Queen Street, east side, between Victoria and Wellesley Streets
1864 or 1865 (unknown photographer) - 2024
Click on image to toggle transition between two photographs
1860s image: Auckland Museum PH-ALB-94-p53-2
Image comparison slider version
Click here for a fullscreen version of this transition.
It would seem that the 1860s photograph was made in 1864 or 1865; advertisements for Adams's Royal Oyster Saloon first appear in newspapers of the time (on the National Library's Papers Past website) in October 1864 (see below). During the following months the estabishment advertised regularly until, around mid-1865, it was announced that it would henceforth be Adams's London Hotel.
The building to the right of the Royal Oyster Saloon was the Auckland Savings Bank; it would be replaced by a grander version in 1884 (see a Burton Brothers picture of it on this site, here). The 1884 building is still standing in 2024.
Below, from the New Zealand Herald 7 October 1864 Page 3.
Below, less than a year later: from the New Zealander 14 July 1865 Page 1.
Below: Nearly forty years after the 1860s photograph was taken an illustration based on it was published in The New Zealand Graphic (19 October 1901) on a page with the title "The Auckland of the Old Colonists, Queen Street in the Early Sixties", annotated with the names of businesses in the buildings shown.
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections NZG-19011019-0738-04
