Canterbury's First Fire Station

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Photographed in August, 1862, this is a view of the three buildings occupying Lyttelton Town Section 33 to the eastern side of the access to the Canterbury Association's 1850 jetty. In 2009 it is the south-eastern corner of Norwich Quay, where the over-pass to the wharves begins just below the intersection with Oxford Street.


A similar view 147 years later
To the Right in the top photograph, at the south-eastern corner of the intersection is the Lyttelton Fire Station. Built in 1858, it preceeded the formal establishment of the Lyttelton Fire Brigade by four years.

Above the engine shed's front doors is the sign of the Liverpool, London and Globe Fire Insurance Company. That company shipped the engine, and the bell in the belfry above, from England to their Lyttelton agents.

Under the supervision of Thomas James Curtis, the Fire Brigade's Superintendent from 1862, the engine's steam powered pump could lift water, via a hose from the beach, three blocks north to Exeter Street.


From the rear in 1865
Next door, to the centre of the top photograph, is the 1852 premises of Bowler and Company. William Bowler (1803-1863), who lived in Sumer Road (just visible at the top Left of the top photograph), was a General Merchant and Shipping Agent. Bowler sent the first direct shipment of wool from Canterbury to London in 1856 and was subsequently owner of the paddle tug Lyttelton, which began service in the port from January, 1861.


Sketch detail: 1869 Royal Visit
Although the company's sign continues to indicate Bowler and Co., Isaac Thomas Cookson (1817-1881), agent for the Liverpool and London Fire Insurance Company had already entered into partnershp with Bowler, with the company's name becoming known as Cookson, Bowler and Company

The Fire Station and adjacent premises of Bowler and Company were demolished by 1880 to make way for the Lyttelton Harbour Board's extant former offices, currently occupied by The Harbourmaster's Café.

To the Right in the top photograph is the store of James Drummond Macpherson (1829-1894), built in 1859 on piers above the original beach. A Customs Agent, Lloyd's Agent, Ship owner, General Merchant, Coalmonger and Farmer, Macpherson was the first representative of Mathieson's Agency, a London company which shipped merchandise to the colony on consignment.

circa 1863
From 1864, using spoil from the railway tunnel construction, reclamation of the foreshore began. Five years later, with nearby soil quarried by prison labour, the beach in front of Scotsman's store disappeared beneath the site of the Port's first Railway Station.

circa 1908
The 1859 store became the Railway's offices and parcel shed, a role that it would continue to fulfil until 1963.


Overpass construction 1962
Knowing the price of everything, but nothing of heritage value, between 1965 and 1970 the Lyttelton Harbour Board set about the needless destruction of most of the historic buildings along the town's waterfront. James Macpherson's 1859 store was among the first to go. Its site remained vacant for 40 years, eventually succumbing to a nondescript concrete box in the neo-brutalist tradition.

The only surviving relic of Macpherson's ownership is the 1855 steam tug Mullogh, whose rusting bones now rest on Lyttelton Harbour's Quail Island.

Early Medieval Christchurch

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The long corridor of the Canterbury Provincial Government building was built between 1858 and 1861 in the early Medieval Gothic revival style.

In this timeless, but recent photograph, the view is reminiscent of what would have been familiar more than seven centuries ago.

Christchurch Gothic

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The internal courtyard of the seat of the Canterbury Provincial Government (1853-1876). 

Built in the Medieval Gothic revival style, New Zealand's only surviving Provincial Government buildings were constructed between 1858 and 1865. 

Only the ageing trees would appear to indicate change in the ensuing 144 years.

1858 Canterbury Provincial Government Building

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The first part of the Canterbury Provincial Government building, on the eastern side of Durham Street between Armagh and Gloucester Streets, was built by 30 year-old Frederick Jenkins, a builder of Ferry Road.  The foundation stone was laid on the 6th of January, 1858 and the  total cost was £5,757, inclusive of Benjamin Mountfort's architect's fees and Aaron Whincop's interior decoration expenses.



In May of the following year a second contract was let for the addition of a tower to the street frontage, an extension to the southern wing with a pair of dormer windows in the roof of the new section and a council chamber to the east. 

Below: 1859 photograph of the rear of the building by Dr. Alfred Charles Barker (1819-1873) taken from the balcony of his house at the corner of Worcester Street and Oxford Terrace.


Later in 1859, using the traditional cruck frame method of construction, Jenkins added the first Provincial Council chamber to the back of the building (below).

Credits: 1859 photographs; Dr. A. C. Barker Collection, Canterbury Museum.

Wakefield Journal to stay in NZ

The long-lost journal written by early colonist Edward Jerningham Wakefield (1820–79) will not now be sold overseas.

Covering the period from 1850 to 1858, the journal was missing for about a century before coming up for auction in Dunedin last year. An Alexander Turnbull Library spokesman said the manuscript could not be exported without the permission of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, given restrictions under the Protected Objects Act.

Wakefield suffered, as his father put it, from “colonial habits”, the worst of them being intemperance as a result of which, what might have been a brilliant career terminated in disappointment (dogged by alcoholism he died penniless at Ashburton). But even if he failed to fulfill the precocious promise of his youth, Jerningham established a claim on the esteem of posterity, by his journeys and explorations and, above all, by the liveliness and colour of his 1845 book, Adventure in New Zealand, from 1839 to 1844; with Some Account of the Beginning of the British Colonization of the Islands.

Further reading: Otago Daily Times, 25 Jun 2008

Forgotten Avonside

Thomas Turnbull Robson (1858-1940) was born aboard the Indiana nineteen days before the emigrant ship arrived at Lyttelton. His home survives on Avonside Drive opposite Shirley (top). Barely surviving is his derelict Wool Scouring works in Gailbraith Avenue (bottom).

Between the house and factory was a large paddock where his son Frank (Francis Henry) bred Reta Peter, winner of the New Zealand Cup in 1920 and 1921. Today the paddock is known as Sullivan Park.

After Thomas Robson's death the Government bought his estate, renaming the area, which had previously been known as Riversleigh, as the Robson Housing Block. His name is commemorated by Robson Avenue.

See a satellite image of where these photographs were taken.