User:Lanma726/Reclamation

The reclamation of Wellington Harbour was a phased approach (starting in the 1850s) of land reclamation from the Wellington Harbour. The original goal of the reclamation was to increase the amount of usable flat land for Wellington City. The motivation of latter reclamations in the 1960s and 1970s was as a response to container shipping (containerisation) and new cargo handling methods. Today, reclamation has added more than 155 hectares to the Wellington^[1].

The location of Wellington[edit]

[[:File:Cuba in Wellington Harbour.jpg|thumb|right|300px|The Cuba anchored in Wellington Harbour by Charles Heaphy.]]

A map for the New Zealand Company's new settlement of Britannia at Pito-one (Petone) had been prepared in England by Samuel Cobham. The key elements to his city were a large amount of flat land, being situated on the shores of a harbour, and was traversable by a navigatible river. When surveyors arrived in 1840 on the Cuba led by Captain William Mein Smith, it was determined that the Hutt River was not in fact navigatible and, due to its tendancy to flood its banks regularly, was not appropriately stable to support a major city. For these reasons the new settlement was relocated to the southern shores of Port Nicholson and renamed Wellington^[2].

Edward Gibbon Wakefield of the New Zealand Company had devised a system of 'packages' of land for colonists of one town acre each. Cobham's Brittania consited of 1100 one-acre town sections, which William Mein Smith struggled to fit into the new location. These sections were squeezed into the available space by sacrificing many of the planned amenities such as parks, reserves, ports, libraries and many other public areas identified in the original plan^[3]. For this reason, from Wellington's outset, there was a need for extra land.

19th Century reclamations and the establishment of the Wellington Harbour Board[edit]

thumb|right|300px|Map of proposed reclamation of the area on the harbour side of Lambton Quay from 1851. 300px|right|Two men fishing of the reclamations at Te Aro, in the vicinity of Cable Street, Wellington. Photograph taken circa. 1910 While large scale reclamation began in the 1850s, the earliest reclamations in Wellington were conducted by private citizens. A popular story of the first reclamation conducted in Wellington was that done by George Bennet^[4]. Bennet had arrived in 1848 on the Berenicia and purchased a hilly section at Windy, or Clay Point (what is now the corner of Lambton Quay and Willis Street). At that time, Windy Point was a precipice with a narrow and often impassible path connecting Willis Street to Beach Road (now Lambton Quay). Bennet commenced, to the amusement of neighbours, with pick-axe, shovel and barrow to move earth from the Point, tossing the spoil onto the path and into the harbour, thus widened the track and performing Wellington's first reclamation.

A programme of systematic reclamation began in 1852, overseen by the provincial government. Charles Rooking Carter completed a 360' x 100' extension below Willis Street at a cost of £1,036^[5].

In 1855, the magnitude 8.2 Wairarapa Earthquake uplifted the northwestern side of Wellington Bay (in some places up to 1.5 meters^[6]). This created a tidal swamp, and rendered many of the existing jetties in the harbour unusable. Most of this land was subsequently reclaimed, providing an excellent new rail and road route to the north. Another result of the newly-raised land in Wellington was that the shipping basin planned for the city was abandoned and the land used for a cricket ground instead (the Basin Reserve).

The Wellington City Council was inaugurated in 1870, and by the end of the 1870's some 70 acres of land had been reclaimed using spoil from the hills behind Lambton Quay and from Wadestown Hill.

In 1880, the Wellington Harbour Board was established to manage and develop the harbour and its facilities. From this point onwards, reclamation work was divided between the Harbour Board, the Government and the City Council. Amoung major developments from 1880 to the turn of the century was the reclamation north of Pipitea Point for railways land and south of Queens Wharf the Te Aro by the City Council. This removed the last vestiges of private ownership of the foreshore, putting the waterfront under the control of the Harbour Board.

By the end of the 19th century, the original 1840 shoreline was unrecognisable.

Twentieth century reclamations[edit]

[[:Image:Land reclamation Thorndon.JPG|thumb|right|300px|Reclaimation in Thorndon circa. 1925.]] From 1900 to 1930 further reclamations were made for railways and Harbour Board purposes, additional wharves, the seawall at Oriental Bay was built and the boat harbour at Clyde Quay was constructed.

1960s and container shipping[edit]

A Government report in 1967 recommended the adoption of containerisation and that Wellington should be one of the two New Zealand ports. This resulted in the start of an extension to the Aotea Quay reclamation. A severe storm in 1968 caused the Lyttelton ferry Wahine to founder at the harbour entrance but also resulted in two tugs being built which started service at the same time as the first container ships arrived in 1971.

The final phase of reclamation took place in the 1960's and 1970's. This was in response to container shipping (containerisation) and new roll-on/roll-off cargoes handling methods which require more land adjacent to ships' berths. Reclamation was carried out on both side of Queens Wharf and the Wellington Harbour Board Container Terminal was created by a large reclamation at Thorndon. The first container ship berthed on 19 June 1971. The containter terminal has 24.3 hectares of back-up space capable of holding some 6,284 containers^[7].

Recent history and present day[edit]

After the advent of the Port Reform Act in 1988,The Wellington Harbour Board, along with all others in the country, ceased to exist after October 1989. Its commercial, property management and recreational functions were split between the Port of Wellington, Lambton Harbour Management and Wellington City Council respectively.

In 1976, the Historic Places Trust placed 14 plaques along the original shoreline. These plaques run from Pipitea Point, along Lambton Quay, through Mercer Street, Lower Cuba Street, Wakefield Street to Oriental Parade at the northern corner of Herd Street.

Reclamation by year, location, and area[edit]

From the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre^[8]

Year/s	Location	Area
1852	Willis Street, Mercer Street, Chew's Lane, Bonds
1857-63	Bank N.Z., corner Willis Street and Lambton Quay (Noah's Ark site), Harris Street to Grey Street	7 acres
1859	Oddfellows' Hall site
1864	Foresters' Lodge site
1865	Messrs. Jacob Joseph, between Waring Taylor and Stout Streets and Lambton Quay	total of last three, 2 rods
1866–67	Panama, Brandon, Johnston and Waring Taylor Streets, pts. Featherston Street and Customhouse Quay	12 acres
1875	Government Building site	2 acres
1876	Railway station (Lambton) and lines, Featherston Street extension, Ballance, Stout, Bunny and Whitmore Streets, Govt. Printing Office and “Shacks” (this was extended to Pipitea Point)	46 acres
1882	Thorndon Railway Station, and lines	29 acres
1882	Railway Wharf	1 rod
1884	Davis Street Extension
1886	Hunter Street endowment	Customhouse Quay and Hunter Street	3 rods
1886	Victoria and Wakefield Streets	22 acres
1889	Jervois Quay	17 acres
1893	Harbour Board store, and track for Te Aro railway, Customhouse Quay and Jervois Quay	1 acre
1893–1901	Waterloo Quay and Glasgow wharves	3 acres
1895	Council's yards, near Oriental Parade	1 acre
1901–03	From near Queen's Wharf to the Lyttelton Ferry Wharf, and site of Customhouse	2.5 acres
1901–1914	Barnet, Cable and Chaffers Street	18 acres
1902–1925	Clyde Quay widening	4 acres
1904	Hutt Road locality
1904–1916	Waterloo and near Fryatt Quays, Hinemoa and Cornwall Streets	34 acres
1906	Waterloo Quay completion	34.5 acres
1906	Oriental Parade and boat shed sites	1 acre
1910–1913	Davis Street extension, near Cornwall Street	4 acres
1924–1927	Thorndon Esplanade and Hutt railway lines areas, vested in the Harbour Board and Railway Department

References[edit]

External links[edit]

[1] Wellington City Council's Old Shoreline Trail

[2] New Zealand history online

[3] Wellington Waterfront Limited

[4] Zealand Electronic Text Centre

[5] Wellington Waterfront Limited

[6] Christchurch City Libraries

[7] Waterfront Reclamation, Wellington City Council

[8] Early Wellington Reclamations

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