Image: Courtenay Place, Wellington, (circa 1878).
Elizabeth Cox is a Wellington historian and author who specialises in architectural and women’s history and was a former senior historian at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Her new book Mr Ward’s Map is based on a remarkable map of Wellington made in 1891 by engineer and surveyor Thomas Ward on behalf the Wellington City Council.
This map recorded the footprint of every building, from Thorndon in the north and across the teeming, inner-city slums of Te Aro to Berhampore in the south.
Updated regularly over the next 10 years, it detailed hotels, theatres, oyster saloons, brothels, shops, stables, Parliament, the remnants of Maori settlements, the Town Belt, the prisons, the “lunatic asylum”, the hospital and much more – in detail so particular that it went right down to the level of the street lights.
Capturing a slice of our Capital’s history
Elizabeth’s book brings this detailed historic document to life. At the time the maps were drawn, almost every ‘Wellingtonian’ and their schools, churches, businesses and factories, lived crowded within the boundaries of the Town Belt, as there was very limited public transport. The city changed almost immediately after the maps were drawn because electric trams were added to the city soon after. Likewise, the motor car had just arrived in the city at the end of the period.
The city had to be altered to make space for these innovations, changing its layout, and, as a result, the suburban areas of the city really took off, spreading the population outwards.
“I spent so much time studying old photographs and maps from this period,” says Elizabeth. “So much time, that I now have two cities in my head, the modern one and an overlay of the older (black and white) one.
“Now, although there have been heaps of changes in the city since the 1890s, I think I’d be pretty good at navigating my way around. I am going to miss inhabiting that city now that I have finished writing.”
The area of Te Aro Flat, where thousands of people lived and worked, was particular filthy as no drainage system had been built for the city, except for drains going directly into the harbour, she writes.
“There were plenty of stories and photos of children playing in the harbour next to the drain outlets. Even worse, since the area of Te Aro was virtually flat, the land actually did not drain at all, leaving damp backyards full of sewage and water.
“As a result, in the 1890s there was a terrible typhoid epidemic killing adults and children, and the city was afflicted by many other infectious diseases.”
This book includes the story of the scientific study that finally proved that building a drainage system was necessary. That finally fixed the problem, although there were also plenty of stories of landlords who refused to connect their houses to the new drainage system, and so cleaning up the city took a lot longer than it should have.
The original map on which the book is based is made up of 88 sheets, each one of which is roughly A1 in size.
“If it was all laid out on the floor (which I am sure it never has been), in accordance with the city’s geography, it would be roughly the size of my house,” says Elizabeth.
“What Ward originally offered to do for the council was much simpler than what he ended up doing. It was his idea to add every building and its footprint; to chart the material of the walls and roof every building was made of; to draw every verandah and bay window, every street light and fire hydrant.
“It would definitely have been very useful for the council, but I’m not sure they needed that level of detail. But it only took him two and half years, which I hope when people will remember when they see the maps and see what he did, it really is remarkable!”
Mr Ward’s Map, Massey University Press, published 13 November, RRP $90.