FIRST BUS SERVICE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20767, 9 January 1931, Page 13

FIRST BUS SERVICE.

HOWICK'S DISTINCTION. - relic of earlier days. OPENING OF NEW HIGHWAY. MINISTER TO BE PRESENT. Ylowick, which is now. linked to the city.by a modern concrete road to cyrry fast motor traffic, has the distinction of introducing, 23 years ago, what is believed to havo been the first motor-bus service in New Zealand. There are many residents of the district who remember riding in what was! then a most unusual form of transport and who can recall the feeling they experienced, akin to seasickness, long before they reached the city—a feeling engendered partly by petrol and oil fumes and partly by the rocking of the motor-bus on the bad roads. The bus service of 1908 was started by a. private company of Howick residents, but unfortunately for the promoters rough roads proved the death knell of the enterprise.: Horse-drawn coaches, which were engaged in competition with the motor-bus, soon put the unwieldy engines out of commission and the horse remained in possession of the road until about 1914, when' motor transport was again introduced, this time by the proprietors and former advocates of the horse-drawn coaches.

An old photograph of the first motorbus shows <i lady at tlie wheel. She was not the driver of the vehicle, but the wife of the principal promoter of the then novel service. Mrs. H. K. Gilmour is now in her 84th year, a resident of the district, and is still able to take a rim into town by the present motor-bus aervice.

The ceremony of officially opening the new concrete road from Panmure to Howick will be held on January 24, when the Minister of Public Works, Hon. W. B. Taverner, will declare the road open.

The wholo of this three and threequarter mile highway, except the short aertion through Panmure, is now completed and was available for traffic for the first time on Wednesday. Work was commenced on the road in April of last year, and the cost has been approximately £46,000. It has not been decided what form the opening ceremony will take, but a public holiday will be observed in the Howick district on the opening day.

When the first bus ran from Howick to the city it crossed "the Tamaki River by the old swing bridge, since replaced by the present concrete structure. Before that time transport to the city was chiefly made by water and the wharf, now given over to anglers and bathers, is a relic of those earliet days. The Minerva and Turanga were the principal boats in the Howick service, but. they were taken off when (lie successful competition of motor traffic began. The public hall, which figures in the old photograph, now occupies a more prominent site, having, been removed to tli-- centre of thq township eight years ,ui I enlarged and renovated to meet lie npi»ls of (lit growing district. In spile of the growth of the district there a sertt iment.il desire on the part

of tnaiiv |>et>|>in to see tlie township ic innin "Ilie/ village of Howick. ' 11. >s s»ill olien referred to ;ifi* h sleepy liolJi»w and a peaceful paradise possessing

swilimg charms, and its new modern btiiHings and bowser pump have been dubbed "excrescences" by a well-known New Zealand novelist, resident in the dis trict

Archbishop Averill, too speaking at. /the EOtli anniversary celebrations of AU Saints' Church a few years ago, said that whatever its future the place would always remain to him "the village of Howick. 1 '

There is now a movement to enlarge the boundary of the district to include the Cockle/Bay area under the control of the Manukau County Council. At present only a small portion of the estate is within the Kowick township district..