Heaven Sent Opportunity

Amid the lachryml frenzy of a heaven-sent media opportunity, we have the chance to cough-up at least NZ$ 70,000 for a memento of the visit to Christchurch by a certain song and dance chappie.

Long before he morphed into an eye-candy clone of Diana Ross, on the 5th of July, 1973, the Jackson 5 performed on the stage of the city's brand new Town Hall (below).

After the concert they headed for the airport, where the brothers signed a publicity photograph (above), which is currently being offered for sale by a Kiwi autograph dealer on eBay, with a reserve of US$ 44,000.

Detail from a watercolour perspective of the Christchurch Town Hall by Sir Miles Warren.

A Unique Photographic Discovery

Streetscapes of Christchurch in 1868 are quite rare; there are only ten that can be positively identified to that specific year, with another four being designated as circa 1868. Accordingly, we were pleasantly surprised when our hawk-eyed scrutiny revealed that a pair of these 141 year-old photographs were taken within minutes of each other and almost certainly by the same photographer.

In that era hand held cameras were still a far off dream and the bulky equipment would have necessitated the use of a tripod as the exposure time for a sun lit landscape would then have been about five seconds. What can be ascertained by the digital interpolation of the photographs with variable transparency, is that although they were taken from the same vantage point, the camera's lens had been changed between the exposures, with the second photograph probably being taken with a portrait lens.

The pair of photographs, which would appear to be unique in the annals of early Christchurch photography, were taken from the intersection of Oxford Terrace and Cashel Streets (near to where the Bridge of Remembrance now stands). In these northerly aspects across Hereford to Worcester Street, the horse and cart to the Left has moved on in the second photograph and the man standing on the pavement to the Right has turned his back to the camera.

As yet unable to positively identify the photographer, our best guess would currently be Alfred Barker, that renowned gossip, city Coroner and pioneer of Christchurch photography. His enthusiasm for amateur photography would not only be in keeping with an experimentation of the same subject, but he was also said to have cut up window panes from his house (which is not quite visible in the photographs) in order to make more glass negatives.

In that era our common coins, from threepences to half-crowns, were made of 92.5% Silver. These could be dissolved in Nitric acid, with the resulting silver nitrate salts then mixed with Gelatine (derived from animal bones), which would then be used to coat one surface of the 165 by 216 millimetre glass plates.

In order to wash the exposed negatives, Dr Barker would leave them in a box in the Avon River overnight. His journal mentions the ongoing problem of their being stolen from the river during the hours of darkness. Perhaps these unattributed photographs were among his losses.

We've come a long way since the observation that silver tarnished in sunlight led to the invention of viable photography. Thanks to the architect Benjamin Mountfort, who taught photography to Alfred Barker, the photographic record of our city's development began within three years of its foundation.

The same view as it appears in 2009

Early Hanmer Springs

From a collection of early photographs of Hanmer Springs by C. A. McEvoy.


The ten much enlargeable images can be viewed at the Early Canterbury Photographers web site.

Photographic Excellence

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The main staircase of the Heritage Hotel in Cathedral Square at the southern corner of Worcester Street East.

Built in 1911 to the design of Joseph Clarkson Maddison (1850-1923) in the Italianate architectural style, the former Government departments building occupies the site of the Christchurch Tramways Company's tram sheds and the pre 1866 premises of George Tombs (1837-1904), a Bookbinder. Known as Whitcombe & Tombs from 1882, the enterprise (subsequent to a merger with the Printers Coull, Somerville and Wilkie) continues to trade as Whitcoulls Ltd.

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Photographs by Chris McKay of Christchurch.

Recent Photographic Acquisitions

Some previosly unpublished, restored and geo-tagged images of old Christchurch that have recently been added to the archive.


An 1883 northery aspect of Colombo Street from near the northwest corner of Cashel Street. The view is across The Bottleneck at the junction with Hereford and High Streets. To the far Left are the premises of the Confectioner Thomas Gee, who would later occupy the northeast corner of Colombo Street at Cathedral Square as the Broadway Tea Rooms.

This is a circa 1877 photograph of the Botanic Gardens on Rolleston Avenue. Taken from near the main gates of the gardens, it is a southerly view towards the 1866 South Lodge, home of the Botanic Garden's first Curator John Francis Armstrong (1840-1902). The lodge was replaced by the extant Curator's House in 1919. Beyond it can be seen the early buildings of the Christchurch Hospital.

A circa 1875 view of the 1858 Ohinetahi homestead at Allandale, Governors Bay on Lyttelton Harbour. Built by Thomas Henry Potts (1824-1888), it is the home of the Architect Sir Miles Warren in 2008.

A circa 1875 southeasterly view of the 1859 water mill, situated where the Hereford Street bridge on the Avon River now stands. The Mill was demolished in 1897.

A pair of photographs depicting St Michael's Church and Vicarage on Oxford Terrace at the junction of Lichfield and Durham Streets. The circa 1885 photographs are attributed to Alfred V. Gadd (1833-1910), whose London Portrait Gallery was active from 1876 to 1893.

A part of the photograph showing the winter scene was published in Gwenda Turner's 1999 book Christchurch - An Enchanted Journey Through the Garden City.

An elevated northeasterly view from the tower of Ward's Brewery on Fitzgerald Avenue. Taken about 1885, it includes Avonside Drive and River Road. To the lower Right foreground is the extant 1852 Englefield Lodge (the city's oldest house). This photograph currently forms the Right hand end of an eight photograph panorama from the brewery tower, which will be published when the missing two photographs have been located.

Known as the Ilam homestead, this huge house began life as a pair of joined kit set houses bought from England in 1858 by John Charles Watts Russell, J. P. (1826-75). Originally situated on a fifty acre rural block between Fendalton Road and the Deans farm, two branches of the Waimairi stream passed through the ten acres of gardens (below).

In 1866 John Russell sold most of his property and returned to England, He came back to Christchurch in 1871, where he died four years later aged 49 years and is buried in St Peter's Churchyard at Upper Riccarton.

Mrs Russell subsequently married A. R. Creyke and the Ilam land was subdivided in 1880. Later owners of the property included Leonard Harper, "Ready Money" Robinson, Patrick Campbell and G. D. Greenwood, but what had been the largest private residence in Canterbury was destroyed by fire in August, 1910. 

Edgar Stead rebuilt the house in 1914 and also developed a renowned Azalea and Rhododendron garden. Stead sold the property to the University of Canterbury and his home is now the University's Staff Club.

Christchurch Portrait Photographers

Built in the front garden of an earlier (and extant) house in the mid 1880s, this is 209 High Street, Christchurch. Now occupied by Kennett the Jeweller, it is situated on the western side of High Street, between Lichfield and Tuam Streets (near to the Manchester Street intersection).

By 1906 the upper floor was the Crown Studio of the photographer George Oswald Viertel. In 1925 it was listed as the photographic studio of Ernest Millard, becoming the studio of Ingham Milnes by 1930. Known as the Elmar Studios in 1944, it had became Elmar and Ambrose Studios by 1971, when Mr J. Ambrose combined his Armagh Street premises with the long established business.

Although many Cantabrians would have old photographs bearing at least one of the aforementioned names, perhaps few would be aware that their historic family portraits originated from the upper floor of this building.

The old house behind 209 High Street

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Addendum

1929

The entrance to the upper floor Crown Studios to the Left. A vertical arrangement of photographic portraits is just visible to the Right of the entrance.

Candid street Photographers were a familiar sight in Cathedral Square from the later 1920s until the early 1960s. This example of a proof ticket come from the collection of Anthony Rackstraw, publisher of the Early Canterbury Photographers web site.

Early Canterbury Photographers

A previously unattributed Christchurch photographic portrait, circa 1905, quite prboably by Mrs Nellie Alexandra Hemus, but possibly by her husband James William Hemus, whose Sarony Art Studios were situated in the Oram's Buildings at the south-east corner of Colombo and Armagh Streets.

There were also Sarony Studios at Auckland, Wellington and Melbourne and they would appear to have been franchises of Napoléon Sarony (1821-1896) who, in the second half of the 19th century, succeeded Matthew Brady as America's best-known portrait photographer.

The work of James and Nellie Hemus and their Sarony Studios, which was still active in 1952,  is recorded in Anthony Rackstraw's comprehensive Early Canterbury Photographers web site. The site also includes a significant collection of Cartes de Visite portraits of our early settlers and is well worth a visit.

New Brighton 1945-1949

An easterly view of Seaview Road, with the intersection at Oram Avenue to the centre Right.

Two views of the building at the head of the first pier. The lower level was an amusement arcade, with tea rooms above. The 213 metre pier was opened on the 18th of January, 1894 by the Governor General.

The Tram shed at the corner of Marine Parade and Hawke Street. The site is now occupied by the New Brighton Working Men's Club. The Tramshed Bistro is a feature of what is now more commonly known as The New Brighton Club.

An electric Trolley Bus turning at the North New Brighton War Memorial and Community Centre on Marine Parade.

A recently completed house in Sinclair Street (which first appears in street directories in 1916).

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To promote the Christchurch City Libraries Retrospective: Christchurch life, architecture and design 1940s - 1970s photo competition, we're featuring a series of images from each decade. This week it's the later 1940s.

Christchurch 1945

To promote the Christchurch City Libraries Retrospective: Christchurch life, architecture and design 1940s - 1970s photo competition we're going to feature a series of photographs from each decade. This week we'll reflect upon the later 1940s.

1945 was a memorable year for Christchurch; the Second World War ended amid crowds processing up Colombo Street to the Square in celebration, the 1912 tower of the Sydenham Post office was demolished, there were floods in many parts of the city, the Majestic Theatre in Manchester Street burnt, the lowest air temperature of minus 7.1 degrees Centigrade was recorded and the Railway line to Picton was completed.

With the start of the 40 hour week, the city shops were closed on Saturdays until 1981, Hubert de Rie Flesher sold Avebury House along with 8 acres of grounds in Richmond to the Christchurch City Council and the Cora Wilding Youth Hostel was thereby established. Charles Upham was awarded his second Victoria Cross and his maternal Uncle, the last survivor of the 1850 first four ships emigrants, died.

But what was probably the most photographed event occured on July the 14th when 45 Centimetres of snow fell on the city. There was extensive damage to Riccarton Bush, power and telephone lines came down and public transport ground to a halt. Here then are some photographs of that memorable event.

A south-westerly view across Cathedral Square to the Regent Theatre.

A south-easterly view from the north-west corner of Durham and Gloucester Streets.

A southerly view of the Trams sheds on Moorhouse Avenue near Falsgrave Street.

A southerly view along Barbadoes Street North towards the Edgeware Road intersection.

The Four Square shop on the corner of Station Road and Flavell Street, Heathcote.

Christchurch Retrospective Photography Competition

TEV Wahine at Lyttelton, 1967

Christchurch City Libraries is running a competition to try and find some key images of Christchurch's heritage of the post-war period with the theme of "Retrospective: Christchurch life, architecture and design 1940s - 1970s."

The Library invites the people of Christchurch to enter a photo competition designed to uncover Christchurch photos of the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s.

The overall winner will receive a digital camera, while the winners of each decade will collect a photography voucher.

Photos can be entered under the following themes:

• Fashion
• Transport
• Buildings and Streets
• Sport and Recreation
• Occupations
• Events
• Everyday Life

The photos will be displayed in the Central Library and on the library website. The winners of each decade and the overall winner will be announced on Tuesday 28 October after Heritage Week has finished, and presented with some great prizes.

All entries will be considered for inclusion in the Christchurch City Libraries online images collection.

Enter at your local library:

Fill in the form to go with your photograph, and hand in at the desk. Photographs will be sent to Central Library for scanning, and returned to your local library for you to collect.

Enter online:

Email library@ccc.govt.nz with your electronic image and attaching the filled in form (word document). Please include 'Heritage Week photograph competition' in the subject line. Submission of an electronic entry form signifies acceptance of the terms and conditions of the competition.

Competition terms and conditions

• Multiple entries are permitted. Each image must be accompanied by a separate entry form.
• Photos will be transferred to the Christchurch City Libraries Flickr Pages for display. Entering the competition gives permission for photos to be added to the flickr service under the licence Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 New Zealand.
• Copies of the photograph entries may be displayed in the library and on the Christchurch City Libraries website.
• Entries that do not have full contact details in entry forms will not be considered.
• All winners will be notified by telephone and/or email.
• By entering all winners consent to their names and images being used for reasonable publicity purposes by Christchurch City Libraries.
• The judges’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
• Christchurch City Libraries will not be responsible for any breaches of copyright or privacy that may occur.
• Christchurch City Libraries’ reserve the right not to display all entries.
  

Christchurch 1961 Panorama

Since early August, 2008 the Christchurch City Libraries has been posting historic images on flickr.com. Among the most recent posts has been a sequence of undated photographs taken from the roof of the 1930, seven storey, St Elmo Courts, Art Deco apartment building in Hereford Street at the Montreal Street corner.

Above is an east-west partial panorama constructed from some of the Libraries' photographs.

To the extreme Left is the corner of Cambridge Terrace and Hereford Street, with the 1908 YMCA building on the site. Next to it (along Cambridge Terrace) can be seen the rear of the YMCA's Gordon Hall of 1885. To the Right of the Gordon Hall is a pale green two storey wooden building. Demolished in 1998, this was the 1940 headquarters of the NZ Army's Southern Military District. Clearly visible is the fire damaged roof of this building, which burnt in February, 1961.

Demolished in 1968, the 1908 YMCA building was replaced by the current Police Station in 1973. Along the range from Cambridge Terrace to Montreal Streets are the buildings of the 1863 Police Barracks and the 1873 & 1906 Police Stations. These were progressively demolished between 1973 and 1984 for a car park. At the corner of Montreal Street is the 1909 residence of the Chief Inspector of Police.

Between Montreal Street and Rolleston Avenue is a range of houses dating from circa 1880-1900. The most conspicuous of these is the vastly expanded Hereford Private Hotel ($10 a night and $1.50 for breakfast in 1984).

To the Right are the buildings of Canterbury University (now the Arts Centre). In the foreground can be seen the former 1883 Llanmaes House, subsequently the Student Union building from 1929, it is now the Dux de Lux Restaurant & Bar.

A Different View...

Detail from an elevated southerly view of the Christchurch CBD from the roof of the long derelict Christchurch Women's Hospital on Colombo Street.

From a Slackninja photographic essay, the accompanying text is not without interest either:

"...the place is a lot bigger than it looks, although you can move through it exceptionally fast, after wandering through wards and consulting rooms (which makes up the bulk of the complex) we found our way into the admin block and stared in amazement at the largest number of spent 9mm marker rounds I have ever seen in my life and more spoons and pins from practice grenades than you can shake a stick at, we then went rapidly through more wards and misc staircases and made our way to the roof, which was awesome, in the fact that it spans the three largest buildings..."

Christchurch 1965

These are the earliest known colour aerial photographs of Christchurch.

Aerial photography of Christchurch, which dates from 1918, is an important tool in accurately dating the city's development.

Christchurch 1872 & 2008

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A panoramic view of Colombo Street North from the Gloucester Street intersection, towards Victoria Square.

With one exception all of the buildings in this photograph have been replaced twice. The lone survivor is the two storey building, with the two large chimneys, on the Right hand side of the street.

The same view in 2008

See where these photographs were taken.

Index: 1903 Canterbury Cyclopedia

Described as "that great repository of fiction," and published in six volumes between 1897 and 1908, the Cyclopedia of New Zealand was a vanity publication of biographical information and photographs of local identities, supplied by the individuals who cared to part with £5 in order to be included.

It is, however, an interesting social document, which reflects the values of the first and second generations who set the tone for our cultural development.

The 1903 Canterbury edition was published by the Cyclopedia Company at Horace Weeks's extant 1898 five story Printery on Manchester Street. Using the new half-tone process for the reproduction of photographic images, it captured the flavour of a Canterbury, which had recently survived yet another depression and was looking forward to the new century with optimism.

This 4,465 entry index of the 1,146 page volume has been extended from the 48,732 entry Canterbury Heritage Biographical Index of early settlers.

Index: 1903 Canterbury Cyclopedia

Available in library reference rooms, the Cyclopedia can also be purchased from second hand book shops or online via the TradeMe web site for about $150 to $350 per volume. They are also available on CD in PDF format for $25 each from Dunedin's Colonial Books.

1860 Christchurch 360° Panorama

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A previously unassembled panorama compiled from nineteen restored photographs taken between late 1859 and early 1861.

Taken from the tower of the Canterbury Provincial Council buildings in Armagh Street, near the Avon River, most are attributed to Alfred Barker (1819-1873), the balance probably being the work of Benjamin Mountfort (1825-1898), Barker's photographic tutor.

The Avon River winds through the panorama. In front of where the Town Hall is now situated can be seen the original lagoon where small steamers turned before mooring at a wharf behind where the Oxford Hotel now stands (the hotel site is still occupied by the original Māori hostel in this photograph). Occupying a wind swept, swampy floodplain, the city would be inundated eight years later, when the Avon rose to metre above Victoria Square and destroyed the Worcester Street bridge.

To the right can be seen the 1857 windmill of William Wood (1824-1904) at the corner of Antigua and St Asaph Streets. A distinctive landmark for distant travelers slogging their way through the swamp and tussock that surrounded the town, it was visible as far as 80 Km away.

Other than the Canterbury Provincial Council building only two other visible structures have survived. They are the circa 1859 John Shand (1805-1874) house in Hereford Street (now known as Shand's Emporium) and the 1857 Cookham House in Colombo Street. Now known as Sergeant Pepper's Steak House, it was originally the premises of the merchant George Gould (1823-1889), who lived upstairs, with his family.

See from where this panorama was taken.

1879 Christchurch Panorama

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Canterbury Heritage is a recognised authority on the identification of historic images of the province. As such it regularly assists a wide range of museums, libraries and galleries throughout the Australasian region.

This service is also available, without expense, to private individuals. Please contact the Editor if you have photographs, etc. requiring identification.

From the archives of the National Library of Australia came four unrelated photographs, which when assembled form a previously unknown 1879 Christchurch panorama.

An elevated South to Northwest panorama of the former Christchurch Common, subsequently Market Place from 1853 and then Victoria Square since 1904.

Viewed from the watch tower of the second Fire Station of 1876 (now The Plunket Society building), with the slate tiled roof of the previous Oxford Hotel to the immediate foreground (on the site of the original Maori Hostel).

Included in this image are views of Armagh, Chester, Gloucester & Colombo streets, Whatley Road (subsequently Victoria Street) and Oxford & Cambridge terraces.

The former Palace Hotel and the adjacent second Theatre Royal (both extant) in Gloucester Street can be seen in the far Left middle ground, behind Dr William Deamer's brick, two-storey Surgery and contiguous dwelling in Armagh Street (built 1865) .

To the Right of the Surgery and next door but one can be seen the veranda of the first house in Christchurch to be erected by a Settler. This was the prefabricated home of George Gould constructed in February, 1851.

See from where this panorama was taken.

Centenarian Christchurch Photographer

The photographs of Gladys Goodall form an important visual record of the province for the three decades from 1950. Above is a southerly view of the Bridge of Remembrance, one of her early images of Christchurch.

Approximately 10,940 colour transparencies and 950 postcards by Goodall are held within the photographic archive of the Alexander Turnbull Library at Wellington.

Gladys Mary Goodall was born on the 2nd of June, 1908, the second eldest of eight children and grew up on a remote north Otago farm. After training to become a nurse, she worked at Timaru and Christchurch until 1952.

Goodall took her small Agfa camera with her on alpine tramping expeditions, capturing the scenery on film. When her tour bus driver husband Stan showed some of the photographs to his tourists, he found they were enormously popular. So, at age 44, Gladys left her nursing career and set up shop as an independent scenic postcard photographer, operating out of an upstairs studio of an 1860s house at 73a Kilmore Street (at the corner of Victoria Street) in Christchurch. The small business boomed through the 1950s, and her reputation as a scenic photographer flourished.

In 1960 Gladys negotiated an exclusive contract with Whitcombe and Tombs to provide colour photography for their postcards, colour transparencies and calendars, "I wouldn't go into it until I had a written agreement that I would be their only photographer. Otherwise I would have gone bankrupt in three months. This was in the days when women didn't say no to General Managers. Eventually he agreed and got the shock of his life when he found that he had to keep to the contract."

In her new role she created a fascinating record of this country in the postwar period, populated by mid-length polyester walk shorts, grandiose municipal flowerbeds and unreconstructed Kiwiana Kitsch. Her photographic aesthetic, with its plain formality and geometry that seemed to reflect her formidable Puritan work ethic, was ideal for the subject matter.

While the publisher's contract gave her the chance to create a new career for herself in an age colour photography, it was far from being an easy ride. All her expenses; travel, accommodation, paying pilots for aerial shots and so on, had to come out of the royalty payments she received from card sales. She traveled the country alone on primitive roads in her trusty yellow Mark III Ford, which clocked up more than 160,000 kilometres until it was written off in an accident, which left her in Thames hospital for a month.

She'd be away from home for up to four months at a time, effectively having to re-photograph the entire country every few years, to keep the postcards up to date, "That's why mine were selling so well, because they were new and all the new things were in them. But you had to re-photograph places when they changed. Wellington was changing every month, we'd get one postcard printed and it'd be out of date in no time."

Goodall's photographs were sold not just as postcards, but also in the popular Panorama series of booklets. Perhaps the secret of her popularity was tactic of tapping into local knowledge of local sights: "I always went to the people in the shops which sold postcards and asked what tourists asked for in the area. I did my research and never took a photo until I'd spoken to the people who were going to sell them. There's no point in taking the most beautiful photograph in the world if it won't sell."

Her photography helped define affluent postwar New Zealand's image of itself as a scenic wonderland. Not all of her cards were spectacular tourist shots, however. Her photographs of the main roads of small towns such as Waimate and Geraldine inevitably recall British photographer Martin Parr's Boring Postcards books. Nevertheless, in the very mundaneness of these images of provincial towns, there is a degree of realism which makes them all the more authentic and appealing.

Gladys Goodall (photographed by Maree Henry, 2001)

Gladys Goodall Q.S.M., J.P. retired in 1980, continuing to drive her car and remaining active with the Age Concern Canterbury organisation until the age of 91. The centenarian now lives at Avonhead, a quiet dormitory suburb of Christchurch. "There comes an end to things. I felt that I had given everything I had, I'd photographed everything I could think of."

Commemorative Postcard

The Canterbury Heritage Photographic Archive

1864 Christchurch Coat of Arms

Published quarterly, the photographic index currently includes descriptions of 6,859 Geo-tagged streetscapes of the provincial capital and its environs.

Approximately 1,470 historically significant photographs are restored and added to the archive each year. The next update will be 31 March 2008.

Canterbury Heritage Photographic Archive Index