Settlement of Wellington

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 226, 20 June 1936, Page 19

Settlement of Wellington

The colonists who had first choice of sections for the Wellington settlement had ideas about the future site of the town which would appear strange to us to-day- We are used to thinking of Lambton Quay, with the busy wharves beyond, as the natural centre of the city, but at the ballot taken in England in 1839, the first two acres chosen were those extending along Taranaki Street from the foreshore to Manners Street. On a plan made in .England, and dated August 14, 1840, the public wharf is shown opposite these sections. The third choice was in Manners and Willis Streets, down to Old Customhouse Street. Sections in Lambton Quay were well down the list, some of those with wide frontages only just being in the first 50. Stewart Dawson's corner was the SSth choice. It is said that ladies in their crinolines sometimes found passage round this headland quite impossible against the gales. This is how Mr. John Plimmer, senior, travelled along what is now our fashionable shopping area in the early ’forties: “'J’lie first time I came up the beach I overtook a poor woman carrying a bed. There was a heavy wash on the beach which prevented her passage with her load, so I carried her bed on my back through the water, she following in the best way she could; but we both got very wet.”— D.W. (Christchurch).