Sunday, February 17, 2019

NEW ZEALAND & NEW CALEDONIA 1892 - 1895 Album XIV Images 21 - 28


   AUKLAND, NEW ZEALAND  &  NEW CALEDONIA
Written and illustrated from first hand research by George W. Randall, co-founder in July 1996 and former Vice Chairman Kinloch Castle Friends' Association.


 1892 - 1895 GRAND WORLD TOUR OF GEORGE BULLOUGH

Returning to New Zealand and New Caledonia Album XIV includes photographs from - Waitomo Caves and Auckland on New Zealand’s North Island; Noumea and France’s Penal Colony on New Caledonia, plus the tragic 1894 wrecking of 
S.S. Wairarapaon New Zealand’s Great Barrier Island.



* See my specific blog to 
the last and fatal sailing 
of the S.S. Wairarapa

CLICK ON THIS LINK

 *  +  *  +  **   + +   **  +  *  +  * 
QUEEN STREET LOOKING SOUTH, AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND. 17217 J.V.
Album XIV  *  Image 21  *  Size 12 x 7½ inches
(Original photograph by James Valentine.)
Auckland Justices of the Peace Association website

The name S. Coombe stands out above 
his tailor and outfitter business on the 
corner of Queen Street, and Customs Street, Auckland, the building also incorporating the Thames Hotel, managed by Mr. Richard Gretten, “licensed to sell liquor 
and hold musical evenings”,
the hotel’s name “connecting it with the
(Thames) gold fields in New Zealand’s 
South Island, fights between patrons at 
the end of the evening (being) 
a common event.” *
It was in Queen Street, named after Queen Victoria, that the first brick buildings in this rapidly developing commercial district of Auckland began to appear in the 1860’s. Coombes’ was located at number 80 Queen Street being originally a partnership of Coombes and Johnstone, which by 1870 was solely trading as Samuel Coombe Gentlemen’s Mercer. A second premises was located at Albert Street, Graham Town, 
South Island. Samuel Coombe was born c.1837, his trading motto being: 
“Small Profits and Quick Returns.”

*  Recommended reading:

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The City of Auckland New Zealand ...

QUEEN STREET LOOKING SOUTH, AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND. 17217 J.V.
Album XIV  *  Image 21  *  Detail from full size 12 x 7½ inches

The canopy reads: 
FENTON & Co. BUTCHERS
20 Queen Street.

Managed by William Albert Fenton the business was highly regarded for the excellent quality of its 
meat. Besides considerable local business, 
including leading hotels and boarding houses, the firm were contractors to the navy and vessels trading to and from New Zealand., their “roomy premises included a commodious cellar used 
for salting and storing purposes.”


Image left and text reference: Victoria University of Wellington, The Cyclopedia of New Zealand. 
(Auckland Provincial District) Meat Trade

The next canopy reads:

STONE  BROs.  &  COMPy.
on the wall of the large building beyond Mutual Life Association of Australia, 
a company formed in Melbourne, Australia, in 1869, which with numerous 
mergers and acquisitions is today one of the leading life insurance, 
superannuation, funds management and income protection companies in the 
world under the AXA brand name.

ALBERT PARK LOOKING TO MOUNT EDEN, AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND
1720 JV  Album XIV  *  Image 22  *  Size 12 x 7½ inches
(Original photograph by James Valentine.)


Albert Park, which lies beside the one of the earliest volcanoes in the Auckland’s
mono-genetic volcanic field, was laid out in the 1880’s on the site of the former
British military facility Albert Barracks which overlooked Auckland from mid-1840 to 1870. Footpaths climb steeply through stands of native trees to the flat summit graced
with flower gardens encircling the large cast iron fountain imported from Great Britain
in 1881 which forms the centre piece of the park.
.......................................................................................................................

Ref: The Project Gutenberg EBook of The City of Auckland, by John Barr published 1922
...........................................................................................

Each of the four corners of the fountain base comprise the statue of a cherub riding a dolphin, each cherub blowing a horn which spouts water.
The whole surmounted by a robed female figure holding aloft a horn which also spouts water. The Park originally had commanding views over Auckland and its harbour but today the skyline is dominated by modern office blocks, largely hidden in summer by the foliage of the now mature specimen trees dating from the 1880’s.
ALBERT PARK LOOKING TO MOUNT EDEN, AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND
  Album XIV  *  Image 22  *  Detail from full size 12 x 7½ inches  * 1720 JV  

THE PHOTOGRAPHER J.V. - JAMES VALENTINE

The “JV”  refers to James Valentine father of George Valentine (1852-1890).
who emigrated to New Zealand in 1884 hoping the climate would improve his health.
Two years after he died in Auckland, a firm's photographer was sent by 
Valentine & Sons to take a series of images to be used as tourist souvenirs and postcards; these were marked with the “JV” initials as distinct 
from the “GV” of George Valentine.
In 1889 Valentine was one of the first photographers to descend into Waitomo Caves,
“an exploit which would have tested the physical endurance of a very fit person.

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND, FROM PARTINGTON WINDMILL.
Album XIV  *  Image 18  *  Edited from full size 8 x 6 inches  *  No. 17633 J.V.
(Original photograph by James Valentine.)

Partington’s Windmill, was a six storey flour mill built of local made clay bricks 
constructed between 1850 and 1851 on Karangahape Road, a ridge overlooking Auckland by engineer and millwright Charles Partington. 

PARTINGTON MILL
GC7G9TD Windmills of Auckland
It immediately became not only Auckland’s best known landmark, but an important guide to mariners entering Auckland's harbour.
Partington soon expanded his business by building a 
factory close-by for the manufacture of biscuits, 
Victoria Flour Mills and Steam Biscuit Factory.

Joseph Partington, an early health food enthusiast and 
son of Charles, died in 1941. In his Will he bequeathed 
the still working mill as a gift to the city in the hope it would 
be preserved, “for the free enjoyment of the 
Citizens of Auckland forever.”
The original document was never found and through the
laws of intestacy the building became the property of
Joseph’s large family who quickly sold it, despite the city council having a copy of the bequest but failing to contest the Supreme Court ruling.
Having stood idle since the death of Joseph Partington in 1941, it was lost to the city in 1950
when it was demolished.

In 1945 the council formed the Old Windmill Preservation Society, its aim to move the structure to another site.
Failing to raise the necessary funding, matters stagnated before coming to a head two years later when the owners made it known to the council they intended to demolish the windmill.
Again cost was the problem and despite a great deal of controversy in April 1950 demolition began. Too late to save Joseph Partington’s windmill and finally realising the loss of this iconic
part of Auckland’s heritage, the National Historic Places Trust was formed in 1955.

AUCKLAND HARBOUR
Album XIV  *  Image 23  *  Edited from full size 6 x 3 inches  *  No. 63 J.M.
(Original photograph by Josiah Martin)

The photographer J.M. was Josiah Martin, born in, London, England in 1843. 

In the late 1860’s he emigrated to New Zealand with his wife and young daughter 
eventually settling in Auckland on North Island. 
A gifted teacher, in 1874 he founded a private academy and the following year opened the 
Auckland Model Training School. In 1879, although only thirty-six, failing health forced him 
to resign his headmastership and he returned to England and made a tour of Europe. 
While in London he visited the Royal College of Chemistry and was introduced to the 
latest improvements in “instantaneous” photography using the newly developed gelatin 
bromide process. On his return to Auckland he opened a photographic studio on the corner of 
Queen and Grey Streets taking portraits and selling his images as prints, lantern slides and stereographs. He was fortunate to be present for the eruption of 3,645 foot Mount Tarawera 
in the early hours of the 10th of June 1886, which killed an estimated 120 people. 
Martin specialised in topographical and ethnological subjects for which he gained 
an international reputation, winning a gold medal at the Exposition Coloniale in Paris 
between May and October 1889, dominated by Gustave Eiffel’s 1,063 foot tower. 
Josiah Martin died in Auckland at the age of seventy-three in 1916, survived by his wife 
Caroline and their three daughters, who, in 1958 presented his collection of negatives 
to the Auckland Institute and Museum.
His images, like those of his contemporaries, provide a record of how landscapes and society 
has changed in the intervening decades. Today Martin’s photographs are to be found in
 art collections of many of the world’s institutions.

UNIDENTIFIED.  MOUNT COOK?
Album XIV  *  Image 3  *  Size 5½ x 4 inches.
KIWI OR WINGLESS BIRD FOUND ON THE WEST COAST
Album XIV  *  Image 2  *  Full size 8 x 6 inches.

Inscription on right base: KIWI

A nocturnal, flightless bird with a long beak and stout legs, poor sight but excellent hearing.
ratitae, the breastbone lacks a keel for the attachment of flight muscles.
The barbed feathers lack vanes and the wings are very small.
Genus: Apteryx     *     Order: Apterygiformes

KIWI OR WINGLESS BIRD FOUND ON THE WEST COAST
Album XIV  *  Image 2  *  Edited from full size 8 x 6 inches.
Inscription on base: KIWI

HAVELOCK
Album XIV  *  Image 1  *  Edited from full size 8 x 6 inches.

Havelock, a township at the mouth of the Pelorus and Kaituna rivers at the head
of Pelorus Sound, twenty-seven miles north-west of Blenheim.
The town came into being in 1864 with the Wakamarina Valley gold rush,
 sawmilling being the principal employment.
It was named after the Major General Sir Henry Havelock, K.C.B., to commemorate
his role in suppressing the rebellion against  increasing British power
in India, particularly his role in the recapture of Cawnpore in 1857.

A MORNINGS FISHING BY WYNNE WILLIAMS. 
HEAVIEST FISH 7-lbs. ALL TROUT FROM THE UPPER SELWYN RIVER,
 TAKEN WITH FLY AND ROD.
Album XIV  *  Image 3  *  Size 8 x 6 inches.

Caption on photograph: 
Trout in New Zealand Rivers. The Upper Selwyn. 
A good days sport 38 fish with the fly. 2 rods.
______________________________________________________

WAITOMA CAVES, NORTH ISLAND
New Zealand
WAITOMO CAVES – Entrance to Fairy Grotto  No. 9
Album XIV  *  Image 9  *  Size 8 x 6 inches

Waitomo is from the Maori language, wai meaning water and tomo meaning sinkhole;
water passing through a hole.
Discovered in 1887 by Tane Tinorau, a local Maori chief, and only six years before 
George Bullough's visit, the limestone Waitomo Caves 
are found in the southern Waikato region of New Zealand's North Island, 
7½ miles north-west of Te Kuiti,122 miles due south of Auckland.

(From Glowing Adventures - Waitomo Cave Tours website)


















The caves, the principal ones being Waitomo, Ruakirii and Aranui, are easily accessible and contain amazing examples of stalagmites and stalactites. 
Waitomo Cave's Glowworm Grotto, as its name suggests, is noted for the 
presence of the larval stage of the fungus gnat (Arachnocampa luminosa), 
a species found only in New Zealand.
Their sparkling presence affords visitors the most impressive caving experience. 

WAITOMO CAVES – MAIRS CAVERN No. 20
Album XIV  *  Image 7  *  Size 8 x 6 inches

Many of the limestone formations have names including: Mairs Cavern, White Terrace, Blanket, Monster and Fairy Grotto. A number of freshwater creeks and brooks cut through the caverns creating underground lakes which team with life, as do the caves themselves being home to birds, lizards, bats, insects and the elegant cave flower, a large mushroom-like fungus which thrives in the caves damp areas.
From time to time a creature from the outside world will stumble into the caves, 
get lost and die. Locked in this extreme isolation away from scavengers who 
would scatter their bones, the not quite fossilised skeletons, some dating from the 
Pleistocene Era, are being discovered and studied, their remains providing
 a wealth of information on how species have changed over time.
(Reference: Waitomo Caves – David Namen, Daniel Bensen)

WAITOMO CAVES -THE MONSTER - MAIRS CAVERN No. 2
Album XIV   Image 8   Size 8 x 6 inches 
WAITOMO CAVES – ENTRANCE TO MAIRS CAVERN No. 13
Album XIV   Image 8   Size 8 x 6 inches 

WAITOMO CAVES 
..................................................................................................

NEW CALEDONIA
FRENCH CONVICT SETTLEMENT

NOUMEA CONVICT STATION  (Isle of Pines ?)
Album XIV   Image 29   Edited from full size  8½ x 6 inches 

New Caledonia (Nouvelle-Calédonie) is a 250 mile long island 
with an extreme breadth of 35 miles, which, with its adjacent island, 
amounts to some 6,450 square miles. 

It was discovered by Captain James Cook, R.N.,  on the 4th of September 1774 
during his second voyage to New Zealand, its original name being the 
Island of Balade. Although extensively used by sealers and traders in sandalwood
 no friendly relations were made with the Kanak natives.
French missionaries arrived in 1843 and claimed the island for France, the capital, Noumea, initially known as Port de France, being founded eleven years later. 

The French penal settlement, which could 
hold 3,000 prisoners at a time, was established in 1864 as an alternative to
that in French Guiana (South America) where life expectancy for prisoners and 
their charges was short due to tropical diseases and poor facilities. 

(Transport of prisoners to Guiana finally ceased in 1897.)

The native population of New Caledonia at this time, estimated at around 60,000, 
had more than halved by the turn of the 
century with records showing a population of 10,056 convicts.
The neighbouring Isle of Pines (to the south) was used as a place of detention 
for habitual prisoners, and although Image 29 is only identified as 
"Noumea Convict Station" in Album XIV it bears strong similarity to known photographs of this facility.

The hottest and wettest months are from December to March but because 
of the trade-winds the climate is healthy. The landscape is rich and beautiful, 
the mountains rising to almost 5,500 feet above sea level. An almost unbroken
 barrier reef skirts the western shore at a distance of five miles creating 
a navigable channel.
Gold, lead, copper, iron, nickel, chrome and cobalt are found; gypsum and 
marble are quarried, with coal is worked near the capital, Noumea.
Bats are the principal native mammal, along with introduced rats! 
Other wildlife includes pigeons, parrots, doves, kingfishers, ducks and the 
wingless kagu (Rhinochetus jubatus) - unique to the island - 
along with turtles and fish.

(Descriptive period reference: Encyclopædia Britannica 11th Edition)

NOUMEA CONVICT STATION 
Album XIV   Image 29   Edited from full size  8½ x 6 inches 

Approximately 1,200 miles from Sydney, Australia, New Caledonia was named by
Captain James Cook in 1774 and annexed by France on the 24th of September 1853
under the orders of Napoleon III. The first convict transports arrived in May 1864,
the arduous 11,000+ mile voyage from France taking six months. Convicts worked on the colony’s infrastructure including construction of the Cathedral of St. Joseph in the capital, Noumea to plans drawn up by an ex-convict named Labulle. Building began in 1887and the cathedral, which contains twenty-eight stained glass windows,
was inaugurated ten years later.

France ceased sending convicts to New Caledonia in 1897, by which time almost
twenty-five thousand had been transported. Hard labour convicts sentenced to eight
or more years were “obliged to settle in the colony … … they being subject to
perpetual residence.” Those with lesser sentences were required to remain for a
further period equal to their original term. The hope was that prisoners would
colonise the islands, which in 1897 was home to 1,700 penal settlers.

Further information: 
https://www.croixdusud.info/hist eng/hist bagne eng.php

NOUMEA OR NEW CALEDONIA, FRENCH CONVICT SETTLEMENT
Album XIV 
  Image 25   Edited from full size 8 x 6 inches 


VIEW OF NOUMEA AND HARBOUR (Across Moselle Bay)
Album XIV   Image 26   Edited from full size 8 x 6 inches 

NOUMEA OR NEW CALEDONIA, FRENCH CONVICT SETTLEMENT
Album XIV   Image 25   Edited from full size 8 x 6 inches 


VIEW OF NOUMEA AND HARBOUR (Across Moselle Bay)
Album XIV   Image 26   Edited from full size 8 x 6 inches 


NOUMEA FRENCH CONVICT BAND PLAYING IN PRISON GROUND.
Album XIV   Image 27  *  Size 8 x 6 inches 


CONVICT BAND IN KIOSK. PUBLIC GARDENS.
Album XIV   Image 28  *  Size 8 x 6 inches 


CONVICT BAND IN KIOSK. PUBLIC GARDENS.
Album XIV   Image 28  *  Detail from full size 8 x 6 inches 

In this much enlarged right corner of the original image (above) stand two native Karnak by the bandstand while behind a coachman, whip in hand and wearing a white pith helmet sits on his open landau with a four-wheeled coach in the background.

+++++     *****     +++++  *  +++++     *****     +++++

BLOG 81  -  ALBUM XV  -  NUMEA, BATAVIA, SINGAPORE

Copyright * February 2019 * George W. Randall Archive * BLOG 80 * Updated 8 February 2023