Address: 9 Regent Road
Built: 1863 and 1874
Architect: Additions by David Ross (1828-1908)
Builders: Not known
Demolished circa 1966

We’re lucky to have so many historic buildings in Dunedin but a lot have been lost to demolition, including this one. I’m as interested in the lost buildings as much as the surviving ones, and although they’re gone they can be appreciated on some levels through photographs and other records.

The original building at the corner of Regent Road and Queen Street was one of a few rental houses built for Robert Murray, who lived nearby.  When new in 1863 it was described as a large, elegant, and substantial stone and brick residence. Known as Eden Bank House, it was the home of a Polish prince (!), Konstantine Drucki-Lubecki, who had left his country after taking part in the failed revolution of 1831. Lubecki’s English wife Laura (known as Madame Lubecki) ran a ladies’ school for boarders and day pupils at Eden Bank from 1863 to 1864. The name chosen for the house might have been a straightforward biblical reference, but it might also have been taken from the ship Eden, which took the Lubeckis from Europe to Australia in 1838. ‘Bank’ presumably referred to the steep incline at the front of the property.

The Lubeckis’ residency was brief and the house next appears to have been rented by Miss I.M. Cary who also ran it as a ladies’ school, using the name Ellerslie House, from 1864 to 1865.

Maurice Joel, one of Dunedin’s most successful brewers and a prominent member of the Jewish community, purchased the house in 1867. It became known as Eden Bank again, and remained the Joel family home for nearly four decades.  In 1874 Joel commissioned David Ross to design major brick additions, including verandahs. In the previous eleven years Ross had also designed a shop, various brewery buildings, and a hotel (the Captain Cook) for Joel. The elaborate frontage shown here appears to be Ross’s design.

Maurice Joel

With its alterations and additions Eden Bank was in the Italian renaissance style and drew from Venetian models, with a striking central bay and pediment and other elaborate facade decoration. The loggia was particularly unusual for Dunedin, although this feature was seen more often in Melbourne. The verandahs were a colonial touch, with the overall treatment similar to that of the old Dilworth homestead at Remuera, Auckland (also demolished). They featured the row-of-circles motif that Ross used on many of his buildings.

The Joel children were artistically gifted. Grace Joel is celebrated as one of New Zealand’s best early painters and she painted and taught at her studio in Eden Bank in the 1890s. Her sisters, Blanche and Lily, both became professional music teachers and were accomplished piano and voice performers respectively.

Joel leased Eden Bank to the government in 1905, when it became St Helens Maternity Hospital. The government later purchased the property. It was the second of seven hospitals in Prime Minister Richard Seddon’s maternity hospital scheme, which aimed to provide modern maternity services at low cost to women of the ‘citizen class’.  The hospitals were named after St Helens in Lancashire, the birthplace of Seddon. Dr Emily Siedeberg-Mckinnon, New Zealand’s first woman medical graduate, was superintendent for 33 years. Alice Holford, who supervised most deliveries and oversaw training of midwives, medical students, and nurses, was matron for 24 years. The hospital was a great success but eventually more modern facilities were needed and it closed in 1938 following the completion of the new Queen Mary Maternity Hospital in Cumberland Street. By that time 5,500 babies had been born at St Helens (some in a cottage adjoining  the house) and 200 midwives had been trained there.

The house in 1905, seen from the corner of Queen Street, showing the extent of David Ross’s additions (on the right)

St Helens Hospital then became St Helens Hostel, a hall of residence for Home Science students at the University of Otago. It closed following the completion of the new Studholme Hall buildings in 1961. It was used for little more than storage until 1962, when the government put it on the market. It had not been drastically altered over the years, although Ross’s verandahs had been replaced with balconies (one on the north side was glazed in). At the time of the sale the building was described as being in excellent condition, with only minor renovations required to restore it to its condition of the 1870s. Unfortunately it was not saved. I found entries for St Helens Lodge in the Dunedin telephone directory up to 1966, and it was presumably around this date that it was demolished. The large block of flats now on the site dates from the late 1970s.

Historic images: View of the front of the house c.1905, Hocken Collections S12-549c (University of Otago Medical Library: Historical Collection). View from Queen Street corner, Hocken Collections S12-614a (Otago Witness, 2 August 1905 p.44). Advertisement from Otago Daily Times, 6 July 1863 p.3 (National Library of New Zealand http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz). Portrait of Maurice Joel from Cyclopedia of New Zealand, vol. iv, Otago and Southland Provincial Districts (Christchurch: Cyclopedia Company, 1905), p.291.

Newspaper references: Otago Daily Times, 7 March 1863 p.3 (joinery work), 12 June 1863 p.3 (‘to let’ notice),  6 July 1863 p.3 (Madame Lubecki’s advertisement), 12 March 1864 p.2 (Madame Lubecki’s advertisement), 25 May 1864 p.1 (Miss Cary’s advertisement), 10 December 1866 p.3 (sale of property), 16 October 1874 p.3 (call for tenders by Ross), 2 February 1897 p.1 (Grace Joel’s advertisement), 24 January 1938 p.4 (St Helens Hospital closing ceremony); 22 May 1962 p.5 (sale by government); Otago Witness, 2 August 1905 p.33 (purchase by government).

Other references: Siedeberg-McKinnon, Emily, ‘My own history of nursing in Otago and the work at St Helens up to its closing day’ (typescript, Hocken Collections MS-1621/027).

Born: Dublin, Ireland, c.1821
Died: Dunedin, 23 September 1906

521 George Street (Wilson residence)

J.L. Shaw has something of a one-hit-wonder status in Dunedin, where he is almost only known as the architect of the much admired house at 521 George Street. He is better known in Victoria, Australia, for his earlier work there, but his New Zealand career deserves more exploration and recognition than it’s had.

Joseph Lowe Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1820 or 1821, the son of Mary Ann Shaw, née Lowe, and John Shaw, who was a doctor. His two older brothers, William and Forster Shaw, were also doctors, and they migrated to Victoria in the 1840s. I haven’t found details of  Joseph’s education or early career in Ireland but he was about 30 years old when he arrived in Melbourne aboard the Asia in 1850. He settled at Geelong, where for two years he worked in partnership with H.M. Garrard as a surveyor, engineer, and architect. The two men were responsible for many early survey maps.

In 1851 Shaw married Euphemia Jane Clibborn. She died in 1860 and the following year Shaw married Juliet Georgiana Wherland. The couple had a son, Francis.

From 1856 to 1857 Shaw worked in partnership with R.A. Dowden in the architectural firm Shaw and Dowden. The pair’s work in Geelong included the Colonial Bank, St Augustine’s Orphanage, and additions to James Simson’s residence Eumeralla. They were also responsible for the Woolbrook homestead at Teesdale. In 1859 Shaw designed Morongo, a grand bluestone homestead, for John Calvert.  For his own brother William he designed Allington, a two-storyed residence in Newtown noted for its striking polychromatic brickwork. Churches by Shaw included St Peter’s Anglican Church at Geelong, and Presbyterian churches at Batesford, Shelford, Inverleigh, and Darlington.

Morongo, Bell Post Hill

Presbyterian Church, Leigh

Allington, Newtown

Shaw came to suffer from a lack of patronage, and from personal problems that were said to have included alcoholism. Perhaps for a fresh start he moved with his family to Dunedin in 1876, where one of his first architectural works was the Supreme Court Hotel, now the Kwangchow Cuisine restaurant, in Stuart Street. He was the architect of the extensive rebuilding of Chingford, then P.C. Neill’s house, in 1877. This house was demolished in 1968 and only the stables, designed by Mason and Wales in 1880, survive.

In 1878 Shaw designed Edward Hulme Hart’s residence in Wardlaw Street, a timber house with distinctive fretted bargeboards, steeply gabled bay, and other features in the style of the Chingford additions. It has been described as ‘Carpenter’s Gothic’. Other houses by Shaw included the house in George Street built for Robert Wilson, which has distinctive balconies that have more in common with Australian than New Zealand models (although interestingly  a house at 111 Highgate is in a similar style). Shaw also designed a homestead for J.M. Ritchie at Cannington Station, and Robert Chapman’s large wooden house in Maori Hill.

Chingford, North East Valley (with kind permission of macadee on flickr). All that’s seen here except the portion at the right rear of the picture were Shaw’s additions.

Hart residence, Musselburgh

Shaw was the architect of buildings for Donaghy’s rope and twine factory in South Dunedin, including the original rope walk of 1878. He also designed the National Hotel in Great King Street and the National Bank at Tapanui. He was architect to the Benevolent Institution, for which his designs included the Old Men’s Home, Secretary’s residence, and additions. Juliet Shaw was treasurer to the committee of the Female Refuge, and in 1888 a new refuge in Forth Street was completed to Shaw’s design.

An Anglican, Shaw had been a trustee of St Paul’s Church in Geelong, and served in the Diocesan Synod in Dunedin. His works associated with the Church included schoolhouses for St John’s and St Matthew’s churches and the supervision of the removal of the old St Peter’s church building at Caversham and its re-erection as St Mary’s, Mornington, in 1883.

Shaw served as Chairman of the Maori Hill Licensing Committee, and as a Maori Hill Borough councillor. His later works included the wooden council chambers built in 1894.

Joseph Lowe Shaw died at his home, Como, in Drivers Road, Maori Hill, on 23 September 1906, at the age of 85. He was survived by his wife and his son. Shaw’s remains are buried at the Northern Cemetery along with those of Juliet Shaw, who died in 1920.

Some buildings designed by J.L. Shaw:

• 1854-1855. St Peter’s Anglican Church, Chilwell
• 1855. Forster Shaw’s residence (later Clonard College), Geelong
• c.1855. Residence (Darriwill), Sutherland’s Creek (attributed)
• 1856, 1858. Additions to Eumeralla, Newtown (Dowden & Ross)
• 1857. Colonial Bank, Geelong (Dowden & Ross)
• 1857. St Augustine’s Orphanage, Geelong (Dowden & Ross)
• 1857. Catholic Church, Steiglitz (Dowden & Ross)
• 1857. Woolbrook homestead, Teesdale
• 1858. Derry Hall, Curlewis
• 1859. Presbyterian Church, Shelford
• 1859-1860. Morongo, Bell Post Hill
• 1860. Presbyterian Church, Batesford
• 1861. Presbyterian Church, Inverleigh
• 1862. All Saints’ Anglican Church, Geelong
• 1864. Presbyterian Church, Darlington
• 1866-1867. Additions to Mawallok homestead, Stockyard Hill
• 1872. Allington, Newtown
• 1876. Supreme Court Hotel, Dunedin
• 1877. Additions to Chingford, Dunedin
• 1878. Hart family residence, Musselburgh
• 1878. Donaghy’s ropeworks, Forbury
• 1881. Robert Wilson’s residence, 521 George Street, Dunedin
• 1882. National Hotel, Great King Street, Dunedin
• 1883. St John’s Anglican Church school room, Dunedin
• 1884. Residence and other buildings, Cannington Station
• 1885. St Matthew’s Anglican Church school room, Dunedin
• 1885. Secretary’s residence, Otago Benevolent Institution
• 1885. Old Men’s Home, Otago Benevolent Institution
• 1887. Robert Chapman’s residence (wood), Maori Hill
• 1885. Additions to Otago Benevolent Institution
• 1888. National Bank, Tapanui (wood)
• 1893. Maori Hill Borough Council chambers

Former Supreme Court Hotel, Stuart Street. In recent decades it has sported a funny-looking hat.

The grave stone of Joseph and Juliet Shaw in the Northern Cemetery, Dunedin

Image credits: State Library of Victoria, b51531 (Morongo), pi002931 (Leigh Presbyterian Church), Heritage Victoria B3625 (Allington); Hocken Collections S12-614b (Hart residence), macadee on flickr (Chingford).

Newspaper references: The Colonist (Sydney) 1 Jul 1840 p.2 (Forster Shaw), Geelong Advertiser 14 Jul 1851 p.2 (marriage notice), Argus (Melbourne), 29 Mar 1850 p.3 (arrival on ‘Asia’); Otago Daily Times 31 Mar 1877 p.1 (Supreme Court hotel), 12 Jun 1877 p.4 (Chingford), 17 May 1878 p.3 (Hart residence), 22 Feb 1878 p.3 (Donaghy’s rope walk), 21 Mar 1878 p.3 (Donaghy’s machine house); 25 Mar 1881 p.4 (Wilson residence), 7 Sep 1882 p.3 (National Hotel), 7 Aug 1883 p.4 (St John’s school house), 26 May 1884 p.1 (Cannington Station), 9 February 1885 p.1 (old men’s home), 1 Aug 1885 p.4 (St Matthew’s school house), 4 Sep 1885 p.2 (Benevolent Institution – Secretary’s residence), 13 Dec 1886, 3 (Chapman residence); 23 May 1887 p.3 (Benevolent Institution), 6 Dec 1887 p.3 (National Bank, Tapanui), 23 Feb 1894 p.3 (Maori Hill Borough Council); Otago Witness 26 Sep 1906 p.46 (death).

Other references: Lorraine Huddle, ‘Architects in Geelong in the 1840s and 1850s’ (research report, University of Melbourne, 1979); Lorraine Huddle, ‘Architects of Early Geelong – 4′ in The Investigator vol. 18 no. 1 (1983), Hardwicke Knight, Church Building in Otago (1993) p.54; Victorian death registration for Euphemia Jane Shaw, 1860; Victorian marriage registration for Juliet Georgiana Wherland and Joseph Lowe Shaw, 1861; New Zealand death registration for Joseph Lowe Shaw (1906/7149); New Zealand death registration for Joseph Lowe Shaw (1906/7149); Will and probate file for Juliet Georgiana Shaw (Archives New Zealand DAAC.9005.D249.398/8494); Dunedin City Council Cemeteries Database; Victorian Heritage Database; E-mail, 20 January 2011, from Allan Willingham to David Murray.

Expanded and updated from a piece published in the ‘Stories in Stone’ column in the Otago Daily Times  in 2010.

Built: 1880-1881
Address: 57-65 Moray Place
Architect: T.B. Cameron (c.1837-1894)
Builders: Not known

This terrace draws attention to its history with the date ’1880′ conspicuously displayed below a chimney stack. It was in August 1880 that architect T.B. Cameron called for tenders to build ‘three three-storey residences, in Brick, in Moray place and View street, for Mrs Muir’. The buildings were finished in 1881 and named Moray Terrace. By 1884 that name had been changed to Gladstone House, presumably because Mrs Muir was an admirer of the British (Liberal) Prime Minister, W.E. Gladstone.

Who was Mrs Muir? Amelia Muir (1814-1893) was one of Dunedin’s pioneering business women. She was the daughter of Thomas Allen, land steward (or senior gardener) to William IV and a prominent horticulturalist in South Australia from his arrival there in 1836. It is recorded that Mrs Muir’s godmother was King William’s youngest daughter, Amelia FitzClarence, and Dr Hocken noted that it was ‘said’ that she was the natural daughter of George IV. Although this last claim is very unreliable, it’s interesting to think of it as the subject of local gossip! Mrs Muir arrived in Dunedin in 1861 and soon opened Bedford House, a boarding house on Bell Hill. She was later compensated when the house was removed and the land excavated. She was active in the St Paul’s Guild, the Benevolent Institution, the Servants’ Home, and the Female Refuge. She was also a zealous supporter of Otago Girls’ High School where her daughter was the first dux. Her son was a photographer and the senior partner in the firm Muir & Moodie. Her property included houses further up View Street and some family connection remained over forty years after her death, when ‘Muir Court’ and ‘Allen Court’ were built at the top of the street.

The architect, Thomas Bedford Cameron (c.1837-1894), had worked in the United Kingdom, Ballarat and Auckland before coming to Dunedin in 1878. He is best known in Dunedin for designing Caversham Presbyterian Church and for winning the competition for the design of the town hall (though R.A. Lawson’s design was eventually used). He also designed a building similar in style to Moray Terrace at 83 Moray Place, which was replaced by the Stuart (now Kirkland) Chambers in 1947. Just a few years younger than Lawson, Cameron was a very accomplished architect to whom I’ll return in the next month.

Moray Terrace is an elegant, pretty, and well-preserved example of Cameron’s work, and another Dunedin example of the revival of the renaissance Italian palazzo. It’s unusual for a terrace – do any others in New Zealand have three-storey street fronts? The many interesting details include pilasters (some with Corinthian capitals and others with rosettes) that distinguish the separate houses. Lost detailing at the ground foor obscures that distinction to some degree, and ball finials above the parapet are also missing. Remarkably, the chimney stacks have  survived more or less unaltered and the one facing View Street remains a focal point of the overall design. Few original features survive inside, at least in the apartments recently advertised for sale. In recent decades the exterior has had a variety of colour schemes: one predominantly blue, another brown, and now one in the ubiquitous fashionable grey.

Moray Terrace has had many interesting occupants. Braemar House girls’ school, run by Jessie Dick, was briefly housed here (before moving further up the street) and the pupils of this ‘Ladies’ Seminary’ included a young Frances Hodgkins. From the mid 1880s Caroline Wells ran a higher-class boarding house in the terrace. Residents in early years included a sharebroker, an artist, a gaol warder, a tobacconist, an  engineer, and a bank clerk. In 1885 a con artist in the building posed as a theatrical agent and persuaded many to part with their money with the promise of getting them work on the stage in Australia. By the time his scheme was rumbled he had disappeared.

Shops were put in the ground floor at some point, their fronts projecting from the facade. The building was home to the Gladstone Milk Bar from about 1952 to 1965. In the 1980s a ghostly apparition, dressed in 1950s denim jeans and jacket, was rumoured to haunt the buildings.

Gladstone House was extensively renovated in 1987 when it became known as Shand House. In recent years the original name, Moray Terrace, has been reinstated.

Newspaper references: Otago Daily Times 31 August 1880 p.4 (call for tenders), 13 April 1881 p.2 (accident to contractor); 18 July 1881 p.1 (to let notice – Moray Terrace), 20 January 1882 p.1 (Braemar House advertisement), 1 October 1884 p.1 (to let notice – Gladstone House), 17 June 1885 p.3 (‘An Ingenious Swindle’), 28 November 1893 p.6 (Mrs Muir’s obituary), 16 December 1893 p.5 (corrections to obituary), 13 July 1985 p.29 (Lois Galer’s history).

Other references: Stone’s and Wise’s directories; F&J 11/27 (Hocken Collections); Jones, David and Ian Westergaard. ‘Whither the First ‘Botanical Garden’ for Adelaide: The Role and Contribution of Thomas Allen’ in Past Matters: Heritage, History and the Built Environment (Palmerston North: Massey University, 2006).

Built: 1881-1882
Address: 311 Leith Street
Architect: T.B. Cameron (c.1837-1894)
Builder: Norman Wood (c.1840-1907)
Demolished 1965-1966

This house stood for over eighty years near the corner of Leith and Union streets, on part of the site now occupied by University College.  Another design by T.B. Cameron, it was built for Captain Angus Cameron (probably no relation), Chief Marine Superintendent of the Union Steam Ship Company.

Captain Cameron (1829-1909) had a long career at sea and as a ship owner. He had commissioned the construction of Otago, a vessel which later came under the command of the writer Joseph Conrad, and also the Wakatipu, a ship for the trans-Tasman route which he commanded for two years before taking his post with Union Company, then the largest shipping company in the Southern Hemisphere. In later decades he spent much time in Scotland overseeing the construction of new ships for the company. The largest of these was the 5,000-tonne Maheno (1905), one of the world’s first triple-screw liners.

Captain Cameron’s first wife died in 1865 and he married his second, Annie, on 24 April 1882. He was 53 (although his age was recorded as 45 on the marriage certificate) and she was 25. The house in Leith Street was completed around the time of their marriage, with papers now held in the Hocken Collections showing that they were busy furnishing it in May, with such things as a mahogany dining suite, a marble washstand, Brussels carpets, and crimson draperies. The builder of the house was Norman Wood, Mayor of West Harbour, and the build price (in the contract dated 23 August 1881) was £1,323. The house was named Appin after Captain Cameron’s birthplace.

Appin was an Italianate villa of rendered brick built to a fairly conventional double bay pattern but with quite elaborate decoration. The pairs of spindly pilasters flanking the windows  were used by the architect in some of his other designs, as were the bracketed chimney caps. Also notable are the quoining, the balustrades above the bays, and the delightfully florid bargeboards. The Palladian (or Serlian) window above the front door was a distinctive touch that doesn’t appear on the surviving drawing of the front elevation.

Some grand functions took place at Appin and on one occasion in 1908 both Martinelli’s Band (the leading dance and social event ensemble of the time) and a fortune teller were installed on the lawn.

Captain Cameron died in 1909 and Mrs Cameron remained in the house until her death on 25 February 1949 at the age of 92. Her son Percy then leased (and later sold) the house to the University of Otago. For two years it was the home of Noel Odell, the new Professor of Geology, who had become famous as a member of Mallory’s ill-fated expedition to Everest in 1924. Odell and his wife didn’t much like Appin, or Varsity House as it was renamed, as it had become rather run-down. From 1952 it housed the Department of English and was known as Cameron House. The Bibliography Room Press (now Otakou Press) was established in an old wash-house at the rear of the house in 1961.

The English Department moved to the new Arts Block in 1965 and Cameron House was demolished between December 1965 and January 1966 to make way for the new University College buildings.

Image credits: Cameron family papers, Hocken Collections, MS-1046/452 (S12-614). Muir & Moodie photographers.

Newspaper references: Otago Daily Times, 13 August 1881 p.4 (call for tenders); Otago Witness, 18 November 1908 p.72 (‘At Home’)

Other references: Cameron family papers, Hocken Collections, MS-1046/015 (financial papers and contracts), MS-1046/667 (front elevation drawing). University of Otago Records of Registry and Central Administration, AG-180-005/006 (Works Committee minutes), AG-180-31 (general files).

Built: 1907-1908
Address: 49-51 Stuart Street
Architects: Walden & Barton
Builder: Joseph Eli White (1853-1917)

This building is a wee gem – I love its honest, ungentrified Edwardian appearance and the quirky arrangement of the different window sizes on the first floor. The strong lines of the cement facings look very effective against the brickwork, and the tilework and old bullnose verandah add to its charm. It is an example of the style referred to (quite misleadingly) as ‘Queen Anne’.

Originally a fishmongery, poultry dealers, and dining rooms, it was built for a syndicate led by Francis Joseph Sullivan (c.1858-1914). Sullivan was a big name in the local fishing industry.  Since the early 1890s he had been a fish retailer, the local agent of the Bluff Oyster Company, and an active supporter of the fish hatchery at Portobello. He owned Dunedin’s first fishing trawlers and squeezed out some of the traditional line fishers, which didn’t make him popular with everyone. He was also one of New Zealand’s largest rabbit exporters, owning large processing works in both Otago and Southland.

Architects Walden & Barton called for tenders in July 1907. I don’t know which of the partners, Edward Walter Walden or Joseph Barton, was mainly responsible for the design. Walden (1870-1944) had previously been in partnership with James Hislop. His later designs include the Mayfair Theatre, Andersons Bay Presbyterian Church, Hallenstein’s building in the Octagon, and St Margaret’s College. The elder man, Barton (1853-1917), had previously worked in Dunedin as a building contractor, making the same transition as builder/architects such as Hardy, Winchester, and Forrest before him.

The building was completed around January 1908. According to a description in the Otago Daily Times: ‘The shop downstairs is a room 23ft by 24ft: the floors are Minton encaustic tiles; the walls from floor to ceiling are glazed tiles; a dark cream tile is used for a dado, with embossed tile necking and white glazed tiles above; the ceilings are all of ornamental metal, tastefully picked out in different colours; the counters and window fittings are all of picked marble, sand finish, the woodwork being white enamel finish [...] Immediately at the rear of the shop is a large dining room, 32ft by 28ft. This room is finished with red pine dadoes, mantels, and tiled hearths, the floors being dressed off very smoothly and left a natural wood finish. The ceilings are divided up into bays of embossed metal, with electric lights round the walls and hanging from the centre of each bay. From the shop a goods lift runs to the ladies’ dining room on the first floor. This room has a separate entrance from Stuart Street; it is 28ft by 20ft. Immediately adjoining it is a special set of lavatories and basins and hat and cloak rooms specially fitted up for the patrons. In addition to the two large dining rooms there are three smaller suites of rooms splendidly lit and neatly finished.’

Joseph Eli White was the builder. The subcontractors were Andrew Lees (painting and decorating), W.H. Newman (plastering and tile work), Briscoe & Co. (pressed metal ceilings) and A. & T. Burt (plumbing and electric work).

The restaurant was named ‘Sweeting’s Dining Rooms’,  presumably after the famous Sweeting’s Fish Restaurant of Queen Victoria Street, London (opened 1889). The Dunedin restaurant was taken over by Findlay Bros (c.1920-1925) and then Charles Tabor (c.1928-1939) before closing. There were a few colourful incidents in the early years. In 1910 there was a bit of a punch-up on the street (with a follow up in the supper room) between a drunk staff member and a patron. Among other things, the staff member didn’t take kindly to criticism of the way the geese had been plucked.  The following year there was some violence between members of rugby teams from Port Chalmers and Dunedin.  The Dunedin boys were heard referring to Port Chalmers as ‘Dogtown’, and according to Truth (New Zealand’s most sensationalist newspaper): ‘the quickest way to cause a riot and to raise an insurrection is to call an inhabitant of Port Chalmers a dweller in Dogtown’. Truth also had fun reporting an incident that involved Maggie Moore, an employee of Sweeting’s. In 1915 she was ‘charged with using obscene language in a telephone box at the Octagon at the unearthly hour of midnight’.

The fishmongery remained until about 1922 (under the Sweeting’s name until about 1920). It then became the Salisbury Butchery, and continued under that name until it became the MMM Butchery in 1957. MMM had many branches in Dunedin and was part of a chain which originated in Christchurch in the early 1940s. Why it was called MMM I don’t know, but a local nickname was the ‘Maggoty Meat Market’! MMM became Hellaby meats around 1985. The butchery became King Dick’s Emporium of Fine Meats from about 1988 and finally closed around 1993.

A separate building in Gaol (now Dunbar) Street had originally been set aside for the curing of fish and the sale of rabbits and poultry, and another was used for fish cleaning. It looks as though these were later rebuilt into the more substantial adjoining structure that survives today. Smallgoods were processed here, with Salisbury Smallgoods occupying the space until they moved around 1969.

Galaxy Books and Records (run by Bill Brosnan) opened in the building in 1977 and remained there until about 1998 when it moved to Great King Street. There was also a takeaway bar for a time. Fight Times, a martial arts supplies shop, has operated from the site since about 2004. The business is part of the Todd Group, who are the building owners.

Newspaper references: Otago Daily Times, 7 February 1890 p.3 (notice for F.J. Sullivan), 13 July 1907 p.11 (call for tenders), 31 January 1908 p.3 (description); Otago Witness, 2 February 1899 p.4 (Sullivan and rabbits), 9 September 1903 p.55 (complaints re trawlers), 18 April 1906 p.11 (Sullivan’s comments on the fishing industry); New Zealand Truth, 9 July 1910 p.7 (fight in the street), 8 July 1911 p.7 (‘Dogtown’ incident), 9 October 1915 p.5. (Maggie Moore).

Other references: Stones Otago & Southland Directory, Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory, telephone directories.

Built: 1898-1899
Address: 2 Prince Albert Road
Architect: Robert Forrest (c.1832-1919)
Builder: Not known

The license for the original St Kilda Hotel on the corner of Prince Albert and Bay View roads was granted to John Pugh Jones in June 1873.  Jones was a Welshman and a pre-gold rush settler who had worked in Dunedin as a bootmaker for many years. Advertisements for the hotel described it as substantial with splendid views, and ‘being in close proximity to the ocean, it offers special inducements to those in ill health or desirous of inhaling the wholesome and invigorating breezes of the South Pacific’.

Jones became the first Mayor of St Kilda in 1875 and the first borough council meeting was held in the building. The hotel had strong connections with local sport:  rugby club meetings were held here, race horses were kept in the stables, and at least one live pigeon shoot took place. J.D. Hutton purchased the hotel from Jones around 1880.

A flood in 1877 saw two feet of water through the ground floor of the hotel, but a worse disaster took place on 24 June 1898 when a fire started on the second floor and most of the fourteen rooms in the building were gutted. The beer was saved! The damaged building was sold and in August architect Robert Forrest called for tenders to erect a replacement. Forrest (c.1832-1919) was by that time one of the oldest architects still practicing in Dunedin, and another example of a contractor who had made the transition to architect. In Forrest’s case, his health had prevented him from continuing as a builder. He designed two of Dunedin’s larger hotels, the Sussex in 1880 and the Excelsior in 1888. He had earlier been the contractor (but not architect as it’s sometimes said) for the Prince of Wales and City hotels. Forrest was the favourite architect of Speight’s Brewery, having designed  an enormous malt house (destroyed by fire in 1940), the Shamrock Building at the Rattray/Maclaggan intersection, and private residences for company directors.

The new St Kilda Hotel was ready for occupation by January 1899. The exterior of the building was admired, the Otago Daily Times report making a typically exaggerated claim that ‘no expense [had been] spared to secure architectural beauty’. The design with red brick and cement facings nods to the Queen Anne style fashionable at the time, but the form is more Italianate than anything else. The balcony with its cast iron fretwork is a pretty feature, and from here there was a ‘splendid land and sea view’ where there is now a very different scene (!) due to reclamation and development.  The report stated that ‘the domestic arrangements correspond to those in a well-appointed private mansion’ and included hot and cold water baths. A large dining room and a billiard room were among other features, and the hotel’s position on the tram line made it a convenient one.

There must have been many interesting events in the hotel over the years and I can only include a couple here. In 1907 William Luby was sentenced to two months hard labour for using obscene language (‘words of the filthiest possible kind’) to a woman behind the bar. The judge allowed the request of witnesses to write the words down rather than repeat them. In 1935 the wife of the licensee, along with a barman, was fined for running an illegal gambling den in the bar.

For a period from the late 1930s the Massetti family owned and operated the hotel. Saverio (Jack) Massetti was an Italian immigrant and three generations of the family were very well known in the hospitality industry in Dunedin, with Ray Massetti opening La Scala Restaurant in Alton Avenue, Musselburgh, in 1955.

Jack Massetti and patrons, c.1940

Ray Massetti, barmen, and patrons, c.1940

In 1969 the hotel was given a tavern license and so it no longer offered accommodation, becoming the St Kilda Tavern rather than the St Kilda Hotel. One of the later licensees was Ray Pearson, who like Jones before him was a mayor of St Kilda. The St Kilda Borough Council held its final meeting at the hotel in October 1989, having held its first meeting in the previous building 114 years before. The same year the hotel underwent major renovations and on-site premises of the TAB opened. The TAB outlet is now self-service, and there are also ‘one-armed bandit’ pokie machines.

The exterior of the building has retained most of its 1899 features, although it has lost a few chimneys, some of the brick has been plastered over, many minor alterations have made their mark, and it now has one of those in-your-face corporate colour schemes (Speight’s). ‘Your friendly local pub’ looks likely to remain a popular bar and restaurant for many years to come.

The St Kilda Tavern in 2012

Historic images: Hocken Collections S09-303i-k (Frank Tod papers).

Newspaper references: Otago Daily Times, 4 June 1873 p.5 (license granted), 22 July 1876 p.3 (election campaigning), 17 September 1877 p.2 (pigeon shoot), 25 June 1898 p.4 (fire) 29 July 1898 p.4 (sale), 20 August 1898 p.5 (call for tenders), 19 January 1899 p.4 (ready for occupation), 17 June 1899 p.8 (description), 11 December 1989 p.18 (re-opening); New Zealand Tablet, 16 July 1875 p.19 (advertisement); Clutha Leader, 9 February 1877 p.5 (flood); Otago Witness, 10 August 1904 p.54 (obituary for John Pugh Jones), 20 February 1907 p.49 (obscene language case); Evening Post, 16 February 1935 p.15 and 29 March 1938 p.8 (illegal gambling)

Other references: Tod, Frank: Pub’s Galore (Dunedin, 1984).

Built: 1902-1903
Address: 145-155 Stuart Street
Architect: James Louis Salmond (1868-1950)
Builder: Daniel William Woods (c.1837-1923)

Dr Ferdinand Campion Batchelor (1850-1915) arrived in Dunedin in 1874 and was something of a crusading pioneer in the medical profession here. The lecturer in midwifery and gynaecology at Otago Medical School, he introduced new pelvic surgery techniques from England and America and was an ‘ardent campaigner’ for hospital reform. He commissioned architect J.L. Salmond to design this Stuart Street building in April 1902. The first floor was to house medical consulting rooms for the large private practices of both Batchelor and his good friend Dr (later Sir) Lindo Ferguson, who has been described as ‘New Zealand’s pioneering ophthalmologist’. Ferguson (1858-1948) was a lecturer in diseases of the eye at the university and would later become Professor of Ophthalmology and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. Batchelor and Ferguson took possession of their rooms in January 1903, before the building was completed.  The builder was Daniel William Woods and the contract price (June 1902) was £2,596.

In addition to the doctors’ rooms, a third consulting room was let to Swindley Bros, dentists. Also on the first floor were two nurses’ rooms, two waiting rooms, a dressing room, a laboratory, and a dark room. The last was for Batchelor, who was among the first in New Zealand to use x-rays in private practice. A balcony at first-floor level ran the length of the rear of the building, from which a curious attached timber structure containing toilets was accessed. This survives in largely rebuilt form. The ground floor comprised three leased-out shops, the original tenant of two them being the Unique Millinery Stores (Dorothy Reinhardt, proprietress), with the other taken by Crombie & Co. (tailors). The fall of the land means the rear wall of the building has an additional basement level.

Stuart Street c.1903. The building at the left was completed just a few months after Batchelor’s building and was also designed by J.L. Salmond. It survives but had been stripped of its ornamentation.

An advertisement for the Unique Millinery Store from ‘Corrigan’s Fourth Annual. Music Album for 1906′. They boasted of never having fewer than 200-300 hats. The store relocated c.1923.

Batchelor served in Cairo during the early part of the First World War, where he was Consulting Surgeon and responsible for efforts to control venereal disease among New Zealand troops. Sadly, he returned to Dunedin in broken health and died of heart failure during a walk in the sand dunes at Tahuna Park on 31 August 1915.  The maternity hospital in Forth Street was afterwards renamed the Batchelor Hospital in his honour. Dr Stanley Batchelor took his father’s old rooms and kept them until he died in 1942, while Ferguson occupied his rooms until about 1938, by which time he was in his eighties. Among the many medicos and dentists who had rooms in the building over the following decades was the celebrated surgeon Sir Gordon Bell.

The building became the headquarters of the Otago-Southland Manufacturers’ Association around 1971, when it was renamed Industry House. The Association left around 1983 and the first floor has since been used as legal offices, notably by David Brett and Michael Guest. Guest’s offices were here at the time he defended David Bain in his 1995 murder trial. The many ground floor tenants have included the Unique Stores (c.1906-1923) and Dunedin City Dealers (c.1955-1976). This floor is now occupied by Frendz Boutique (women’s fashion) and Metro bar (which also uses the basement).

This is one of few Dunedin commercial buildings in the Tudor revival style. The spare treatment includes oriel windows and a castellated/crenelated parapet (the latter built instead of a slightly plainer parapet with recessed panels shown on the drawings) and the arched ornaments may be a direct reference to Burghley House (Cambridgeshire, England). The brick and cement work on the façade was originally unpainted. A bullnose verandah with decorative posts and cast iron fretwork was added in 1904 and surviving plans suggest it was intended originally. It ran the length of the shop fronts but not the entire façade. It was later replaced by a hanging verandah running the length of the façade. Alterations have extensively altered the shop interiors and fronts and the original arched entranceway to the upstairs rooms has been replaced. The vestibule itself retains many original features as do the first floor interiors, including tiling (sourced through Briscoes), tongue-and-groove wainscoting, balustrading, a staircase feature window, plaster corbels, and other decoration.

The building’s architect, James Louis Salmond (1868-1950), was born in England but grew up in Dunedin and attended Otago Boys’ High School. He was apprenticed to Robert Arthur Lawson and opened his own office in 1893. He went into partnership with his old teacher, Lawson, and later with Newton Vanes. His most familiar designs include Threave (Watson Shennan’s house at 367 High Street), Burns Hall at First Church, Roslyn Presbyterian Church, and Queen’s Building. His practice was later continued by his son, grandson, and various partners, before it finally wound up in 2008. Elegant and understated, Batchelor’s Building is a fine example of his work.

Historic images: Hocken Collections S12-627a (view of three buildings), private collection (advertisement)

References: Dunedin City Council deposited plans, telephone directories, Stone’s Otago and Southland Directory, Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory, Salmond Anderson Architects records (Hocken Collections), Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Southern People: A Dictionary of Otago-Southland Biography

Built: 1882-1883 / 1932-1933
Address: 134-142 Stuart Street
Architects Edmund Roach / Mandeno & Fraser
Builders: Francis Wilkinson / Alfred Edward Silver

The story of this building begins in the nineteenth century with the people who built it: the Oddfellows.

The Hand-and-Heart Lodge, Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows, was founded in 1848 and was the first of the ‘friendly society’ lodges in Otago. By 1882 there were 127 Manchester Unity lodges throughout New Zealand. They provided financial benefits and social services to affiliated families and individuals, and filled an important role in their communities in the days before the welfare state and modern health and life insurance systems. They also organised social activities for their members. The origins of the Oddfellows can be traced to the English guild system, when members of trades without enough fellows to form their own guild joined together to form mixed guilds: the odd fellows. Manchester Unity was one of many manifestations of the movement and was formed when members seceded from the Patriotic Order of Oddfellows in 1813.

This building (in its original form) was built between September 1882 and January 1883, following the expiry of the lease on the lodge’s previous hall in George Street.  There was much ceremony for the laying of the foundation stone, with a procession headed by Krull’s brass band, speeches read from a specially erected platform, and children singing the New Zealand anthem. Newspaper reports referred to the architecture as ‘classic style’, however, it would be more precise to describe the building as a palazzo in the Renaissance revival style. It was constructed in stone and brick with a cement-rendered façade and corrugated iron roof. The façade decoration included pilasters with Corinthian capitals, window pediments, a dentil cornice, a balustraded parapet, and finials. Francis Wilkinson (1834-1902) was the builder and the contract price was £2,825. Edmund Martin Roach (1835-1912) was the architect. Born in Islington, London, Roach began his career as a contractor and had been Inspector of Works to the Otago Provincial Government before joining the practice of architect David Ross. Roach’s most familiar designs are the Baptist halls in Hanover Street and Primitive Methodist Church buildings (built in two stages) in Dundas Street.

The building as it appeared around the turn of the twentieth century, with the shop of the Madras Tea Importing Co. Ltd on the left, and John Chambers & Son (engineers and importers) on the right (Cyclopedia of New Zealand).

As the ‘mother lodge’ the Hand-and-Heart Lodge provided facilities for the wider Oddfellows community, as well as to many other groups, including Masons, Druids, Foresters, the Gaelic Society, the Disciples of Christ, the Rationalist Church, and the Theosophical Society. Activities included meetings, socials, concerts, lectures, dancing classes, cooking classes, and election meetings. The building also contained shops fronting Stuart Street.

Between 1932 and 1933 the building was extended and remodelled to designs by architects Mandeno & Fraser at a cost of between £6,000 and £7,000. With rearward additions it may have as much as doubled in size. The building contractor was Alfred Edward Silver (1878-1960) and the decorator Edwin Longworth. Many features of the original façade decoration were retained, including four of the eight first-floor pilasters with Corinthian capitals, five of the seven window pediments, and part of the cornice. The finials and balustraded parapet were entirely removed. Art deco detailing was added, including the name of the building (‘Manchester Unity Chambers’) and the date of reconstruction (‘1933’). A hanging verandah was added and new shopfronts included brown and orange ceramic tiles and lead-lighted windows. The extensive additions included a new meeting hall on the second floor, the roof of which is the highest point of the structure. It was remarked that the reconstruction was a major building project in Dunedin during a time of economic depression.

The facade is an example of the widespread facelifting of Victorian and Edwardian  buildings in the art deco and stripped classical styles. In Dunedin, this particular brand of’ ‘remodelling’ began around 1929 (Allbell Chambers), and continued through the 1930s and 1940s, with  examples including the City Hotel (1936-1937), Harris Shoes (1939), NMA (1940), UFS (1940), and Paterson & Barr (1948). One of the last decorative examples was the Hotel Central (1953). From the 1940s onwards these facelifts tended to become more crude and simple, and by the 1950s-1970s they were usually a fairly brutal treatment involving the removal of any ornament and a flush cemented finish (e.g. the Standard Building and the Atheneum). When looking at these buildings the overall proportions and the retention of old sash windows are often a giveaway. Why do it? It was sometimes a solution to maintenance problems (e.g. crumbling stone balustrades) but it was also a reaction against unfashionable Victorian architecture, and a way to make a building appear more modern. I’ve seen one building report from the period which recommends one of these facelifts as an inexpensive way to significantly increase the building value.  My personal view is that it’s shame that so many of our Victorian buildings now look so disfigured and confused, but they do give a building an interesting layered history and some of the best examples work well and are quite delightful.  The Manchester Unity Chambers are particularly appealing, and unusual in the way they have retained some of the old decorative detail.

The Lodge relocated to the Glasgow Street Friendly Society Rooms in 2007, having sold the building some years earlier. It disbanded in 2012, by which time it was known as the Otago Friendly Society. The corner shop was occupied by Eclipse Radio from 1939 to 1993. Something of a local institution, over time it added televisions, model supplies, and computers to its business.  The upper shop has been home to The Perc (originally The Percolator) cafe since 1992 and another cafe, Sugar, now occupies the corner shop. With their unspoilt tile-work and leadlights they have two of the best preserved 1930s shopfronts in Dunedin. The many occupants of the offices have included insurance agents, accountants, solicitors, dressmakers, music teachers, incorporated societies, and currently the Zuma web and design studio. Hopefully, the future of the building will be as colourful as its past.

Eclipse Radio ephemera addressed to my grandfather.

Newspaper references: Otago Daily Times, 9 May 1882 p.2 (description), 12 May 1882 p.1 (call for tenders), 25 September 1882 pp.2-3 (description and laying of foundation stone), 24 January 1883 p.2 (hall used for first time), 21 July 1933 p.10 (opening ceremony for reconstructed building), 13 February 1993 p.3 (closure of Eclipse Radio and Computers), 30 April 2007 p.4 (relocation of Unity Otago Lodge), 21 July 2012 p.1 (Otago Friendly Society disbanded); The Star, 14 June 2007 p.19 (re-opening of The Perc).

Other references: Cyclopedia of New Zealand, vol.4 (Otago and Southland Provincial Districts, pp.289-90); plans for alterations, Dunedin City Council records.

Built: 1915-1917
Address: 17 Moray Place
Architects: Salmond & Vanes (James Louis Salmond)
Builder: Joseph Eli White

Few visitors to Dunedin would walk past the Kaiapoi Building without noticing it, and it is much loved by many of the city’s residents. Its bold street presence and finely executed design make it one of the architectural highlights of the central city.

The building replaced a structure that had been built in 1874 for the wine and spirit merchant Frederick Lewis, to the design of architect E.J. Sanders. That building became G.R. West & Co.’s organ showrooms and Academy of Music (teaching rooms) and later Dagmar College (a private girls’ school). It became the premises of the Kaiapoi Woollen Manufacturing Company in about 1899.

The Kaiapoi Company had been established in 1878 with a large woollen mill at Kaiapoi, Canterbury.  It became one of the largest industrial concerns in New Zealand and the ‘Kaiapoi’ brand of wool products, ranging from blankets to underwear and suits, was known throughout Australasia. The Dunedin building was a branch office and the firm was in direct competition with the big Otago mills of Ross & Glendining (‘Roslyn’), Mosgiel, and Bruce (Milton).   All of these mills used the best quality materials to produce very high quality goods, and a couple of Kaiapoi blankets are still in regular use in my own house. Kaiapoi slogans included ‘The Dominion’s best’ and ‘The best that grows into Kaiapoi goes’ (a reference to the high quality of the wool).

In 1915 Kaiapoi commissioned the architects Salmond & Vanes to design a new building on their Moray Place site. Diaries in the Hocken Collections show that James Louis Salmond (1868-1950) was responsible for the design and project management, although recently published sources incorrectly name W.H. Dunning as the architect.

The building was erected in two stages, with the contractor for both being Joseph Eli White. The first contract was signed on 21 July 1915 and involved the demolition of buildings at the back of the site and the construction of the back portion of the new building, which was temporarily connected to the 1874 structure.  The contract price was £2,648. The second contract was signed on 19 May 1916 and involved the demolition of the 1874 building at the front of the site and the construction of the front portion of the new building. The contract price was £2,621. The building was completed in 1917 and the final payment to the architects was made on 27 July that year. The final cost for the second stage was £3,265.

Side elevation drawing from 1915 showing the first stage of the building erected at the back of the property, temporarily connected to the old 1874 building at the front (Hocken Collections MS-3821/2052)

The architecture is in the Edwardian baroque manner, a style that drew from the seventeenth century designs of Christopher Wren and eighteenth century French architecture. One of the grandest examples in New Zealand is the old Chief Post Office in Auckland. In Dunedin, the old National Bank in Princes Street is the largest and perhaps most impressive example. The Kaiapoi building incorporates large columns, characteristic of the style, and there is much visual interest in details such as the carved Ionic capitals and floral motifs.

Kaiapoi continued to occupy the building until about 1963, the year the company merged with the Wellington Woollen Company to form Kaiapoi Petunia Group Textiles Ltd. The mill at Kaiapoi eventually closed in 1978. The Moray Place building became known as Wynyard House and Peter Dick optometrists have occupied it as tenants since about 1973. This is an old family concern of four generations, dating back to the business of Peter Dick, watchmaker and jeweller, who went into business in Dunedin in 1889. A few years ago the bulk of the building was redeveloped as Kaiapoi Apartments.

Image credits: Drawings from Salmond Anderson Architects records, Hocken Collections / Uare Taoka o Hākena (MS-3821/2052); advertisement from Auckland Star, 25 March 1924, p.11 (courtesy of the National Library of New Zealand)

Newspaper references: Otago Daily Times, 30 September 1874, p.2 (Lewis’s building); 8 June 1889, p.2 (advertisement for Peter Dick); 3 May 1900, p.4 (sale of property)

Other references: Diaries, specification, and drawings from Salmond Anderson Architects records, Hocken Collections / Uare Taoka o Hākena (MS-3821/2052, r.4628); Architecture Dunedin: A Guide to Dunedin Architecture (Dunedin: Parker Warburton Architects, [2010/R2011]); Dunedin Heritage Trails: Neoclassical Architecture (Dunedin: Southern Heritage Trust, [2011]); Stone’s Otago and Southland Directory; Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory; telephone directories.

Baptised: Huntly, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, 11 July 1828
Died: Auckland, New Zealand, 6 October 1908

David Ross! Where to begin…? He’s a particular favourite of mine and the architect I’ve spent the most time researching.  This partly comes from a love of his work, and partly from a feeling that his legacy has been neglected, and that he’s not nearly as well known as he should be. He is recognised by writers such as Knight and Wales as one of the most signficant architects to have worked in Dunedin, but very little has been written about him and there are no published articles (let alone books) devoted to him. As with a few of our Victorian architects, his Australian work is seen in isolation by Australians and his New Zealand work is seen in isolation by New Zealanders. I’ve made a list of over 450 building projects he worked on, so this post is very much the selected highlights.

Early life

Ross was born in Huntly, Aberdeenshire, where he was baptised on 11 July 1828. His father, William Ross, was a jeweller and watchmaker, and although I don’t know what sort of child young David was it’s easy to imagine him finding an interest in his father’s work that translated well into architectural studies. Ross began his career articled to the firm McKenzie & Matthews, of Elgin and Aberdeen, at about the time they designed such buildings as the Free Church College at Aberdeen and the Drumtochty Castle stables. Ross afterwards spent about three years working for Lewis Hornblower of Liverpool and John Hornblower of Birmingham, becoming ‘chief assistant’. Lewis Hornblower’s designs in Liverpool included the grand entrance and other buildings at Birkenhead Park (as part of a collaboration with Sir Joseph Paxton), and a commercial building at 25 Church Street (dating from a little after Ross’s time). He was best known for his later work on Sefton Park.

Victoria, Australia

Ross migrated to Victoria in 1853 and later that year went into partnership with R.A. Dowden in Melbourne. Their firm, Dowden & Ross, won the competition to design St Mary of the Angels Catholic Church, Geelong. It is not known which architect was primarily responsible for the competition entry, but following a fire in the 1868 Ross lost what he referred to as ‘my drawing of Geelong Cathedral’, and it seems he at least played an important role in the building’s design. Ross never saw the church in its completed state, as it took over 80 years to realise the original plans and the building was not finished until 1937.

St Mary of the Angels, Geelong. Photo (2007): Marcus Wong,

St Mary of the Angels, Geelong. Rear view. Photo (2007): Marcus Wong.

Wesleyan Church, Fitzroy Street, St Kilda, Melbourne. Photo (1933): J.A. Sears. State Library of Victoria. Ref: H20784.

Colonial Bank of Australasia, Kilmore. Photo (1861): Vanheems & Co. State Library of Victoria. Ref: H1819.

The Dowden & Ross partnership was dissolved in 1854 and Ross continued to practise on his own. His designs of the mid to late 1850s included Glass Terrace in Melbourne, the Chalmers Church at Eastern Hill, the Presbyterian manse at Williamstown, the tower and spire of the Scots Church in Melbourne, the Wesleyan Church at St Kilda, the Colonial Bank at Kilmore, the sea baths at St Kilda, and numerous houses and shops.

Ross married Agnes Buttery Marshall, the daughter of a prominent solicitor, in 1856. They had four daughters and one son. Tragically, the eldest daughter, Pameljeanie, died in 1860 at the age of three years.

Move to Dunedin

The family moved to Dunedin in May 1862, with Ross taking an office in Manse Street. Presumably, he was attracted by the building boom that accompanied the Otago Gold Rush. One of his first commissions was the Moray Place Congregational Church, which survives as the oldest church building in Dunedin (although it has been converted into residential apartments). Ross was for about five months in partnership with William Mason, who arrived a little later in 1862, but was soon working on his own again. He was a member of the first Dunedin City Council, from 1864 to 1865, and a glimpse of him in a cartoon shows a dark, bearded man, but frustratingly I’ve never found a photograph of him.

Ross received some notice as an artist. He showed nine watercolours at the 1854 Melbourne Exhibition, and more at a small  Industrial Exhibition Dunedin in 1862. Some of his watercolours of Otago scenery were described in the Bruce Herald  in 1874, with Ross reported to have ‘powers of landscape delineation… far beyond anything we had conceived in the way of local talent to exist in Otago’.

Early Dunedin works  included the Bank of Otago in Princes Street (where the National Bank now stands) and the old Empire Hotel (on a different site from the current one). In the Mason & Ross partnership he probably designed the house Highlawn in collaboration with its owner, C.W. Richmond. He was also responsible for Colinswood, a more modest residence built at Macandrew Bay for James Macandrew. In some of these buildings a row-of-circles decorative motif can be seen, and although others used this, it is a distinctive Ross signature. Also typical of Ross is a particular style of paired round-headed windows.

Congregational Church, Moray Place, Dundin. The later changes to Ross’s original building include the side vestry, the front steps and entrance (moved from the side), the pinnacles, and the rendering of the exterior brickwork.

Fernhill, Dunedin, built for John Jones. Photo (n.d.): Unknown. Hocken Collections. Ref: S12-282b.

Colinswood, Macandrew Bay. Photo (n.d.): James R. Cameron. Alexander Turnbull Library. Ref: 1/2-024931-G.

Elderslie, North Otago, built for John Reid. Photo (1905): Otago Witness. Hocken Collections. Ref: S12-282d.

Public buildings

In 1869 and 1874  Ross won significant commissions for public buildings. His Atheneaum in the Octagon survives, though stripped of its facade detailing. The statuary was the only feature in the engraving shown here that was never realised. His original portion for the Otago Museum also remains but the northern and southern wings were never completed to his design and suggested statuary and friezes were never added. As planned, it would have completed an exuberant design combining Greek revival and ‘Second Empire’ architecture. When it was finally decided to add the Hocken Wing to the museum in 1907, an elderly Ross wrote: ‘it was understood that for any future additions required to complete the design that I would be the Architect and paid as usual according to the cost. This being the case no other person should be allowed to interfere with my work without my permission’. He did not get the work but architect J.A. Burnside based his facade designs on Ross’s concept. The later Fels wing is different in scale and style, with a decision made to reorient the complex towards the Museum Reserve.

The Otago Education Board was the source of much work in the 1870s and Ross designed schools at Mosgiel, Allanton, Popotunoa, Port Molyneux, Sawyers Bay, Forbury, and Port Chalmers. He also designed large additions for Otago Girls’ High School (after they took over the boys’ building), the Otago Boys’ High School rectory, and the large Normal School and Art School building in Moray Place. He also found government work designing immigration barracks at Dunedin, Oamaru, Stewart Island, Bluff, Riverton, and Milton.

Athenaeum, Octagon, Dunedin. Samuel Calvert engraving (1870) from Illustrated Australian News. State Library of Victoria. Ref: IAN16/07/70/132.

Otago Museum, Great King Street, Dunedin. Engraving (1875) from Illustrated Australian News. State Library of Victoria. Ref: IAN24/03/75/44.

Gallery inside the Otago Museum. Photo (1890): Edgar Richard Williams. Alexander Turnbull Library. Ref: 1/1-025834-G.

Normal School and Art School, Moray Place, Dunedin. Private collection.

Port Chalmers Grammar School. Photo (n.d.): Unknown. Hocken Collections. Ref: S12-658g.

Commercial work and patronage

Among his private clients, Ross enjoyed the patronage of some of Dunedin’s leading businessmen. One of these men was Maurice Joel, for whom Ross designed a private residence (Eden Bank House), a shop in Princes Street, various additions to the Red Lion Brewery, the Captain Cook Hotel, and possibly the Caledonian (later Rugby) Hotel. For Bendix Hallenstein he designed two large clothing factory buildings in Dunedin and stores in Queenstown. He was also the architect of one New Zealand’s largest industrial complexes, Guthrie and Larnach’s New Zealand Hardware Factory buildings in Princes and Bond Streets, which was destroyed by fires in 1887 and 1896. Private houses included ‘The Willows’ (the house of Sir William Barron at Kew) and two North Otago homesteads: Elderslie and Windsor Park. His largest hotel was the Prince of Wales in Princes Street. In some projects he collaborated with his nephew, F.W. Burwell, who established himself in Queenstown and Invercargill and became one of the leading architects of southern New Zealand.

Eden Bank House, Regent Road, Dunedin. Photo: S. Collins. Hocken Collections. Ref: S12-549c

Guthrie & Larnach premises, Princes Street, Dunedin. Photo (n.d.): J.W. Allen. Hocken Collections. Ref: S06-152d.

Guthrie & Larnach premises, Bond Street, Dunedin. Engraving f(1877) from Australasian Sketcher. State Library of Victoria. Ref: A/S12/05/77/28.

Hallenstein’s New Zealand Clothing Factory (seen here as the National Insurance building). The Exchange, Dunedin. Photo (c.1930): Tourist and Publicity. Alexander Turnbull Library. Ref: 1/1-006149-F.

Hallenstein’s New Zealand Clothing Company offices and factory, Dowling Street, Dunedin. Photo (1880s): Burton Bros. Hocken Collections. Ref: AG-295-036/003.

Churches

Ross designed fewer churches in Otago than he did in Victoria, which probably owed something to R.A. Lawson’s monopoly on Presbyterian Church work and F.W. Petre’s on Catholic commissions . One of Ross’s buildings was the Presbyterian Church at Palmerston, with its distinctive rust-coloured Waihemo stone and very Scots-looking design, with a spire remiscent of both St Nicholas’ Kirk, Aberdeen, and his own Scots’ Church tower in Melbourne. The lines of the Palmerston church were later a bit muddled by the insertion of a large memorial window. Ross also designed Presbyterian churches at Balclutha and Clinton (both timber) and a Primitive Methodist Church at Bluff.  His biggest commision was for Dunedin’s Knox Church. The foundation stone for this building was laid on 25 November 1872 but Ross was dismissed for misconduct on 16 January 1873 and his design was abandoned. He sued the church for wrongful dismissal and won on some points, but the verdict was mostly in favour of the defendants.  Ross had purchased Bacon’s quarry, which it had been previously agreed would supply stone for the project, and the jury found that Ross’s actions in connection with this had been improper, but were not sufficient grounds for dismissal. The more significant issue was that he had selected a Clerk of Works, John Hotson, who was widely thought to be a drunkard and was found to be unfit for his job. Ross’s insistence on retaining Hotson and his refusal to acknowledge the replacement selected by the church was found by the jury to be reasonable grounds for dismissal.  Ross was awarded a mere two pounds in compensation when he had claimed over £200. He was replaced by R.A. Lawson, who used his own more expensive design for the church.

This was not the only event that suggested Ross could be difficult to work with. In 1872 he unsuccessfully sued Vincent Pyke for fees he claimed were due for calling tenders for a house that was not proceded with. One witness, a contractor, claimed that ‘Some contractors refused to tender for any work under Mr Ross, and said they would rather do it for anyone else in the country. Witness did not know their reason for it, but he supposed it was over-vigilance on the part of Mr Ross.’

Palmerston Presbyterian Church.

Clinton Presbyterian Church. Photo (n.d.): Unknown. Hocken Collections. Ref: S12-282c.

Concrete

The first mass concrete buildings in Dunedin were built in the early to mid 1870s and Ross was at the forefront of this new technology, being slightly ahead of other local concrete pioneers such as N.Y.A. Wales, Lawson, and Petre (the last of whom was famously nicknamed ‘Lord Concrete’). In 1870 Ross and Burwell applied for a patent for sole use of ‘certain inventions and improvements in the construction of frames or apparatus’ for concrete construction. Another curious invention of Ross’s was a ‘self acting’ toilet seat, that lifted without being touched!

Ross was designing buildings in concrete from at least 1872 and in 1874 it was reported in the Otago Daily Times  that ‘Mr Ross claims no originality in the matter, but credit must be given him for the persevering way in which he has hitherto quietly advocated the introduction of the new mode of building into the Province, and his efforts appear to be now beginning to be crowned with success, he having orders in hand for designing about 40 concrete buildings.’ These buildings included numerous workers’ cottages, a two-storey house, shop buildngs, and a grain store. The largest was the Otago Museum, in which Ross experimented by using old rails from railway lines as girders, a technique he further developed when rebuilding his Octagon building. An experimental concrete roof on the colonade on the Lawrence court house was spectacularly unsuccessful when the builder (who had been dubious about the design) removed his props and the whole thing collapsed. A replacement built to a revised plan remains in place today. In 1907, when technology for reinforced concrete construction was rapidly developing, Ross was proud that his concrete buildings had lasted well and claimed that no reinforcing was required in ordinary concrete structures, suggesting that he had fallen behind modern thinking.

The Inspector of Works for the museum was Edmund M. Roach, a fellow architect who supervised the construction of many of Ross’s designs and eventually became his associate. When Ross left Dunedin Roach took over his practice and for many years continued to manage his interests in the city, also acting as the executor of his estate.

Court house (Warden’s Court), Lawrence. The top storey is a later addition.

Crescent (now Careys Bay) Hotel.

Prince of Wales Hotel, Princes Street, Dunedin.

Ross’s own house in Heriot Row, Dunedin.

Chapman’s Terrace, Stuart Street, where I lived for two years. The building, which is currently getting a makeover, originally had a balustraded parapet.

Travels and family

Ross left New Zealand for an extended trip overseas in 1879 and 1880, visiting the United States and Europe. In London he was admitted a Fellow of the Royaly Institute of British Architects (FRIBA), a high honour that no other Dunedin architect received. He was nominated by John Norton, Robert Edis, and William Audsley. These were distinguished architects (Norton particularly) and Audsley would have known Ross from the years they both worked in Elgin and Liverpool. Burwell also became  fellow in 1880, and in 1884 Ross and Burwell were the only architects in New Zealand to hold this distinction. Ross always used the letters ‘FRIBA’ in his later advertising. During his absence, Ross’s own buildings in the Octagon were severely damaged by fire. He had them rebuilt, with the top mansard floor replaced with another masonry storey added to the facade. Ross’s great sadness during this period was the death of his eight month old son, William, at Courbevoie, near Paris.

Ross separated from his wife, who later lived with her daugther in Yokohama, Japan, where she died in 1894. The couple’s elder surviving daughter, Flora, married Marc Lucas in Yokohama in 1894. The other daughter, Agnes, married Professor W.E.L.  Sweet at Kumamoto in 1904. The presence of the family in Japan explains why some sources mistakenly state that Ross spent his later life in that country. Another interesting family connection was that Ross’s brother, Rev. Dr William Ross, was a Presbyterian minister in the West Indies and Lancefield, Australia.

Jobs in Dunedin in the early 1880s included Chapman’s Terrace in Stuart Street, Ross’s own house in Heriot Row, and the second Hallenstein factory. One of Ross’s last Dunedin projects was the head office building for the Union Steam Ship Company in Water Street, completed in 1883. Its richly decorated renaissance revival facade was made particularly distinctive by its dome (an observation post) and a collection of small minarets along the parapet. This decoration was removed in 1940 as part of remodelling carried out for the National Mortgage and Agency Company.

Auckland

In 1883 Ross won the competition for the Auckland Harbour Board Offices in Quay Street, Auckland, with a design that at first glance looks like a cheeky replica of the USSCo. building. The main differences were variations to the ornamentation and fenestration (including round-headed windows instead of square-headed ones on the first floor). Like its sister, this building suffered drastic twentieth century remodelling before its eventual demolition.  The Harbour Board commission took Ross to Auckland where he was based from 1883 to 1886. It is perhaps unsurprising that he did not return to Dunedin, as there was little building work going on here in a depressed economy. Other architects who left during the 1880s included Maxwell Bury, Louis Boldini, and R.A. Lawson.

Among Ross’s more remarkable Auckland works there were additions for Alfred Isaacs which transformed his house Charleville into a fantastic but quite ungainly mansion with an enormous castellated tower that commanded superb views. He also designed substantial additions to the Star Hotel in Onehunga, and a large warehouse for Bell Brothers in Wyndham Street.

Octagon Buildings, Dunedin. Photo (1880s): Burton Bros. Alexander Turnbull Library. Ref: Ref: 1/1-006149-F.

Union Steam Ship Company offices, Water Street, Dunedin. Photo (1880s): Burton Bros. Hocken Collections. Ref: S10-221c.

Spot the difference! Auckland Harbour Board Offices, Quay Street, Auckland. Photo (n.d.): Henry Winkelmann. George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries. Ref: 1-W890.

Charleville, residence of Alfred Isaacs, Remuera, Auckland. Photo (c.1910): William Archer Price. Alexander Turnbull Library. Ref: 1/2-001180-G.

Australia again

In 1886 Ross left for Australia, setting up an office at Temple Court, Queen Street, Sydney. His best known work there is the St George’s Hall, Newtown, of 1887, which was one of his more grand and florid renaissance revival designs. Also from this period were the mansion Iona at Darlinghurst, and the masonry towers and other work for the Long Gully suspension bridge, which cost over £100,000 to build and was one of the largest bridges of its kind in existence.

Ross briefly practised in Wellington from 1893 before moving to Perth in 1895, where he went into partnership with Burwell.  The partnership didn’t last long as Burwell soon set up on his own at Fremantle, but Ross remained in Perth for over seven years, getting some substantial residential commisions but probably less work than he would have liked. The most ambitious project he was involved with there was a proposed 1,160-seat theatre for Perth Theatre Company, but this never came to fruition. Other projects included villas for John Shadwick,  F. Cairns Hill, and Stanley Sutton, and buildings for the Silver Pan Confectoney Company.

Ross’s most surprising move came in 1903, when he left Perth for Johannesburg, South Africa, where rebuilding had started following the Boer War. It was surprising not only because of the distance, but because Ross was approaching 75 years of age. A farewell event was held at the West Australian Club, where it was said that by his genial disposition Ross had made a large circle of friends, and was looked upon with much affection and goodwill: ‘Mr. Ross was not a young man, but had plenty of “go” and true grit and, would have ample scope for his capabilities in a new land with such possibilities as South Africa’. Ross feelingly replied, commenting that ‘he had always helped younger professional men without jealousy, and no thing pleased him better than when he saw any of the improvements which he had made adopted in general use. His ideas were not due to inspiration, but were the result of hard study.’

St George’s Hall, Newtown, Sydney. Photo: Hall & Co. State Library of New South Wales. Ref: 35195.

Long Gully bridge, Sydney. Photo (n.d.): Henry King. Powerhouse Museum Collection. Ref: 85/1285-1131.

Final years and conclusion

I have so far been unable to trace any of Ross’s work in South Africa, but he remained there until 1906, when he moved back to Auckland. It was there that he died on 6 October 1908, at the age of 80. Fellow freemasons from Lodge St Andrew arranged a funeral procession to the Waikumete Cemetery, where he was buried. The grave is unmarked. Ross had continued to work until the month before his death, with one of his last works being additions to St Barnabas Church, Mount Eden. Two daughters outlived him.

Ross would probably be more celebrated if he hadn’t moved around so much. He was soon almost forgotten in Dunedin, and in his own lifetime the Cyclopedia of New Zealand  stated that he had been dead for several years. His New Zealand Historic Places Trust biography still states that he probably spent his later life in the USA and Japan, and some Australian sources give his place of death as South Africa. The fact that he is not identified as the author of many of his surviving buildings has prevented full recognition of his achievements.

Despite a lack of knowledge or writing about him, Ross has long been recognized as a key figure. His importance has been acknowledged by writers from the 1960s onwards (perhaps beginning with McCoy and Blackman’s Victorian City of New Zealand), and Knight and Wales describe him as ‘undoubtedly one of the most important architects who have worked in Dunedin’. Seven of his buildings are listed as Historic Places, partly due to their association with him.

Stacpoole (1971) wrote that ‘Quite clearly, [William] Mason was the architectural superior’ of Ross, and that where ‘Ross’s buildings are essentially Victorian, Mason’s display earlier influences and, to that extent, please us more today’. I agree that the two men often use the stylistic language of different generations, but disagree with the overall assessment. Mason designed two superb Dunedin buildings (the Post Office/Stock Exchange and Bank of New South Wales) but his other work (even including the 1865 exhibition buildings and St Matthew’s Church) doesn’t appear to give him any great claim to be ‘superior’.

In my opinion Ross was also of similar ability to his slightly younger contemporary, R.A. Lawson, who is recognised as Dunedin’s pre-eminent Victorian architect for designing the city’s grandest landmarks of the period (First and Knox churches, the Municipal Chambers, Otago Boys’ High School, Larnach Castle). In some particular aspects, such as commercial architecture, Ross’s legacy is no less significant than Lawson’s. His role as an innovator also give him a key place. What I most like about Ross though, is his knack for strong yet elegant, and rich yet unfussy design. I think his reputation will continue to grow.

Selected works:

• 1854-1856. Glass Terrace, Melbourne*
• 1854-1937: St Mary of the Angels Catholic Church, Geelong*
• 1855. Chalmers Church, Eastern Hill*
• 1856-1857. Presbyterian manse, Williamstown, Melbourne*
• 1856-1857. St Kilda Sea Bathing Establishment, Melbourne
• 1857. Tower and spire, Scots Church, Melbourne
• 1857. Flint, Ramsay & Co. warehouse, Collins Street, Melbourne
• 1857-1858. Wesleyan Church, Fitzroy Street, St Kilda, Melbourne*
• 1859. Colonial Bank, Kilmore*
• 1862-1863. Imperial Hotel, Princes Street, Dunedin* (attrib. only – much altered)
• 1863. Provincial Hotel, Port Chalmers
• 1864. Congregational Church, Moray Place, Dunedin*
• 1864. Empire Hotel, Princes Street, Dunedin (extensive additions)
• 1865. Bank of Otago, Princes Street, Dunedin
• 1867. Fernhill (Jones residence), Dunedin*
• 1867. Colinswood (Macandrew residence), Macandrew Bay*
• 1869-1870. Athenaeum and Mechanic’s Institute, Octagon, Dunedin*
• 1870. Rectory, Otago Boys’ High School, Dunedin
• 1872-1873. Windsor Park homestead, North Otago*
• 1873-1874. Elderslie homestead (Reid residence), North Otago
• 1874. Port Chalmers Grammar School
• 1874. NZ Clothing Factory, Rattray Street, Dunedin*
• 1874-1875. Court house, Lawrence*
• 1874-1876. Normal School, Moray Place, Dunedin
• 1874. Crescent Hotel (later Careys Bay Hotel), Careys Bay*
• 1874. Eden Bank (Joel residence), Dunedin
• 1874-1877. Otago Museum, Great King Street, Dunedin*
• 1875. Colonial Bank (later BNZ), Outram*
• 1875-1876. A. & T. Inglis, George Street, Dunedin* (mostly demolished)
• 1875-1878. Guthrie & Larnach, Bond and Princes streets, Dunedin
• 1876. Presbyterian Church, Palmerston*
• 1876-1877. Gridiron Hotel, Princes Street, Dunedin
• 1876. Terrace for Dr Murphy, York Place, Dunedin*
• 1876. Prince of Wales Hotel, Princes Street, Dunedin*
• 1876-1880. Octagon Buildings, Dunedin*
• 1877. Charles Begg & Co., Princes Street, Dunedin
• 1877. The Willows (Barron residence), Kew, Dunedin
• 1881. Villa for David Ross, Heriot Row, Dunedin*
• 1881-1882. Chapman’s Terrace, Stuart Street, Dunedin*
• 1882-1883. Presbyterian Church, Clinton
• 1882-1883. NZ Clothing Factory, Dowling Street, Dunedin*
• 1882-1883. Union Steam Ship Co. offices, Water Street, Dunedin*
• 1883-1885. Auckland Harbour Board offices, Quay Street, Auckland
• c.1883-1885. Additions to Star Hotel, Onehunga*
• 1885. Bell Bros warehouse, Wyndham Street, Auckland*
• c.1885. Charleville (Isaacs residence), Remuera
• 1887. St George’s Hall, Newtown, Sydney*
• 1889. Iona, Darlinghurst, Sydney*
• 1892. Towers, Long Gully Bridge, Cammeray, Sydney*
• 1899. Villa for John Shadwick, Colin Street, Perth*
• 1902. Villa for F. Cairns Hill, Subiaco, Perth
• 1903-1906. Various unknown works, Johannesburg, South Africa
• 1908. St Barnabas Church, Mt Eden, Auckland (additions)*

*indicates buildings still standing

References available on request

Built: 1900
Address: 249 Cumberland Street
Architect: [?] George William Gough (c.1865-1936)
Builder: Not known

This building dates from the last year of the nineteenth century. It has one particularly striking feature: a sculpture of the Royal Standard in relief on its pediment.  Why is it there? The answer to that question proved harder to pin down than I thought it would be…

In the late 1800s the site of the building was a vacant one next door to the Dunedin and Suburban Tramway Company (which had buildings on both sides of the street). Harry May, of the confectionery firm H. May & Co., erected it as a factory in 1900. It was completed around October that year at a cost of £4,000 to £5,000 for both the building and machinery. It was well appointed for its time and had electric lighting throughout.

At the age of 30, Harry May had confectionery shops in both Rattray and Princes streets, as well as his new factory. Sadly, his enterprise ended in tragedy. May quickly found himself in a financial quagmire and took to forging other men’s names to endorse his bills, to the extent that he was later described as a ‘wholesale forger’. On 4 June 1901 he was found drowned at the St Clair baths. He left a wife and three children.

Why the Royal Standard? Its presence is puzzling and it does appear to be an original feature of the building (it can be seen in a 1906 photograph). A likely explanation is that May used it in his branding, and that he chose the symbol for its patriotic appeal at the height of the Second Boer War. I haven’t been able to link May directly to the ‘Standard’ name, however, Dunedin architect G.W. Gough is named as the architect of the ‘Standard Confectionery Works’ in the Cyclopedia of New Zealand  (1905) and it seems probable that this refers to May’s factory. I haven’t found any other Dunedin businesses from around this time named ‘Standard Confectionery’.

George William Gough (c.1865-1936) was both a civil and a naval architect, meaning he was often designing boats and ships rather than buildings. According to the Cyclopedia  he was born at Manchester and educated at Rothesay in Scotland. He studied naval architecture under the shipbuilders Napier & Sons and Henderson & Co. in Glasgow, and civil architecture with George Melrose in Rothesay. After working in Canada and the United States Gough took charge of an architect and surveyor’s office in Falkirk. He arrived at Dunedin in 1886 where he worked for the engineers and ironfounders Begg & Wilkinson before establishing his own business. Among his ship designs was the steamer ‘Tarawera’, which catered to tourist traffic on Lake Te Anau. His buildings in Dunedin included the Denton Hat Mills, the superintendent’s house in the Botanical Gardens, the North End Boating Club pavilion, and brickworks at Andersons Bay. Some of his drawings survive in the Hocken Collections.

The Cumberland Street building is a nicely proportioned if fairly basic example of Renaissance revival design. The use of unrendered brick with contrasting cement facings on the façade is characteristic of the period, although this effect is currently lost as the facade is painted a single shade of blue. Decoration includes a simple cornice, and the pediment with its sculpture is flanked by volute consoles, while two finials have been removed.

When I took a look into the alley next to the building (where the factory once had an enormous chimney stack), I noticed a faded sign on the wall: ‘Stand….Ware…’. My first thought was ‘ah-ha!’, this is a reference to the elusive ‘Standard’ brand and its ‘Warehouse’. This seemed to be confirmed when I found an early photograph that tantalisingly showed part of the sign. The plot, however, thickened.

R. Wilson & Co. took occupancy of the building (under lease) from 1901, as an extension to their Moray Place factory which was used as a ‘complete grinding, sifting, cleaning and mixing plant for treating coffees, spices, teas, etc’. The name of their leading brand of tea? ’Stand Out’!

Here’s an advertisement from 1906:

So the sign is for tea rather than lollies, and for ‘Stand Out’ rather than ‘Standard’. Wilson’s emphasised that their tea was ‘hill grown’ in Ceylon, and that their factory processing was a great advance, as ‘no germs or dirt can get into air-tight tins’. They also ran a coupon competition for many years.

Many other firms have occupied the building since then. From about 1919 to 1930 it was owned and occupied by the timber merchants G. Howes & Co. and named Howes’ Building. They let part of it to the motor and electrical engineers James J. Niven & Co. A hanging verandah was added in the 1920s, along with new shop fronts. Later occupiers included the Otago Electricity Board and the engineering suppliers Myles Walker Ltd (c.1935-1976). Sun & Snow, adventure equipment specialists, have been in the building since about 1985. Perhaps readers will share memories from these more recent years in the building’s colourful history.

The building as it appeared in the 1920s. Note the chimney stack at the right rear. Photo (detail): S.C. Smith. Alexander Turnbull Library. Ref: 1/2-046491-G.

Newspaper references: Otago Witness, 12 June 1901 p.40 (‘Sad Death of Mr H. May’); 6 June 1906 p.39 (illustration); Evening Post (Wellington), 26 July 1901 p.8 (sale of buildings); Taranaki Herald, 26 March 1906 p.6 (advertisement); Poverty Bay Herald, 5 September 1906 p.4 (advertisement).

Other references: Cyclopedia of New Zealand, vol.4 (Otago and Southland Provincial Districts), 1905; Telephone directories; Stone’s  Otago and Southland Directory ; Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory ; Dunedin City Council rates, permit, and cemetery records.

Built: 1903-1904
Address: 618-626 Great King Street
Architect: Percy William Laing (1859-1915)
Builders: Peter Campbell and/or Henry Charles Foster

This terrace is one of the most unusual and distinctive in Dunedin. Its balconies with bullnose verandahs and lashings of decorative cast iron fretwork would look quite at home in Melbourne but are almost exotic here. Terraces featured significantly in Dunedin’s early housing and more than twenty rows still stand from their heyday period of 1876-1912, not including terrace-like pairs of semi-detached houses. There were once many more. The simplest ones were working-class tenements but the fancier ones were marketed to white collar workers and professionals. They were a good investment option for early landlords, particularly before electric tram services opened up the suburbs, and with land in the industrialised central city at a premium.

I’ve titled this post ‘Gleeson’s Terrace’ because these houses were built for William Gleeson, but as far as I know this was not a name used historically. Gleeson (1841-1917) was the proprietor of the Rainbow Hotel in George Street and in 1902 he also owned the Annandale Arms, a two-storeyed wooden hotel which stood on the site of the terrace. The Annandale Arms was refused a license in June that year and the old building was soon torn down. In October tenders were called for the erection of the terrace. In addition to the three two-storeyed ‘villas’ at the front of the property, a row of four single-storey dwellings was built at the rear. These survive but cannot be seen from the street and are only accessible via a private right-of-way (so I haven’t included photographs of them).

After the terrace was built the next-door neighbour on the southern side sued Gleeson, as the building encroached onto her land and it was claimed that water swept from its roof onto hers. She was awarded some damages and it was ordered that decorative features at the top of the building that projected over her property be removed.

The builders were Peter Campbell and/or Henry Foster. The architect was Percy Laing, whose signature can be seen on the deposited plans on file at the Dunedin City Council. Laing was a Dunedin boy who went to Otago Boys’ High School and was trained by that pre-eminent Dunedin architect, R.A. Lawson. He afterwards went to Melbourne where he was employed by N. Billing & Son. After returning to Dunedin he worked with Robert Forrest before establishing his own practice in 1903, the year this terrace was built. Laing died in a climbing accident near Ben Lomond saddle in 1915, at the age of 56. His other designs include Ramsay Lodge at 60 Stafford Street and the Kensington Hotel (later remodelled in art deco style).

This terrace is a little old-fashioned looking for 1903 and could easily be mistaken for an earlier building, although the front walls and fire walls perhaps give it away as later. It is derived from a style popular in Australia in the 1880s and the architect’s time working in Melbourne largely explains the connection, although it would be interesting to know what his client’s instructions were. The deposited plans differ from the finished building in that they show a balustraded parapet with finials. They also show a cornice that was probably built and later removed.  The plans don’t show the iron lacework as it appears. This was produced very nearby at Barningham & Co.’s Victoria Foundry in George Street (opposite Knox Church), and possibly chosen straight from their catalogue. The company’s name can be seen at the base of the verandah posts. Barningham’s were well-known for manufacturing the ‘Zealandia’ brand of coal ranges and their 1903 advertisements referred to ‘verandah castings of all kinds’.

The first resident of the southernmost house (then number 308) was Frances Grant, who taught singing and piano. The other two houses were occupied by painter/decorators. Two of the three houses were soon converted to flats (upstairs and downstairs), and for this reason new front doors were installed. Few tenants stayed long and occupants included a butcher, a draper, engineers, a brewer, a grocer, a police sergeant, a railway guard, and a barman. Special mention should be made of the Lindsay family. Robert and Sara Lindsay’s family moved into the southernmost house around 1928. Robert was a blacksmith. Annie Lindsay remained there until her death at the age of 97 in 2007, when the house was still in very original condition, retaining its kauri fireplace surrounds with tile insets. The houses now appear to be used as student accommodation, being handy to the university.

Otago Daily Times, 4 February 1907 p.6. The street numbers were changed in 1910 and 308 corresponds with the present 618.

The terrace looked pretty rough in 2009 but by 2010 a lot of love, money, and expertise had obviously gone into renovations and restoration. The balcony no longer slumps and mismatching timber railings put in over the years have been removed and replaced with replicas of the original ironwork. The result is impressive.

Newspaper references: Otago Daily Times, 2 June 1903 p.4 (license refused to Annandale Arms), 27 October 1903 p.6 (call for tenders), 4 December 1903 p.7 (Gleeson fined re drainage), 5 August 1905 p.3 (legal dispute re land), 4 February 1907 p.6 (advertisement for Frances Grant); 6 April 1915 p.3 (death of Percy Laing), 28 April 2007 (advertisement in property supplement); New Zealand Tablet, 1 October 1903 p.32 (Barningham advertisement).

Other references: Dunedin City Council deposited plans, Stone’s Otago and Southland Directory, Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory.

Built: 1863
Address: 152 Princes Street
Architect: [?] William Henry Clayton (1823-1877)
Builder: Not identified
Demolished 1887

Photo: D.L. Mundy, [1864]. Toitū / Otago Settlers Museum.

The design of the Oriental was so eclectic that it has been variously described as Gothic, Continental, Renaissance, Old English, American and, yes, Oriental. It even had ironwork with shamrock motifs. The Otago Daily Times struggled to describe the building in 1864, but referred to it is as ’very pretty’ and an example of what might be termed  ‘Continental Gothic’, a departure from the ordinary Gothic style.  The great variety of detail included barley twist columns, grotesque heads, a representation of Bacchus, balcony stick work, Tudoresque chimneys, oriel windows, gablets, an elaborate and unusual cornice, and a platform with iron railings on the top of the building. No Asian influence was mentioned in the report and I haven’t found any evidence explaining whether or not the hotel name was chosen before or after the building was designed. Stacpoole and Beaven (1972) noted that the oriel windows with connecting balconies, along with the cornice, were ‘as far East as Gothic could go’.

A contextual view. Note the Dowling Street steps where the land was excavated in the 1880s allowing the extension of the street. Photo: 1865. Alexander Turnbull Library. Ref: PAColl-3824-04.

The question of who designed the building has long been one of the puzzles of Dunedin’s architectural history. Some sources name Edward Rumsey as the architect, an attribution that seems to have originated with Stacpoole and Beaven (1972), based on slight stylistic grounds. Rumsey only started working in Dunedin around August 1864 so he can in fact be ruled out as the author.

I have a new theory, which is that W.H. Clayton designed the building. Clayton worked in Dunedin from May 1863, and of all the architects working in Dunedin at the time he is the only one I know of whose style appears at all consistent with the Oriental. Clayton later became Colonial Architect and he designed many public buildings throughout the country, including the Old Government Buildings in Wellington. There are particularly striking similarities between the Oriental and his unrealised concept drawing for Government House in Wellington (c.1869). After searching newspapers online, on microfilm, and in print, I found only one piece of documentary evidence to support this: in August 1863 Clayton called for tenders for ‘Lowering an Hotel to the permanent level’. It was at this time that the section of Princes Street known as the Cutting, in which the Oriental was built, was lowered to the line of the rest of the street. Was the Oriental the hotel referred to in the tender notice?

W.H. Clayton’s unrealised design for Government House, Wellington. Image: c.1869, Alexander Turnbull Library. Ref: PA1-q-158-42.

The Oriental was one of Dunedin’s larger hotels. It had a bar and a restaurant, and was the venue of lodge meetings, coroner’s inquests, the organisation of walking races, and its fair share of disorderly behaviour. It was a mostly respectable establishment, however, and its accommodation included ‘private rooms for families’. In 1883, an English artist who had toured New Zealand described the hotel as ‘rather of an American type, and, I must say, the most elegant building of the kind I have seen since leaving San Francisco’.

The first licensee, Harriet Cooper, went broke within a few months. While she was there she lost a cockatoo that must have lent even more colour to the establishment. Below is a full list of the licensees checked and revised from the lists of Willett (1937) and Tod (1984):

1864. Harriet Cooper
1864-1865. Horace Bastings
1866-1868. Edgar Bastings
1868-1871. John McCubbin
1871-1872. James Mackay
1872-1876. John Scott
1876. Henry Nankervis
1876. Joseph Braithwaite
1876-1878. William Gawne
1878. Angelo Davis
1878-1880. Reuben Isaacs
1880-1881. Francis O’Kane
1881. Maurice Tondut
1881-1883. Donald Macrae
1883. Henry Newey
1883-1886. George Stanbrook
1886-1887. Joseph Wilson
1887-1888. John Donaldson

Advertisement from the New Zealand Tablet, 4 August 1876 p.17. National Library of New Zealand.

Advertisement from the Otago Witness, 18 September 1880 p.4. National Library of New Zealand.

In its early years Princes Street was plagued by fires, which sometimes swept through entire city blocks. Deaths and great loss of property were experienced, and it’s unsurprising that wooden buildings came to be seen as a liability, and that more fireproof brick construction was promoted on safety grounds. Earthquakes were not experienced, and so they were not factored in. The Oriental nearly burned down on no fewer than four occasions (1865, 1880, 1883, and 1885) and at the time of its demolition in 1887 it was described as a ‘standing menace’. The land was very valuable, and in 1874 the freehold had been purchased by Joseph Braithwaite (the well-known bookseller and later mayor) for the princely sum of £1,850.

After much blasting and excavation, Dowling Street was extended and the Excelsior Hotel was built on the site of the old hotel (taking its license). That building still stands today, but its story will have to wait for another post.

Newspaper references:

Otago Daily Times, 20 August 1863 p.3 (Clayton tender notice – reducing hotel to permanent level); 18 December 1863 p.3 (description), 10 February 1864 p.7 (lost cockatoo), 30 May 1864 p.3 (Cooper insolvent ), 1 June 1864 p.3 (Sibbald), 12 May 1874 p.2 (sale of freehold), 15 May 1880 p.2 (fire), 23 March 1883 p.4 (impression of architecture on visitor), 28 November 1883 p.2 (fire), 2 June 1884 p.1 (Stanbrook advertisement), 10 June 1885 p.2 (fire), 9 March 1887 p.2 (demolition), also various Licensing Committee reports; The Mercury (Hobart), 11 February 1865 p.3 (fire – walls blistered); Otago Witness, 18 September 1880 p.4 (O’Kane advertisement).

Other references:

Knight, Hardwicke and Niel Wales. Buildings of Victorian Dunedin: An Illustrated Guide to New Zealand’s Victorian City  (Dunedin: McIndoe, 1988).
Stacpoole, John and Peter Beaven. New Zealand Art; Architecture 1820-1970 (Wellington: Reed, [1972]).
Tod, Frank: Pub’s Galore (Dunedin: Historical Publications, 1984).
Willett, R.W. Hotels of Dunedin; Historical Record  (Dunedin, 1937).

Photo (detail): D.L. Mundy, [1864]. Toitū / Otago Settlers Museum.

Built: 1907
Address: Cr Stuart and Castle streets
Architect: Walden & Barton
Builders: G. Simpson & Co.

I’ve posted about a few Lower Stuart Street buildings now and there’s a reason why many of them are from the Edwardian period. The development of Lower Stuart Street progressed apace after the site of the new railway station was finally settled in 1902. It was obvious that a lot of foot traffic would soon be using the street, and it wasn’t long before modest wooden buildings disappeared and vacant sites were built on. Within about ten years a dozen substantial new buildings went up. This one was built for A. &. W. McCarthy Ltd, an old firm of gunsmiths, locksmiths, and fishing equipment specialists. Samuel McCarthy had set up business in Dunedin in 1861, originally as a gunsmith, locksmith, and bellhanger. Sam’s sons Arthur and Walter took over in 1890 and the firm then took on its familiar ‘A. & W.’ name.

An advertisement from the Otago Witness, 18 January 1894, p.44.

McCarthy’s new building went up in 1907. Tenders were called in February and the building was completed before the year was out, with the firm moving from their old premises at 65 Princes Street. The architects were Walden & Barton and the building pairs nicely with the Sweeting’s fish shop on the other side of Stuart Street, which they also designed in 1907. The architecture is a composite Edwardian style that draws from various periods, sometimes loosely called ‘Queen Anne’, and transitioning towards more modern styles. The building is large and handsome and on a prominent corner, yet somehow it manages to be unassuming. It’s sympathetic in scale and design with its grandiose neighbours, the Law Courts and the Railway Station. The gentle curves to the first-floor window surrounds are a nice touch, and pilasters, cornices, and recessed panels give interest to the facades. The pediment above the stairway entrance would have been more prominent before the hanging verandah was added. The building contractors were G. Simpson & Co.

McCarthy’s remained in the building for some 90 years but in its later years the shop itself was moved to the old dairy co-operative premises next door in Castle Street. Five generations of the family ran the business. They became the leading importer of English guns and increasingly specialised in fishing equipment. They were famous for their catalogue service (which even drew in overseas customers) and for a time they had branches in Invercargill and Palmerston North. They had shops and offices in the Stuart Street building, as well as workshops for their own manufacturing department. Children were paid to collect bags of cocoon bodies, which were used to make fishing lures. McCarthy’s fishing reels are now collectors items.

The shop kept a modest appearance and Cormac McCarthy recalled: ‘There were a lot of customers over on the West Coast who used to buy the mail order catalogues. They were often terribly disappointed when they got to Dunedin for the first time. They expected a place about three times as big as Arthur Barnett, with rows and rows of guns and fishing rods, and here was this little shop with an old bloke with a beard running around.’

Perhaps unusually for a gunsmith, Arthur McCarthy was a pacifist. He studied socialism and Marxism and opposed conscription during World War I. He was a labour movement activist and became national secretary of the United Labour Party in 1912, and later became involved in the Social Credit movement.  According to his grandson he had a reputation for having a fiery temper and giving firm advice. Caroline Martin recorded that ‘one of the more colourful stories about A.P. McCarthy involved prostitutes from the Railway Hotel next door who were in the habit of throwing their used unmentionables into the shared courtyard below’.

A. & W. McCarthy went into liquidation in 1999, by which time they claimed to be the oldest family-run business in Australasia. The firm’s stock and name were bought by Centrefire, which currently trades as Centrefire McCarthy’s in Moray Place. An immense accumulation of antique stock and memorabilia was sold by auction.

Many others have leased premises in McCarthy’s Buildings, which originally included six ground floor shops. The fruiterers, Steel’s, occupied the shop at 10 Stuart for 77 years from 1921 to 1988. Upstairs, an unarmed combat training school has occupied the building for the last 75 years.

Wrestling teacher and unarmed combat instructor Harry Baldock (1905-1991) moved to Dunedin in 1929 and opened a new gymnasium upstairs in the building in 1938. His school became known as the Baldock Institute. During the Second World War, Baldock was the New Zealand chief unarmed combat instructor and physical training instructor at Burnham camp as well as Forbury and Wingatui camps. He taught national wrestling champions and hosted many visiting international wrestlers. His wife, Iris, was a masseur and physiotherapist who had worked as a nurse at convalescent hospitals for returned soldiers during the war.

In 1973 Geoff (‘Tank’) Todd began training at the Baldock Institute, initially in weight training, physical culture, wrestling, boxing, and Jiu Jitsu, and later unarmed combat. Todd took over the school in 1986 and it became Todd Group, which refocused towards unarmed combat. As of 2013, the group has an instructing team of over 100 instructors and 30 depots worldwide. It also operates a 280 acre 100-man accommodation training camp. Todd Group still runs a gymnasium at 6 Stuart Street. You can read more about their history on their website.

In 2005 the Stuart Street Potters Co-operative opened a gallery and shop at no.12. Koru Gallery arts co-operative occupies the corner shop.

The exterior of building has changed little apart from the addition of hanging verandahs in 1938. Even the original shop fronts remain; and inside, tongue-and-groove wall linings can still be seen. The building is currently owned by Allied Press.

Newspaper references:

Otago Daily Times, 8 August 1906 p.8 (removal of old buildings), 18 February 1907 p.6 (call for tenders), 11 May 1907 p.12 (description), 24 December 1993 p.13 (‘In the family for 132 years’ by Caroline Martin), 18 May 1999 p.2 (McCarthy’s in liquidation), 18 June 1999 p.4 (Centrefire purchase), 24 June 1999 p.3 (McCarthy’s auction). Accessed from Papers Past (National Library of New Zealand).

Other references:

Colbert, Roy. ‘Generation Game’ in North and South, no.126 (September 1996), p.16.
McCarthy, A.C. ‘McCarthy, Arthur Peter (1862-1947)’ in Southern People: A Dictionary of Otago-Southland Biography (Dunedin: Longacre Press, 1998), pp.293-294.
80 Years of Combative Excellence [DVD]. Dunedin: Todd Group, [2007].
Stone’s Otago and Southland Directory
Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory
Telephone directories
Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans

Built: 1863
Address: 118-146 Princes Street
Architect: Charles G. Smith
Builder: Not identified

These buildings may be scruffy and disfigured, but they’re among the richest sites of social and cultural history in Dunedin, which makes them more exciting than many structures with grand porticos or pretty turrets. They are also among the very oldest commercial buildings in Dunedin.

Farley’s Buildings were erected for Henry Farley (c.1824-1880), a colourful entrepreneur whose business ventures in Dunedin included the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens and Farley’s Arcade (later redeveloped as Broadway). The brick buildings with stone foundations were erected between July and November 1863, and a report in the Daily Telegraph told readers: ‘Mr C.G. Smith is the architect of this very comprehensive pile of buildings, and its design, as a specimen of architecture, is extremely creditable to him’. Not much is known about Charles Smith, but he designed Dunedin’s Theatre Royal (1862), and claimed to have designed theatres in Sydney and San Francisco. He later worked on the West Coast.

Most of the buildings in Princes Street at this time were timber constructions, so Farley’s Buildings represented striking progress at a time when fires were frequent and gold rush money was still only beginning to make an impact. The buildings originally had unrendered brick facades but photographs show that the upper brickwork deteriorated quickly. By 1874 it had been plastered over, although decorative details (including cornices and window surrounds) were preserved in rendered form, and the name ‘Farley’s Buildings’ was added to the parapet in relief lettering. Small additions with windows to Dowling Street were made around the late 1880s, when the street was reformed.

A Daniel Mundy photograph of the buildings taken in 1864, just a few months after they were built (Toitū / Otago Settlers Museum, Album 54)

A photograph taken around 1870 (Toitū / Otago Settlers Museum 57-98-1)

Part of a Burton Brothers panorama from 1874, showing the plastering of the brickwork.

The original block of buildings was the present 126-146 Princes Street. It included five ground-floor shops, upstairs offices, a music/assembly hall, and a photography studio. The studio was in the portion that rises above the Dowling street corner. It was taken by Tait Brothers (Royal Caledonian Photographic Rooms) in late 1863 or early 1864. Later photographers here included Henry Frith, John McGregor (Edinburgh Portrait Rooms), John Gittins Wills (American Photo Company), and Charles Clarke Armstrong.

The assembly or concert room housed the Dunedin Music Hall, soon better known as Farley’s Hall, which was housed under the high roof structure that can still be seen at the northern end of the buildings. It measured 65 feet by 26 feet and was 16 feet high. Events held in the hall included balls, dance classes, bazaars, banquets, Nicholas Chevalier’s art exhibition, a wax works display from Madame Sohier’s in Melbourne,  and Mr Hamilton’s practical phrenology demonstrations which included the examination of ‘Living heads of noted men of Dunedin’.  The hall could only hold about 300, so larger new venues were soon favoured for popular entertainments.

There were many political meetings: Julius Vogel spoke here as did supporters of James MacAndrew prior to his re-election as Superintendent in 1867. The Otago Provincial Council used the hall as its chambers from 1864 to 1866 (prior to completion of the Provincial Government Buildings), making the buildings a significant site of government in the heady gold rush years. The many other gatherings in the hall took in meetings of company directors, lodges, interest groups, and societies, including the Acclimatisation Society, Caledonian Society, Horticultural Society, Athenaeum and Mechanics Institute, and the Benevolent Institution (which also had offices in the buildings). The hall was regularly used for religious meetings, notably the Brethren services led by evangelist Alfred Brunton, who was said to have been the first to introduce the colourful Moody and Sankey choruses to Dunedin.

An advertisement for one of the lectures of Mrs Charles Fanshawe Evereste (Alice Marryat). Otago Daily Times 5 December 1864 p.6 (Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand)

Upstairs rooms were set up as offices with the first tenant being the barrister and solicitor G.E. Barton. Thomas Bracken of the Saturday Advertiser had rooms in the building in 1878, but so far I haven’t been able to confirm if he was there in 1876, when he ran a competition to set to music his verses ‘God Defend New Zealand’. It’s possible the words were written here. Other tenants in the nineteenth century included John Irvine (Dunedin’s first professional portrait painter), David Henderson (lithographer), Alfred Boot (dentist), John Hewitt (dentist), Alexander Hunter (surgeon), Edmund Quick (consular agent), and Abraham Solomon (pawnbroker). Solomon, who was a leading member of the local Jewish community, purchased Farley’s Buildings around 1880 and permit records suggest at least part of the block remained in the ownership of the Solomon Estate in the 1930s.

The ground floor shops were originally let to Walsh Brothers (boot and shoe sellers), Thomas Collins (fruiterer and confectioner), McLeod & Gibson (grocers), and Ure & Co. (tea dealers and warehousemen). The remaining shop was subdivided for Thomas Bray (hatter and outfitter) and M. Jones. There have been so many businesses in these buildings since then that I won’t attempt to name them all, but some have had particularly long occupancies.

Stewart Dawson & Co., an Australian-based chain of jewellers still in Dunedin, occupied the corner premises from 1902 to 1979. They carried out major alterations before moving in, combining two shops into one, installing new shop fronts, and putting in compressed-steel wall and ceiling decoration made by the Wunderlich Company of Sydney. The colourful and brightly-lit interior was described in the Cylopedia of New Zealand as having the appearance of a fairy palace. The contractor was James Annand.

The shop of Stewart Dawson & Co. (Toitū / Otago Settlers Museum, 57-64-1)

Cookham House, a footwear store, occupied 132 Princes Street from 1904 and later moved to no. 122 before moving to George Street in 1984. It had been established by John Switzer on another Princes Street site in 1857, although it is unclear if the nineteenth-century history of the firm was continuous (Joseph McKay may have revived the name). Cookham House was associated with the tailors Hamel & McKenzie for many years and continues today in association with Bob Shepherd Menswear.

J.C. Gore Ltd, jewellers, went into business at 131 Princes Street in 1949 and moved across the road to Farley’s Buildings (no. 132) in 1962. The firm closed in 2005 but at the time of writing their old neon sign can still be seen above the verandah.

In October 1906 a fire destroyed the buildings of the New Zealand Bible, Tract, and Book Society, which stood to the north of Farley’s 1863 buildings. These buildings were also owned by Solomon, who replaced them with new additions to Farley’s Buildings that repeated the old facade decoration. James Annand was again the contractor. These buildings are now the home of Disk Den, a music shop that was established in Rattray Street in 1958, and which has been on its present site since 1987. Some original decorative plaster ceilings can still be seen inside.

The buildings have seen many physical changes: bullnose verandahs running the length of the buildings were added in 1904 and replaced with hanging verandahs in the 1930s; the facades were re-plastered in the 1940s, when decorative detailing was removed and window openings altered; a large skylight above the hall was removed at some date, and more recently the photography studio has been entirely reclad. Despite these alterations the essential form of the buildings remains intact, and can be more readily seen and appreciated here than in any of Princes Street’s other surviving buildings of the 1860s (most of which are behind later facades). Farley’s Buildings are a rare link with the city’s early history and should be among its most prized heritage.

A photograph showing the roofs, with the former photographic studio at the far left and Farley’s Hall under the rusty roof at the centre.

Newspaper references:

Daily Telegraph, 31 October 1863 p.5 (description); Otago Daily Times, 28 May 1862 p.4 (Theatre Royal), 24 July 1863 p.3 (call for tenders for foundation), 1 August 1863 p.2 (call for tenders), 11 August 1863 p.6 (call for tenders – carpenters and joiners), 16 November 1863 p.10 (Thomas Collins advertisement), 21 November 1863 p.8 (Walsh Bros advertisement), 24 November 1863 p.3 (to let notice – offices), 7 December 1863 p.2 (advertisement for Dunedin Music Hall), 28 August 1865 p.5 (Provincial Council), 27 June 1867 p.1 (phrenology), 4 July 1867 p.1 (accommodation for 300 in hall), 4 March 1873 p.3 (Edinburgh Portrait Rooms), 12 December 1902 p.8 (Stewart Dawson alterations), 26 November 1906 p.3 (Bible Depot fire), 23 February 1907 p.12 (rebuilding), 26 November 1984 p.20 (Cookham House history), 31 July 2010 p.42 (Alfred Brunton); Otago Witness, 20 February 1863 p.4 (Tait Brothers advertisement).

Other references: 

Block plans (1889, 1892, 1927); Cyclopedia of New Zealand, vol.4 (Otago and Southland Provincial Districts) 1905; Stone’s, Wise’s and telephone directories; Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans.

Built: 1873-1874
Address: 21-27 Moray Place
Architect: Robert Forrest
Builder: James Gore

An early lithograph of the Temperance Hall (Toitū / Otago Settlers Museum)

This post continues the theme of public halls with the Oxford Buildings, known originally as the Temperance Hall and later as the Choral Hall. Completed in 1874, this venue was erected for the Dunedin Temperance Hall Company, a group formed chiefly by members of the Pioneer Lodge of the Temperance Order of Good Templars. The building was intended for the use of various local temperance groups, which were then part of a large, vigorous, and influential movement. They aimed to fight what one local clergyman described as ‘great evils arising from intoxicating drinks’. The hall was also available for general hire.

On the ground floor were offices and the ‘lower hall’ or meeting room, which measured 25 x 41 feet. On the first floor was the larger ‘upper hall’, which measured 72 x 43 feet and contained sitting room for 750 people. This hall had a stage and gallery and an ‘elliptical cove’ ceiling of varnished kauri with sunlights of stained glass. Kauri timber was used throughout the building. The facade was designed in a simple Renaissance Revival style, with rustication and round-headed windows on the ground floor, and curved and triangular pediments above the windows on the first floor. The building was described in the Otago Daily Times as being of a ‘plain but substantial character’.

The architect was Robert Forrest and the hall was one of his early works in his transition from the role of building contractor to the role of architect. The building has been mistaken for a William Mason design due to confusion with an unrealised theatre project that G.R. West put forward for a nearby site around the same time. The builder was James Gore, who submitted a tender of £2,778. The foundation stone was laid by the Mayor, Andrew Mercer, on 26 December 1873, following a procession in which 1,200 people took part. A bottle placed in the stone contained a scroll signed by officers of various lodges, newspapers, coins, and a company prospectus. The building officially opened with a soiree, concert, and dance, on 14 August 1874.

Otago Daily Times, 11 March 1878 p.1 (from Papers Past)

For decades, balls were held (the floors were designed with this in mind), dancing lessons given, and many concerts and other entertainments put on. The Kennedy Family were among the first to appear in the hall with their performances of popular Scottish ballads in 1874. The world billiards champion John Roberts played here in 1876, and the tight-rope walker Henry Morris (‘The New Zealand Blondin’) performed in 1878. A waxwork exhibition featured likenesses of the Kelly Gang and other famous people. One series of chamber music concerts was organised by Raphael Squarise and Arthur Barmeyer through their Otago Conservatorio of Music. A four-day Maori Carnival was held 1902.

Religious meetings were held in the building for nearly 40 years. The Salvation Army’s first New Zealand meetings were held at the hall on 1 April 1883, both preceding and following the better-known outdoor gathering commemorated by a brass plaque on Cargill’s Monument. The Army continued to use the hall for three years. From 1886 the Open Brethren hired it, and it was at this time that the name of the building was changed from the Temperance Hall to the Choral Hall. The Brethren were led by the evangelist Alfred Brunton, who had earlier preached at Farley’s Hall. He led Brunton’s Choir, a group of up to 100 singers hat was known throughout Otago, favouring the new style of emotional (and sometimes sentimental) Moody and Sankey songs. This ministry through music may explain the adoption of the Choral Hall name. Brunton died in 1900 and the Brethren continued to hold their meetings in the hall until 1920, when they moved to a new building.

Many clubs and societies met in the Choral Hall. The Dunedin Burns Club held meetings and gave concerts, and from 1891 to 1906 the Otago Art Society held its annual exhibitions in the building. Frances Hodgkins, then just beginning her career, was among those who exhibited. There were also many political meetings and lectures, the latter including such topics as ‘Reincarnation as a Factor in Evolution’ (by a theosophist) and ’Eighteen Months in the Canadian Far North’ (for the Otago Institute).

11 July 1889 was a significant day in the history of New Zealand. The inaugural meeting of the country’s first women’s union, the Tailoresses’ Union, was held at the Choral Hall and Rev. Rutherford Waddell gave what became a famous speech denouncing working conditions and ‘sweated labour’ in factories. This broke the sweating scandal that led to the Sweating Commission of 1890, which was in turn instrumental in the passing of the Factories Act and other legislation by a new Liberal Government.

Otago Daily Times, 14 July 1890 p.1 (from Papers Past)

The Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) met in the hall and the Women’s Franchise League of New Zealand grew out of this, holding it’s inaugural meeting at the Choral Hall on 28 April 1892. This group played a pivotal role in promoting women’s suffrage and widely circulated the petition that was so influential in the successful campaign for women to be given the vote.

In the early 1920s the first-floor hall was converted to a clothing factory for Butterworth Brothers, who employed about 40 staff on the premises, putting their robe department in the gallery and machinists on the main floor. A fire broke out on 16 March 1927, the same day that thousands of people gathered in the streets for the visit of the Duke and Duchess of York. The blaze extensively damaged the first floor and roof, but the ground floor (where the auctioneer Spedding used the old lower hall) escaped with little more than water damage. The building was rebuilt, but the panelling that can be seen in the hall today suggests that the polished kauri ceiling was lost. The space was later used by Sharland & Co. (wholesale druggists) and the Dunedin Frock Manufacturing Company.

The Temperance Hall Company sold the building as early as 1882, due to debt and the difficulty of competing with newer halls. In the late nineteenth century it was owned by D.C. Cameron and in the early twentieth century it passed to the Taylor Trustees. In 1932 they employed the architects Miller & White to design extensive alterations to the building which were carried out by the Glue Construction Company at a cost of £2,500. This saw the removal of the lower hall and the building of three shops on the ground floor. A new verandah used Wunderlich pressed metal, while shop fronts featured Australian rose mahogany woodwork, decorative leadlights, and orange and black terrazzo slabs. This work was described in the Evening Star as being in ‘ultra-modern style’. The main staircase was rebuilt in a new location and a lift installed by Turnbull & Jones, for which a small penthouse was added to the roof. The first floor facade decoration seems to have been left unaltered at this time, but in 1944 it was stripped of its ornamentation and given a plainer style that was then fashionable. A new name, ’Oxford Buildings’, was added to the parapet in relief lettering.

The auctioneers Spedding’s (succeeded by Scandrett’s) took one of the shops. Eliza Squire (a milliner and seamstress) occupied the middle one from 1939 and remained there for twenty years. The other shop, at 25 Moray Place, was occupied by Modern Books from 1943 to 1954. This was run by the Dunedin Co-Operative Book Society (one of just a few bookshop co-operatives in New Zealand), which had socialist ideals and aimed ‘to foster the reading and writing and production of books, pamphlets, circulars and other publications of a nature that will promote an active and intelligent interest in progressive ideas and activities’. The shop specialised in New Zealand books, history, music,and philosophy, as well as general literature. Landfall editor Charles Brasch was involved with the management and day-to-day running of the shop, which was frequented by the local literati. Janet Frame sometimes browsed there in its last year or so, hoping to ‘glimpse one of the literary figures of Dunedin or one visiting from up north’. From roughly 1956 to 1976 the same shop was occupied by Catholic Supplies.

The old upper hall became the Manhattan Lounge in 1960. The space remained essentially unchanged but the old gallery became a bar (originally a coffee bar) with a dance area on the floor below. The Lounge was a popular venue up to the 1980s, and later became the Manhattan Theatre. At the time of writing it is used by the Vertical Aerial Dance studio, which offers specialist pole dancing classes. The shops are now occupied by Modern Miss (vintage clothing), and Whiteroom (sellers of designware, furniture, lighting, and contemporary art). The building looks well kept but the grey exterior colour scheme is a little at odds with the warm colours of the terrazzo.

A lot more could be included in the story of this building. In pulling together various strands I’ve been impressed by the national significance of its social and cultural history. It’s a frequently overlooked treasure, easily worthy of registration as a category I historic place.

Newspaper references: Otago Daily Times, 25 March 1873 p.2 (meeting for proposed hall), 14 April 1873 p.2 (meeting – site put forward), 17 May 1873 p.2 (formation of company), 14 August 1873 p.3 (West’s proposed hall), 27 November 1873 p.4 (tender accepted), 17 January 1874 p.2 (Rev. James Clark on alcohol), 21 January 1874 p.6 (laying of foundation stone), 26 June 1874 p.2 (progress), 7 August 1874 p.3 (description – nearing completion), 15 August 1874 p.2 (opening and description), 21 August 1874 p.2 (finishing touches), 29 August 1874 p.8 (description), 18 September 1876 p.3 (John Roberts, billiards champion), 25 August 1882 p.3 (buildings to be sold), 28 September 1882 p.2 (sale), 27 June 1883 p.3 (lease to Salvation Army), 8 June 1889 p.2 (Sweating Scandal meeting), 29 April 1892 p.3 (Women’s Franchise League meeting), 5 July 1920 p.4 (Open Brethren move out), 17 March 1927 p.10 (fire), 18 March 1927 p.13 (fire); Evening Star, 17 March 1927 p.6 (fire), 20 September 1932 p.2 (alterations), 24 January 1933 p.1 (alterations).

Other references: Stone’s Otago and Southland Directory; Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory; telephone directories; Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans; Barrowman, Rachel, A Popular Vision: The Arts and the Left in New Zealand (Wellington, 1991) pp.125-127; Frame, Janet, An Angel at My Table (New York, 1985) pp.126-129; Stacpoole, John, William Mason: The First New Zealand Architect (Auckland, 1971); Hocken Collections MS-2758/0288 (Miller & White plans)

Built: 1912-1913
Address: 67-69 Princes Street
Architects: Salmond & Vanes
Builder: G. Lawrence & Sons

At the end of the nineteenth century there were two big music firms in New Zealand: Charles Begg & Co. and ‘The Dresden’. The head offices and showrooms of these businesses were right next door to each other in Princes Street.

The Dresden Pianoforte Manufacturing & Agency Company had been established by David Theomin and Frederick Michaelis in 1883, in part of an older block of buildings designed by David Ross and built in 1867. These premises, between the Octagon and Moray Place in Princes Street, included a music warehouse (for sale of instruments, sheet music etc.), piano and organ showrooms, piano manufacturing workshops, a concert room, and rooms for professional music teachers. The company claimed that its Dunedin premises alone never held fewer than 200 to 250 large instruments, such as pianos, organs, and harmoniums. The company’s innovative hire purchase scheme was hugely successful, and by 1907 the Dresden had 258 employees, and branches or agencies in 60 towns throughout New Zealand.

A contract for the erection of a new seven-storey building designed by Salmond & Vanes was signed on 17 February 1912. The site was immediately to the south of the old one, where two other buildings from Ross’s 1867 block were demolished. The old Dresden premises (facelifted in the 1940s) survive today and are occupied by Moray Gallery and Toast Bar. Salmond & Vanes’ records in the Hocken Collections include two sketch drawings which show some of the evolution of the design. They are for buildings one storey lower than the final design, apparently on the original site, and one features striking half-timbered gables in Tudor style. Because of the fall of the land, two of the levels would be built below the street.

Hocken Collections MS-3821

The total cost of the building was £18,504, putting it among the most expensive erected in Dunedin in the first two decades of the twentieth century. £1,000 was spent on tiling alone, with the exterior decorated with yellow and black Faience tiles manufactured by the Leeds Fireclay Company (Burmantofts Pottery). Yellow and black were the Dresden company colours. The overall style was a mixture Tudor Revival and Art Nouveau styles with three three-storeyed oriel window bays, and arched window openings on the top floor. The building is one of the city’s earliest examples of reinforced concrete construction; and steel framing for the frontage included a 10-tonne girder manufactured by A. & T. Burt, reported to be the largest girder put into a Dunedin building up to that time. It was also among the tallest buildings in the city, with the hill it was built on giving it a higher total elevation than the larger New Zealand Express Company building in Bond Street. The builders were G. Lawrence & Sons, with Turnbull & Jones contracted for the electrical work and George Davies & Co. for the heating. Completion of the work was recorded by the architects on 20 June 1913.

In 1912 the piano was at the peak of its popularity in New Zealand, with more pianos imported that year than in any other before or since. Annual imports had increased gradually from 1,200 in 1878 to 5,700 in 1912. Most were German, but the First World War soon changed that. In 1915 the Dresden Piano Company changed its name to the Bristol Piano Company ‘for reasons which will be obvious to patriotic citizens’. There is evidence of real prejudice against the firm and its owners. A correspondent from Gisborne wrote to the sensationalist Truth newspaper complaining that Theomin was German, favoured German products, and employed Germans in influential positions. The paper defended the company’s founder, explaining that he was born in England and was the son of a Prussian Jew. The firm’s new name was taken from Theomin’s birthplace: Bristol. Other German or German-sounding names were changed during the war or shortly afterwards. The Dunedin Liedertafel became the Royal Dunedin Male Choir, Brunswick Street in South Dunedin became Loyalty Street, and members of the Hallenstein family altered their name to Halsted.

An advertisement which appeared in the Evening Star, 2 January 1915, explaining the name change.

Examples of sheet music written by Dunedin musicians and published by the Bristol Piano Company: ‘British Boys’ (1915) and ‘Tropical Moon’ (1930)

The Bristol Piano Company building was a hub of musical activity in the 1920s and even had its own concert chamber, but the depression, new forms of entertainment, and declining sales of pianos, were hard on the company. In 1933 the Dunedin building was sold to a syndicate of Dunedin businessmen and rebuilt as shops and professional offices. It was noted at this time that a stone wall constructed by convict labour in 1862 could still be seen in the basement. The building was renamed the Capitol Building and is still known by that name. The Bristol Piano Company moved to Dowling Street and ceased trading in Dunedin in 1936. The national company went into liquidation in 1938. A later music firm in Dunedin called the Bristol Piano Company was a separate entity.

Occupants of offices in the building have included lawyers, doctors, and dentists. In the early years many of the rooms were taken by music teachers and the Barth School of Music (1921-1972) were long-standing tenants. This school was run by three sisters: Beatrice, Irene, and Ruby. They had a room each on the fourth floor for individual lessons, and there was a classroom where they taught theory to the younger pupils and hosted meetings. They were leading members of the Society of Women Musicians of Otago, and Beatrice administered the Dunedin Centre of Trinity College of Music.

A photography studio designed by the architects Miller & White was added above the existing top storey of the building in 1933. This was originally occupied by the photographer J.J. Webster, and in 1954 was taken over by Campbell Photography, which continued there to 1986. The lawyers Albert Alloo and Sons are now the longest-standing occupants of the building.

Much of the façade detail has been destroyed or covered over, including decorative tilework, parapet railings and detailing, and capitals. The arched window openings on the fourth floor have been replaced with square ones. The essential form of the building remains unchanged, however, and the original window joinery of the oriel windows is also mostly intact. Maybe it will return to the yellow and black Dresden colours one day. For nearly 60 years the building was much higher than its neighbours, until Evan Parry House was built on the site of the Bristol’s old rivals, Begg’s. It still makes a strong statement today, being tall and imposing among a collection of mostly lower buildings, and bringing variety to the streetscape.

Newspaper references: Otago Daily Times, 17 April 1867 p.1 (erection of old building), 23 April 1900 p.4 (about the company), 1 September 1909 p.3 (about the company), 22 August 1912 p.6 (new building); Otago Witness 18 May 1867 p.11 (old building); Grey River Argus, 7 January 1915 p.5 (name change); N.Z. Truth, 10 April 1915 p.7 (Theomin and Germany); Evening Star, 31 May 1933 p.3 (image and reference to wall). All references except the Evening Star sourced from Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand.

Other references: Dalziel Architects records, Hocken Collections (MS-2758/0727); Salmond Anderson Architects records, Hocken Collections (MS-3821); Stone’s and Wise’s directories; Suzanne Court, ‘Barth, Beatrice Mary’ from Dictionary of New Zealand Biography.

Built: 1880 / 1939
Address: 387 George Street
Architects: Louis Boldini / Stone & Sturmer
Builders: Norman Wood / D.P. Murphy

A Labour Day procession makes its way south along George Street, some time between 1892 and 1896. The Royal Albert Hotel can be seen on the right. The bay with the shop front at the left-hand end was added in 1882. (Hocken Collections S09-219e)

There has been a pub on the site of The Bog Irish Bar for nearly 150 years. In April 1864, James Ramage Hood was granted a license for a new public house named the Black Bull Hotel. An early photograph shows it was a single-storey wooden structure. Hood was succeeded as licensee by William and Margaret Carveth (from 1866 to 1877), and Johann Luks (1877-1879).

Luks was a German immigrant who had previously worked as a fruiterer in George Street. In late 1878 he commissioned the architect Louis Boldini to design a new hotel building, but was declared bankrupt in August 1879 before the project could go ahead. Daniel White purchased the fourteen-year lease on the property the same month, and in December was granted a license for the establishment which he gave a new name: the Royal Albert Hotel. The replacement building was erected in 1880 by contractor Norman Wood to Boldini’s plans, and completed by October. It was built of brick, with ornate cemented facades in the revived Italian Renaissance style, and made the most of a tricky triangular site. The ground floor had a bar, three sitting rooms, a dining room, and a kitchen. There were nine bedrooms and a sitting room on the first floor.

Louis Boldini was the only Italian or Continental European architect who worked in Dunedin in the late nineteenth century, and as most of his work has been destroyed this building is a significant survivor. Boldini’s most impressive designs included the second Dunedin Synagogue, the AMP Building, Butterworth Brothers’ warehouse, and the Grand Hotel. Of these only the Grand remains (as the Dunedin Casino within the Southern Cross Hotel).

Daniel White, first licensee of the Royal Albert Hotel (Toitū / Otago Settlers Museum, A566-1)

Daniel White (c.1834-1907), known to some as ‘Black Dan’, was born on the Caribbean Island of St Thomas. He arrived in Dunedin in 1859 and initially worked as a barman at the Provincial Hotel. After running a restaurant called the Epicurean, he opened the Crown Hotel at the intersection of Rattray and Maclaggan streets in 1862. He was later the founding proprietor of Royal Hotel in Great King Street, the Queen’s Hotel in Castle Street, and the Ravensbourne Hotel. He was also a West Harbour Borough councillor.

For many years White was one of the most respected publicans in Dunedin, but in 1882 he was refused a renewal of his license for the Royal Albert Hotel on grounds of ’immorality’. Separated from his wife of twenty years, he had fathered children by two of his servants, one of whom he had been found guilty of beating (for which he was fined one pound). He was forced to give up the Albert, but eventually returned to the Queen’s Hotel in 1888 and remained there for ten years. His last pub was the Duke of Edinburgh Hotel in Russell Street. White died in December 1907 at the age of 73.

The Albert passed to Francis O’Kane in 1882, and to Joseph Strong before the year was out. Building additions, again designed by Boldini, extended the hotel in a southwards direction. The next licensees were Robert Allen (1883-1889), Alfred Low (1889-1890), Mary Campbell (1890-1892), and Michael Maloney (1892-1896). The hotel was refurbished during Maloney’s time and alterations designed by architects Mason & Wales were carried out. Maloney was succeeded by John McLeod (1896-1900), Margaret Braun (1900-1904), Thomas Laurenson (1904-1907), Robert McClintock (1907), George McGavin (1907-1911), Michael Cahill (1911-1912), Eliza Cahill (1912-1918), and Sarah Laurenson (1918-1928).

Advertisement from the New Zealand Tablet, 4 November 1892 p.24 (Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand)

The longest serving publican of the Royal Albert Hotel was Henry Mathie Allan, who ran the business from 1928 to 1961 together with his wife, Frances Annie Allan. Above the corner entrance can still be seen the words: ‘H.M. Allan, Licensed to Sell Fermented & Spirituous Liquors’. This wording was uncovered when layers of paint were stripped from the fanlight in 2007. Harry Allan was the son of Eliza Cahill, one of the earlier licensees. He had a keen interest in trotting and owned a number of horses, the most successful of which were Blue Horizon and Will Cary. In Allan’s time the hotel underwent its most radical transformation. The architects Stone & Sturmer (Gorton R. Stone and Frank Sturmer) were commissioned to design extensive internal alterations, a large extension facing London Street, and an art deco makeover of the old exterior. The work was carried out in 1939 by D.P. Murphy and cost £5,443. Stone & Sturmer reworked a number of other nineteenth-century facades in Dunedin during the 1930s, including the Victoria Hotel in St Andrew Street (since demolished) and the Victoria Chambers in Crawford Street. As with Mandeno & Fraser’s remodelling of the Manchester Unity Chambers, previously discussed in this blog, the final result is a marriage of two styles and periods.

Perspective drawing by Stone & Sturmer, architects (Evening Star, 21 March 1939 p.3, with thanks to Dunedin Public Libraries)

An Evening Star newspaper report stated: ‘The exterior of the building will be changed to suit present-day tastes with coloured plaster ornaments rising from a brown-tiled base’. Boldini’s ornamentation was removed and plastered over, but the first floor window openings remained and the building retained much of its original rhythm and some of its Victorian character. The new decoration included fluting, floral motifs, and string courses with scroll patterns. Leadlight windows were installed in the first floor and for the fanlights. The ground floor windows were enlarged but mostly filled with glass bricks, the idea being to let light in but keep noise out and the temperature stable. The new private bar was ‘modern to the extreme with colours of black, red, cream, and chromium predominating in a design of sweeping curves and horizontal lines’. It featured a 100-foot continuous counter. The London Street additions were likewise modern in style, with a flat-roofed building erected over the old yard space.

The building in 1983, photographed by Frank Tod (Hocken Collections S13-531a)

The building in 1983, photographed by Frank Tod (Hocken Collections S13-531b)

Edward and Lindsay Young bought the hotel 1963 and remained the licensees to 1977. They gave up the accommodation side of the business and in 1971 the London Lounge bistro opened on the first floor, taking space previously used for bedrooms. A New Zealand Breweries publication reported: ‘The decor shows foresight and courage: a challenging psychedelic (cloth) wallpaper, brightly-hued lampshades, vari-coloured seats, [and] contrasting drapes’.  A tavern license was issued in 1978 when the Royal Albert Hotel became the Royal Albert Tavern.

The next big makeover came after Michael Bankier bought the tavern in 1988. The Royal Albert was renamed the Albert Arms and given a Scottish theme, complete with Royal Stuart tartan carpet. The menu included ‘Kildonald Fried Chicken’, ‘Loch Lomond Salmon Salad’ and ‘Isle of Orkney Pork Chops’. Loch Lomond is not known for its salmon, nor Orkney for its pigs, but the names were only intended to be fun. The ground floor windows were reglazed to allow patrons to watch what is one of Dunedin’s most buzzing street corners, and the exterior was repainted in a distinctive green and red colour scheme selected by Peter Johnstone and Sue Medary of the Design Consultancy. The refurbished bar and restaurant opened in June 1989.

The green and red colour scheme of 1989-2007, photographed by Axel Magard in 2000 (Creative Commons license)

For a short period from 2004 the Albert Arms returned to the ‘Royal Albert’ name and the bar was branded as Albie’s, but the large Albert Arms sign remained on the parapet. The most recent refurbishment came in 2007, when the Royal Albert became The Bog Irish Bar, one of a chain of four bars in Auckland, Christchurch, and Dunedin. The exterior was repainted blue, with gold and grey detailing. The London Lounge closed but a new restaurant was later opened in the space. Steel grilles were added in front of four first floor windows and a variety of textured and coloured glass panes installed in the existing ground floor windows. There are many appealing features,  but to me it’s a pity that the old name has gone and there is no celebration of the site’s own 149-year history amidst the large amount of generic Irish history that decorates the interior.

There is a curiosity in the exterior plasterwork in that two dates, 1859 and 1939, are engraved on the parapet. The second commemorates the rebuilding, but the first is something of a mystery. The original 1880 decoration also featured the 1859 date. The site was first licensed in 1864, so is the reference to 1859 a mistake? Was Dan White referring to the year he first arrived in Dunedin? Or was there some other business on the site from this date? It’s something to ponder – perhaps over a beer!

The building in 2013

View from London Street, showing the 1939 additions on the right

Detail featuring the ‘Royal Albert Hotel’ name and the dates 1859 and 1939

Leadlight window with the name of Harry Allan, licensee from 1928 to 1961

Newspaper references: Otago Daily Times, 20 April 1864 p.4 (Black Bull Hotel), 15 June 1864 p.4 (Black Bull Hotel), 12 August 1879 p.1 (bankruptcy of Luks), 23 August 1879 p.4 (sale of hotel), 3 December 1879 p.3 (transfer of license), 13 May 1880 p.2 (White in City Police Court), 5 October 1880 p.2 (description of new building), 19 June 1882 p.2 (White’s license), 25 July 1882 p.2 (additions),  3 April 1894 p.3 (alterations by Mason & Wales), 23 March 1911 p.12 (‘Black Dan’), 25 March 1961 p.2 (hotel sold), 19 June 1961 p.3 (retirement of Harry Allan), 14 June 1989 p.21 (refurbished as Albert Arms), 24 May 2007 p.10 (refurbished as The Bog Irish Bar), 18 October 2007 p.22 (The Bog); Evening Star, 31 December 1878 p.1 (call for tenders), 31 July 1882 p.2 (additions), 21 March 1939 p.3 (description of rebuilding); Otago Witness, 6 September 1879 p.15 (sale of hotel).

Other references: Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans; Frank Tod, Pubs Galore (Dunedin, 1984); Frank Tod papers, Hocken Collections (MS-3290/049).

Built: 1927-1928
Address: 73 Princes Street
Architects: David Gourlay Mowat
Builders: Lawrence & Sons

This wee gem often catches my eye. The Rio Grande was the restaurant of Dimitrios Pagonis (1893-1976), a Greek immigrant from the island of Evvia. Pagonis had arrived in Dunedin in 1915, when he went into business as a confectioner and opened the Anglo American Candy Kitchen. He sold the business in 1927, when he commissioned architect D.G. Mowat to replace the 1860s building at 73 Princes Street (part of a larger block of shops) with a new structure. Plans dated 24 August 1927 show a building with three levels (two above the street and one below) on a concrete foundation that would allow the height to be increased to a total of five levels if required. The restaurant occupied the ground floor and basement, and the first floor was used as office space. The builders were Lawrence & Sons.

The building was completed by April 1928, when an Evening Star report described it:

‘Only last week the proprietor of the Rio Grande restaurant served the first meal to the public, and if internal decoration has anything to do with a cafe’s popularity then the Rio Grande should find a warm spot in the heart of patrons. The fibrous plastering has been very well done by Messrs Forman and Nicol, and Messrs Arnold, Brock, and Raffils have put their best work into the lead-lighting arrangements. The kitchen is fitted out with the usual culinary equipment of modern times. From the street the building has a remarkably fine appearance, the marble floor running in from the pavement being quite a feature.’

David Gourlay Mowat (1880-1952) was most active in Dunedin in the 1920s and 1930s. His designs included the St Andrew Street Church of Christ, the Maori Hill Presbyterian Church, Mann’s Buildings at the corner of Manse and High streets, and the building at 232 George Street which is now a McDonald’s restaurant. The last of these was built in 1929 and shares with the Rio Grande a distinctive first-floor window design with arched lintels and leadlight windows described as ‘sashed in the antique style’.  Both buildings have similar decorative mouldings that frame their facades. In the Rio Grande, the international vogue for Egyptian decoration comes through in an understated way through the pilasters and curved entablature. Mowat’s front elevation drawing shows the faint lettering ‘The Rio Grand’ [sic] in the recessed panel that runs across the upper part of the facade. The spelling in later sources varies.

Restaurants operated from the building under various managers for ten years. During the Great Depression street riot of 1932, Pagonis opened the restaurant to rioters for the whole day, feeding them without charge. Not long after this he sold the building and left Dunedin, but he later returned and established the Beau Monde Milk Bar, further south and on the opposite side of Princes Street.

A wartime advertisement. Otago Daily Times, 27 April 1943 p.5.

The jewellers G. & T. Young took the premises in 1938, when new shop fronts and other alterations were designed by architects Salmond & Salmond. The large Birmingham clock that had been a feature outside their previous two premises since 1871 was moved and attached to the facade. G. & T. Young moved to George Street premises in 1988 and the clock was removed in 1990. When the firm went into liquidation in 2009 it was believed to be the oldest jewellery business in New Zealand. It had been established by George Young in 1862, with his brother Thomas admitted as a partner in 1876.

Most recently the Rio Grande building housed Rocda Gallery, and its plaster ceilings are still largely intact. For a small, domestically-scaled commercial building it attracts a lot of admiring comments, perhaps because its modest take on 1920s architectural fashion has more than a little sparkle to it, like a ring in a little jeweller’s box.

Do any readers have historical photographs of this building? I’d love to see a good view of it with the clock still in place.

Newspaper references: Evening Star, 10 January 1928 p.2 (construction progress), 2 April 1928 p.2 (description); 18 December 1928 p.2 (building at 232 George Street); Otago Witness, 18 May 1867 p.11 (earlier buildings), 15 April 1871 p.14 (G. & T. Young clock); Otago Daily Times, 17 April 1867 p.1 (earlier buildings), 14 May 1990 p.3 (clock removed), 27 January 2009 p.4 (liquidation of G. & T. Young).

Other references: Directories (Stone’s, Wise’s, telephone); Jane Thomson,‘Papers relating to Southern People’ (Hocken Archives MS-1926/1347); Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans.

Born: Ferrara, Italy, 9 April 1832
Died: Maldon, Victoria, Australia, 12 October 1908

While researching the Dunedin musician Raffaello Squarise ten years ago, I became intrigued by this other Italian who featured large in Dunedin’s cultural history. Hardwicke Knight and Niel Wales had said that virtually nothing was known of him, apart from some major contributions he made to the city’s architecture. Peter Entwisle also lamented that so little was known, and through his ‘Art Beat’ column in the Otago Daily Times shared some new information I uncovered. I’ve been occasionally digging around ever since.

In the thirteen years he lived in Dunedin, Boldini gave the city some of its richest and most exuberant pieces of architecture. In the 1880s there were fewer than two dozen Italian-born people living here, and Boldini was the only Continental European architect in a profession that was dominated by Scotsmen and Englishmen, and only beginning to add the sons of colonists to its ranks. Many of these architects designed in the Renaissance Rival manner, but Boldini’s personal style had what Entwisle nicely describes as a ‘distinctively continental stamp’.

Luigi Boldini was born in Ferrara, where his father Antonio (1798-1872), was an artist known for painting religious subjects. His mother, Benvenuta Caleffi, had been a seamstress. Luigi was the couple’s eldest son, and the second of thirteen children. The family moved to the home of his grandparents, the Federzonis, in 1842. Luigi Federzoni (stepfather of Antonio) was a civil engineer and architect who had earlier worked as a cabinetmaker.

In 1846 the family inherited a house in the Via Borgonuovo, with a beautiful view of the Castello Estense. It had belonged to Luigi’s wealthy great-uncle, who had no children of his own. The uncle’s legacy favoured Luigi (who was also his godson) and granted him an annual pension which allowed him to study civil engineering in both Rome and Paris. One of Luigi’s brothers, Giuseppe, became a sculptor, and another, Gaetono, became a railway engineer. A third, Giovanni, became a fashionable and internationally famous portrait painter in Paris, and was known as ‘The King of Swish’ for his flowing style of impressionist-influenced realism. Luigi gave Giovanni much financial help in the early years of his career.

A patriot, Luigi was described as one of Garibaldi’s soldiers. With his school classmates Gaetano Ungarelli and Gaetano Dondi he participated in the successful defence of Ancona in 1849. By 1855 he was studying in Paris, where he was a contemporary of Gustave Eiffel, though probably at another institution. Following his graduation, he worked as a city engineer in Ferrara, and taught at the local technical institute. One of his early designs was a mausoleum for the Trotti family, built in 1855. The Copparo Town Hall was rebuilt from the ruins of the Delizia Estense palazzo between 1867 and 1875 to Boldini’s plans.

On 25 April 1861 Luigi married Adelina Borelli at Ferrara, and they had at least two sons and a daughter together. After the death of Adelina, Luigi decided to migrate to Dunedin, where he arrived aboard the Wild Deer on 20 January 1875, accompanied by his sons Gualterio (12) and Alfredo (7). It’s puzzling that an Italian engineer from a wealthy family chose to move to a settlement in one of the remotest of British colonies, even one that had experienced rapid development and offered good professional opportunities. Luigi suffered from a kidney condition, so perhaps he was one of the many people who were advised by their physicians to seek out the New Zealand climate for its supposed revitalising qualities. There may also have been personal or political reasons that made it untenable for him to remain in Italy, or perhaps like many others he wished to escape the difficult economic and social conditions in his own country.

Albion Hotel, Maclaggan Street, Dunedin. Photo: Otago Witness, 1 July 1903 p.44.

In Dunedin Luigi anglicised his name to Louis, and his sons became Walter and Alfred. Walter studied at the Otago School of Art from 1876 to 1877, where he was commended for his chalk drawings. He also attended Otago Boys’ High School, where he won drawing and writing prizes and was Dux of the Lower School. Louis kept a low profile during these years but joined the Otago Art Society. The earliest Dunedin building designed by him that I have been able to trace is the Albion Hotel in Maclaggan Street, built for Joseph Davies in 1877. A newspaper reporter admired the use of space and described the style as a mixture of French and Italian. Jobs in 1878 included brick offices for Keast & McCarthy (brewers) in Filleul Street, a coffee saloon for A. & T. Dunning (internal alterations), and a brick building in Heriot Row. The last may have been Sundown House, which Boldini advertised as his place of business.

Royal Albert Hotel, George Street, Dunedin. Photo (c.1895): Hocken Collections S09-219e.

Newmarket Hotel, Manor Place, Dunedin. Photo: Toitū / Otago Settlers Museum, 80-85-1.

I have mainly identified Boldini’s Dunedin projects from tender notices in the Evening Star, a newspaper he preferred to the Otago Daily Times. These notices refer to over fifty projects, but there must have been many more for which the builders were found by other means. Boldini became particularly recognised as an architect of hotels, and the years 1879 to 1881 saw the realisation of his plans for the Rainbow Hotel, Cattle Market (later Botanic Gardens) Hotel, Martin’s (later Stafford) Hotel, London Hotel, Royal Albert Hotel, Peacock Hotel, and Newmarket Hotel. The style ranged from plain cemented facades with simple cornices and mouldings in the case of the Rainbow, to highly decorated Renaissance Revival designs for the Royal Albert and Newmarket. The latter two both made good use of sloping corner sites. The Newmarket featured Ionic pilasters and bold decorated pediments, but looked a little top-heavy due to the modest height of the lower level. Both hotels featured distinctive acroteria, decorative devices which became something of a signature for Boldini and which were not often used by other local architects.

Synagogue, Moray Place, Dunedin. Photo: Muir & Moodie. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa C.012193.

Detail of exterior, Synagogue, Moray Place, Dunedin. Photo: Muir & Moodie. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa C.012193.

Synagogue, Moray Place, Dunedin. Photo: Muir & Moodie. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa C.012364.

Detail of interior, Synagogue, Moray Place, Dunedin. Photo: Muir & Moodie. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa C.012364.

On 20 July 1880 Boldini won a major commission, when he saw off rival T.B. Cameron with his design for a new synagogue in Moray Place. The Dunedin Jewish Congregation no longer found its 1860s building convenient, and spent £4,800 on an imposing and lavishly-appointed replacement. The architecture was Classical, and featured a portico supported by large pillars with impressive Corinthian capitals. Diamond-shaped carvings on the front door panels were reminiscent of the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara, and iron railings designed by Boldini were made by Barningham & Co. The completed building was consecrated on 28 August 1881.

In the same year Maurice Joel, President of the Jewish Congregation and Chairman of its Building Committee, commissioned Boldini to design additions to his own house in Regent Road (which had been designed by David Ross). Boldini’s design added steps and a striking central bay with a loggia (an unusual feature in Dunedin) and an elaborately ornamented parapet.

Eden Bank House, Regent Road, Dunedin. Photo (c.1905). Photo: Hocken Collections ref: S12-549c.

Elevation drawings of proposed residence for Norman Wood, Ravensbourne. Image: Hocken Collections, Owen MacFie papers, MS-1161/256.

Boldini’s other projects of 1879-1881 included refreshment rooms at the Clinton Railway Station, a large block of commercial buildings for Herman Dodd at the corner of George Street and Moray Place (now the site of the Westpac building), shops for William Cranston (St Andrew Street) and John Mulrooney (Stafford Street), and the Oddfellows’ Hall for Norman Wood at Ravensbourne. Wood was a building contractor and served as Mayor of West Harbour, he also commissioned Boldini to design a grand residence at Ravensbourne but this was never built, likely due to Wood’s financial position (he went into bankruptcy a number of times). A proposed Town Hall for West Harbour was also abandoned, but the South Dunedin Town Hall was built to Boldini’s design. Unfortunately, his residential buildings are hard to identify, as most of the tender notice descriptions are vague. There were two houses for William Lane in Melville Street, a brick villa in Abbotsford, a cottage in North East Valley, a brick house in Caversham, and a residence in Cumberland Street. There was also brick house built in Clyde Street in 1881, which may have been Sir James Allen’s residence ‘Arana’. Boldini designed ‘Dulcote’ in the same street for Allen’s brother, Charles, in 1886.

Most of the work was for brick buildings, but work in timber including shops and houses built at St Kilda in 1880.

Grand Hotel, High and Princes streets, Dunedin. Photo: Toitū / Otago Settlers Museum, 80-74-1.

If there was any doubt that Boldini had secured a reputation as one of Dunedin’s leading architects, this was put to rest in 1882 when he was commissioned to design the Grand Hotel for James and John Watson. The Grand was the largest and most lavishly appointed hotel in New Zealand. Designed ‘in many respects after approved American and European models’, its mod cons included speaking tubes, bells, electric lighting, and a passenger lift. The Oamaru stone facade gently curved at the street corner, and was decorated with ornate carving by Louis Godfrey. For some of the internal plaster decoration Boldini sent his designs to England for manufacture, and large iron columns were cast by Sparrow & Co. Concrete and iron were used for the shell of the building and the floors, which were designed to be as fire proof as possible. The hotel opened on 6 October 1883, when 6,000 people visited. The building contractor was James Small and it cost over £40,000 to build.

Butterworth Bros warehouse, High Street, Dunedin. The facade was remodelled in the late 1940s and the building was demolished in 2010. Image: Advertisement form ‘Beautiful Dunedin’ by W.H. Fahey (1906).

Parkside Hotel, South Road, Dunedin. The building survives but the frontage was extended in 1925 and given an entirely new facade designed by Edmund Anscombe. Photo (189-): William Williams. Alexander Turnbull Library. Ref: 1/2-140504-G.

Boldini’s largest warehouse design was for Butterworth Brothers, importers and manufacturers of clothing and other soft goods. Some of this firm’s wealth might have been better directed at the working conditions of its employees, as the company was one of those named and shamed in the sweated labour scandal that broke in 1889. Most of the building was brick, with the facade constructed from Port Chalmers and Oamaru stone and elaborately carved. ’Fire proof’ floors were again constructed with iron beams and concrete.

Other work by Boldini between 1882 and 1885 included the fitting out of the Parkside Hotel in South Road, interior work for the City Butchery, a stone homestead at Tarras, two houses at St Clair (a wooden cottage and a brick residence), a wool shed for M.C. Orbell at Whare Flat, and a house at Dunback for T.E. Glover.

AMP Building, Princes and Dowling streets, Dunedin. Photo: Frost. Toitū / Otago Settlers Museum, 32-49-1.

Boldini’s last major design in Dunedin was built for Australian Mutual Provident Society on the corner of Princes and Dowling streets. Announced in January 1886, its generous proportions were very noticeable when its four storeys were compared with the modest two-storey buildings on either side. The contractor was again James Small, who tendered a price of £21,600. Some of the policyholders objected to the extravagance of the building, which took two years to build. The ground floor facades were built of Port Chalmers stone with Carrara marble pilasters, and the upper floors were Oamaru stone, with granite columns on the top floor. Interior materials include Abroath stone, Minton and majolica tiles, wrought iron pillars, and cedar woodwork. The top floor was a clothing factory, operated by Morris and Seelye, and which accommodated 100 young women. It was one of Dunedin’s greatest architectural losses when this building was destroyed in the summer of 1969-70. The demolition job took much longer than planned, as it was discovered that Boldini has been something of a pioneer in structural reinforcing.

In September 1886 Boldini gained a commission in Auckland, for the Mutual Life Association of Australasia. With a contract price of £11,000, it was just over half the cost of the AMP offices, reflecting its smaller size. It was completed in December 1887, well ahead of the AMP, which was not finished until August 1888. For over a year Boldini had two very large jobs at opposite ends of colony and this involved much travel, although Mahoney & Sons were supervising architects for the Auckland building. Boldini also gained a daughter-in-law during this period, with his son Walter marrying Jane Wilson at a Dunedin Registry Office on 4 June 1887. Both Walter and Alfred settled in Australia.

Louis was in Dunedin for the testing of the lift in the AMP Building on 8 March 1888, and the following day he left for Australia on board the Rotomahana. I have found no evidence that he ever returned.

Mutual Life Association of Australasia, Queen Street, Auckland. Photo: Henry Winnkelmann. Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1-W1393.

Postcard showing Karori, Mount Macdeon. Image supplied by Dominic Romeo.

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Karori, Mount Macdeon. Photo: Dominic Romeo.

Karori, Mount Macdeon. Photo: Dominic Romeo.

By 1888 building activity in Dunedin was at a low ebb, and the colony as a whole suffering the effects of the long depression. An opportunity presented itself in Australia, when former Wellington businessman Charles William Chapman asked Boldini to design a summer retreat at a bush station on the southern slopes of Mount Macedon, Victoria.  Splendidly restored by Dominic and Marie Romeo between 2011 and 2013, it has been described as a ‘Swiss Chalet’ style building, and its square tower brings out an Italianate character. It has been suggested that some of the external fretwork draws from Maori design, but if so the interpretation looks quite free.

Chapman was an investor in a syndicate led by Dr Duncan Turner, which built an immense guest house resort building at Woodend between 1889 and 1890. With 50-60 rooms and a building area of 2,130 square metres, this was the largest timber structure Boldini designed. Its influences have been described as Venetian, Swiss (the chalet again), Californian (as in trade publications popular at the time), and New Zealand (with its many timber villas). The fretwork on Braemar is highly elaborate, and the octagonal corner tower is a grandiose but delightfully romantic feature.

Lithograph depicting Braemar, Woodend (private collection).

Braemar, Woodend. Photo: State Library of Victoria ref: b52993.

Mechanics’ Institute and Free Library. Photo (2011): Mattinbgn (Creative Commons).

For a time Boldini lived in Melbourne and Daylesford. He settled in Maldon around 1896, a town with a population of about 1,600 residents. He opened an office in High Street, and buildings from this last phase of his career show some change in his style, following the fashion for greater use of unrendered brick, and continuing the development of his domestic timber designs. His Mechanic’s Institute and Library in Woodend with its cemented Renaissance Revival facade is perhaps the closest to his Dunedin aesthetic. Boldini’s surviving buildings in Maldon include the residence Minilya, the Scots Church, Phoenix Buildings, and the Maldon Hotel. The last was not completed until after his death.

Boldini was involved in community affairs, and was made a life governor of the Maldon Athenaeum for the service he gave to that society. He died in Maldon on 12 October 1908, after being admitted to hospital with a chronic cystitis and uraemia. A Presbyterian minister presided over his burial at the local cemetery, and his grave is unmarked.

Minilya (Calder residence), Maldon, Victoria. Image (2011): Courtesy of Jan Warracke.

Phoenix Buildings, Maldon, Victoria. Image (2009): City of Greater Bendigo, Macedon Ranges Shire Council.

Maldon Hotel, Victoria. Image (2009): City of Greater Bendigo, Macedon Ranges Shire Council.

So far no photograph of Boldini has emerged. His brother Giovanni was five foot one inches tall, and a dapper moustachioed society figure, but the two men may not have looked very similar.  I hope to put a face to this story one day.

Boldini’s built legacy has fared better in Australia than in New Zealand. In Dunedin, three of his four grandest designs have been demolished: the AMP Buildings (1969-1970), the Synagogue (1972), and Butterworth Bros’ warehouse (2010). There is some irony that the Butterworth building was demolished by the owners of the remaining building, the Grand Hotel, to make way for a car park. Hopefully further research will identify more buildings and more about the man behind their design.

Selected works:

• 1877. Albion Hotel, Maclaggan Street, Dunedin
• 1878. Coffee salon for A. & T. Dunning, Princes Street, Dunedin.
• 1878. Keast & McCarthy offices, Filleul Street, Dunedin
• 1879. Rainbow Hotel, George and St Andrew streets, Dunedin
• 1880. Royal Albert Hotel, George Street, Dunedin*
• 1880. Cattle Market Hotel (now part of Filadelfio’s), North Road, Dunedin*
• 1880. Martin’s Hotel, Stafford Street, Dunedin
• 1880. London Hotel, Jetty Street, Dunedin
• 1880. Oddfellows’ Hall, Ravensbourne
• 1880. Refreshment rooms, Clinton Railway Station
• 1880-1881. Synagogue, Moray Place, Dunedin
• 1880-1883. Dodd’s Buildings, George Street and Moray Place, Dunedin
• 1881. Brick residence (Arana?*), Clyde Street, Dunedin
• 1881. Peacock Hotel, Princes Street, Dunedin
• 1881. South Dunedin Town Hall, King Edward Street, Dunedin
• 1881. Newmarket Hotel, Manor Place, Dunedin
• 1881. Additions to Eden Bank (Joel residence), Regent Road, Dunedin
• 1882-1883. Grand Hotel, High and Princes streets, Dunedin*
• 1883. Butterworth Bros warehouse, High Street, Dunedin
• 1883. Parkside Hotel, South Road, Dunedin*
• 1884. Homestead (stone), Tarras
• 1884. Additions to Fernhill, Melville Street, Dunedin
• 1885. Woolshed for M.C. Orbell, Whare Flat
• 1885. Glover residence, Dunback
• 1886. Dulcote, Clyde Street, Dunedin
• 1886-1888. Australian Mutual Provident Society (AMP) building, Princes and Dowling streets
• 1886-1887. Mutual Life Association building, Queen Street, Auckland
• 1888. Karori (for C.W. Chapman), Mount Macdeon, Victoria*
• 1889-1890. Braemar, Woodend, Victoria*
• 1893. Mechanics Institute and Library, Woodend, Victoria*
• 1894. Bath house, Hepburn Springs, Victoria*
• 1900. Minilya (Calder residence), Maldon, Victoria*
• 1905-1906. Scots Church, Maldon, Victoria*
• 1906. Phoenix Buildings, Maldon, Victoria*
• 1907-1909. Maldon Hotel, Maldon, Victoria*

*indicates buildings still standing

Primary references:

Too many to list here, many from newspaper sources available online through PapersPast and Trove, and from the Evening Star (Dunedin) on microfilm. Feel free to ask if you’re interested in anything in particular.

Secondary references:

Ceccarelli, Francesco and Marco Folin. Delizie Estensi: Architetture di Villa nel Rinascimento Italiano ed Europeo (Firenze: Olschki, 2009).
‘Dalle Origini al Primo Soggiorno Inglese’ (chapter from unidentified biography of Giovanni Boldini, supplied to the writer)
Entwisle, Peter. ‘Art Beat: Putting Flesh to File on Boldini’, Otago Daily Times, 22 August 2005 p.17.
Entwisle, Peter. ‘Boldini, Louis’ in Southern People: A Dictionary of Otago Southland Biography (Dunedin: Longacre, 1998).
Hitch, John. A History of Braemar House, Woodend, Victoria. 1890-1990 (Woodend: Braemar College, 1992).
Knight, Hardwicke and Niel Wales. Buildings of Victorian Dunedin: An Illustrated Guide to New Zealand’s Victorian City (Dunedin: McIndoe, 1988).
Pepe, Luigi. Copernico e lo Studio di Ferrara: Università, Dottori e Student (Bologna: Clueb, 2003).
Scardino, Lucio and Antionio P. Torresi. Post mortem: Disegni, Decorazioni e Sculture per la Certosa Ottocentesca di Ferrara (Michigan: Liberty House, 1998).
Victorian Heritage Database online

Acknowledgments:

I would particularly like to thank Jan Warracke, Margaret McKay, and Dominic Romeo in Victoria for their help with images and information.