1976: Final Lyttelton Wellington Ferry

February 20, 2024

By AHNZ

Once was a Lyttelton–Wellington ferry service. Run by the Union Steam Ship Company (1895-17 September, 1976) with the final dwindling 2 years bankrolled by The State. Somehow, the Labour 3.0 Ministry thought it was a good idea to pump $4,000,000 a year into a service that had become uneconomical. National 3.0 put an end to that, and with it the ferry service, within its first year of coming to power.

The Lyttelton terminal got a new building in 1968 with this iconic colonial mural. It etched strong memories in travelers who were saying goodbye or visiting or coming home. And, it would have been timely PR seeing as one of the Company’s ships, Wahine, became a deadly wreck that same year (10 April.)

The mural was falling to bits by 1978 and the remains sent off to Yaldhurst Transport Museum when they bought the terminal in 1989. Apparently the idea was to save the mural but the attempt was abandoned.

“Lyttelton’s treasured piece of graphic art is crumbling away…suffering from salty air and phosphate dust…featuring the Canterbury pilgrims wending their way over the Bridle Path, is deteriorating badly. …The technique used in making the window was no longer in use because of extremely high labour costs and tbe unavailability of the necessary pigments. Other windows of the same type had also experienced deterioration, Mr Bushell said, as pigments tended to break down and become flaky or powdery. The technique relies simply on adhesion between colour and glass and is not fire-bonded.” – Canterbury Pilgrims and Early Settlers, Facebook (2023)

“I am sorry this mural succumbed to the weather some time ago, as it was stored by the previous owner in a bad place. The panels were all smashed and the transfer stickers had peeled away.” – Jon Everitt, Manager Yaldhurst Museum of Transport and Science to Canterbury Pilgrims and Early Settlers (2023)

“The Union Company, said Sir Peter yesterday, had given the Government an assurance that the Rangatira would stay in service until it no longer’wanted her. The ship, which entered service in March, 1972. has been running at a loss which the Government is now underwriting at 1m a quarter.” – Press (1974,) Papers Past

“The Rangatira issue was quietly swept under the carpet yesterday when she berthed at Wellington for the last time, and she is expected to slip away again tomorrow, without ceremony, to an uncertain future in the United Kingdom. Her swan-song was a curiously flat affair…sense of bitterness and anger at the arbitrary whims of cost accountant bureaucrats that had brought an institution to an untimely end. Comments by the Rangatira’s master (Captain J. D. Cleaver) at a press conference shortly before she sailed from Lyttelton expressed, in moderate terms, what almost all who manned her felt that night. It was a wrong political decision to scrap the vessel, he said.” – Press (1976,) Papers Past

“Paul Hislop, a labourer, works on dismantling the old inter-island ferry terminal building at Lyttelton yesterday. Built in 1965, the terminal served the Union Steamship Company’s Lyttelton to Wellington link until 1976. The building has been sold to the Yaldhurst Transport Museum, where it will be used as a display hall.” – Press (1989,) Papers Past

The inter-island service wasn’t paying and couldn’t compete with the airport or the Picton-Wellington option. A good State Highway 1 to Picton made the old ferry an economic loser. How long had this been true?

I remember hearing Bob Jones once say the old ferry was better than a hotel and a flight because he would be able to book a cabin and do his travelling in his sleep. Unfortunately there were not enough millionaires around to patronise the ferry and make it viable.

Prime Minister Muldoon claimed that Rangatira was being withdrawn because the Cooks and Stewards’ Union had priced its members out of a job. He said “unionists were still fighting battles that had been won 40 years ago. He said the old cliche that trade unionists never forgot and never learned still applied…If they were to get their way, it would be impossible for the economy of this country to run in the way in which we want it.” Ref. Press (1976,) Papers Past

Muldoon even mentioned old unionist ring-leader Toby Hill, now in his 60s and at the end of his life, who National 1.0 had beaten in 1951 when it ascended to power. In this way he was weaving the narrative of the lost ferry into the ‘good news’ about how unions had been busted and that ‘we can’t have nice things’ because of unions.

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Image ref. Lyttleton Terminal Building mural, Hampton Studios Ltd. Canterbury Pilgrims and Early Settlers, Facebook (2023,) Enhanced by AHNZ (2024)

Ref. Lyttelton-Wellington ferries, nzhistory.govt

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