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Avondale Avondale Avondale Avondale- -- -Waterview Waterview Waterview Waterview Historical Society Incorporated Historical Society Incorporated Historical Society Incorporated Historical Society Incorporated Newsletter Newsletter No. 21May—June 2006 In response to our letter stating concerns over the future of archaeological and heritage sites in the Waterview area,including those along the Oakley Creek, Transit NZ plan-ners have said that they will have a meeting with represen-tatives from our Society in the near future. No date for thismeeting has been set so far. Next meeting, 3 June 2006, 2.30 pm, Lions Hall. Avondale Heritage Walks Prepared by Lisa Truttman, President and Editor Preparation work is still proceeding on this project, andlast month the Avondale Community Board approved thecosts of preparing the Avondale Heritage Brochure fromtheir 2006/2007 SLIPs budget. A Historical Societyfor Mt Albert The first meeting on April 9 for those interested in sup-porting and forming a historical group for Mt Albert wentvery well. Over 30 people attended, which was encourag-ing and heartening to see.Full credit to Rendell McIntosh for organising the gather-ing — well done! See “The Old News” over page. Name change for part of Highbury Street Local Community Board member Duncan Macdonaldsent me an email recently asking what I thought regard-ing the renaming of part of Highbury Street, the bit im-mediately off Rosebank Road that has been cut off fromthe rest of Highbury Street by the Ash Street extensionsince 1978. I suggested, considering the Avondale Com-munity Centre car park entrance is off that street,“Community Lane” (it sounded nice to my ears, de-scribed the association with the Community Centre , andwas to be found nowhere else in Auckland.) Duncan musthave liked it, because the Avondale Community Boardrecommended that name to the Transport and UrbanLinkages Committee on April 26th. So — we may soonhave a new, unique name for a small part of our area! Apologies for lateness Some work issues and other delays mean that the April Journal and newsletter came out late. Sorry folks for keep-ing you waiting. — Editor. Proposed Avondale Primary School This has been talked about since the very start of theSociety — raised, actually, at the meeting in March 2001which came before our incorporation meeting in June thatyear. If anyone is interested in being part of a managementcommittee to meet and help organise a get-together of pastpupils of Avondale Primary, possibly for sometime in2007, please get in contact with me (my phone number andother details are on the Journal ). Events and Trips Organisers Wanted! Anyone who has a bit of time to check out likely venuesfor Society trips, events etc, please let me know. We needevents coordinators for our Society — folk who have a bitof time to ring up venues, find out details as to transportetc. so we can organise trips for our members to placeslike museums, sites of historical interest, or simply justsocial get-togethers. Any volunteers? Let me know, please. On that topic, I’ve been in negotiation with BirkenheadHistorical Society for the past few months to see if we canorganise a guided bus tour of Birkenhead and surrounds.It’s going well — once points of interest are finalised andwe have an idea of cost, I’ll keep you all informed. At themoment, the tour is scheduled for early next year. Waterview and SH20 BURGLARY AT AVONDALE RAILWAY STATION ENTERED From Auckland Weekly News, 4 May 1922. The office of the Avondale Railway station was brokeninto between midnight on Wednesday and half past fiveon Thursday morning, and an unsuccessful attemptmade to open the safe. It is clear that the culprits firstendeavoured to gain admission to the premises by cut-ting out a pane of glass, but entry was obtained by pris-ing open the catch of the window. The burglar, or bur-glars, must have spent some laborious work in attempt-ing to cut away the door of the safe, but their labourswere in vain, for the safe, though an old-fashioned one,is particularly strong. It was fortunate that they did notsucceed, for it contained money running into three fig-ures. The till was broken open, but it only contained 1s3d, the remainder of the takings having been put intothe safe. The keys of all the desks were taken and theplace left in a state of disorder.This burglary follows close on an attempt at the MountAlbert station, and both cases indicate that the attemptswere those of amateurs. A major West Auckland landmark very nearly had a com- pletely different change of name, so I found out one dayrecently. — editor. THE WAITAKERE RANGES PROPOSED CHANGE OF NAME MEETING NOT IN FAVOUR From NZ Herald 5 February 1926 A proposed change of name caused considerable discussionat the inaugural meeting of the Waitakere Ranges Associa-tion last evening. Mr. E. D’Esterre expressed himself in favour of what hedescribed as “the good old fashioned name; the Blue Moun-tains.” The name seemed to him singularly appropriate. Ithad been said that it was copied from New South Wales, butthere were blue mountains in India, and also in Canada.About 20 years ago the Waitakeres were always called theBlue Mountains and were still so called by many people. Mr. G. M. Fowlds said he did not favour the name as it wasalien and not descriptive enough. Mr. F. Carr Rollett said he did not regard the WaitakereRanges Association as a comprehensive enough name andsuggested the Western Hills Association would be better. Mr. D’Esterre then moved, and Mr Rollett seconded, thatthe association should be called the Western Ranges Asso-ciation, but on a vote being taken no one else favoured thesuggestion. Mr. W. Oliphant evoked applause by saying the hills hadalways been known to Aucklanders as the Waitakeres, andit would be an impossibility for the meeting to change thename. DREADFUL ACCIDENT AT THE WHAU A MAN FATALLY MUTILATED IN ATHRESHING MACHINE From NZ Herald 16 March 1878 An accident of a very shocking character occurred yes-terday afternoon, on Mr Bollard’s farm, at the Whau.During the whole of yesterday a steam threshing ma-chine was engaged threshing wheat belonging to MrBollard. The men were employed in the afternoon inwhat is known as “cleaning up”, that is, removing theslack wheat and straw which had gathered about thehopper, when one of them, named John Richards,slipped into the hopper, where his foot was caught bythe revolving drum, which drew in his leg, mutilating itdreadfully, up nearly to the groin. When the machinewas stopped, and the unfortunate man brought from itand laid on the ground, it was seen that the whole of theflesh of the leg was literally chopped into small pieces.Mr. Bollard immediately sent a man in a trap for Dr.Aickin, at the Whau Asylum, which is about two milesand a half from the scene of the accident. Dr. Aickinimmediately attended, accompanied by the chief warder, who is able to render considerable assistance insuch a case. On arriving at Mr. Bollard’s farm, Dr.Aickin bound up the limb as well as possible, in order to The Old News save the bleeding, and directed that Richards should besent to the Hospital as soon as possible. He was at onceplaced in Hassall’s express, and driven gently into town,Dr. Aickin and two of the warders accompanying. Onreaching the Hospital, Richards was carried up stairs tothe operating room. Dr. Philson decided at once that theonly hope of saving life was to amputate the leg. Rich-ards all this time, although suffering great pain, neverlost consciousness, and told Dr. Philson his name andthe year in which he was born. Chloroform was admin-istered, and Dr. Philson, assisted by Dr. Aickin, per-formed the necessary operation, the leg having been cutoff nearly at the top of the thigh. When the influence of the chloroform was becoming weaker, Richards mut-tered faintly, but he never seemed quite to recover hissenses, and when laid on the bed he expired. Death wasdoubtless caused by the terrible shock to the system.Richards was about thirty-nine years of age, and wasnot married.
