1870: Lyttleton Burning
October 24, 2018
By AHNZ
Today in history: Poor old Lyttleton ablaze; 24th October 1870! Two thirds of Lyttelton destroyed. What hard times these were!
Perhaps worst of all, Fox and Vogal are in power
The Gold Rush is done, Agricultural prices low, immigration down, and Canterbury top-soil is being lost out to sea by violent winds on the now treeless plains! Perhaps worst of all, Fox and Vogal are in power and they’re going to ‘fix’ things, ie 10x every problem with Statism!
A titanic blow to the settlers’ confidence
Lyttleton was ground zero for Canterbury immigrants arriving, all would pass though here. And, it was the port, via an expensive and impressive new tunnel right through the hills. No out-of-the-way town, also the home of the first and still major newspaper of the province, The Lyttleton Times, which lost its offices to this fire. Must have been a titanic blow to the settlers’ confidence.
“They built in brick after that to stop it happening again. Little did they know..” says L.Richardson.
She means the 2011 quake that smacked brick Lyttleton to pieces!
Brick beats fire, but earthquake beats brick.
So this fire 148 years ago is still making its daily presence felt strongly because of that equation.
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Image ref. Madaster, 2013. I’m using this however there are some actual photos of the event
Ref. DISCO
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