Photos, mainly from other times
These three photographs have nothing on them to indicate where or when they were taken.
Some decades ago I came to the conclusion that the photographs were taken at a horse racing track in Auckland but can no longer recall why. There are weatherboard buildings with corrugated iron rooves and the car is right hand drive. Overall it looks too colonial to be Britain and somehow too dour to be Australia.
Maybe it is just an ingrained view on the way folk drive up there.
The following photographs have been extracted from an educational film strip that was used in New Zealand schools during the 1960’s.
The film strip has a copyright notice of 1961 but, chances are, the images predate that by a year or more. Although the images are full-frame, the duplication quality of educational film strips was invariably poor and the soft emulsion degraded easily. The captions in particular are low quality. Still, to those of us who watched these as primary school children it was both fantastic and mythical (TV broadcasts only started in Auckland in 1960, 1961 for Christchurch and Wellington, and Dunedin 1962) and hardly anyone had a TV.
Conveniently the film strip contains three images similar to those produced in the 1890s (see a couple of posts back). The fourth image would suggest both Wellington and Auckland have a long way top go before their railway stations get really crowded.
London Bridge
Cross Roads in London
London and the Thames
Railway Station
About ten years later than the London photographs in the previous post, Auckland is much more placid.
North Head, North Shore
The photograph doesn’t name the photographer but it is probably Charles Spencer.
Takapuna Beach
Auckland Harbour?
Auckland Harbour. Neither photographer nor date are known, however it could not have been taken before August 1902.
The vessel in the foreground is the screw ship ss Young Bungaree of Auckland. The sailing ship in the distance has a short name which is impossible to read but just might be “Lara” or “Lana” or maybe “Laura”. The building in the centre-background is a boiler makers.
Built in 1887 the Young Bungaree ended up as the Devonport Steam Ferry Company’s tugboat. As the name suggests there is an Australian connection as explained in this article from the Auckland Star of the 25th of July 1902:
NEW STEAM TUG FOR AUCKLAND.
The steam tug Young Bungaree, well known in the port of Newcastle (N.S.W.), has been purchased by Mr George T. Niccol, of Auckland, for towing purposes in connection with the Kauri Timber Company’s fleet of vessels. The Bungaree is a wooden screw steamer of about seventy tons gross register, and was built in I887 at Williams River, N.S.W.. The steamer was specially constructed for towing purposes, and is capable of steaming ten knots per hour. For a number of years the Bungaree has been engaged in towing vessels between Newcastle and Sydney. Since being transferred to her new owner the steamer has been docked and completely overhauled at Newcastle, which port she is expected to leave for Auckland tomorrow. She should arrive here the following Saturday.
The tug ended her days in 1926, taken to Brown’s Island and beached, with the ship’s timbers being salvaged for fencing.
There is nothing to indicate who took these photographs. The period is either very late 1880s or more possibly the 1890s. Contemporary with Sherlock Holmes.
London Bridge
Royal Exchange and Bank of England
Tower Bridge & London from the Monument