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Early Wellington
Reclamation Tramlines, 1866
Reclamation Tramlines, 1866.
At the Town Board meeting held on the 23rd February, 1866, the Town Board commissioners granted the long-desired permission of Mr. Tonks to make a tramway for conveying the rubbish for the reclamation of land.
Mr. W. Tonks had secured the contract to reclaim 13 acres of land, from Panama Street to the north of Waring Taylor Street, including the construction of a sea-wall, for the sum of £24,792. Soil for filling in the different reclamations was obtained from the hillside at the rear of the Lambton Quay sections, Kumutoto (Woodward Street) to Boulcott Street. Mr. Tonks even proposed to lay a tramway by way of Manners Street and Cuba Street to Webb Street, to bring spoil from there. Permission was granted by the Town Board, but he only used the tramway from Willis and Boulcott Streets, also a tram from Kumutoto (Baillie's Early Reclamations, p. 713).
Steam Tramway Company, 1877.
In the New Zealand “Times,” 14th Nov., 1877, a notice appeared advertising the Wellington City Steam Tramway Co., with a capital of £50,000, in 10,000 shares of £5 each, the first directors being Messrs. J. Henderson, Robert Greenfield, Henry Mace, E. W. Mills, K. MacDonald, C. W. Schultz, Edward Toomath, W. L. T. Travers, W. Conyers, Dr. Diver, and the Hon. John Sheehan.
A map, drawn and published in 1888 by F. H. Tronson, Lambton Quay, has marked in green, the tram routes, as under:—
- 1.—Commencing from section 620, Thorndon Quay, Lambton Quay, Mulgrave Street, Fraser's Lane (Aitken St.), Molesworth Street, Tinakori Road, beyond Boundary Road, to the entrance of the Botanical Gardens.
- 2.—From Government Station, via Lambton Quay, Manners Street, Kent Terrace, Buckle Street (Basin Reserve), Sussex Square (Dufferin Street), Adelaide Road, Revans Street, Riddiford Street and Mansfield Street to Newtown Park. From Government Station, via Jervois, Quay, Courtenay Place, Clive Quay and Oriental Bay to section 430.
- 3.—From Government Station, via. Lambton Quay, Willis Street, Wordsworth Street, and Aro Street to Plantation Reserve. From Government Station, Featherston Street, Ballance Street, Customhouse Quay, along the proposed Te Aro railway line (Jervois Quay), Cuba Street, Webb Street, Hopper Street, Hankey Street, Wallace Street, to Howard Street.
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Fig. 288.—Captain W. Mein-Smith, R.N., first Surveyor-General to the New Zealand Company, 1839. Photographed by Mr. P. Shankland, from an oil painting in Miss Wolters' possession. (Captain Smith was Miss Wolters' great-grandfather.)