1862: Auckland Gas Company
July 25, 2019
By AHNZ
Then and now, the Auckland Gas Company (est.1862) building on Beresford Street. I think I read that it was the last hold-out on upgrading to electricity in Auckland because they stubbornly clung to their own energy source: gas.
Once upon a time down the road there was the gas storage tank said to be the “largest in Australasia.” This ‘gasometer’ in Freemans Bay is now severed from the rest of Beresford by the motorway.
Prior to the 1911 gasometer the Freemans Bay area down the hill was a slumland. Perhaps some of the crappy houses were bowled over using the excuse of building this infrastructure? These days the gasometer is gone (finally) and the area is once again semi-slummy and high in crime. Or was it ever not?
This area, on the city side of the motorway, is soon to be transformed and made into a new subway station like the ones in Sydney and Melbourne. That will be the next major chapter in an ever transforming Beresford from 1851 to now.
—
Note: Beresford Street probably named after Hobson’s family friend and patron, Admiral Sir John Beresford
Image ref. William Archer Price; Wikimedia Commons
Image ref. Me, July 2018
Previous posts about gasometers (how did it get to be so many?)
Like Comment Share
