Glimpses of Four Generations Epsom NZ - Their Horizons Part III

Downstairs to Britomart Railway Station Auckland  - Photo 2009 ASB

 

2008 First writing, 2021 update  By Anne Stewart Ball

To see Part I go to  Glimpses of Four Generations Epsom NZ - Their Horizons Part I

To see Part II go to  Glimpses of Four Generations Epsom NZ - Their Horizons Part II

includes ( Development of Transport Systems Early Auckland – Railway and Electric Tramways ( A view looking back – from a family member’s perspective ) 

This is Part III   Glimpses of Four Generations Epsom NZ - Their Horizons Part III

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Footnote to Part I and II

Many of those early railway routes are no longer in the form they were at the beginning. Technology has changed the route to double track, improved the gradient or removed changed structures. In 2008 Auckland is much changed with its high rise buildings, apartments, networks of motorways and the countryside disappeared under the suburban spread. However what was basics of the “permanent way” is still there. Along with several structures.  As to Trams and Tramway Routes, these too suffered - a worse fate, with tracks being torn up  and tram bodies scattered about the North Island to be used as beach baches. ( Memories are  of Jack Stewart refusing utterly to buy a retirement place in a small Coromandel Town because  he did not want to be reminded close hand of their, what he said, dreadful fate.)

Changes in Fort Street Auckland and to NRM Building - photo 2009 ASB 

Fortunately there were some passionate people and organisations who believed in preserving, restoring and maintaining our heritage technology for future generations to see and learn from. It  is thanks to foresight and commitment of the many people of MOTAT ( Museum of Transport and Technology – Tram barn and Railway Sheds) , Glenbrook Railway, Goldfields Railway, and  Driving Creek Potteries & Railway so that there are working reminders today.

Fortunately there has developed over the last 30 years, Historians and Authors recording our Tram and Railway History and the history of the Auckland - before it too is irretrievably lost. This in the books of Graham Stewart, Graham Bush, Epsom & Eden District Historical Society, C.A Lawn of the NZ Institute of Surveyors, True Tales books. The blogs that have been kept up online over the last decade, amongst them   Timespanner,  Built in Dunedin , Thames NZ: Genealogy & History Resources , Early NZ Photographers, , giving us a good insight into New Zealand history that otherwise may have been lost.

changes to Northern Roller Mills Central Auckland - photo 2009 ASB 

Fortunately there has been the development and interest in Genealogy and Heritage over the last decade. Encouraging many to seek both their family history and by that learn some history  about a railway, a place on the way. To go that step further and record it for others who follow. History that has lain forgotten about or overlooked, is being uncovered. Unfortunately over the years it has become so scattered – sometimes it is missing.

Fort Street Auckland street do up - photo 2009 ASB

Neale was to write in 1938, that half of New Zealand’s total railway mileage was constructed in  the 1870’s to mid 1880’s. He also said that the railway mileage per head of population was greater than in 1938.

The era of the early Railway Surveyors and Engineers was across often rough terrain, dense bush or in the case of Auckland Province swamps which sometimes seemed bottomless for  ballast. For Auckland Provincial Railways the construction problems often lay beneath the surface – the deep swamps and volcanic rock.( the unexpected rock outcrop in Mr. Dilworth’s  paddock, and the nature of the soil at the Domain ). Hard to imagine now but parts of the Drury Railway were surveyed through dense bush. Those men worked away from home for long  periods, often living in Survey Camps little more than a tent ,or “sleeping it rough “ using just a “bedroll.” Their lives were often in danger – not from Maori. Some lost their lives to weather  which in New Zealand changed rapidly so that streams became swollen rivers and on the  Mamaku snow. Auckland Province was prone to flooding, so that had to be factored in to  Railway Construction. There were no computers, GIS or Google Earth telling one which route to  take. (Rotorua Railway took 18 months to find the “ best route “ for a railway across the Mamaku ) Maps were drawn by hand. In the case of railways, at times, foot by foot. Likewise  tramways, bridges, tunnels and viaducts.

Engineering structure Britomart Station Auckland - photo 2009 ASB 

Today in 2008 working railway mileage is even less with some routes pulled up. Today in 2008 a railway transport system is being put back together again and it is said passenger use is on the increase. It is wondered what those early Surveyors and Engineers would say and think about that. Those –

 “Dreamers and Builders of Destiny

Steel Tracks Across the Horizons.” ASB

Conclusion

This record written, is about one family, involved in early Transport Systems and who remained living in Epsom / Eden, even though work took them wider. It is not a “skite” sheet .( Something  often said by some now about the biographies listed in the, Cyclopaedia of New Zealand, Vol 2, Auckland Province, 1902.)

While there was a biography for Stewart in the cyclopaedia, the involvement was fact as evidenced now in authoritive historical records, scattered across multi institutions and organisations. The “Public Side” of the Stewart family and their involvement in Transport  Systems is scattered across the records of many Museums, libraries and archives throughout  the Auckland Province – sometimes in the most obscure places and certainly not within some of the Institutional sources, one would expect to find them. 

1YA Building central Auckland - photo ASB 2009

These also include, in some instances, the original maps, designs or drawings ( but not all ) done by James Stewart C.E. Some of these, sadly to say, have disappeared. It is hoped that one day, they may surface and find their way to those places, that have held , in careful guardianship and preservation, heritage documents for future generations. As is with a diary that was put into what we thought was safe keeping in Rotorua. ( Maybe this will be uncovered one day ).

Much was also written in the newspapers of the day. Much of the “Private Side “ was and is in the oral family stories passed down. This record is written so that this part of history of a family and an involvement with Steamers, Railways and Roads is not irretrievably lost. To enable this small part to be added to the knowledge of our past and the past of Epsom / Eden. This record gives glimpses of the “Public Side “(at times controversial by nature of the  development of Steamers, Railway and Tramways.) The “ Private Side “ is of this family who it could be said ,like many in this area and these eras, got on with the daily living in the way they knew and understood as a family. Running a household, attending school and church, involvement in the community where they lived.

Dilworth building Auckland central - photo 2009 ASB 

Photographs taken during the first and second generation Stewarts were not of people so much as of places and transport systems – the steamers, the railways, the roads, and the landscape. Many of these can be found in Museums, Libraries and Archives where it is a wonderful account of ‘what things were like” for this generation and future generations yet to come.  Photographs for the era of the first and second generations were expensive to produce because of the nature of the camera and materials used. 

Photographs during the third generation became less difficult and less costly to produce. However again Stewart photos are more numerous of the landscape, environment, flora and fauna, than they are of people. The exception - those taken by my mother, Helen Stewart. Their generation was to see the development of camera with telescopic lens, slides and video camcorder.

I wonder what great grandfather and great grandmother would think if they could see what has developed now in my generation. The digital camera, email, internet, cell phone, ipod and cd storage, gis, cloud storage, google earth - where one can follow the trails that took them days, weeks or months to travel. Where one can “google earth it back home” to Epsom and Maungakiekie within a couple of minutes. I also wonder what they would say if they could see the changes in Epsom –  all those education institutions, hospitals, the return to using the domestic rail system. In 2021 the reopening of a new railway passenger service 

Anne Stewart Ball  September 2008 and 2021 

Looking towards Northern Steamship building - photo 2009 ASB

Acknowledgements

Firstly it is thanks to my father and mother Jack and Helen Stewart who passed down the family stories and the history of both my family and the places we were involved in.

Thanks also go to the National Library with their wonderful Papers Past and RSNZ Websites, Auckland War Memorial Museum & Library, Museum of Transport & Technology ( MOTAT ) and their Library, The Auckland Library for their heritage resources and web resources, NZ Institute of Surveyors, Archives NZ. It has been fun visiting those places to look and research.