Angus Motors Building / Spanish Restaurant

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Built: 1874-1875, 1908 (addition), 1938-1939 (remodelling)
Address: 471-473 Princes Street
Architects: Unknown (1874), James Annand (1908), Stone & Sturmer (1938)
Builders: Key & Ashton (1874-1875), James Annand (1908), R. Mitchell & Sons (1938)

Fire raged in Princes Street South on the morning of 22 August 1874. The blaze began on the premises of Guthrie & Larnach, a firm of timber merchants that employed two hundred men in its timber yard, sawmill, and woodwork factory. A watchman discovered flames near the main boiler at about 3.30 a.m and raised the alarm, but the fire spread quickly.

The Guthrie & Lanarch buildings were destroyed. So too was the adjoining iron and spouting store of brothers Robert and Thomas Haworth, and a three-storey wooden building to the north of it – a boarding house named the Spanish Restaurant. Its fifty-four occupants were lucky to get out alive. They scrambled through narrow passages, some lowering themselves from the upper storeys with escape ropes. A youth had dashed off on a horse to Larnach Castle, to inform factory owner William Larnach. Several mothers were in a half-dressed state with children in their arms, and an observer noticed a man frantically rushing up the street with a cruet stand. By 5.00 a.m. an estimated 2,000 people were gathered near the site. A ‘magnificent climax was reached when the roof, front, and gables collapsed with a terrible crash, followed by the tottering fall of a high brick chimney. The crowd shrunk back some yards at the intense heat that shot out from the roaring, hissing, and flaring ruin’.

The Spanish Restaurant had been established in 1864 by Joseph Fort and Olegario Guardiola, a Catalan born in Barcelona. Unsuccessful in their application for a liquor licence, they operated a ‘dry’ hotel and offered cheap accommodation for single men. Within a year Guardiola was sole proprietor. One of his advertisements promised ‘every delicacy that art and genius can devise’, with cuisine arrangements under the supervision of a ‘first class artiste’. Another stated: ‘No Beer! No Ale! No Spirits! No Rubbish! Dinner for 1 shilling, with cup of coffee’.

The Haworth brothers owned both their own store and the restaurant building, on land leased from the Dunedin City Corporation. The site had earlier been a steep section of the foreshore and was part of an area set aside in 1853 as native reserve. Subsequent legal disputes over its status are part of the history of failure by colonial governments (regional and national) to honour promises for reserves made to mana whenua. This can be read about in detail in the Waitangi Tribunal’s Ngāi Tahu Report 1991 (pages 347-385).

After the fire, the Haworths wasted no time in employing the builders Key & Hewitt to construct a new Spanish Restaurant, begun about September 1874 and completed six months later. The three-storey building was of substantial brick construction. If it lacked distinction, its plastered front with decorative mouldings was at least dignified, and three ball finials added a touch of pretention. The finials matched those on the new Guthrie & Larnach buildings next door, rebuilt on an imposing scale to the designs of David Ross.

The Spanish Restaurant (left) in late 1881 or early 1882. To its right are seen the rebuilt Guthrie & Larnach buildings, designed by David Ross and destroyed by a second fire in 1887. Collection of Toitū Otago Settlers Museum; 1919/134/1180.

Guardiola’s rebuilt Spanish Restaurant occupied the top two floors and was described as ‘fitted up in the best manner for saving labour and securing comfort’. It included a large dining room and nearly fifty bedrooms. One resident was the journalist and poet Thomas Bracken. He had been a regular in the old restaurant since at least 1872 or 1873, possibly earlier. One person recalled ‘many a friendly chat’ with Bracken at a table there around that time. Patrick Galvin first met him in 1875 and wrote: ‘I stayed with him for some time at the Spanish Restaurant, Dunedin, and in his bedroom – pillow on knee – I saw him compose some of the poems which are included in the large editions of his works. It was always a hard struggle to make ends meet and pay the printers (Messrs Coulls and Culling), but the idealist was never totally lost in the practical man, though in some respects Bracken was a keen man of business in those days.’ It is possible this is where Bracken wrote words for what became the national anthem, ‘God Defend New Zealand’. The verses first appeared in his Saturday Advertiser newspaper in 1876.

The ground floor was divided into two parts, one originally occupied by the Haworths as a showroom and workshop. Their business wound up in 1878 but Robert Howarth retained the leasehold up to 1893, with his ground floor tenants including the seed merchants Nimmo & Blair, and the plumbers Short & Pearce.

In 1877 Bonfacio Zurbano, a native of Bilbao in northern Spain, succeeded Guardiola as proprietor of the Spanish Restaurant. By the time he sold the business to Robert Easton in 1880 he boasted of having the largest restaurant trade in the city. Easton was followed by Albert Leung Chung, who worked at first in partnership with Sue Kum Cheun and Leung Voy, then from 1883 and for the following thirteen years in his own name. Leung Chung was a native of Nam-hoy, Canton. A leader within the local Chinese community, he often gave his services as a court translator. His wife Jane (formerly Mrs Whitman) was originally from London and had run the Bath Street School for some years.

In 1887 another fire destroyed the next-door factory, now operated by the Dunedin Iron and Woodware Company. Some of the firefighters battled the blaze from the roof of Spanish Restaurant. Tragically, four men lost their lives.

Herbert Neville took over the hotel in 1896. He was followed by Margaret Clyma who in 1899 renamed it the Federal Coffee Palace, likely after the massive Melbourne edifice of that name. Following renovations in 1903, including new fire escapes, it became the Federal Private Hotel. Clyma leased the hotel to others from 1904, before selling to Norman Harper Bell, the founder and owner of the established Bell Tea Company.

Bell built a new tea warehouse on the north side of the property. Deeper than the old building, it increased the street frontage by one third and replicated the treatment of the original facade. James Annand both designed and built the additions. Construction began in June 1908 and an advertisement in December advised of the Bell Tea Company’s removal to ‘commodious three-storey building, which we have had specially erected in conformity with the very latest scientific sanitary ideas of handling, blending, and mixing Tea.’ Electric mixing and blending machines were located on the top floor, the first floor was used for packing and labelling, and on the ground floor were offices, reception, sample, and tasting rooms. Bulk cases and finished product occupied the basement, which was equipped with tramways and equipment for moving heavy goods.

Bell’s tenant, hotel proprietor Isabella Mackechnie, objected to the addition blocking her windows and described the hotel as leaking and uninhabitable at the time of her departure, although she was motivated to get out of her lease as cheaply as possible. Bell had the Federal refurbished as the Masonic Private Hotel in 1910, after identifying a demand for a place where ‘young men not earning large wages could get a maximum of comfort for about 18 shillings a week’. It was leased and managed by Allen and Essie Bedford, and described as a working man’s palace.

At the bottom of the hotel (the basement from Princes Street) was the kitchen, with a ten-foot Shacklock range and steam-heated racks and warmers. The outbuildings included a storehouse, larder, and butcher’s shop. Also at this level, a ‘light’ and ‘airy’ dining room decorated with wallpaper and hung pictures seated up to 140 people at about 20 tables. On the ground floor, a smoking room included tables for writing and playing cards. Further along was a billiard room with comfortable sofas around the walls. The top two floors contained 52 bedrooms, lit by electricity. On each of these floors were separate lavatories, and a suite of bathrooms where a ‘man who works at a “black” trade can get a splendid sluice-down either at the basins, under the showers, or in a Doulton bath, without having to wait, and he may splash about as much as he likes without making a mess’.

William and Eliza Knight became the hotels last managers in 1914, remaining until its closure in September 1936.

Bell Tea remained on the site until 1924, when it moved to a new factory in Hope Street. The old premises were occupied by the Colombo Tea Co. for a few years, and later by businesses in the motor trade. Motorcycle specialists Mewhinney & Geddes (later Mewhinney & Anderson) opened for business in 1929 and were followed by a company called Motor Sales in 1935.

The site was redeveloped on an expanded footprint in 1938 for Todd Motors. Established by Charles Todd, this business had begun as a stock and station company. Based in Dunedin from 1915, it had the agency for Ford Cars, with branches throughout Otago. The Princes Street redevelopment involved gutting the existing buildings, adding an additional storey to adjoining buildings in Bond Street, remodelling the exterior, and complete interior refurbishment. The architects and structural engineers were Stone & Sturmer (Gorton R. Stone and Frank Sturmer) and the builders R. Mitchell & Sons. During the work they discovered charred timbers, evidence of the 1887 fire.

The Masonic Hotel building during reconstruction. Evening Star 13 September 1938 p.3. Reproduced courtesy of Allied Press.

The Todd Motors service department, with its large workshop, occupied the connected building fronting Bond Street. Its additional storey was a continuation of the ground floor level from Princes Street. It housed a used car showroom under a single-span steel roof. The showroom for new cars faced Princes Street, with plate glass windows beneath a suspended verandah. It featured Queensland maple panelling and polished stainless steel mouldings, with white plaster walls above and heavily moulded ceilings. Glass bricks set into strips in the floor allowed light to filter through to the basement workshop, accessed from Bond Street. ‘Executive offices’ described as ‘American plan’ featured clear glass partitions and mirrors on the walls to help create an illusion of space.

The facade was almost completely remodelled. Only the retention of the original sash windows continued to give away its Victorian origins. A new amber and green plaster finish, with orange bands, must have turned heads. The Otago Daily Times described it as an ‘attractive splash of colour and modernity’.

Architects’ perspective drawing. Otago Daily Times 2 August 1938 p.3. Reproduced courtesy of Allied Press.

The newly completed Todd Motors premises. Otago Daily Times 28 January 1939 p.11. Reproduced courtesy of Allied Press.

Cross section (north side) from the 1938 drawings of Stone & Sturmer, architects.

Mayor A.H. Allen opened the premises on 30 January 1939. Some of his comments give insight into the fashion for stripping old buildings of their original ornamentation and facelifting them. The Otago Daily Times reported him as saying:

Many shops erected from 70 to 80 years ago were still doing duty. During the passing of those years the only improvement to some of them had been an occasional reconditioning and modernising of their frontages only, whereas others still retained their original and very unattractive architectural features. Todd Motors Ltd that day were showing them how to modernise and brighten the city and incidentally give better financial return to property owners.

Just months later, world war broke out. Petrol rationing was soon introduced and the assembly of sale of private vehicles greatly declined. Bill Angus, who had been manager, purchased the Dunedin business from Todd Brothers, and registered Angus Motors Ltd in June 1941. Angus had served in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War, and during the Second World War the Princes Street building housed the headquarters of the Air Training Corps and the recruiting office of the RNZAF. Angus Motors had the agency for Hillman and Humber cars, British marques from the Rootes Group. It also had agencies for American Chrysler and Plymouth cars, and later for Valiant.

In the 1960s, office accommodation was leased to government departments, including the Geological Survey Section.

The building in 1965. S.E. Kershaw papers, Hocken Collections – Uare Taoka o Hākena, MS-5401/001/001.

Gardner Motors bought out Angus Motors in 1971. Surplus to requirements, the building was sold to W.L. Cameron, a director of Andrews & Beaven Ltd, a Christchurch engineering firm established in 1878. It employed over 100 people from its Dunedin branch premises, extensively refurbished and opened in 1972. The complex included a warehouse and showrooms for general and industrial engineering supplies, equipment, machinery, and car accessories. Hodge & McKenzie were the main contractors for the alterations. Andrews & Beaven was taken over by Repco in 1983 and the Princes Street operation closed not long after. The motor division continued on Bond Street until about 1987, as Motor Specialties.

Over the summer of 1987-1988 the building underwent a major redevelopment by City Motors, which changed the name of its vehicle trading arm to European City Ltd. It retailed Jaguar, Volkswagen, Audi and Fiat cars. Mason & Wales were the architects and Mitchell Almet the main contractors. The most significant external change was the installation of a curtain wall of tinted and mirrored glass over (but not destroying) the old facade. M.C. Fraser was the engineer. The pavement in front of the entrance was cobblestoned, and flanked with two evergreen trees, which it was suggested added a ‘little touch of European influence’. Through new automatic doors, trendy 1980s décor included charcoal grey carpet, powder grey walls, and smoky-pink vertical blinds. Improvements included the installation of underfloor central heating.

The building in February 2015. David Murray photo.

Mayor Sir Clifford Skeggs opened European City on 3 March 1988. It closed in 1992 after one of the directors was charged with, and subsequently convicted of, fraud and dishonesty offences, in his attempts to keep the business trading through economic downturn.

Later occupants of the Princes Street retail space have included the bed and bedding retailer Bedpost from 1995 to 2003. Then a similar business, Back to Bed, up to about 2009. Upstairs office spaces were converted to flats

In 2015 came another major refurbishment. The glass curtain wall was removed from the Princes Street frontage and the facade regained most of its 1930s appearance, surprising many who had only ever known its 1980s look. It was repainted in warm colours, sympathetic to the style, and refreshingly bucking staid trends. Important earthquake strengthening and maintenance work was undertaken and the upstairs apartments refurbished. The end result is a credit to the owner, Bill Brown.

From 2012 to 2021 the ground floor was occupied by Toffs Recycled Clothing. After a period as Proctors Auctions it is about to begin a new chapter as an SPCA op shop.

Newspaper references:
Otago Witness 18 June 1864 p.18 (Spanish Restaurant advt); 8 April 1876 p.8 (description of 1874 fire by David Kennedy); 26 January 1893 p.23 (Haworth auction notice); Otago Daily Times 6 January 1864 p.4 (Spanish Restaurant advertisement); 22 March 1864 p.4 (SR advt); 14 April 1864 p.2 (SR advt); 1 November 1865 p.3 (SR advt); 3 November 1865 p.3 (SR advt); 24 August 1874 p.3 (description of fire); 30 September 1874 p.2 (description of rebuilding); 6 February 1875 p.2 (description of rebuilding); 24 January 1887 p.2 (fire); 18 September 1899 p.2 (Federal Coffee Palace); 3 October 1903 p.6 (Federal Private Hotel); 4 July 1908 p.12 (Bell Tea warehouse); 26 December 1908 p.13 (Bell Tea warehouse); 12 February 1909 p.7 (Mackechnie v. Bell); 7 January 1911 p.9 (Masonic Hotel description); 30 July 1938 p.5 (Todd Motors perspective drawing); 28 January 1939 p.11 (Todd Motors feature); 31 January 1939 p.4 (Todd Motors opening); 5 March 1971 p.1 (sale of Andrews & Beaven); 9 March 1971 p.1 (sale of building); 13 May 1972 p.13 (refurbishment); 16 December 1987 p.26 (European City perspective drawing); 3 March 1988 p.16 (European City opening); 5 November 1993 p.21 (European City closure); 23 August 1995 p.5 (Bedpost); 23 October 2003 p.8 (Bedpost); 6 October 2009 (Back to Bed); 2 February 2015 (facade restoration); 13 November 2021 (Toffs closure); Evening Star 3 September 1870 p.2 (SR advt), 22 August 1874 p.3 (description of fire); 13 June 1908 p.5 (Bell Tea warehouse); 22 December 1910 p.2 (Masonic Hotel); 11 July 1914 p.6 (Thomas Bracken); 12 September 1936 p.17 (closure of Masonic Private Hotel); 14 June 1941 p.13 (Angus Motors announcement); Bruce Herald 26 July 1895 p.3 (Nimmo & Blair); New Zealand Tablet 12 January 1877 p.17 (SR advt); Evening Post (Wellington) 16 February 1907 p.13 (Thomas Bracken).

Other sources:
Dunedin City Council building registers and deposited plans
Stone’s, Wise’s, and telephone directories
Clements, John Ingram Paul. Ready Aye Ready: 150 Years of Dunedin Fire Brigades, 1861-2011 (Dunedin: Dunedin Fire Brigade Restoration Society, 2010)
Kung, Melanie (with additional comments from Helen Edwards), ‘Jane Leung Chung’, retrieved from https://nzhistory.govt.nz/suffragist/jane-leung-chung
Sidney Kershaw papers. Hocken Collections – Uare Taoka o Hākena. MS-5401/001.

This post is based on research I prepared for the Dunedin City Council in February 2015.

Scurr’s Buildings

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Built: 1912 (back portion 1908-1909)
Address: 21-33 Princes Street
Architects: Salmond & Vanes (James Louis Salmond)
Builders: Callender & McLeod (back portion C.W. Wilkinson)

Otago Witness, 1 April 1914, p.41. Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena.

In July 1935, Des Neilson attempted an 80-hour endurance record for stringed-instrument playing at the Green Parrot Tea and Dining Rooms, a basement café in Princes Street. The Evening Star reported:

Dunedin has stolen a march on America’s formidable list of ‘stunts,’ for never before has this one been attempted. At noon to-day, the youthful seeker of a Dominion record had played 44 of the intended 80 hours. Surrounded by a violin, a Spanish guitar, and a steel guitar (which accompanies his voice in yodelling numbers, just to break the monotony), Desmond reclined on a wicker settee, and told a reporter that his immediate wish was for a single feather bed. On a nearby table was an orange. His music has as yet made no difference to his diet, though his meals are varied by egg flips and beef tea. No, he is not tired, he asserts, but he certainly looks partly exhausted as his mitten-enclosed fingers quietly run across the strings of his instrument. Resort to massaging has been made, an attendant rubbing his back, stomach, and hands to the sound of vibrating strings. And when his audience is absent during long night hours he strolls up and down the floor to break the monotony. A signboard outside on the street and a periodic broadcast of his music by means of a microphone keep the public posted as to his progress.

A resident of King Edward Street, Des made regular concert appearances and radio broadcasts. At dances he led the Savonia Dance Band, formerly Dagg’s Band. Unfortunately, the record was not to be. Not long after speaking to the reporter he developed strong stomach pains and had to be assisted to a waiting car.

This is just one story of the buildings that have stood at 21-33 Princes Street since 1912. A long history precedes them. For centuries mana whenua sourced food, mahika kai, throughout the area. The site was at the northern foot of a large rocky promontory. To its south, at the mouth of Toitū stream, was the waka landing site of Ōtepoti.

The colonial built history dates from after surveying in 1846, with the partial formation of Princes Street across the promontory, which became known as Church Hill and then Bell Hill. Around 1850, the steep and muddy street was traversed by its first wheeled vehicle: a cart pulled by a bullock named Bob. A cutting was put through in 1858, and a photograph taken two years later shows a re-formed Princes Street and a ragged-looking Octagon. Set back from and below from the street is a one-storey building with vertical weatherboards and shingle roof. Much original vegetation is gone, but the photo shows some native flaxes and scrub, as well as the denser growth of the Town Belt.

Demolition of the top of the Bell Hill began in late 1862. Earlier that year, Thomas Corbett built a three-storey wooden building up to the street line, dwarfing the old one behind it. Its three shops faced Princes Street, including Corbett’s own drapery, with another level below where the land sharply dropped away. Offices above were leased to the Provincial Engineer’s Office, and the whole took the name ‘Provincial Buildings’. All buildings on the site were destroyed in 1865, in one of the devastating block fires of the period.

The Octagon in 1860. The site of 21-33 Princes Street is partially occupied by the building at the bottom left. William Meluish photographer. Te Papa O.030506.

The Octagon in 1862. The old building remains, attached to Corbett’s new Provincial Buildings. William Meluish photographer. Te Papa O.030515. A good view of the front of the building, photographed by Daniel Mundy, can be seen at Toitū Otago Settlers Museum.

Corbett had a replacement built, possibly to the design of W.T. Winchester, in fire-resistant brick and stone. A portion became the Rodney Hotel, soon renamed the South Australian Hotel, with a hall in which one of New Zealand’s first roller skating rinks opened in 1866. The next year another big fire struck, and Corbett’s was the only building to survive on the eastern side of Princes Street, between the Octagon and Moray Place. The pub became the West Coast Hotel in 1879 and a skittle alley was attached. It lost its license in 1891. Others businesses on the site included the Comet Café, and signwriting firm N. Leves & Co., which in the 1880s had decorative figures painted on the facade.

In 1882, Mary Gill opened her Mrs Gill & Co. millinery and drapery business. In its early years it specialised in underclothing and millinery. It expanded and became known for women’s and children’s clothing more generally, and for fabrics, while Gill also taught dressmaking. The business was sold to David G. Ford in 1903, to James Ross & Co. (Otago Drapery Company) in 1907, and later the same year to Jeffery Moody. Moody had been apprenticed to the drapery trade in London in the early 1870s, and recalled being told: ‘You must, of course, dress in keeping with the position. While on duty in the shop you will have to wear a frock coat, a white bow tie, and “diamond” studs’.

Detail from a Burton Brothers panorama, 1880. The first lamp belongs to the West Coast Hotel, and the second to the Comet Café. Between them is the shop of Leves & Scott (later N. Leves & Co.). The taller building is Charles Begg & Co. Te Papa C.012119.

A similar view from 1889. The verandah shows signage for Mrs Gill’s drapery. Leves & Co. have decorated the first floor facade. Burton Brothers photographers. Te Papa C.011961.

Baird’s Trust
Thomas Corbett died in 1898, and in 1900 his estate sold the property to Baird’s Trust. The trust had formed in 1895, when Borthwick Baird set aside a large part of his property for his nieces and nephews. Baird was born in Mid Calder, Scotland, in 1828. After a time in Australia he arrived in Otago in 1861. He was assistant to goldfields commissioner Vincent Pyke, gold receiver at Naseby, and clerk of the District Court of the Otago Goldfields. He became a wealthy investor and property owner, eventually purchasing Coronet Peak Station. His brother, Thomas Baird, was a storekeeper at Naseby. When Thomas died in 1897, Borthwick returned to his home village in Scotland, dying there in 1906.

New Buildings
The trust made a three-storey addition in brick, at the back of the property, in 1908. Salmond & Vanes designed it, and C.W. Wilkinson was the building contractor. The architects’ drawings show a handsome balustraded staircase and large rooms. Initially Jeffery Moody used this space, but his drapery was liquidated at the beginning of 1910 and the premises were taken on by Riedle & Scurr, land and financial agents and auctioneers. J.A.X. Riedle left the partnership in 1911, and the business changed its name to Scurr & Co.

Architectural drawing showing floor plans for the rear portion of the current buildings, erected 1908-1909. Salmond & Vanes architects. Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena MS-3821/2367.

Architectural drawing, foundation and sections, for the rear portion of the current buildings, erected 1908-1909. Salmond & Vanes architects. Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena MS-3821/2367.

In January 1912 the front building was found to be in danger of collapsing into the street. In March, tenders were called for putting up a four-storey replacement. Callender & McLeod were the builders and Salmond & Vanes were again the architects. Louis Salmond’s diary records him consulting with the clients, drawing the plans, writing the specification, and supervising the work. He noted completion of the building on 20 December 1912, although it was not ready to be occupied until about April 1913.

Built on a concrete foundation, the building has a brick superstructure. The specification stated that none of the 1860s structure was to be retained, although bluestone from the basement level could be used for packing-in concrete. The facade is in an Edwardian style with Renaissance Revival and Queen Anne influence. Though exhibiting the trend toward simplified composition, the level of decoration still suggests a prestige building, with Oamaru stone facings, balustraded parapet, dentil cornice, and cartouches. The exposed rather than plastered brickwork was in ascendant fashion. So too were the casement type windows, increasingly preferred over hung sashes. The uninterrupted bays between the first and second floors give a sense of verticality where the overall proportions of the building might have made it appear squat.

The building is sometimes referred to as Baird’s Building, and this name appears on the pediment in the original drawings. Once completed, however, it was known as Scurr’s Buildings. This was because the first major tenants were Scurr & Co., headed by Thomas Scurr, while upstairs were the rooms of lawyer Charles N. Scurr, the brother of Thomas.

Front elevation drawing [1912]. Salmond & Vanes architects. Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena MS-3821/2321.

Floor plans [1912]. Salmond & Vanes architects. Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena MS-3821/2321.

Sections and detail drawing [1912]. Salmond & Vanes architects. Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena MS-3821/2321.

A view from 1916. Note the tall chimneys, later removed. Cropped from a photograph by R. Vere Scott. Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena Box-287-001.

The Ground Floor
Scurr & Co. had a double front to the street but were not there long. They moved out in 1914, when the drapers and ready-to-wear specialists F. & R. Woods Ltd took their place. The name Scurr’s Buildings was still in use as late as 1924 but changed to Woods’ Buildings. The smaller shop at the Octagon end was taken by Duncan & Simpson, booksellers and stationers, from 1913 until 1923, when Woods expanded into the space. Alterations in 1927 included a new shopfront, finished in oak with a granite base, and with an island window display. The leadlight glass, in contrasting black and white, was reported to be the first of its kind in Dunedin. New interior features included fibrous plaster ceilings and X-ray shade lights. F. & R. Woods also expanded into the first floor of the Strand Building on the north side, where they opened a showroom. Another feature was a ladies’ restroom with settee, easy chairs, and a supply of writing materials.

A plan of the rebuilt shopfront with island window display, installed in 1927. DCC Archives.

At the end of 1933 the ground floor was once again divided to create two shops. Woods remained in the larger one until 1935. The National Electrical & Engineering Co. briefly occupied it before it became the Dunedin City Corporation Electrical Showroom in 1936. They shared this space with the Gas Department Showroom from 1942, and there was a workshop in the basement. Gas moved to another site in 1957, but Electrical remained until 1980, when it moved to the new Energy Centre in the Civic Centre.

The DCC Electricity Department Showroom c.1970. DCC Archives, Electricity Department Series Photos 14/1/6/2.

Hallensteins, which had its menswear shop across the street, opened a footwear outlet in 1981. This operated until 1987 when the shop became Vanity Wear, which lasted until about 1992. Last year, Card Merchant Dunedin opened here.

Chin Bin Foon opened the Central Fruit Co. in the smaller shop in 1934. By then he had already established the larger Sun Fruit business in Rattray Street. At Central Fruit he went into partnership with his cousin Chin Yew Kwong, who managed the shop. More of its history is told in the excellent two-volume publication The Fruits of Our Labours: Chinese Fruit Shops in New Zealand. Three generations of the Chin family worked here before the business was sold in the 1970s, and the shop continued to trade until 2001. The next year a Subway fast food outlet opened, and it is still there today.

A little tobacconists and newsagents faced the street from the late 1930s. It was originally in the space in front of the stairs, but was moved into a small front part of the shop space to the north. It was successively run by W.C. Ruffell, K.E. Bardwell, Frederick Grave, and P.B. Devereux, and finally became Esquire Bookshop, which closed around 1985.

The First Floor
On the first floor was the barrister and solicitor Charles Nunn Scurr. In 1907 he had joined in partnership Alfred Barclay, whose practice dated back to 1887. The rooms were sparsely furnished with linoleum flooring, typical of professional offices, and warmed with smouldering coal fires. Scurr was the Mayor of St Kilda when he died in the 1918 influenza epidemic, aged only 37. His practice was taken over by Alf Neill, as Scurr & Neill. Through various partnerships it eventually became Ross Dowling Marquet Griffin. The space was extensively refurbished in the 1960s and the firm remained until it moved across the road in 1986. Its total of 73 years on the site is yet to be beaten.

Many took rooms for short tenancies. In 1917 Fred George, metaphysician and clairvoyant, offered vibratory and magnetic massage and promised ‘evil habits cured’. First-floor tenants with longer tenancies included the tailor George Reilly (1910s-1930s), piano and elocution teacher Florence Clifford (1910s-1920s), dressmaker and costumier Margaret Gebbie (1920s-1940s), photographic retoucher Mary Ritchie (1920s-1950s), timber agent and architect J.D. Woods (1930-40s), and photographic artist Jessie F. Pollock (1930s). Pollock had been an employee of the well-known photography firm Wrigglesworth & Binns. Her services included tinting and enlargements, and in 1932 she advertised: ‘Bring your cherished photographs to Miss J. Pollock and have a choice Miniature made’.

In January 1928 a fire broke out in Reilly’s workroom. This was gutted and the office of Alf Neill was also fire damaged, with records destroyed. Other levels of the building suffered smoke and water damage.

John Kernohan (1891-1975), a watchmaker and jeweller, had rooms on the first floor from 1919 until his retirement in 1964. Born in Dunedin, Kernohan had begun his apprentice with W.J. Paterson at the age of 14. An officer in the Machine Gun Corps during World War I, he was wounded at the Battle of Messines. He became particularly known for his work with clocks, and remarked that very few watchmakers liked handling them because they often had to visit houses and other buildings. He trained between fifteen and twenty apprentices. Kernohan was timekeeper for brass and pipe band competitions and a life member of the Horological Institute. In 1961 he and his wife Elizabeth organised an exhibition in Queenstown, of antique clocks gathered from around the country. ‘JK Jewellers’ continued to operate in the building for about five years after Kernohan’s retirement, and were then another four years in Moray Place.

’13th National Salon’ exhibition by the Dunedin Photographic Society, 1964. From Camera Craft: The Official Journal of the Dunedin Photographic Society (June 1964, p.8).

The Second Floor
The Civic Club, a billiard hall, was first on the top floor in 1913. It was promoted as handsomely and comfortably furnished, with five Alcock No. 5 commercial tables. ‘Novelty has been aimed at, but not overdone, and an effect has been obtained which is at once soothing and cheerful’. The Civic remained until its last proprietor, Hugh Healey, died in 1955. The Otago Art Society and Dunedin Photographic Society took a joint occupancy later that year. They refurbished the space and held exhibitions in it. The central location suited them well, but access was poor, with two flights of stairs and no lift. By 1963 the Art Society had moved its annual exhibitions to Otago Museum and in 1965 it moved out altogether. The Photographic Society stayed on until 1967.

The accountants Thomson & Lang moved in around 1968, remaining until about 1982. This firm had been founded by Thomas Henry Thompson in 1900 and operated until about 2015. In its later years it claimed to the oldest private accountancy firm in the world.

The Western Building Society, a Whanganui-based co-operative, also moved into the second floor in 1968. A new lift and staircase were installed in the summer of 1969-1970, much improving the access. Large neon signs were put up in 1970 and 1971. One on the roof replaced the one which since 1965 had advertised Bell Radio & TV. It gave the society’s name, while another on the facade gave the building’s new name: Western House. The rooftop sign survived until the 2010s. Western moved out about 1979 and merged with Countrywide in 1982. By then the ownership of the building had changed. It was the last asset of Baird’s Trust, which wound up following the sale of the building in 1976.

Since at least 2015 the upper floors have been home to The Learning Place, a vocational training institute.

A 1970s postcard, from the Octagon looking south. Colourchrome Series 4073.

‘Ern Society’. The last remaining part of the Western Building Society signage in 2013. It has since been removed.

The Basement
The basement was often used by the businesses immediately above, although at times others used it. In 1929 Woods’ drapery sublet it for an ‘Italian Art Exhibition’ managed by Antonio Salutini and directed by Giovanni Stella. This was a commercial venture and included marble statuary, advertised to ‘gladden your home with radiance of beauty and taste’. It included works by Rossi, Cambi, and Spinelli. The Green Parrot café, the scene of Des’s exploits, opened in the basement in 1932 and boasted ‘business men and women specially catered for’. In 1935 the Regent Dining Rooms replaced it, but only lasted a few months before closing. The auction of chattels included fourteen square tea tables, high-backed chairs, split cane occasional chairs, a seagrass settee, heavy linoleum, Axminster sofa rugs, Axminster carpet runners, and large wooden partitions.

As for our banjoist Des, later in the 1930s he performed as the ‘Yodelling Hobo’ as part of the Rosette All-Star Variety Company. He served overseas during the Second World War and was invalided home. Soon after he was jailed for breaking and entering, and theft. He later worked as a carpenter, moulder, and boilerman, and he died at Tokoroa in 1985. Following his session at the Green Parrot another man made the proprietor an offer, ‘to make an attack on the existing record for protracted piano playing’!

Newspaper references:
Otago Daily Times 11 March 1862 p.5 (Corbett’s building); 7 August 1865 p.5 (Corbett’s, reference to Winchester & Clayton); 28 December 1866 p.6 (skating rink), 5 April 1867 p.4 (fire); 15 April 1913 p.4 (billiard hall); 6 November 1913 p.11 (‘A Question of Rating: Corporation v. Baird’); 14 July 1917 p.1 (Fred George); 26 February 1921 p.7 (Pollock); 2 March 1932 p.1 (Pollock); 28 April 1932 p.9 (Green Parrot opening); 9 August 1927 p.10 (description of alterations); 31 October 1929 p.17 (Italian Art Exhibition); 13 December 1929 p.13 (Italian Art Exhibition); 11 August 1936 p.11 (Electrical showroom cooking demonstrations); 14 February 1942 p.5 (shared electrical and gas showrooms); 3 January 1976 p.8 (Kernohan obituary); 13 August 1986 p.31 (Ross Dowling Marquet Griffin).
Evening Star 22 October 1908 p.2 (additions at Moody’s); 13 February 1909 p.4 (builders nearly finished); 27 March 1909 p.5 (conveniences); 7 May 1909 p.10 (new fur department); 15 April 1913 p.6 (billiard hall); 7 November 1917 p.3 (Kernohan, World War I); 30 January 1928 p.6 (fire); 28 July 1932 p.11 (Green Parrot advertisement); 19 July 1935 p.10 (Des Neilson at the Green Parrot); 20 July 1935 p.14 (Des Neilson record attempt); 10 August 1935 p.17 (Regent Dining Rooms); 14 May 1935 p.10 (National Electric); 30 July 1935 p.14 (pianist offer to the Green Parrot); 15 October 1935 p.12 (Regent Dining Rooms auction); 13 August 1936 p,12 (National Electric withdrawal from retail); 18 March 1961 p.3 (Kernohan exhibition).
The Press (Christchurch) 20 September 1949 p.6 (93rd birthday of Jeffery Moody); 10 November 1982 p.27 (Western merger with Countrywide).
Manawatu Standard 21 September 1938 p.2 (Rosette All-Star Variety Company).

Other sources:
Duncan, Ian N., ‘The stories of the lives and descendants of Borthwick Robert Baird and Thomas Baird’. Hocken Collections Misc-MS-2029.
Ledgerwood, Norman. The Heart of the City: The Story of Dunedin’s Octagon (Dunedin: Norman Ledgerwood, 2008) pp.8-9.
Prictor, W.J., Dunedin 1898 [map], J. Wilkie & Co., Dunedin, 1898.
Tod, Frank. Pubs Galore: History of Dunedin Hotels 1848-1984 (Dunedin: Historical Publications, [1984]).
‘Dunedin family firm sets world record’ in Chartered Accountants Journal vol. 87 issue 5 (June 2008) pp.14-17.
Architectural drawings, Salmond Anderson Architects records, Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena, MS-3821/2367 and MS-3821/2321.
Specification, Salmond Anderson Architects records, Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena, MS-3821/2367 and MS-3821/0295.
Diaries, Salmond Anderson Architects records, Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena, MS-4111/011 and MS-4111/012.
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
Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans

Plume, formerly the Ernest Adams shop

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Built: 1909 (building), 1929 (shopfront)
Address: 310 George Street
Architects: James Clark (1909), Miller & White (1929)
Builders: George Lawrence (1909), Ross, King & Mullenger (1929)
Glass artist: Robert Fraser

The glasswork at Plume

The Adams Bruce Ltd shopfront, photographed by A.A. Ancell in 1929. Hocken Collections – Uare Taoka o Hākena, MS-2931/050/001.

An illustration of the rebranded Ernest Adams shop, from an advertisement in the Evening Star, 27 May 1936. Image courtesy of Allied Press through Papers Past.

The lead-lighted shopfront of Plume has added a touch of panache to George Street for over ninety years. Built for the retail bakery chain Adams Bruce Ltd in 1929, it originally showed off arrays of cakes and biscuits, and the company’s Queen Anne brand of chocolates. Just a few months after its completion, Adams Bruce split in two, and the South Island operation became Ernest Adams Ltd. The shop operated under this name for nearly fifty years.

Ernest Adams (1892-1976) was an English-born baker. His father, Herbert Adams (1860-1953), had owned a large bakery business in Taunton, Somerset. Herbert went bankrupt after planned expansion went wrong, but successfully re-established himself in Melbourne in 1909. He made his fortune and introduced mass-production cake baking to Australia, where the Herbert Adams brand survives to this day. Herbert’s sons followed him into the bakery trade and Ernest opened his own shop in Melbourne in 1915. He soon moved to Ballarat, where he married and did well in business, but tragically his wife died in childbirth. He moved briefly to Tasmania, and in 1921 decided to try his luck in New Zealand, where economic prospects looked brighter.

An Ernest Adams advertisement from 1934, outlining some of the product range. Christchurch Star, 30 August 1934.

Ernest met Hugh Bruce, an established baker in Christchurch, and they agreed to pool resources to form Adams Bruce Ltd. Ernest had already bought the Dunedin bakery of his brother, Joe, and within two months the new company had three shops in Christchurch, two in Dunedin, and one each in Timaru and Oamaru, with further distribution to independent ‘agencies’. This was also an eventful time for Ernest personally, with his marriage to Jean West in 1922. Early that year Adams Bruce expanded into the North Island, and by 1925 it used over four million eggs per year and even had its own poultry farm.

The first Dunedin shops were at George Street and Cargill’s Corner. A third shop opened at the Grand Hotel corner in 1922, and a fourth at the Gardens in 1928. Ernest initially lived in Dunedin, as did his three sisters, but in 1923 he moved to Christchurch, home to the Adams Bruce head office.

Adams Bruce expanded into chocolate, bringing over an expert from Canada and establishing a factory in Wellington. Launched in 1926 under the Queen Anne brand, the chocolates were sold both loose and in boxes, with a portrait representing the queen on the lid. This looked little like the real Queen Anne, with dress that appeared more Tudor than early eighteenth century, but the image served its marketing purpose well. The extensive product range included such delights as the Strathcona Vanilla Cream, Kismet (‘cocoanut cream’), Ginger Jellies, Nips (rum flavoured, with a darker coating), Gloucester (Brazil nut in cream), Trinidad Plain blocks, and marshmallow bars.

An advertisement for Queen Anne Maple Walnuts. Christchurch Star, 4 July 1929.

In 1929, Hugh Bruce decided to sell his share of the firm, but Ernest didn’t have enough capital to buy him out. Shareholders bought the North Island business and retained the Adams Bruce name. Ernest took ownership of the South Island assets and formed a new company, Ernest Adams Ltd. Each company agreed only to sell bakery products within its respective island. Adams Bruce retained the chocolate factory and operated separate Queen Anne shops in both the North and South islands. Ernest Adams continued to stock Queen Anne chocolates.

The George Street shop had moved only weeks before this restructuring, from 203 to 209 George Street. Those are the old street numbers. The current numbers date from 1950 and the move was from the northern half of where The Good Oil café is now (316 George Street) to the Plume site (310 George Street).

The existing building had been erected in 1909 for the bootmakers and repairers Lawry & Restieaux, with architect James Clark and builder George Lawrence replicating the facade treatment of an adjoining building on the corner of Hanover Street. Edward Walden had designed this in 1906 but it was demolished in 1991, so now only the mimic survives. The bullnose verandah on the 1909 building featured decorative cast ironwork by Brinsley & Co., bearing the words ‘Rugby House. Lawry & Restieaux. Bootmakers and Repairers’. The firm also had its name burned into tiles below the window frames. Fitted out in Oregon pine, the shop opened into a large ladies’ fitting room with adjoining lavatory. This lavatory was an important facility as there were no public conveniences for women in the central city until 1910. A single-storey workshop occupied the back of the property. Upstairs, a professional’s room faced the street, with a separate three-bedroom dwelling behind it.

Architect James Clark’s drawing for the new Lawry & Restieaux building of 1909. DCC Archives.

A postcard showing George Street in late 1909 or early 1910. Rugby House, the premises of Lawry & Restieaux, can be seen at the far left, adjoining similarly styled buildings demolished in 1991.

The building facade, 2023.

Detail of pilaster capital. Meg Davidson photo.

Lawry & Restieaux appeared to be flourishing, repairing 5,000 pairs of boots per year, but they lasted less than a year in their new premises. Other footwear businesses succeeded them: first Hilliker & Co., and then Rugby House Shoe Stores.

From the 1920s the building was owned by John Hillsdon Hutton (1873-1949), who since 1918 had operated a music and sports shop in the adjoining building to the north. It seems he used the top floors of both buildings, and for time ran a studio where he taught violin, piano, banjo, Hawaiian steel guitar, and other instruments. He is best known for owning Cargill’s Castle and opening a cabaret there. After serious illness he experienced a religious epiphany, and in 1944 he dedicated the castle as ‘a church to save souls, to heal the sick, and to help the distraught minds of the people of this country’. Part of his George Street buildings became the ‘Cargill’s Castle Mission Hall’.

Adams Bruce leased their premises from Hutton. Architects Miller & White designed the alterations made at the time of the move. The relatively new partners, Eric Miller and Jim White, had recently bought the local practice of Edmund Anscombe when he moved to Wellington. Their other late-1920s projects included the Regent Theatre, the Fels Wing of Otago Museum, and the remodelled Allbell Chambers in Stuart Street. Rodney Dalziel, the last principal of the firm, credited the Adams Bruce shopfront to Miller in particular, but I haven’t found any further evidence to confirm this. The drawing isn’t enough to go on. It looks more like White’s hand to me, but the practice was big enough to employ numbers of draughters adept at preparing finished drawings under the supervision of the principals and in the house style. The drawings show many aspects of the completed work, including the ‘birdcage’ entrance structure, the stylish doors, bevelled glass panels, and some of the lead-light patterns. A striking feature not shown is a stained glass Queen Anne emblem.

The Adams Bruce Ltd shopfront, photographed by A.A. Ancell in 1929. Hocken Collections – Uare Taoka o Hākena, MS-2931/050/002.

‘Proposed alterations to shop front George St for Messrs Adams Bruce Ltd’. Drawing by Miller & White, architects. Hocken Collections – Uare Taoka o Hākena, MS-2758/0554.

The clients presumably contributed to the design to some degree. A 1970s source attributes it to Jim Quin, who it turns out was both the first manager of the shop and Ernest Adams’ brother-in-law.

I almost gave up trying to identify the glass artist responsible for expanding upon and realising the vision. The building permit issued in June 1929 records the builders as Ross, King, & Mullenger, but the glass subcontractors are not named in council, architect, or newspaper records. The main local firms carrying out lead-lighting at this time were Smith & Smith, Arnold & Raffills, John Brock, and Fraser’s Art Glass Works. It was only when looking through my photos that I saw ‘Queen Anne’ had been staring me in the face with the answer the whole time! Her background is subtly signed ‘R.H.F.’. These are the initials of Robert Henry Fraser of Fraser’s Art Glass Works. He was one the country’s best glass artists and his work featured in many churches, houses, and commercial premises. He produced lead-lights but was best known for his stained glass. Examples of his work include the Stuart Memorial window in Knox Church, several panels in the house Melrose on Highgate, and the Salisbury Cathedral window for Arthur Barnett Ltd (now in the Meridian Mall).

‘Birdcage’ glasswork

The Queen Anne emblem

Robert Fraser’s initials: R.H.F.

The original doors with their bevel-edged glass happily survive, although a carved feature above them has long gone. Granite facings have twice been covered over, the last time when found to be too damaged to practically restore. A rubber carpet with the firm’s monogram in the centre reportedly led to the front door, but it is not seen in early images. The 1929 changes included the replacement of the original verandah with a suspended one, and this might have been when steel-framed windows replaced the original wooden sashes on the first floor. Pressed metal ceilings date back to the original Edwardian build.

The ‘birdcage’ glasswork seen from inside the shop, photographed by Meg Davidson in 2013

Ceiling rose, photographed by Meg Davidson in 2013

The elaborate shopfront reflected the successful marketing strategies of the Adams family companies. In Australia, Herbert Adams put his shops on streets with heavy foot traffic, presenting massed displays of cakes on glass shelves, often with their cut faces to the window. Ernest made similarly special features of his window displays.

Ernest Adams Ltd removed its George Street commercial bakery to new buildings in Great King Street in 1931, with Miller & White again employed as architects. The bakery stood where the Bella Vista Motel is now.

Gourley’s delicatessen, or ‘Delicacies Ltd’, shared the shop between 1931 and 1950. This business was well-known for its pies, meats, and ready-cooked meals.

Gourley’s delicatessen advertisement from the Otago Daily Times, 20 December 1934

After the Second World War, the centre of shopping activity shifted northward, benefitting some established George Street businesses. Small business associations formed to promote their own particular blocks. The block with Arthur Barnett, Penroses, and the DSA, was promoted as the Golden Block from 1956. Malls opened here: Harvest Court (1970), the Golden Centre (1979) and Centre City Arcade (1985). The block to the north, which included the Ernest Adams shop, contained many small businesses. From 1967 its business association marketed it as the Progressive Shopping Centre. In 1977 this name gave way to New Edinburgh Way. The Dunedin City Council and its architect Bill Hesson supported a project that aimed to facelift the businesses ‘in authentic style and colours of the early twentieth century’. Verandah fascias were painted in dark red, giving something of a unifying effect. The Ernest Adams shop fitted right in with the new theme, one article stating: ‘Old-fashioned goodness is a key-phrase at Ernest Adams and in its windows you can still see the cakes that grandmother might have bought fifty years ago when she was too busy to bake. There are simnel cakes, Genoa fruit cakes and even Napoleon sponges.’

In 1974, Ernest Adams bought out the bakery business of Adams Bruce, reuniting the firms and creating a nationwide company. The company decided to rationalise its business, phase out the retail shops, and concentrate on distributing its products wholesale. The George Street shop closed on 3 August 1979. Control of the company fell to a corporate raid in 1995, leading to the end of Adams family involvement. The Great King Street bakery closed that year, and Goodman Fielder bought the business in 2000. The Ernest Adams brand continued until 2022, when Goodman Fielder deleted the range without offering its customers even the courtesy of an announcement. The Queen Anne brand had been withdrawn in 1976 but remained a separate entity. It was successfully relaunched by Sarah Adams, granddaughter of Ernest, in 2011.

Margarita and Chris Robertson opened Plume in 1979 and the space has retailed exclusive ranges of fashion for 44 years – nearly as long as it offered Ernest Adams cakes! Margarita launched the now famous label NOM*d (as in nom-de-plume) in 1986 and you can read about its nationally significant history at the New Zealand Fashion Museum. In 1994 the retail space at 310 George Street nearly doubled when a new steel stairway opened up the shop into the disused first-floor flat. The alterations retained many heritage features. As it did in 1929, the shopfront continues to impress, and it seems as well suited to promoting clothing as to showing off tasty treats to eat.

310 George Street is listed as a Category 2 Historic Place by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

The Plume shop interior in 2010. Photo by Dunedin NZ on Flickr (CC-BY-ND).

The Plume entrance in 2010. Photo by Dunedin NZ on Flickr (CC-BY-ND).

Newspaper references:
Evening Star 1 October 1909 p.6 (Lawry & Restieaux opening), 10 September 1929 p.2 (brief description in ‘The Home Builder’), 19 May 1936 p.10 (Gourley’s), 6 July 1938 p.16 (advertisement listing Ernest Adams shops and agencies), 2 November 1940 p.1 (J.H. Hutton, above Ernest Adams), 19 January 1945 p.5 (Hutton and Cargill’s Castle); Otago Daily Times 1 October 1909 p.7 (Lawry & Restieaux opening), 24 July 1925 p.12 (four million eggs), 8 May 1933 p.8 (fire, ownership), 19 May 1936 p.9 (brief history of Gourley’s Delicatessen), 24 October 1950 p.9 (closure of Gourley’s George Street branch), 30 November 1967 p.14 (Progressive Shopping Centre feature), 29 November 1977 p.16 (New Edinburgh Way feature); 27 September 1978 p.9 (New Edinburgh Way, James Quin), 24 July 1979 p.12 (closure of Ernest Adams George Street shop), 29 September 1995 p.19 (closure of Great King Street bakery), 21 September 1994 pp.32-33 (Plume supplement); Auckland Star 28 August 1931 p.10 (Queen Anne range); New Zealand Herald 18 September 1931 p.3 (Queen Anne range).

Other sources:
Adams, Hugh. A Baker’s Tale: The Life and Times of Ernest Adams (Christchurch: Hazard Press, 2005).
Ledger (Miller & White) from Dalziel Architects records MS-2758/0146, Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena
Entwisle, Peter. Schedule Heritage Place Report B126 for the Dunedin City Council, 2013.
Stone’s, Wise’s and telephone directories
Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans

Acknowledgments:
Special thanks to Meg Davidson, for her interior photographs; to Brian Miller, for sharing his expert knowledge of glass artists; Prue Milbank, for help with council records; and to the late Peter Entwisle, with whom I discussed the history of the building back in 2013. Hugh Adams’ book, referenced above, is a great read and a mine of information.

Philip Laing House, the former Government Life Building

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Built: 1971-1973
Address: 144 Rattray Street
Architects: Collins, Hunt & Associates
Structural consulting engineers: E.G.S. Powell, Fenwick & Partners
Main contractor: Naylor Love Construction Ltd

Philip Laing House opened fifty years ago today. Not that it had that name then – it was the Government Life Building. The Government Life Insurance Office had been set up in 1869 with government capital, in response to concerns about the affordability and security of life insurance. It was New Zealand’s first major life insurance provider with a network of offices, and in 1877 it was bigger than all of its rivals combined. It dominated the local market for more than a century.

In 1885, Government Life purchased a property at the corner of Princes and Rattray Street, including what had been Ross & Kilgour’s store. Built in 1860, and later extended, this was one of the city’s earliest stone buildings. The location became known as Wise’s Corner due to its association with the publisher, stationer, and printer Henry Wise. After occupying the old buildings for some years, Government Life had a lavishly-appointed new building designed by Mason & Wales erected for it between 1895 and 1897. It housed them, other government departments, and various tenants, for more than seventy years, but sadly ended its days in a rundown and mutilated state.

A new nine-storey building was announced in 1970. Demolition work ended around January the following year. The cost was over $1.8 million dollars, which adjusted for inflation (imperfect as these comparisons are) is about $30 million in today’s money.

The architects were Collins, Hunt & Associates of Christchurch, long-standing architects to Government Life. They were the second-oldest architectural firm in the country after Mason & Wales, having been founded by William Armson in 1864, and through various names and partnerships they practiced until 1993. John Kempthorne Collins (1916-1983), principal and apparently the lead architect for the Dunedin project, was from the third generation of his family in the business. Naylor Love were the main contractors and C.T. Morgan, formerly the council’s chief building inspector, was the clerk of works.

Largely complete by the end of 1972, the building was officially opened by Roger Douglas on 15 August 1973. Then the youngest member of Norman Kirk’s cabinet, thirty-five-year-old Douglas was Postmaster-General and the minister in charge of the Government Life Insurance Office. He said it was pleasing that, despite a population drift to the north, the office could build such impressive structures, ‘knowing there are plenty of South Islanders left who require insurance policies’. Also present was James Barnes, the mayor, who in full booster mode said: ‘This city is certainly on the march. No longer have we any idea that we are in the backwash of New Zealand. We will not stop making progress’. Dunedin Central MP Brian MacDonell, the other guest speaker, said the building was evidence of the government’s policy of placing departments in towns and cities outside Wellington. These words all reflected an optimistic view that the city might be pulling itself out of stagnation.

The building is 40 metres tall, built with 9,624 tons of concrete and 371 tons of steel. The street facades have vertical shafts of grey Tākaka margle, ‘relieved by the vertical lines of white window reveals and coloured tiled spandrels between them’. The current tiles are not the originals. The main entrance from Rattray Street led to three lifts. This space was panelled in marble, with marble and quartzite tiles on the floor and a bright orange-spangled ceiling. It was later renovated in a more sober modern fashion, but some original features remain.

A few other features of the building included radiant ceiling panels, fluorescent lighting, and reversible windows, so both sides of could be cleaned from the inside. Oil stored in the basement was pumped to the boilerhouse on the roof, where other services were also housed.

Government Life did not need most of the building – it occupied the ground and first floor at the corner. The Department of Social Welfare occupied a significant portion, and the top floors were used by the Ministry of Works. Three shops faced Princes Street.

Government Life became Tower Corporation in 1987, and the building was sold in 1988. It was after this that it was named Philip Laing House, after the second of the colonist ships to arrive in Otago in 1848, and a nod to the even larger John Wickliffe House diagonally opposite.

In 1991, Tower Insurance announced it was moving its office to Moray Place. By this time ownership of the company had transferred to the policy holders, and in 1999 the company was demutualised. Its old building continues to make itself useful.

A view from the Exchange, late 1977. Private collection.

Newspaper references:
Otago Daily Times 13 January 1885 p.2 (purchase of property), 15 August 1973 pp.16-17 (supplement), 16 August 1973 p.8 (report of opening), 15 July 1988 p.3 (sale).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Detail from the Burton Brothers photograph.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daniel Heenan’s mausoleum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The mausoleum of Elizabeth and John Joseph.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

Milnes’ Building

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Built: 1877
Address: 34 George Street, Port Chalmers
Architects: Mason, Wales & Stevenson
Builder: Robert Bauchop

James P. Milnes’ store, Port Chalmers, Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena. Ref: MS-5014/002/001.

In 1877 the Cameron family moved into their newly-built home, bakery, and grocery store in George Street, Port Chalmers. The building’s association with the grocery trade continued for more than a century, and today it is part of a precinct of Victorian and early twentieth-century buildings.

The Māori history of the locality reaches back centuries, through the people of Waitaha, Kāti Mamoe, and Kāi Tahu. The north-facing bay, Kōpūtai, is known as a tauraka waka, nohoanga, and wāhi tapu: landing place, seasonal settlement, and sacred site.

It was at Kōpūtai that Kāi Tahu and the New Zealand Company agreed the sale and purchase of the Otago Block in 1844, a pivotal point in the establishment of a colony by the Lay Association of the Free Church of Scotland. The town’s survey followed in 1846, ahead of central Dunedin, and the organised settlement of Otago began with the arrival of the first migrant sailing ships in 1848. The name Port Chalmers is taken from Rev. Dr Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), the founding leader of the church and influential social reformer.

Growth was slow in the decade that followed. About one hundred people lived at Port Chalmers in 1860. The next year the Gold Rush began, and by 1865 the township’s population numbered over 900. Shipping within Otago Harbour accounted for about 500 more people, over 90% of them men, and the port was one of the busiest in Australasia. Overseas routes provided essential transport and communication links, as did coastal shipping, especially before completion of the Christchurch to Invercargill railway in 1879. The global significance of the port grew through its association with Union Steam Ship Company, established in Dunedin in 1875. By 1891 the company had a fleet of 54 steamships and was the largest shipping company in the southern hemisphere.

Mana whenua connection to Kōpūtai continued throughout these developments. Reading about this can be found in Nyssa Payne-Harker’s thesis, Shared Spaces or Contested Places? Examining the role of Kāi Tahu Whānui in Port Chalmers and Bluff, 1848-2016.

Port Chalmers township about 1872. Burton Brothers photographers. Ref: Te Papa C.011806. The site of the Milnes Building is behind the wooden church in the left foreground.

The port in 1905. Muir & Moodie photographers. Te Papa PA.000180.

Andrew and Margaret Cameron were born at Paisley, near Glasgow in Scotland, and spent their early married life there, with Andrew working as a baker. They came to Otago with their four children in 1863 and settled at Sawyers Bay, where in 1864 Andrew established a bakery and general store.

The family moved to the Port Chalmers township in 1872, when Andrew took over the business and wooden buildings of Taylor & Kilgour. The bakery flourished – its success at least partly attributed to it supplying the Union Company.

The first commercial buildings of Port Chalmers were wooden, and timber constructions still dominated George Street in the early 1870s. By the end of the decade many of these structures had been replaced in more ‘permanent’ materials. In 1877, Andrew Cameron engaged the architects Mason, Wales & Stevenson to replace his existing buildings with structures in stone (for the basement) and brick.

Thomas Stevenson was the architect partner responsible for the design, which was conventional in both layout and form. On the ground floor were a shop, storeroom, and office, while on the first floor were four bedrooms, a sitting room (with two windows facing the street), kitchen, and bathroom. The facade was in the Renaissance Revival style, often referred to in architectural description of the time as simply ‘Italian’. It was the most fashionable style for commercial buildings, and its manifestation ranged from the elaborate to the relatively plain. While not ornate, the Camerons’ building did feature a distinctive arched pediment. Surviving architectural drawings show this with the date 1877 in relief, but in the end the plasterers were instructed to put ‘Established 1864’ in its place. This presumably refers to the business’s Sawyers Bay beginnings.

The original 1877 drawing by Thomas Stevenson, signed by the contractor Robert Bauchop. From the collection of Mason & Wales Architects.

Robert Bauchop won the building contract; at the time he was one of the busiest and best-known builders in the town. Under a second contract he built a stable and large bakehouse at the rear of the section.

According to his Otago Daily Times obituary, Andrew had ‘ever a cheery word for friends, and rarely left them without a quiet joke’. He was closely involved with the local Presbyterian Church but less interested in local politics and societies. Margaret and Andrew had three sons and a daughter. Their youngest son, Andrew Cameron, became the Presbyterian minister at Andersons Bay, and in the early twentieth century was a prominent public figure, known for his leading roles in founding Knox College and the Presbyterian Social Service Association, and as a vice-chancellor and chancellor of the University of Otago.

Detail from a William Williams photograph, c.1890s. Ref: Alexander Turnbull Library 1/1-025830-G. The front of the building is indicated by the arrow.

Another of Margaret and Andrew’s sons, James Muir Cameron, took over the Port Chalmers business when Andrew retired in 1884. He ran the store for over twenty years. One incident that made the court news was a disagreement between two of the bakers, with one throwing a stone that wounded the other above the eye.

James Pickford Milnes bought the business in 1905, and it is the Milnes name that remains most associated with the building’s history. James was a Yorkshireman and had worked as a farmer at Akatore in the Clutha District. When they took up residence, James and his wife Mary Ann had six children, ranging in ages of one to twelve. A seventh child, Robert, known as Bob, was born in 1907. One of his childhood chores was cleaning out large pits where thousands of eggs were preserved for use in the bakehouse.

Photograph of grocer and baker’s van, Port Chalmers. D.A. De Maus photographer. Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena. Ref: MS-5014/002/002.

A photograph from around this time shows the horse and cart used for bread and grocery deliveries. For many years Dick Thurlow was employed as the driver. Change eventually came in 1920, with alterations made to the stables and storeroom so that motor deliveries could replace the horse-drawn service. This building work was designed by Salmond & Vanes and carried out by Love Brothers.

A branch store opened along the road at 12 George Street in 1917. This became the cake shop, although its function might have varied over the more than thirty years it operated. Milnes were the local agents for Ernest Adams cakes.

A section of a block plan from 1932, showing in red the site of the Milnes’ Building and outbuildings on the left, and the second store to the north near the Mount Street corner. Drawn by George Duncan. Colour edited. National Insurance Company records, Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena. Ref: MS-2081/037/00.

Advertisement from the Evening Star, 8 November 1934 p.3. Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand.

James died in 1926. For a few years Thomas ran the business with his brother-in-law, Peter Lawson. In 1933 the registered company Milnes Limited formed for the stated purpose of operating as ‘bakers, grocers, storekeepers, confectioners, restaurant and refreshment room proprietors, and wholesale and general merchants’. The largest shareholders were Thomas and his brother Bob, with smaller holdings by their mother Mary Ann and sister Nellie. Thomas moved to Clinton and after his sudden death in 1941 Nellie increased her stake in the business.

Nellie managed the finances from the office adjoining the shop. Ian Church records that she sold children bags of broken biscuits for a penny, and her niece revealed at her funeral that she sometimes broke the biscuits herself so that she had enough to give them!

The building has undergone many alterations. A suspended verandah was added in the 1940s, and in 1947 the exterior walls were replastered. Most of the old mouldings were removed and Art Deco/Moderne touches added, including a circular motif at the centre of the pediment. The name ‘MILNES’, added to the parapet in relief lettering, can still be seen.

Despite these changes the building still reads as Victorian from the street: the window openings and proportions , the door, the surviving dentil cornice, and the shape of the pediment, are among the original features.

The bakery was in use until the early part of the Second World War, when baking shifted to the other George Street site. This operation closed in either 1953 or 1954.

Bob Milnes had a house in Island Terrace, but Nellie was resident on site until about 1965. The following year she transferred her shares and Bob ran the shop on his own until his retirement in 1967. By this time the grocery had converted to self service.

Bob Milnes in the old bakehouse at the time of his retirement in 1967. Reproduced by permission of the Otago Daily Times.

In later years Nellie was known for her involvement with the meals on wheels service, and for being a keen golfer. She died in 1991. Bob moved to Queenstown where he died in 1994. His son Robert owned and operated a new supermarket at Frankton.

The old Port Chalmers store became Dent’s Mini-Market in 1967, under Charles and Pearl Dent. From about 1971 Lex and Daphne Taylor ran it as Taylor’s Mini-Market, as part of the Four Square chain. Robert and Linda McLean took over in 1980, changing the name to Port Chalmers Discount. In the mid-1980s Foodstuffs, the owners of Four Square, decided to build a New World supermarket on the opposite side of the street. This opened in December 1985 and the old shop closed.

The store in the 1970s. Photo courtesy of Duncan Montgomery.

Later occupants have included Port Chalmers Trading and the Tuanako Private Training Establishment. A new venture on the site, Milnes Market, launched in 2008. Since 2012 the ground floor has been occupied by 2gpysies furniture, homeware, and giftware.

In 2020 the current owners received a Dunedin Heritage Fund grant for earthquake strengthening and fireproofing, which will hopefully secure the future of the building for many more years to come.

Acknowledgments:
Special thanks to co-owner Rebecca Wilson, and to Mason & Wales Architects. Whenever researching Port Chalmers I’m also reminded of the debt owed to the late Ian Church.

Newspaper references:
Bruce Herald 6 July 1865 p.3 (population). Otago Daily Times 7 February 1872 p.2 (Andrew Cameron), 9 May 1877 p.1 (tender notice), 25 June 1877 p.4 (tender notice), 30 July 1877 p.3 (‘City Improvements’), 14 May 1902 p.6 (Andrew Cameron obituary); 18 August 1905 p.4 (assault); 21 April 1920 p.6 (alterations and motor deliveries); 1 December 1967 p.11 (‘Mr R.B. Milnes’); 10 December 1985 p29 (opening of Port Chalmers New World); 28 February 1994 p.5 (Bob Milnes obituary). Evening Star 14 May 1902 p.3 (Andrew Cameron obituary); 19 August 1905 p.6 (assault); 24 August 1905 p.5 (for lease). Grey River Argus 23 June 1891 p4 (size of Union Company fleet).

Other references:
Church, Ian. ‘A Grave Story – The Milnes Family’ in Rothesay News, vol. 20 no. 1 (November 2007) p.12.
Church, Ian. Port Chalmers and its People (Dunedin: Otago Heritage Books, 1994)
Church, Ian. Some Early People and Ships of Port Chalmers. Dunedin: New Zealand Society of Genealogists, c.1990.
Church, Ian. Sawyers Bay, including Sawyers Bay School 1861-2010. Port Chalmers: Sawyers Bay School 150th Anniversary Committee, 2011.
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

The Hudson house – and now some early photographs

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Since writing the last post about the Hudson house at 28 Tweed Street (currently for sale) I have been able to copy these wonderful images by photographer C.M. Collins, taken soon after the house was completed. Click on an image to enlarge it, and follow the arrows through the slideshow. Original descriptions from Stucco’s Evening Star articles are included in the captions underneath. I’ve also inserted them into the original post.

My thanks to Andrew and Denise Lane for allowing me to share this special record.

North elevation. C.M. Collins photographer. The upper balcony was glazed in 1941, and two gables added to the roof.

West elevation and forecourt, with Tweed Street on the left. C.M. Collins photographer.

Front door and windows. C.M. Collins photographer.

Entrance hall. C.M. Collins photographer.

Billiard room. C.M. Collins photographer.

Drawing room. C.M. Collins photographer.

Dining room. C.M. Collins photographer.

Meals room. C.M. Collins photographer.

The kitchen. C.M. Collins photographer.

Bathroom. C.M. Collins photographer.

Landing. C.M. Collins photographer.

Bedroom. C.M. Collins photographer.

Master bedroom. C.M. Collins photographer.

East elevation. C.M. Collins photographer.

First floor balcony. C.M. Collins photographer.

A view of the house when new in 1927. C.M. Collins photographer. Ambrose and Ruby Hudson’s old house on the right was demolished not long after this photograph was taken.

Ruby and Ambrose Hudson’s house

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Built: 1926-1927
Address: 28 Tweed Street, Littlebourne, Roslyn
Architect: Henry McDowell Smith (1887-1965)
Builders: Fletcher & Love

One of Dunedin’s most impressive 1920s homes is on the market. Its listing provides an opportunity to take a closer look at some remarkable architecture and history.

Built for Ambrose and Ruby Hudson between 1926 and 1927, the house cost over £6000 at a time when a standard three-bedroom house could be built for about £800. The only local houses I can think of that matched if for cost between the two world wars were the Brinsley house on Forbury Road and the Stevenson house, now University Lodge, at St Leonards. There was so much buzz around the house when it was new that the architectural writer in the Evening Star devoted no fewer than five articles to it. The columnist, known only by the pen-name ‘Stucco’, wrote: ‘Without exaggeration it can be claimed that Mr Hudson’s new residence is of the most magnificent in the dominion’.

Ambrose Hudson was a director of the chocolate and confectionery business R. Hudson & Co. Established in 1868, this became one of Dunedin’s leading industrial concerns. Cadbury bought a controlling interest in 1930, but for many years the Hudson family remained closely involved in the restructured Cadbury Fry Hudson.

Born in 1877, Ambrose was the fourth of six sons of the firm’s founder, Richard Hudson. He became a director while still in his twenties, and remained in that role until his retirement in 1931. He often went overseas to buy machinery for the factory and was credited with modernising the manufacturing. Gregarious and well liked, he was also a bit of a practical joker. Ambrose made a special chocolate for company chairman Carl Smith that had a castor oil filling!

Ambrose Hudson (1877-1969)

Ruby and Ambrose Hudson (front left) at a family wedding in 1965.

Ambrose married Ruby Christian Cooke, an Australian, at Sydney in 1906. Ruby was announced as the granddaughter of Mrs Tait of Granby Towers, Granville. The couple’s first son, Sydney, was born in 1907, and a second son, Ralph, followed in 1910. In the same year the family purchased the Tweed Street property. It was not until sixteen years later, with the boys all but grown up, that they rebuilt. The old house was only demolished after the new one was completed, so presumably it was on the adjacent site where no.30 stands today. Ambrose’s younger brother William bought the house next door (no.32) in 1922 and the two families had a tennis court between them.

I have been unable find out much about Ruby, but she was active socially. Her interests included women’s cricket, the Otago Women’s Club, and the Kaikorai Kindergarten. Both Ruby and Ambrose enjoyed motoring, and Ambrose also took an interest in aviation, eventually becoming a life member of the Otago Aero Club. He was a keen gardener with a particular fondness for sweet peas and poppies, which he entered in competition. He developed his own variety of poppy, which he named ‘Ambrosia’.

He also kept pigeons. A 1926 report stated that when he left home in the morning about twelve birds accompanied him, ‘flying around, resting now and again on his head and shoulders’. At the intersection of Smith and Stuart streets several of the birds returned to their loft, while about three followed Ambrose all the way to the factory offices in Castle Street.

For the architect of their new house, the Hudsons chose Henry McDowell Smith, a well-established Dunedin practitioner. Born in Manchester, England, in 1887, he worked in Newcastle before coming to New Zealand in 1909. He managed Edmund Anscombe’s Invercargill branch for some years and became his business partner in 1913. He returned to the Dunedin office after his war service and started an independent practice in 1921. McDowell Smith’s building designs of the following decade included other high-spec houses, notably the already-mentioned University Lodge. Other work up to 1930 included St Michael and All Angels’ Church at Andersons Bay, extensive additions to Selwyn College, and the hospital complex at Ranfurly.

The Dunedin City Council issued a building permit for the Hudson house in April 1926. James Fletcher of Fletcher & Love took the building contract. The Fletcher Construction Company had temporarily joined with Love Bros for the purpose of erecting the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition buildings at Logan Park. Fletcher left Dunedin after the exhibition, and while the Hudson house was under construction, so the completion of the project passed to Love’s.

North elevation. C.M. Collins photographer. The upper balcony was glazed in 1941, and two gables added to the roof.

The view down to the house from the front path.

East elevation. C.M. Collins photographer.

A view looking up towards Tweed Street.

One of the generous balconies.

The front gate.

The house has a transitional style between English Arts and Crafts and the emerging Modernism, and is outwardly characterised by clean lines, neat brickwork, and generous glazing and balconies. Window sills of blue burned blocks were specially made at Abbotsford. The Arts and Crafts influences are particularly evident in a charming entrance gate, and a herring-bone brick path leading down to the house, which sits below the street.

The ground floor sun porches were designed with dancing in mind and originally had a loud speaker for music. The terrazzo flooring was claimed to be the first in Dunedin, slightly predating local manufacture. On the balconies above, the kauri flooring is constructed like a ship’s deck. Stucco commented, ‘it has a delightful spring to the feet, and should send the least sprightly visitor jazzing along its inviting surface’. The views of the harbour from here are stunning. The north elevation was altered in 1941, when the balcony on this side was glazed and two small gables added, all carefully matching the original style. It is surprising the gables were added but they successfully soften this aspect of the building and give it a more domestic quality.

The steel-framed windows were originally painted green, and feature imported British plate glass and exceptional bevelled fanlights. There are also impressive leadlights in the bathroom, over the stairwell, and in a panel in the front door featuring a female figure. This was the work of local craftsman John Brock, of Arnold, Brock, & Raffills.

Floor plans published in the Evening Star (from Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand).

The house originally had five bedrooms (including a maid’s room), drawing room, dining room, meals room, kitchen, billiard room, dressing room, and extensive basement. Stucco observed there was ‘nothing unduly ostentatious, everything being designed and executed in the most artistic manner’, but at the same time thought the interior sumptuous, magnificent, and a ‘miniature palace’. He wrote: ‘The visitor is immediately impressed by the chiselled perfection of everything, and, though he might pardonably go into rhapsodies about what he sees, there is no vulgar flaunting of ornamentation’.

The entrance hall. The coffered ceiling was originally gilded.

Landing. C.M. Collins photographer.

The upstairs landing.

Meals room. C.M. Collins photographer.

Originally the ‘meals room’.

Dining room. C.M. Collins photographer.

The dining room.

Drawing room. C.M. Collins photographer.

Drawing room.

The spacious entrance hall features figured beech panelling with maple panels. Coffered plaster ceilings by the Wardop Fibrous Plaster Co. were originally gilded, and said to give a magnificent golden effect when the hall was lit up. Original light fittings include a blue Venetian glass ball with bronze eagles, from which hang individual lamps. The flush internal doors, by Henderson and Pollard of Auckland, were unusual in Dunedin and the latest fashion.

Both the drawing room and meals room have enormous tiled fireplaces that are architectural works in themselves. Stucco mentioned that a visiting manager from one of the biggest tile firms in England thought the slabs the best he had ever seen. The Wardrop ceilings again impress here. The two rooms are separated by sliding doors with more bevelled glass. English wallpapers originally decorated the walls. All of the spaces on this level flow well into each other and the house must have been excellent for entertaining.

The billiard room is a standout space of the house. It is a single-storey projection, allowing natural light from three sides. It has a coved ceiling, originally stippled with biscuit and cream colours, and massive wooden beams terminate over beautifully carved brackets. Panelling is stained ‘Jacobean’ and the floors are jarrah.

The bedrooms are less ornate but plaster ceilings again feature, and three of the rooms have access to the balconies. The master bedroom was built with a large adjoining dressing room. S.F. Aburn decorated the house, and many rooms and the entrance hallway originally featured stippled paintwork, blending two colours to shade up from dark to light. In one bedroom this was from pink to white, in another from biscuit to white, and in another from grey to white.

Billiard room. C.M. Collins photographer.

The billiard room.

A carved corbel in the billiard room.

Master bedroom. C.M. Collins photographer.

The master bedroom.

Bathroom. C.M. Collins photographer.

The main bathroom.

The kitchen. C.M. Collins photographer.

The Hudsons were keen on their mod-cons and the house boasted over 80 ‘electric points’. J. Hall & Sons installed electric fittings from the British General Electric Co.

Of the kitchen, Stucco commented that ‘everything has been planned with the object of lessening domestic drudgery’, with the coal range banned in favour of gas and electric cookers. This has since given way to a yet more convenient modern kitchen.

The bathroom featured a swivel nozzle tap, a hot rail for drying towels, and modern fittings from Twyford’s exhibit at the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition. This is another room of beauty, and still largely original. The mosaic floor tiles were specially imported, with other features including grey wall tiles and a streamlined bath.

Ambrose was particularly pleased with the separate shower room. ‘This is one of the best things in the house,’ he exclaimed to Stucco ‘as he entered the glass door to demonstrate how some of the mysterious nickel-plated contraptions work. There are three different sprays, and a special mixer for the hot and cold water… one can splash merrily for hours, if so inclined, without risk of flooding out the house and home’.

A visit to the basement revealed a space with huge concrete pillars, and Ambrose boasted the foundations would carry the biggest building in the city. Stucco described it as like inspecting the engine room of a ship, there being boilers and pipes everywhere. The heating system was served by a coal boiler and two electric elements, and hot water provided by a 100-gallon circulator. There was also a well-equipped laundry.

In their 70s the Hudsons downsized, selling the the house to the Gardner family in June 1953. Later owners were the Cottle, Shearer, and Lane families. About 1963 Ruby and Ambrose moved to Auckland, where their sons lived, and they led a quiet life at Mission Bay. Ambrose kept up his interest in the factory and last visited it in 1967. He died on 17 November 1969, aged 91, and Ruby died on 6 March 1974, also at the age of 91.

Their former home has been lovingly cared by the current owners of 28 years, while also adapted for modern living. It now awaits the next chapter in its story.

A view of the house when new in 1927. C.M. Collins photographer. Ambrose and Ruby Hudson’s old house on the right was demolished not long after this photograph was taken.

West elevation and forecourt, with Tweed Street on the left. C.M. Collins photographer.

Acknowledgment:
My special thanks to Andrew and Denise Lane, to Alice Munro and Craig Palmer of Bayleys Metro, and to the Hudson family. Images by Bayley Metro reproduced by kind permission.

References:
For the full series of 1927 Evening Star articles follow these links:
12 July 1927 (Stucco, ‘The Home Builder’)
19 July 1927 (Stucco, ‘The Home Builder’)
26 July 1927 (Stucco, ‘The Home Builder’)
23 August 1927 (Stucco, ‘The Home Builder’)
30 August 1927 (Stucco, ‘The Home Builder’)
2 September 1927 (Hydro, ‘Let Electricity Help’)
9 September 1927 (Hydro, ‘Let Electricity Help’)

For more of the early photographs, see the next post.

	David Murray on Filleul Street
	Carl on Filleul Street
	David Murray on Filleul Street
	Carl on Filleul Street
	newbilong on Albyn House

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