Looking west across Queen Street along Wellesley Street
1880s (Burton Brothers) - 2024
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1880s image: Wellesley Street, Auckland, Dunedin, by Burton Brothers. Te Papa (C.011137)
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What was in the 1880s the United Service Hotel (at right) is still there in the modern scene, but long since stripped of virtually every element of its original exterior decoration.
The presence of tram rails in Wellesley Street suggests a date for the Burton Brothers picture of 1884 or later (possibly during Alfred Burton's 1884 visit to Auckland). The first reports of rails for horse-drawn trams in Auckland's streets appear in newspapers during that year; below is an 1885 reference to a tram incident in this very section of Wellesley Street West.
New Zealand Herald, 23 April 1885, page 4.
Boys Will Be Boys
The horse seen in the middle distance on Wellesley Street West in the 1880s image is likely to be in the charge of a "hill-boy" as William Main described in his book Auckland Through a Victorian Lens (Millwood Press, 1977):
In order to assist trams up the one in twelve gradient, [of Wellesley Street West] a third horse or “ hill-boy ” on an extra horse was stationed there.
Horse-car in Wellesley Street West | Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19190619-37-01
Below, an 1884 newspaper report on the subject.
Auckland Star, 10 December 1884, page 2.
Below, a 1903 Henry Winkelmann photograph made at the foot of Wellesley Street West shows what I assume to be a hill-boy and his horse. This pair would have been among the last of their kind; the tram car seen turning at left is electric, and horse-trams would shortly vanish from Auckland's streets. (Click on image for a larger version.) A then-and-now treatment of Winkelmann's picture is on this site, here.
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1-W1051
Below: a detail from the 1880s photograph (click on image for a larger version). Dawson's chemist's shop, mentioned in the first newspaper report above, is at upper right on the corner of Elliott Street.
