Tag Archives: Victorian

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

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

Something to mark ten years, 2012-2022

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This month marks the tenth anniversary of the Built in Dunedin blog. The first post I wrote, in July 2012, was about the Hallenstein factory in Dowling Street, so I thought it would be fitting to revisit that by sharing something I didn’t know about at the time.

Illustrated here is the original front elevation drawing made by architect David Ross in 1882. It was only recently added to the Hallenstein Brothers archive in the Hocken Collections, after being rescued some years ago from a rubbish skip.

Front elevation, Hallenstein’s New Zealand Clothing Factory, Dowling Street, Dunedin. Hallenstein Brothers records, Hocken Collecions Uare Taoka o Hākena. MS-5193/001.

Ross was an artist and a skilled draughtsman, but sadly few of his drawings survive, making this one even more special. The most striking feature is the large cupola ventilator above the parapet. Modern ventilation and lighting were a feature of the building, which has a long gallery and roof lantern. This drawing raises some interesting questions about the planning. Ross had travelled in Europe and the United States and Bendix Hallenstein had looked at factory design in England. It would be interesting to know of specific ideas they borrowed from elsewhere.

Unfortunately the other sheets in the set of plans are not known to have survived. The drawing is the contract copy, signed by builders Meikle and Campbell, and the strikethroughs suggest the cupola was deleted by the time of the agreement. Possibly it was more of a grand statement than a functional feature. To me it looks somewhat discordant, partly because the parapet treatment is restrained in comparison.

Thanks to everyone who has followed blog over the past decade, and apologies for not posting much in recent times. When I started , my idea was to write very short posts, but they almost all turned into quite lengthy pieces. I would like to have shared more economical writing, but on the other hand this has allowed stories that have brought out human interest, with more glimpses into the lives of people who lived and worked in the buildings.

The blog has generated many curious questions, sent to me about various local buildings. Apologies to anyone I didn’t get back to – I try to answer them all but they do get away on me sometimes.

And I have the best of intentions to write more here soon!

Ross & Glendining, High Street factory

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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.

Ross & Glendining, Stafford Street

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Built: 1866 / 1874 / 1919
Address: 8 Stafford Street
Architects: John McGregor / Mason & Wales / W.H. Dunning
Builders: McKay & Goodfellow / H.C. McCormack / Fletcher Bros

The building in the late 1930s. Ref: Hocken Collections AG-512/288.

Ross & Glendining Ltd was at one time the largest manufacturing company in New Zealand, and part of a thriving domestic industry in textiles and clothing.

John Ross was born at Caithness in the north of Scotland, and Robert Glendining came from Dumfries in the south. Ross managed a drapery in his native country before coming to Dunedin in 1861, bringing with him thousands of pounds worth of stock. He became a partner in Begg, Christie & Co. and within a year bought out the firm. He went into business with the recently arrived Glendining in August 1862, just as the discovery of the Dunstan goldfield brought a fresh ‘rush’ to Otago.

The company moved from retail to wholesale trade, and in 1866 built a brick and stone warehouse, some of which survives within the present 8 Stafford Street. The builders were McKay & Goodfellow and the architect was John McGregor (I’ll return to the intriguing Mr McGregor and his other designs of the 1860s and 70s in a later post). Elaborately decorated in the Venetian Gothic style, the Oamaru stone facade of the warehouse featured pairs of arched windows, and columns of Port Chalmers bluestone topped by carved capitals. Ornamental ironwork included an unusual parapet railing, and finials on the first-floor sills.

An illustration of the building from ‘Beautiful Dunedin’ (1906), taken not long after it was converted to a hat factory. The original portion is on the right (the entrance shown being at its centre).

Looking down Stafford Street towards Princes Street around the 1880s. Ref: Hocken Collections S09-529j.

Ross & Glendining established the Roslyn Woollen Mill in Kaikorai Valley in 1879, and soon after went into manufacturing, opening branches throughout the colony. Extensive additions to the Stafford Street buildings were built in 1874, with Mason & Wales the architects and H.C. McCormack the contractor. The facade was extended further up the street and McGregor’s original details were carefully replicated, an Otago Daily Times report remarking that ‘instead of the patchwork appearance which generally characterises additions to buildings, the building, as complete, is carried out on one plan, and looks accordingly’.

The basement level was used for packing and record entry. The ground floor was fitted with counters and shelving for trading manchester, and offices were put in the front of the addition. The upper floor was used for warehouse purposes, and housed fancy goods, hosiery, and haberdashery departments. A hydraulic lift made by Frazer, Wishart, & Buchanan was capable of lifting weights of up to one and a-half tonnes. ‘Clarke’s patent self-acting steel shutters’ were the latest in fire protection measures, and a brick wall two feet thick separated the warehouse from neighbouring wooden buildings.

The building at 8 Stafford Street is best understood in relation to some of Ross & Glendining’s adjoining and nearby buildings. In 1875 a new bonded warehouse was built facing High Street, back-to-back with the original premises. The two buildings were connected by a tramway across a large yard, where there were stables and other outbuildings. In 1893 the company moved its offices and warehouse to an entirely new site further down High Street, opposite the end of Manse Street (where Broadway now begins). The clothing factory moved into adjoining premises.

The old Stafford-High complex remained in company ownership but was leased to tenants until about 1900, when major redevelopment began and the entire site was turned to factory use. This work was designed and overseen by Charles Lomax, the company’s Inspector of Works. The High Street clothing factory was completed in 1901, its almost entirely rebuilt structure including a further two storeys, with an 18 metre high chimney behind (to save confusion I’m saving full description of this building for another post).

Work on the Stafford Street portion began in 1902, and in January 1904 it reopened as a hat factory, where fur, wool, felt, and straw hats were produced. Two years later, the top floor was converted to a mantle and costume factory, but the major rebuilding came in 1919 when a new four-storey block was built at the rear, and two additional storeys were added to the front portion. This was when the Stafford Street building took on its current outward appearance.

A 1918 drawing shows the addition of just one floor and retention of the old facade below, however, a plan deposited in March 1919 shows a total of five floors (including basement) and an entirely remodelled facade in a transitional style reminiscent of the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The designer was William H. Dunning, a Tasmanian-born architect whose other work in Dunedin included the National Bank in Princes Street, Ross Home in North East Valley, the RSA Buildings in Moray Place, and Barton’s Buildings. Fletcher Bros were the builders.

Plan lodged August 1918, showing the original proposal for one additional floor. Dunedin City Council Archives.

Plan lodged March 1919, showing the final design with two additional floors and an entirely new facade. Dunedin City Council Archives.

Large windows are a striking feature of the design, and a report in the Evening Star noted: ‘An important principle, copied from America, is as to the lighting. The whole front is practically a window, and in daytime the workers are getting the greatest amount of sunlight that is possible under a roof.’

About 110 young women were employed in the building. The hat factory remained on the first floor, and shirts were made on the second. The third floor housed the costume and mantle departments, and the Evening Star gave a full description of it:

There are 100 Singer machines in this room, electrically driven. The only foot action for the worker is the use of the treadle for regulating speed. The harder she presses the faster the machine runs. The presser-foot on each machine is operated by the knee, leaving both hands free for guiding. The installation of the electric iron saves gas fumes, and two electric cutters are able to save a lot of heavy work. The pressers’ room on the same floor is supplied with a steam press of the very latest type, saving a lot of time and labour. The making of dress buttons being forced on us as a result of the war, six machines are provided for that purpose. The woven material used in making the costumes and other goods is from the firm’s own Roslyn mills, so that the finished articles as sent to the shops are to all intents and purposes produced from our own resources except for linings and thread. This being the case, it is very gratifying that Mr C. W. L. King, the manager, is able to show a variety of goods that for material, style, and make can be put alongside the best productions of Australia or Europe. Consideration of this phase of the subject leads one to the belief that the diversity of design in such a factory is not only good for business but food for the workers, inasmuch as it must be much more interesting to be engaged on varied work that touches the domain of art, and has some individuality about it, than to stick for days and weeks at one mechanical operation of the prosaic and unromantic order.

The fourth floor was an ‘up-to-date dining room on the restaurant model’, where morning tea was provided at 10 o’clock, and midday meals could be heated. Apparently it wouldn’t do for the male staff to eat with them, so the men had a separate dining room above. The flat roof was ‘available as a promenade for the girls’, and from it there were good views the harbour.

In 1924 a fire significantly damaged the top floor (32 firemen fought the blaze). In 1930 a new boot factory building of utilitarian design was erected on the middle of the site, between the two main buildings. Miller & White were the architects and Thomas Ferguson was the building contractor. The same architects and contractor were responsible for the addition of a further two storeys to this structure over the summer of 1937-1938.

Advertisement from the Northern Advocate, 22 June 1922 p.6 (Papers Past).

Ross & Glendining was acquired by UEB Industries Ltd in 1966, and subsequently merged into Mosgiel Woollens Ltd. Mosgiel vacated the Stafford Street building in 1973, and Sew Hoy & Sons occupied it until about 1980. Mosgiel retained a knitwear division in the High Street building until it went into receivership in 1980.

A variety of businesses operated from 8 Stafford Street over the next three decades, and between 2010 and 2011 it was partially converted to apartments. Current redevelopment plans by owners Jason and Kate Lindsey will create a start-up and tech business hub, ‘for creatives, consultants and entrepreneurs alike’. This seems a fitting turn for the site of one of the most successful commercial enterprises ever to have come out of Dunedin.

Newspaper references:
Otago Daily Times, 3 May 1866 p.3 (tender notice), 18 June 1866 p.5 (new Stafford Street building description), 27 October 1866 p.1 (advertisement), 1 April 1874 p.2 (Stafford Street additions description); 20 April 1875 (new High Street building description) p.2; 15 April 1893 p.3 (new warehouse) , 1 April 1901 p.1 (plumbing tenders – High Street), 15 June 1903 p.3 (‘an important industry), 23 July 1918 p.7 (Stafford Street additions description); Evening Star, 8 July 1919 p.3 (description of additions); New Zealand Herald, 28 April 1924 p.6 (fire).

Other references:
Stone’s, Wise’s and telephone directories
Baré, Robert, City of Dunedin Block Plans Dunedin: Caxton Steam Printing Company, [1889].
Jones, F. Oliver, Structural Plans of the City of Dunedin NZ, ‘Ignis et Aqua’ series, [1892].
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.
Council of Fire and Accident Underwriters’ Associations of New Zealand, block plans, 1927
Dalziel Architects records, Hocken Collections (MS-2750/143 and MS-2758/272)
Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans (with thanks to Glen Hazelton)
Thanks to Peter Entwisle for pointing out the Mackintosh connection

John Thomson’s building

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Built: 1877
Address: 23-25 George Street, Port Chalmers
Architect/designer: Not identified
Builder: Not identified

Sometimes I come across an honest wee building of little pretension, that I’m unable to attribute to any particular designer or builder. This can be a bit frustrating, as I’m the sort of person who likes classifying things and even finds it fun, but sometimes I should just put my trainspotting-like tendencies aside. Simple buildings often suit their function most effectively and can contribute as much to the character of a place as grander ones, while shedding light on different layers of history.

This building in George Street, Port Chalmers, is a plain and relatively utilitarian example of Victorian architecture that was likely designed by the builder who constructed it. Containing two shops with residential space above, it’s of a type seen elsewhere (there’s another example further along the same street) with a hipped roof left visible rather than screened behind a parapet, giving it a somewhat domestic appearance. The brickwork facing the street was originally exposed, as it still is on the side walls, and early photographs show a verandah that was removed in the twentieth century.

In the mid 1870s the site was a vacant space, and its development seems to have been delayed by a need to excavate part of the hillside. A report in the Otago Daily Times of 30 July 1877 stated: ‘In George street, Port Chalmers, a fine two storey brick building is just about completed, next to the general store of Sutton Brothers. It was erected for Mr John Thomson, and is thirty feet square by twenty-four feet high, and comprises two places of business, with dwelling rooms above. One of them is already in occupation as a soft goods store’. The description of the building as ‘fine’ should be seen in the context of the other buildings in the street, which were mostly simple timber structures viewed as inferior and less permanent.

Detail from a 1905 photograph by Muir & Moodie. Ref: Te Papa C.011810.

The building was an investment for John Thomson (1813-1895), who owned various adjoining properties on the eastern side of the street, and had established the Dalkeith subdivision in the 1860s. Thomson was born at Dewartown, near Dalkeith in Scotland, and after working in coal mining had charge of a sawmill on the estate of the Duke of Buccleugh. He arrived at Port Chalmers in 1848 and worked saw milling and then managing the Government stores, before briefly going to the goldfields. He was afterwards a sheep and cattle inspector, and his Otago Witness obituary stated that he was ‘greatly respected for his sterling manliness of character’. He was survived by his wife, seven children, and nearly forty grandchildren.

William Scott was the first tenant of the northern shop (rated at £60) and Mrs Lean took the smaller southern shop (rated at £30). Scott was a tailor who had previously occupied premises a few doors further north, and he remained in his new premises until about 1893. The other shop was a butchery for Francis Lean, Lean & Harrison, and then J.W. Harrison (from c.1881). Harrison remained in the shop until 1903 and faded signage for his business is still visible on the southern wall. The building was sold from the estate of Elsie Thomson in 1906.

Later occupants have included the laundry proprietor Yat Lee (c.1906-1912), watchmaker and jeweller Cecil Rose (c.1924-1936), greengrocer Sam Shum (c.1936-1950), and greengrocer Peter Kan (1950-1980). At the time of writing the shops are occupied by The Changing Room (no.23) and Blueskin Bay Honey and Supply Co. (no.25).

Newspaper references:
Otago Daily Times, 16 April 1862 p.2 (Dalkeith subdivision), 30 July 1877 p.3 (City Improvements), 19 October 1903 p.6 (to let), 17 September 1906 p.8 (sale); Otago Witness, 5 December 1895 p.15 (obituary for John Thomson).

Other references:
Church, Ian. Port Chalmers and its People (Dunedin: Otago Heritage Books, 1994), p.71.
Church, Ian. Some Early People and Ships of Port Chalmers (Dunedin: New Zealand Society of Genealogists, n.d.) pp.312, 719.
Stone’s Otago and Southland Directory
Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory
Telephone directories
Port Chalmers rates records (with thanks to Chris Scott)
Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans (with thanks to Glen Hazelton)

Filleul Street

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Filleul Street appears on Charles Kettle’s street plan (National Archives, UK) as Albyn Place, one of many street names taken from Edinburgh. Its formation and development was slow, partly due to the swampy nature of the land, and it was ultimately given a different name. The earliest reference to Filleul Street in the Otago Witness dates from March 1859. Canon Edmund Nevill (1862-1933) was an historian of place names (a toponymist!), and the following extract is taken from one of his manuscripts held in the Hocken Collections. He refers to James Fulton, the prosperous Taieri farmer and parliamentarian, whose residence Lisburn House still stands at Caversham.

Here follow some place names embodying old stories. The late Dr Robert Fulton told me the first. He said ‘As the story of how Filleul St got its name has not so far appeared in print I detail it here, for I had it from my father James Fulton. In the fifties he and his brother Robert, who lived at Ravensbourne [sic] West Taieri used to walk into town at election times, record their votes, and return home – often with 50lb bags of flour on their backs. On one occasion they came to the Town Board office for some special reason and James Macandrew said “hullo, Jim, you are the very man we want” (Everyone was Jim and Bob and Harry in those days.) “We are naming some of the streets, you have chosen sections in this flag swamp, we’ll call them Fulton St.” “No you don’t Mac” said my father, laughing “here’s Dickey Filleul, call it after him”. The two Filleuls, William and Richard, were great friends of my father, nephews of the Valpys. They went to Oamaru and settled there but were very little in Dunedin. However, the name was given and has remained. The Filleuls were French Hugenots who came to England at the time of the massacre of St Bartholemew (1572).’

The FIlleul brothers , Richard Anthony Filleul and William Gabriel Filleul, were born in Jersey in the Channel Islands and came to Otago in 1849 when still in their teens. They went to the Victorian goldfields in 1852 and after their return were sheep farmers at Papakaio. They both went to England for a time, and Richard drowned when the Lord Raglan sank en route to New Zealand in 1863. William Gabriel Filleul gave up farming later in the 1860s and became Clerk of the Resident Magistrate’s Court in Oamaru. He retired to Nelson where he died in 1902. His wife, Louisa, was fond of riding and it was told in her obituary that she:

…covered great stretches of country on horseback. As a protection against bushrangers, who were haunting the country about Dunedin at the time, she and her cousin carried pots of pepper in their saddle-bags, and it was characteristic of Mrs Filleul that she expressed disappointment that the pepper never had to be used.

The Fulton story has a good provenance, but stories of origin are seldom straightforward and there is a bit more to this one too. Dr Hocken stated that William Filleul told him that he purchased a section at the corner of Moray Place and Filleul Street. Mr Abbott, the surveyor superintending the purchase, said ‘I see this street has got no name, we’ll call it Filleul Street’. Hocken’s information suggests that while the circumstances may have been approximately as Fulton described, the naming was not quite as haphazard as his story suggested. Further complicating things, Robin Mitchell (1954) wrote that the first landowner in the street was Philip Filleul. This would likely be Philip Valpy Mourant Filleul, the older brother of Richard and William, who settled in Tasmania but apparently spent very little time here. A search of land records held by Archives New Zealand would likely clarify which of the Filleuls bought the section.

Filleul Street looking north, c.1880. The intersection with St Andrew Street and York Place is in the foreground. Detail from Burton Bros photograph, Te Papa C.012114.

In the 1860s, numerous small houses and modest commercial and buildings were built. The occupations of the residents named in Stone’s directory for 1884 included labourer, plasterer, clerk, storekeeper, artist, waiter, cook, baker, charwoman, photographer, music teacher, stocking knitter, signwriter, sailmaker, accountant, auctioneer, ironworker, butcher, draper, fruiterer, jobmaster, expressman, dealer, carter, glass engraver, plasterer, crockery merchant, and brewer. Not all of the homes were on the streetfront, with many of the humbler dwellings down little lanes and alleys.

The Liverpool Arms Hotel opened on the upper side of the street, between Moray Place and York Place, in 1869. It was kept by Edmund O’Keeffe, and later by his son Alfred Henry O’Keefe, who went on to became one of New Zealand’s most celebrated early painters and art teachers. The Liverpool Arms lost its license in 1894 and in 1909 became the Anglican Men’s Mission House, run by the Rev. V.G. Bryan King. A newspaper feature published in the Otago Witness gives insight into the lives of some of Dunedin’s most disadvantaged people, though it leaves many questions as to how it was from their own perspective. King told a reporter:

‘Well, yes I am somewhat busy at times, but the work never becomes monotonous. On Thursday afternoon, for instance, I had a man in the “D.T.’s” in here, a destitute woman and her child in the hall, a mad woman creating a disturbance at the front door, and a young man, with something in his eye, asking attention. I simply did not know what to do first, so I commenced operations by evicting the mad woman, and while I was attending to her the “D.T.” patient escaped, and caused me a lot of trouble…’

Mr King had long advocated such a place, and when it was finally decided to establish the mission he was at some pains to discover a suitable site for it. Eventually he decided on Filleul street, near a quarter where there were houses of a bad reputation. The house he took, indeed, had been one of the most unsavoury in the neighbourhood. It had been tenanted by rogues, vagabonds, gamblers, and half-caste Chinese girls. It was filthily dirty; when it was being cleaned the accumulations of years had to be scraped off the floor with a spade. In an upstairs room some 12 or 14 ferrets had been kept, and long after their removal there remained in the vicinity an odour that very forcibly reminded one of the polecat tribe. But soap, water, paint and paper presently rendered the half-dozen rooms clean and habitable…

Now, Mr King is tall and pale and slightly built. The reporter was curious to know how he fared in […] unwished-for encounters, and he put the question. Mr King smiled, and pointed to a couple of books lying handily. ‘Ju-jitsu?’ said the reporter. ‘Precisely,’ said the clergyman. ‘My best friend. I learned it long since, and have used it frequently’ […] ‘I have had some of the biggest wharf labourers in Dunedin tackle me at different times,’ he said, complacently; ‘but I survived. No – no damage.’

The building reverted to residential use in the 1920s and was eventually demolished around 1970.

Detail from the above image showing the Liverpool Arms Hotel.

Four churches were built on corner sites. The old Brethren Hall (later the Beneficiaries Hall) on the Hanover Street corner was designed by J.L. Salmond in 1894. It was Maude’s Fabric Barn for a time and is now the restaurant Miga. The Evangelical Church of Christ stood near the Moray Place intersection from 1910 to 1976. This is not to be confused with the St Andrew Street Church of Christ, designed by David Mowat and opened in 1926. It replaced the Tabernacle in Great King Street, and remains a landmark building with its Wrenesque tower and a classical styling unusual in Dunedin’s ecclesiastical architecture. On the diagonally opposite corner remains another church building, the former York Place Gospel Hall. It was much modified for re-use by Warwick Grimmer Ltd in 1990.

The Church of Christ, on the St Andrew Street corner.

The Dunedin Brewery was established at the northern end of the street in 1861. It was taken over by Charles Keast in 1870 and he went into partnership with John McCarthy in 1871 to form Keast & McCarthy. The old wooden buildings were removed and a new brewery in brick and bluestone erected between 1873 and 1874. Later buildings included brick offices fronting Filleul Street designed by Louis Boldini (1878), a new malthouse and other buildings designed by T.B. Cameron (1880), and extensive additions fronting London Street designed by Drew & Lloyd (1882). The brewery closed in 1895 and the buildings were taken over by Irvine & Stevenson’s St George Co., which also had factory premises in St Andrew Street and Moray Place. This large company was known for its ranges of jams, soups, preserved meats, and other canned food products. It eventually operated factories throughout New Zealand and continued to be based on the Filleul Street site until it closed in 1977. The buildings were demolished, but a remnant wall can be seen from London Street. Smiths City later developed a store on the site fronting Filleul Street. This closed in 2008 and the building is now partly occupied by Lincraft.

Irvine and Stevenson’s St George Co., in buildings originally erected for Keast & McCarthy’s Dunedin Brewery.

Detail on the Irvine & Stevenson buildings. Photograph taken by Hardwicke Knight in the early 1960s.

An aerial photograph from March 1955 showing some of the housing still on the street at that time. George Street is in the foreground. Whites Aviation Ltd: Photographs. Ref: WA-37713-F. Alexander Turnbull Library http://natlib.govt.nz/records/23527357

There were still many houses in the street in the 1960s but few remain today. The property became attractive to commercial developers and various new two-storey buildings were built in the 1970s. Three two-storey houses from around the turn of the century remain on the slope immediately below London Street, and a single-storey 1890s villa there was demolished only recently to make way for apartments.

The eastern side of Filleul Street is now dominated by multi-storey carparks. The first was built for Gardner Motors in 1969, together with a car sales yard on the corner of Moray Place. It was the first carpark of its type in Dunedin and the architects were Mason & Wales. The Golden Centre followed in 1979 and the Meridian mall in 1997. The mall carparks usefully service nearby shops and businesses, but their appearance and function dehumanise a large part of street. The Wall Street complex, opened in 2009, has a glass frontage at ground level.

The Gardner Motors building became Health Board House in 1989, when it was rebuilt with additional floors of office accommodation. It was transformed from a bland utilitarian structure into a striking example of postmodernism (‘pomo’), an architectural movement that peaked in Dunedin between the mid 1980s and mid 1990s (later than in some other cities). The architect was Ashley Muir of Mason & Wales, and the Otago Daily Times reported that he:

…believes buildings should not be fashionable and says the buildings people like in Dunedin have been there for 100 years […] He uses Greek and Roman influences because he believes they form part of people’s perceptions of what a public building should be. Public buildings must also have visual texture, like the Dunedin Railway Station, which is ‘full of visual texture’.

The continued role of revivalism in Dunedin architecture might be something good to follow up here another time. I had intended this post to be about a street name but have ended up writing about modern carparks! If nothing else, this shows how much one busy central city street can evolve in a relatively short space of time. No doubt Filleul Street will be further transformed in the future.

The intersection of Moray Place and Filleul Street. A photograph taken by Hardwicke Knight around 1960.

A view up Hanover Street to Filleul Street taken in December 1979, with demolition underway on Irvine & Stevenson’s St George Co. factory. Image courtesy of and copyright Gary Blackman.

A recent view of the intersection of Moray Place and Filleul Street. The large structure is the rebuilt Gardner Motors carpark building.

A view down Filleul Street from near the London Street intersection.

Newspaper references:
Otago Witness, 19 March 1859 p.2 (early reference to Filleul Street), 17 March 1898 p.35 (biography of W.G. Filleul), 10 November 1909 p.89 (mission house); Otago Daily Times, 1 October 1878 p.1 (Boldini additions to brewery), 3 February 1880 p.4 (T.B. Cameron additions to brewery), 18 July 1882 p.4 (Drew & Lloyd additions to brewery); 2 August 1989 p.24 (rebuilding of Gardner Motors) North Otago Times, 7 August 1902 p.3 (obituary for W.G. Filleul); New Zealand Herald, 7 September 1927 p.12 (obituary for Louisa Filleul).

Other references:
Croot, Charles. Dunedin Churches: Past and Present (Dunedin: Otago Settlers Association, 1999).
Griffiths, George. Dunedin Street Names (Dunedin: the author, 1999).
Hocken, Thomas Morland: NZ Notes. Hocken Collections MS-0037.
Leckie, Frank G. Otago Breweries: Past and Present. (Dunedin: Otago Heritage Books, 1997).
Nevill, Edmund Robert : Papers relating to European placenames in New Zealand. Hocken Collections MS-0160A.
Stevenson, Geoffrey W., The House of St George: A Centennial History 1864-1964 (Dunedin: Irvine & Stevenson’s St George Co. Ltd, [1964]).

Otago Education Board offices (Reed’s Building)

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Built: 1897-1898
Address: 33 Jetty Street
Architect: John Somerville (1834-1905)
Builders: Day labour and contracts overseen by Adam Nichol (clerk of works)

Two years ago this Victorian office building was close to demolition, but Lawrie Forbes took it on and now the building has cheerier prospects thanks to the essential structural and maintenance work he has carried out. It’s for sale again, awaiting the next chapter in a colourful story that has already seen it used as the administrative headquarters for school education in Otago, the head office of a major publishing firm, and the premises of seed merchants, artists, an experimental dentist, and many more besides.

In the mid 1870s a few sheds on stilts occupied the site, which was then on the foreshore where the old jetty (after which Jetty Street is named) met Crawford Street. The city block we know today was reclaimed a few years later, but by the early 1890s there were still no permanent structures on it apart from the Harbour Board’s building. Between 1896 and 1897 the large Agricultural Hall complex was erected, and soon afterwards followed the corner building that is the subject of this post. It was built as office accommodation for the Otago Education Board and was designed by the board’s architect, John Somerville. I haven’t found the original specification, but Somerville detailed his recommendations in a letter dated 16 June 1897. The foundations were to be concrete, the timbers mostly rimu and kauri, and the walls brick. The estimated cost was £2,000. A clerk of works, Adam Nichol, was employed to oversee the construction carried out by day labourers (employed directly by the board) and contractors.

Work began in July 1897 when the Otago Witness described the proposed structure as a plain but handsome one, on one of the best sites in the city, that would ‘complete a block of fine buildings, and add very materially to the architectural beauty of the locality’. The report described the interior arrangements, which at this point were planned around a main entrance on Crawford Street: ‘Entering from this street, there will be a large vestibule (10ft by 16ft), to be used by the public, the business being transacted, as is now the practice at the board’s office, through a sliding window, communicating with the clerks’ room. On the right will be the board room (26ft by 19ft), and on the left the clerks’ office (33ft by 17ft), and off this the strong room will be situated. At the rear will be the secretary’s office (18ft by 17ft), which will communicate with the clerks’ room, and behind this again will be the inspector’s room (23ft by 14ft). A store room for school appliances is provided for in the plans, as also are lavatories, which are to be fitted up on the most modern and approved principles. Ascending the staircase, which is to be 10ft wide, the upper floor will be reached by two flights of stairs. This floor will practically be a duplicate of the ground floor. Two of the rooms are intended for the architect, another is to be used as a store room for the board’s records, stationery, &c, and the remaining rooms are already leased to one of our public bodies. The rooms on the ground floor will be 16ft high, and those on the upper floor 15ft. Ventilation and lighting will also be satisfactorily attended to. The building is to be built of brick with cement facings, and the brickwork is to be tuck-pointed, in keeping with the Agricultural Buildings.’

The architectural style is essentially Renaissance Revival, perhaps transitioning to Queen Anne. Tall, round-headed windows at ground level are a distinctive feature. Pediments (made from Oamaru stone), pilasters, quoins, and other mouldings have been used in a conventional and effective way, though the parapet may be a little heavy-looking for the relatively understated composition and shallow profiles below. The overall effect is dignified and the generous proportions are highlighted by contrast with the neighbouring Harbour Board building.

Facade detail showing profiles.

Controversy plagued the development of the building. The first and most serious row was when Somerville changed the position of the entrance from Crawford Street to Jetty Street (to allow for a better ground floor layout) without getting committee approval. Somerville claimed he acted on the instructions of the secretary, Patrick Pryde, who in turn denied it. Pryde was a divisive and allegedly autocratic figure with strong supporters and detractors among both teachers and elected officials. The committee was already characterised by its squabbling, and the incident set off yet another round of arguing and point scoring. An inquiry was held into the unauthorised alteration, the strained relations between architect and secretary, and the truthfulness of the claims that had been made. This was reported at length in newspapers, with articles including little moments such as: ‘Mr Ramsay made some inaudible remark, to which Mr J.F.M. Fraser replied: I’m not addressing you, Mr Ramsay; you are somewhat too insignificant for me’. The eventual resolution was to reprimand both Pryde and Somerville.

More trouble came about over the bricks used in the building and the way in which they were procured by the architect, with further suggestion of lack of due process. Pressed machine-cut bricks were only produced locally by C. & W. Gore at Wingatui, however, the architect found difficulty in obtaining a sufficient supply at a good price. The cost of brick was about to rise and this led to some urgent decision making. Handmade wire-cut bricks were obtained from three different suppliers (including Shiel’s at Caversham) to begin the building work. The structure was carried up to a ‘considerable height’ with the common bricks, and pressed bricks from Gore Bros were obtained for the later part of the construction. This meant the facades were cemented rather than the outer course of bricks being tuck-pointed and left exposed, which would have matched the neighbouring Agricultural Hall (later His Majesty’s Theatre). A Te Papa image gives a partial view of the building in November 1897, before the brickwork was rendered.

By the end of 1897 building had progressed to the point where plumbing and plastering work was being carried out. Yet more controversy occurred when the clerk of works, Adam Nichol, was dismissed from the board’s service as the project drew to an end. The committee argued about whether or not he should have been retained for further building projects. They had opted to minimise the amount of contract work used on the project and Nichol’s role was consequently more significant than his title might suggest. According to one board member (J.J. Ramsay, a supporter of Nichol’s): ‘If a job of the magnitude of the board’s offices were being carried out by contract a clerk of works would be employed for that job alone at a larger salary than Mr Nichol receives; and yet Mr Nichol has been doing the work of the contractor in addition to that of clerk of works — setting-off the building, making the moulds, selecting the material, and conducting the whole work.’ Nichol died suddenly a few months later, while on inspection work at the goldfields.

The wide main staircase was built with kauri timbers by William Bragg.

Staircase and other woodwork.

A decorated plaster ceiling in the largest of the ground floor rooms. Key and Ashton were the contractors for this work.

On 26 April 1898 the Otago Daily Times reported that ‘Eduction Board officials were busily engaged yesterday and on Saturday last in removing to the new offices between the Agricultural Buildings and the Harbour Board’. The final cost was reported as £3189, which was over a third more than the original estimate. Contractors included William Bragg for the staircase, Key & Ashton for plastering, and Scott & Hodges for plumbing. The Architect’s Department letter books held in the Hocken Collections record detail of the various labourers employed.

The Education Board retained offices in the building for 27 years, and the Otago High Schools’ Office also had rooms. In 1925 it was purchased for £5,000 by A.H. Reed, for his business the Sunday School Supplies Stores, which he had established in 1907. He let part of the ground floor to the Atlas Insurance Company, and upstairs rooms to an accountant and the Otago Council of Sunday School Unions. Gavin McLean, in his history of Reed Books, writes that the ‘debt burden worried the Reeds, but they had good tenants and the Reeds Building, prominently displayed on letterheads and emblazoned with their names, gave them a feeling of security, while stamping their presence firmly on the bookselling and publishing scene’. In 1932 A.W. (Clif) Reed became a partner and opened a Wellington branch, and the firm diversified from predominantly religious publications into secular fiction and non-fiction. The company ultimately became New Zealand’s largest publishing house. A.H. Reed closed the Dunedin office in 1940 but retained ownership of the Jetty Street building for a few more years. A.H. & A.W. Reed (as it was then known) consolidated on its Wellington operations. Alfred was a prolific author in his later years and famously walked from Cape Reinga to Bluff when he was 85 years old (one of a number of walking feats). He died in 1975 at the age of 99.

Cradle roll certificate featuring huia, produced by A.H. Reed. Image kindly supplied by the New Zealand Presbyterian Archives Research Centre.

A.H. Reed in 1956. Ref: Negatives of the Evening Post newspaper. EP/1956/0388-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, http://natlib.govt.nz/records/23103662

In 1945 the building was purchased by John Stuart Skinner (1894-1983), a Gallipoli veteran and prominent Dunedin businessman who served as president of the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce. Skinner was a seed and grain merchant and had established his firm J.S. Skinner & Co. in 1924, with offices in the neighbouring Donald Reid & Co. building. He later recalled: ‘At the end of hostilities Donald Reid & Co. informed me that with staff returning they would require all the upstairs office space and while there was no immediate haste to leave they suggested I look for other premises. As I had been offered Reed’s building next door a year previously I wasted no time in getting in touch with Mr Reed and completed the purchase the same day to our mutual satisfaction at the original price of three thousand five hundred pounds.’ Skinner & Co. vacated the building around 1979 but continued in business until the firm was acquired by Combined Rural Traders (CRT) in 1996. The building was known as ‘Skinner’s Building’ during this time and was still listed under this name in Wise’s directory as late as 1995. Skinner’s tenants included the Atlas Assurance Company (which was in the building c.1925-1958), company agents and secretaries, insurance agents, John Roberts Laidlaw (sharebroker, c.1946-1956), F. Meredith & Co. (indent agents, c.1968-1983), and A.S. Falconer (grain and seed broker, c.1945-1959). Brigadier Alexander Smith Falconer (1892-1966) had served as commanding officer of the 23rd Infantry Battalion in the Second World War.

Doors to first-floor offices.

From the 1980s the use of the building shifted more to residential and studio use. Artists with rooms in the building included Jeffrey Harris, Dave Sarich, Faith McManus, and Fleur Yorsten. Bryan Spittle (of the band Mink) lived in the building in the early 1990s. The experimental dentist Donald Ritchie (1912-1996) also worked and later lived on the premises. He advocated a method he called ‘trace mineral therapy’ to combat tooth decay and had earlier developed a mineral-based powder called Dentamin, which he was not permitted to sell in shops.

Despite many changes of use, the building retains much of its original character. Two ground floor window openings have been lowered to create a second entrance from Jetty Street (at the corner, altered in 1935), and a further entrance on Crawford Street. A pediment has been removed from the Crawford Street facade at parapet level. The interior has decorative ceiling plasterwork, original doors, skirtings, picture rails, architraves etc. (with varnished finishes), and the original generously-proportioned principal staircase with turned balusters and curved rail. Original fireplace surrounds have been removed, but exposed openings or replacement surrounds generally remain. A strongroom is still in place in the first floor, as does a smaller vaulted storeroom. Various internal changes include the addition of mezzanine levels and kitchens.

Lawrie Forbes purchased the building in 2012 and has carried out emergency works to bring the structure to a level of code compliance. Subsidence had badly compromised the south party wall, where the adjoining frontage of His Majesty’s Theatre was demolished in the 1970s. Forbes has significantly strengthened the structure by rebuilding this, and obtained financial assistance from the Dunedin Heritage Fund to carry out the work. What’s next? Take a look at the property listing – you might have some ideas!

Both levels were built with high ceilings.

There were numerous fireplaces, all of which have been modified. This register looks as though it might be one of the originals.

A vaulted store room. There is also a separate strong room on the first floor.

Acknowledgment:
Thanks to Lawrie Forbes (Zealsteel) for providing access to the building.

Newspaper references:
D Scene 16 February 2011 (‘Building may be demolished’); Evening Star, 17 September 1897 (to the editor), 24 January 1898 (editorial); Otago Witness, 25 August 1897 p.36 (Education Board Enquiry), 30 September 1897 p.29 (editorial – ‘twopenny squabbles’), 30 September 1897 p.36 (to the editor), 7 October 1897 p.18 (to the editor); Otago Daily Times, 2 September 1897 p.3 (‘Education Board’), 4 September 1897 p.4 (editorial), 6 September 1897 pp.3-4 (to the editor), 9 September 1897 p.3 (to the editor), 17 September 1897 p.4 (meeting report), 18 September 1897 p.6 (letter to the editor re bricks), 25 September 1897 p.6 (to the editor re bricks), 28 September 1897 p.6 (to the editor re bricks), 22 October 1897 p.4 (to the editor re bricks), 17 December 1897 p.6 (inspector of works), 21 January 1898 p.4 (inspector of works), 3 February 1898 p.3 (to the editor – ‘A Shameful Transaction’), 3 February 1898 p.4 (editorial), 7 February 1898 p.3 (to the editor), 8 February 1898 p.3 (to the editor), 9 February 1898 p.3 (to the editor), 12 February 1898 pp.3, 6 (to the editor), 14 February 1898 p.3 (to the editor), 18 February 1898 p.4 (to the editor), 21 April 1898 p.7 (busyness), 28 October 1966 p.8 (obituary for A.S. Falconer), 20 December 1983 (obituary for J.S. Skinner), 24 September 1996 p.5 (obituary for Doanld Bruce Ritchie), 8 August 2012 p.7 (‘“Huge job” of restoring Reed’s Building starts’), 31 January 2014 (‘Developer to sell historic building he saved’); Tuapeka Times, 28 August 1897 p.3 ‘Dunedin Gossip’), 4 September 1897 p.3 (‘Dunedin Gossip’), 18 September 1897 p.3 (‘Dunedin Gossip’).

Other references:
Stone’s, Wise’s, and telephone directories
Baré, Robert, City of Dunedin Block Plans. (Dunedin: Caxton Steam Printing Company, [1889])
Calvert, Samuel, engraver after Albert C. Cook, ‘Dunedin’, supplement to the Illustrated New Zealand Herald, July 1875.
Jones, F. Oliver, Structural Plans of the City of Dunedin NZ, ‘Ignis et Aqua’ series, [1892].
McLean, Gavin. Whare Raupo: The Reed Books Story (Dunedin: Reed Publishing, 2007), pp.19-60.
Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans (with thanks to Glen Hazelton)
Otago Education Board, ‘Contract book’ (Hocken Collections AG-294-30/12)
Otago Education Board, ‘Architect’s Department letter books’ (Hocken Collections AG-294-39/09, AG-294-39/10, AG-294-39/11)
Otago Education Board, ‘Scrapbook’ (Hocken Collections AG-294-18/02)
‘John Stuart Skinner: An account of his life written during 1976-1978’ (Hocken Collections Misc-MS-1000)

Thomas Bedford Cameron, architect

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Born: Scotland, 1836/1837
Died: Wellington, New Zealand, 8 July 1894

When T.B. Cameron arrived in Dunedin in 1878 he was already an experienced architect in his forties. He worked here for over ten years, but as Hardwicke Knight and Niel Wales tell us in Buildings of Dunedin (1988), ‘apart from the Caversham Presbyterian Church in the 1880s, little is known about him’. A few other things surface from time to time: Cameron submitted the winning entry in the design competition for the Dunedin Town Hall (though R.A. Lawson’s design was ultimately used), and earlier worked in Auckland and Victoria. His role as designer of the Queen’s Arms Hotel (now Empire Tavern) in Dunedin came to notice during the New Zealand Historic Places Trust’s registration of that building in 2012.

What follows is something of a ‘greatest hits’ summary that pulls together a little of Cameron’s story and begins the exploration of his career that is overdue. Although my focus is his Dunedin work, his Auckland career probably produced a greater number of substantial buildings and I would be very interested to hear from anyone with local knowledge or further information about the Auckland and Australian projects listed at the end of this post. Unfortunately, biographical information is elusive. If his sketchy death registration is correct, then Thomas Cameron was born in Scotland in 1836 or 1837. His parents’ names are not recorded on the document, and another blank space suggests that he never married. His middle name, Bedford, is likely a clue to his ancestry, even if he added it when he was a young man to distinguish himself from the many other Thomas Camerons running about the place.

The ‘Star’ newspaper offices (1860), Ballarat. Image: State Library of Victoria H26066, Simon & Bardwell photographers.

The synagogue at Ballarat (1861). Image: State Library of Victoria H2051, Simon & Bardwell photographers.

Former Creswick Presbyterian Church (1861). Image: J.T. Collins Collection, La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria, H94.200/1258.

Like some of Dunedin’s other nineteenth-century architects, Cameron migrated from Britain to Victoria, where he worked for a few years before moving on to New Zealand. The earliest documentary reference I found about him was in the Ballarat Star of 13 September 1858, when ‘T.B. Cameron & Co.’ of 1 Bridge Street, called for tenders for additions and alterations to Dr James Stewart’s cottage. I don’t know who the ‘& Co’ were (if anyone), but this tag soon disappeared from Cameron’s notices. If his death record is correct then he would have been in his early twenties at this time, but this is a little difficult to reconcile with a later claim that he had ‘Long practical experience in the Home Country’. In November 1858 he ran the following advertisement:

T.B. CAMERON, Architect &c, 2 Bridge street, Main Road, opposite Humphrey’s Stationery Depot, is prepared to supply plans, specifications, &c, for cottages, shops, warehouses, &c, on the shortest notice, and to guarantee that no building when finished according to the plans will exceed the contract price.

An early project was a hotel with concert rooms in Lydiard Street, built for D. Jones in 1859. Over the next four years Cameron designed many buildings in Ballarat, and also at Creswick, sixteen kilometres to the north. These included the Ballarat Synagogue, which survives today and for which Cameron’s name is still known. Cameron designed the Star newspaper offices, Welsh chapel, Presbyterian church at Creswick, numerous two-storey commercial buildings, and private residences for John Coghill, Theophilus Williams, and others. For a year, from 1861 to 1862, Cameron served as Creswick’s Town Engineer.

In 1864 Cameron moved to Auckland, where he worked for the next thirteen years. He won the design competition for St James Presbyterian Church in Wellington Street, a large Gothic Revival timber building that stood until 1963. He also designed Presbyterian churches at Devonport and Wanganui, the latter being both constructed and destroyed (by fire) in 1868. Cameron was responsible for the design of the Star Hotel in Albert Street, built in 1865, and in 1877 he designed its redevelopment, although only the first stage was completed. Typical features of Cameron’s street elevations were round-headed windows which were relatively wide in proportion to their height. Cameron was briefly in partnership with the architect Arthur W. Burrows from 1865 to 1866.

St James’ Presbyterian Church (1864-1865), Wellington Street, Auckland. The building was demolished in 1963. Image: Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 4-3542.

Royal Mail Hotel, Auckland. Image: James D. Richardson, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 4-RIC37.

The old Star Hotel in Auckland (right) and what was intended as the first portion of its replacement (left). The hotel was demolished in the early 1980s. Image: Sam Cope (1985) Star Hotel, Albert Street. Copied from postcard lent by H. Hanlon. Auckland War Memorial Museum – Tamaki Paenga Hira, M598.

The only partially realised concept for the rebuilding of the Star Hotel. Image: Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 7-A5814.

In 1877, at the other end of the colony, a competition was held for the design of the Dunedin Town Hall, and Cameron entered an imposing classical design with corner tower under the pseudonym ‘In Haste’. In July the Town Hall Committee awarded him first place ahead of prominent local architect R.A. Lawson and seven other entrants. The committee reported that Cameron ‘conformed more nearly to the conditions of the competition than any of the other competitors; and with the exception of the arrangement of the offices for the departments, the design generally possesses considerable merit’. Lawson was appointed supervising architect in September, but as the project had to be scaled back to meet its reduced budget of £7,000, he was asked to make major alterations. The committee had admired Lawson’s front elevations, and agreed that he could adapt his own design rather than Cameron’s. The project was politically controversial, as it was argued that the Town Hall was a luxury the city could do without. Lawson’s finished building included the municipal offices and clock tower, but it would be over 50 years before a public auditorium was added.

Wood engraving of Cameron’s winning design for the Dunedin Town Hall, published in Illustrated Australian News, 3 October 1877. Image: State Library of Victoria IAN03/10/77/156.

Despite the disappointment, or perhaps in part because of it, Cameron decided to move to Dunedin in 1878. There was vigorous building activity in the city and the Town Hall competition would have brought his name to the attention of prospective clients. One of his first commissions was William Gregg’s store and coffee processing building in lower Rattray (now Fryatt) Street. In 1879 he designed two hotels (the Queen’s Arms and the Robert Burns) as well as at least two double-storey houses. Business did not go according to plan, however, as in 1879 Cameron was declared bankrupt with debts of over £600.

The W. Gregg & Co. store and coffee processing building (1878), which still stands in Fryatt Street. The round-headed windows with flanking pilasters are typical of Cameron. Image: advertisement from ‘Beautiful Dunedin’ by W.H. Fahey (1906).

The Empire (originally Queen’s Arms) Hotel in Princes Street. This image was by Hardwicke Knight around 1960, before most of the decoration was removed from the facade.

Detail showing the partially obscured facade of the Robert Burns Hotel (1879). From Hardwicke Knight’s ‘Early Dunedin Photographs’ (1984).

The early 1880s were Cameron’s most productive years in Dunedin. His designs included a three-storey terrace for Mrs Muir in Moray Place, as well as her two-storey house in View Street, and a pair of houses nearby for Robert Murray. There were two investment properties for Albert Dornwell, and other commercial work included shops for Denis Heenan and the Woodhaugh Hotel. One of Cameron’s grandest masonry houses was Appin, built for Angus Cameron of the Union Steam Ship Company, and he almost certainly designed Septimus Myers’ large wooden villa ‘Ivanhoe’ in North East Valley, and a similarly proportioned residence for John McCormick in Queen Street. Recurring features of Cameron’s designs from this period include prominent (usually flat) window hoods, and slender curved pilasters that sometime look a little out of proportion to the rest of the building. A few buildings featured square pilasters with circular decorations at the centre of the shafts. The Queens Arms and Robert Burns hotels were given slightly ungainly parapet decoration, but other commercial buildings were elegantly proportioned. Peter Entwisle cites Gladstone Terrace as evidence that Cameron was an erudite and accomplished designer.

Denis Heenan’ buildings in George Street, built as addition to a David Ross desogn, and recently identified as Cameron’s work by Peter Entwisle. Bold parapet ornamentation has been removed.

John McCormick’s residence (1881), Queen Street. Ornate bargeboards and gothic arches on the verandah are features of this house.

Gladstone (Moray) Terrace, Moray Place. The exterior of the building is well preserved, except that shop fronts have been put in on the ground floor.

Chicksands (1883), the residence of Mrs Amelia Muir. It was designed to complement Mrs Muir’s terrace next door.

Appin (1881-1882), Leith Street, on part of the site now occupied by University College. The bargeboards were again a bold feature. Image: Muir & Moodie, Cameron family papers, Hocken Collections, MS-1046/452 (S12-614).

Two-storey ‘tenement’ block at the corner of Frederick and Leith streets. The building was demolished in the 1970s. Photograph by Hardwicke Knight.

Woodhaugh Hotel (1881-1882).The original blind balustrades have been truncated, and a small corner pediment removed. The rounded corners of the first-floor windows are unusual for a Dunedin building.

The Caversham Presbyterian Church is the only church building in Dunedin I have been able to attribute to Cameron. This prominent local landmark includes Romanesque features, and was described as Norman in a newspaper report that was likely informed by the architect. These features include a broad low-pitched roof and round-headed windows. The overall impression, however, is of a free (eclectic) style, and the building also draws from Gothic influences and colonial Victorian design, while its steeple is reminiscent of the Neo-Classical designs of Sir Christopher Wren. Knight and Wales found the building charming, though with something of a wedding-cake appearance. Its unique and imaginative design give it special significance among Dunedin’s suburban church buildings. When the foundation stone was laid on 21 October 1882 the minister (Rev. Fraser) said: ‘This is supposed to be an age of culture, and an aesthetic age…Public buildings are the common property of all, and more so are the homes of the people. If this is so, what an influence for good must handsome buildings and beautiful surroundings have upon the minds of the people’.

Caversham Presbyterian Church (1882)

If newspapers are an accurate indication, Cameron’s activity declined dramatically from 1885, and he was again bankrupted in 1886. This came with a general slump in building activity during the Long Depression, which led other architects (including R.A. Lawson) to leave Dunedin. Cameron’s later commissions here included a ‘large hall’ in Moray Place in 1888 (possibly the Palace Roller Skating Rink), and an as yet unidentified ten-room villa in 1889. In 1891 he was the successful competitor for the design of the Kaitangata Borough Council chambers, but this project appears not to have been realised.

Around 1893 Cameron moved to Wellington, and the following year he placed second in the competition to design the memorial to the late New Zealand Premier John Ballance. He kept a low public profile and one of the few things I found about him from this period was that he was a member of the Terrace Congregational Church. After suffering from pneumonia for a week, Thomas Cameron passed away at Wellington Hospital on 8 July 1894, aged 57. Apparently leaving no family, and with no identifiable photograph of him known, his buildings must speak of his life.

Ivanhoe, North Road, North East Valley. Image courtesy of Martina and Andrew Kelly.

A recent image of Ivanhoe.

Commercial building (1885) at the corner of Moray Place and George Street. It was demolished in the early 1980s. Original parapet decoration had been removed by the time this photograph was taken by Hardwicke Knight in the 1970s. The Palladian windows are similar to the one used at Appin.

Selected works:

- - 1858. Additions and alterations to cottage for Dr James Stewart, Ballarat
  - 1859. Hotel building in Lydiard Street, Ballarat
  - 1859. Welsh Chapel, Ballarat.
  - 1859-1860. Warehouse for A.H. King, Ballarat
  - 1860. Offices for Star newspaper, Sturt Street, Ballarat
  - 1860. Warehouse for John Webster, Creswick
  - 1860. Shop and residence for Wittkowski Bros, Ballarat
  - 1860. Sexton’s lodge, Creswick New Cemetery
  - 1860. Two shops for Mr Martin, Albert Street, Creswick
  - 1860. Two brick shops for Mader Bros, Creswick
  - 1860. Chapel at Slaughterman’s Hill for Bible Christian Association
  - 1860. Two-storey brick premises for Thomas Anthony, Creswick
  - 1860. Brick shop and warehouse for Mr McLeod, Creswick
  - 1860. Two-storey brick premises for Mr Hassell, Creswick
  - 1860-1861. Brick villa for John Coghill, near Ascot
  - 1861. Stone and brick premises for Raphael Bros, Ballarat
  - 1861. Two-storey stone and brick premises for Godfrey & Abrahams, Ballarat
  - 1861. Synagogue, Ballarat*
  - 1861. Presbyterian Church (later St Andrew’s Uniting Church), Creswick*
  - 1861. Stone and brick shops for Rees & Benjamin, Sturt and Lydiard streets, Ballarat
  - 1861. Stone villa for Theophilus Williams
  - 1861. Six-roomed cottage for Dr Daniels, Creswick
  - 1861. Brick premises for Mr Dawson, Bridge Street, Ballarat
  - 1862. Premises for Hepburn & Leonard, Lydiard Street, Ballarat
  - 1862. Stone and brick premises for William Young, Soldiers Hill
  - 1863. Four two-storey shops for Mr Martin, Main Road, Ballarat
  - 1863. Presbyterian manse, Smeaton
  - 1864. Two-storey residence for J. Phillips, Onehunga
  - 1864. Music Hall for George Dalrymple, Wellesley Street, Auckland
  - 1864-1865. St James Presbyterian Church, Wellington Street, Auckland
  - 1865. Two-storey shops and residences, Wellesley Street, Auckland
  - 1865. Eight two-storey shops and residences, Grey and Pitt streets, Auckland
  - 1865. Four two-storey shops and residences, Drake Street, Auckland
  - 1865. Three storey stone and brick warehouse, Albert Street, Auckland
  - 1865. William Rattray’s building (two storeys), Shortland Street, Auckland
  - 1865. Eight two-storey buildings (shops and residences), Grey and Pitt streets, Auckland
  - 1865. Union Hotel (two-storey brick premises), Queen Street, Auckland
  - 1865, 1877. Star Hotel, Albert Street, Auckland
  - 1865-1866. Store for Dingwall, Albert Street, Auckland
  - 1866. Hotel building, O’Neill’s Point, North Shore.
  - 1867. St Paul’s Presbyterian Church, Devonport
  - 1867-1868. Presbyterian Church, Wanganui
  - 1870. Royal Mail Hotel, Victoria and Elliott streets, Auckland
  - 1873-1874. Premises for George Quick & Co., Elliott Street, Auckland
  - 1874. Shops for Greenway, High and Durham streets, Auckland
  - 1875. Block of brick buildings for Joseph Craig, Fort Street, Auckland*
  - 1876. Two-storey residence for C. Greenaway, Hobson Street, Auckland
  - 1876. Brick buildings/Post Office Hotel? in Shortland Street, Auckland (site QCE Hotel)
  - 1876. Warehouse for T. Hartley, Durham Street, Auckland
  - 1878. W. Gregg & Co. store, Rattray Street, Dunedin*
  - 1879. Robert Burns Hotel, George Street, Dunedin*
  - 1879. Residence for Mr Copland, Peel Street, Lawrence
  - 1879. Two-storey residence in Scotland Street, Dunedin
  - 1879. Two-storey stone and brick residence, Queen Street, Dunedin
  - 1879. Queens Arms Hotel (later Empire Hotel), Princes Street, Dunedin*
  - 1880. Stone and brick shop for Denis Heenan, George Street, Dunedin.
  - 1880. Four villa residences for Lewis Lyons, Ravensbourne, Dunedin
  - 1880-1881. Two-storey premises, malthouse etc., Keast & McCarthy Dunedin Brewery
  - 1880-1881. Terrace for Amelia Muir, Moray Place, Dunedin*
  - 1880-1881. Two three-storey houses for Robert Murray, Moray Place, Dunedin
  - 1881. Residence for John McCormick, Queen Street North, Dunedin*
  - 1881-1882. Two-storey residence (Appin) for Angus Cameron, Leith Street, Dunedin
  - 1881-1882. Woodhaugh Hotel for J.R. James, Dunedin*
  - 1882. Kincaid & McQueen offices, Great King Street, Dunedin
  - 1882. Two-storey brick premises, Duke Street, Dunedin
  - 1882. Presbyterian Church, Caversham, Dunedin*
  - 1882. Two-storey tenements Frederick and Leith streets for Albert Dornwell
  - 1882. Villa residence for Captain Graham, Musselburgh, Dunedin
  - 1882. Villa residence for Mr Kilmartin, Opoho, Dunedin
  - 1882. Villa residence for Mr Keast, Maori Hill, Dunedin
  - 1883. Two-storey residence for Amelia Muir, View Street, Dunedin*
  - 1883. Main Road, South Dunedin, Mr Campbell.
  - 1884. Two-storey brick tenements, George Street, Dunedin
  - 1884. Nine-room residence, St Clair, Dunedin
  - 1885. Brick shops (two stories) for Albert Dornwell, George Street, Dunedin*
  - 1885. Brick shops (two stories), George Street and Moray Place, Dunedin
  - c.1885. Ivanhoe (Myers residence), North Road, North East Valley, Dunedin
  - 1886. Reinstatement of villa residence for Walter Guthrie, Manor Place, Dunedin
  - 1888. Large hall, Moray Place, Dunedin
  - 1888. Brick residence, Walker Street, Dunedin

*indicates buildings still standing

Newspaper references:
Newspapers consulted through Trove, Paper Past, and microfilm, were the Star (Ballarat), Daily Southern Cross (Auckland), New Zealand Herald (Auckland), Otago Daily Times (Dunedin), Otago Witness (Dunedin), Evening Star (Dunedin), Tuapeka Times (Lawrence), and Evening Post (Wellington). There are too many individual references to list here, but feel free to request specific information.

Other references:
Baré, Robert, City of Dunedin Block Plans (Dunedin: Caxton Steam Printing Company, [1889])
Jones, F. Oliver, Structural Plans of the City of Dunedin NZ, ‘Ignis et Aqua’ series, [1892]
Stone’s Otago and Southland Directory
Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory
‘Caversham Presbyterian Church, 61 Thorn Street, Dunedin’. New Zealand Historic Place Trust registration record (1996) retrieved 14 February 2014 from http://www.historic.org.nz/TheRegister/RegisterSearch/RegisterResults.aspx?RID=7319
Bauchop, Heather. ‘Empire Hotel, 396 Princes Street, Dunedin’. New Zealand Historic Place Trust registration record (2012) retrieved 14 February 2014 from http://www.historic.org.nz/TheRegister/RegisterSearch/RegisterResults.aspx?RID=9548#
Entwisle, Peter. Draft report B133 (312-314 George Street), Dunedin City Council Heritage Schedule Review, 2013.
Entwisle, Peter. Draft report B404 (Moray Terrace), Dunedin City Council Heritage Schedule Review, 2012.
Knight, Hardwicke and Niel Wales. Buildings of Victorian Dunedin: An Illustrated Guide to New Zealand’s Victorian City (Dunedin: McIndoe, 1988).
Trotter, Oive. Dunedin’s Crowning Glory: The Town Clock Tower (Dunedin: the author, 1994)

Union Steam Ship Company offices

10 Replies

Built: 1882-1883
Address: 49 Water Street
Architect: David Ross (1828-1908)
Builders: Bateman & Stait

The office building as it appeared in the 1880s, with the store building adjoining it at the left rear. Image: Burton Brothers, Hocken Collections S10-221c.

The Union Steam Ship Company was a giant of colonial commerce. It became both the largest shipping company in the southern hemisphere and the largest private employer in New Zealand. Established by James Mills in Dunedin in 1875, it grew out of a shipping business started by John Jones and later managed by Mills. By 1882 it operated coastal and inter-colonial shipping routes, with a fleet of twenty-one steamers and a further four on order. At this time its head office was at the corner of Liverpool and Bond streets.

Flag of the Union Steam Ship Company. Image: Museum of Wellington City and Sea 2005.4970.90.

In September 1882 the company appointed prominent local architect David Ross to design a new office building and adjoining store, to be built on recently reclaimed Harbour Board land fronting Water Street. The following month the contract for construction was awarded to Bateman & Stait, who submitted the lowest tender of £6,526 (less £375 if minarets and parapets were left off). Although this was a large sum for a Dunedin building, it was modest compared with the cost of a ship. the company’s two largest new ships of 1883 (the Tarawera and the Hauroto) each cost over £60,000. The building project took approximately a year to complete and was finished around November 1883.

Detail cropped from Muir & Moodie photograph. Image: Te Papa C.012197.

The main building was brick, rendered in cement plaster, with concrete foundations and a half-sunk Port Chalmers stone basement that rose six feet above the footpath. The roof was slate. Elaborately decorated elevations were described in the Otago Daily Times as ‘tasteful, although anything but gaudy’, and it was reported that ‘in point of external appearance the structure will not be rivalled by any other of its kind in the city’. The style was essentially Renaissance Revival (‘modern Italian’), but the fanciful roofline featured an array of minarets that probably drew from English Tudor models, and a square-based dome was suggestive of the French Second Empire style. Some proposed decorative details, ‘an emblematic design (globe, anchor, cable &c.) enclosing a clock’, were not finished as intended.

Ross had spent time in both France and the United States a few years before, and what he saw there likely influenced the design, which was a departure from his earlier work. While the building was still under construction he won the competition for the design of the Auckland Harbour Board offices with a strikingly similar composition.

That looks familiar! David Ross also designed the Auckland Harbour Board offices in Quay Street, Auckland (1883). Its exterior decoration was removed in 1958 and the building was demolished in 1969. Image: Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1-W890.

The Tarawera, one of the large new vessels which entered service for the Union Company in 1883. Image: John Dickie, Alexander Turnbull Library 1/2-031815-G http://natlib.govt.nz/records/23208710

The Tarawera, one of the large new vessels which entered service for the Union Company in 1883. It cost £61,000 to build and was 2,003 gross tons. Image: John Dickie, Alexander Turnbull Library 1/2-031815-G http://natlib.govt.nz/records/23208710

The neighbouring store building fronting Cumberland Street had a simpler but complementary design and the combined height of its four storeys were the same as the three storeys of the offices. The store included a hydraulic goods lift at one corner and the building reportedly contained ‘every convenience for the reception and despatch of the various materials needed on board the Company’s steamers’. The top storey of the office portion was also initially used as storage space. On the lower floors were counters, desks and other carved timber fittings of polished cedar and walnut. The large shipping hall on the ground floor (22 x 32 feet) featured parquet flooring and handsome cornices, and the vestibule was paved with Minton tiles and had iron gates. On the same level were also a smoking room for visiting ship captains, a reading room (with ‘all the principal Colonial journals’), a telephone room (for that relatively newfangled invention), the Engineer’s Office, and other staff offices. The first floor included the board room, James Mills’ own office, the deputy manager’s office, and the bookkeeping department. Heating was by F.H. Asbury’s low-pressure steam system, and there were also open fireplaces in some rooms.

The building remained the head office of the Union Steam Ship Company from 1883 to 1921. The company’s headquarters then transferred to Wellington and the Water Street building was used by the Dunedin branch office, which only needed the ground floor. Meanwhile, on the corner diagonally opposite, the National Mortgage and Agency Company had outgrown its premises, so in 1929 the Union Company and the NMA came to an arrangement to exchange buildings. The two firms had a long association, and had mutual directors for some years.

Established in 1864, the NMA was a stock and station company that became the second largest wool broker in New Zealand. The company’s historian, Gordon Parry, described its fortunes in the interwar years: ‘Bemused by topsy-turvy trading conditions and unpredictable price fluctuations, the National Mortgage bounced through the troublesome time of the late 20s and into the threatening 30s rather like one of its staff members following a narrow sheep trail in a poorly sprung runabout’.

The outward appearance of the building changed little in its first decade of NMA ownership, the few alterations including new signage and lettering (for example ‘USSCo’ was changed to ‘NMACo’’ on the basement grilles). In 1940, however, it underwent a major transformation. Most of the building’s original exterior decoration was destroyed in remodelling designed by architects Mandeno & Fraser (the specification is initialled Mandeno) and carried out by W.H. Naylor Ltd. Such facelifts were common in Dunedin at the time, influenced by fashion and iconoclasm, and often triggered by maintenance issues such as crumbling masonry. Existing masonry was bolstered back or filled in, and surfaces replastered in a fashionable quasi-Art Deco style, with restrained decoration and contrasting colour effects. The end result didn’t look quite like a twentieth century building, as the overall proportions and most of the windows were unchanged. The stone basement was not altered and the grand entrance doors were also retained.

The building at the time of the NMA centennial celebrations in 1964. Image: Hocken Collections S10-221e.

The building in 2010, prior to redevelopment.

The building in 2013, after redevelopment.

NMA moved its head office to Wellington in 1970 and the Dunedin building became a branch office. The company merged with Wright Stephenson & Co. in 1972 and the new company (Wrightson NMA) vacated the Water Street premises in 1977. The building was renamed Vogel House and during the 1980s and 1990s it was used as a rehearsal venue for bands and other musicians. The Dunedin Sound group The Chills had a space on the south of the first floor and recorded their single Doledrums there in 1984. Other groups that rehearsed in the building included the Kaftans, the Moomins, and Jim’s Live Deer Recovery. The building was later the venue of a two-week squat installation by artist Georgiana Morrison (1995) and the show ‘Dereliction’ by Kim Pieters (1996).

Steve Macknight’s NMA Properties Ltd redeveloped the building between 2010 and 2012. The exterior was renovated to approximately its 1940 appearance, one of the exceptions from this being the addition of a slightly incongruous cornice at parapet level. Paint was stripped from the stonework and plasterwork, and the latter was restored to a beautifully warm and complex colouring. Few of the original interior features had survived earlier alterations, however, remnants of plaster cornices and entrance features were retained. Brick walls and roof structures were exposed, making the most of surviving historic fabric. Major earthquake strengthening (to 67% of the new building standard) included new poured concrete floors and tying back of walls. The redevelopment was granted $20,000 from the Dunedin Heritage Fund in 2010 and won the 2013 Dunedin Heritage Re-Use Award. Current tenants include Wine Freedom and Psychology Associates.

It is a pity that the building is not the spectacular example of Victorian exuberance it once was, but this in no way diminishes its significance as a rich site of cultural and economic history. Historian Gavin McLean describes it as ‘New Zealand’s most important office building’. I nominated it as an historic place to the New Zealand Historic Places Trust in 2010 and it is yet to be assessed, but thanks to the work of enthusiastic local developers its future looks good, and it is once more an attractive and widely appreciated part of Dunedin’s Warehouse Precinct.

The main entrance, including original doors.

Original basement stonework and grille.

Newspaper references:
Otago Daily Times, 10 September 1883 p.4 (description), 28 July 1977 p.11-18 (removal of Wrightson NMA); Evening Post (Wellington), 6 March 1929 p.8 (building exchange).

Other references:
Baré, Robert. City of Dunedin Block Plans (Dunedin: Caxton Steam Printing Company, 1889).
Stone’s Otago and Southland Directory
Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory
Telephone directories
‘A Citizen’ [John Bathgate]. An Illustrated Guide to Dunedin and its Industries (Dunedin: Fergusson & Mitchell, 1883), pp.140-142.
McLean, Gavin. 100 Historic Places in New Zealand (Auckland: Hodder Moa Beckett, 2002), pp.122-123.
Parry, Gordon. NMA: The story of the first 100 years: The National Mortgage and Agency Company of New Zealand Ltd 1864-1964 (London and Dunedin: NMA. 1964).
Minutes. Union Steam Ship Company records, Hocken Collections AG-292-3/1/2
Tabulated abstracts of accounts. Union Steam Ship Company records, Hocken Collections AG-292-7/9/1
Mandeno & Fraser specification for 1940 remodelling (with thanks to Oakley Gray architects)
Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans (with thanks to Glen Hazelton)
Information about band rehearsals in the building supplied by James Dignan.

Facade detail.

View across the intersection of Water and Vogel streets.

City Boot Palace

4 Replies

Built: 1885-1886
Address: 202-206 George Street
Architect: James Hislop (1859-1904)
Builder: Arthur White

Advertisement from supplement of the ‘Evening Star’, 10 April 1893. Ref: Eph-E-BUILDINGS-Dunedin-1893-01. Alexander Turnbull Library http://natlib.govt.nz/records/23156921.

The City Boot Palace! The name conjures up images of a vast array of footwear in a setting of Victorian opulence, perhaps presided over by some magnificently moustachioed manager. It may not have been quite like that, but Dunedin’s Boot Palace did have an air of grandeur which set it apart from most George Street buildings of the 1880s.

The building was erected for Benjamin Throp (1845-1933), a dentist who occupied the upstairs rooms and leased out the lower level. Born in Halifax, Yorkshire, Throp arrived in Dunedin with his mother in 1861 and qualified as a dentist in 1868. In the early days he used only hand instruments, and his equipment and supplies had to be imported from England and the United States, often taking over a year to arrive. Up to 1900 the only anaesthetic he used was cocaine, and he later produced his own nitrous oxide (laughing gas). He also made his own gold plate, having worked as a goldsmith during his youth in Australia. Throp’s meticulous notes held in the Hocken Collections record that he made 37,162 extractions over 37 years.

One day, when fitting the gold mining entrepreneur Alex McGeorge with some false teeth, Throp was offered a partnership in the Electric Gold Dredging Company. This proved to be a lucrative venture that ultimately netted him between £20,000 and £30,000. He retired in 1905 to take up farming at Moa Flat Estate, but his son Frank Throp continued the dental practice at the same address until 1942. Two other sons were killed in action during the First World War. Another dentist, Andrew Aitken, kept the rooms up to 1958, and during this period the building remained in the ownership of the Throp family.

Architect James Hislop designed the building, which was erected on the site of the old Dornwell & Rennie butchery. Tenders were called in June 1885. The contractor was Arthur White and the cost approximately £2,800, but White went bankrupt during the course of the contract because his tender had been too low and he found he couldn’t afford to pay all of the creditors connected with the work.

The building has a foundation of Port Chalmers stone that rises above the footpath, and the two storeys over this are constructed of brick rendered with cement plaster. An abundance of ornamentation includes pairs of Corinthian pilasters, arched and triangular hoods, rustication, and more mouldings than you can shake a stick at. Originally, there was a bold and elaborate parapet with balustrades and pediments that balanced the composition. A pillared verandah for the George Street shop front featured decorative cast ironwork. The overall effect was more ostentatious than elegant, but the building made a confident statement on the busy corner site. It is a good example of the later phase of Victorian Renaissance Revival architecture, which in its more florid forms drew from increasingly eclectic influences combined in unconventional ways. Hislop provided a further example of this movement a few years later when he designed the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition buildings of 1889 in a flamboyant quasi-Moorish style.

The Evening Star published a description in January 1886:

Among the new buildings which are being erected in the City, that designed by Mr James Hislop for Mr Throp, and situated at the corner of George und St Andrew streets, is deserving of description. It has two storeys, and is of Italian design. Constructed of Port Chalmers stone and brick, with cement, it presents a very fine appearance. The exterior of the building is, however, more than equalled by its internal disposition and finish, and its novel and chaste fittings do credit to all concerned. In the lower portion of the building a boot business is to be carried on, the apartments in the upper storey being utilised by Mr Throp in his profession as a dentist. The building has a frontage of 75ft to St Andrew street, and of 23ft 6in to George street, and its height from footpath to parapet is 38ft. The shop fronting George street is 40ft x 23ft 6in by 14ft 6in high, and a show-room behind this is 36ft x 22ft. The latter has a tiled floor and hand-painted windows, and, with the shop, is fitted up in a most picturesque style. Over the footpath in front of the shop there is a cast-iron verandah, roofed almost entirely with glass, and on the corner of the two streets stands a novel pediment containing the name of the premises, ‘The City Boot Palace.’ Three plate-class windows, 7ft6in x 12ft, which give light to the shop, are probably the largest containing one piece of glass in the City. The exterior of the shop is in picked red pine and American walnut. The first floor is approached from St Andrew street, and the entrance vestibule belonging to it is neatly tiled. At the top of the stairs there is a lantern light of especially neat design, and the different apartments are lighted with hand-painted windows. The nine rooms which are contained in the floor are all cemented and decorated with stencillings and paintings, which reflect infinite credit on Mr Scott, who had charge of this department of work. The rooms are all 12ft 6in high, and, with their tiled hearths, over-mantles, dadoes, etc., are most luxurious looking. Special attention has been paid to the ventilating of the building, and the system which Mr Hislop has worked upon cannot fail to be attended with beneficial results. An ingenious piece of mechanism in connection with the building is an electric bell, which rings as anyone ascends the stairs leading to Mr Throp’s apartment. It is worked by two steps as they are trod upon, and the mechanism is so arranged as to be temporarily thrown out of gear by anyone descending the stairs. If Mr Throp is to be visited by burglars, this little device may come in useful in more ways than one. This building has been in course of erection since July, and will be finished in a week or two.

Advertisement from the Otago Witness, 20 February 1907 p.84. Image from Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand.

Otago Witness, 10 June 1908 p.92. Image from Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand.

Throp took occupation of his rooms around the beginning of March 1886 , and the Boot Palace opened soon after. The City Boot Palace had been established in 1883, when it succeeded the business of the boot maker John Elliott. The same name was used elsewhere in Australasia: John Hunter’s City Boot Palace in Sydney opened in 1877, and both branches and separate businesses with the name operated in centres that included Adelaide (opened 1882), Brisbane (1888), Perth (1893), and Hobart (1906). In New Zealand there were boot palaces in cities and towns that included Timaru (opened 1885), Invercargill (1885), Oamaru (1886), Napier (1893), New Plymouth (1903), and Christchurch (1906). The name became almost generic and although there may have been some sort of licence or franchise agreement, the New Zealand boot palaces appear to have been independent businesses. The Dunedin manager from 1885 to 1908 was Joseph McLoy McKay, who in the Edwardian period ran humorous advertisements such as the one above, which emphasises the bargain prices and good value of the merchandise. Some featured the character ‘Parsimonious Sam’, whose penny pinching ways were satisfied by the deals to be had at the City Boot Palace, suggesting that they should be good enough for anyone.

The building in 1949, during its days as ‘Fashion Corner’. Perpetual Trustees records, Hocken Collections, S13-583b.

An evocative depiction of the intersection: ‘Street corner’ by Ralph Miller, conté and wash c.1945-1955. Reproduced by kind permission of Brian Miller.

A wartime advertisement for Fashion Corner from Otago Daily Times, 4 July 1944 p.3.

The boot palace ran for over 40 years and eventually vacated the building in 1929. It was then fitted with new shop fronts with mahogany facings and granite, and a new steel hanging verandah. The alterations were designed by the architects Mandeno & Fraser, and the contractors were the Love Construction Company. The women’s clothing store Fashion Corner opened for business in December 1929. It operated until 1958, when the ANZ Bank took the building as a branch office. It was around this time that the parapet ornamentation was destroyed and the St Andrew Street entrance moved. Old interior features have also disappeared through numerous renovations.

In 1983 the architects Salmond & Burt drew up plans for a new bank building on the site, but the scheme was abandoned. After nearly 40 years the ANZ consolidated on a new site in 1997. The ground floor is now occupied by the clothing retailers Jay Jays, making it once again a ‘fashion corner’. Most of the external character remains intact, and with some restoration perhaps the building will one day reiterate the vivacious statement it once made on this busy retail corner.

Newspaper references:
Otago Witness, 21 July 1883 p.29 (J. Elliott at 75 George St), 6 March 1886 p.16 (Throp’s new premises); Otago Daily Times, 30 May 1885 p.3 (Boot Palace business sold by Hislop), 1 April 1886 p.2 (Boot Palace in ‘new premises’), 21 April 1886 p.4 (Arthur White insolvency), 26 November 1889 p.6 (Hislop named as architect); Evening Star 5 June 1885 p.1 (call for tenders for removal of old buildings), 11 June 1885 p.1 (call for tenders for construction);30 January 1886 p.2 (description), 10 December 1929 p.5 (description of alterations).

Other references:
Baré, Robert, City of Dunedin Block Plans (Dunedin: Caxton Steam Printing Company, [1889])
Jones, F. Oliver, Structural Plans of the City of Dunedin NZ, ‘Ignis et Aqua’ series, [1892]
Council of Fire and Accident Underwriters’ Associations of New Zealand, block plans, 1927
Stone’s Otago and Southland Directory
Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory
Telephone directories
New Zealand Dental Journal, vol. 58 (1962) pp.88-89; vol. 76 (1980) pp.137-188
Sinclair, R.S.M. Kawarau Gold (Dunedin: Whitcombe & Tombs printers, 1962), pp.44-45.
Throp, Benjamin: Dental practice records book. Hocken Collections Misc-MS-0871.
Entwisle, Peter. Draft report DDPL110-35, Dunedin City Council Heritage Schedule Review (and further discussion with the writer).

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	David Murray on Craigie House

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