The Harbour Was a Dream Then

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVII, Issue 21529, 16 December 1939, Page 35 (Supplement)

The Harbour Was a Dream Then

FIRST LANDING SERVICE

NOTABLE FAMILY RECORD

THE name of LeCren has been familiar to Timaru and the citizens of South Canterbury from the earliest history ol the province. The driver into South Canterbury chronicles will find members of the family occupying prominent positions in connection with early shipping activities, long before 1 imaru by any stretch ol the term could be described as a “port. ’ Mr F. LeCren was the proprietor of the first landing service, the enterprise being a private one, and in no way associated with civic or public control. That was many years before plans for the construction of a harbour received any serious consideration, although it must be admitted that the centre was still of miniature dimensions when the settlers began to concentrate their attention on this ambitious project. But necessarily many years were to pass before the dream was to emerge from the nebulous stage. During the intervening years the family has been prominent in many spheres. The transformation from these faraway times has been great, but in every phase of the changes which have marked the period, the family played a useful and practical part. The evolution from the period of the original landing service and the Deal boatmen, to the Harbour of 1939, from the period when sailing ships anchored several miles out in the open ocean, and transferred their passengers and goods to shore by means of frail oar-propelled boats, to the present modern conditions serves to emphasise the rapid changes which have marked ihodern times. From the early days of shipping to the present the scene has been a kaleidoscopic one, and to these changes the members of the LeCren family have been witnesses. In these times the activity of all save a few is limited, in the* main to one occupation. The men of the early days were of many occupations; their interests and activities were manifold; not a few held several offices, representing widely diversified interests—business men. s hipping officials, members of civic bodies. All these interests required much more bodily energy than is the case to-day because of the progress which has been made in connection with locomotion and means of communication. Mr H. J. LeCren was one of the earliest colonists in New Zealand. In pre-settlement days he opened a business in Lyttelton as a ship’s chandler, and whilst living at Lyttelton was the official agent for the “first four ships,’’ whose passengers laid the foundation of the province in December, 1850. Later he extended his business to Timaru, where he set up a branch of the northern business, which as the years passed was extended in various directions. The local manager was Mr Fred LeCren, a brother of the northern owner, who at once threw himself into the work of carving out a career in the new province, and it was he who controlled the private landing service to which reference has been made. That firm was established in 1857, in which year Mr H. J. LeCren began the building of Beverley House in Wai-iti Road, the principal materials in the construction of which were cob and plaster. That the workmanship was of a high order is proved by the fact that the house still stands largely as it was erected, its condition being first class, showing virtually no evidence of the work of “decay’s effacing fingers. ’ In the absence of local supplies of dressed timber Mr LeCren found himself under the necessity of importing all the material of this class from Australia. the timber being uniformly of a high class as shown by the fact that it has so well withstood the ravages of time. During the interval, of course, there have been changes, but the house is still largely as it was first constructed, and is a monument to the solidity of the craftsmanship of that day. In 1866 Mr LeCren began the erection of a home in Selwyn Street on the land now held by Mr George Benstead. This house was long known as Elmsdale, and here Mr LeCren lived during the whole of his long residence in Timaru. In an interview with Mr F. J. LeCren. a younger representative of the family, who resides at Beverley, which was erected by his uncle, he said that in his earliest recollections the area now occupied by the Borough of Timaru was largely under tussocks. The area around Wai-iti Road was devoted almost exclusively to the depasturing of sheep and cattle; the whole was intersected by almost innumerable gullies, often difficult of negotiation. There was an entire absence of anything that could be descirbed as roads; pedestrians and vehicles—and there were not a great many of the latter in these days —made their way to their destinations overland, seeking the best paths they could find, and steering us clear as possible from the danger points, which were many, because bogs and gullies were the order of the day. Mr LeCren said he had a vivid recollection of the laying of the first sod in connection with the Main South Line. The ceremony took place in the vicinity of LeCren’s terrace, the chief actor being Captain Beswick, who appeared in the accepted habiliments of the age, a white top-hat being a conspicuous part of the get-up. Needless to say. the occasion was a red-letter day in the history of Timaru, and already the settlers had begun to visualise the time when the district would be connected with Christchurch and Dunedin by rail. In the middle seventies Mr LeCren was present when the first block of concrete was laid into connection with the harbour improvements, rightly regarded as another milepost in the history of the province. He was a witness of many of the wrecks for which Timaru in the early days gained an unenviable repufrxtioaJ the last

double catastrophe at Benvenue Cliffs, which closed a regrettable chapter in the history of Timaru. Mr LeCren. speaking of the wrecks, recalled the fact that in all the shipping casualties in and around Timaru, there was but one woman victim. Mr LeCren mentioned that in the early days the northern boundary of the town was North Street, hence the name, but gradually the town crept northward. Houses further north were few and far between; the area now known as Waimataitai was then voted to the depasturing of stock. The greater part of the present borough was in the possession of Messrs Rhodes Brothers, whose woolshed and sheep yards were located south of George Street. Mr LeCren retains clear recollections of the earliest schools in Timaru. The first headmaster of what has since developed into the Main School was a Frenchman, the location of the school being in the vicinity of the present Timaru Hotel. Mr LeCren recalled the great fire which swept Stafford Street from the Empire Hotel corner to the Bank of New Zealand, a change of wind carrying the flames across the street and destroying much property on the seaward side. At the time the fire was regarded as a disaster, but in the end it proved a blessing in disguise, since it resulted in the main street being greatly improved as a result of the erection o-f buildings of better type.