The lonely death of David Snodgrass

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three faces of the United Service Hotel

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anton Seuffert's first Wellesley Street workshop

 4-86, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections [detail]

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

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

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

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

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

Collapse of the Beehive Toy and Fancy Repository, 1865

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The assault on Daniel Caley, 1868

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Harriet Powley, and the Queen Street Fire of 1873

 4-418, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections [detail]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

William Smithson, and his Ship Inn

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ephraim Mills, and his Market Hotel

 Detail from 4-53, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Southern Cross, 7 September 1867)

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

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

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

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

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

(also Southern Cross, 7 September 1867)

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

King David Sykes and his Turkish Baths

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

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

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

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

(Southern Cross, 8 January 1874)

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

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

(Auckland Star, 7 January 1875)

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

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

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

(Auckland Star, 20 October 1877)

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

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

(Auckland Star, 31 July 1879)

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

Street Stories 25: Steam communication, and White Swan Road

White Swan Road in Mt Roskill. A swan's neck? Someone who kept swans? Named in honour, for some reason, of the June 1862 wreck off the Wairarapa coast? 

(https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/wreck-white-swan)

Uh, no.

Maybe I'll add a "not quite."

It's been a fair bit of a vexing question this, and I've asked more than a few times when giving talks about stuff that's anywhere near the road. Up to now, I really haven't had an answer.

But last night, taking another look at Henry Powning Stark's July 1858 Block 76 subdivision in Blockhouse Bay, where he'd named what is today Donovan Street as "White Swan" -- I wondered what was special about the steamer White Swan at that point in time?

NZ Map 4691, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections

The answer came up in a few Papers Past searches. In mid 1858, the central government, then based in Auckland, had secured the use of the White Swan from the Australian owners for £6000 for two years, to provide a steam powered mail service from Melbourne to New Zealand, and connecting the provinces. They'd sent someone to England to get more ships, but the White Swan was star of the show -- and represented colonial progress. Stark would have been attracted to it as he was selling his property off with the view that it was close to the then-proposed Whau Canal.

So visions of the White Swan steaming from the Manukau to Auckland, instead of just Onehunga, would have been right at the top of his mind.

Well, fairly soon someone probably reminded Stark that the Provincial Council had already named that road Donovan Street, but the White Swan name simply shifted east, first starting from the junction with Lewis Street, then further in the last century to the Boundary Road junction. When it came time to provide numbers, the road leading up to Richardson Road was White Swan as well, and Mt Roskill Road Board started the numbers from the shopping centre.

So, yes, I now do think White Swan Road was named in honour of the ship -- when it started its service, though, not when it ended. As good a hypothesis as any. Image of ship: National Library and Te Ara.

Hallyburton Johnstone: the complex benefactor

Image: NZ Herald 3 August 1927

Here is a man for whom the legacy, 160 years after his birth, of the enduring fame he had intended for himself has become muddled with that of a possibly namesake nephew. A man he pointedly declined to recognise as an heir to his will. Said legacy has distinctly faded over time. 

The fame is slowly drifting away into the mists of lost memory; the arch bearing his name across a gateway to the tennis grounds at 335 Point Chevalier Road, that was removed between 2013 and 2015, had not been restored and put back as at April 2021. While there still is an incorporated society bearing his name that administers the main building on the sports ground there (and the name remains as a condition of his “gift”), the tennis, bowling and croquet clubs have not carried his name for decades (although the croquet club still retains “HJ” at the top of their logo.) 

The sports grounds at Point Chevalier were not even truly “gifted” to the community or to the three sporting codes that occupy the space. While he was alive, Johnstone retained his title over the property, and received a £200 annuity payment (reduced to £104 per annum if paid punctually). Johnstone’s interest in the property, in the 1930s, was listed in the society accounts as a £1000 liability. He was a life member of the trusts executive committee, and personally chose three of the trust members out of the six places. When he died the title for the grounds was passed on to his executors, then to his solicitor Frederick Coles Jordan (one of the trustees Johnstone had appointed) and was then placed with the Public Trust Office. The annual rates bill charged for the now $4.2million property (just over $10,000) is shared in proportions by the three sports clubs. Should the clubs fold, in accordance with the deed from 1927, then the land will go to Auckland Council. 

Arch that was above the Pt Chevalier Road entrance to the sports ground. Note incorrect space in Johnstone's first name on the sign. Image 2011 by Phil Braithwaite.

There were four major trophy shields bearing Johnstone’s name: one for the Auckland Rifle Shooting Championship, one for the Waitemata Swimming Club Harbour Swim Competition, one for the Auckland Soccer Minor Associations tournament, and one for one-day Domestic Women’s Cricket. Only the last remains in use and awarded annually – although from 1982 until 2017, it had been replaced by the Hansell’s Cup, before being reinstated. NZ Rowing still do have a cup competition in his name, known these days as the Hallyburton Johnstone Rose Bowl. This was described in November 1927 as “a massive bowl of silver … originally the property of the Duke of Buccleuch,” acquired by Johnstone on a visit to England. Even this year, one major South Island newspaper’s journalist mistakenly thought that the nephew’s generosity should be praised for its existence, not that of the uncle. 

Johnstone was born on 15 January 1862 in Raglan, on the west coast of the Waikato region. His first name came from his paternal great-grandmother, Magdalene Hallyburton, back in the county of Fife, Scotland, in the 18th century. His father John Campbell Johnstone joined the military life, employed by the East India Company in 1834; by the time he resigned in 1853 he had held the rank of Captain for three years. According to a family history, land was what drew Captain Johnstone to New Zealand. There is speculation that he may have had contact with up-and-coming land barons here, namely William Brown and Dr John Logan Campbell, as to what was available from out of the dealings taking place at the time between the government and Maori. At that point, there were land deals being made near Raglan, and these drew Captain Johnstone to that part of the island. Unfortunately, there were misunderstandings between the Crown and the Maori land owners, with Captain Johnstone in the middle of that fraught sandwich. 

He did manage to set up his Te Haroto sheep run to the east of the Raglan township, but there were years of compensation applications, not to mention the Waikato War of the early 1860s. The Johnstone family left Raglan in June 1863 and took up temporary residence at Waiuku, returning in September 1864. Hallyburton (born 1862) was the eldest son. His brother Campbell was born in December 1863, and brother Lindsay in May 1866. There were other siblings, but these three brothers and their relationship were later to become national news. 

Captain Johnstone died by his own hand in 1882, in the midst of a bitter dispute with a committee over a local school site of all things. His farm remained in family ownership until around 1914, but his homestead burned down in the early 1890s. In his will dated 1874, he railed against the Government policy of borrowing money from England and adding to the colony’s debt. His son Hallyburton would come to follow in his father’s footsteps in terms of using a last will and testament for personal commentary and criticism. 

Hallyburton, Campbell and Lindsay were close. All three of the brothers took part together as members of the Te Awamutu Volunteer Cavalry before Hallyburton left to spend a few years in Canada in 1888. On his return in 1894, that close relationship was taken up again. Campbell’s son Hallyburton was born in 1897, named after his uncle. 

The brothers took up leasehold land at Whatawhata, and near Ngatea on the Hauraki Plains. Lindsay acquired over 900 acres there in 1909. Hallyburton financed the development of the farms, and his interest was registered by the lease being placed in his name. Campbell and Lindsay then acquired adjoining properties; Hallyburton advanced his brothers more funds, and thus those properties were put into his name as well. 

By that stage, Hallyburton had made his fortune through the sharemarket, then extended his financial portfolio to land dealings. His first wife Sophie (15 years his senior) drowned in 1896, the same year he’d started his interest in gold, coal and dredging company shares. There has been speculation that her own fortune greatly assisted him. After Sophie’s death, Hallyburton senior lived at his late wife’s Port Waikato home for a time, then acquired 55 acres near Waiuku by 1904. In 1907 he was farming at Aka Aka, and in 1909 was taking part in the Waiuku Tennis Club on the combined tennis, bowls and croquet ground. 

In 1911, the mother of the Johnstone brothers passed away. Then, in July 1915, Lindsay drowned in a flood of the Waipa River. Suddenly, the dynamic of the brothers’ partnership regarding their 1909 land dealings changed. 

Earlier in 1915, Hallyburton sold part of the land on the Hauraki Plains he’d held in trust for himself and his two brothers for £10,023, and received a deposit of £500. Ultimately, the buyer defaulted, paid nothing further, and Hallyburton retained the £500 for himself. He did successfully sell the property eventually, for £10,000, but kept that money as well. Later, Campbell and Hallyburton came to a series of verbal agreements over this and other lands held by the brothers, where it was agreed that interest in the properties would pass from Hallyburton to his siblings in return for the money he had held onto. Hallyburton later denied this in court in 1917; eventually he, Campbell and Lindsay’s widow came an out-of-court settlement. 

This did not stop the legal actions, though, merely postponed them. In 1924, the partnership’s accounts came before the Supreme Court in Auckland, and an agreement was signed. Then, in 1928, Hallyburton announced that the agreement document he’d signed four years earlier was not what he had agreed to at all, that he had been defrauded just over £14,000 over the amount he’d said he would pay to settle Campbell and Lindsay’s widow’s claim. He tried petitioning Parliament to overturn this, to no avail. 

A year later, in 1929, there was another court case (this time against his brother Campbell), where he claimed that he was owed £33, his share of the sale of their father’s Raglan farm, plus interest on his 1/6th share of the estate. “I had carried [Campbell] on my back for years, but he would not give me a penny,” Hallyburton declared. “I have never received a cheque from my brother in his life, and I have given him dozens.” He denied the 1909 land partnership ever existed, describing the agreements with his brothers purely as a business situation. Still, he lost the case, and had to pay costs. After hearing the judgment, he then angrily made another accusation against Campbell; the judge warned that if he didn’t keep quiet, he’d be removed from the court. 

Hallyburton wasn’t about to leave things there, however. Straight after the court hearing, he proceeded to harass his brother Campbell, sending envelopes address to him care of the bodies upon which Campbell sat as a representative: the Auckland Harbour Board, the Raglan County Council and the Waikato Hospital Board. On each envelope was written, “Campbell Johnstone, the man who pleads the statute of limitations.” These sparked another court hearing, and Hallyburton was bound over by the judge to the sum of £10 that he would cease sending such wording on envelopes to Campbell ever again. 

Campbell died in 1930. Hallyburton was thus afforded the final say on things, via one of the paragraphs in his long will, complete with two codicils, probated in 1949-1950. A dead man defaming other dead men: 

“I further desire it to be known that the reason why I have omitted to name the children of my late brothers Campbell Johnstone and Lindsay Johnstone as beneficiaries under this my will is that in my opinion such brothers unjustifiably instituted legal proceedings against me for the recovery of moneys from me and defrauded me of over £14,000.” 

At the time the sports ground in Pt Chevalier was inaugurated, it is said that a set of minutes noted an explanation for Hallyburton’s lack of outright gifting of the site to the community. This explanation brought up some circumstance where it was claimed a similar piece of land he’d gifted in Waiuku had instead become lost through mortgages in 1920. Actually, I’ve yet to find anything like that happening in Waiuku – but there would have been a lot of precedent otherwise for Hallyburton’s determination not to let go of the Pt Chevalier site until his own death, from his own background in dealings with his brothers and their heirs, and his opinion that he had been “swindled”. 

Unfortunately for the clarity of Hallyburton Johnstone senior’s legacy, his nephew by the same name had a more notable career, which is why the two are often today mixed up. Campbell’s son Hallyburton junior, born 1897, served in the NZEF during the First World War, and went on to farm sheep and cattle in the Raglan area. He won the Raglan electorate seat in a 1946 by-election for the National Party, lost it in the general election, then won it back in 1949. He then contested the Waipa seat in 1957, won, and only retired in 1963. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1966 for farming and his political career, and died in 1970. 

Some other parts to Hallyburton Johnstone senior’s life: 

After his first wife, he married twice more, both marriages ending in divorce, dissolution, and more court cases. In 1909, he married Margaret Isabel Jollie; this time Margaret was five years younger than he was. That year, Johnstone purchased a house at Howick called “Ingledell”, and renamed it “Elkholm” (probably after his passion for deer shooting.) This became Margaret’s home from 1911 while he spent most of his time in Ngatea, Margaret refusing to consummate the marriage due to a “physical defect” of some sort (according to the 1918 divorce application from Hallyburton Johnstone, said defect probably a heart condition). In 1915, Margaret offered up “Elkholm” as a possible site for invalid soldier accommodation. The 1918 application for a divorce didn’t succeed, but Margaret’s own 1924 application on the grounds of desertion did. The house and grounds were sold in 1924 to the Catholic Church; as one of the “Star of the Sea” convent buildings there, it burned to the ground in 1929. 

“Ingledell” on Granger Road at Howick, renamed “Elkholm” by Johnstone, which became his second wife Margaret’s residence. First built in the late 1880s, the house is seen here just after purchase by the Catholic Diocese. Footprints 02004, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections.

In 1935, Johnstone married for the third and last time, to Mary Mitchell Cooper, 22 years his junior. Two years later, in 1937, Mary refused him any conjugal rights. He took the matter to court, where Mary was ordered to resume said rights, but she still refused, and also refused to return to live with him at his Alford Street home in Waterview. The marriage was dissolved in 1938. 

Johnstone first became involved with Pt Chevalier land dealings in 1911, when he bought nearly 18 acres from James Dignan, and had his “Town of Meola Extension No. 3” surveyed, forming Johnstone Road (named after himself), Bollard Road (after John Bollard the local MP – now Boscawen Road), Bungalow Avenue, and Bella Vista Terrace (now Bangor Street). It took from 1911 to 1938 to sell all the sections, but many he may have been renting out for income during the period. 

In 1920, Johnstone picked up two 1/10th shares of the remainder of the Liverpool Estate Syndicate from the bankrupted Thomas Dignan, and from land agent Sydney Valentine Mack. The sections (including the “bird” streets) were finally completely sold or otherwise disposed of in 1927. Johnstone transferred his interest to Francis John Dignan just before the last section was sold. 

Hallyburton Johnstone (inset) and the property formerly owned by Thomas Dignan in Pt Chevalier over which he formed the sports trust. Auckland Sun, 3 August 1927.

It was also in 1920 that Johnstone bought six and a quarter acres of Thomas Dignan’s “The Pines” farm between Pt Chevalier, Dignan and (the future part of) Walmer Road, also due to Dignan’s bankruptcy. Johnstone arranged for a survey in 1922 – interestingly at that point setting aside the same three main portions of the property (just over four acres) which form the property now used by the sports clubs. Johnstone moved from Ngatea to Dignan Street in 1924, around the time of his first divorce. The two mortgages on the property from Thomas Dignan’s ownership weren’t discharged by Johnstone until May 1927. Three months later, Johnstone’s “gift” of the site was announced. 

Johnstone had held political offices before his shift to Auckland from Ngatea in 1924. He’d been on the Raglan Road Board, the Waiuku Drainage Board, Thames Hospital Board, and served as chairman of the Hauraki Plains War Memorial Committee. In April 1927, as an independent, he made an unsuccessful run for a seat on the Auckland City Council. 

Then after his move to Alford Street in Waterview he ran again, as one of the “Independent Eleven” in April 1929. It may not have helped that he switched horses midstream, as it were, just a week later to join Allum’s “People’s Welfare” ticket. Yes, he lost the election that year. 

The following year was brighter for him, though, as he was chosen to accompany the NZ bowls team to the Empire Games in Canada. This must have been a real highlight for him, travelling back to the country where he’d earlier stayed in the late 19th century and worked on a cousin’s farm near Vancouver. He returned by early November 1930, and was interviewed by the press as to his impressions of Canada, California and other parts of the US, which must have delighted him. He even offered to be an intermediary for a trade in zoo animals between Auckland and zoos in North America. 

The 1930s and 1940s, also, was a time when, with the Pt Chevalier Bowling Club calling itself “Hallyburton Johnstone,” Johnstone’s name was spread throughout the pages of newspapers covering tournaments, with commonplace headlines like “Hallyburton Johnstone v. Henderson” for reports on district games. 

At the end of it all though, after the failure of his third marriage and with increasing ill-health as he entered his eighties, Johnstone began to make mistakes which cut deeply into his accrued fortune. His astuteness in terms of property details began to leave him. Family recollections indicate he lost considerably on a number of later Auckland commercial deals. Certainly, he became involved in court actions over rent arrears owed to him. His main will was made out in 1941, but was followed by two codicils in 1948 drastically reducing promised bequest amounts. When he died, though, his final net worth was still recorded for probate purposes in 1952 as £33,370 5s 9d, roughly $2 million today. 

What to say about Hallyburton Johnstone (1862-1949)? He certainly enriched local sport in Pt Chevalier, whether one thinks the land there on Dignan Street was a gift or not; thanks to the availability of somewhere to play, the clubs were able to form, and have had a home ever since. His general love of sport extended to cricket and rowing, via the silverware he donated. More of his silverware collection apparently was displayed in Centennial Street at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, although whether the museum still retains it is not now known. 

It is a pity the named archway hasn’t been replaced at the Point Chevalier Road frontage, but at least he hasn’t quite been forgotten. With a name like Hallyburton Johnstone (now and then seen with a hyphen, as if that was all his surname, or he was actually two people!) – how could he be?

Death on Batkin Road

 

A young immigrant, having served his country during World War II, travelled to New Zealand for a new life. Here, he found love, but he also met his death far too soon in a New Windsor boarding house.

The boarding house was at what was then 5 Batkin Road, today’s 39 Batkin, the site of the now strangely named Blockhouse Bay Rest Home and Hospital (not in Blockhouse Bay, and perhaps only barely within sight of the suburb or the bay). The site was the property of members of the Moros family from 1905 through to 1967, starting out as part of one of the farms which made up the early suburb of New Windsor.

The story begins with Nicholas George Moros (c.1855-1908), a fisherman from the Greek island of Syros, who somehow ended up in Wales in the early 1870s. There, he married a young widow named Eliza, who already had a son by her first marriage (her husband appears to have been lost at sea). Nicholas and Eliza would go on to have at least seven more children of their own.

The Moros family emigrated to New Zealand in 1886 aboard the Arawa. Here, Nicholas worked as a fisherman in Dargaville and applied for naturalisation as a British citizen in 1888. Over time in the township he acquired a fruit and fish shop, an attached billiard saloon, as well as the family’s house all on Victoria Street. A fire in 1900 wiped out Moros’ buildings; Moros bought a number of marble ornaments in Auckland and tried asking permission from the authorities to hold an Art Union raffle to recoup his losses, but was turned down. To an extent, Moros did rebuild his business in Dargaville after all, but the family soon decided to move on.


In 1905, Moros (under Eliza’s name) bought 20 acres in New Windsor between the end of Batkin Road and Te Auaunga Oakley Creek from the Batkin family. The Moroses bought another nearly 31 acres immediately adjoining, stretching to present day Maioro Street from two businessmen who, only two months before, had purchased the land also from the Batkins. The house at 5 (39) Batkin Road may well have been the original Batkin homestead from around 1899. This six-roomed house would become the Moros family home, and would remain in their ownership through to 1967, although there was in 1908 another 19th century six-roomed house on the former Victor Longuet vineyard and orchard property closer to Oakley Creek.

Nicholas Moros put all 50 acres of the New Windsor property up for sale in February 1908, including both houses, as “2 First-Class Fruit and Poultry Farms,” the northern 20 acres with 150 fruit trees, “3 acres ploughed and well manured with fish offal,” four large iron tanks and “a splendid well of water.” The main Batkin 30 acres to the south was: “First-Class blue clay land”, subdivided into three fields with stable, three loose-boxes, two fowlhouses, a dairy, cowshed (six bails, concrete floor), piggery and other features. There were no sales, however, and Nicholas Moros died in October 1908, just eight months later, still with two outstanding mortgages on the property, leaving behind his widow Eliza with the relatively large farm in rural New Windsor and teenage children still to look after.

Eliza Moros though set-to and proceed to start selling the property off from 1910. By 1922, all that remained was the four and a quarter acre section which included the house at 5 (39) Batkin Road, plus part of the future road beside.

On 15 November 1915 her daughter Despineo, then known more often as Spineo for short, married Charles Edward Henry Brothers at Avondale’s St Judes Anglican Church, the service officiated by Rev Harold Robertson Jecks. The couple moved to Frankton Junction near Hamilton during the remainder of the First World War, Charles Brothers working a railway employee, but they had shifted back to Auckland by the late 1920s. In 1935, the couple separated, and Charles shifted to Tauranga. Two years later, on hearing word about her husband, Spineo went there and found him living with another woman who styled herself as “Mrs Brothers.” In 1939, Spineo was granted a divorce.

Eliza Moros died at the Batkin Road house in 1940 at the age of 90, survived by three sons and three daughters. A year before her death, Eliza lost her sight completely. Up to that point, according to her obituary, she loved going to see picture shows, and had a keen memory.

In 1944 the estate’s executors transferred title of the house to Spineo, who had been living at the house with her mother and brother, John Nicholas Moros, since 1935. At least from the mid 1940s, Spineo started expanding the premises, adding rooms and out-buildings until it became a full-fledged boarding house, capable of accommodating around 16 lodgers. Many of these were single men or even couples with small children working at the nearby gardens, such as the large one run by Arthur Currey on New Windsor Road, or the brickyards at St Georges Road, and the Amalgamated Brick and Pipe works further west at New Lynn, along with the Ambrico (soon to be known as Crown Lynn) pottery.

One of those lodgers was Gordon James Pepper.

Pepper was born 19 July 1926 at Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire in England, the only son of Arthur Leonard Pepper and his wife Mary Ellen. Gordon was apprenticed as a mould-maker in a pottery factory in his home town at the age of 14, working there until he volunteered for war service at 18. He served with the Warwickshire Regiment for 12 months, and was then transferred to the Royal Pioneer Corps, going to France on D-Day plus 4, then Germany, rising to the rank of Quarter-Master Sergeant before returning to England to be demobilised in 1947.

Pepper returned to the pottery works, and toward the end of 1948 he received an offer of work from the other side of the world, at Crown Lynn pottery. So, he packed up, said goodbye once again to his home, and arrived at Wellington on 13 January, aboard the Atlantis. Two days after that, he was in Auckland, secured his job as a mould maker at the New Lynn pottery, and took up lodgings at Batkin Road.

In July, Pepper got engaged to Edna Coward, who happened to be a friend of Spineo Brothers’ family, with the marriage set to take place towards the end of that year. Pepper wanted to be able to buy a house for himself and his bride-to-be, so decided to take out a life insurance policy on himself as a form of security. On 1 October 1949, he woke up at Batkin Road at 3.30 am to start work at 4 am. After his shift, he headed by car into the city for the necessary medical examination, arriving at the doctor’s offices at 9.45 am, running up two flights of stairs because he was slightly late. The doctor found him to be in perfect health. Pepper was back at Batkin Road by around 11 am, did some washing, and had lunch at 1.15 pm, before retiring to his bedroom, which he shared with fellow Tunstall native Vincent Stevenson (another who worked at Crown Lynn), for a nap. He had tickets for a showing at one of the picture theatres for himself and Edna later that evening, so intended just to have a rest break in the course of a busy day.

Around 5.30 pm, Pepper came into the kitchen, dressed in pyjamas and trousers, apparently with a bit of upset in his stomach. Up to that point, he’d had nothing out of the ordinary to eat – his lunch earlier that afternoon was fried bacon and cheese. He asked Mrs Brothers if he could have some of her Andrews Liver Salts. She told him that the salts had perished, and instead to use a bottle of Enos fruit salts from the kitchen’s medicine cupboard instead. The bottle was still store-wrapped and seemingly unopened. Pepper took off the wrapper, poured some of the salts into a teaspoon, then mixed them in a cup of water, before drinking.

His immediate reaction to Brothers was, “I don’t like your Enos Fruit Salts, they taste bitter.” Brothers dismissed his remark, telling him he was just being “faddy.” Pepper asked another boarder standing nearby, Gordon Wood, to take a taste. Wood dipped a finger into the cup, and also remarked on the bitterness.

Whether Pepper finished the cup of water isn’t known. It was later found to have been washed and put away. The bottle of fruit salts was returned to the cabinet.

Pepper then went outside, brought his washing in from the line, and Brothers put his washing in the hot press to air off. A little later, about to start ironing his shirt for his evening with Edna, Pepper suddenly told Brothers, “I feel funny, I feel giddy.” Brothers couldn’t see that he looked unwell, but told him to go lie down for a bit. Pepper refused, continued ironing, then complained that his legs had gone stiff. A moment later, he told Brothers he couldn’t walk.

She helped him back to his room, took off his slippers for him and laid him on the bed, covering him with the bed clothes, helped by Stevenson. Pepper asked if it had been the fruit salts that had affected him. Around 6 pm, Brothers rang Dr William Gordon Davidson who was living at 1834 Great North Road in Avondale. She reported that Pepper had felt unwell after taking the fruit salts, and asked Dr Davidson if that might be the cause. The doctor said no, “there was nothing in fruit salts to cause any harm,” and it was more likely just a case of influenza. He told her to give Pepper aspirins and lemon juice. Dr Davidson and his wife were, at the time, in the process of dressing for a social evening at the home of Dr Robert Warnock in Pt Chevalier.

Brothers had no chance of giving Pepper any aspirin or lemon juice. His condition worsened, and he began to complain about the light. She tried contacting another doctor, in vain, then rang Dr. Davidson again at around 7.20 pm.

Dr Davidson later testified: “Just as we were leaving the house between 7.20 pm and 7.25 pm, Mrs Brothers telephoned again. She said, ‘That he was much worse and that his legs appeared to be stiff.’ I told her that I didn’t think much of this and that the aspirin had hardly had time to work. She then said that ‘She didn’t think it was the flu.’ I told her that I still thought it was the flu and to carry on with the treatment. I told her that I was going out for the evening and would be home about 11 pm, and if he was any worse then to give me a ring and I would come up and see him. She agreed to this.”

By now, Pepper was convulsing and crying out in pain. Brothers tried called Dr Davidson again ten minutes later, but by then he had left his house, and all Brothers could do was leave a message. This was passed on by phone to Dr Warnock, who greeted Dr and Mrs Davidson at his door when they arrived with the news that something was very wrong at Batkin Road.

When Brothers put down the phone, she returned to Pepper’s room – to find that her lodger had passed away.

Doctor Davidson finally arrived at 7.55 pm, and later stated that he was “shocked” to find Pepper dead, his face “abnormally pale.” He thought at the time that perhaps Pepper had suffered a brain haemorrhage. When he called the police, however, he wisely told them about the fruit salts. After the local constable arrived, the doctor pointed out the bottle of fruit salts to him, then left Batkin Road to return to Dr Warnock’s house. A little later, a police sergeant went to Pt Chevalier, asking both Drs Warnock and Davidson their opinion about the fruit salts bottle. Both declared the taste bitter, and Dr Davidson later stated that he’d noticed “some needle shaped shiny crystals in the bottle which did not seem usual for fruit salts”.

This turned out to be crystals of strychnine hydrochloride, spread almost throughout the bottle in six distinct layers, each layer (apart from the untampered one right at the bottom) was laced with varying amounts of the poison. The analysis found that the bottle had been opened, most of the contents mixed with the strychnine crystals, before the fruit salts were then carefully poured back into the bottle, and the whole resealed as if there was nothing wrong.

There is no indication that Gordon Pepper was the intended victim. Anyone in the boarding house could have felt some indigestion over the period the bottle was in the household. It appears that, like a roll of the dice, Pepper was simply unfortunate that day.

So – how did the bottle get into Spineo Brothers’ boarding house?

Spineo’s brother John Nicholas Moros worked as a fishcurer and later general labourer, and had lived in the family home at Batkin Road since the First World War. At the time of Pepper’s death, Moros said that he assisted his sister with odd jobs around the place. He recalled that, months before Pepper’s death, he went outside for a smoke, and walked around the house to check to see if that day’s copy of the Auckland Star had been tossed, as usual, over the front hedge onto their lawn. There was no newspaper, but instead he found a wrapped parcel on the front lawn, six yards from the road and six to eight feet from the path going around the right side of the house. The parcel was wrapped in brown paper and tied with white string, “as if it had just come out of a shop,” Moros later testified. There was no writing on it at all, and was completely dry.

Moros took it inside and showed his sister. He opened it, to find that it contained “two cakes of washing soap, a long stick of shaving soap, one packet of Gillette razor blades” – and a bottle wrapped in paper, the Enos fruit salts. Brothers added in her testimony that the bottle “was wrapped in its original wrapper,” including corrugated cardboard. She stated that Moros had found the parcel “four to six months” before Pepper’s death. Brothers wondered if the parcel had been dropped by one of the lodgers, so left it in the kitchen for some time. When no one asked for it, she put the fruit salts bottle in the medicine cabinet. Brothers claimed she never bought Enos fruit salts, and she was certain that the bottle that had been laced with strychnine was the one from the mysterious parcel her brother found on the front lawn.

The coroner Alfred Addison’s finding after the hearing in March 1950 reads thus: “… the said Gordon James Pepper died on the 1st day of October 1949 at 5 Batkin Road Avondale Auckland and that the cause of his death was strychnine poisoning as the result of taking a dose of fruit salts with which had been mixed by some (as yet unknown) person with murderous intent needle crystals of strychnine hydrochloride.” Addison was reported in the newspapers as continuing: “Pepper was the victim of one of the foulest murders in this country’s history. Police inquiries are not concluded in this case.”

However, to date, the poisoner’s identity or motive remains unknown.

Gordon Pepper was laid to rest at Waikumete Cemetery with a military headstone. A memorial service was held for him back at Stoke-on-Trent in October 1949, and his widowed mother received the proceeds of his estate, totalling £335 8s. The Daily Mirror referred to the case as “The Health Salts Murder.”

John Moros who had found the fatal parcel, died in 1958 at the age of 73.

Spineo Brothers continued running the boarding house through the 1950s, and possibly into the 1960s as well. She subdivided and sold most of the rear section to Kingram Estates Ltd in 1961, and Brothers Street was laid out, named after her. In 1967, the remainder, including the sprawl of buildings that made up her boarding house, was sold in 1967, and became the Bettina Rest Home, today site of the Blockhouse Bay Rest Home and Hospital. Spineo died in 1981, and shares a plot at Waikumete Cemetery with her brother John, next to their mother and father.

Her son Raymond Nicholas Brothers (1924-1988) who had lived for a time with his mother at Batkin Road while a student, went on to a career as a noted lecturer, professor and geologist attached with the Department of Geology at the University of Auckland from 1951, and Head of Department from 1972 to 1980. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1975.

So, as you head down Batkin Road, to drive along Brothers Street to get to Valonia Street, spare a thought for the Moros-Brothers family. But especially remember Gordon Pepper, a young immigrant keen to make a home and living for himself and his bride-to-be in a new country after a dreadful war. Someone who may have become part of the history of Crown Lynn with his skills had he lived. Instead only to perish horribly due to someone’s callous decision to do harm. The product of that decision wrapped in a parcel tied with string, left one day on a front lawn in Batkin Road.

Images: Advertisement from Northern Advocate, 22 January 1935; detail from DP 4801, LINZ records.

The Mt Eden Gaol “Cuckoo!!” Mutiny of 1865

Mt Eden Gaol as it was a few years after the incident, in the 1870s. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 4-155 

I don’t know about you, but the word “mutiny” for me usually conjures up scenes of violent overthrow of authority, or at the least something involving weapons and a lot of angry shouting. There’s also the “refusal to take orders” type of mutiny.

I haven’t before now come across one involving calling out the name of a bird to drive someone utterly up the wall.

The year 1865 was when the prison at Mt Eden was under considerable scrutiny. It was on the verge of becoming Auckland’s only prison, with the last prisoners held still at Queen Street gaol moving out later that year in November. But there had been a number of high-profile escapes and near-escapes, along with public concern as to the state of the prison itself, in its then wooden shed-like form. The gaol’s governor, Flynn, was in the crosshairs of some who sat on the Auckland Provincial Council, especially in March of 1865. On 14 March, at the Provincial Council’s meeting, Hugh Carleton was in the midst of reporting back to his fellow councillors on the state of the gaol and the clearance of the lava field around the existing stockade to allow room for the construction of stout stone walls, when an urgent letter was delivered to him. He read it, then rose from his seat, and asked for a colleague to take over from him as, he said, a mutiny of the prisoners had broken out in the stockade, and his presence was required. The meeting then continued on, as Carleton hurried away.

 On that same morning, the NZ Herald had written an opinion piece on the subject of Governor Flynn, and his possible ousting from his job. They wrote: “With all due respect for the natural instinct which teaches the cuckoo to lay its egg in the nest of the sparrow, we beg leave to say that we do not see why this principle should be permitted to develop itself in the Provincial Government affairs of this province, and we trust that Mr Flynn will not be among the first on whom the principle is to be tried."

Two years earlier, the authorities had made two investments for the ongoing profitability of the gaol and its quarries. They had purchased a steam-powered stone breaking plant, hiring an engineer for it, and took on the services of one Charles Dyke as Inspector of Prison Labour and Instructor of Stone-Dressers. Dyke, though, was not liked by the prison inmates. The day before Carleton’s announcement of the mutiny, Dyke had complained to the Engineer-in-Chief about Governor Flynn’s laxness in not stamping out gambling taking place amongst the inmates, a charge which proved to be unfounded.

So, what was the mutiny?

Apparently, according to the NZ Herald, the engineer in charge of the stone breaker was a regular reader of their newspaper, and through him the prisoners learned of the Herald’s quote as to cuckoos and the eroding position Flynn was in regarding his job. So, on the day of the “cuckoo” article, 14 March 1865, when Dyke turned up to work and entered the quarries, he was met with cries of “Cuckoo!! Cuckoo!!” coming from various parts of the landscape, from behind hiding places, from a number of throats. The cry of “Cuckoo!!” resounded from all sides, and drove Dyke to a fury. “This evidently somewhat annoyed Mr. Dyke, who” the New Zealander reported, “at once proceeded to town to lodge a complaint with the Superintendent of the very unruly behaviour of the prisoners. By what stretch of imagination Mr. Dyke managed to convert this rather disagreeable system of chaff into an open mutiny of the prisoners, is best known to himself. We have been assured that the men retired at the usual time in the most orderly manner, and that the cries of “cuckoo” which so terribly aggrieved the foreman, ceased immediately on his disappearance from the scene.”

Six ringleaders were identified, and isolated to stand before the Resident Magistrate, Thomas Beckham, who held an enquiry into the “mutiny.” Beckham couldn’t see that there was a “mutiny” as such, but still warned all of the prisoners in the gaol that such behaviour as calling “Cuckoo!” at a prison employee was against regulations, and could entitle the guilty parties to a flogging. But he added he had found no real evidence, simply sentenced two men to solitary confinement for talking back to Dyke, and left it at that.

Flynn lost his job on 15 March 1865.

Dyke seems to have left Mt Eden Gaol soon after, taking up work as a construction supervisor for the new Auckland Supreme Court Building in 1866. He then leaves the historical record, and the “Cuckoo Mutiny” was forgotten.