Queen Street Wharf
ca.1907 (William Archer Price) - 2023
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Queen Street Wharf, Auckland. Price, William Archer, 1866-1948: Collection of post card negatives. Ref: 1/2-000542-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22852958
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The Alexander Turnbull Library gives the following description of Price's image:
Taken at the time of the replacement of the old Queen Street Wharf with a new ferro concrete wharf. View looking directly up Queen Street with Endeans Building (built 1905) on the left and the Gladstone building (built 1883), with Gladstone Coffee Palace, on the right. On the far right is the head office of the Auckland Harbour Board; all in Quay Street. On the left new concrete piles are being driven into the harbour bed. In the foreground workmen are replacing wooden blocks on the old wharf.
Given the evident construction of the new concrete wharf (at left), which began in late 1906, and that by mid-1907 the dismantling of the old wharf was proceeding apace (see below), it would seem that Price perhaps made this picture in early 1907. For a contemporary account of the need for repairs to the old wharf, see a piece from the Auckland Star at the foot of this page.
Below, the wharf photographed in May 1906 by Henry Winkelmann, with no sign of the upheavals to come.
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1-W1411
Below, another Winkelmann photograph, from June 1907.
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1-W0977B
"On its last legs": a picture from the New Zealand Graphic, June 1907.
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections NZG-19070629-0006-03
On the need for repairs to the old wharf from the Auckland Star, 25 July 1906.
