Memories of early residents of Birkenhead and Northcote in the 1850s

In May 1930, Birkenhead Methodists celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Zion Hill Methodist Church and Sunday school with a get-together featuring Isaac Hill Creamer as one of the main speakers.

Creamer had lived with his parents in Birkenhead from the mid-1850s and he later worked as a commercial traveller and real estate agent. He retired to Remuera and died in 1953 aged 99 years. It was his father, William Creamer, who originally donated around two acres of land on 7th August 1854 to the Zion Wesleyan (later Methodist) Church. That Church was eventually built in 1880 and officially opened on 12 June 1881. William Creamer died in Thames in 1884.

In Creamer’s talk in 1930, he recalled that when he lived there in the 1850s there were just 13 families living in the Birkenhead and Northcote area. He mentioned James Fitzpatrick, a brickmaker, who had been living to the north-west of Kauri Point since the early 1850s, while in the Duck Creek area (around the lower part of present day Rawene Road) there was Hugh McCrum and family, who had lived there since at least 1857. Creamer also recalled a Mr. Beadney (actually William Bradney), who lived on the Birkenhead side of Duck Creek and later had a brickworks at Sulphur Beach.
Not mentioned in reports of his talk was Major Collings de Jersey Grut, his wife and three children. The Grut family arrived in 1856 and purchased land in what was Duck Creek (and is now Chelsea). They were ultimately unsuccessful at farming in the area and moved to Orewa around 1865. Grut leased land he also owned on Birkenhead Point to Edward Falconer Tizard from 22 February 1860 and then sold it to them on 27 September 1861. The Tizard family was the first to live on Birkenhead Point, and has Tizard Road named after them. In the early 1900s, Tizard subdivided the area around
Brassey Road. Brassey was the maiden name of Tizard’s wife.
Orchardist Henry James Hawkins and family lived on what is now Glenfield Road from the early 1850s. Hawkins also established an orchard near Soldiers Bay in that period. The Creamers lived at Zion Hill, while the Reid brothers (John and James), who lived with their sister Mrs Cooke on Little Shoal Bay, were the first to run a local ferry service to and from the city. Birkenhead was subdivided and villa sites promoted from 1863.
In the Northcote area, John Brady lived adjacent to a Mr. Hall, along with a Mrs Clout, Philip Tarry and family, and Philip Callan and family. Callan was a brickmaker who lived in a little brick house and built a hotel made from bricks on Northcote Point. The Callans had lived in the Northcote area since at least 1843 and also owned land in the Glenfield area. In 1861 Philip Callan gave three acres for the Catholic cemetery at the top of Pupuke Road, while Patrick (Paddy) Heath had bought land in the area in the Ocean View Road area in 1851 and 1853, and also farmed in what is now the Exmouth Road area.
Brickmaking and horticulture were the main occupations of Birkenhead and Northcote residents in the 1850s and 1860s, although Tizard went on to work for the Customs Department. However, more and more Birkenhead and Northcote Point residents became commuters, using the improving ferry service with the city, rather than being farmers on the land. Nevertheless, it wasn’t until the 1880s that there were more residents in Birkenhead than in Northcote. The building and operation of the Chelsea Sugar Refinery then made a significant difference to the spread of population in the area.

By David Verran


Issue 90 August 2018