in the middle of May 1943.

Step out onto Avondale College grounds today, and you’ll see a fairly expansive complex. Back when I was attending the school, though, from 1977-1981, I would have had a hard time imagining just how vast the American hospital once, and briefly, was.

The full scope of the Mob 6 project was to provide 2000 beds in 22 wards with 11 lavatory blocks, a mess and galley, clinic, four surgeries, physiotherapy and occupational therapy facilities, X-ray department, dental clinic, sick officers’ quarters, ships service room, its own post office, and quarters for the American Red Cross. Temporary housing units of State House standard, built by Residential Construction Ltd of Penrose, were also added to the site for accommodation purposes. There was a standalone laundry, morgue, boiler and generating houses, garages (35 motor vehicle capacity, with greasing racks, car washing facilities, repair shop and gasoline storage tank), a fire station, a brig (enough for 40 men, including offices, guard room, and a “bull pen”), and crews recreation quarters. At one point, an adjoining piece of land along Eastdale Road was considered for lease to be used as a baseball diamond, but this didn’t eventuate during the brief period the hospital was in operation by American armed forces. There were also 16 barracks (barracks in the original proposal were to have housed around 500 corpsmen and 100 chief petty officers), 14 stores and a guard house built from pre-fabricated steel units. In total 60 buildings were erected on the site, with a total floor area of 388,000 square feet.

According to Frank Grattan in his history of the Public Work Department wartime projects, “The permanent buildings comprising the school proper were constructed on concrete foundations, with timber framing covered externally with brick veneer up to sill height and rusticated weather boarding above. Fabricated wooden truss roofing was sarked and covered with corrugated fibrolite. The interior was panelled in plywood to dado height with fibrous plaster above and pinex ceilings.”

The principal contractor was Fletcher Construction Ltd. As it so happened, James Fletcher was the wartime Commissioner of Works. A total of 450 men were employed during the project’s duration to both construct the hospital, and later to demolish and convert the site and remaining buildings to school use. There is a belief that the school buildings were constructed by American forces, the Naval “Seabees” (construction units) – but out of those working on the project, only 150 belonged to those units, and they assisted with the steel temporary buildings. The original parts of Avondale College and Avondale Intermediate were built by New Zealand contractors and tradesmen, to New Zealand design.

There were issues almost immediately during construction. In late June, Fletcher Construction complained to the Public Works Department that “we are hemmed in more or less all the time by drains, and at most times by deep ditches, which are right alongside our job. This means we have no hope of getting the timber carted by our trucks anywhere near the site.” The drainlayers were, apparently, under contract direct with the department. Fletchers asked for more money as an extra to cover the time spent hauling timber over the drains.

This was also a project undertaken during an Auckland winter, with the former market gardens transformed into a near-bog by rain and a progression of American vehicles; the Labourers’ Union reported that their members were often working in 1 foot of muddy slush, without the benefit of employer-supplied gumboots (the gumboots being unavailable.) The labourers asked for an extra 2d per hour in lieu of the gumboots under the terms of their award, over and above the 9d daily wet place allowance they were already receiving. The department made a counter-offer of 1 ½ d per hour plus the 9d daily allowance.

In September, there was additional urgency to complete the project as soon as possible, with the announcement of the intention to use the hospital for shock cases from both American and New Zealand forces. The department’s district engineer appealed to the Master Builders’ Association that they “kindly make a survey of any teams engaged on work not of National importance with a view to having them transferred to Avondale. Such action will help, not only the US forces, but our own boys who may be urgently requiring treatment.” The Association responded that they couldn’t find any spare teams, but pointed out that “it is apparent that the Fletcher Construction Co have considerable numbers of men engaged on less essential work and it might be suggested that some of this work be carried on with skeleton staffs so that the work at Avondale and Pukekohe can be carried on with greater dispatch.” I don’t know if this exchange helped speed things up at the hospital site or not.

The first patients were admitted 21 October 1943, five and a half months after construction began. The maximum number of patients at any one time ended up being 1050. Even so, as at February 1944 there were some wards still in an unfinished state. James Fletcher, as Commissioner of Works, wrote: “The work on the Avondale Hospital has now reached the stage when every effort must be made to get the wards that are unfinished completed and handed over for occupancy. It must be recognised that the Hospital buildings are temporary, and it would appear that too much emphasis is being placed on the general finish of the building which is resulting in delays which can be avoided.” It could be said that the hospital complex was never truly completed; an intended chapel by the time buildings were demolished existed only as a set of foundations, the work on it having been stopped at an earlier point.

The hospital ceased to function from 10 May 1944, and work then began to convert the site to the two schools. Portable cranes were brought in to remove the temporary housing units, many of which ended up as part of the transit camp at Western Springs. Education Board architect Alan Miller stepped in, and was in charge of the setting out of the two future schools. The mess and galley were demolished, moved in sections, and became the manual training wing of the new technical high school (now Avondale College). The central portion of the ships service and the laundry block were similarly reused as a home science wing. The crews’ recreation building was shifted to become the school’s engineering workshop.

Total cost of the project, excluding demolition, was £641,727. To the dismay of the Education Ministry, given to understand the contrary at the outset by James Fletcher, the cost of converting the hospital fell onto the vote for education funds, rather than those of the war assets realisation department. Discussions, correspondence and negotiations regarding valuation and quantity surveying was still ongoing for the school buildings right up to May 1945.

In October 1945, the Labourers’ Union was still in dispute with the Public Works Department, claiming for their members a 1½d per hour demolition allowance, while the department argued that the workers had been engaged in dismantling, rather than demolition, and therefore were not entitled to the allowance. The union countered by quoting the dictionary meaning of the word “demolition”. Whether they were successful in obtaining the backpay for their members is unknown.

Sources 

Frank Geoffrey Grattan, Official War History of the Public Works Department, 1939-1945, (1948) Archives New Zealand files held at Auckland: 

Defence - USA hospital (accommodation) Rosebank estate, Avondale (BBAD 1054 Box 2267 8/130/55, parts 1 & 2)

Defence - USA Navy hospital Avondale, -- Legislation (BBAD 1054 Box 2660 8/130/55A)

 

Auckland Zoo on a hot summer's afternoon

I may have headed to the Zoo yesterday to see the tigers, but I did take other photos as well.

There was the Galapagos Tortoise feeding ...

 

With two females and one male, the Zoo are trying to successfully breed them. But, so far, only infertile eggs have been found.

The macaws next door got their lunch around the same time.

So did the Eclectus Parrot.

Part of the 1923 architecture of the zoo: the band rotunda.

Complete with a water feature which drew thirsty kids like a magnet on the hot day.

Except this is not what they should be trying to drink. I did see one kiddy precariously balance on the rim to take a drink, but she soon spat it out.

According to some very handy early maps of the zoo published on the Zoo Chat messageboard, it appears that this enclosure dates from sometime between the late 1920s and 1950 -- by the latter period, it was four separate compartments, housing vultures.

These days, it is home to a very different animal.

A lone chimpanzee, named Janie.

These days, she's close to 60 years old, taken from her mother in Sierra Leone and shipped first to London Zoo, then to Auckland in 1956.

There, she became one of the zoo's tea-party chimps, a practice that charmed visitors but didn't do a lot of good for the chimpanzees. The practice ceased in 1963, fifty years ago.

In the 1980s, an unsuccessful attempt was made to integrate the three survivors, Janie, Josie and Bobbie, with a mother-raised chimpanzee group. Josie died in 2000, Bobbie in 2004, and now Janie is the sole survivor of an old idea in the zoo's history, housed in one of the zoo's oldest enclosures.

She has Type 2 diabetes these days, but otherwise is well-looked after by the keepers.

Next to Janie's cage -- the Aussie walkabout area.

Star of the show wasn't even an Aussie.

A bit of luck, that while I was waiting for the tiger encounter, I spotted a keeper giving food to a couple of the otters.