Northern Club viewed from Princes Street
ca.1900 (unknown photographer) – 2025
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Historical image: unknown photographer | Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 7_A642
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The Northern Club building, on the corner of Princes and Kitchener Streets, was built in 1866-7. It was intended to be a hotel, but was instead first used as government offices before becoming a gentlemen's club two years later (this information from Heritage New Zealand). The gents pictured here are presumably club members off on an excursion.
Below: This image was published in the New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review issue of 1 June 1916.
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections
The term "Derby drag" in the caption refers to the carriage, in this case to a particular type of conveyance; the Oxford English Dictionary gives:
[drag, Noun] ...II.12.b. British. A private vehicle resembling a stagecoach, usually drawn by four horses, with seats inside and on the top. Now historical.
And this, from the website Carriages of Britain:
The name drag is a slang term for a gentleman’s private coach... Drags were used to attend meets of coaching clubs and for driving to sporting events, such as cricket matches or race meetings, where they made excellent grandstands.
But what of the term "Derby" in the name? It may refer to the English town of Derby, where the coach-building firm Holmes & Co., produced carriages for royalty and the elite, or perhaps to the Epsom Derby horse race.
Below: A section of the lengthy article in the Sporting & Dramatic Review accompanying the photograph, waxing nostalgic about the sight of the Derby drag on Auckland's thoroughfares.
Below: An 1899 issue of the Auckland Weekly News published this picture of a picnicking Northern Club party at the Avondale races. Their "stage coach" appears to the very same Derby drag as that pictured outside the club above.
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-18990922-05-03
Below: An illustration of a drag from an online article about the coach-building company Holmes & Co. of Derby, England. It looks to be a very close match to the Northern Club drag.
https://recordoffice.wordpress.com/2024/07/08/holmes-co-of-derby-royal-carriage-makers/
Below: Lastly, another picture of the Northern Club drag from the Sporting & Dramatic Review of 23 September 1899.
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections
