FIRST RECLAMATIONS

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 74, 20 December 1939, Page 9

FIRST RECLAMATIONS

The Building Of Wellington A PIONEER’S FORESIGHT Describing the building of Wellington on a recent occasion, the city engineer, .Mr. K. E. Luke, said that niueh of the progress and commercial importance of Wellington arose from the big acreage of reclaimed lands on the foreshore of Lambton Harbour. He mentioned that the first reclamation consisted of one acre only—the little patch of fillcd-in foreshore on Lambton Quay, opposite Kelburu Avenue, on which the first Oddfellows’ Hall was built, at. the corner of Grey Street and the quay. If that was the first, the second effort was one made by the late Sir. John I’limmer when he. reclaimed an area around his "Noah's Ark,” the bt’aelied ship Inconstant, on the present site of the headquarters of the Bank of New Zealand, on the corner of Lambton Quay and Customhouse Quay. The spoil for I his piece of early Wellington was dugout from the hill behind Stewart Dawsou's promises, carried across the road in wheelbarrows and spilled among the rocks that formed Windy Point.

How keen was Air. Pliinmer’s foresight as t 0 the value of reclamation in Wellington is revealed in bis writings. Commenting on the fact that he had obtained from the Governor, Sir George Grey, permission to place the Inconstant on the beach, he wrote: ‘•There is one thing connected with this the citizens should never forget, something 'that led me to consider the benefit to Wellington if the low-lying shores of the bay were reclaimed. So, without saying anything to anyone, I hired two boats and obtained the services of two men, who measured the depth of the water forme from Robertson’s Foundry (in Old Customhouse Street, now Bond Street), to Pipitea Point. I sent my calculations to Sir George Grey, showing the incalculable benefit the reclamation would be both to commerce and shipping, and the large profit the Government would gain by it. "Sir George sent Colonel Collinson to me after approval, to ask me if I would commence the reclamation on which the great commercial bouses of the city now stand. The citizens owe this great addition to the city to the ready compliance of Sir George Grey, which alone ought to make bis name revered by them for all time.” An Error Acknowledged. "An anecdote, showing the gentleman be was, arose out of a debate in Parliament on the reclaimed land, in which Sir George inadvertently said he was the originator of the idea,” wrote Air. Plimmer in the book on bis life, edited by the late Air. John Young (formerly headmaster of the Terrace School. "The next morning I wrote a letter to the paper questioning this statement, and claiming my just right as the originator of the work, and because of my action many people went as far as to say that • Sir George would never speak to me j again. But the next day I met him in ; the street, and he came to me bolding out both his hands, and thanked me for correcting him, saying, ‘Air. Pliminer, you are right and I am wrong.’ I was much pleased and shall never forget the act of the good old man whom it. has pleased God to take to Himself. Such actions as this give proof of the real Christian gentleman. Another act of his consideration toward me was that time when lie went to the Cape as Governor. From there he sent me some acorns, from one of which the beautiful oak on my premises was grown. I could, if space permitted, say much more in praise of Sir George Grey.”