GROWTH OF A GREAT PORT

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 91, 11 January 1930, Page 11

GROWTH OF A GREAT PORT

JUBILEE OF WELLINGTON HARBOUR

“GREAT EMPORIUM OF PROGRESS”

AN HISTORICAL REVIEW

Here is a great natural port, ivith an annual seaborne trade amounting to 2,172,406 tons. Central in situation, road and railway fed, replete with modern appliances designed by the best of engineering skill; admirably managed, faithfully administered, it is adequately serving the needs of a rapidly expanding community o 130,000 souls. Thus to-day do we enjoy the realisation of Sir George Grey’s prophetic vision of fifty years ago, when he predicted that “More speedily than most people think, Wellington wil become a great emporium of progress.” In these terms Mr. Lindsay Buick sums up the wonderful progress which the port of Wellington has made in the short space of fifty years in the handsome illustrated souvenir which has just been issued by the Wellington Harbour Board to commemorate its 50th year of existence.

Mr. Buick, who has been entrusted with the task o£ compiling an historical review of the evolution of the port of Wellington, has marshalled his facts in proper perspective, and the jubilee booklet will serve as a valuable history of New Zealand’s leading harbour.

Earliest History.

Commencing with Captain Cook’s cursory look in at the harbour on November 2, 1773, on the occasion of his second voyage to New Zealand, the chronicler declares that no other European vessel appears to have found the place for upwards of 56 years. “By this time,” states the chronicler, “colonising schemes had begun to stir the public mind of England, and in 1826 Captain James Herd brought the barque Rosanna into Whanganui-a-Tara, with a small company of Scottish colonists, who hoped to find a new home in New Zealand. There is Some reason to suppose that with the Rosanna there came a tendering cutter, the Lambton, in charge of Captain Barnett, but whether this was so is by no means certain. The fact that both ships were here in 1826 suggests they came together, the fact that both captains made charts of the harbour, with many striking differences, seems to favour the view that they were voyaging independently. There is, however, agreement upon the important point that it was out of the visit of Captains Herd and Barnett that the harbour received its first European name, Port' Nicholson. Unfortunately a doubt immediately arises when we endeavour to discover whether, it was Captain Herd or Captain Barnett who so designated it. The presumption is in favour of Captain Herd. He was not new to these waters. Twice before he had visited New Zealand. “The Rosanna’s passengers did not settle at Port Nicholson, preferring to .try their fortune further north, and after their departure the European connection with the place was rare and furtive until ’about 1835. The whalers do not seem to have made much use of it, and very little of its actual geography was known until the advent of the New Zealand Company in 1839, for Herd’s chart was never published, and Barnett’s was made public only in 1847. Then .we owed it to the Frenchman, d’Urville, and not to a British source.

Passing of the Private Wharf.

Coming of Colonel Wakefield.

“Still Herd’s printed description of 1832, ‘Here all the navies of Europe might ride in perfect security,’ had not escaped the notice of the vigilant minds at the back of the New Zealand ' Company, and when they dispatched Colonel Wakefield in the Tory to select the site of the first colony, they held the .potentialities of Port Nicholson clearly in view. In obedience to his. instructions, Colonel Wakefield entered Port Nicholson on September 20, 1839, his first discovery being the pleasant one that no bar existed at the entrance, as some of his imperfect charts suggested was the case. “For two years prior to the coming of the Tory, no overseas European vessel had visited the harbour, a reluctance Colonel Wakefield was unable to understand, ‘for the navigation at the entrance could not perplex a novice in nautical matters.’ As the prow of the Tory, prophetically ornamented with a bust of the Iron Duke, ploughed its way through the waters of the harbour, those on board saw a eight which deeply impressed them.

First Deep-Water Wharf.

(Colonists Pour In. “As fresh" ships arrived and more colonists poured in, the settlement, which had now been named Wellington, as a compliment to the Iron Duke, rapidly spread from the shore of Lambton harbour, aud the flats of Thorndon, to the heights beyond, but ‘the beach’ always retained its supremacy as the commercial centre, and the point upon which the shipping interests concentrated. Between the arrival of the Tory, late in 1839, and a corresponding date in 1842, the port had received 340 ships of an aggregate burden of 54,546 tons. These included what are known historically as the ‘first ships.’ the Cuba, the Aurora, the Oriental, the Duke of Roxburgh, the Bengal Merchant, the Adelaide, the Glenbervie, and the Bolton. Of these the largest was the Adelaide, of .640 tons, but of large and small there was a marvellous augmentation, until within a comparatively short period the total ships entered had grown to 1000. This necessarily involved a considerable traffic between the ships and the shore, and some accommodation, even if it were crude and scanty, to cope with it.

The First Landing Stage.

“The first ‘landing stage,’ for it was nothing more, was one run out by the surveyors in January, 1840, primarily to land their own luggage, tools, and instruments. This was on the Petone beach, in front of the projected town of Britannia, and it was here that the first settlers landed, and it was over this primitive jetty that their worldly goods were transported to the shore. With the abandonment of Britannia, and the shifting of the settlement to Lambton harbour, and Thorndon, these waterfront' structures necessarily became more numerous, and took on a more permanent form. For a » time it had suited well enough to bring the boats to the beach, and there unload their contents, but there were days when a fresh breeez made this difficult, and a eplashing sea made it unprofitable. “The first of these primitive structures to appear was one erected by Mr. J. H. Wallace, at Thorndon, opposite Bowen Street. Its construction was of the simplest. An empty dry-goods hogshead was carried out as far below low-water mark as it could be placed. When it was filled with stones it constituted the outer pier. Rough wooden trestles were placed at intervals in the intervening space, on which wetJe. laid some long straight logs, bound together by wooden ties, and squared on ton bv the nimble use of an adze. The Commercial Wharf, Tod’s Wharf, and Brown’s Wharf, were north of AVallace’s, and opposite the site ot the Hotel Cecil The former, built by a company with'a capital of £250, in £2 shares, was completed in December, 1841, and was capable of accommodating vessels from 30 to 40 tons. Tod’s Wharf was built bv a gentleman who had arrived from Svdnev in 1839. and who had acquired land in the vicinity of Charlotte Street. Its neighbour was sometimes known as ‘Ocbmui Brown'll' Wtarf,

Early Mail Services.

“Following southward, other historic wharves were :—-Von Alsdorf s, also known as Levin’s, Taine s, and Mountain’s Wharf, opposite the Hutt County Council’s office in Lambton Quay ; Moore’s Wharf, opposite Evans, Lambton Quay; Plimmer’s Wharf near the Queen’s Wharf; Tankersley s Wharf, also known as Swinburnes, Osgoods, and Bijou Wharf near the Empire Hotel, Willis Street; Bowlers Wharf, late Pearce’s, and sometimes Lyttelton vvnari, Willis Street, parallel with Old Customhouse Street; Waitt and Tyser s Wharf, also known as Fitzherbert s, Crawford s, Pilcher’s, and Customs Wharf, Old Customhouse Street, for bonded goods; Bethune’s and Hunter s Wharf, Old Customhouse Street; Ridgway, Guyton and Earp’s Wharf, Old Customhouse Street; Rhodes’ Wharf, Te Aro foreshore. “In addition to these there were other ‘stagings’ along the foreshore, which fifty years ago were not regarded .as old timers,’ but are gradually acquiring that distinction now. The best known of these were Turnbull’s Wharf, -Comptons Wharf. Anderson’s Wharf, David Robertson’s Wharf, and Greenfield and btewart’s Wharf.

“The era of the private wharf seems to have prevailed until about 1858, when there began to grow up a general feeling that these slender structures had outlived their usefulness. In all probability many of them had fallen into disrepair, and most of them had become quite inadequate for the service required of them.' At the best they could accommodate only the coastal hookers, and shallow water vessels, and in time their worm-riddled and barnacle-covered timbers began to call for re'newal. The owners visualised a large expenditure upon an obviously out-of-date system. They were, therefore, unwilling to spend money on further small jetties, but unable to enter upon the enterprise of meeting the growing public demand for one large, commodious wharf. “This class of accommodation was the more necessary now since the vessels frequenting the port were of larger tonnage, and the cargoes to be handled, inward and outward, were yearly becoming of greater volume and value. The lightering system, which hitherto had been the mode of dealing with the deep-sea ships, like the jetties, was therefore falling behind the times. Its obsolete methods of repeated transhipments were slow and precarious, involving both delay and loss. The idea, then, of a large public wharf, which had been steadily evolving in the minds of the local merchants, found an open and militant champion when the Chamber of Commerce was revived in 1856. „ u “From the first the members of the chamber threw themselves with zeal into the agitation for better shipping facilities, their objective being what they called a ‘deep-water’ wharf; situated 'conveniently towards the business portion of the town, and capable of berthing the largest oceangoing vessels then arriving. To this end they approached the Provincial Council, but for some years without success. 'ln their fourth annual report (1860-61) there is a note of fervent regret that, so far, their representations had borne no fruit, but in the following year the note is one of jubilation: ‘lt is with much, pleasure your committee find that their exertions have not been unproductive of good results, the Provincial Council having in the late session made ample provision, by voting a sura of £15,000 for carrying out this much-desired public improvement. Active preparations have already been made for the erection of such a structure as will not alone meet the wants of the shipping, but add materially to the progress and prosperity of Wellington, by the facilities. which will be afforded for the lading and discharging of produce.’

“This jubilation was due to the fact that the Provincial Council, after having carefully investigated the several alternative schemes suggested, and gone carefully into the merits of the main one, had, during the session of 1861, passed an Ordinance authorising the superintendent to take the necessary steps to have a ‘deep-water’ wharf erected at the foot of Grey Street, towards which the rapidly-extending provincial reclamation schemes were creeping. Once having decided that a wharf was to be erected, the provincial authorities lost no lime in giving practical effect to their decision. The plans prepared by Mr. J. T. Stewart, the provincial engineer, provided for a structure- projecting for 550 feet into the sea, from what was known as ‘The Provincial Council’s Reclamation,’ which ran along the eastern line of the present Customhouse Quay. The main shaft of the wharf was to be' 35 feet wide, with two tees, an inner and an outer, each with a projection of 75 feet. The inner tee was to be situated 300 feet from the breastwork of the reclamation. The piles were to be of heart totara, the decking of heart rimu. “For this work, which was naturally of great relative importance in those days, tenders were immediately called, that of Messrs. McLaggan and Thompson, at £15,420, being accepted. The contractors had contemplated procuring the timber for the piles from the totara bush growing in the Wairarapa, but the timber had eventually to be procured from Foxton. Sheathed with copper, the piles were well preserved after 40 years of service. By Christmas of 1862 all classes of vessels were using the completed wharf, the first overseas vessel to be berther there being Queen-of the Ayon, 460 tons. The Queen’s wharf (earliest wharfinger Mr. William Spinks) was followed by the Queen’s warehouse and the Queen’s bond.

“With the disappearance of the Panama Company, due to external cause's, the American mail service was taken up by the Australian Steam Navigation Company, who employed the City of Melbourne, and the Wonga Wonga, to run from Sydney to San Francisco, calling at Wellington en route. Their career was short, for the steamers were too small for the long journey across the Pacific. Then followed, in 1870, the Californian, New Zealand and Australian Steam Packet Line, whose ships, the Nebraska, Ne J vada and Dakota (2043 tons), were perhaps the most interesting vessels that had visited New Zealand since the days of Tasman and Cook. They were wooden paddle steamers built for service during the American Civil War, their fearful and wonderful ‘beam’ engines never ceasing to be a source of astonishment to New Zealanders. Their captains had been in the American Navy, and kept their ships up to man-o’-war standard, not the least of their novelties being the firing of guns on their arrival and departure. The three vessels mentioned travelled between New Zealand and Honolulu, where the mails were picked up by the Moses Taylor., and carried to Sa® Fjanclsoo.

Growing Pains.

Life’s Little Ironies.

Birth of the Harbour Board.

Like their two predecessors, these ships had not been built for long Wages and they soon gave way under the heavy strain, becoming so unseaworthy that they were withdrawn before their contract had expired. "They were followed by the venture of the Australian aud American Steam Ship Company, Ltd., who, between .18<4 and 1875, contracted to carry mails, bringing to this service from the China seas the McGregor, Mongol, Tartar, Cyphreeues, and Mikado. Ibis service was not satisfactory to the New Zealand Government, and soon ceased but it served to demonstrate with all that had gone before that Wellington was rapidly that Wellington was rapidly becoming a shipping centre ot great importance, a status which was materially increased by the appearance about this period, of the red funnels ot the Union Steam Ship Company. At the same time the sailing vessels and small coastal cialt came crowding in, so that it was with a sense of pardonable pride that the Chamber of Commerce published in its report of 1876: ’The increase of trade to this port is fulfilling that which has been long felt: that Wellington is the natural centre of communication for both islands.

“Thus, large and commodious as the wharf at first seemed to be, it was not long before the Chamber of Commerce, as the mouthpiece of the local merchants, realised that there must be further and immediate extensions. _ Its committee was, therefore, again giving 'anxious consideration to the best means of supplying the Efficiency.’ To this end the representatives of the chamber had frequent interviews with the members of tne Council. This reference to the City Council implies that im P orta " t Bt c B l ' a ' l F® had taken place which deeply affected the administration of the harbour. In. 18ba we discover signs that the Provincial Council was desirous of shedding its responsibility in connection with the management of the wharf. The M half Com mittee of the Provincial Council, of which Mr. W. B. Rhodes was chairman, reported in that year that it was advisable that power should be taken to lease the wharf, but it was not until June 28, 1871, that anything was done by the council to ease what had become rather an irksome burden. The fact was the management of a wharf was not the most pleasant thing in the world. There were dissatisfied merchants and disgruntled captains to face. “The Provincial , Council, m ibii, though still retaining control of the harbour generally, sold its interest in the wharf to the City Council for £31,000, an additional £25,000 being paid for reclaimed land taken over with the whart. The City Council took over its management in 1876. appointing a special committee of management, of which the Mayor was chairman, at an honorarium of £lOO a year; members, not to be behind the Mayor, voted themselves £lO each for their services.

“The minute book of this committee affords some interesting sidelights upon the daily work and life on the wharf at that time, illustrating the little problems the committee had to face.at every meeting. The wharfinger was according to two stevedores, in the habit of using ‘undue influence’ to secure advantages over them for another stevedore. A lady had in some way come athwart the committee, and the members were for a time in doubt whether she would ‘pay up in obedience to the decision of the Resident Magistrate,’ or go to gaol Fortunately for everyone, discretion became the better part of valour, and the lady duly paid up. The request of certain merchants for further concessions was ‘entirely unreasonable.’ Defalcations by a waterman who had received certain moneys from the captain of the schooner Cynthia, and was ‘unable to remember’ how they had not been accounted for, had to be investigated. The same waterman was equally unable to remembqr how the pages of certain account books had disappeared, and so he was suspended pending further inquiry. His ultimate fate is not clear, but it can be easily imagined. Applications for reductions in charges for ballast had to be refused, but more favourable consideration was given to reductions on grain, flour and potatoes “The water police first appear upon the scene when it was resolved to have a constable on the wharf to act under the orders of the wharfinger. The nightwatchman also was to be sworn in as a special constable. The practice of smoking in the sheds had become common, and had to be rigorously suppressed. Despite these petty troubles, and occasional skirmishes with the Chamber of Commerce, each month showed the committee a profit, and in 1877 they had £10,060 to place at interest, while accounts unpaid and overdue were less than £5, considered satisfactory.

“After much 'jealousy on the part of the City Council, the Wellington Harbour Board Bill was passed in December, 1879, and the board came into being. This Act constituted the board as from January 1, j.BBO. It provided for a body of ten members, three of whom were appointed by the Governor, one elected by the Chamber of Commerce, the Mayor of Wellington, ex officio, two elected by the ratepayers of Wellington, one by the Hutt County Council, one by the County Councils of Wairarapa, and one by the shipping and mercantile interests. Power was given to the board to acquire wharves, etc., arid authority was conferred to borrow up to £100.060 for the purchase of existing harbour works, or the construction of new ones. “The wisdom of entrusting the management of a harbour such as Wellington to a snecihlised board having no interest to serve except the interest of the port, has been abundantly proved by the results of the past fifty years. As one looks back at the old disorganisation when every merchant built his own wharf, aud was more or less a law unto himself; when one remembers the small unstable boats and the awkward appliances used, and compares these with the ordered scheme of to-day, the transformation is surely as gratifying as it is surprising. Thirtytwo miles of water frontage was a great inheritance, but right worthily has the trust been administered by the succcs-

give boards in whose control it has been during the past half-century. “Much that has been done is, of course, a reflex of the growth of the province, and even of the Dominion itself, but tew ports have more harmoniously kept step with the march of events than has the port of Wellington. Statistics are not always illuminating things, but sometimes they ‘hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to growth and development, and this is particularly so in the case of M ellrngton. Amazing Progress. “The earliest local comparative statistics of shipping tonnages possessed by the Harbour Board go back to 1882, two years after its inauguration. 1’ or that year the net registered tonnage of ships entering the port was not more than 344,814 tons. These figures are, howeyeu, as the acorn is to the oak, compared with those of most recent compilation. From the returns so far made up, the tonnage of shipping arrivals for this year has increased over last year by more than 100,000 tons, the total being 3,644,487 net tons, which is a record for the port. This tonnage, which does not include that of warships, lighters, fishing vessels, or non-trading craft, is nevertheless over 1,000,000 tons in advance of any other port in New Zealand. . “It has been this ever-increasing trade, these ever-changing conditions which have taxed the ingenuity, the foresight, and the resources of the successive Wellington Harbour Boards during the past fifty years. Beginning with two slender wharves, there has never been a year when improvements were not called for, and a willing response made. Old wharves have been repaired, renewed, and n some cases entirely replaced. New wharves have been built, and as pier has been added to pier, the berthage accommodation has spread at intervals from Kaiwbarawhara to Evans Bay, or an uninterrupted lay-out of 2J miles in Lambton harbour alojie. ■ The systematic coordination of pier and breastwork which has produced this harmonious result must, in a large measure, be. attributed to the designing and organising genius of Mr. William Ferguson, who as the board’s engineer, was for twenty-four years laying down a foundation of progressive ideas, upon which his successor, Mr. James Marchbanks, has, with unremitting regard to the future, continued to build in the same progressive spirit. “In the construction of these later .wharves decay has been arrested, and the devastations of marine life checked by the substitution of reinforced concrete for timber. Spacious sheds have superseded smaller ones; noisy steam winches have been supplanted by hydraulic cranes, working as silently as a watch, and above them all towers the 80-ton floating crane —the Hercules of the harbour. As a means of shifting merchandise the use ot the old hand truck is dwindling before mechanical tractors and trailers; goods are stacked in the stores by electric cranes; wool is “dumped” by a crushing pressure before it is sent to the spinning mills of the world; labour is organised, and above all, confusion and conflict ot interests in dealing with inward and outward goods are eliminated by the fact that from its inception the board has been its own wharfinger on the wharves, and with its own staff administers justice with even hand to all who use the port. This system of single control of all labour employed in handling cargo from . ship s slings is tijiique in the organisation ot harbour boards in New Zealand, but its justification is the cheapness, efficiency, dispatch, and general satisfaction it gives.” ____________

A public meeting under the auspices of the'Labour Defence League will be held at the Gaiety Hall, Abel Smith Street, at 8 'p.m. to-morrow. The purpose of the meeting will be to consider ways and means of effectively protesting against the New Zealand Government’s policy in Samoa and the recent sentences inflicted on the three Communists convicted of having in their possession literature which contravenes the War Regulation Act.