Tag Archives: Lost Dunedin

Lost Dunedin #6: Janitor’s house, Otago Boys’ High School

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Built: 1885
Address: 18 Arthur Street
Architect: John Somerville
Builder: William Duncan
Demolished 1971

The house in September 1964. Gary Blackman photographer. From a Kodachrome slide.

Gary Blackman’s beautiful Kodachrome image of the janitor’s house at Otago Boys’ High School in 1964 has inspired me to look at the history of the building, demolished over fifty years ago.

The school used the title of janitor for its caretaker until about 1980. The janitor’s tasks included maintaining the playing areas and other grounds, managing lost property, recording absenteeism, first aid, and supervising the ‘fatigues’ issued as punishments.

The janitor’s residence was immediately to the left of the main school entrance on Arthur Street. It was built fairly quickly in the early months of 1885, just as the school was moving from its original site where Otago Girls’ High School is now. The main stone building, designed by R.A. Lawson, had taken two years to build and was formally opened in February 1885.

John Somerville, not Lawson, designed the janitor’s house. Somerville’s main salaried employment was as the Otago Education Board architect. He also worked for the Otago High Schools Board of Governors, the body responsible for the management of Dunedin’s two public high schools.

William Duncan won the contract to build the house, for the modest sum of £228. This was approximately a year’s wages for a senior clerk or teacher. The contract price for the main building had been nearly £15,000. The house was built largely of Baltic pine, with some kauri, in a carpenter gothic style with a distinctive steeply-pitched roof and carved bargeboards.

‘Dunedin North’ by Burton Brothers. Te Papa O.000988. The photograph was taken between 1887 and 1890. The janitor’s house can be seen to the right of the main school building. In the foreground is the then new Arthur Street School Infant Department building.

Detail from the Burton Brothers photograph.

The janitors who lived in this house, and their dates of occupation, were:

John Wallace 1885-1902
Edward Carter 1903-1934
David McEwen Hall Hanlin 1934-1960
William James Hammond 1960-1966
William Kirkland 1966-c.1969 (continuing as janitor to 1975)

The first, John Wallace, was one of 86 applicants for the position. He lived in the house with his wife Maggie and their five children, staying in the job for seventeen years. One of the children, also named Maggie, died at the house in 1896, aged 20. I have not found out much more about the family. John was born in Innerleithen, in the Scottish Borders, and also worked as a carpenter. He appealed against cuts made to his salary when the school went through a period of straightened finances.  He later lived in Dundas Street and died in Auckland in 1923, aged about eighty (sources vary). Maggie died in 1930.

The longest-serving janitor was Edward Carter, better known as Nick, who took up the position in 1903. Born in Dunedin in 1869, he had worked as a gardener and married Martha Murdoch in 1895. Martha and Nick moved into the janitor’s house with four children under the age of thirteen, and another two would be born after the move. The youngest, John, died at the age of just two weeks. Martha died in 1915, aged 45.

Nick was described by one former Otago Boys’ pupil as ‘small and nondescript’, someone who would have made a good spy! ‘Many of us can still see him as he toddled from room to room with the absence book or up to the dais in the hall to ring the handbell at the end of a spell’. He was a skilled gardener and produced beautiful displays of spring flowers. He built a rock garden next to the house, beside the front entrance. Nick remarried, to Florence Evans, in 1926. The couple were presented with a suitcase, a pair of vases, and an enthusiastic haka by the schoolboys. After more than thirty years in the job, Nick Carter retired in 1934. He died in 1942, and Florence in 1949.

I have found no informative sources about what life was like for the janitor’s wife, living on the school grounds. Perhaps this post might elicit something.

David and Louisa Hanlin came to the house with their two children in 1934, during the later part of the Great Depression. Davie, as he was known, was selected from 171 applicants. Born in Glasgow in 1895, he came to Otago in 1912 and worked with his father in a cartage and contracting business in Mosgiel. He served in France in the First World War, in the Machine-Gun Section of the 23rd Reinforcements, Specialist Company. He would be part of National Reserve in the Second World War, and afterwards had a long association with the RSA. An accomplished association football player, he had played for the Southern and Mosgiel clubs. He was highly regarded as a coach, including of the High School Old Boys’ Team, and was a soccer writer for both the Otago Daily Times and the Evening Star. He was given the title of assistant rector because one of his duties was to ring the bell that called the school to order. He was also known to have Scotch broth for lunch every day of the year, no matter what the weather! Davie Hanlin retired in 1960 and died in 1985, aged 90. Louisa, who was born in Middlemarch, died in 1986 at the age of 92.

The north front of the house in the early 1960s. From the Old Boys’ Register.

Bill Hammond was janitor from 1960 to 1966. It seems he later worked as a swimming pool manager in Timaru, and as a security officer in Auckland.

William Kirkland took over in 1966 and was the last janitor to live in the old house, with his wife May. They moved out about 1969, when the building became vacant. William described it as ‘still quite serviceable’. Nevertheless, it came down in the first weeks of January 1971.

The Otago Daily Times reported: ‘There will be many who will regret the demise of this charming house and who will wonder whether its end was absolutely necessary’. The reason given for the demolition was the re-landscaping of the area, with a larger entrance to the school. One regular passerby, who was asked for comment by the reporter, thought it a great pity. She said something could have been done to save the building, possibly by moving it. Two years later, even the main stone building faced demolition. It was saved only after lobbying and objections, and a change of heart from the school governors and ministry officials. For those interested, Rory Sweetman’s superbly researched and very readable history of the school, Above the City, gives more information about this.

Happily, the main building survives and has been strengthened, but the long-gone janitor’s house fades further from memory. If you have memories of it, please do share them in the comments.

Newspaper references:
New Zealand Herald 26 January 1923 p.2 (death of John Wallace).
Otago Daily Times, 8 January 1971 p.9 (‘Early Dunedin building is being demolished), 18 December 1985, p.3 (‘Fond memories of caretaker’, David Hanlin), 27 April 2015 p.3 (‘Veteran to lay poppy for Dad’).

Other sources:
Griffiths, G.J. and E.J. McCoy. Otago Boys’ High School and its Historic Neighbourhood. Dunedin:    Otago Heritage Books, 1983.
Sweetman, Rory. ‘Above the City’: A History of Otago Boys’ High School. Dunedin: Otago Boys’ High    School Foundation, 2013.
Magazine, Otago Boys’ High School (including staff lists).
Otago Boys’ High School Old Boys Register. Dunedin: Otago High School Old Boys’ Society, 1963.
Electoral rolls
Stone’s Otago and Southland Directory
Minute book, AG-266/002, from Otago High Schools Board records, Hocken Collections Uare          Taoka o Hākena.
Voucher book, AG-266/067, from Otago High Schools Board records
Ancestry.com genealogical resources

Lost Dunedin #5: Quick’s Building

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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.

DCLedgerwoodStore_BanW2Image 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

Lost Dunedin #4: Gillies & Street Building

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Built: 1864-1865
Address: Cr Princes and Dowling streets
Architects: Mason & Clayton
Builders: Not identified
Demolished 1968

A view from 1865 or 1866, looking north along Princes Street and showing the Gillies & Street Building on the corner. The two-storey building adjoining it was the Glasgow Pie House. Image: Toitū / Otago Settlers Museum 26-6-1.

This building, originally owned by land agents Gillies & Street, made a bold and vivacious addition to Dunedin’s architecture on its completion in 1865. It was built two years after the discovery of gold at Gabriels Gully, when new-found wealth from the gold rush was rapidly changing the face of Dunedin. Modest timber structures were making way for brick ones of more substance and pretention, including this, the city’s first corner office block, with its vigorous Florentine styling and rich ornamentation.

Still in his twenties, Robert Gillies had arrived in Otago as a teenager in 1852. His father had been Town Clerk of Rothesay in Scotland, and in Otago became a prominent landowner and member of the first Provincial Council. In 1861 Gillies went into partnership with Charles Henry Street, who had come to Dunedin from England in 1853.

Tenders for construction of the brick and stone building were called in September 1864, and it was complete by March 1865. In addition to the owners’ offices were upstairs rooms taken by the law firm Howorth, Barton, and Howorth.

An 1865 view showing the roof of the uncompleted building in the foreground. Behind it is the Oriental Hotel, with Maclaggan Street running into the distance. Image: Alexander Turnbull Library PAColl-3824-04.

Mason & Clayton were the architects. I can’t be sure which partner was primarily responsible, but the building appears to be more in the style of William Mason, who had designed another richly decorated edifice for Gillies a few years before. The Revived Renaissance design had some delightfully imaginative decorative elements: a statue of a rather humanesque lion sat over the corner doorway, and there may have been another above the Princes Street entrance. Herbert Webb, a staff member in the law firm, said that the partner George Barton was teased because of his likeness to the lion, and so had the statue removed!

Even more remarkable was the cornice, on which dogs’ heads (about 60 in total) looked out above each of the brackets. I like to think that Charles Street may have had some hand in these quirky features. Street was the ‘dear good nephew’ of Edward Lear, the famous author of The Owl and the Pussycat and other nonsense verse. It’s also possible Gillies requested them, or that the architect was bold enough to suggest them himself. Other decoration included barley twist pillars, Corinthian capitals, rusticated arched lintels, and impressive chimneys which echoed those of the Oriental Hotel on the street corner diagonally opposite. Most of the decorative columns on the building were curiously punctuated with rectangular blocks.

A photograph from 1885 or 1886 showing the building after the additions were made. Lettering on the lamp at the hotel entrance reads ‘Donaldson’s Shades’. Above a separate door to the left are the words ‘Glasgow Pie House’. Image: Burton Bros. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa C.011730.

Detail of cornice and chimney. Image: Burton Bros. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa C.011730.

Detail of corner entrance, including the humanesque lion. Pointing hands have been added to the lamp post. Image: Burton Bros. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa C.011730.

It was likely from this building that Herbert Webb observed a lawyer’s client being lowered into the back yard with a rope, in order to escape a bailiff waiting in the outer office. Barton owed large damages following a court case in 1866, and the legend in his office (probably apocryphal) was that he avoided arrest by hiding in a beer barrel that was taken on board a departing ship. In 1868 Henry Howorth went into partnership with W.M. Hodgkins (best remembered today as a painter and the father of Frances Hodgkins), an arrangement which continued to 1884.

Gillies & Street flourished, and in 1875 they moved to new premises in Bond Street. In 1880 a large building was built for them at the corner of Vogel and Rattray streets, adjoining the Terminus Hotel. By that time they were Gillies, Street & Hislop, and in 1884 the firm expanded to form Perpetual Trustees, which is still in operation today.

In 1875 John Donaldson, who owned the adjoining Glasgow Pie House in Princes Street, bought the Gillies & Street building. Additions in 1875 and 1877 (the latter designed by R.A. Lawson) doubled the length of street facades along both Princes and Dowling streets, and replicated the original ornamentation. The new Glasgow Hotel offered thirteen bedrooms, a restaurant and bar, and specialised in catering for large banquets (including some held by William Larnach in the Bank of New Zealand building). Donaldson loved making wedding cakes and one of his daughters recalled one so large it took three men to carry it. In 1877 the first English cricket team to tour Australia and New Zealand stayed in the hotel.

Advertisement from Otago Daily Times, 30 December 1884 p.3. Image: Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand.

In 1884 Donaldson sold the buildings to the Mutual Life Association of Australasia for £13,500. They opened offices at the corner and prominently displayed their name on the facades. Donaldson continued to run the hotel business in the Dowling Street portion and by the end of the year had opened new dining and supper rooms for the Pie House and what he named ‘The Shades’ (this shared its entrance with the hotel, while the Pie House had its own entrance). The names Glasgow Hotel and The Shades were used (seemingly interchangeably) for some time after that date, but the Pie House closed not long afterwards. From 1896 the pub was known only as the Shades Hotel.

In 1887 Donaldson left to build the Excelsior Hotel on the site of the old Oriental. The Shades continued to operate until it lost its licence in 1903. It then reopened as a dry establishment, known as the Carlton Private Hotel and Dining Rooms up to 1913, and then as Jackson’s Private Hotel. The hotel closed in 1922 but restaurants operated in the second floor space until about 1950, when Lake’s Restaurant closed.

Someone (identified only as ‘D.M.R.’) who recalled the restaurant in its Edwardian days said that for sixpence there were three-course meals of soup, several meats, and trimmings, sweets, and as much tea as one wanted. Upstairs, for an extra threepence, the tables were decorated with flowers, and there were cruets and tomato sauce. The fare was enhanced by a ‘dollop of cream on the pud’, and the addition of an ample supply of fruit cake, scones, and jam.

Advertisement from New Zealand Tablet, 27 August 1886 p.12. Image: Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand.

The Mutual Life Association left in 1912, after 28 years in the building. Verandahs and new shop fronts were built along the Princes Street frontage in the early twentieth century. The hairdresser Edward Iles took the old Pie House shop in Princes Street as his salon and tobacconists from 1886 to 1912. The tailors T. Young & Co. had rooms on the first floor for forty years from 1915 to 1955. Two sisters, Annie and Mary McIntyre, ran a cake shop at the corner between 1915 and 1938. This became a hardware shop in the 1940s, and was named Hardware Corner Ltd in 1953. The Commercial Bank of Australia was a ground floor tenant on Dowling Street from 1922 onwards, and stayed there until the demolition of the building, afterwards taking space in its replacement. Clubs, lawyers, real estate agents, commission agents, dressmakers, engineers, architects, and an elocution teacher, were among the many others who had upstairs rooms, and after the hotel closed there was a live-in caretaker.

A view looking south down Princes Street, not taken before 1913. By this time verandahs have been added. Image courtesy of Dave McLaren.

A view looking south down Princes Street, taken some time between 1913 and 1919. By this time verandahs and new shop fronts have been added. Image courtesy of Dave McLaren.

The building as it appeared in the early 1940s. Shops are occupied by Ferguson’s Opticians and Electrolux Ltd. On Dowling Street is signage for Lake’s Restaurant and T. Young & Co. tailors. The photography studio on the top floor has generous glazing with the name ‘Esquilant’ prominently displayed. The Commercial Bank of Australia has signage in relief lettering. The small building at the right included Ye Olde English Cake and Tea Shoppe and the office of the architect E.W. Walden. Image: Hocken Collections S08-035b.

William Esquilant’s photography studio opened on the top floor in 1913, and new glazing was put in for him. Esquilant was a keen pigeon fancier, but I don’t know if he made use of his professional rooms for his homing pigeons. In 1945 the studio was taken over by Franz Barta, a Hungarian émigré who had left Europe in 1938 to escape Nazi persecution. He remained there to 1968.

In 1940 architects Miller & White designed a revised facade for owner Kate Thompson. The original decoration was removed but the familiar fenestration patterns remained. The contractors Knox Bros carried out the work, which when finished gave the exterior a simple plastered finish with understated decoration that was fashionable at the time. It gave the building something of a Spanish look.

The Otago Foundation Trust Board had the building demolished in 1968 to make way for their Cargill House office block, which was designed by Ian Dunn of the architecture firm Miller, White & Dunn. That building was completed in 1970 and housed the Inland Revenue Department for many years. In 2004 it became the Scenic Circle Hotel (now Scenic Hotel Dunedin City), which gives some sense of continuity with the days of the Shades.

Newspaper references: Otago Daily Times, 20 September 1864 p.6 (call for tenders), 13 March 1865 p.3 (Howorth, Barton & Howorth), 18 April 1865 p.9 (fully occupied, architects named); 13 October 1875 p.2 (additions and sale of building), 15 October 1875 p.2 (sale of building), 27 October 1875 p.2 (additions), 3 March 1877 p.2 (English cricketers in residence), 9 August 1877 p.4 (additions designed by R.A. Lawson), 11 October 1884 p.2 (purchased by Mutual Life Association), 1 December 1884 p.4 (sale of furniture etc.), 2 October 1893 p.3 (advertisement for The Shades Hotel), 12 November 1896 p.5 (Glasgow Hotel, also known as Shades); Illustrated New Zealand Herald, 1 July 1868 p.6 and supp. (description and illustration); Evening Star, 22 June 1968 (‘Do you remember the Shades Hotel?’), 29 June 1968 (letter to editor), 1 July 1968 (letter to editor), 13 August 1968 (‘They remember Shades Hotel in this city’).

Other references: Stone’s Otago and Southland Directory; Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory; telephone directories; Herbert Webb, ‘The legal profession in Dunedin in “the sixties” of last century and somewhat later’ (Hocken Collections, Misc-MS-1283); Dalziel Architects records (Hocken Collections, ARC-0520).

Lost Dunedin #3: Oriental Hotel

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Built: 1863
Address: 152 Princes Street
Architect: [?] William Henry Clayton (1823-1877)
Builder: Not identified
Demolished 1887

Photo: D.L. Mundy, [1864]. Toitū / Otago Settlers Museum.

The Oriental Hotel was the most exuberant building of gold rush Dunedin. Dominating its neighbours, it magnificently thumbed its nose at any stodginess or dourness that might, fairly or unfairly, have been associated with the established settler society. The eccentric four-storeyed timber structure was built for John Sibbald in 1863, with construction reported as nearly complete by December that year. The following month Harriet Cooper was given a license to run the hotel.

The design of the Oriental was so eclectic that it has been variously described as Gothic, Continental, Renaissance, Old English, American and, yes, Oriental. It even had ironwork with shamrock motifs. The Otago Daily Times struggled to describe the building in 1864, but referred to it is as ‘very pretty’ and an example of what might be termed  ‘Continental Gothic’, a departure from the ordinary Gothic style.  The great variety of detail included barley twist columns, grotesque heads, a representation of Bacchus, balcony stick work, Tudoresque chimneys, oriel windows, gablets, an elaborate and unusual cornice, and a platform with iron railings on the top of the building. No Asian influence was mentioned in the report and I haven’t found any evidence explaining whether or not the hotel name was chosen before or after the building was designed. Stacpoole and Beaven (1972) noted that the oriel windows with connecting balconies, along with the cornice, were ‘as far East as Gothic could go’.

A contextual view. Note the Dowling Street steps where the land was excavated in the 1880s allowing the extension of the street. Photo: 1865. Alexander Turnbull Library. Ref: PAColl-3824-04.

A contextual view. Note the Dowling Street steps where the land was excavated in the 1880s allowing the extension of the street. Photo: 1865. Alexander Turnbull Library. Ref: PAColl-3824-04.

The question of who designed the building has long been one of the puzzles of Dunedin’s architectural history. Some sources name Edward Rumsey as the architect, an attribution that seems to have originated with Stacpoole and Beaven (1972), based on stylistic grounds. Rumsey probably arrived in Dunedin aboard the Aldinga in June 1862, although he did not start advertising in local newspapers until August 1864. It is possible that he was the designer.

I have a new theory, which is that W.H. Clayton designed the building. Clayton worked in Dunedin from May 1863, and of all the architects working in Dunedin at the time he is the only one I know of whose style appears at all consistent with the Oriental. Clayton later became Colonial Architect and he designed many public buildings throughout the country, including the Old Government Buildings in Wellington. There are particularly striking similarities between the Oriental and his unrealised concept drawing for Government House in Wellington (c.1869). After searching newspapers online, on microfilm, and in print, I found only one piece of documentary evidence to support this: in August 1863 Clayton called for tenders for ‘Lowering an Hotel to the permanent level’. It was at this time that the section of Princes Street known as the Cutting, in which the Oriental was built, was lowered to the line of the rest of the street. Was the Oriental the hotel referred to in the tender notice?

W.H. Clayton’s unrealised design for Government House, Wellington. Image: c.1869, Alexander Turnbull Library. Ref: PA1-q-158-42.

The Oriental was one of Dunedin’s larger hotels. It had a bar and a restaurant, and was the venue of lodge meetings, coroner’s inquests, the organisation of walking races, and its fair share of disorderly behaviour. It was a mostly respectable establishment, however, and its accommodation included ‘private rooms for families’. In 1883, an English artist who had toured New Zealand described the hotel as ‘rather of an American type, and, I must say, the most elegant building of the kind I have seen since leaving San Francisco’.

The first licensee, Harriet Cooper, went broke within a few months. While she was there she lost a cockatoo that must have lent even more colour to the establishment. Below is a full list of the licensees checked and revised from the lists of Willett (1937) and Tod (1984):

1864. Harriet Cooper
1864-1865. Horace Bastings
1866-1868. Edgar Bastings
1868-1871. John McCubbin
1871-1872. James Mackay
1872-1876. John Scott
1876. Henry Nankervis
1876. Joseph Braithwaite
1876-1878. William Gawne
1878. Angelo Davis
1878-1880. Reuben Isaacs
1880-1881. Francis O’Kane
1881. Maurice Tondut
1881-1883. Donald Macrae
1883. Henry Newey
1883-1886. George Stanbrook
1886-1887. Joseph Wilson
1887-1888. John Donaldson

Advertisement from the New Zealand Tablet, 4 August 1876 p.17. National Library of New Zealand.

Advertisement from the Otago Witness, 18 September 1880 p.4. National Library of New Zealand.

In its early years Princes Street was plagued by fires, which sometimes swept through entire city blocks. Deaths and great loss of property were experienced, and it’s unsurprising that wooden buildings came to be seen as a liability, and that more fireproof brick construction was promoted on safety grounds. Earthquakes were not experienced, and so they were not factored in. The Oriental nearly burned down on no fewer than four occasions (1865, 1880, 1883, and 1885) and at the time of its demolition in 1887 it was described as a ‘standing menace’. The land was very valuable, and in 1874 the freehold had been purchased by Joseph Braithwaite (the well-known bookseller and later mayor) for the princely sum of £1,850.

After much blasting and excavation, Dowling Street was extended and the Excelsior Hotel was built on the site of the old hotel (taking its license). That building still stands today, but its story will have to wait for another post.

Newspaper references:

Otago Daily Times, 20 August 1863 p.3 (Clayton tender notice – reducing hotel to permanent level); 18 December 1863 p.3 (description), 10 February 1864 p.7 (lost cockatoo), 30 May 1864 p.3 (Cooper insolvent ), 1 June 1864 p.3 (Sibbald), 12 May 1874 p.2 (sale of freehold), 15 May 1880 p.2 (fire), 23 March 1883 p.4 (impression of architecture on visitor), 28 November 1883 p.2 (fire), 2 June 1884 p.1 (Stanbrook advertisement), 10 June 1885 p.2 (fire), 9 March 1887 p.2 (demolition), also various Licensing Committee reports; The Mercury (Hobart), 11 February 1865 p.3 (fire – walls blistered); Otago Witness, 18 September 1880 p.4 (O’Kane advertisement).

Other references:

Knight, Hardwicke and Niel Wales. Buildings of Victorian Dunedin: An Illustrated Guide to New Zealand’s Victorian City  (Dunedin: McIndoe, 1988).
Stacpoole, John and Peter Beaven. New Zealand Art; Architecture 1820-1970 (Wellington: Reed, [1972]).
Tod, Frank: Pub’s Galore (Dunedin: Historical Publications, 1984).
Willett, R.W. Hotels of Dunedin; Historical Record  (Dunedin, 1937).

Photo (detail): D.L. Mundy, [1864]. Toitū / Otago Settlers Museum.

Lost Dunedin #2: Appin

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Built: 1881-1882
Address: 311 Leith Street
Architect: T.B. Cameron (c.1837-1894)
Builder: Norman Wood (c.1840-1907)
Demolished 1965-1966

This house stood for over eighty years near the corner of Leith and Union streets, on part of the site now occupied by University College.  Another design by T.B. Cameron, it was built for Captain Angus Cameron (probably no relation), Chief Marine Superintendent of the Union Steam Ship Company.

Captain Cameron (1829-1909) had a long career at sea and as a ship owner. He had commissioned the construction of Otago, a vessel which later came under the command of the writer Joseph Conrad, and also the Wakatipu, a ship for the trans-Tasman route which he commanded for two years before taking his post with Union Company, then the largest shipping company in the Southern Hemisphere. In later decades he spent much time in Scotland overseeing the construction of new ships for the company. The largest of these was the 5,000-tonne Maheno (1905), one of the world’s first triple-screw liners.

Captain Cameron’s first wife died in 1865 and he married his second, Annie, on 24 April 1882. He was 53 (although his age was recorded as 45 on the marriage certificate) and she was 25. The house in Leith Street was completed around the time of their marriage, with papers now held in the Hocken Collections showing that they were busy furnishing it in May, with such things as a mahogany dining suite, a marble washstand, Brussels carpets, and crimson draperies. The builder of the house was Norman Wood, Mayor of West Harbour, and the build price (in the contract dated 23 August 1881) was £1,323. The house was named Appin after Captain Cameron’s birthplace.

Appin was an Italianate villa of rendered brick built to a fairly conventional double bay pattern but with quite elaborate decoration. The pairs of spindly pilasters flanking the windows  were used by the architect in some of his other designs, as were the bracketed chimney caps. Also notable are the quoining, the balustrades above the bays, and the delightfully florid bargeboards. The Palladian (or Serlian) window above the front door was a distinctive touch that doesn’t appear on the surviving drawing of the front elevation.

Some grand functions took place at Appin and on one occasion in 1908 both Martinelli’s Band (the leading dance and social event ensemble of the time) and a fortune teller were installed on the lawn.

Captain Cameron died in 1909 and Mrs Cameron remained in the house until her death on 25 February 1949 at the age of 92. Her son Percy then leased (and later sold) the house to the University of Otago. For two years it was the home of Noel Odell, the new Professor of Geology, who had become famous as a member of Mallory’s ill-fated expedition to Everest in 1924. Odell and his wife didn’t much like Appin, or Varsity House as it was renamed, as it had become rather run-down. From 1952 it housed the Department of English and was known as Cameron House. The Bibliography Room Press (now Otakou Press) was established in an old wash-house at the rear of the house in 1961.

The English Department moved to the new Arts Block in 1965 and Cameron House was demolished between December 1965 and January 1966 to make way for the new University College buildings.

Image credits: Cameron family papers, Hocken Collections, MS-1046/452 (S12-614). Muir & Moodie photographers.

Newspaper references: Otago Daily Times, 13 August 1881 p.4 (call for tenders); Otago Witness, 18 November 1908 p.72 (‘At Home’)

Other references: Cameron family papers, Hocken Collections, MS-1046/015 (financial papers and contracts), MS-1046/667 (front elevation drawing). University of Otago Records of Registry and Central Administration, AG-180-005/006 (Works Committee minutes), AG-180-31 (general files).

Joseph Lowe Shaw, architect

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Born: Dublin, Ireland, c.1821
Died: Dunedin, 23 September 1906

521 George Street (Wilson residence)

J.L. Shaw has something of a one-hit-wonder status in Dunedin, where he is almost only known as the architect of the much admired house at 521 George Street. He is better known in Victoria, Australia, for his earlier work there, but his New Zealand career deserves more exploration and recognition than it’s had.

Joseph Lowe Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1820 or 1821, the son of Mary Ann Shaw, née Lowe, and John Shaw, who was a doctor. His two older brothers, William and Forster Shaw, were also doctors, and they migrated to Victoria in the 1840s. I haven’t found details of  Joseph’s education or early career in Ireland but he was about 30 years old when he arrived in Melbourne aboard the Asia in 1850. He settled at Geelong, where for two years he worked in partnership with H.M. Garrard as a surveyor, engineer, and architect. The two men were responsible for many early survey maps.

In 1851 Shaw married Euphemia Jane Clibborn. She died in 1860 and the following year Shaw married Juliet Georgiana Wherland. The couple had a son, Francis.

From 1856 to 1857 Shaw worked in partnership with R.A. Dowden in the architectural firm Shaw and Dowden. The pair’s work in Geelong included the Colonial Bank, St Augustine’s Orphanage, and additions to James Simson’s residence Eumeralla. They were also responsible for the Woolbrook homestead at Teesdale. In 1859 Shaw designed Morongo, a grand bluestone homestead, for John Calvert.  For his own brother William he designed Allington, a two-storyed residence in Newtown noted for its striking polychromatic brickwork. Churches by Shaw included St Peter’s Anglican Church at Geelong, and Presbyterian churches at Batesford, Shelford, Inverleigh, and Darlington.

Derry Hall, Curlewis

Morongo, Bell Post Hill

Presbyterian Church, Leigh

Allington, Newtown

Shaw came to suffer from a lack of patronage, and from personal problems that were said to have included alcoholism. Perhaps for a fresh start he moved with his family to Dunedin in 1876, where one of his first architectural works was the Supreme Court Hotel, now the Kwangchow Cuisine restaurant, in Stuart Street. He was the architect of the extensive rebuilding of Chingford, then P.C. Neill’s house, in 1877. This house was demolished in 1968 and only the stables, designed by Mason and Wales in 1880, survive.

In 1878 Shaw designed Edward Hulme Hart’s residence in Wardlaw Street, a timber house with distinctive fretted bargeboards, steeply gabled bay, and other features in the style of the Chingford additions. It has been described as ‘Carpenter’s Gothic’. Other houses by Shaw included the house in George Street built for Robert Wilson, which has distinctive balconies that have more in common with Australian than New Zealand models (although interestingly  a house at 111 Highgate is in a similar style). Shaw also designed a homestead for J.M. Ritchie at Cannington Station, and Robert Chapman’s large wooden house in Maori Hill.

Chingford, North East Valley (with kind permission of macadee on flickr). All that’s seen here except the portion at the right rear of the picture were Shaw’s additions.

Hart residence, Musselburgh

Shaw was the architect of buildings for Donaghy’s rope and twine factory in South Dunedin, including the original rope walk of 1878. He also designed the National Hotel in Great King Street and the National Bank at Tapanui. He was architect to the Benevolent Institution, for which his designs included the Old Men’s Home, Secretary’s residence, and additions. Juliet Shaw was treasurer to the committee of the Female Refuge, and in 1888 additions to the refuge in Forth Street were built to Shaw’s design.

An Anglican, Shaw had been a trustee of St Paul’s Church in Geelong, and served in the Diocesan Synod in Dunedin. His works associated with the Church included schoolhouses for St John’s and St Matthew’s churches and the supervision of the removal of the old St Peter’s church building at Caversham and its re-erection as St Mary’s, Mornington, in 1883.

Shaw served as Chairman of the Maori Hill Licensing Committee, and as a Maori Hill Borough councillor. His later works included the wooden council chambers built in 1894.

Joseph Lowe Shaw died at his home, Como, in Drivers Road, Maori Hill, on 23 September 1906, at the age of 85. He was survived by his wife and his son. Shaw’s remains are buried at the Northern Cemetery along with those of Juliet Shaw, who died in 1920.

Some buildings designed by J.L. Shaw:

    • 1854-1855. St Peter’s Anglican Church, Chilwell
    • 1855. Forster Shaw’s residence (later Clonard College), Geelong
    • c.1855. Residence (Darriwill), Sutherland’s Creek (attributed)
    • 1856, 1858. Additions to Eumeralla, Newtown (Dowden & Ross)
    • 1857. Colonial Bank, Geelong (Dowden & Ross)
    • 1857. St Augustine’s Orphanage, Geelong (Dowden & Ross)
    • 1857. Catholic Church, Steiglitz (Dowden & Ross)
    • 1857. Woolbrook homestead, Teesdale
    • 1858. Derry Hall, Curlewis
    • 1859. Presbyterian Church, Shelford
    • 1859-1860. Morongo, Bell Post Hill
    • 1860. Presbyterian Church, Batesford
    • 1861. Presbyterian Church, Inverleigh
    • 1862. All Saints’ Anglican Church, Geelong
    • 1864. Presbyterian Church, Darlington
    • 1866-1867. Additions to Mawallok homestead, Stockyard Hill
    • 1872. Allington, Newtown
    • 1876. Supreme Court Hotel, Dunedin
    • 1877. Additions to Chingford, Dunedin
    • 1878. Hart family residence, Musselburgh
    • 1878. Donaghy’s ropeworks, Forbury
    • 1881. Robert Wilson’s residence, 521 George Street, Dunedin
    • 1881. George Joachim’s residence, Willowbank, Lees Street, Dunedin
    • 1882. National Hotel, Great King Street, Dunedin
    • 1883. St John’s Anglican Church school room, Dunedin
    • 1884. Residence and other buildings, Cannington Station
    • 1885. St Matthew’s Anglican Church school room, Dunedin
    • 1885. Secretary’s residence, Otago Benevolent Institution
    • 1885. Old Men’s Home, Otago Benevolent Institution
    • 1887. Robert Chapman’s residence (wood), Maori Hill
    • 1885. Additions to Otago Benevolent Institution
    • 1888. National Bank, Tapanui (wood)
    • 1893. Maori Hill Borough Council chambers

Former Supreme Court Hotel, Stuart Street. In recent decades it has sported a funny-looking hat.

The grave stone of Joseph and Juliet Shaw in the Northern Cemetery, Dunedin

Image credits: State Library of Victoria, b51531 (Morongo), pi002931 (Leigh Presbyterian Church), Heritage Victoria B3625 (Allington); Hocken Collections S12-614b (Hart residence), macadee on flickr (Chingford). Thanks to commenter Paula Grima for the image of Derry Hall.

Newspaper references: The Colonist (Sydney) 1 Jul 1840 p.2 (Forster Shaw), Geelong Advertiser 14 Jul 1851 p.2 (marriage notice), Argus (Melbourne), 29 Mar 1850 p.3 (arrival on ‘Asia’); Otago Daily Times 31 Mar 1877 p.1 (Supreme Court hotel), 12 Jun 1877 p.4 (Chingford), 17 May 1878 p.3 (Hart residence), 22 Feb 1878 p.3 (Donaghy’s rope walk), 21 Mar 1878 p.3 (Donaghy’s machine house); 25 Mar 1881 p.4 (Wilson residence), 7 Sep 1882 p.3 (National Hotel), 7 Aug 1883 p.4 (St John’s school house), 26 May 1884 p.1 (Cannington Station), 9 February 1885 p.1 (old men’s home), 1 Aug 1885 p.4 (St Matthew’s school house), 4 Sep 1885 p.2 (Benevolent Institution – Secretary’s residence), 13 Dec 1886, 3 (Chapman residence); 23 May 1887 p.3 (Benevolent Institution), 6 Dec 1887 p.3 (National Bank, Tapanui), 23 Feb 1894 p.3 (Maori Hill Borough Council); Otago Witness 26 Sep 1906 p.46 (death).

Other references: Lorraine Huddle, ‘Architects in Geelong in the 1840s and 1850s’ (research report, University of Melbourne, 1979); Lorraine Huddle, ‘Architects of Early Geelong – 4’ in The Investigator vol. 18 no. 1 (1983), Hardwicke Knight, Church Building in Otago (1993) p.54; Victorian death registration for Euphemia Jane Shaw, 1860; Victorian marriage registration for Juliet Georgiana Wherland and Joseph Lowe Shaw, 1861; New Zealand death registration for Joseph Lowe Shaw (1906/7149); New Zealand death registration for Joseph Lowe Shaw (1906/7149); Will and probate file for Juliet Georgiana Shaw (Archives New Zealand DAAC.9005.D249.398/8494); Dunedin City Council Cemeteries Database; Victorian Heritage Database; E-mail, 20 January 2011, from Allan Willingham to David Murray.

Expanded and updated from a piece published in the ‘Stories in Stone’ column in the Otago Daily Times  in 2010.

Lost Dunedin #1: Eden Bank House

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Address: 9 Regent Road
Built: 1863-1881
Architect: Additions by David Ross (1874) and Louis Boldini (1881)
Builders: Not known
Demolished circa 1966

We’re lucky to have so many historic buildings in Dunedin but a lot have been lost to demolition, including this one. I’m as interested in the lost buildings as much as the surviving ones, and although they’re gone they can be appreciated on some levels through photographs and other records.

The original building at the corner of Regent Road and Queen Street was one of a few rental houses built for Robert Murray, who lived nearby.  When new in 1863 it was described as a large, elegant, and substantial stone and brick residence. Known as Eden Bank House, it was the home of a Polish prince (!), Konstantine Drucki-Lubecki, who had left his country after taking part in the failed revolution of 1831. Lubecki’s English wife Laura (known as Madame Lubecki) ran a ladies’ school for boarders and day pupils at Eden Bank from 1863 to 1864. The name chosen for the house might have been a straightforward biblical reference, but it might also have been taken from the ship Eden, which took the Lubeckis from Europe to Australia in 1838. ‘Bank’ presumably referred to the steep incline at the front of the property.

The Lubeckis’ residency was brief and the house next appears to have been rented by Miss I.M. Cary who also ran it as a ladies’ school, using the name Ellerslie House, from 1864 to 1865.

Maurice Joel, one of Dunedin’s most successful brewers and a prominent member of the Jewish community, purchased the house in 1867. It became known as Eden Bank again, and remained the Joel family home for nearly four decades.  In 1874 Joel commissioned David Ross to design major brick additions, including verandahs. In the previous eleven years Ross had also designed a shop, various brewery buildings, and a hotel (the Captain Cook) for Joel. Further additions in 1881 were designed by the Italian-born architect Louis Boldini, who also the designer of the magnificent synagogue that opened in Moray Place the same year. Joel was President of the Jewish Congregation at the time.

Maurice Joel

With its alterations and additions Eden Bank was an imposing house in the Italian renaissance style, drawing from Venetian models. In Ross’s 1874 design it is likely that a single a verandah ran the entire length of the frontage. The striking central bay and pediment with elaborate ornamentation appear to be Boldini’s work. The loggia was particularly unusual for Dunedin, although this feature was seen more often in Melbourne.

The Joel children were artistically gifted. Grace Joel is celebrated as one of New Zealand’s best early painters and she painted and taught at her studio in Eden Bank in the 1890s. Her sisters, Blanche and Lily, both became professional music teachers and were accomplished piano and voice performers respectively.

Joel leased Eden Bank to the government in 1905, when it became St Helens Maternity Hospital. The government later purchased the property. It was the second of seven hospitals in Prime Minister Richard Seddon’s maternity hospital scheme, which aimed to provide modern maternity services at low cost to women of the ‘citizen class’.  The hospitals were named after St Helens in Lancashire, the birthplace of Seddon. Dr Emily Siedeberg-Mckinnon, New Zealand’s first woman medical graduate, was superintendent for 33 years. Alice Holford, who supervised most deliveries and oversaw training of midwives, medical students, and nurses, was matron for 24 years. The hospital was a great success but eventually more modern facilities were needed and it closed in 1938 following the completion of the new Queen Mary Maternity Hospital in Cumberland Street. By that time 5,500 babies had been born at St Helens (some in a cottage adjoining  the house) and 200 midwives had been trained there.

The house in 1905, seen from the corner of Queen Street, showing the extent of David Ross’s additions (on the right)

St Helens Hospital then became St Helens Hostel, a hall of residence for Home Science students at the University of Otago. It closed following the completion of the new Studholme Hall buildings in 1961. It was used for little more than storage until 1962, when the government put it on the market. It had not been drastically altered over the years, although Ross’s verandahs had been replaced with balconies (one on the north side was glazed in). At the time of the sale the building was described as being in excellent condition, with only minor renovations required to restore it to its condition of the 1870s. Unfortunately it was not saved. I found entries for St Helens Lodge in the Dunedin telephone directory up to 1966, and it was presumably around this date that it was demolished. The large block of flats now on the site dates from the late 1970s.

Historic images: View of the front of the house c.1905, Hocken Collections S12-549c (University of Otago Medical Library: Historical Collection). View from Queen Street corner, Hocken Collections S12-614a (Otago Witness, 2 August 1905 p.44). Advertisement from Otago Daily Times, 6 July 1863 p.3 (National Library of New Zealand http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz). Portrait of Maurice Joel from Cyclopedia of New Zealand, vol. iv, Otago and Southland Provincial Districts (Christchurch: Cyclopedia Company, 1905), p.291.

Newspaper references: Otago Daily Times, 7 March 1863 p.3 (joinery work), 12 June 1863 p.3 (‘to let’ notice),  6 July 1863 p.3 (Madame Lubecki’s advertisement), 12 March 1864 p.2 (Madame Lubecki’s advertisement), 25 May 1864 p.1 (Miss Cary’s advertisement), 10 December 1866 p.3 (sale of property), 16 October 1874 p.3 (call for tenders by Ross), 2 February 1897 p.1 (Grace Joel’s advertisement), 24 January 1938 p.4 (St Helens Hospital closing ceremony); 22 May 1962 p.5 (sale by government); Evening Star, 7 January 1881 p.1 (call for tenders by Boldini), 28 February 1881 p.1 (further tender notice); Otago Witness, 2 August 1905 p.33 (purchase by government).

Other references: Siedeberg-McKinnon, Emily, ‘My own history of nursing in Otago and the work at St Helens up to its closing day’ (typescript, Hocken Collections MS-1621/027).