March – April 2002 Volume 1,Issue 4

The Avondale
Historical Journal
Publication of the Heart of the Whau Project

Meeting Date Set

Inside this issue: For anyone interested in the formation of a Historical Society for
Avondale-Waterview — a meeting will be held at the Avondale
Historical 1 Community Centre, 99 Rosebank Road, Avondale, on
Society Saturday 30 March, 2 pm. Car parks available just off Rosebank
Meeting in Road (the Community Centre is between Great North Road and Ash
March Street, with car park entry from Highbury Street).
If you can before the meeting, let me know that you’re coming — I’d like
to organise a spot of tea or coffee for those attending.
Library 1
With the view to creating a formal incorporated society, I’ll have a draft
Heritage Trust constitution ready for consideration and amendment. If you’d like a copy
of this, but can’t come to the meeting — just let me know.
The Rosebank 2 — Lisa Truttman
Bakehouse

Whau Horse 3–4

Bus Driver

Auckland Library Heritage Trust

I picked up a pamphlet recently from the Special treatment to
Collections department of Auckland Central Library maps and
on the Auckland Library Heritage Trust. This was parchment
formed in 1991 “to take on the task of rescuing and documents.
restoring the heritage collections so that this precious
documentary record would not be lost.” For further information on the Trust, contact:
The Secretary
The Trust’s work involves rehousing some collections Auckland Library Heritage Trust
to environments and conditions that will limit their P O Box 4138, Auckland 1015, or
decay, sorting and cataloguing, providing protective Phone (09) 307 7758, Fax (09) 307 7741, or
enclosures for fragile books, and apply conservation Email: grahamt@akcity.govt.nz
The Avondale Historical
Journal
The Rosebank Bakehouse
Among the signs of Avondale’s increasing urbanisation
from its more rural early days in the middle of the nine-
teenth century was the advent of bakehouses in the 1890s,
providing the still forming village community with their
daily bread.
At what is now 69 Rosebank Road a Mr Grubb became
the first baker on the Rosebank Rd/Great North Rd
(northwest) corner, and proprietor of the first recorded
bakehouse in the mid 1890s . His shop included an area
for the stabling of horses, which is now the present-day
site of the former Masonic Hall. Be-
fore this, the area, part of the larger
Chisholm (Rosebank) Estate, was
just farmland after the break-up and
sale of Robert Chisholm’s Estate in
1882 [information from M Butler
report, Heritage Planning, Auckland
City Council, 2001].
The father of Mr Grubb who started
the Rosebank Bakehouse came to
New Zealand in the 1860s, and set
up a bakery in Karangahape Road.
Unfortunately, during the De-
pression of the 1880s -1890s, he
went bankrupt. His son was a baker
in the Northern Ireland Constabulary when he emigrated
with his sister to New Zealand, following their fa-
ther. Later, in Avondale, once he had married, he started
the bakery.
Mr Keith Grubb, his grandson, told me how his grand-
father would drink quite a bit, and would frequent the
Avondale Hotel all too often and for far too long as far as
his wife was concerned. Once, when losing her patience
with her husband, she took a stock whip and went into the
Hotel, clearing everyone out in her anger. However, Mr
Grubb had seen her coming from across the fields, and
was well out of the way. The licensee at the time, possibly
the ill-fated Mr J R Stych (see Issue 3, Going Down to
the Hotel part two), banned Mrs Grubb from ever coming
in and clearing out his hotel again.
John Bollard, during his time as the local MP for Eden,
would often come into the bakehouse to talk to Mr Grubb
– and would just as often walk out onto the street with
flour all over his back from being heartily patted across
the shoulders by Mr Grubb.
By 1 April 1903, Mr Robert Samuel Kirkpatrick had
bought Grubb’s land and bakery on the north-western
corner of Rosebank/Great North Road, and ran
Kirkpatrick’s Bakery there until early 1905.
Robert Samuel Kirkpatrick (1866-1948) was the son of
Duncan Kirkpatrick (arrived 1860 from County Antrim,
Ireland) and Jane McCaughan, whom he married in
Volume 1,Issue 4
Page 2
Napier. “Sam” Kirkpatrick married Magdalene Webster
Grubb of the Avondale baker’s family in 1890, so in 1903
he was essentially carrying on the family business. (The
Kirkpatricks and the Grubbs had been cousins before this).
One of their sons, Robert Webster Kirkpatrick, (1890-
1937) went on to co-found, wwith the Stevens family,
Kirkpatrick & Stevens of NNewmarket, and one of his
sons in turn, Robert Noel Kirkpatrick, was a Newmarket
Borough Councillor in the early 1970s. His daughter is
Noeline Raffills, current Auckland City Councillor for
Avondale-Roskill Ward.
Mr Grubb senior continued to
work for his son-in-law until
his death on the railway line,
crushed between two
carriages he was passing
between without realising
they were being shunted.
According to Mr Keith
Grubb, his grand-son, his
grandfather’s dog (to which
he gave a double whiskey and
milk each morning) ran yelp-
ing from the scene and
fetched Mrs Grubb. He is ap-
parently buried in Rosebank
Cemetery, although no record has been found to date.
By 1910, Daniel Robertson had a general store on the bak-
ery site, running his combined bakery-groceries-coal busi-
ness until around the end of World War I, when the Thode
Brothers took over. Ernest Bright ran a bakery business
close by, until a fire in the early 1920s burned the entire
block out. The Fearon's Building stands on the site today.
As an after note, the Kirkpatrick family went on to own
the Rosebank Station Store (west corner of Rosebank and
Roberton Roads, built 1912-1913) until at least the late
1920s.
The Avondale Historical
Journal
The Whau’s Legendary Horse Bus Driver
Those who had to conduct business in Auckland City
in the late 1870s used the horse buses, or omnibuses,
that plied the routes either along the Great North Road
or along New North Road between the City and the
Whau and further west. One of the horse bus drivers
of the time was one Laurence Teirney, operating from
out of the rural Whau district, and a forgotten charac-
ter from out of our history. (Thanks to information
from Mr Teirney’s descendant, I now know that his
first name and surname appear in differing forms in
the newspapers and other records. As the family today
spell their name as "Teirney", I have tried to continue
that in the narration).
Mr Teirney apparently had an aversion to other users
of the rutted roads passing him along the way. And he
had a quick, pugnacious temper, going by what the
newspapers of the day relate. An article in the NZ
Herald, 7th November 1879 tells us:
“An accident occurred in Symonds St between 7 and 8
pm, which imperilled the safety of at least 1 person. A
gentleman named Frost was driving a buggy, coming
into town from the Whau by the New North Road, and
passed the Whau bus coming in the same direction,
and driven by Lawrence Tierney.
“The driver of the buggy kept close to the left side of
the road after passing the omnibus. Tierney, in turn,
improved his pace so as to pass the buggy, and the
consequence was a violent collision, which smashed
the lighter vehicle. Mr Frost was thrown out but be-
yond being covered with mud and a little shaken by
the fall he has sustained no serious injuries. The dam-
age done to the buggy is estimated at £20.” (article
originally found by Mike Butler of Auckland City's
Heritage Planning division)
This may have merely been a case of Teirney having a
really bad day. However. I found another report from
17 January 1882.
"Obstructing a Thoroughfare -- Rival Omnibus Men.
"Lawrence Tierney was charged with obstructing the
passage of Patrick Collins, Henry Holloway and oth-
ers on the Great North Road on 23 December 1881."
It seems that Patrick Collins, another Whau driver, had left
the City before Mr Teirney and Teirney caught up with him
at the Whau Hotel. Teirney left 5 minutes before Collins,
and Collins caught up with him at New Lynn "near the sta-
bles where he stopped." Collins called to Teirney to "give
room to pass, but he (Tierney) kept to the centre of the
road." Collins then drew his bus onto a siding and tried to
Volume 1,Issue 4
Page 3
pass Teirney's bus that way, but Teirney
thwarted the attempt by drawing across him-
self, preventing Collins from getting any fur-
ther.
Then Teirney used his bus and horses to
block the middle of the Whau Bridge, caus-
ing Collins to pull up short.
"(Teirney) stopped there for half a minute,
and stopped again at the end of the bridge,
and then started to gallop up the hill (toward
the Whau township) before
(Collins) got up to him." Teirney “Teirney was next
had been charged with obstructing charged with
a public carriageway under the
Public Works Act of the time, but
"conduct
calculated to pro-
was discharged without conviction
of that charge due to a technicality voke a breach of
-- the police had chosen the wrong the peace."
part of the Public Works Act on
He was accused
which to lay the charge.
of taking off his
The Herald report did not stop shirt at the Whau,
there, however. Teirney was next and challenging
charged with "conduct calculated Collins to a fight.”
to provoke a breach of the peace."
He was accused of taking off his
shirt at the Whau, and challenging
Collins to a fight. "Mr Lennox," the report
advised, "who was subpoened, was unable to
come in. He was an important witness, but
he was suffering from an injury." According
to Teirney, Collins picked the fight first, and
he was backed up by a Charles H Smith and
William Armstrong. Still, he was convicted
and fined 20 shillings and costs of 1 pound,
4 shillings.
The man behind the legend.
Laurence O'Tierney was born 18 June 1843,
in Co. Cavan, Cootehill, Ireland. Laurence
married Bridget Cunningham (b. 1843) in
1864, and over the course of their marriage
which lasted through travels across Ireland
up to Belfast, and out to New Zealand, they
had 10 children, 9 of which lived to major-
ity.
The family arrived in Auckland on Friday
November 20, 1874, after a stormy voyage
aboard the Waitangi. According to a grand
daughter of Laurence, Beatrice, she had
learned from her father (Larry Teirney) that
"the family had been brought to New Zea-
land by a Mr Quick for Laurence to be a
 Volume 1,Issue 4
Page 4

The Whau’s Legendary Horse Bus Driver (continued)

one of the first Trustees of the Swanson Cemetary, where
groom to work on the Estate of
both he and his wife were buried. Beatrice recalled her
(continued on page 4)
grandfather Laurence as having "a very long white beard
right down to his chest." A recollection of two of his chil-
(from page 3)
dren was published in the Teirney family's reunion booklet
in 1995:
Mr Dilworth. They originally lived in Wakefield Street, off
Queen Street -- rent, one shilling and sixpence per week."
"They often spoke of their old dog "Shot" - how he always
lay down by the back door; grandad Teirney was very fussy
At some point between 1875 and 1879, Laurence decided to
about his shoes, and how he always cleaned them in a box
leave the employ of Mr Dilworth and start his own business
by the back door; six days a week
of a "taxi run" (horse-bus) from
"Old Shot" never moved -- but on a
Auckland to New Lynn. The Teirney
Sunday when grandad used to go up
family note that the family home-
to the (Swanson) school to give reli-
stead was in Swanson, but at one
gious instructions (as the Priest in
time prior to that it appears the fam-
those days only visited Swanson once
ily lived close to where Cambridge
in six weeks - he lived in Puhoi) Shot
Clothing now stands in New Lynn at
would get up and shuffle off; when
the corner of Totara Avenue and
Grandad reached the school, Shot
Great North Road -- the terminus for
would be lying on the road outside
the horse-bus service. While Laur-
the school. Mum and Uncle Tom
ence Teirney ran the horse-bus busi-
could never work out how Shot knew
ness, his wife Bridget stayed home,
it was Sunday!"
bringing up the children, and later
running the farm up in Swanson.
Bridget Teirney died in 1904, from
blood poisoning after an accident
From around 1883 to 1885, Laurence
with a sewing needle. From that time Laurence lived with
was in Australia, having either tired of the farming life in
their daughter Kate who ran the Commercial Hotel at
Swanson, or having become drunk, gambled away his coach,
Waihi, on the Coromandel Peninsula, and died there on 9
and put on a ship bound for Australia from where it took him
December 1915.
the two years to return. The spelling of the family name
changed to Teirney by the time he returned.
Source: "An account of Laurence and Bridget's lives in New
Zealand from an interview with Aunt Beatt by Gloria Wil-
Laurence Teirney was a devout Catholic, and was known to
son", The Teirney Family in New Zealand, 1995 Reunion
be a lay preacher on Sundays up in Swanson. In 1895, he was
Celebration Booklet, 1995.

The Avondale Historical Journal

Published by Lisa J Truttman
19 Methuen Road, Avondale, Auckland
Phone: (09) 828-8494, Fax: (09) 828-8497, email: historian@avondale.org.nz
Websites: Rimtark www.geocities.com/rimtark/index.html
Earth Settler www.earthsettler.tripod.com/esindex/earthsettlerhome.htm
Archive Room www.geocities.com/archiveroom/

Printed by
Avondale Photo Centre, I thank
1962 Great North Road,
Avondale, Battersby Funeral Services Ltd,
Phone/Fax: 09-820 6030 1855 Great North Road, Avondale,
serving Avondale since 1933,
for their support and sponsorship of this
publication.