100 Years Ago Today 23 July 1909: Lyttelton Larrikins, Linwood Library & Colonist's Collections

Idlers at the Post Office corner in Norwich Quay, Lyttelton, have in many years polished an area on a big telegraph post, and a band along the post office wall, by the constant rubbing of tired shoulders, and countless men have spat upon the footpath thereabouts.

Yesterday several men who were causing an obstruction at the corner were "moved on" by a constable, but as soon as he had passed four of them resumed their posts on the path. Three of them found the consequences this morning in the Lyttelton Police Court.

Sergeant Ryan stated that many complaints were made of the way in which idlers blocked the footpath at that corner, and also at the one opposite, and that great annoyance was caused to people, especially ladies, using the path for its legitimate purpose. In this case he did not press for a penalty, being desirous only of impressing those in the habit of lounging in the vicinity with the fact that the by-law should be observed.

Mr George Christopher Smith, J.P., was on the Bench, and the three men, Carl Davidson, Peter Peterson and Otto Neilson, having pleaded guilty, he fined each of them five shillings and costs.

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Linwood Library Opened by the Mayor

Opening Day

The Linwood Public Library, which. has been established through the efforts of the Linwood Citizens' Association, occupies the neat wooden building that was in former years the Linwood Borough Council Chambers, on the corner of Worcester Street and Stanmore Road. The building is vested in the City Council, which has granted its use to the Library Committee, and has also made a grant towards the purchase of books. The amount thus granted has been judiciously expended, and there was a very fair assortment of books upon the shelves of the institution when it was formally opened yesterday.

Mr William Wilcox Tanner, president of the Linwood Citizens' Association, welcomed the Mayor of Christchurch, Mr Charles Allison, and thanked the Council for its assistance in establishing the library. He assured the Mayor that the institution would, grow, and that it would prove in the future of very great value to the residents of the eastern portion of Christchurch. The Mayor said that he heartily sympathised with any movement for the foundation of a library, and he must congratulate the Linwood people upon having at last obtained one. The success of the library would, to a great extent, depend upon the wisdom exercised in the selection of the books placed upon the shelves. Care must be taken that none of that numerous class of modern novels which were pernicious in their tendency were allowed a place upon the shelves.

Linwood was not making the use of its recreation ground which it could and should do, and he hoped that in regard to the library, the residents would see that it was to their best interests to make use of the opportunities which were now placed in their way. He declared the library open, and wished it a successful and useful career. (Applause).

Mr George Watts Russell, M.P., congratulated the people of Linwood upon the progressive step they had taken, and said that though the library was at present but a small one, he believed it was based on good, solid, progressive lines. In two years, he believed, it would have greatly increased its size, and justified its existence.

The City Council had voluntarily handed over the building for the library, from which it had been receiving revenue, and it had given a subsidy. That subsidy, he believed, would be made an annual one, in the same way as the subsidy given by the Council to the Sydenham Library. In regard to the Christchurch Library he was sorry to say that they could get no subsidy from the Council. The Mayor was as hard as a rock on that subject. He desired to thank Councillors Thomas N. Horsley and Henry John Otley, representing the Linwood Ward on the City Council, for their services in advancing the cause of the library, and also Mr W. W. Tanner, who had devoted a great deal of time to preparing documents and doing other secretarial work which, required the experience of a man of public affairs. The district was under a debt of gratitude to Mr Tanner in this matter. In conclusion. Mr Russell said he would be pleased to give the newly-opened library any assistance, in his capacity as chairman of the Board of Governors of Canterbury College, or as a member of Parliament. (Applause).

There was a very large attendance of residents at the opening ceremony, at the conclusion of which afternoon tea was dispensed by the ladies of the district.

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Early Canterbury: The Museum Collection

A joint meeting of the Board of Governors of Canterbury College and the committee recently set up by a meeting of old colonists was held at Canterbury College yesterday afternoon in connection with the decision of the Board of Governors to establish a section at the Canterbury Museum for the collection of mementoes (sic) and records of the colonisation of Canterbury. Mr William Guise Brittan was voted to the chair pending the arrival of Mr G. W. Russell. M.P., chairman of the Board.

Mr Robert Speight, assistant curator at the museum, who was requested to report on the space available, said that it was intended to reserve a part of the statuary room for the collection, which would include documents, maps, portraits and pictures of the early days. Mr Brittan said he understood that considerable space would be required. Mr John C. Andersen said that even the official records would require a larger room than the Board room, and there would also be files of newspapers, maps and so on.

Mr Henry George Ell, M.P., said that the first thing was to collect, and the question of space would be one for the Board. It was sufficient at present that there should be a safe resting-place for documents as they were collected. Mr John D. Hall said that it would be important to frame conditions, to be attached to all documents, books or pictures handed over, to ensure their safety and preservation.

A. sub-committee consisting of Messrs G. W. Russell, M.P., H. G. Ell, M.P., J. D. Hall, A. C. Rolleston, Rockwood Charles Bishop and W. G. Brittan was appointed to draft conditions and to prepare a general appeal to the public for records of the history of Canterbury, and particularly early Canterbury. Mr G. W. Russell suggested that Mr Speight should .be secretary to the joint committees, and should take charge of the work on behalf of the board of Governors. The suggestion was agreed to.

Mr G. W. Thomas (Akaroa) wrote expressing his willingness to collect records of Akaroa and Banks Peninsula. It was resolved to write to the following gentlemen asking them to form local branches affiliated to the Central Committee :- Akaroa, Mr G. W. Thomas ; Kaiapoi; Mr Joseph Lowthian Wilson ; Geraldine, Mr Thomas Buxton, M.P. ; Timaru, Mr James Craigie, M.P.

In reply to Mr Ell, Mr Russell said that the collection of Maori history should be a separate project. It was not so important as the European history.


Editor's note

Articles from The Star newspaper of the 23rd of July, 1909.

Where known, individual's initials have been expanded in the first instance to their full names to assist researchers, etc.

Maurice Conly, Artist

LARGE IMAGE OPENS IN A NEW TAB OR WINDOW

At the end of a 3,488 kilometre flight from Christchurch, NZ7005, a 1969 Lockheed C-130H Hercules aircraft of the Royal New Zealand Air Force's No.40 Squadron unloads passengers and supplies at the Williams Field on the Ross Ice Shelf in McMurdo Sound in early 1974.

Seen above in original livery, but subsequently painted out in shades of camouflauge green and now in a monochrome gun-metal grey, the 40 year old aircraft is still in service with the RNZAF.


No work of a local artist would be more familiar to New Zealanders than that of the relatively unknown Maurice Conly.

For 54 years Wing Commander Robert Maurice Conly (1920-1995) was the last Royal New Zealand Air Force Official Artist. But beyond his stamp designs for New Zealand, Tokelau, the Ross Dependency, Niue and the Cook Islands, Conly's New Zealand twenty cent and one dollar coin designs are familiar to all Kiwis.

Dunedin born and trained, Conly was based at Christchurch when he returned to Antarctica in 1974 as an Antarctic Arts Fellow under the Artists to Antarctica Programme.


Commissioned to paint three large dioramas of wildlife studies for the Antarctic wing of the Canterbury Museum in 1977, he published Ice on my Palette in the same year. The coffee table sized book includes 27 sketches and 26 colour plates, with text by the Dunedin author Neville Peat, then an information officer with the Antarctic Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.

One of the joys of the last town before Antarctica is the weekend Flea markets, not the trendy version on the city's outskirt at Riccarton, but the smaller, lesser known markets dotted around the inner suburbs. Signed by the authors, a copy of Ice on my Palette (from which the top illustration comes) was recently found in the Linwood Market at approximately a fifty-sixth of its international market value.

Christchurch Street Number Allocations

Subsequent to a reader enquiry concerning the location of an early house we're motivated to pontificate on a matter that's long been a source of confusion to local researchers.

Until about 1881 street numbers were not allocated to Christchurch buildings. Addresses listed in the electoral rolls for that year still used the 1849 allocation of Town Section numbers.

With the increasing subdivision of the original quarter acre sections, the old system ceased to be a practical option. A numbering system for East-West streets within the four avenues was then introduced with the lowest numbers beginning from their intersections with Town Belt East (now Fitzgerald Avenue).

However, by the turn of the century those streets had begun to extend eastwards into the suburb of Linwood and a new system of numbering was required. This was brought about by reversing the numbers so that the lowest began in the West at Rolleston Avenue, and in the case of Gloucester Street in particular, ran through to number 784 where that street terminated in what is now the suburb of Avonside.

Cashel Street appears to have been the first thoroughfare to have been renumbered in 1904, with for example, what had begun with the address of Town Section 855 becoming number 226 in the early 1880s and then 87 Cashel Street from 1904. Remarkably the original circa 1856 building on this site (below) survives, without recognition, in what is now part of the City Mall.

To add to a researcher's confusion not all numbers were re-allocated. Thus in the case of Worcester Street (which appears to have been the last to be renumbered in 1910), what had been 5 Worcester Street, which was the third house on the South side near to Fitzgerald Avenue, becoming number 278. But 5 Worcester Street was then allocated to the house on the Northern corner of Worcester Street and Rolleston Avenue, with the numbers 1 and 3 being inexplicably omitted.

We've yet to ascertain dates or patterns for the re-numbering of the North-South streets, but a database is underway to match Town Section, old and new numbers, however the idiosyncracies of the newer numbering system aren't making it an easy endeavour.

1878

1946

2009
Photo credits

Detail from an 1878 photograph in the collection of the Christchurch Photographic Society.

Detail from a 1946 photograph in the collection of the Canterbury Museum.

Victorian Linwood

LARGE IMAGE OPENS IN A NEW WINDOW

A classic example of a late Victorian corner store at the intersection of Cashel and Saxon Streets.

This part of Linwood first underwent suburban development in the early 1870s, with a significant proportion of smaller houses of an earlier era moved from the inner city on Bullock Drays.

The shop probably owes it location to a stop along the 1887 tram line to New Brighton, which quickly attracted between three and four thousand passengers a week in a time when the population of Christchurch had barely reached 35,000 (on Boxing Day 1888 more than 5,000 people took the tram to the popular beach resort).

The introduction of American style self-help shopping in the later 1950s, soon followed by Supermarkets, marked the death knell of the Victorian corner shop. Many have disappeared in the last half century, but the owners of this fine example are to be congratulated on its preservation.

Photograph by Benedikt Saxler

Tombstone Territory

The tombs of many of the city's earliest settlers enjoy an elevated Westerly view of the central business district from the 1880 Linwood Cemetery.

Christchurch is somewhat flatter than the city known to its original inhabitants, only the old cemeteries retain the original contours.

Most of the graves evidence neglect and damage, but only the Jewish section of the cemetery shows the care and honour bestowed upon its founders by a subculture that continues to value its heritage.

See from where this photograph was taken.