History of Auckland City

Chapter 2: Building a solid city (1871-1918)

The new City Council and Auckland's condition

While decisive, the proclamation creating the Auckland City Council in April 1871 was not the product of thorough reform. Discord over the means of rectifying defects in the City Board's operation led to procrastination. Provincial Council legislation was possibly illegal, a special Act for Auckland proved unacceptable to Parliament and in 1870 Wellington donned the cloak of municipality. Eventually enterprising citizens mounted a petition for incorporation under the 1867 Act, to which both provincial and central authorities acceded. To sectional disapproval, and having `dishonourably' declined a request to resign and fight an election, the retiring City Commissioners became en masse the ten-strong inaugural City Council. Philips, a hardware merchant, was unanimously appointed mayor and voted a Ł250 annual allowance. The changeover was crowned by a belated celebration dinner for three hundred held in St.Mungo's cafe.

There was, however, no justification for basking indolently in the new-found, elevated status, for though Auckland's population was almost stagnant, its problems were continuously mounting. A pastiche of contemporary comments include ones about Auckland being `filthily dirty and squalid', its poor but numerous hotels, `streets bearing the stamp of poverty and want', `dust which is perfectly blinding' and `smells unrivalled among New Zealand towns.' In unison the press warned that there would be no excuse if steady improvement failed to occur, and counselled in favour of `unostentatious simple dignity' instead of all the `expensive paraphernalia of full civic power.' Principal items on the agenda of the first formal meeting in April 1871 were appointment of various officers, design of City seal, winding up City Board affairs, transferring of City endowments, acquiring office premises, and state of the streets.

Basic needs come first

Quite certainly, Aucklanders of the 1870s primarily charged their City Council with providing and upgrading essential physical services. These were broadly defined as streets, drainage, water supply, prevention of nuisances, and the related control through by-laws of a multitude of private activities.

The street network was potentially a bottomless pit of expenditure. Early improvements included laying asphalt strips for pedestrians and the metalling of eleven main roads. Rows over substandard private roads and responsibility for those on Harbour Board reclamations abounded. Street tress started sprouting, but vandals were not far behind. The percentage of sealed streets grew and there were occasional spectacular achievements such as the building of Grafton Bridge (1910) and the transformation of Jermyn St into the major new outlet of Anzac Ave during World War I. Taking the steps to instal a proper sewerage system seem to paralyse the Council. It long tolerated a night-cart collection combined with -- by 1900 -- the discharge of raw sewage from five points into the Waitemata Harbour. Links with infant mortality and contagious diseases were discounted. After procuring conflicting reports and much inter-authority negotiation, the Council finally consented to the establishment of an independent drainage board and establishment of treatment works which would discharge roughly screened sewage off Okahu Point. It opened in 1914. As regards the maintenance of public health, the Council's record was generally deplorable until its handling of a quasi-smallpox epidemic in 1913 and ore vitally, the great influenza epidemic of 1918. Until its Victoria Park destructor from 1905 started incinerating sixty tons of refuse per day, the Council's policy on refuse disposal was best described as `out of sight, out of mind.' However, it did maintain a twice-weekly domestic collection.

Water for drinking and fighting fires

A city of wooden buildings was always in peril from major fires, but capacity to fight them was utterly primitive. The Council started a `professional' brigade in 1876, which refused to attend fires beyond the Council's boundaries. A steam fire engine and telescopic ladder were finally acquired, but in 1906 the Government legislated for the creation of special fire boards, the costs of which were partly met by insurance company levies. A standard complaint was the lack of water pressure for firefighting, and the goal of obtaining an ample and reliable water supply dominated the Council's attention for its first fifty years. Report followed report and a welter of possible sources, including the Waikato River, were investigated in the 1870s. The acquisition of Western Springs bought time, but imprudent sales to suburban local bodies and declining quality of the Western Springs source, culminated in a water famine in 1900. Streets were washed with salt water and hydraulically-operated lifts ceased functioning. Procrastination was cast aside and the die firmly cast for developing a series of reservoir dams in the Waitakere Ranges. By 1907 the first Waitakere water was flowing in city pipes.

Regulation, by-laws and public health

Perhaps with an eye on possible revenue, the Council by 1872 had issued a veritable torrent of by-laws. Commercial activities were licensed and regulated and a vast range of nuisances proscribed. Fair game were wandering goats, hawkers, saloons, chimneys, tooting of trumpets, contaminated milk, unhygienic food shops, betting in the streets, and horse taxicabs. Often the bylaws provoked opposition from vested interests, and the first building regulations were not invariably applied. For the Council it was hard work -- the police were understandably loathe to serve as detection agents and magistrates apt to impose only nominal fines for proven breaches. The management of traffic figured ever more prominently: the first motor vehicle was registered in 1904 and in 1913 by-laws laid down `the rules of the road' and made driving licences mandatory. After the first major revision and consolidation of by-laws in 1917, over 900 regulations still remained on the books.

Given the state of medical knowledge, issues of health, sanitation and disease were constantly lurking to which the Council could not be oblivious. It contrived to stave off becoming responsible for the general hospital after the abolition of the provinces in 1876, but temporally ran specialist establishments for the treatment of smallpox and venereal disease, the latter also being intended to lessen prostitution. By 1872 the church-controlled Grafton Gully cemetery was suffering from overcrowding and the Council was forced to intervene. After much vacillation over suitable sites, in 1883 it acquired a huge tract at Waikumete Hill, ten miles westward, as a cemetery reserve. By 1918 the basic layout was fixed and shortly afterwards a crematorium was built.

The first utilities

Though in general not notably progressive, nineteenth century councillors realised that for Auckland to be `no mean city', its amenities had to encompass more than essential physical services -- but only if finances were buoyant. From 1876 municipalities were required to provide abattoirs. The Council opened one at Western Springs, extremely close to the water supply source, and despite becoming totally surrounded by residential development and condemned in 1901 as insanitary, there it stayed until a new facility was opened in 1908 at Westfield, next to the private slaughter houses. In 1873 the Council erected on a central site a building for marketing produce. Used also for concerts, as a Paddy's market and as the Council's stables, it rarely thrived and when the adjacent Town Hall was opened in 1911, it had become an embarrassing eyesore. Modern new markets on Harbour Board land allowed demolition of original market building in 1918. To force down fish prices, the Council opened a fish market in 1914, and shortly afterwards, with the courage of its convictions, became a trawler owner and direct fish vendor itself.

Catering for leisure and cultural pursuits

Endeavours as regards culture and recreation were more mainstream. It quickly took the plunge into public swimming baths, although its first facility filled and emptied according to the tides. In their first year (1885) freshwater baths built behind the City Market attracted 18,500 patrons. Achievements then became quite dizzying: scarcely had bathers taken their first dip at the Shelly Beach baths in 1914 (their numbers swollen by the daring innovation of mixed bathing), than their choice was broadened by the advent of the downtown Tepid Baths and the huge open-air Parnell pool. From the outset the Council set about rectifying the fact that not a single park was inherited from the City Board. The first fruit was Western Park in 1879, the year that Albert Park was transferred to Council control by harassed Improvement Commissioners. An even bigger prize -- the 196 acre Auckland Domain -- soon followed and the first park in the forest-clad Waitakere Ranges (1912) was made somewhat more accessible by the construction of the start of the Scenic Drive. With the major, James Parr, the driving force, there was from 1911 a aggressive acquisition of parks and reserves. In many played the Municipal Band, first formed in 1873, and impressively reformed in 1924 as the Municipal Military Band.

Amenities that made definite architectural statements also arose. Having taken over 6,000 volumes from the defunct Mechanics' Institute and Provincial Council libraries, the Council built an imposing combined library, art gallery and municipal offices, the first substantial local body building in Auckland (1887). Sir George Grey donated his magnificent collection of works and the library diversified, although a children's room was a low priority. By 1918 the presence of five branch libraries justified the title of public library system. The art gallery was for long a poor relation, notwithstanding the bequest of 105 framed paintings and sketches by James Mackelvie. It was renovated and enlarged in 1913, this enabling the holdings of the Old Colonists' Museum to be finally displayed. Real municipal grandeur only came with the Town Hall. Discord over the suitability of the wedge-shaped site, funding, and tender prices were forgotten in the ten days of festivities which marked its opening, complete with a clock and organ donated by former mayors, in 1911. As a monument marking the City's coming-of-age, it stood comparison with any of its Australasian counterparts.

Conduits of energy and transport

Very commendably, the Council's initial motives as regards developments in public transport and energy were to prevent Auckland's interests being damaged by a badly-managed private monopoly. In 1882 it gave a twenty-one year concession to a horse tramway company, which, however, eventually failed and turned its attention to getting the best deal from a queue of questionable electric tramway promoters. The thirty-year concession wrapped a tight regulatory blanket around the successful bidders. The operators and the Council seemed in permanent dispute over overcrowding, noise, Sunday services (a 1918 poll sanctioned normal operations), straphanging, union rules and extensions to the system. Municipalization seemed the only answer. Better results were achieved re the introduction of electric power. Action was proceeded by the usual conflicting expert reports, but in 1908 the first current was generated from the adapted destructor. It was soon outmoded and replaced by a coal-fired station near to King's Wharf. By 1917 there were 8,000 consumers and unbounded confidence in an electrical future.

The inevitability of territorial expansion

Auckland's expansion made the provision of utilities pressing and highlighted the witlessness of fixing boundaries which confined the City Council to one square mile. It was soon built over, raising the obvious question of incorporating neighbouring boroughs and highway districts. Auckland City was far from the acme of progress or efficiency, but it was light years ahead of its constricting neighbours. Dazzled by promises of receiving water, drainage, fire and telephone services, Ponsonby, Karangahape and Grafton joined up in 1882. Inspired by the City Council, a `Greater Auckland' movement emerged in 1901, but suburban local bodies long resisted, preferring independence even at the cost of a precarious backwardness. However, faced by possible Government intervention and an outright refusal to disguise their inadequacies by further resort to special purpose boards, many then toppled like dominoes. Ratepayer-endorsed amalgamations occurred with Arch Hill (1913), Grey Lynn (1914), Parnell, Remuera and tiny Eden Terrace (1915) and finally Epsom (1917). Although at least seven other local bodies declined `marriage', Auckland City's population had doubled to 70,000. The evils of fragmented authority and parochialism had been somewhat curbed.

Widening horizons at fifty

The City Council optimistically prepared for its fiftieth jubilee in 1921 as the leading stakeholder in city affairs. Its record included building housing for low-income workers, planning a model garden suburb for Orakei, enlisting under the flag of town planning and promoting metropolitan cooperation. It did not shirk from the fiscal consequences of fostering expansion and development. Though it constructed markets, an abattoir, water and power supplies, swimming baths, still-magnificent Town Hall and Art Gallery edifices, responsibly cut its cloth during several depressions and was suitably patriotic during World War I, it was beloved of the press as an Aunt Sally. In Auckland's transformation from a small provincial town of `nondescript irregularity' to the dominant North Island centre, the City Council was materially involved.

G.W.A. Bush 5.8.98