Tag Archives: 1900s

Daniel Heenan’s mausoleum

Built: 1900-1901
Address: West Taieri Cemetery, 1130 Lee Stream-Outram Road
Architects: Mason & Wales
Builders: J.W. Joseph contractor, William Dick stonemason

On the outskirts of Outram is the picturesque West Taieri Cemetery. It sits beside the highway to Middlemarch, as the road begins its ascent of the foothills. Maukaatua presides over the landscape from the southwest. Not far beyond the gates is a striking Gothic mausoleum – an unexpectedly big memorial to come across in a rural Otago burial ground. On closer inspection a plaque is found above the doorway. It tells us this pointy pentagonal pile is the resting place of Daniel Heenan, who died on 9 December 1898, aged 59. I would say final resting place, but… more of that later.

The only grander Dunedin memorials I can think of are the one built for the Larnach family in the Southern Cemetery, and the now mostly demolished one for Bishop Moran in the Southern Cemetery. These were different in conception, being mortuary or memorial chapels with the coffins in vaults beneath them. Daniel Heenan’s remains are above the ground.

Ngaire Ockwell transcribed many of the West Taieri Cemetery headstones in 1979. Daniel’s story had become part of local legend, and Ngaire recorded what she was told:

Daniel was a farmer, and prized the possession of land. He had arranged that on his death, he was not to be buried, but to be laid to rest above ground. This was accomplished by the building of the […] mausoleum, which contains inside it, clearly visible because of the open wrought-iron work of the door, two concrete shelves. On one of these shelves, in a very plain, shallow, wooden coffin, are the human remains of Daniel. I can’t help wondering how long very dry wood can stay in the form of a coffin, while borer busily devour it? The remaining shelf was to accommodate Daniel’s friend. Together, when Christ came to the earth for the second time, Daniel and Friend, as believers in God, would rise up as promised. Logically, as they were not beneath the ground to start with, they would be the first to ‘arise’ and in that instant, they would claim all of the good Taieri land they desired, before the ‘others’ appeared.

Daniel departed this life first, and duly took up his place on a shelf, but his friend’s wife would have none of this nonsense and saw to it that on becoming a widow, her husband was decently buried in the accepted manner. So the second shelf remains vacant and presumably Daniel is free to claim all the Taieri land he desires, without the need to share!

How much of this intriguing tale is true? Ngaire was careful to include a cautionary note stating she had not verified what she was told. Since then, short versions of Daniel’s story have been published from time to time, usually along the lines of the above. What follows is my effort to piece together more than has been told before, and separate some fact from fiction.

Daniel was born in the market town of Birr (then known as Parsonstown) in County Offaly, Ireland, in 1835. He was the fifth of thirteen children of farmers Dennis and Johanna Heenan. Birr had large Catholic and Church of Ireland (Anglican) churches, as well as independent and Wesleyan chapels, and a Quaker meeting house. The Heenans were Catholic until what was known as the Crotty Schism split the local church.

The former Crotty chapel in BIrr. Image courtesy of the BIrr Heritage Centre.

Michael Crotty, the parish’s disaffected curate, began preaching independently in 1826. He found popular support, particularly among the poorer members of the community. For a while his masses attracted higher attendance than the original church. Michael’s cousin William became co-leader, and together the Crottys increasingly adopted a reformed doctrine. From 1836 this included an English mass. The cousins had a volatile off-and-on collaboration and eventually split over divergent allegiances to the Anglican and Presbyterian churches. William took sole charge and adopted the Presbyterian form of worship, with the congregation joining the Presbyterian Synod of Ulster in 1839. Internal division, external hostility, famine, and emigration, all contributed to a sharp decline in membership and the Crotty movement petered out in the 1840s.

The Heenans maintained their Presbyterian affiliation and were still at Birr about 1848. In 1850, Daniel’s parents and ten of his siblings emigrated from Portsmouth, England, on the ship Mariner, arriving in Otago in September. Daniel’s older brother had come out the year before, and another sister would be born in Dunedin.

Settling in North East Valley, the family established a small farm off what is now Norwood Street, Normanby. They cleared bush and built a fern hut thatched with mānuka bark. For food they caught wild pigs, kererū, and weka. Their first crops included potatoes, grown within log fences to protect them from the pigs. While establishing themselves they were helped by mana whenua Māori, who supplied mangā (barracouta) and kūmara.

The Heenans gradually cultivated more land and Dennis took up cattle breeding. The family home was the first dwelling seen when entering the valley from the north, and Susannah offered warm hospitality to passing tramps and other travellers. She was known to sometimes break into spontaneous, exclamatory prayer. Dennis was described as ‘a stalwart man, to whom persevering work was a delight’. In the mid-1850s he took up an additional and larger tract of land in West Taieri, and some of sons would end up managing the family properties. Active Presbyterians, Dennis and Susannah were members of Dunedin’s Knox Church from its establishment in 1860.

In the mid-1850s Daniel followed his two older brothers to the Australian goldfields, working his passage on a small schooner and arriving with only sixpence in his pocket. Over about ten months in Bendigo the brothers made £600 between them. Daniel operated a team of horses in Victoria for three years before returning to Dunedin in the Otago Gold Rush. In 1862 he was briefly in partnership with his eldest brother, Dennis, building and operating the British Hotel in Dunedin. Daniel then ran a successful business carting goods to the Tuapeka and Dunstan diggings, obtaining as much as £100 per ton of freight, but it was difficult work and he lost one of his best horses when ‘snowed up’ on the Lammerlaw Range.

Daniel next turned to farming, taking up freehold and leasehold land in the Maungatua District. The 1882 return of freeholders records him with 331 acres here, while three of his brothers had larger landholdings in the same district. Daniel’s oat threshing machine was put to much use, and in 1892 did all of the threshing for the Hindon District.

Daniel never married. He served on local committees, including the road board. He was associated with the West Taieri Presbyterian Church in the 1870s, and was an enthusiastic proponent of building a new church at Maungatua in 1879. He eventually became disaffected with Presbyterianism. It is tempting to connect this with an 1892 report, which would at least refer to someone Daniel knew:

A rather unusual circumstance occurred at the Maungatua Presbyterian Church. According to a correspondent of the Taieri Advocate one of the congregation interrupted the Rev. Mr Kirkland’s sermon on Justification, Sanctification, and Faith, by standing up with Bible in hand and saying, ‘I can’t listen to ye anither meenit. Ye are just makin’ a perfec’ hash o’ God’s truths. Frae this book (holding up the Bible) I get comfort and counsel ; but from you I can get neither one nor the other’; and after thus delivering himself he walked out of the church. The minister paid no attention to the matter beyond saying, ‘Poor Mr – I am afraid he has misunderstood me.’

What is known is that Daniel left Presbyterian Church and joined the Christadelphians. He was almost certainly among the those who heard the Christadelphian leader Robert Roberts, during his lecture tour in 1896. Roberts preached at Dunedin’s Choral Hall, as well as at Green Island and Mosgiel.

Christadelphians claim to represent the true faith as revived by John Thomas of Brooklyn, New York. Thomas was an English-born restorationist whose movement gained momentum after his 1848-50 tour of the United Kingdom. Christadelphians believe Jesus Christ was a man, not God, and reject the Trinity doctrine as unbiblical. They do not believe in the immortality of the soul and hold that nobody goes to heaven upon death. They say that with the second coming of Christ there will be a resurrection and God’s kingdom will be established on Earth. Christadelphians do not have ordained ministry and local churches are autonomous. Since the start of their movement they have conscientiously objected to war.

The 1896 census records 952 Christadelphians in New Zealand, with 381 in Otago and 32 in the Taieri District. One of the more active groups was at Green Island. In 1898, Gilbert McDiarmid gave a lecture at Hindon on the principles of the Christadelphian movement. McDiarmid was a labourer from a well-known West Taieri farming family, and a newspaper report described him as a fluent and well-informed man who impressed with his earnestness and belief. It was Daniel who introduced the lecture. The Otago Witness reported:

Mr Heenan is evidently an enthusiastic believer in the Christadelphian religion. His rich Irish accent when speaking of the ‘sky hevvins’ was amusing in spite of the solemness of the subject, and many could hardly restrain a smile. Mr McDermid was listened to attentively by his audience, and I venture to assert that if he comes again he will have a larger congregation.

A correspondent to the paper protested that ‘sky hevvins’ was a mishearing, but whatever was said, Daniel’s earnestness cannot be doubted. About this time he became sick, and after an illness of six months he died at a private hospital in High Street, Dunedin, on 9 December 1898, His death registration records his cause of death as heart failure.

Daniel left a convoluted will and a large estate valued at £4,147. To give that figure some context, most school teachers of the time were paid less than £200 per year. The executors were Gilbert McDiarmid and Outram man William Charles Snow. The will was signed in October 1896, and a codicil just three days before Daniel died.

Heenan made monetary bequests to fourteen people, some of them children, totalling £625. McDiarmid received the books and household furniture, and a ‘rich-toned piano’ was sold. £50 was left to Robert Roberts, for the benefit of orphaned Christadelphian children, and £100 was set aside for the erection of a Christadelphian Hall on freehold land. For such a modest sum a small wooden building would have been the most that was affordable. The probate file records that the expenditure was made and a title secured, but I have not found any trace of the building.

Land was left to Daniel’s brother John, to his nephews James Heenan and James Baxter, and to Herbert Scott. Some sections were bequeathed on the condition of a payment to a Christadelphian fund in Birmingham for the relief of destitute Jews, and another on a rental basis, the income to be used to fund annual prizes for local children with Christadelphian parents. The property left to minors went into trust, and if they died before the age of 30 it was to be spent on Christadelphian literature, or to go towards the hall. In return for some land, Baxter was required to pay an annuity towards the relief of destitute Christadelphians ‘of good repute’.

Daniel specified his mausoleum was to be built ‘in some convenient cemetery’. He left £25 for the purchase of plots and £500 for erecting the building. This was more than the average cost of a three-bedroom home. He instructed:

The dimensions shall be 14 feet by 12 feet by 18 feet in height. The walls shall be two feet in thickness of good Portland cement built upon a good rock foundation and with cement benches in the vault to accommodate any of my friends or relations as well as myself. And I direct my Executor to have the following words engraved on a plate fixed on the vault “Go home, my friends, and shed no tears, I must rest here till Christ appears, And when he comes I know that I shall rise, And get from Him the everlasting prize.” “This is my earnest hope”. I direct that my body shall be enclosed in a leaden coffin.

An extract from Daniel Heenan’s will (1896).

The plaque on the mausoleum, manufactured by Moller & Sons.

Daniel’s body was temporarily interred on 12 December 1898. Nearly a year passed before, in November 1899, Gilbert McDiarmid approached the architects Mason & Wales. Patrick Young Wales, then the sole director of the firm, sent a sketch for approval in January 1900.

Fortunately, the wonderful archive of Mason & Wales records details of the job. Daniel had not specified whether his remains were to be above or below ground, or at least not in his will. It was Wales who suggested:

Instead of placing the vault underground which would be damp and difficult to ventilate, we propose that the building be wholly above ground, and five sided instead of square, each side measuring 7ft inside. This will give space for twelve or sixteen coffins according to the number of shelves put in, the first being raised a few inches above the floor.

What a lot of coffins! The letter from Wales records more details of the original design:

We propose to set the building on concrete foundations using the Port Chalmers stone you have on the ground for the base course and Oamaru stone for the walls and inside of roof and slated outside. The height of the walls &c 12 ft. The roof will rise 12 ft making the total height above ground 24 ft.
We have shown the door as passed of wood solid and a window on each side. These may be built up solid showing panels instead and the door may be fitted with an iron grill leaving the interior exposed to view which we think would be preferable.
Perhaps we should say why we have made the place five sided instead of square. The size of the ground 15 ft by 14 ft would not, after the thickness of the walls are deducted, have room on any side for two coffins in the length so that with the door on one side, there would only be three sides where coffins could be placed and only one on each side where with the pentagonal form we have four sides with room for one coffin on each side.

Architectural perspective of the mausoleum by Patrick Young Wales, as approved by William Snow for the Cemetery Committee, but later revised.

In February, McDiarmid advised the site had been changed for a smaller one. This necessitated reducing the scale of the building, and no longer allowed for coffins on all sides. Despite the reduction the estimated cost still came in over the £500 allocated. The scale was reduced without altering the design, although Wales suggested the iron door could be plainer, the spire could be timber framed and slated instead of stone, and tracery work could be omitted from the gables. He also raised the possibility of building in concrete, or cement-plastered brick.

A new drawing was ready in May. After tender the contract was awarded to John W. Joseph of Woodside on 7 June 1900, his tender being £420. The specification stated that materials were to be obtained through Mr Snow, and local labour was to be used where possible. It also stated that the plaque should give Heenan’s age as 61, but this was changed to 59, and some sources suggest his actual age was probably closer to 63. Moller & Sons manufactured the plaque.

In early August, Wales made new drawings and working copies, including one for the door. He must have been disappointed and likely annoyed when, on 29 August, McDiarmid wrote to say he no longer required him to supervise the job. McDiarmid said he intended to simplify some things in connection with the plan ‘so as to leave (at least) a payable wage’ to the contractor. In a separate note he wrote:

I am sorry things turned out as they have, I thought you understood that the contract was to be flexible. The body of true believers that I belong to would never think of holding anyone to a contract rigidly that would not pay him. That is the way of the world and the so-called Christian world too but Christendom is Astray in doctrine and practice, but it is not so among us. […] Mr Dick is a magnificent craftsman and is making a beautiful job, I am sure we would all be pleased if you came and had a look unofficially at your design being executed.

That Mr Dick was William Dick of Sandymount can be confirmed by a 1970s reference to a plan of the monument in the Dick family’s possession. William Dick was a master stonemason. Born in 1837, his wealth of experience included much of the work at Larnach Castle, the Portobello Bay Road and other roads, and his own stone farmhouse, ‘Luscar’. Among his monumental work was the headstone for Kāi Tahu rangatira Te Mātenga Taiaroa at Ōtākou.

The newly-completed mausoleum, with stone still on the ground. Otago Witness 15 May 1901. George Hicks photographer. Hocken Collections Uare Taoka o Hākena.

Presumably Dick acted as subcontractor to John Joseph, who was himself a stonemason and monumental mason, as well as a brick maker. Joseph was also a Christadelphian. The only other mausoleum in the West Taieri Cemetery is one built for John’s wife Elizabeth, who died in 1882. John died in 1907 and was also laid to rest there. There is a note in the burial register that Elizabeth had been interred in another plot. I don’t know when the Joseph mausoleum was erected, but the plot was purchased in June 1883. Gilbert McDiarmid died in 1909 and is buried in the cemetery, but without memorial. Possibly his widow, Janet, was the person described to Ngaire Ockwell as the widow wanting ‘none of this nonsense’.

The mausoleum of Elizabeth and John Joseph.

Daniel’s remains were disinterred and moved to his new mausoleum around the autumn of 1901.

This is about as much as I have found out. If some points are unsettled, it at least seems improbable that Daniel was itching to claim the best farmland on the day of resurrection. There is no record of him directing his coffin to be above ground – it is not in his will, and if his executors had been given additional instructions then the architect would not have needed to make the suggestion. The words Daniel chose refer to receiving ‘the everlasting prize’. It was heaven on earth he was looking forward to.

His monument has captured imaginations over the last 120 years, and is still a place of some mystery. I will leave you with the childhood memory of Madeline Orlowski Anderson. Born in 1907, she described Dan Heenan as a local character who ‘had a gadget built over his grave with a glass front and a suit of clothes in it, there for him to use when he returned. He was coming back. It was a box with a door. I’ve seen it. It was quite a good suit waiting for him.’

Newspaper references:
Otago Daily Times 22 February 1866 p.5 (British Hotel partnership); 26 April 1879 p.20 (proposed new church); 21 July 1890 p,4 (Johanna Heenan obituary); 6 November 1899 p.8 (piano); 16 April 1904 p.5 (William Dick), 17 October 1974 p.14 (William Dick)
Otago Witness 26 April 1879 p.20 (proposed new church); 2 June 1892 p.21 (threshing machine); 25 May 1893 p.3 (interruption of sermon); 9 June 1898 p.30 (McDiarmid’s lecture), 23 June 1898 p.39 (further re lecture); 30 June 1898 p.17 (further re lecture), 15 May 1901 p.34 (photograph of mausoleum); Bruce Herald 24 August 1875 p.5 (call of Rev. Kirkland); Evening Star 24 February 1896 p.2 (Roberts lectures), 21 October 1904 p.6 (Denis Heenan obituary).

Other sources:
Heenan-Davies, Karen. ‘Touching the past: an encounter with some Heenan migrants’, blog post, 9 March 2019, retrieved 7 September 2022 from https://heenan.one-name.net/touching-the-past-an-encounter-with-some-heenan-migrants/.
Holmes, Gwenda. The Berwick Story. Mosgiel: Gwenda Holmes, 2016.
Ockwell, Ngaire. West Taieri Cemetery Otago: Headstone and plans transcript 1859-1979. Dunedin: New Zealand Society of Genealogists, 1979.
Ockwell, Ngaire. West Taieri Cemetery: A transcription of burials, headstones, purchasers and plan, completed in 2009. Dunedin: New Zealand Society of Genealogists, 2009.
Scrivens, Barbara. ‘Madeline Orlowski Anderson’, web article, 2017 (revised 2018), retrieved 7 September 2022 from https://polishhistorynewzealand.org/madeline-orlowski-anderson/.
Death registration for Daniel Heenan. Births, Deaths, and Marriages ref: 1899/250.
Death registration for Gilbert McDiarmid. Births, Deaths, and Marriages ref: 1909/6069.
Death registration for John Williams Joseph. Births, Deaths, and Marriages ref: 1907/4741.
‘Heenan, Daniel’ in Cyclopedia of New Zealand, vol. iv, Otago and Southland Provincial Districts (Christchurch: Cyclopedia Company, 1905) p.648.
‘Mr Denis Heenan’ in Cyclopedia of New Zealand, vol. iv, Otago and Southland Provincial Districts (Christchurch: Cyclopedia Company, 1905) p.385.
‘Daniel Heenan’s Mausoleum’ in Heritage Quarterly, Summer 2013, p.10.
‘Farmers remains lie above ground and without company’. From the Stories in Stone series, Otago Daily Times, 3 September 2005 p.Mag2. (This source was the first to use information in Daniel’s will to explore the story of the mausoleum. It includes research by the late Stewart Harvey).
A return of the freeholders of New Zealand giving the names, addresses, and occupations of owners of land: together with the area and value in counties, and the value in boroughs and town districts, October 1882. Wellington: New Zealand Government Property Tax Department, 1884.
Will and probate file for Daniel Heenan. Archives New Zealand R22045651.
Mason & Wales Architects archive. Correspondence, drawing, and specifications.

Acknowledgments:
Thanks to Mason & Wales Architects for use of their archive. My interest was sparked after finding the mausoleum drawing in their records, and I was delighted to find they had also preserved the specification and relevant correspondence.

My thanks to Ngaire Ockwell for her valuable work, and for permission to quote from it at length.

Dunedin Railway Station: its architect and style

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Guest post by Michael Findlay

Built: 1904-1906
Address: 20 Anzac Avenue
Architect: George Troup
Design supervisor: John Coom
Building supervisor: F.W. Maclean (District Engineer)
Foreman of works: John Hall
Contractors: John Walker (masonry), Robert Caldow (carpentry), and others

Dunedin Railway Station c.1925. Reference: The Press Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, 1/1-008316-G

I was recently asked to provide some background knowledge for a Japanese film production company that was intending to feature Dunedin’s railway station in a television series called Giants of Beauty (title loosely translated by the director). Curiosity piqued, I went to locate what I already knew had been written about the station and its architect George Alexander Troup and found surprisingly little that is new. Despite the fact that Troup’s crowning achievement is one of the nation’s most admired buildings, information about it was often repeated from a limited number of sources including a biography written by son Gordon in the 1960s. From this we know that Troup’s ‘nickname’ was Gingerbread George and that he was knighted after a lifetime of dedicated public service. Troup the man remains somewhat shrouded. The other question is why is the Railway Station described as a Flemish Renaissance building?

Some insights into what drove Troup can be found in his early years in Scotland. Gordon Troup recounts that George Troup senior was drowned in the Union Canal in Glasgow in 1874 when his son was aged 11. His death certificate reports that he was found dead in the Forth and Clyde Canal near the South Speirs Wharf, a short walk from where the Troups were living in Port Street. There is no evidence that Troup took his own life but newspapers of the day often carried reports of ‘well dressed men’ found dead in the city’s waterways. However it occurred, the sudden death of George Troup caused the family great distress. It is sad to note that his body was identified by Jane Troup, the eldest daughter. This background of reversal of fortunes is not uncommon in nineteenth century architecture and may have helped shape Troup’s keen sense of social justice and life long bonds to the Presbyterian church. It may also help explain his dedication to the welfare of disadvantaged boys as the Troup family’s relatively comfortable existence was ended abruptly at this point. All that lay ahead was struggle.

George needed an occupation and fortunately Troup’s father had been granted the status of burgess (a freeman of the city) in Aberdeen, allowing his son to study at high school. George boarded at Robert Gordon’s College, founded in 1750 and located in a fine Robert Adam-designed building in the centre of the city. Gordon (1688–1731), a successful merchant, set up the school in his will with his aim being to ‘found a Hospital for the Maintenance, Aliment, Entertainment and Education of young boys from the city whose parents were poor and destitute and not able to keep them in schools, and put them to trades and employment’. Robert Gordon’s College was something of a double-edged sword, offering a way ahead but also a reminder of the circumstances that brought Troup there. Architecture was often seen as a pathway for self-improvement, not as tied to class and privilege as other professions such as law and medicine. On leaving the college, Troup joined the Edinburgh engineer C.E. Calvert as an articled pupil in 1879 at the age of 16. This was an apprenticeship in the tradition of articled pupilage and the trainee was not expected to earn a wage while learning the routines of the profession. In most situations, parents paid to place their sons with an architect. Calvert is noted as being particularly busy in the late 1870s despite the failure of the City of Glasgow Bank and the general downturn of building in Scotland afterwards. Troup left Calvert and joined another Edinburgh architect, John Chesser, as an architectural apprentice. In 1881, Jane and five of her children were living in Edinburgh while George continued his articles. The office was not particularly busy over the two years that Troup spent there and the arrangement ceased following the death of his mother in 1883 from heart disease. George then followed three of his older sisters to New Zealand, working his passage on the freighter S.S. Fenstanton, soon to be wrecked in the Torres Straits. Fortunately, Troup had left the ship in Port Chalmers although the entire crew survived the sinking. Troup was twenty when he arrived in Dunedin. It is not hard to imagine that the younger members of the Troup family wished to place some distance between themselves and the troubles they had faced in Scotland.

George Troup in 1927. S.P. Andrew photographer. Reference: Alexander Turnbull Library 1/1-018930-F.

With four years training in architects’ offices, Troup was already considered qualified but opportunities in Otago were limited by the start of the long depression of the 1880s. Troup gained employment as a surveyor with the Survey Department, working initially with a gang at Ngapara and later in the Central Otago ranges. Using the connections made by his brother-in-law, George Burnett, Troup met with James Burnett, an engineer with the New Zealand Railways Department. Troup entered the Dunedin office in 1886 after studying at the Dunedin School of Mines to improve his engineering skills. He set up house in a modest cottage at 21 Leith Street, Dunedin, with his unmarried sister Christina. While living there Troup would have passed the future site of the Dunedin Railway Station while on his way to the Dunedin office, at that time located in the old Dunedin Athenaeum and Mechanics’ Institute building in Manse Street. Troup was transferred to the Wellington office in 1888, where at 25 he became Chief Draughtsman. He was later appointed to the role of Office and Designing Engineer, only becoming Officer-in-Charge of the Architectural Branch in 1919. His early work was clearly influenced by William Butterfield, as shown in a private commission for the Wellington Boys’ Institute in conjunction with William Crichton.

Troup was allowed considerable authority in Wellington and his first major building after carrying out timber stations at Oamaru and Whanganui was the new head office for the Railways Department, described as being Jacobean in style. Topped with exuberant Flemish gables and lanterns on the roofline, the building stood out from its more reserved neighbours and asserted the profile of the Railways Department amongst the other government offices housed in the capital. Gordon Troup wrote that the ‘Gingerbread George’ epithet arose at this time (1901-1903) and was associated with the rich design of the Wellington building, not specifically the Dunedin station. ‘Gingerbread architecture’ had quite a specific meaning. It was a way of referring to the North American taste for ornate sawn timber decoration of German and Swiss origin that had reached something of a peak during the fashion for Charles Eastlake’s houses. In America these filled the same niche as the Queen Anne style elsewhere. Eastlake himself decried the use of such decoration as a ‘bizarre burlesque’ so it was hardly meant in a complimentary way. I somehow doubt that anyone ever used this ‘nickname’ to Troup’s face.

Troup is supposed to have entered two sets of drawings in what was described as a competition for the Dunedin Railway Station in 1903, one in Scots Baronial and the other in Baroque style. No evidence exists that any other architects competed for this prestigious work so we do not know what the other proposals were like. The competition may be seen as an effort to avoid accusations of favouritism by the Railways Department, its ministry headed at the time by Joseph Ward (1856-1930), a noted supporter of South Island interests. Ward followed Richard Seddon as Prime Minister in 1906 and was able to open the station in his new role when it was completed.

Is this the version of the station that Troup preferred? The Gothic details now seem unconvincing compared to the Flemish Renaissance scheme that was finally built. Reference: Alexander Turnbull Library B-064-007.

Sir Joseph Ward laying the foundation stone of the station on 3 June 1904. Photograph by William Williams.
Ref: Alexander Turnbull Library 1/2-140194-G.

The Baroque variant, initially proposed in red brick, was selected and featured an asymmetrical composition with unequal height towers at both ends of long bays. A porte-cochere occupied the central section under a tall triangular pediment. Troup’s son Gordon in his biography suggests that the Scots Baronial or ‘Francois I’ style alternative was favoured by Troup himself. The reference to King Francis of France I refers to the Château de Chambord and the hunting lodges of the French Renaissance and implies a French Renaissance chateau style design. This description may involve a misattribution as the only two drawings known to exist show stations of similar proportions and layout. One was in a Tuscan Gothic style and not at all like a Scots Baronial or French Renaissance design. The awkward peaked roof that replaced the expected campanile above the square clock tower showed Troup’s hesitancy about going the whole way towards Italian Gothic Revival. The final result suggests he was on safer ground with his alternative Flemish scheme.

So what was Troup intending by using such an exotic manner on what was to be the Government’s flagship building in Dunedin? Like many of his generation, Troup’s architectural taste was influenced by English seventeenth-century Baroque architecture, at that time being reevaluated positively by critics. Being an admirer of John Vanbrugh (1664–1726) stood both for loyalty to the British Empire and a more adventurous spirit that ranged further abroad for influence. Vanbrugh was of Flemish descent and part of an Anglo-Dutch network of Protestant reformists. He introduced the Baroque manner to England with Blenheim Palace (1705–1722) and Castle Howard (1699-1709). Troup also used ideas from Scottish architect James Gibbs (1682–1754) whose distinctive rusticated openings, known as the ‘Gibbs surround’, appear throughout the Dunedin station composition. As with Gibb (who was quietly Catholic), Troup was not strongly Anglophile and remained attached to the eclectic design principles that he applied with great character to his major buildings in Wellington and Dunedin. These models suggest that Troup was not completely convinced by the alternative ‘Wren-aissance’ direction that took a more academic approach to Neo-Renaissance architecture in the late nineteenth century. This involved close attention to the buildings of Christopher Wren (1632–1723), leading architecture towards a simplified and rational classicism.

The design of the Wellington office was broadly symmetrical in its massing, a treatment that suited its urban setting on Featherston Street. The irregular siting of the Dunedin station aligned to the railway line rather than the street grid itself suggests an opportunity for a building to be seen in the round and that allowed for more formal experimentation. The definition of the Dunedin station design as Flemish Renaissance comes from Troup himself. Architects assisted journalists with these precise terms that went beyond the knowledge of an observer to deliver with any authority. Was Troup familiar with the Flanders area and its building styles? His other passion for breeding Friesian cattle suggests a connection, as does his support for the Dutch/New Zealand painter Petrus Van der Velden (1837–1913). Troup funded the purchase of nineteen of the Netherlander’s paintings for The New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts in 1922. Anglo-Dutch style was popular in late nineteenth-century Britain, particularly in the London suburb of Kensington. Architects such as Richard Norman Shaw and Ernest George popularised tall red brick houses with elaborately shaped gables at the roofline and the style became known as Pont Street Dutch. Something similar was used at Olveston by Sir Ernest George who had introduced the style in London twenty years earlier. Troup’s reasons for using this particular architectural expression remain obscure but seem to be determined by personal choice rather than some random throwing together of architectural elements. Troup was striving after a distinctive local language for railways buildings in order to set them apart in the rapidly maturing streetscape.

Petrus van der Velden. Burial in the Winter on the Island of Marken (The Dutch Funeral) 1875. Reference: Wikimedia Commons.

Revivals of past styles always involve a complex relationship with history. Flemish Renaissance Revival architecture itself began in Belgium during the later part of the nineteenth century. Belgium as a nation had only existed since the 1830s, absorbing part of Flanders and French speaking Wallonia. The search for a national style of architecture to express the rich cultural history of the region focussed on the successful trading cities of the Lowlands. Brussels as its major city was essentially rebuilt along French lines in the mid nineteenth century as the new commercial and political hub of the Belgian nation. In order that it did not appear as a clone of Baron Haussmann’s Paris, a form of local revivalism was used in preference to French Renaissance.

Émile Janlet. Rue des Nations la Belgique, Exposition Universelle 1878. Ernest Ziégler photographer. Reference: Early New Zealand Photographers

Flemish Revival architecture was shown off to the world at the Paris World Exhibition (1878) where the Belgian Pavilion designed by Emile Janlet gained favourable attention. Details of its facade relate closely to George Troup’s station and it is likely that Janlet’s pavilion was published in sources that Troup would have had access to. Albums of photographs of the pavilions were in circulation in New Zealand and have been reproduced in the excellent blog Early New Zealand Photographers and their Successors. The main characteristic of Flemish Renaissance Revival architecture is the gable which took on a distinctive profile formed with curves and straight line sections. Tall square and octagonal towers offset from the centre of the compositions are also notable. Use was made of polychromatic contrasts of red brick and pale stone. Although a busy composition, Troup’s design pared Janlet’s decoration back to a smaller number of repeated elements able to be assembled from a regular set of parts for economy. Troup, for instance, used standard double hung sashes instead of the transomed multi-section windows used in the Belgian pavilion and elsewhere. There was also the example of the new city stations being built in Amsterdam and Amstel, carried out in a simplified red brick style that blended Gothic and northern Renaissance styles.

The visual height of these buildings was offset by strong horizontal banding. When red brick was combined with pale stone or plaster facings the effect was cheekily called ‘streaky bacon’ and can be seen in John Campbell’s police station and prison (1898) that faces the station across Anzac Square. This visual contrast of materials was accentuated in the railway station by the use of dark basalt stone and Oamaru limestone. Troup’s original brick proposal was closer to its Belgian and Dutch prototypes than the version that was finally built. Stone, particularly when extracted from the railways owned quarry at Kokonga, proved to be a cheaper building material than brick and gave an even more substantial appearance. Troup’s clever economies included using day labour to cut and finish the stone on site. This was then lifted into place by a mobile crane, enabling the building to rise very quickly. Rather than being anachronistic, Flemish Renaissance Revival architecture represented the freedom to experiment with a variety of materials and architectural types as well as signifying a progressive and technological approach.

Troup wanted to place his stamp in Dunedin with its most significant public building of the new century. While it was complementary to Campbell’s Norman Shaw-influenced prison and Gothic Revival law courts just across the road, it was also distinctively different to both, adding a liveliness to the new Government quarter of the city. Dunedin was particularly fortunate to benefit from the creative competition between Troup and Campbell and the interplay between the individual buildings in this key precinct should be the topic for another blog entry. This aspect of generosity and pleasure, if not frivolity, seems a better fit for Troup’s character than the overused sobriquet of ‘Gingerbread George’. We should really stop calling him that.

References:
‘1874 Troup, George’. Statutory registers Deaths 644/7 64.
Berry, Mary Helen. ‘Sir George Troup and the Dunedin Railway Station, 1903-1907: Edwardian Elegance or a Dilemma of Style’. BA (Hons) thesis, Department of History and Art History, University of Otago, 2005.
Irvine, Susan.’ Dunedin Prison (Former)’. Heritage New Zealand. Retrieved 6 January 2018 from http://www.heritage.org.nz/the-list/details/4035.
Troup, Gordon. George Troup: Architect and Engineer (Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 1982).
Van Santvoort, Linda. ‘Brussels Architecture in the Last Quarter of the 19th Century – the Search for National Identity Linked to the Desire of Architectural Innovation’. Ghent University Department of Art History. Retrieved 6 January 2018 from http://www.artnouveau-net.eu/portals/0/data/PROCEEDINGS_DOWNLOAD/LJUBLJANA/LindaVSljubljana.pdf
Whiffen, Marcus. American Architecture since 1780: A Guide to the Styles (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press: 1992).
Session Cases: Cases Decided in the Court of Session and Also in the Court of Justiciary and House of Lords. Volume 4, Scottish Council of Law Reporting, 1842. p.172

Silverwood Terrace

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Built: 1902-1904
Address: 134-144 Albany Street
Builder: James Small

Silverwood Terrace is the almost forgotten name of a row of houses in Albany Street, close to the university campus. Still further lost in history is the large and sprawling wooden home this name came from. Silverwood stood behind the terrace until its demolition in 1923.

Percival Clay Neill lived at the original Silverwood from 1872. His posthumous claim to fame is as the great-grandfather of actor Sam Neill, but in his own day he was one of Dunedin’s most successful merchants. Born in Belfast, Ireland, he founded Neill & Company, a firm that imported wines, spirits, and other goods. It later merged with R. Wilson & Co. to become Wilson Neill & Co. Neill was also the French Consul from 1873.

In 1877, Neill moved to Chingford, North East Valley. He subdivided the Silverwood property but kept the house as his town residence until 1882, when the solicitor Edward Chetham Strode purchased it. Around this time it was described as a thirteen-room house with ‘pantry, and cellar, stable, loose boxes, coach house, laundry, tool house, fowl house, and cow house. Water laid on to the house, stable, and garden’.

It was at Silverwood that Strode died of typhoid fever in 1886, at the age of 34. His wife, Jessie, left for England soon afterwards.

A view from about 1889, looking along Albany Street towards the harbour. The future Silverwood Terrace site is where the trees meet the road on the right-hand side. The old house is obscured. Image: Te Papa C.018395. Detail from Burton Bros photograph.

Later occupants of Silverwood included the warehouseman Allan Broad (1841-1930), who was manager of the Mutual Stores and a foundation member of the Hanover Street Baptist Church. He was followed by William Reid (c.1834-1909), a prosperous seed merchant turned florist, resident from about 1890 to 1898. Reid had worked at the Royal Norfolk Nurseries in England and had an international reputation as a collector of native ferns and shrub seeds, which he exported. His daughter, Annie Elsom, followed the same profession and became a successful businesswoman in Christchurch.

From 1898, Silverwood was the home of James and Elizabeth Small. Born in Forfar, Scotland, around 1843, James married the slightly older Elizabeth Gall at Dundee in 1873. The following year the couple arrived in Dunedin, where James became a successful building contractor. His first major project was the Dominican Priory in Smith Street, designed by Frank Petre and built between 1876 and 1877. The innovative use of poured concrete in this building is celebrated today, but Small’s contribution remains overlooked. Petre’s call for tenders specified a brick building, and Small submitted the only tender for concrete construction. This was identified as the more cost-effective option, and it seems likely concrete was Petre’s plan from the beginning, with the tenders for brick construction being called to determine an alternative price.

James Small (c.1843-1919). Image: DCC Archives

Small was the contractor for the Grand Hotel (1882-1883), designed by Louis Boldini. Image: Te Papa O.034103. Burton Bros photographers.

The collaboration continued. Other buildings designed by Petre and constructed by Small and his team included the Exchange Buildings on Liverpool Street (now Guardian Apartments), the Equitable Insurance buildings (Phoenix House), an office building for the Otago Harbour Board (Donald Reid Building), and the Catholic Basilica in Wellington.

Small was the main contractor for three buildings designed by Louis Boldini: the Grand Hotel, Butterworth Bros warehouse, and the AMP Society’s buildings. These were among the most impressive commercial buildings of Victorian Dunedin, each with an elaborate four-storey stone facade. They were notable for extensive structural use of iron and concrete, including concrete floors on iron joists.

Small built the six Silverwood Terrace houses next to his own home between 1902 and 1904. It is likely he designed them himself, as I have found no record of an architect’s involvement and the surviving plans show only sketchy drafting. The first building permit, issued in November 1902, was for the two houses closest to Clyde Street. The permit for the middle two houses followed in April 1903, and the final two were approved in November 1903.

Detail from a Dunedin Drainage and Sewerage Board plan dated 1905. Albany Street runs across the bottom of the image. The large footprint of Silverwood can be seen at the centre, and the new terrace has only been pencilled in. Image: DCC Archives.

Terraces were not typical of New Zealand housing, but they were relatively numerous in the urbanised environment of central Dunedin. More than twenty historic examples stand in the city today. The earliest dates from the 1870s and the latest from about 1914, by which time public transport and private cars were providing easier access to the suburbs, and blocks of flats were beginning to find favour. Usually built as investment properties or speculative builds, the grandest terraces were handsomely finished for a market that included working professionals and the genteel. At the other end of the spectrum were rough wooden tenements rented to the poor.

Silverwood Terrace, though not among most expensive, is one of the better examples. Built in brick, it has a neatly cemented street front, with exposed brickwork at the back and sides. Its style is plain and unfussy, with simple cornices and other mouldings, and a touch of the Italianate about it. Variations in the design contribute to a pleasing rhythm: the middle two houses have faceted bays grouped together at the centre, while the outer houses have square bays with the balconies grouped together. The overall effect is approximately symmetrical, although the houses at the Clyde Street end are narrower than the rest. The cast iron balcony railings are excellent examples of their type, and provide the most ornate features.

The terrace is sympathetic to the slightly older semi-detached houses next door, which date from about 1896. On the corner of Clyde Street a slightly later house with exposed brickwork, built in 1907, is also in harmony.

Each of the Smalls’ houses had a conventional floor plan. The two largest rooms were on the ground floor, with the one facing the street presumably intended as a parlour. A long hallway ran through to a single-storey extension at the rear, housing the kitchen and scullery. Stairs were at the centre and at right angles to the hall, due to the narrowness of the buildings. On the first floor were four bedrooms and a small bathroom. There were five fireplaces in each house. Toilets were in outhouses.

The houses remained in the ownership of the Smalls for nearly twenty years, and were sometimes referred to as Small’s Terrace. Neither this nor the Silverwood name appears to have remained in use for long. Street directories give some insight into the backgrounds of the Smalls’ first tenants. The heads of the households were two widows, a mechanical engineer, a storeman, a bootmaker with his own business, and a retired seedsman. Most stayed only a few years, but after her husband’s death Margaret Buchanan remained at no.136 until her passing in 1923, and John and Catherine Mitchell lived at no.140 until 1930.

Elected to the Dunedin City Council in 1905, James Small served as a councillor for thirteen years, as Chairman of the finance committee, and as an elected member of the Dunedin Drainage Board. He died at Silverwood on 3 March 1919, aged 75. The following day the flag of the Grand Hotel flew at half-mast, as a mark of respect to its builder. Obituaries describe Small as an unassuming, unostentatious, and capable man, who ‘worked hard and keenly in his own quiet way for the good of Dunedin as a whole’.

Elizabeth Small gave ‘unostentatiously to the poor and needy of the neighbourhood’ until her health declined. She died on 24 July 1923. The couple had no children and Elizabeth’s estate, with the exception of a few bequests to friends, was left to charity. Silverwood was demolished later that year, the Otago Daily Times recording that in the early days ‘it was among the most handsome residences in the city. But it did not escape the changes of time, and, after a period of retiring shabbiness, the last straw has been placed on the camel’s back and tenders for removal have been called.’

The Silverwood Terrace houses went to auction in 1925. Notices described them as being of superior construction, and no.134 as a ‘splendid double-storey brick residence, containing 7 commodious rooms, bathroom, hot and cold water, washhouse, copper and tubs, and conveniences; handsome appearance; freehold section’.

The main outward change in recent years has been the replacement of wood-framed sash windows with aluminium framed ones, but the original style and glass remains on one of the houses. A uniform colour scheme helps to show off the architecture. The houses are now student flats, and according to the Dunedin Flat Names Project, no.138 has been known as both ‘Wards Manor’ and ‘Mope on in’. Perhaps the old name ‘Silverwood’ might again become familiar.

Newspaper references:
Otago Daily Times 2 February 1872 p.2 (birth of Neill’s daughter), 5 November 1874 p.1 (reference to house as ‘Silverwood’), 16 March 1897 p.4 (Reid’s advertisement), 4 March 1919 p.6 (James Small obituary), 6 March 1919 p.5 (appreciation of Small); Evening Star 10 January 1873 p.2 (Mrs Neill’s advertisement),), 27 February 1878 p.3 (subdivision), 2 March 1882 p.3 (sale of Silverwood), 15 March 1886 p.3 (Mrs Strode), 27 February 1906 p.5 (reference to Small’s Terrace), 18 October 1909 p.4 (death of William Reid), 4 March 1919 p.6 (James Small obituary), 6 March 1919 p.5 (appreciation of James Small), 10 March 1919 p.6 (tribute to Small), 23 July 1923 p.8 (Elizabeth Small obituary), 4 September 1923 p.6 (demolition of Silverwood), 5 September 1925 p.24 (sale of properties), 23 April 1930 p.7 (Allan Broad obituary); Lyttelton Times 6 January 1886 p.4 (Strode obituary); Otago Witness 28 December 1920 p.53 (correction).

Other sources:
Directories (Stone’s, Wises, and telephone)
Dunedin City Council Archives, including building register, permit plans, and drainage records
Death registration of James Small

Allan Grange

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Guest post by Michael Findlay

Built: 1899-1900
Address: Glenelg Street, Bradford
Architects: Not identified
Builders: Jensen Patent Construction Co. Ltd

‘Hiding in plain sight’ is a phrase often used in architectural heritage where the actual significance of a building or place is not revealed by its surface appearance. So it is with Allan Grange, a villa in the suburb of Bradford in Dunedin’s Kaikorai Valley. This two-storey house stands in Glenelg Street, still surrounded by a woodland garden. It is now thought to be the first house constructed of hollow cement block in New Zealand and a close contemporary of the first houses of their type in North America. How it happened is still a bit of a puzzle.

The owner of Allan Grange, Thomas Mackenzie (1853–1930) was an important national figure, representing Clutha in parliament from 1887. He was dispatched to London by the Government as trade commissioner in 1889 and played a major role in promoting local exports, particularly frozen lamb, wool and grain. He returned to Dunedin in 1899 and stood for election in the Waihemo electorate, becoming Minister of Agriculture in 1900 and also Minister of Tourism and Postmaster General. He was Prime Minister briefly in 1912 after the resignation of Sir Joseph Ward, when he returned to London to reprise his earlier role as New Zealand High Commissioner. Somehow Mackenzie also found time for the mayoralty of Roslyn between 1901 and 1905. The history presented to the recent purchasers of the house was that it was built in 1872 and made from Portland stone concrete blocks imported as ships’ ballast, showing how stories around houses often contain facts and speculation mixed together.

Sir Thomas Mackenzie and Peter Henry Buck, in France, during World War I. Ref: Alexander Turnbull Library 1/2-037933-F.

Between his numerous commercial and political activities, Mackenzie developed his seven-acre estate in Kaikorai Valley. Council details are scant but in 1899 he likely engaged the Jensen Patent Construction Company to build a house on the property. The business was set up late in 1898 to exploit patents for Monier construction, a technology pioneered in France for wire reinforced concrete. Its founder was a Danish engineer named Vilhelm Alfred Langevad (or Langevod) who held the patents for ‘Improved Monier System of Construction by Emanuel Jansen’ covering cement products in his home country. Local patent applications were lodged in Wellington in 1899 for constructing floors and manufacturing concrete pipes under the title of ‘E. Jensen’. While in Wellington Langevad made contact with Milburn Lime and Cement Company manager Frank Oakden who had recently returned from a business trip to England and Northern Europe. While overseas, Oakden had purchased new equipment for the Dunedin plant and the patent rights to ‘Silica Portland Cement’ developed by Danish cement chemists and then coming into wide use in Europe and North America.

The manufacture of Portland cement was crucial to the New Zealand economy in the 1890s and a number of competing companies sought to dominate the local trade. During the 1890s, with a view to taking as much as it could of the Australasian market, Milburn invested heavily in new equipment. The company was the first in New Zealand to introduce modern rotary kilns and tube grinding mills to produce Portland cement it warranted was superior to all imported brands. Its products were widely promoted to architects and civil engineers keen to exploit the properties of steel reinforced concrete construction.

In the Milburn company minutes for 1898 it was reported that ‘After conferring with Mr Langevod (sic) we agreed to float a separate company, The Milburn Company taking in hand the formation and if our shareholders support it, subsequently retaining the control to that end the prospectus is prepared…I am well satisfied with Mr Langevod’s ability to manage the concern and have no doubt it will be successful if floated.’ Investors included J.M. Ritchie of the National Mortgage & Agency Co., Dr T.M. Hocken, Bendix Hallenstein and Frank Oakden himself. Oakden had earlier advised the Milburn board that ‘I think it advisable to prevent others so far as possible from becoming interested in the Cement trade. Monier Construction might be the first step to opposition’. The arrangement was beneficial to both parties. The Milburn company could promote its new silica portland cement through built projects while Langevad could operate a modern factory to produce his precast products. The hands off arrangement enabled Milburn to enhance its reputation if the ventures were successful or make a quick exit if not. The Jensen Patent Construction Company was granted a year-long lease on a piece of land next to the Milburn plant in 1899 and set up its new factory with funds from the share float. Backed up by £10,000 in shares, it began seeking construction projects. Few tenders for buildings specifically mentioned concrete and it appears that the Jensen company answered those for masonry structures and used their cast hollow blocks instead of more usual brick or poured solid concrete.

The Milburn Lime and Cement works at the bottom of Frederick Street prior to reclamation of Pelichet Bay. Detail from W.J. Prictor plan. Ref: Alexander Turnbull Library MapColl 834.5292ap 1898.

The precise source of the block moulding system used by Langevad remains obscure but it is not likely to have been part of the raft of patents secured by Harmon S. Palmer of Chattanooga in 1899 and usually given as ‘the start of modern concrete blocks’. There was a boom in this manufacturing method after 1900 and numerous hollow concrete block makers flooded the international market after 1906. The block module used for Allan Grange measures 6 X 9 X 18 inches which suggests an American rather than European origin for the moulds, although Nigeria is one of the only places in the world where blocks of these dimensions are used today. It took until 1924 for the 8 X 8 X 16 block to become standardised and until then numerous variations were tried. A fellow Dane, Niels Nielson, sought to make hollow blocks in Wellington using a Palmer machine under the title Wellington Hollow Concrete Building Block Company. Nielson built a warehouse and a group of houses at Lyall Bay in 1904, reckoned by Nigel Isaacs to be the earliest in New Zealand. This places Allan Grange in an intriguing position, some way ahead of the boom that launched hundreds of competing patent systems in the first decade of the twentieth century.

Hercules Concrete Block Machine catalogue, Rochester, New York, 1907. A typical promotional sheet for one of the great number of North American manufacturers that came into existence after 1900.

One of the main issues with new construction technology is confidence that the system will not fail in use. Local papers were full of bullish promotion of new cement systems including MIlburn with its Silica Portland Cement. Despite opening the plant up for viewing by local architects and engineers and undertaking comprehensive tests of the products, uptake of the new system was modest, at least in terms of the size of Milburn’s expenses on the patents and the re-equipping of their cement works. It was hard going for the Jensen Patent Construction Company as well. It was reported in 1899 that the company was working on a row of shops on the old Queen’s Theatre site in Princes Street and a studio for the artist James Elder Moultray on Frederick Street, near where the Queen Mary Maternity Hospital was later built. The description of the process is mirrored in the construction of Mackenzie’s house and it is likely that Allan Grange was built immediately after Lorie’s store and Moultray’s studio. Mackenzie took up residence at Allan Grange early in 1900, using the address on his voluminous correspondence from March that year.

Allan Grange in 2017.Michael Findlay photo.

Allan Grange was a two-storey gentleman’s farmhouse. It was relatively conventional in appearance with a pair of symmetrical bay windows with a terrace and a recessed sun porch in the centre above. A single-storey wing extended to the rear and the style was simplified Italian. Recent close inspection of the walls showed an unconventional block shape with tuck pointed joints and free blocks used around the contemporary garden as edging clearly showed their hollow form. This did not tally with the supposed construction date of the house of 1872 when hollow block construction was hardly known in the wider world, much less New Zealand. Even so, a construction date of 1899 pushes the house to the front of international developments. The first concrete block houses in America were constructed using related technologies, possibly as early as 1885. Amongst the earliest uses of hollow cement block is a group of seven houses built in that year by the Union Stone and Building Company in Minneapolis. These, as well as an eleven-unit terrace, remain as examples of the very early use of concrete block in North America. Nigel Isaacs notes that a group of houses constructed in 1897 marked a turning point in the technology, observing that ‘It was not until Harmon S. Palmer had experimented for ten years, including building six houses in Chicago in 1897, that he brought together manufacturing and design concepts that led to the creation of the modern hollow concrete block’.

The designer of Allan Grange remains a mystery. Unlike Jensen’s other documented projects no similar newspaper coverage appeared for the construction. A single tender can be found for an architect-designed house in Kaikorai between 1899 and 1900, issued by James Hislop in January 1899. Mackenzie had not returned to Dunedin then so it is unlikely to be for Allan Grange. When James Burnside issued his tender notice for Moultray’s studio it was for a ‘studio in brick’ so it is still possible that a tender was issued for a ‘house in brick’ and it remains to be found. It is possible that an architect was not needed. Vilhelm Langevad was a qualified civil engineer and was clearly able to design and manage civil and industrial projects so a house is certainly within his powers. Mackenzie had previously been a surveyor and equally capable of drawing the house for the Jensen Patent Construction Company to build. The planning and aesthetics do not greatly reflect contemporary architectural thinking so either of these scenarios could explain both the idiosyncratic design and the lack of any tender information in the local newspapers.

Allan Grange around the 1910s. Thomas Mackenzie owned the house until 1915, when James Mowat took ownership. Image courtesy of Janette Bain.

Another early image of the house, courtesy of Janette Bain. The section was subdivided in 2011 and the Dunedin City Council records three significant trees on the property.

This hiatus leaves a number of unanswered questions about how Allan Grange came to be built. It is an assumption that the Jensen Patent Construction Company supplied the blocks but all available evidence points to this conclusion. The lack of any documentation for the project can be put down to the voluntary liquidation of the Jensen Company in 1902 and the Milburn Lime and Cement Company quickly moving on to other forms of hollow block technology. A complex court action over a bridge construction tender possibly hastened their downfall but it is more likely that the company simply failed to make money and its investors wanted out. This was typical in the hard driving cement industry where commercial survival involved both intensive investment in plant and swift U-turns if things did not go well. The closure of the company did not end Langevad’s involvement with Dunedin. He joined the City Council as assistant engineer and later worked as a building inspector. He relocated to New South Wales and managed the design and construction of major cement works in Kandos under the supervision of Frank Oakden. Thomas Evans bought the Jensen equipment and production of Monier concrete pipes began again in Masterton in 1904 under the Cement Pipe Company. The long survival of Allan Grange, a few cracks notwithstanding, points towards the Jensen Patent Construction Company’s early efforts to pioneer hollow concrete block construction in New Zealand and operate at the very edge of this technology in the world.

Note: One of the jewels in the Hocken Pictures Collection is ‘Portrait of Vivien Oakden’ c.1898 by Grace Joel. Also noteworthy is Alfred Cook’s beautiful 1924 watercolour of Lake Logan showing the cement works, held at Toitū Otago Settlers Museum.

Under snow in 1969. Image courtesy of Janette Bain.

Newspaper references:
Otago Daily Times 14 February 1930 (obituary), 8 June 1899 (Otago Agricultural and Pastoral Society),18 September 1889, 25 September 1897 (Milburn Lime and Cement Company Ltd); Chronicle (Adelaide) 3 October 1940 (Mr V.A. Langevad); Evening Star 2 April 1898 (Otago Jubilee Industrial Exhibition); Otago Witness 21 February 1912 p.41 (advertisements), 28 December 1899 (City Improvements).

Other references:
Hall, James P. The Early Developmental History of Concrete Block in America. Masters Thesis, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, 2009.
Isaacs, Nigel. Making the New Zealand House 1792-1982. PhD, Victoria University, 2015
Notes on the Manufacture, Testing, Uses, etc. of Portland Cement. Milburn Lime and Cement Company 1895.
H-10 Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks. Tenth Annual Report of the Registrar. Untitled, 1 January 1899 (Hughes, W.E., Wellington NZ. Constructing Floors (E. Jensen) 11156 14 November 1898, Hughes, W.E., Wellington NZ. Manufacturing Concrete Pipes (E. Jensen) 1116315 November 1898.
Lesley, Robert Whitman, John Baptiste Lober and George S. Bartlett. History of the Portland Cement Industry in the United States. Chicago: International Trade Press, 1924.
Fleming, B.A. Kandos and Rylstone History part 1. Mudgee District History, www.mudgeehistory.com.au/rylstone_kandos/rylstone_kandos1.html
The Cyclopedia of New Zealand, Taranaki, Hawkes Bay & Wellington Provincial Districts
Jensen Patent Construction Company files, Archives New Zealand R1930690.
Milburn Lime and Cement Company Limited: Records. Hocken Collections AG-158.

Emily Siedeberg’s house

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Built: 1903
Address: 75 York Place
Architect: James Louis Salmond (1868-1950)
Builder: Stephen Samuel Aburn (1869-1947)

Emily Siedeberg outside her York Place home, in her yellow Clement-Bayard motor car. Image reproduced by kind permission of Steve Clifford.

New Zealand’s first woman medical graduate, Emily Hancock Siedeberg, lived in lower York Place for much of her life. Her handsome residence at number 59 (since renumbered 75) was built in 1903, five years after she went into private practice in Dunedin. Her family connection with the land dated back nearly as far as her birth.

Emily’s father, Franz David Siedeberg, was a Jewish settler from Memel, Prussia (now Klaipėda, Lithuania) and had been a pioneer in the Otago gold dredging industry in the 1860s. He married his second wife, Irish-born Anna Thompson, in 1867, and Emily was born in Clyde on 17 February 1873. She grew up as the second eldest of four children and later remembered a happy childhood with never a cross word between her parents.

Six months after Emily’s birth her family moved to Dunedin, where Franz worked as a builder. His larger contracts included the construction of the Royal Exchange Hotel (later Standard Insurance building), Albany Street School, and stone abutments for the Jetty Street overbridge. From 1875 the Siedebergs lived in York Place, on a block of land where Franz built four houses. He later acquired adjoining property and built a two-storey wooden house.

Emily was educated at the Normal School (Moray Place) and Otago Girls’ High School, and studied medicine at the University of Otago from 1891 to 1895, graduating in 1896. She furthered her studies in Dublin and Berlin, before returning to Dunedin at the end of 1897. Early the following year she set up practice in one of her father’s York Place houses, in which he had arranged modest consulting and waiting rooms. Emily’s sister, Isabella, was housekeeper and looked after social engagements, and there was also a young maid. At first a horse trap and driver were hired as required, and later Dr Siedeberg had her own gig and employed a lad to drive it.

Franz died suddenly in September 1902, and six months later Dr Siedeberg visited architect James Louis Salmond to commission designs for a new house in front of the old family home. Salmond’s diary records his work on plans at the end of March 1903. He estimated the cost would be over £1500, and Siedeberg requested changes to get the cost under £1200 as the building was financed with a loan. The final drawings were ready in May, and at the end of that month the building contract was awarded to S.S. Aburn, who put in a tender of £1065. Aburn must have considered the job a good example of his work, as one of his advertisements showed his staff posed outside the building.

Advertisement for builder S.S. Aburn from Stone’s Otago & Southland Directory, 1905. Image courtesy of McNab New Zealand Collection, Dunedin Public Libraries.

The house is in the style known as Queen Anne (confusingly, as the revived elements are not specific to the reign of Anne). The bay windows, elaborately decorated gable, and exposed red brick are typical of Salmond, and originally the house also featured his signature chimney stacks. The roof was slate. It is interesting to compare the York Place house with one of Salmond’s timber designs, at 12 Pitt Street.

A photograph taken in the 1910s shows the original exterior appearance, as well as Dr Siedeberg herself in her yellow Clément-Bayard motor car. She was one of the first women in Dunedin to own a car, and was once prosecuted for driving it at faster than a walking pace (a charge she successfully defended). She continued to drive until she was well into her eighties.

On the upper floor of the house were a drawing room and four bedrooms, necessary as Dr Siedeberg’s mother, sister, and younger brother all lived with her. Mrs Siedeberg was resident for twenty years and died in the house in 1923. Isabella, an accomplished artist who had studied at the Dunedin School of Art, stayed until the 1920s, when she moved to Auckland. Harry, the youngest of the family, lived in the house until his marriage in 1911, when he moved to the old family home next door. He was an insurance agent and successful sportsman, who played cricket for New Zealand and was four times national billiards champion. He was also an Otago hockey and football representative. The older brother, Frank, was New Zealand chess champion and later worked as an engineer in Germany and England.

Emily Siedeberg in graduation dress (Cyclopedia of New Zealand)

Dr Siedeberg-McKinnon in the 1950s (Otago Pioneer Women’s Memorial Association)

An entrance at the side of the house (since closed up) led to Dr Siedeberg’s waiting room, and across the hall was the consulting room, which faced the street. This arrangement kept the front door and hall clear for visitors making use of the corner sitting room where, if it was not time for tea, sherry and biscuits were the favoured refreshments. Other downstairs rooms were a large dining room, a dressing room, a bedroom for the maid or maids, and a kitchen with adjoining pantry and scullery.

Dr Siedeberg’s niece, Emily Host, left some personal insights into life in the house, although it is not possible to fully verify them. She recalled a large tin bath in the scullery, high off the floor, and most of the time with a thick slab of wood across it for use as a bench. Dr Siedeberg was adamant the maids must take a bath every Saturday, although at least one objected to so much washing and bathing.

This was Elsie, whom Host described as a ‘blowsy blonde’ much addicted to boyfriends. On one occasion a noise was heard and Emily and Isabella came downstairs in gowns and long plaits to find one of these boyfriends climbing out of Elsie’s bedroom window. Afterwards the window was nailed up so that it could only be opened about two inches at the top.

Siedeberg wrote that in early days maids who white aprons and caps and said ‘Yes Miss’ or ‘No Ma’am’ when spoken to. Later they refused to where aprons or caps and became ‘very offhand in answering’.

Host described her aunt as someone who acted and thought according to Victorian principles. She had a sweet, dignified nature, and was very understanding of the human failings of those who were nasty to her. She shocked her family and a large proportion of Dunedin by not taking a ‘proper’ view of ‘fallen women’, whom she often took into her home and helped.

Dr Siedeberg was Medical Superintendent of St Helen’s Maternity Hospital (the first in New Zealand to have an antenatal clinic), Medical Officer of the Caversham Industrial School, and anaesthetist at the Dental School. She was also an advocate of controversial theories of eugenics. The many organisations she played a leading role in included the New Zealand Society for the Protection of Women, the New Zealand Medical Women’s Association, the National Council of Women, and the Otago Pioneer Women’s Memorial Association. She was awarded a CBE in 1949.

Emily Siedeberg married in Los Angeles during an overseas trip in 1928, at the age of 55. Her husband, James Alexander McKinnon, was the retired manager of the Mosgiel Branch of the National Bank, and Emily became known as Dr Siedeberg-McKinnon. A new house for the couple was built in Cairnhill Street around 1929, and they moved again to Cargill Street around 1938. The second move was, according to Emily Host, so a frailer Mr McKinnon could be nearer to the bowling green.

The York Place house remained in family ownership with rooms rented to various tenants, including Mrs Elizabeth Tweedy who lived there for over twenty-five years. James McKinnon died in 1949 and Emily moved back to her old home around 1954, remaining there into the 1960s. She spent her last few years at the Presbyterian Social Service Association home in Oamaru, where she died on 13 June 1968 at the age of 95.

75 York Place in 2016

In 1969 the house was much altered internally for use by the Otago Polytechnic for its School of Architecture and Building, and it was later used by the School of Art (to 1983) and the School of Nursing (1983-1987). In its more recent history the building has again become a place of medical practice, being the premises of the Dr Safari Appearance Medicine Clinic. Dr Soheila Safari is, in common with Emily Siedeberg, a graduate of the University of Otago, and has also worked as a general practitioner. She established her clinic in 2006 and has been based in York Place since 2008, offering a wide range of cosmetic treatments. Studio rooms are found on the first floor, still accessed by the same beautiful grand staircase built in 1903.

Newspaper references:
Otago Witness, 17 September 1902 p.22 (obituary for F.D. Siedeberg), 23 November 1904 p.62 (F.V. Siedeberg); Otago Daily Times, 10 February 1898 p.2 (new practice in York Place), 4 July 1914 p.5 (motor car).

Other references:
Stone’s, Wise’s, and telephone directories
Electoral rolls
Deeds indexes and registers. Archives New Zealand, Dunedin Regional Office.
Births, Deaths & Marriages online, https://www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/Home/
Cyclopedia of New Zealand, vol.4, Otago and Southland Provincial Districts. (Christchurch: The Cyclopedia Company, 1905).
Host, Emily Olga. ‘Emily Siedeberg McKinnon’ (‘Notes made by Mrs Host when visiting the Hocken Library in 1966’). Hocken Collections, Bliss L9 McK H.
McKinnon, Emily H. and Irene L. Starr. Otago Pioneer Women’s Memorial. (Dunedin: Otago Daily Times, 1959).
Sargison, Patricia A. ‘Siedeberg, Emily Hancock’, from the Dictionary of New Zealand. Biography. Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, retrieved 25 July 2016 from www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/biographies/3s16/siedeberg-emily-hancock
Work diary of James Louis Salmond in Salmond Anderson Architects records. Hocken Collections MS-4111/004.

Acknowledgments:
Special thanks to Dr Soheila Safari and Tina Catlow of Dr Safari Appearance Medicine Clinic.

Ross & Glendining, High Street factory

6 Replies

Built: 1900-1901 (incorporating 1875 fabric)
Address: 167 High Street
Architect/Designer: Charles Lomax
Builders: Day labour (under Lomax)

An image from ‘Beautiful Dunedin’ (1906), taken when the building was relatively new.

My last post looked at Ross & Glendining’s 1866 warehouse on Stafford Street, and its later redevelopment as a hat factory. I briefly mentioned the adjoining factory buildings facing High Street, and this post expands on that part of the complex. Perhaps another time I’ll look at the company’s large warehouse further down High Street, demolished in 1970.

The High Street factory’s origins go back to 1875, when a warehouse and bonded store was built on the site. The building was on two levels, including the bluestone basement. The structure above was brick, with a cemented front. The architect was N.Y.A. Wales of Mason & Wales, and plans still held by the firm show a tramway connecting the building with the Stafford Street warehouse behind. James Hood was the contractor and the building cost £4,274.

Part of an original drawing for the 1875 building, reproduced courtesy of Mason & Wales Architects.

Between 1900 and 1901 two new floors, with extensions over the right-of-way, were made to create a new clothing factory. The designer was Charles Lomax, Ross & Glendining’s Building Inspector, who also supervised the construction work. According to an obituary, Lomax was originally from Blackburn, Lancashire, and as well as building the Roslyn Woollen Mills ‘carried out the erection of every warehouse belonging to the firm in New Zealand, also preparing the plans’. This description was not quite accurate, as others were also involved with building and design work for the company, but it would probably be true to say that no other person had a greater hand in the design and construction of the company’s buildings.

The rebuilt High Street factory was described in the Evening Star:

The factory operations are at present carried on in the two-storeyed building next the warehouse, but this is found to be inadequate for the trade. The new building will cover an area with a frontage of 66ft and 115ft deep. Including a spacious basement, of a uniform height of 12ft, there will be four storeys, the ground and first floors being 14ft high and the top one 12ft. The basement is to have a limer rock floor, the material for which has been imported from France. This makes a damp-proof floor, which is easier on the feet than one made of wood. It is used for the basement in the present warehouse, and has given every satisfaction. In the basement the engine for driving the machinery used throughout the factory will be located. The floors are to be supported by iron columns and steel joists, the building to be of brick with cement facings and slate roof. On a projection from each floor the lavatories and other conveniences are arranged for. The first floor is divided off into apartments for the office, finishing room, cutting room, pressing room, and dining room. The second and third floors are to be devoted to the operative departments of the factory, the different machines being driven by steam-power. A lift will travel from top to bottom of the building, connecting with all the floors. As was to be expected in a building of this description, ample provision has been made for lighting. There are six large windows to each floor in the front, and an equal number at the back, and these will ensure splendid light throughout the rooms. The front has been designed in no particular set style, but it will have an attractive appearance, although not being profusely ornamental, and will be in keeping with the effectiveness of the general run of large buildings in Dunedin.

Stephen Jones (whose history of Ross & Glendining I highly recommend) states that a nine horsepower Campbell oil engine replaced the old factory’s three horsepower Otto gas engine. This allowed the number of sewing machines to be increased, ‘there being over sixty Wilson & Wheeler and almost thirty Singer machines of various types installed in the factory by January 1902’.

The yard space and outbuildings separating the main Stafford and High Street buildings were eventually redeveloped. Additions in 1930 housed the company’s boot factory, relocated from Princes Street South, and a further two further storeys were added between 1937 and 1938. The architects for both stages of this work were Miller & White, with Thomas Ferguson the contractor.

The first stage of the boot factory additions, designed by Miller & White in 1930. Further floors were added 1937-1938.

Ross & Glendining was acquired by UEB Industries Ltd in 1966, and subsequently merged into Mosgiel Woollens Ltd, which retained a knitwear division in the building until it went into receivership in 1980. Later occupants included J. McGrath & Co, and in more recent years the building has been known as South Pacific House. Current occupants include NZ Fight & Fitness Academy.

The facade remains much as it did in 1901, although looking naked at the top where the balustrade and central pediment were removed in 1937. The fire escape likely dates from the 1940s, and 1941 work included the installation of louvre windows and the relocation of the main door from the centre to the side of the frontage. Sam Lind tells me that you can still identify the location in the basement where the engine running the belts would have been, and there is some evidence of the tramway that ran between the buildings. Some of the ironwork of the overhead shafts survives. Though most old fittings have been removed, the old stairs, floors, and brickwork all remain appealing interior features.

Newspaper references:
Otago Daily Times 20 April 1875 p.2 (description), 24 September 1906 p.4 (Lomax obituary); Evening Star 15 December 1900 p.1 (description of rebuilt premises)

Other references
Fahey, W.H. Beautiful Dunedin: its environs and the cold lakes of Otago (Dunedin: Evening Star Co., 1906)
Jones, S.R.H. Doing Well and Doing Good : Ross & Glendining, Scottish Enterprise in New Zealand (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2010)
Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans

Thanks to Mason & Wales Architects for access to early plans, and to Sam Lind for more recent information about the building.

Matilda Ritchie’s building

J.W. Swift & Co. building

13 Replies

Built: 1905
Address: 110 Bond Street
Architects: Mason & Wales
Builder: G. Simpson & Co.

I often start out with the idea of writing a brief post but it never seems to turn out that way! It’s a short one this time, though, on a lovely little Edwardian number that has an impressive street presence despite its small scale. It’s on the corner of Bond and Police streets, in the Warehouse Precinct.

In the early 1870s a modest two-storey brick building was built on the southern portion of the section, with the corner portion left undeveloped as a yard. These were the premises of the builder James Gore, and then his sons Charles and Walter Gore, before they became the tea store and blending rooms of Rattray & Son in 1891. In 1895 they were taken over by the large building supplies firm Thomson Bridger & Co., and the yard was used for the storage of timber and iron. The company had further stores and factory buildings on adjoining sections to the south, where it succeeded Guthrie & Larnach. W.J. Prictor’s detailed and reliable perspective drawing of 1898 shows the site still much as it was in the 1870s, but with some additions to the old buildings.

The site (highlighted in red) as it appeared in 1874. Detail from Burton Bros photograph, ref: Te Papa C.012064.

The site as it appeared about 1898, little changed from its state in the 1870s. Detail from W.J. Prictor plan, ref: Alexander Turnbull Library MapColl 834.5292ap 1898.

The building on the site today was put up for J.W. Swift & Co., wool brokers and shipping agents. The architects were Mason & Wales and the builder George Simpson, and the building was under construction in May 1905. The street elevations are richly treated in the Renaissance Revival style with a prominent cornice, extensive rustication, and Corinthian capitals. The larger Sidey warehouse on the diagonally opposite corner (designed by James Louis Salmond in 1907) is similarly treated. Among other things, the combination of exposed (though now painted) brickwork with the particular style of rustication are giveaways that these are Edwardian rather than Victorian facades.

Swift & Co. merged with H.L. Tapley & Co. in 1949 to form the Tapley Swift Shipping Agencies Ltd, but the wool business continued on the site under the J.W. Swift name until about 1958.

Around 1958 J.K. Sparrow & Co. moved into the building. This business of merchants and importers started out specialising in insulation, acoustic materials, and telecommunication devices, and also acted as insurance agents. Over time the focus shifted to catering equipment and supplies for the hospitality trade, and in 2003 the business was purchased by a Christchurch-based competitor, Aitkens & Co. Ltd. Aitkens operated from the building until 2014, when they moved their Dunedin operation to Andersons Bay Road.

Apart from painting, the exterior hasn’t changed much since the building went up, with the main exception being a clumsily integrated show window installed in the Police Street frontage in 1967. Internal alterations in 2009 included the removal of brick walls and the replacement of timber columns with steel posts. Timber doors to both the shop and the vehicle entrances have survived, which is a happy thing as in small buildings features such as these have a significant influence on the overall character. New owners plan to convert the Bond Street building into apartments, which should be a good fit for the revitalised Warehouse Precinct.

Newspaper references:
Otago Daily Times, 4 March 1891 p.4 (auction notice), 9 January 1900 p.2 (C. & W. Gore), 4 May 1905 p.2 (under construction), 14 August 1905 p.2 (still under construction), 13 April 2004 p.24 (Aitkens).

Other references:
Stone’s Otago and Southland Directory
Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory
Telephone directories
Jones, F. Oliver, ‘Structural Plans’ of the City of Dunedin NZ ‘Ignis et Aqua’ Series, [1892].
Prictor, W.J.,Dunedin 1898, J. Wilkie & Co. (Dunedin: J. Wikie & Co., 1898)
Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans (with thanks to Glen Hazelton)

Lost Dunedin #5: Quick’s Building

11 Replies

Built: 1907-1908
Address: 210 Castle Street (corner Hanover Street)
Architect: Basil Hooper (1876-1960)
Builder: John Wood
Demolished c.1966

New Zealand’s corner dairies are usually found in modest buildings, and this was one of them, but it was more unusual than most with its Arts and Crafts design by architect Basil Hooper. The building was erected between 1907 and 1908 as an investment property for E.E.C. Quick, who let the shop to the grocer Robert Crawford. Edmund Edward Colston Quick was 70 years old and had lived in Dunedin since 1860, when he had gone into business as an importer. He was well known for his company directorships and community work, including eighteen years served as secretary of the Otago SPCA.

Crawford kept the shop for only a short time, and the list of shopkeepers over the years is as follows (dates approximate):

1908-1909: Robert E. Crawford
1909-1916: George Beath and James Barron (as Beath & Barron)
1916-1920: James Barron
1920-1924: Arthur Harold Carrington
1924-1939: Julian Henri Le Gal (born in Jersey, Channel Islands)
1939-1941: Thomas Gibson
1931-1942: Malcolm A. Scandrett
1942-1945: Mabel and Norma Dalliessi
1945-1948: Victor Uline Smith
1948-1951: Jack Stewart Baker
1951-1966: Douglas Cecil Ledgerwood

Advertisement for Beath & Barron from the Otago Daily Times, 1 June 1912, p.15.

Basil Hooper was apprenticed to J.L. Salmond in Dunedin before he left to study architecture in England. He returned in 1904 as an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and later described himself as ‘the first young architect to arrive in Dunedin from England, with A.R.I.B.A. after my name, and up to date designs’. He is best remembered in Dunedin for his houses, which include the grand Ritchie residence at 26 Heriot Row. His commercial commissions were less numerous, but introduced elements of domestic Arts and Crafts style strikingly new to this type of building in Dunedin. Surviving examples include the George Street Ironmongery Company’s premises (1908) and the Smith & Co. butchery at the corner of King Edward and McBride streets in South Dunedin (1910-1911). The exteriors of these buildings featured exposed brickwork with Oamaru stone facings, unfortunately now painted over. Quick’s building was also brick, but with roughcast gable ends, and at some later date the brickwork was plastered over. All three buildings featured Marseilles-tiled roofs and their gables were made features rather than hidden behind conventional facade parapets. The South Dunedin shop was described when new as ‘modernised old English’, recognising its Tudor influences.

Basil Bramston Hooper (1876-1960). Ref: 1/2-197527-F, Alexander Turnbull Library, http://natlib.govt.nz/records/23024841.

Former Dunedin Ironmongery Company building in George Street, designed by Hooper in 1908. The brickwork and stonework was unfortunately painted over in the late 1990s.

Former butchery building in King Edward Street, designed by Hooper for Thomas Smith in 1910.

Drawings dated June 1907 show two bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen on the top floor of Mr Quick’s building, with the commercial space below. The Otago Daily Times published a finely-observed description:

A new shop has lately been completed at the corner of Hanover street and Castle street, to the design and under the supervision of Mr Basil Hooper, A.R.I.B.A. The building is quite unique in its style, as applied to shop architecture, a complete departure from the stereotyped form having been made in this case. In place of the usual high parapet wall and pediments and concealed iron roof, the fronts of the second storey have been formed by a series of gables, with projecting white rough-cast faces. The red Marseilles roof being exposed to view thus blends in most harmoniously with the simple white rough-cast in the gables. A projecting three-light casement bay window forms the centre feature of the Castle street facade, and is flanked on either side by a range of flat casement windows. The shop windows have small panes in the upper portion, and are finished round in exposed brickwork, with a simple brick dentil cornice surmounting the Castle street side. A solid timber verandah, with jarrah posts, shelters most of the two sides. The accommodation consists of a spacious shop, occupied by Mr Crawford, grocer; a large storeroom, stables and outhouses at back, and private entrance hall; and on the first floor a suite of living and bedrooms, bathroom, etc., fitted with every modern convenience. The building has been erected in a most satisfactory manner by Mr John Wood.

The building was demolished around 1966, and is today a car park for the bright orange premises of VTNZ (Vehicle Testing New Zealand). It’s difficult to picture the charming little shop that was once there.

Many other fine Basil Hooper buildings (mostly private houses) remain and to anyone interested in learning more about them I recommend Ralph Allen’s book, Motif and Beauty: The New Zealand Arts and Crafts Architecture of Basil Hooper.

Image credits:
1960s photographs of the store (colour, black and white) taken by Hardwicke Knight.

Newspaper references:
Otago Daily Times, 25 May 1907 p.1 (call for tenders), 1 February 1908 p.13 (description), 18 July 1908 p.6 (description of George Street Ironmongery Co. building), 19 May 1911 p.7 (description of Smith’s building), 10 June 1918 p.3 (obituary for E.E.C. Quick).

Other references:
Stone’s Otago and Southland Directory
Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory
Telephone directories
Deposited plan, Dunedin City Council (with thanks to Glen Hazelton)
Allen, Ralph. Motif and Beauty: The New Zealand Arts and Crafts Architecture of Basil Hooper (Dunedin: Harptree Press, 2000).
Lochhead, Ian J. ‘Hooper, Basil Bramston’, in Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, vol. 3 (1996), http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/biographies/3h34/hooper-basil-bramston

Acetylene Buildings

1 Reply

Built: 1909-1910
Address: 126-132 Stuart Street
Architect: John Arthur Burnside (1856-1920)
Builders: George France

The building as it appeared in 1910. Toitū / Otago Settlers Museum 63-45-1.

The curious name of the Acetylene Buildings is painted above the door in the historic photograph above. On the parapet and shop fronts is the name of the original building owners, the New Zealand Acetylene Gas Lighting Co. Ltd.

Acetylene lighting became popular in the Edwardian era, particularly for towns or particular properties that were not easily connected to an electricity network. Calcium carbine pellets combined with dripping water to produce the acetylene gas, which was then burned to produce the light. The New Zealand Acetylene Gas Lighting Company was established in Dunedin in 1902, and within a short time branches were operating in Christchurch, Wellington, and Auckland. In 1906 the company was responsible for setting up the street lighting in Picton, the first town in New Zealand to use the system. Kaiapoi and Geraldine followed in 1908, and Opunake in 1909. The company also supplied lighting for private houses such as ‘Aorangi’ at St Leonards, institutions such as Waitaki Boys’ High School, various dredges, and Shackleton’s expedition to Antarctica in 1909. Acetylene cooking stoves and heaters were also sold. A problem with the gas was that it was prone to causing explosions. Eight people were killed in an explosion at a general store at Upper Hutt in 1914. Following a long inquest and vigorous argument, the coroner eventually concluded that gelignite on the premises was to blame rather than acetylene, but the bad press may have hastened the decline of the acetylene lighting in New Zealand, while at the same time electrification was becoming more widely available.

The Acetylene Buildings were erected during the boom in construction that came to Stuart Street after the re-siting of the Dunedin railway station. John Arthur Burnside was architect and he called for tenders for construction in September 1909. George France was the contractor and the buildings, which cost £2400 were finished by April 1910. There were three storeys to Stuart Street, with two shops on the ground floor and generously proportioned offices above. An adjoining workshop building faced Bath Street and acetylene lighting was used throughout. The exuberant Queen Anne styling included prominent window pediments and volutes that echoed those on the nearby Roberts Building, which Burnside had designed six years earlier. Most of the architectural features remain today, but the parapet detail and cornice have been removed and as a result the composition has lost its balance. The brickwork on the street facades has been painted and a hanging verandah and fire escape added.

The Acetylene Gas Lighting Company took the corner shop and workshop. The business was renamed New Zealand Acetylene and Hardware Ltd in 1919, and after downsizing it was reorganised as Electric and Plumbing Supplies Ltd in 1929 and closed in 1956. The corner shop was afterwards taken by the Otago Missionary Association, which ran a book room, and then by the Lullaby Fashion House (children’s wear), between 1961 and 1979. Later tenants included Fiesta Fashions and Toy Traders.

William James Bell, a hairdresser, had the other shop from 1913. He died in 1955 but Bell’s Hairdressers continued at the address until 1985. Its 72 years came close to matching the record of Hendy’s Hairdressing Room in Princes Street. The former hairdresser’s became a Middle Eastern café/restaurant for a few years and is now combined with the other shop as Minami Sushi Bar and Restaurant (opened in 2002).

A view of the building from Stuart Street

Up the charming timber staircase, its handrail worn to a fine finish after a century of use, is Lure Jewellery Workshop, established by Ann Culy in 1995. There is a great link here with one of the first tenants in the building, Thomas Long. A manufacturing jeweller, he ran his Zealandia Jewellery Manufacturing Company at the address from 1913. Within five years he dropped the company name, but he continued to work in the building to 1929. Lure has workspace for up to four jewellers and its retail gallery represents up to thirty New Zealand jewellers. On the top floor, jeweller and painter John Z. Robinson has had a studio since 1999.

Other tenants in the upstairs rooms have included August De Beer (indenting agent, 1913-1932), Chrissie Hall (dressmaker, 1913-1925), Robert Bennet (tailor, 1925-1953), and Bertrand Quelch (barrister and solicitor, 1954-1967). The Otago Chess Club (established in 1884) had its club rooms on the top floor from 1941 to 1955. In those days tournaments were typically carried out in a haze of cigarette smoke. I wonder if the concentration of the players was disrupted by the Dunedin Ladies Brass Band, which had its band rooms in the building for a few years after 1946. Watson Studio, photographers, had rooms on the upper floors from 1962 to 1993, and then became the Gary van der Mark studio.

Tull’s Chocolate Annihilation, from the creators fo the Chocolate Massacre. The silhouette of Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull featured on restaurant signage and menus.

Geoff Simpson of Tull.

The old workshop fronting Bath Street became a restaurant around 1987. Smorgy’s and Just Desserts were there for a few years before Geoff and Lois SImpson opened Tull in 1993. Named after the rock band Jethro Tull, it was particularly known for its desserts, and had almost a cult following. Diners were awarded a certificate (‘The Blodwyn’) if they were able to finish the Chocolate Massacre, and other dishes paid homage to the band with names such as Aqualung (a seafood salad) and Bungle in the Jungle (a green salad). The Simpsons were folk musicians and the New Edinburgh Folk Club (established c.1977) met at the restaurant on Sunday nights from 1999 onwards. Tull closed following Geoff’s death in 2006, and since 2007 the space has been a Japanese restaurant, Yuki Izakaya.

View from Bath Street showing the former workshop and Tull restaurant on the left (now Yuki Izakaya)

Facade detail

Newspaper references:
Otago Daily Times, 1 September 1909 p.1 (call for tenders), 16 September 1909 p.12 (Shackleton expedition), 1 April 1910 p.1 (rooms to let), 5 December 1995 p.17 (Lure), 2 September 2006 p.34 (Geoff Simpson obituary)
The Dominion, 29 April 1914 p.4 (Upper Hutt tragedy)

Other references:
Stone’s Otago and Southland Directory
Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory
Tonkin, Keith. The Tull Years 1999-2006. New Edinburgh Folk Club (Dunedin, 2007).
Council of Fire and Accident Underwriters’ Associations of New Zealand, block plans, 1927
Telephone directories
Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans
New Zealand Acetylene Gas Company brochure, Hocken Collections AG-352/053
Otago Chess Club minute books, Hocken Collections MS-0962/006

Acknowledgment:
Thanks to Lois Simpson for supplying information about the Tull restaurant.

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Built in Dunedin

a city's buildings and their stories

Tag Archives: 1900s

Daniel Heenan’s mausoleum

Dunedin Railway Station: its architect and style

Silverwood Terrace

Allan Grange

Emily Siedeberg’s house

Ross & Glendining, High Street factory

Matilda Ritchie’s building

J.W. Swift & Co. building

Lost Dunedin #5: Quick’s Building

Acetylene Buildings

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