Bay Harbour: August 29, 2024

<strong>Bay</strong> <strong>Harbour</strong> News Thursday <strong>August</strong> <strong>29</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />

8<br />

TREASURES FROM THE PAST<br />

Sumner Rd a tricky route to create<br />

Getting from the port to<br />

the plains was critical for<br />

early settlers. In part one of<br />

a two-part series, J.C Betts<br />

details the creation of the<br />

Sumner Rd, 1849-1867<br />

THE MOST pressing problem<br />

for Waitaha Canterbury’s first<br />

settlers was access from the<br />

port to the plains and the site of<br />

Ōtautahi Christchurch.<br />

In July 1849, Captain Thomas<br />

first viewed a route via a 600ft<br />

pass suggested by Master Evans,<br />

of the survey ship, Her Majesty’s<br />

Paddle Steamer, HMPSAcheron.<br />

Thomas believed a 4-mile road<br />

over Tapuaeharuru Evans Pass<br />

(with a tunnel through the<br />

summit) to Matuku Takotako<br />

Sumner and the remaining<br />

7 miles to the site of the city<br />

could be built in time for the<br />

immigrants’ arrival.<br />

Labourers were brought from<br />

Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington<br />

– about half of them were<br />

Māori. At first, tangata whenua<br />

appear to have been dubious<br />

about joining the road gangs.<br />

However, after a few weeks’ work<br />

Thomas wrote: “The natives<br />

residing here who have hitherto<br />

held back are now so well pleased<br />

with the treatment of the working<br />

natives that they are now<br />

joining us in considerable numbers.”<br />

(Colin Amodeo, Tracking<br />

Captain Thomas, Caxton Press,<br />

2017, p.175.)<br />

In November, one gang<br />

downed tools, apparently offended<br />

by their supervisor’s swearing<br />

– the man, Joseph Compton,<br />

left his job. Another road gang<br />

worked on forming the uphill<br />

road east from Ōhinehou Lyttelton’s<br />

Oxford St towards Officers<br />

Point, a spur of very hard rock.<br />

By blasting, they succeeded<br />

in forming the road as far as<br />

On the Sumner Road, Canterbury, New Zealand by Sir<br />

William Fox January 1851. Te Ūaka Lyttelton Museum ref<br />

14991.3 https://www.teuaka.org.nz/onlinecollection/1136830<br />

Sticking Point, known today<br />

as Windy Point, where a plane<br />

table affords interpretation of the<br />

harbour’s features. No 2 Road<br />

Party began at the top of the<br />

pass, flattening the summit and<br />

starting on the downhill sections<br />

on both sides.<br />

The day before the settlers’<br />

arrival, Chief Agent JR Godley<br />

dealt with a dispute – the<br />

European workers objected to<br />

Māori receiving the same wage<br />

as themselves, sixpence an hour.<br />

Godley fired the dissidents and<br />

hired more Māori. The European<br />

men returned to work the next<br />

day. Godley described the Māori<br />

at work, stating “they struck,<br />

shovelled &c., altogether, keeping<br />

time to a song . . . most civil,<br />

good-natured fellows, laughing<br />

immoderately at our questions<br />

and chattering broken English<br />

very fast in reply”. (Amodeo,<br />

ibid. p.193.)<br />

By late 1850, it was obvious<br />

that the road would not be completed<br />

in time.<br />

Charlotte Godley wrote: “The<br />

great road is still very unfinished;<br />

several shoulders of rock<br />

that come in the way, and have to<br />

be blasted, stop it up completely,<br />

and in some places along the line<br />

even the path is quite a climb,<br />

with a rope to pull yourself up<br />

by”. (Charlotte Godley, Letters<br />

from Early New Zealand, Whitcombe<br />

& Tombs, 1951, p.139.)<br />

When the immigrants arrived<br />

in December 1850, the Bridle<br />

Path to Ōpāwaho Heathcote was<br />

the only land route to the plains.<br />

The Canterbury Association was<br />

wound up in 1853 and the new<br />

Provincial Council under Superintendent<br />

J.E FitzGerald pressed<br />

on with the Sumner Rd.<br />

Provincial engineer Edward<br />

Dobson chose a radically<br />

different (but much cheaper)<br />

route. The road on the harbour<br />

side skirted the coast to Gollans<br />

<strong>Bay</strong> at a level lower than the<br />

problematic bluffs, then rose to<br />

the top of the pass in a series of<br />

tight zig-zags. The original plan<br />

to build a tunnel through the<br />

summit never happened due to<br />

lack of funds.<br />

On the Sumner side, Dobson<br />

chose a different route on the<br />

other side of the valley “modifying<br />

his gradient according to<br />

the character of the hill-side”, according<br />

to C.C Bowen, Lyttelton<br />

Times, September 8, 1902.<br />

This resulted in a very steep<br />

section and a hairpin bend<br />

near the summit. The original,<br />

partly-formed line is now the<br />

Captain Thomas Track.<br />

FitzGerald was so determined<br />

to see the road finished before he<br />

left for England, that in <strong>August</strong><br />

1857 he “insisted on risking his<br />

own life and that of his friends<br />

by driving a tandem over the<br />

half finished zig-zag . . . with the<br />

assistance of volunteer grooms<br />

hanging on to the horses’ heads<br />

and a stalwart crowd hanging on<br />

to the dog cart behind”. (Lyttelton<br />

Times, September 8, 1902.)<br />

FitzGerald’s vehicle had two<br />

six-foot high red wheels and was<br />

known as the “irculating Medium”.<br />

Pedestrians accompanied<br />

the travellers and they were<br />

given a rousing welcome and ceremonial<br />

dinner in Lyttelton.<br />

When FitzGerald returned<br />

to New Zealand in 1861 he<br />

found that Superintendent W.S<br />

Moorhouse had started work<br />

on a railway line and tunnel<br />

to Lyttelton via Ōpāwaho<br />

Heathcote. FitzGerald so<br />

strongly disapproved that,<br />

despite having been the first<br />

editor of the Lyttelton Times, he<br />

started a second newspaper, The<br />

Press, in order to criticise the<br />

railway.<br />

The first Sumner Rd at least<br />

provided a daily carriage and<br />

mail service.<br />

Lady Barker made the<br />

Sticking Point, Lyttelton<br />

<strong>Harbour</strong>, circa 1868,<br />

Christchurch, by Daniel<br />

Mundy. Te Papa (O.009606)<br />

journey in 1865. “We started<br />

from Lyttelton and almost<br />

immediately began to ascend<br />

the zig-zag. It was a tremendous<br />

pull for the poor horses, who<br />

however never flinched; at the<br />

steepest pinch the gentlemen<br />

were requested to get out and<br />

walk, which they did, and at<br />

length we reached the top . . .<br />

the driver looked to the harness<br />

of his horses, put on a very<br />

powerful double break, and we<br />

began the descent, which, I must<br />

say, I thought we took much too<br />

quickly, especially as at every<br />

turn of the road some anecdote<br />

was forthcoming of an upset or<br />

accident.” (Lady Barker, Station<br />

Life in New Zealand, Virago<br />

1984, pp 19-20.)<br />

With the completion of the<br />

Moorhouse Rail Tunnel in 1867,<br />

improving the route was no<br />

longer a priority, but after 70<br />

years, and the advent of motor<br />

transport, attention was again<br />

given to the Sumner Rd.<br />

Arrival of the first four ships at Lyttelton in 1850, from a<br />

drawing by Mary Townsend, showing Sumner Rd. Te Ūaka<br />

Lyttelton Museum ref 14625.6 https://www.teuaka.org.nz/<br />

online-collection/1135495<br />

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