OUR POPULATION

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 144, 19 June 1936, Page 10

OUR POPULATION

GROWTH OF FIFTY YEARS

WELLINGTON IN 1886

HARBOUR DEVELOPMENT

(By F.W.W.) It so happens that a Census was taken early in 1886, the year from which these articles take up the story of "Wellington's past, and this fact enables an accurate comparison to be | made with the present population statistics. The salient fact disclosed by the returns in regard to the city is that in March, 1886, it numbered 25,945 inhabitants, actually less than the population shown by this year's | Census for Lower Hutt and Petone taken together. Those two boroughs are proved by the 1936 enumeration | to comprise 23,888 people, or 943 more] than the city could boast fifty yenrs ago. Wellington's total now is 115,653. At that time Petone and Hutt did not exist as boroughs—they were merely big villages. Their figures were included in the total for the county of Hutt, the people of which numbered only 10,077, or less than Petone's count of today, which is 10,935. Nor were there any of the other boroughs that once surrounded Wellington, such as Onslow (behind Kaiwarra), Karori, ! Melrose (at the back of Newtown). and Miramar, on the peninsula so named. All these were formed later, and have long since been absorbed into Wellington. As to Eastbourne, its area was then practically uninhabited. A caretaker's hut in Day's Bay, and one house between there and Pencarrow Head, were about its only buildings.

DEVELOPMENT OF MANAWATU. Another interesting fact that emerged from the 1886 Census demonstrated the universal circulation of the "Evening Post." The official figures showed that Wellington city comprised 4536 buildings of all kinds, residential, business, and industrial.' The daily issue of "The Post" for the previous twelve months had averaged 7125. So it. was a matter of pride to those of us who were concerned in its production to find that if it were allowed that a copy of the paper went into every building in the city, there were still about 2600 left for distribution in the Wairarapa and Manawatu districts. That would mean principally the Wairarapa and the Hutt Valley, for the Wellington-Manawatu railway was not then open to its full length. It was still in course of construction, and not running far, if at all, beyond Levin. The railway was completed about the middle of 1886, and began running to Longburn, where it connected with the Palmerston-Foxton branch,, about November. Further, the sites of the present towns and townships of Plimmerton, Paekakariki, Waikanae, Paraparaumu, Otaki, Manakau, Levin, and Shannon were practically standing bush forming part of the Railway Company's endowment for the construction of the line. The farms that now surround them were not settled until the sales of the endowment lands took place, and that bush came to be felled.

COMMENCEMENT OF HARBOUR WORKS. The splendid harbour equipment of today was only just beginning m 1880. True, the comprehensive wharfage and dredging scheme propounded to the Harbour Board—which in itself had come into existence only six years earlier—by that far-seeing engineer, William Ferguson? had been adopted, and a start had been made with its execution, as yet only in a small way. Be it noted, by the way, that there still remains an important part of Mr. Ferguson's proposals to be carried into effect. There are yet to be constructed two more wharves at Thorndon outside the present series, one to be called Lambton Wharf, and the other Thorndon Wharf, the latter in extension of the present long Aotea Quay, which faces the Thorndon railway reclamation; not to mention three new wharves still to be built between those now existing at Taranaki Street and Clyde Quay Wharf. The accommodation for vessels consisted of the Queen's Wharf, the present Ferry Wharf, and the Railway Wharf. The numerous small jetties which had projected in earlier years from Lambton Quay and the Te Aro foreshore had long since been obliterated by the successive reclamations. Queen's Wharf had been started by the ! Wellington Provincial Government in I 1862, the first section being of totara I fmber. That section extended no further out than the present middle tee, and the central structure was narrower than today. In 1865 there was an extension, still of timber, but with an ironwork understructure, and still by the Provincial Government, to about the middle of the width of the present outer tee, but with a berthage length of only about 300 feet. Later enlargements consisted chiefly of piecemeal additions to the two outer tees, until they came to their present berthage lengths in the neighbourhood of 880 feet each. All these structures were of either totara or Australian ironbark, as compared with the reinforced ! concrete wharves built in more recent I years.

HISTORY OF QUEEN'S WIIARF. ! In its earliest years the Queen's [ I Wharf was managed by the Welling- ] ton Provincial Council. In 1871, however, it was acquired by the City Coun- . cil, which for many years leaned it to : 'such business people as Mr. William : iTonks Messrs. Jackson and Graham, and then to Mr. W. V. Jackson personally from whose hands it returned to corporation control. So it remained until February. 1880, when the Wellington Harbour Board was constituted. That body took over the wharf, and also the Railway Wharf and the adjacent breastwork at Waterloo Quay, both theretofore managed by the Railway Department. In October, 1881, las a result of negotiations with the corporation, the board acquired the Queen's Wharf and the bonded warehouse, a large galvanised iron building which stood on the south side of the, ! entrance to the wharf, at. the corner of 1 Waterloo Quay and Grey Street, oh the sitp now occupied by the warehouse of T. and W. Young. For a Wng course of years the bond was in charge of I Mr. H. J. Pilcher, a very old identity of Wellington, and the progenitor of a number of families still living in our midst. THE OLD BOAT HARBOUR. A conspicuous feature of the waterfront at this period, and for long afterwards, was the triangular boat harbour opposite the General Post Office building. It started from the west ■nde of the wharf—which formed the, base of the triangls—about the site of i the present tramway parcels office, and j ihe apex was opposite Brandon Street.! 1 When the first western tee, now forming the front of the foreshore, was ex- { tended to join Waterloo Quay, the sides of the triangle were hung with davits, from which were susosndsd I watermen's boats, and the boatshed of J Jack Thompson, one of the best-known of these harbour-farers —who still lives in the city—lay along the side of tho main wharf. Other fine old fellows I among them were Henry Chalker and t 'Henry Archer, and the whole corps| ' was numerous. The watermen of Port I Nicholson were at this stage an important body, for upon them shore-folk J were dependent for the means of ac-