Freemans Bay

Freemans Bay
Basic information
Local authority Auckland City
Date established 1840s
Population 3,708 (2006)
Facilities
Surrounds
North Western Reclamation
Northeast Viaduct Basin
East Auckland CBD
Southeast Auckland CBD
South Newton
Southwest Ponsonby
West Ponsonby
Northwest Saint Marys Bay

Freemans Bay is the name of a former bay and now inner city suburb of Auckland, in the North Island of New Zealand. The bay has been filled in to a considerable extent, with the reclamation area now totally concealing the ancient shoreline. Historically a poor and often disreputable quarter, it is now a comparatively wealthy and desirable neighbourhood known for its mix of heritage homes and more recent single-dwelling houses, as well as for its two large parks.

Geography

Waterfront in ca 1930, with the older coastline of 1841 also shown as a darker line. Freemans Bay to the left.
Lower Freemans Bay and Victoria Park, sometime in the early 20th Century, looking west along Wellesley Street West.

Since the turn of the 20th century, extensive land reclamation (partly using stone quarried from nearby headlands) has seen Freemans Bay itself disappear. The reclamation of the old bay was finished in 1901, and Victoria Park was created on most of the resulting flat area.[1] It is still public land used mostly for sports purposes.

The coastline shifted more than one kilometre to the northwest of the city centre and is now composed of the concrete wharves of Viaduct Basin and the Tank Farm or as it is now renamed, the Wynyard Quarter.

History

Heritage houses in Freemans Bay.

Māori origins

Waiatarau (or 'Reflecting Waters') was the Māori name for the bay that is now Victoria Park, although other names were used to refer to the area; such as Wai Kōtota ('The place where the cockles are harvested') and Te Koranga ('The scaffolds', referring to the racks upon which fish would be hung to dry in the sun). A stream called Waikuta ('Waters of the reed') discharged into the south eastern corner of the bay (bottom of College Hill Road) while the Tunamau ('To catch eels') stream came down from what is now Western Park and met the bay at the bottom of what is now Franklin Road.

European name

Freemans Bay is one of the earliest settled areas in Auckland, and was earmarked for development and land reclamation in the 1840s by Colonial Surveyor Felton Matthew who laid out the streets along the shores of the local bays.[2]

Freemans Bay is probably named after Captain William Hobson’s secretary, James Stuart Freeman who apparently lived in the area. He was described by Dr John Logan Campbell in 1844 as "the most disgustingly immoral swindling scoundrel in town".

Local gossip had it that he was not actually married to the woman he was living with, or that there was something amiss in her past. She apparently had been on intimate terms with Mrs Hobson and others in the Government House circle but after William Hobson's death in 1842 and Mrs Hobson's return to Britain she found herself shut out of genteel society in Auckland. This pained Eleanor Freeman enormously and enraged her husband. Living in a workers cottage on the wrong side of town certainly couldn't have helped her social status. After her early death at the age of 26 on 17 December 1844 Freeman added to the wagging tongues by remarrying just six weeks later. After his marriage to Mary Ann Miller on 29 January 1845 the Freemans left New Zealand.

Industry and slums

While settled as one of the earliest parts of the country by Europeans,[3] the area was never seen as a desirable place to live. The rich favoured the other side of Queen Street, clustering around the governor's mansion (where the University is now located) and enjoying views of the harbour and Rangitoto, this was even referred to as the 'right side' of Queen Street.

On the "wrong side of Queen Street" were located most of the smelly and noisy industries including the abattoir and the gasworks of the Auckland Gas Company. As well as Brick works by 1883 the area was the location of nine shipyards, three sawmills, a brass and iron foundry, a glassworks, an asphalt works as well as several coal and lime traders. Also found here were several public facilities like the city morgue, a night soil dump and from 1905 the city rubbish incinerator (known as the 'Destructor', now Victoria Park Market).[2]

Around these occupations were gathered some of the more modest houses in 19th century Auckland. Two land auctions in 1864 in this area were the "Brookville" estate (121 sites) and "Alma Place" (152 sites). The large number of building sites are probably an indication of the very small size of the building sections. These workers cottages were built very close together and often poorly constructed, sometimes being little better than hovels with dirt floors. Not all the housing in the area was so modest however, on Franklin Road, which rises up the hill towards the Ponsonby ridge, were built larger houses, including several two storied houses and in 1873 the street was beautified by the City Council by planting it with Plane trees. Many of these larger houses subsequently became boarding establishments for male workers from the adjacent industries.

In 1910 the average house for sale on Franklin Road was advertised for ₤736, while the average house in Victoria Road, Remuera, was considered worth ₤1279 at the time.[4] In 1905 Victoria Park was created which included sports grounds, a sports pavilion and a children's playground. The playground equipment was donated by Mr John Court of the John Court Department Store. In 1909 a kindergarten for the local children was opened. It soon ran into financial problems, however, from which it was rescued by Dr John Logan Campbell. The brick building stood for many years unused, recently restored by Auckland Council and NZTA as part of the works around the Victoria Park Tunnel.[5] During the 1918 flu epidemic, the sports pavilion was used as a depot for corpses awaiting transportation by rail to the city cemeteries.

Urban renewal

Lower Western Park.

As a working class area Freeman's Bay was greatly affected by the Great Depression. By 1930, the percentage of unskilled workers amongst the male population of Freemans Bay had risen to 39%, whereas in affluent Remuera it was only 2%. Conversely, only 11% of all males of Freemans Bay worked in "white-collar" or "business and professional" roles, whereas in Remuera the same percentage had grown to 86% by that time, a sign of the increasing homogenisation of Auckland suburbs.[4]

Freemans Bay was seen as a centre of crime, prostitution, sedition and Union Activity. There were also concerns about it being a source of infectious diseases, including Plague and tuberculosis. In the 1930s the Auckland City Council set up a committee called "The Decadent Areas Committee" (later renamed as the "Housing Committee") largely to deal with the area. In the 1930s and 40s many Māori moved into the city looking for work came to live in the cheap housing of the area.[6] This pattern was repeated in the 1950s and 60s when Pacific Islanders arrived in New Zealand seeking employment as well.

During the Second World War Victoria Park was commandeered and covered with a military camp for the American Armed Forces. The adjacent areas St Mary's Bay and Freeman's Bay became notorious as the location of many brothels along with illicit drinking and gambling establishments. Many of the women in the area were keen to have fun with the American troops who were known to be generous with money, cigarettes and nylon stockings. The distinction made by the authorities and most respectable people between a female being a 'loose woman' and being a prostitute was pretty vague. St Mary's Bay was known for being more expensive and tended to cater for the officers, Freeman's Bay was for the lower end of the market. This reputation clung to the area after the war.

When the motorway system was constructed from 1955 onwards it was an ideal excuse to demolish large areas of Freemans Bay in the name of slum clearance and progress. The motorway cut large swathes through Freemans Bay taking out good housing as well as slum-type buildings. It has been alleged by some critics that the decision to delay completion of the Western Ring Route (proposed for a long time before the motorway was built through Freemans Bay) was motivated by the fact that the new Auckland Harbour Bridge required higher toll revenues to repay its construction cost.[7]

Several developments of flats and townhouses were built in the area during the 1960s and 1970s both by Auckland City Council and Central Government - though a much more extensive 1950s plan, which would have seen most of Freemans Bays' houses levelled and replaced by medium-density housing blocks, did not come to pass. Only a few blocks were constructed along Whitson Terrace where they are still present today.[8] Later, during the 1980s and 1990s, the remaining Victorian houses began to be gentrified along with the neighbouring suburbs of Ponsonby and St Marys Bay and they are now some of Auckland's most fashionable and desirable residences.

On Victoria Street opposite Victoria Park stands a group of brick Edwardian industrial buildings. Built between 1905 & 1915 and known as "the Destructor", this facility generated electricity by burning the city's rubbish. Opened by the Mayor Arthur Myers this facility was closed in 1972, and in 1983 it was converted into a market called Victoria Park Market.

Behind Victoria Park Market is the Drake hotel which sits at a slightly higher level than the Market, Victoria Street and the Park. This shows the outline of the ancient Seacliff. From 1905 onwards Freeman's Bay was filled in to create the park. After 1919 the reclamations continued and the area north of the park was created to provide more wharf area for the expanding Ports of Auckland. This included the Lighter Basin to the east and Wynyard Wharf to the west.

In 2000 to 2003 the Lighter Basin was redeveloped as the Viaduct Basin, which served as a headquarters for the various yachting syndicates involved in the America's Cup campaigns of 2000 and 2003. The area is now an upper-class (multi-story) residential area. On the adjacent Fanshawe street, previously dilapidated Warehouses have been replaced by new prestigious office blocks, including Vodafone New Zealand. The Wynyard Quarter is also undergoing a great deal of redevelopment which includes the new Silo Park.

The suburb is now home to a much more affluent populace, with the 2006 median income at $41,400, much higher than the $26,800 average Auckland-wide. Around 32% of all residents live in single-person households, some in the many former Council and State Housing flats still existing in the area, though the housing stock is quite varied.[9]

Notable Buildings

Education

The Ministry of Education operates state schools. Freemans Bay School is located in Freemans Bay.[10][11] Close-by local State secondary schools are Auckland Girls' Grammar School and St Mary's College, though the latter is outside the actual suburb's boundaries.

References

  1. ↑ Business History Project:Timeline (from the University of Auckland website. Retrieved 2007-12-05)
  2. 1 2 Historical Background (from the Addendum 2 February 2006 of the Vic Park Tunnel project documentation, Transit New Zealand, Page 4. Accessed 2008-02-20.)
  3. ↑ Iconic Auckland market to be revamped - NZPA via 'infonews.co.nz', Friday 6 April 2007
  4. 1 2 New Zealand Historical Atlas - McKinnon, Malcolm (Editor); David Bateman, 1997, Plate 73
  5. ↑ Gibson, Anne (7 June 2010). "Old kindergarten to get new lease of life". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 4 October 2010.
  6. ↑ Maori Community Centre Site Purchase (from a newsletter of the Ngati Whatua o Orakei Maori Trust Board, Issue 16 September 2004. Accessed 2008-02-14.)
  7. ↑ "Michael Lee: Sins of the fathers - legacy of harbour bridge". The New Zealand Herald. 1 June 2009. Retrieved 30 September 2011.
  8. ↑ New Zealand Historical Atlas - McKinnon, Malcolm (Editor); David Bateman, 1997, Plate 75
  9. ↑ Campbell, Ashley (11 September 2010). "So you want to live in Freeman's Bay?". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 4 October 2010.
  10. ↑ "What's New?" Freemans Bay School. Retrieved on 5 March 2010.
  11. ↑ "Freemans Bay School." Ministry of Education. Retrieved on 5 March 2010.

External links

Coordinates: 36°51′06″S 174°45′04″E / 36.85157°S 174.751024°E / -36.85157; 174.751024

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