Tag Archives: 1870s

Bell Hill House (Reichelt’s Building)

Built: 1872, 1873, remodelled 1935
Address: 110-114 Princes Street
Architects: Henry Frederick Hardy (1872 and 1873); Stone & Sturmer (1935)
Builders: Charles Prouse (1872), N. & A. Wood (1873), T.R. Hindle (1935)

Dramatic events led to the building of Bell Hill House. A spectacular fire in 1871 destroyed the previous building on the site, and the bizarre circumstances led to the sensational arson trials of its owner, a former Prussian soldier named Friedrich Reichelt. Acquitted, he built a new building in which he ran a fancy goods and toy shop.

Upstairs, the London Portrait Rooms was a popular place for people to get their photograph taken. Tragedy occurred here in 1886, when rocks from nearby blasting works hurtled through the roof, killing two women in the studio reception room.

The later history of the building, though less dramatic, is varied and colourful. Photographers and artists occupied the upstairs rooms well into the twentieth century. Braithwaite’s Arcade, one of the largest book shops in Australasia, traded in the ground floor space for over 40 years. Other occupying businesses have included cake shops, a camera shop, and a fashion retailer. Now the building is home Shinjuku Sushi and Beauty Mirror.

The site, between the Dowling Street steps and Moray Place, is on the western side of Princes Street. The earlier wooden building had been built, for the most part, in 1863, as part of the City Buffet Hotel. Friedrich Reichelt took his leasehold from about 1869, with the City Buffet scaled back to the southern end. They were effectively two separate buildings behind a unified facade. Born in the Prussian province of Posen in 1834, Reichelt had served in the Prussian Army. He did not see active service but, perhaps because it amused him, he did say a lump near the back of his ear was from an unextracted bullet, received in battle. His fancy goods and toy shop operated under the name F.W. Reichelt & Co. and the business appeared to be prosperous. Reichelt generously helped fellow Germans who had fallen on hard times, or who were trying to establish themselves in business.

A view over Princes Street in 1865. In the centre foreground is the City Buffet Building, the right-hand portion of which housed Friedrich Reichelt’s shop from about 1869. The larger buildings in the background are the Synagogue (left) and the Congregational Church (corner Moray Place and View Street). Part of a Panorama by William Meluish. Hocken Collections – Uare Taoka o Hākena, P1990-015/49-039-006.

Above Reichelt’s shop, Marion Cane ran a women’s employment agency named the Central Registry Office. She lived on the site with six other women, including Ann Wright. On the morning of Tuesday, 13 June 1871, a little after 2 a.m., Wright woke Cane. She said she had heard a cry of ‘fire!’. Looking out of a window to the back of the building, the pair saw flames coming from a ground floor office. They roused the other women and made their escape. When Cane descended the external stairs for the final time, she was surrounded by fire. Meanwhile, from a window in the neighbouring City Buffet, musician Eugene De Berg saw a man exit the front door and run southward.

At about 2.25 a.m., a watchman rang the alarm bell from the fire tower at the top of the Dowling Street steps. On nearby Maclaggan Street, where the police station was located, Sergeant O’Keefe observed a man without coat, hat, or boots. The sergeant cried out something like ‘Holloa mate, where’s the fire?’, but the man ran away. After a chase, O’Keefe and a Constable Hodgkins knocked him down and arrested him. Another constable identified him as Friedrich Reichelt.

Fortunately, there were no fatalities. The fire brigade saved the City Buffet, but Reichelt’s was left a charred ruin. Reichelt himself was burned, especially about the hands and beard. After rough treatment and interrogation form police, he was charged with arson.

According to Sergeant O’Keefe, Reichelt said ‘Well I’ll tell you the way it was. I was bad with dysentery, and got out of bed to go to my shop to get some quinine. On striking a match to look for it, I went near a tin that contained lucine [a type of kerosene]; it exploded like powder, and I was on fire all in a moment.’ In a statement, Reichelt said he could not put the fire out and so ran outside, and then up the Dowling Street steps towards the fire bell. Hearing the alarm, he ran down to Rattray Street, eager to warn Mrs Howard. She was the landlady of his lodgings in High Street. Her husband owned a neighbouring business to Reichelt’s but kept poor health and was easily upset.

At an inquest, held just a few days after the fire, the jury found the fire to be accidental. At the Mayor’s Court the next day, the bench disagreed. Reichelt was committed to trial on a charge of arson, with intent to defraud his insurers.

Among the suspicious circumstances was the fact that Reichelt had, admittedly, entered his building by sliding down the bank at the back. Miss Cane said Reichelt had come through the back window on other occasions when he had forgotten his key. Accusations were made of doctored financial accounts, but without hard evidence. Questions were also asked about why Reichelt had kept stock on another site, and why, when he fled the fire scene, he locked the door after himself.

The jury failed to return a verdict. A second trial was held and, on 30 September, Reichelt was acquitted. The insurers initially refused his claim, but Reichelt successfully sued them, winning damages as well as his insurance payout.

At this final court case, in January 1872, Reichelt admitted he had not given his real reason for fleeing the scene. He now said he had an assignation with the aforementioned Ann Wright, a young widow, who was formerly a barmaid at Waipori. He had not admitted this before to protect her name.

The insurers’ lawyer, James Smith, argued ‘People were not usually so straight-laced and squeamish that they would take so much trouble to avoid detection even when they paid a visit to their own shop at night upon amours of that sort. He supposed that one time or other they had all gone astray more or less’. The judge, H.S. Chapman, replied, ‘Speak for yourself, Mr Smith’!

Reichelt said Miss Cane would have torn his eyes out if she had known why he was there, because he had also had an affair with her. He further admitted he had slept with another woman living there. According to Reichelt, he entered the building via the bank because Miss Cane slept over his shop door and would have heard him. Wright and Cane both denied Reichelt’s claims of intimacy. The jury were left to decide whether they did this to protect their own reputations, or if Reichelt was lying.

Reichelt’s barrister, George Barton, was a somewhat eccentric and Rumpolian figure, with a frayed and torn gown, and a wig that was seldom straight. His closing speech for the second trial took nearly four hours and was later lauded as a masterpiece. In response to the opposing counsel’s claim that Reichelt had deliberately burned incriminating financial records, Barton said it was absurd to claim that ‘Reichelt first cooked and afterwards burned his books’! Referring to Reichelt’s treatment by police, he said he:

‘…had been under the impression that there was only one place where a man, when burning, would be kept without a drop of water. It did appear, however, that there was another, and that place was the Police Court of Otago. The treatment, the recollection of which brought tears into Reichelt’s eyes when giving evidence in the witness box the previous day, must have been very bad indeed’.

Barton’s junior counsel was the future premier Robert Stout, who emerged from the trials as a rising legal star. Awarded £1,000 damages, Reichelt fended off further litigation and collected his insurance payout.

The remains of the old building were cleared and a new one was quickly erected, with tenders called in March 1872. The Otago Daily Times published a description:

‘The blank in the Cutting where the fire took place some time ago is in a fair way of being filled up; new premises being erected on the site for Mr Reichelt, in which he intends to resume his former business. The building is to be of brick. The ground floor will be used as a shop, and the upper storey as offices, to which there will be a separate entrance from the street. The upper part of the front wall is to be supported upon wrought iron girders, and there is to be a handsome plate glass front. As the hotel next door abutted on Mr Reichelt’s ground, a piece has been cut off along the side of it, and some delay has been thereby occasioned in putting up the new building. The plans have been prepared by Mr Hardy, and the work is being carried out by Mr Prouse.’

The F.W. Reicheilt & Co. building about 1872. At the left can be seen the entrance to the London Portrait Rooms. Stout family Collection, PAColl-10493-10-02, Alexander Turnbull Library.

Detail from the above. Likely Friedrich Reichelt wearing the hat, and his assistant William Noonan on the right.

The well-established architect Henry Frederick Hardy first worked as a carpenter in Dunedin in the 1850s. He received some architectural training from Augustus Poeppel, who briefly lived in Dunedin in the frantic gold rush year of 1862. Hardy’s other works of the early 1870s included his own large house, Waimoana, in High Street, and woollen mill buildings at Mosgiel. Other works include the former Otago Daily Times buildings, which still stand at the bottom of Dowling and Burlington streets. Less familiar is the name of the builder, Charles Prouse, whose name I have not associated with other local building projects.

The original facade decoration of Reichelt’s Building was in the Renaissance Revival style. It included distinctive window mouldings, with lugged or ‘eared’ architraves. Hardy was fond of these and used them on other designs, including the ODT buildings. Other decoration included quoining, a balustraded parapet, and an ornate pediment. The name ‘F.W. Reichelt & Co.’ featured on the parapet in relief lettering.

Detail from an 1874 photographic panorama by Burton Bros showing Reichelt’s Building. The asymmetrical remaining portion of the City Buffet Hotel is on its left (south) side. O.043675, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

The London Portrait Rooms, and tragedy

Only a year after it was built, the building was extended eighteen metres at the back. Tenders were called in April 1873. The addition created an upstairs studio and gallery for the London Portrait Rooms, a photography business established in Dunedin in 1863. It was described on completion:

‘The lower part has been fitted up for the display of fancy goods, the dividing wall between the old and the new building having been removed, and an elliptic arch erected in place of it. The upper portion of the premises has been built by Mr Reichelt expressly for a photographic gallery for the proprietors of the London Portrait Rooms. The operating room is 34ft, long by 16ft wide [10.4 x 4.9m], and is well lighted by side and ceiling lights. The printing room and dark room have been specially fitted up for their respective purposes with every convenience. The waiting, dressing, and showrooms, which are elegantly furnished, front Princes street, and are approached by an easy staircase, 5ft [1.5m] in width, from Princes street — the lobby being available for the display of photographs, etc.’

Frederick Henry Irwin owned and operated the photography business. His studio was one of the most popular places in Dunedin to have a portrait taken, and many examples from it can now be found in museums, libraries, and private collections.

Unidentified girl and boy photographed at the London Portrait Rooms c.1880. O.004070, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

On Monday, 17 May 1886, Irwin’s wife Louisa and her sister Julia Finch were killed in a terrible accident on the site. It was 4.45pm when a blast intended to loosen rock sent showers of debris over buildings and towards Princes Street. A group of relief workers, engaged by the Council, had been removing rock for use in reclamation work in Cumberland and Crawford streets, and to reduce the level of Dowling Street. Julia and Louisa were seated at a table in the first-floor reception room of the London Portrait Rooms, along with a Mrs and Miss Vivian. This was the front room with windows overlooking Princes Street. Julia was crocheting a little boot. Seconds after the explosion, rocks weighing up to 15 kilograms came crashing through the roof and ceiling. Julia was struck on the head and died within minutes. She was 41 years old. Louisa also suffered head injuries and she died a week later. 42 years old, she was survived by her husband and nine children, the youngest of whom was three years old.

An inquest found that the blast was poorly planned, over-charged, and undertaken without proper safety precautions. It also emerged that the supervisor of the works, William Barnes, was the son of Mayor John Barnes, and had been appointed to the position even though he lacked suitable qualification. An experienced foreman was available to assist with blasting, but he was not called upon.

Controversy over the accident dogged and divided the Council, with both John Barnes and councillors on the Relief Committee attempting to shift blame to one another. Barnes did not stand for re-election later that year.

Handel’s Dead March in Saul played as Julia’s funeral procession left St Paul’s in the Octagon, and a few days later Chopin’s funeral march played for Louisa. A large marble cross by monumental mason Henry Palmer marks their grave in the Southern Cemetery.

The grave of Louisa Irwin and Julia Finch in the Southern Cemetery. David Murray photo (2015).

Braithwaite’s Book Arcade

Reichelt sold his business in 1875, but continued to own the building up to his bankruptcy in 1884. He married and later lived a comfortable life in Lilydale, Victoria, where he died in 1913. His old shop was leased by Reith & Wilkie, booksellers and stationers, from 1875. They continued the fancy goods business under the same manager, William Noonan. The firm operated as J. Wilkie & Co. from 1878 and moved from the site in 1885. The shop was taken over by another bookseller, Joseph Braithwaite.

Joseph Braithwaite had established his business as a book stall in Farley’s Arcade in 1863, when he was just 15 years old. The arcade was rebuilt in brick a few years later and Braithwaite moved to one of its corner shops, where he remained until he moved to Princes Street in 1885. The store opened in the old Central Hotel on the north side of Reichelt’s Building, and has been discussed in a previous post about the hotel. Within a few months it expanded into Reichelt’s, taking on a horseshoe-shaped footprint: Braithwaite’s two shopfronts were separated by other small shops, but connected at the rear. The horseshoe theme was carried through to distinctive frames over the two entrances.

Braithwaite’s Arcade shown in detail from an advertising supplement in the Evening Star, 15 May 1893. Eph-E-BUILDINGS-Dunedin-1893-02, Alexander Turnbull Library.

A detail from Robert Baré’s block pan of 1889. Reichelt’s building is at the centre. Red indicates brick buildings, and yellow wooden. The numbers in the circles indicate the number of storeys. The letters beneath indicate the roofing materials (e.g. iron or slate). The rear portion of Braithwaite’s arcade stands out with its many skylights, indicated by green spots. The only wooden building is the remaining portion of the old City Buffet. H++ 885.927 [1889], Hocken Collections – Uare Taoka o Hākena.

It was claimed over 10,000 people visited the arcade on Christmas Eve 1885, and Braithwaite’s became so well-known it was considered a tourist attraction. It was a popular place to shelter from bad weather, and was described as something of a ‘public resort’ where everyone from unchaperoned children to the local business elite might be seen browsing the shelves. In 1893, Braithwaite stated he often took almost half of his takings between 8pm and 9pm. The shop was particularly busy the day after the English mail arrived with the latest newspapers and magazines.

A Braithwaite’s slogan was ‘No one asked buy’, which was emblazoned on the shop front. A promotional article in 1890 stated:

‘you may wander through the crowded avenues, or idle away your time in one of the secluded niches, of this hospitable warehouse for a whole afternoon, and never once be importuned to buy anything. Neither is the inadmissibility of systematically reading books proclaimed in scarlet letters on the walls; and, although this custom is not encouraged, because of the inadequacy of suitable sitting accommodation, the visitor will meet with no interference who may elect to spend a pleasant half an hour with an author whose works the force of circumstances prevents him from becoming acquainted with by his own quiet fireside.’

By 1900 the business employed thirty sales men and women, and that December it imported 300 cases of goods. The southern entrance, in Reichelt’s building, initially led to the stationery and fancy goods departments. A rearrangement in 1889 saw books and literature here, with other parts of the premises displaying stationery, fancy goods, art supplies, and music. Later, secondhand books were introduced.

The northern entrance to Braithwaite’s Book Arcade, in the Central Hotel building. The Leader Supplement 26 January 1895 p.11. State Library of Victoria.

The Book Department in Braithwaite’s Book Arcade, within Reichelt’s Building. The Leader Supplement 26 January 1895 p.11. State Library of Victoria.

The Fancy Good Department in Braithwaite’s Book Arcade. This was in a single-storey portion at the rear of the Central Hotel building, and was well lit with skylights. The Leader Supplement 26 January 1895 p.11. State Library of Victoria.

‘Braithwaite’s Book Arcade’. A Muir & Moodie postcard from the 1900s. Private Collection.

Back to the studios

The London Portrait Rooms continued until 1891. After refurbishment that year it briefly became the London Duplex Studio, run by Thomas Mintaro Bailey Muir, who had been a partner in Burton Bros. In 1893 the established photographer John G. Wills took a second studio here. His well-established American Photo Co. already had rooms a few doors to the south, in Farley’s Building.

The artist Alfred Henry O’Keeffe occupied this space for about a year, beginning in July 1895. Though brief, this was significant. O’Keeffe had recently returned from study in Paris, and offered evening classes in life drawing as well as private tuition. He was among twenty-five artists, including Girolamo Nerli and Grace Joel, who formed the Easel Club. This group, which represented a reaction against the Dunedin art establishment, held meetings in O’Keeffe’s studio.

O’Keeffe was followed by a succession of photographers: Armstrong & Greer (1896-1905), Shearsby & Wootton (1906), F.E. Austin & Son (1906-1916), Elizabeth Rossbotham (1916-1918), and Flora Niven (1918-1925). A photograph of the newly-formed Otago and Southland Photographers Association in 1918 shows Niven as the sole woman in the group, and she highlighted her ‘novelty’ in advertising, referring to herself as ‘Miss Niven the Lady Photographer’.

Advertisement for Miss Niven from the Bruce Herald 14 July 1919 p.6.

The Photographers Association of Otago and Southland in 1918. Top row (from left): John Steadman, C.C. Armstrong, Guy Morris, Henry Luscombe, H.C. Gore. Second row: J.J. Webster (Treasurer), Robert Rodger, William Esquilant (Vice-President), S.E. Wootton, G.W. Palmer, M.K. Parkes. Third row (sitting): T.F. Girvan, C.E. Merrie, H. Beauchamp, J.R. Morris (President), H.J. Gill, C.W. Pattillo, Flora Niven. H.M. Morris. Box-208-001. Hocken Collections – Uare Taoka o Hākena.

View looking north along Princes Street in either 1915 or 1916. Muir & Moodie photo, Te Papa C.011844.

Cropped detail showing ornamental features, including the parapet balusters, pediment, and vermiculated quoins and keystones.

Between the world wars

In 1916, the Empire Theatre was built behind the buildings, to the designs of Mason & Wales. It was the seventh purpose-built cinema in Dunedin. The first had been built just four years earlier, which shows how rapidly the movie industry was expanding and its increasingly important role in popular culture. The theatre’s entrance was from Princes Street, between Braithwaite’s two frontages. In 1928 the entrance moved to Moray Place, after the theatre was remodelled in lavish ‘atmospheric’ style to the designs of Edmund Anscombe. The intact gallery and various remnants can still be seen in the Rialto multiplex that now occupies the space.

Joseph Braithwaite died in 1917 and the arcade closed in 1928. Where there had been one shop, there were soon two. Sucklings Limited, a photograph processing and camera business, moved into the one on the north side. It claimed to offer ‘New Zealand’s Pioneer 4 Hour Photo Service’, having introduced this turnaround time at its earlier site about 1923. It became a branch of Kodak in 1929 but continued to use the Sucklings name until about 1931. It moved to another building further down the street in December 1934.

Queue outside the Empire Theatre in 1931. At this time Kodak had one of two shops in the building. Tamblyn, McKenzie & Rhodes were updstairs. Evening Star 4 December 1976.

Tamblyn, McKenzie & Winton (later Tamblyn, Mckenzie & Rhodes, and then Tamblyn Rhodes), land agents and auctioneers, occupied offices in the building for 46 years, from 1915 to 1961. Their advertisements featured extensively in newspaper real estate columns for many years.

From 1929 to 1937, artists Russell and Eunice Clark occupied the studio flat. Russell gave art classes, making use of the design studio at John McIndoe’s printing business in Vogel Street, where he worked. His fully nude classes were popular with students, as the Art School did not offer anything of this kind. According to Peter Entwisle, the Princes Street flat was the scene of lively, some even said ‘wild’ parties. They were a meeting place for artists and theatre peoples, with Doris Lusk and Max Walker among the attendees. The atmosphere is captured in one of Russell Clark’s oil paintings, Students entertain theatricals. I don’t have a license to reproduce it here, but follow the link to see it through the Te Papa website.

During this period the building was remodelled. The Evening Star architecture columnist, ‘Cornice’, described the newly-completed work in 1935. Their opinion reflected a prevailing distaste for Victorian architecture:

‘The very old-fashioned front to this building has been pulled away, and the old parapet and useless ornamentation, which was in vogue in old days, entirely removed, and the building completely cleaned up. Coloured plaster now adorns the façade, and it has been carried out in a style which is finding increasing favour in northern centres, but which had not yet found expression in Dunedin.’

T.R. Hindle carried out the building work. The two shops were internally remodelled, with oak panelling and ornamental plaster ceilings. Clipped plate glass shop windows included black glass. The architects, Stone & Sturmer, were known for some of the city’s more jazzy architectural work of the 1930s. The Victoria Building on Crawford Street is a good example of one of their remodelled facades and its restoration has shown their use of sophisticated coloured finishes, not apparent in old black and white photographs. Subsequent painting of these finishes has tended to dull the overall effect of such remodelling.

A cake shop operated from the shop at 110 (the northern one) for 66 years. Edna Meffan opened it as The Snack Bar in 1935 and continued to run it until selling to E.C. Thomson about 1946. Creations displayed included a seventh birthday cake for Mickey Mouse in 1935, a slice of which was given to every child who attended a special matinee event at the Regent Theatre. As it happens, Edna Meffan (later Edna Scott) was the first owner of my own house. I would be interested to know more about her, if anyone has information to share.

The shop became Chave’s Home Make Cakes about 1948, run by Stewart Chave for much of the 1950s. Stewart’s son Errol remembered it as a family affair as Stewart’s brother, Doug, sister-in-law Elsie, and his father Charles all formed part of the team. Errol sliced sandwich bread each morning before heading to school. The business was popular, particularly with pupils of nearby King Edward Technical College and Otago Girls’ High School. The fare included Lamingtons, custard squares, date scones, shortbread, pies, Cornish pasties, lettuce and Marmite sandwiches, banana sandwiches, and baked bean sandwiches. Stewart Chave sold to the business to Jim Clark and it became Clark’s Cake shop, trading under that name from 1957 until about 1985. It then continued as Bell Hill Cakes up to 2001.

A long-standing tenant at no. 112 was Marlene Mantles, which opened under the management of Mrs J.S. Campbell in 1939. The name was likely inspired by Marlene Dietrich, one of the most glamourous Hollywood film stars, then at the height of her fame. The name was later tweaked to Marlene Outfitters, and then to Marlene Fashions. The Princes Street shop closed in 1976 but the business continued in George Street for a few more years.

The name Bell Hill House only dates from recent decades, but has its historical roots in the fact that this part of Princes Street was cut through what was known as Bell Hill. For some years the building was referred to as Braithwaite’s Building. For a very long time, up to the 1970s, it was owned by the Solomon Estate. At the time of writing Shinjuku Sushi (since 2008) and Beauty Mirror (since 2022) occupy the ground floor shops. They are the latest in over 150 years of businesses in the building.

Newspaper references:
Evening Star 17 June 1871 p.2 (fire inquiry), 30 December 1885 p.2 (10,000 visitors to Braithwaite’s), 1 June 1889 p.2 (Braithwaite’s description after expansion), 4 June 1903 p.7 (George Barton obituary), 2 March 1918 p.7 (Rossbotham), 14 May 1930 p.5 (Sucklings advertisement), 1 December 1934 p.8 (Kodak move), 16 April 1935 p.2 (remodelling and alterations).
Otago Daily Times 14 July 1863 p.8 (City Buffet Café), 18 August 1863 p.6 (taken over by Riordan Brothers), 29 December 1863 p.2 (alterations), 28 July 1864 p.2 (offices designed by David Ross), 13 June 1871 p.2 (fire), 14 June 1871 p.2 (fire), 19 June 1871 p.2 (inquest into fire), 27 January 1872 p.2 (court proceedings re fire), 30 January 1872 p.2 (court proceedings re fire), 26 February 1872 p.2 (auction), 19 March 1872 p.3 (call for tenders), 24 April 1872 p.2 (new building description), 18 April 1873 p.3 (call for tenders), 25 July 1873 p.2 (description of additions), 22 February 1879 p.4 (sale of property), 10 February 1885 p.3 (Braithwaite’s shift), 18 May 1886 p.2 (blasting accident), 23 November 1887 p.4 (Braithwaite’s evening hours), 21 January 1890 p.3 (Braithwaite’s description); 17 December 1891 p.3 (London Portrait Rooms sold); 23 April 1900, supp. (Braithwaite’s description), 26 September 1935 p.11 (Mickey Mouse birthday);19 September 1936 p.1 (The Snack Bar).
Otago Witness 3 February 1872 p.7 (court action).
Saturday Advertiser 4 May 1878 p.10 (J. Wilkie).
Tuapeka Times 1 February 1872 p.4 (court action).

Other references:
Entwisle, Peter. ‘114 Princes Street’. Unpublished report for Dunedin Amenities Society.
Entwisle, Peter. ‘The Easel Club’s Rooms’. Unpublished report for Dunedin Amenities Society.
McDonald, David. ‘Braithwaite, Joseph (1848-1917)’ in Southern People: A Dictionary of Otago Southland Biography. Dunedin: Longacre, 1998, pp.59-60.
Murray, David. ‘Victims of blasting’. Stories in Stone series in Otago Daily Times 2 October 2010 p.50.
Murray, David. ‘B462-B464 Bell Hill House’. Report for Dunedin City Council, 21 April 2013.
Baré, Robert, City of Dunedin Block Plans Dunedin: Caxton Steam Printing Company, [1889].
Council of Fire and Accident Underwriters’ Associations of New Zealand, block plans, 1927.
Directories (Stone’s, Wises, telephone)
Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans.
Personal communication from Errol Chave, 15 March 2016.

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.

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

Silverwood Terrace

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dreaver’s Buildings

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Built: 1878-1879
Address: 149-165 George Street
Designer: William Grasby
Builders: Finck & Grasby

Dreavers_2016

From the 1870s to the 1950s, the enterprising Dreaver family made George Street their place of business. Elizabeth Creilman McHoul was born in Glasgow, and worked as a domestic servant before migrating to Otago in 1870. In 1873 she married James Dreaver, who opened a toy and fancy goods store. Mrs Dreaver opened a second family business, the Red Flag Drapery, in June 1877.

In November 1878, a fire destroyed eight wooden buildings in George Street, including the Dreavers’ property. No time was wasted in erecting new premises, which opened for business on 22 February 1879. They were built by Finck & Grasby and designed by William Grasby of that firm. Constructed of brick, they comprised a block of three shops with living apartments above. All were owned by the Dreavers, who occupied the southernmost portion. Their first tenants were Miss Vaile, who ran a ‘Young Ladies’ Seminary’, and Hans Pauli, who purchased James Dreaver’s fancy goods business.

The Otago Daily Times reported that ‘seldom, indeed, are blocks of buildings turned out in such a complete manner’. The flats each had coal ranges in the kitchens, fireplaces in the bedrooms, and gas and water connections. Workrooms for the drapery were built behind the shop, and there were brick washhouses and other outbuildings. The shops had tongue-and-groove linings and were fronted with large plate-glass windows. The cemented facade above was in the simple Revived Renaissance style favoured for commercial buildings at the time. After 137 years the first floor still outwardly looks much the same, though missing are a string course below the dentil cornice, and a modest arched pediment at the centre of the parapet.

Elizabeth Dreaver’s early advertisements offered costumes to fit at a few hours’ notice and described the firm as the cheapest house in the city. The Red Flag name was not used after the rebuilding, and the business became popularly known as Mrs Dreaver’s. Stock included dresses, jackets, skirts, mackintoshes, children’s wear, and feather boas. Dreaver’s had its own dressmaking department and became well-known for a parcel post service (with money back guarantee) offered to country customers.

Mrs Dreaver was an expert milliner and at a carnival at the Columbia Rink she won first prize from about 100 entries for the most original hat, with a design representing a pair of roller skates. She also won the prize for the smallest hat. Other milliners who worked for her included Miss Graham, formerly head milliner to Mrs W.A. Jenkins, and Mrs Mitchell, who had worked at Madame Louise’s in London’s Regent Street.

In 1885 Elizabeth left Dunedin for Scotland, she said due to bad health, and after five months returned with a stock of purchases made in London and Paris. In the following years she vigorously promoted the ‘scientific’ method of pattern cutting that was revolutionising sewing around the world. She was one of the first in New Zealand to import the pattern books of the Butterick Publishing Company, which then had over 1,000 agencies throughout the United States and Canada. She became Otago’s sole agent for American Scientific System of Dresscutting, gave lessons at Otago Girls’ High School, and offered board to out-of-town pupils. By 1893 she had taught the system to 700 people.

A Muir & Moodie postcard showing George Street from St Andrew Street. Dreavers is on the right, below the tower.

Hans Pauli remained in the northern shop until 1892. His name became familiar to the public through his outspoken opposition to the organised movement for early shop closing. From 1883 to 1903 ‘Professor and Madame’ McQueen ran one of Dunedin’s leading hairdressing establishments from the middle shop, to which they added the Bon Marche children’s clothing shop in 1898.

The drapery expanded to take over all three shops in 1904, not long before the death of James Dreaver on New Year’s Day 1905. In the first decades of the twentieth century Elizabeth Dreaver continued to manage the business, which some advertisements described as the ‘Shrine of Fashion’. A hairdressing and beauty salon became part of the operation.

In 1920 a new company was formed, Dreavers Ltd, with Elizabeth Dreaver holding 73% the shares and her children Hugh, James, and Catherine, each holding 9%. Additions were made at the back of the property in 1909, and in 1925 Mandeno & Fraser designed stylish new shop fronts, with arches over recessed entrances, and decorative tiles and glass. Fletcher Construction were the builders. A section of this work survives in altered form as the front of the northern shop, where the name ‘Dreavers Ltd’ can still be seen in the mosaic floor.

Further rearward additions were carried out in 1944, leading to the saddest event found in researching this story. A shopper named Alice McMillan (58) was killed when a beam fell through a skylight into the mantle department.

A 1945 advertisement

Elizabeth Creilman Dreaver died at her home in Clyde Street on 30 November 1934, aged 86. Dreavers continued to trade until 1952, its old premises afterwards becoming the Bruce Shop, a retail store for Bruce Woollens. This closed in the mid-1960s, when the name of the block was changed from Bruce Buildings to Perth Buildings.

Other businesses to occupy the buildings have included the Otago Sports Depot, a Queen Anne Chocolate (Ernest Adams) shop, Ace Alterations, Martins Art Furnishers, and Don Kindley Real Estate. One shop is currently vacant, while another is taken by Brent Weatherall Jewellers. The third contains the $ n’ Sense bargain shop, which harks back nicely to the toys and fancy goods shop at the beginning of the Dreaver’s story in George Street.

A 1925 shop front, surviving in altered form. Decorative windows were removed and original timber window joinery (with more slender profiles than shown here) replaced in 2012.

‘Dreavers Ltd’ mosaic tiles

Newspaper references:
Evening Star, 16 June 1877 p.3 (Red Flag Drapery), 29 November 1878 p2 (fire), 27 December 1920 p.3 (registration of company); Otago Witness, 10 August 1878 p.21 (advertisement), 6 September 1879, p.3 (advertisement), 29 April 1887 p.9 (sole rights), 4 January 1905 p.47 (death of James Dreaver); Otago Daily Times, 22 December 1874 p1 (toy shop advertisement), 15 January 1879 p.1 (description of buildings), 4 June 1879 p.3 (description following completion), 29 December 1884 p.3 (advertisement), 26 March 1887 p.3 (advertisement), 29 August 1944, p.6 (inquest into the death of Alice McMillan), 19 March 2011 p.46 (‘Stories in Stone’); North Otago Times 3 May 1890 p.4 (lessons at Otago Girls’ High School).

Shipping list for Robert Henderson, 1870 (Otago Gazette)
Register of Otago and Southland Marriages 1848 to 1920 (St Andrew’s Parish)
Death registration for Elizabeth Dreaver (1934/10770)

Hotel Central

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Built: 1873
Address: 90-108 Princes Street
Architects: Mason & Wales
Builders: Wood & Steinau

The buildings as they appeared c.1907. Ref: Collection of Toitu Otago Settlers Museum, Box 57 Number 200.

Since the demolition of its northern neighbour in the 1980s, the facade of 100-108 Princes Street has come to a slightly raggedy end, and the off-centre word ‘Hotel’ has looked a bit peculiar without the word ‘Central’ that once followed it. Although the two buildings that formed the Hotel Central had an integrated facade, they were separated by a party wall and had distinct roof structures. They were even built under separate contracts for different clients.

The surviving portion was built for the drapers Thomson, Strang & Co., and the demolished one for Dunning Bros. Built in 1873, the buildings replaced wooden structures that were only about ten years old, but which in a period of rapid development were already seen as the antiquated stuff of pioneer days. The architects were Mason & Wales and the contractors Wood & Steinau.

The buildings were described in the Otago Daily Times as ‘very handsome’ but it was remarked that ‘their elevation and length appear to be altogether out of harmony with the irregularity of the comparatively small structures opposite’. The facade originally featured a bracketed cornice and most of the first-floor windows were hooded. Stone was used for the foundations and ground floor, and brick for the upper floors.

Detail from a Burton Bros panorama, showing the buildings as they appeared in 1874, not long after their completion. Ref: Te Papa C.025695.

Who were the Dunning brothers? Alfred Theodore Dunning and Frederick Charles Edward Dunning were English settlers who started out as fruiterers in Princes Street in 1864. Frederick left the partnership in 1871, but did return for a few years later in the decade. In 1874 Alfred was granted a license for the City Dining Rooms, which he opened upstairs in the new building. He established a hotel across the upper floors of both buildings, and from 1878 the establishment was known as Dunning’s Central Hotel and Café. The portion above the drapery contained bedrooms, while rooms in the northern part included a dining room, offices, and a large billiard room.

Alfred was known for his joviality, uprightness in business, and warm-heartedness, but although he did well in the hotel business he was less successful when he left in 1881 to take up theatrical management. He lost most of his money in opera ventures and died in Melbourne in 1886 at the age of 41. Frederick became a fruiterer in Christchurch, where he died in 1904 after falling from his cart.

The drapery firm Thomson, Strang & Co. had started out as Arkle & Thomson in 1863. J.R. Strang became a partner in 1866 and the firm operated from its new premises for just under ten years, closing in 1883. From 1885 to 1928 the ground floor of this southern end of the buildings housed Braithwaite’s Book Arcade. Joseph Braithwaite had established his business in Farley’s Arcade in 1863 before the move to Princes Street. The store had a horseshoe-shaped layout that extended into Reichelt’s Building on the south side, and the horseshoe theme was carried through to distinctive frames over the two entrances. It was claimed over 10,000 people once visited the arcade on a single day, and Braithwaite’s became so well-known that it was considered a tourist attraction. It was a popular place to shelter from bad weather, and everyone from unchaperoned children to the local business elite might be seen browsing the shelves. By 1900 the business employed thirty sales men and women. The footprint of the arcade changed a few times as it moved in and out of neighbouring shops.

Detail from c.1907. At the centre is the lamp for Haydon’s Central Hotel. On the left is one of the entrances to Braithwaite’s Book Arcade. The shop on the right was occupied by the jeweller James Bremner. Note the pilasters with their Corinthian capitals. Ref: Collection of Toitu Otago Settlers Museum.

The Central Hotel’s license was transferred to John Golder in 1881, and he reportedly installed one of the largest plate glass windows in the colony. He was succeeded by Robert T. Waters, who changed the name to the Baldwin Hotel, perhaps after the celebrated hotel of the same name in San Francisco. After Waters came Charles Nicholson, James D. Hutton, and Thomas Cornish. During Cornish’s time the name changed back to Central Hotel, and later licensees were James Macdonald, E.J. Power, William H. Haydon, and Catherine J. Haydon. The license was lost in 1909, and the establishment afterwards continued as a private hotel and boarding house. It was known as Jackson’s Hotel from about 1922 to 1936, when it became Hotel Central.

The hotel featured in an unusual example of pioneering photography, for Dunedin at least. In 1903 a couple were photographed in a bedroom of the City Hotel from an opposite room in the Central Hotel, and the evidence was used in a divorce case. The respondent claimed she was only playing cards with the co-respondent, whom she described as an elderly, very short, stout, bald-headed, and not at all good-looking friend. The jury were unconvinced and a divorce was granted.

Tragedy occurred in 1900 when William O’Connell, a 76-year old miner from Nevis, died after falling from one of the rear windows during the night, into the yard below.

From 1916 the buildings included the entrance to the Empire Theatre (a cinema), complete with terrazzo flooring and marble mosaics. In 1935 the theatre’s entrance was moved from Princes Street to Moray Place, and two shops were built in the place of the old entry.

The history of the shops is complex as over one hundred businesses have operated from them over the years, and partitions were sometimes put up to turn a large shop space into two smaller ones, or taken down to restore a larger space. Most of the businesses that were in the buildings for five years or more are in the list below. The dates are mostly compiled from directories and newspapers advertisements and so are only an approximate.

Thomson, Strang & Co. (1873-1883)
Raymond & Howard, chemists (1874-1884)
J. Wilkie & Co., stationers etc. (1879-1885)
August Fettling, jeweller (1880-1885)
Alexander Allen, tobacconist (1883-1896)
Stewart Dawson & Co., jewellers (1884-1891)
Alex W. McArthur, jeweller and optician (1888-1894)
William Macdonald, hosier (1889-1894)
William Reid, florist (1894-1907)
J.J. Dunne, hosier and hatter (1896-1906)
James Bremner, jeweller and optician (1898-1914)
William Aitken & Sons, tailors (1902-1907)
Elizabeth Rodie, draper (1906-1919)
E.H. Souness, watchmaker and jeweller (1908-1915)
Elite Tea Rooms (1915-1973)
Sucklings Limited, photographic specialists (1919-1931)
Watkins & Neilson, mercers and tailors (1922-1927)
The Horse Shoe, fancy goods dealers (1928-1934)
Adams Bruce Ltd (1928-1935)
Piccadilly Shoppe, lingerie specialists (1928-1982)
‘The Ideal’, frock and knitwear specialists (1930-1988)
Marina Frocks (1935-1954)
Cameron’s Central Pharmacy (1935-1985)
Tip Top Milk Bar (1935-1955, succeeded by the City Milk Bar 1955-1961)
E. Williams, toilet salon (1936-1944)
Johns of London, beauty specialists (1944-1956)
Newall’s Chinaware (1954-1972)
London House, menswear (1957-1967)
Carlton Bookshop (1962-1984)
Rob’s Wool Shop (1972-1986)
Southern Cross Jewellers (2002-2015)

Some businesses moved to different shops within the buildings, including Sucklings (around 1928) and the Ideal (around 1954). The Tip Top is perhaps a surprise inclusion on the list – the ‘no.2 shop’ was here while the more widely remembered ‘no. 1’ operated from the Octagon corner.

One of the longest-lasting enterprises in the buildings was the Elite Tea Rooms. Established by Hannah Ginsberg as the Elite Marble Bar in 1915, it advertised a tastefully decorated lounge room, a menu of fifty different iced drinks and ice creams, and a wide range of hot drinks including coffee, Bovril, and Horlick’s. For many years, from 1919 onwards, it was run by Jean Dunford and Sarah Mullin, and the business remained on the site until about 1973.

Advertisement from the Evening Star, 8 November 1919 p.6

A 1960s view

The facades were stripped of their Victorian decoration in 1952 and remodelled to the designs of architect L.W.S. Lowther, incorporating late use of the Art Deco style. The name ‘Hotel Central’ was added in plain sans serif capitalised relief lettering at the parapet level. Directories and advertising suggest that the names ‘Hotel Central’ and ‘Central Hotel’ were sometimes used interchangeably. The private hotel’s last entry in Wise’s directory was in 1977, but it would be could to pin down the date of its closure more accurately.

The northern building was demolished in 1987 to make way for additions to the Permanent Building Society building (now Dunedin House). This was remodelled in the postmodern style fashionable in the 80s, and its new features included tinted and mirrored glass, supersized pediments, and shiny columns. The older building now looks cut in half, but the changes made to the facade in the 1950s have exaggerated that effect. It recently changed ownership, so perhaps more change is in store in the not distant future.

The surviving building in 2016

Newspapers references:
Otago Daily Times, 1 August 1873 p.1 (call for tenders), 8 August 1873 p.3 (demolition progress), 1 September 1873 p.2 (accident); 22 November 1873 p.3 (progress – ‘out of harmony’); 24 December 1873 p.1(grand opening); 6 June 1874 p.4 (opening of public dining room); 2 September 1874 p.3 (court dispute – contractors), 30 October 1873 p.2 (accident during construction), 3 February 1876 p.3 (Dunning Bros partnership notice), 18 November 1878 p.3 (Dunning’s Central Hotel advertisement), 26 May 1881 p.3 (to let, retirement of Dunning), 9 July 1881 p.2 (largest plate glass windows in the Colony), 21 November 1883 p.3 (winding up of Thomson Strang), 23 April 1900 supp. (Braithwaite’s Book Arcade), 26 September 1900 p.7 (fatal accident), 22 June 1909 p.4 (license refused), 4 March 1916 p.11 (Empire Theatre); Otago Witness, 13 June 1874 p.2, 4 (opening of dining rooms), 2 September 1874 p.3 (dispute); Evening Star, 22 October 1915 p4 (Elite Marble Bar), 16 April 1935 p.2 (theatre entrance replaced with shops).

Other references:
Stone’s, Wise’s, and telephone directories
Baré, Robert, City of Dunedin Block Plans. Dunedin: Caxton Steam Printing Company, [1889].
W.H. Naylor Ltd: Records (Hocken Collections AG-712/036), plans for 1952 remodelling.

Ross & Glendining, High Street factory

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ross & Glendining, Stafford Street

13 Replies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other references:
Stone’s, Wise’s and telephone directories
Baré, Robert, City of Dunedin Block Plans Dunedin: Caxton Steam Printing Company, [1889].
Jones, F. Oliver, Structural Plans of the City of Dunedin NZ, ‘Ignis et Aqua’ series, [1892].
Fahey, W.H. Beautiful Dunedin : its environs and the cold lakes of Otago. Dunedin: Evening Star Co., 1906.
Jones, S.R.H. Doing Well and Doing Good : Ross & Glendining, Scottish Enterprise in New Zealand. Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2010.
Council of Fire and Accident Underwriters’ Associations of New Zealand, block plans, 1927
Dalziel Architects records, Hocken Collections (MS-2750/143 and MS-2758/272)
Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans (with thanks to Glen Hazelton)
Thanks to Peter Entwisle for pointing out the Mackintosh connection

Sutton Brothers Store

12 Replies

Built: 1874-1875
Address: 21 George Street, Port Chalmers
Architects: Mason & Wales
Builders: Lambeth & Findlay, Kent & Brown

When I’m in Port Chalmers I often admire the distinctive Tiger tea, ‘It’s so good it goes further’, advertising on the front of this building. I’m sure many have a similar fondness for it – Tiger signs were once seen on so many southern dairies and grocery stores, but they’re now relatively scarce.

The building was a general store, with a residence above, for 110 years. It was built between 1874 and 1875 as an investment for John Thomson, whose name has come up on this blog before. Thomson (1813-1895) was born at Dewartown, near Dalkeith in Scotland, and after working in coal mining had charge of a sawmill on the estate of the Duke of Buccleugh. He arrived at Port Chalmers in 1848 and worked saw milling and then managing the Government stores, before briefly going to the goldfields. He was afterwards a sheep and cattle inspector, and his Otago Witness obituary stated that he was ‘greatly respected for his sterling manliness of character’. He had established the Dalkeith subdivision in the 1860s, and owned various adjoining properties on the eastern side of George Street.

The architect was N.Y.A. Wales of Mason & Wales. The carpenters were Lambeth & Findlay, the stonemasons Kent & Brown, and the plasterer Edwin Philp. The cost was £898. The building was completed in March 1875, but just seven months later was damaged in a fire that destroyed buildings on its north side. The first storekeepers were Sutton Brothers. The business was managed by Edward Sutton to 1891, then by William Sutton to about 1903.

Detail from an 1870s photograph showing the building as it appeared when new. Ref: D.A. De Maus Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library 1/2-003211-G.

Detail from another D.A. De Maus photograph, taken in the 1880s. Ref: Alexander Turnbull Library 1/1-002569-G.

The store as it appeared in the 1890s or early 1900s. Ref: Port Chalmers Museum. D.A. De Maus photographer.

The store was run by Jonathan Emerson as Emerson’s Store from about 1903 to 1931, when it became MP Stores. The original MP Stores had been established in Timaru in 1913 as ‘a cash store, with minimum deliveries, in order to enable the proprietors to only charge the public for the goods bought by the individual customer, and not for the bad debts of the non-payer, and also to keep running expenses to a minimum’. MP might have stood for ‘minimum purchase’ but I’m not sure about that, and if there was a direct business link between the Timaru stores and the Port Chalmers one I haven’t discovered it. The name was changed to MP Foodmarket around 1963 and the business continued under that name until it closed around 1985. Since about 1986 Koputai Manufacturing Jewellers have occupied the ground floor.

The style of the architecture is Renaissance Revival. Originally, rusticated pilasters topped by corbels flanked the shopfront, with quoins above on the first floor. The composition was topped by a bracketed cornice, and a blind parapet with a modest pediment, small urns, and finials. The principal change to the outward appearance of the building has been the replastering of the facade in the 1950s. This involved the removal of original mouldings such as the cornice, quoins etc., and the filling in of the centre window on the first floor. Other changes included the addition of a suspended verandah, and the replacement of the shopfront. The side elevations are in a more original state, and the exposed breccia stonework is a delight – well worth searching out if you’re not familiar with it already. Just look for Mr Tiger.

Newspaper sources:
Otago Daily Times, 4 October 1875 p.3 (fire); Timaru Herald 11 August 1913 p.1, 17 July 1920 p.9 (MP Stores).

Other sources:
Stone’s, Wise’s, and telephone directories
Church, Ian. Some Early People and Ships of Port Chalmers. Dunedin: New Zealand Society of Genealogists, c.1990. pp.784-5.
Port Chalmers rates records (with thanks to Chris Scott, DCC Archives)
Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans (with thanks to Glen Hazelton)

John Thomson’s building

4 Replies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Built in Dunedin

a city's buildings and their stories

Tag Archives: 1870s

Bell Hill House (Reichelt’s Building)

Angus Motors Building / Spanish Restaurant

Milnes’ Building

Silverwood Terrace

Dreaver’s Buildings

Hotel Central

Ross & Glendining, High Street factory

Ross & Glendining, Stafford Street

Sutton Brothers Store

John Thomson’s building

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