Tag Archives: timber milling

Where did that wood come from?

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Archaeology is a broad discipline, with a multitude of subsects and specialisations. One of these is buildings archaeology, where we use archaeological methods to record and analyse buildings and see what that can tell us about the people that constructed them. We’ve written various blogs before about some of the different houses that we’ve recorded, and while this blog is also within the realm of buildings archaeology, it’s also quite different to those other blogs. Part of our work as archaeologists is to place things within the historical context of the period that they date to. If we were excavating a Roman villa and we found glass windowpanes, then we’d be interpreting that villa as probably belonging to a pretty wealthy individual. However, when we find window glass in Christchurch, that doesn’t really tell us anything about the status of the person that built that house, as window glass was readily available and used in the majority of buildings. We’re really lucky as historical archaeologists that there are large historical datasets that we can use to help us with determining the context of the period that our sites date to. However, there’s hours and hours of research that goes into building a database from raw historical data, and even more hours spent looking at patterns and trends to help us establish that historical context.

Returning to buildings archaeology, one of the key elements that we look at when we record a building is what it was made from. Here in Christchurch, that’s almost always timber. From our recording, we know what types of timbers were typically used here in Christchurch for houses, but that’s only half the story. By doing detailed historical research on the timber industry, we can find out if there were patterns in what species were available for purchase and then use that historical information to provide more context to what we find in the archaeological record. It all sounds so simple, but let me tell you it’s not. I’ve spent countless hours doing research into the Christchurch timber industry, and I’ve only gotten through the first 20 years. That period is going to be the focus of this blog.

That sure is some nice timber, I wonder where it came from?

Prior to 1850, the year that the city of Christchurch was founded, the Canterbury Plains were largely devoid of forests. Although opinion is divided on the exact extent of forested area in Canterbury at the time of Pākehā settlement, Roche (1990) estimates that the combined forest area in the Canterbury settlement added up to only 240,000 acres, or 12 % of the total land area (Roche 1990: 75). Near Christchurch there was a small forest of 54 acres where Christchurch’s most notable pioneers, the Deans brothers, established their Riccarton farm in 1843 (Orwin 2015: 25-26). The largest areas of forest were located some distance away. These included the native podocarp forest of Banks Peninsula, comprised mainly of matai (then known as black pine), kahikatea (white pine) and totara (for some reason just known as totara); and the mixed podocarp and beech forest at Harewood Forest, with kahikatea, rimu (red pine), matai and totara, with silver and black beech (they called it birch back then and were big time into their colour naming system; Roche 1990a).

Map of bush cover in Canterbury collated and reconstructed from 1850s and 1860s surveyor’s notebooks and maps by W. B. Johnson and redrawn for Pawson and Holland (2005: 171).

An 1851 sketch of the upper reaches of the Waimakariri River showing Harewood Forest, one of the largest areas of bush close to the city of Christchurch. Image: Fox, W. and Allom, T., 1850-1851.

Suitable building timber was not readily available in Christchurch and so Canterbury’s pioneer settlers built their houses from materials that they either brought with them from elsewhere, such as canvas, calico and sheets of iron to form tents and rudimentary temporary dwellings, or resources that might have been available on or near their chosen sections. These included volcanic stone, rammed earth, sod or mud brick for the walls and thatched or slab roofs made from raupo, toetoe, tussock, or bark (Bowman 1941, Isaacs 2015, Salmond 1986). In areas where timber was more plentiful wooden slabs or logs were used to build basic wooden structures, but even then, some timber had to be imported because of the difficulty in getting the logs milled once they were cut down.

Although it was located right beside one of the largest stands of forest near Christchurch, Deans Bush, the first house on the Canterbury Plains built by the eponymous Deans brothers was constructed from framing timber that they brought with them from Wellington (Bowman 1941).

Photograph of the first house built by the Deans brothers near Riccarton Bush in 1843. The house was built with timber brought from Wellington but was dismantled in the late 1890s. Image: Canterbury Times, 1900.

With the founding of Christchurch city and the rapid expansion of its Pākehā population, an increasing number of settlers had to obtain the materials they needed to construct their permanent residences, fuel their fires, and fence their farms. Although Canterbury was comparatively bereft of a sustainable supply of timber, wood was still the dominant building material for houses in Canterbury in the nineteenth century (Government Statistician, Registrar-General’s Office 1874). This all led to the establishment of a burgeoning timber importation trade (Roche 1990).

Banks Peninsula was the largest and most easily accessible source of timber close to Christchurch, meaning this region was one of the major suppliers of building timber and firewood to the colony. If you want to read more about sawmilling on the peninsula and what happened after the timber arrived in Christchurch, I highly recommend that you read Lydia’s excellent post on the topic from earlier in the year. The timber supply from Banks Peninsula was, however, short lived and the capacity to saw and ship it was limited, so in this post we’re going to explore exactly where Christchurch got all its wood from.

By combining the magic of PapersPast and the dark arts of Excel, I tracked the ups and downs of the Canterbury’s timber economy over the first few decades of Pākehā settlement in Christchurch to figure out where the town was getting its timber from and how this changed over time.

January 11, 1851, was the first issue of the Lyttelton Times to be published and the first issue to include a list of vessels that had arrived in Lyttelton Port since the previous December, including the first four ships carrying the pioneer settlers and all of their possessions to Lyttelton (Lyttelton Times 11/1/1851: 5). Included was a schedule of the cargo each vessel carried, with the schooner, Phoebe, the first reported timber carrying vessel arriving from Wellington carrying a load of timber. For the first few years of settlement Wellington was to be the predominant supplier of Canterbury’s timber.

Not the Phoebe. Also not Lyttelton, but this is probably what it looked like when the first load of timber arrived in Lyttelton. Image: Frederick Nelson Jones.

Although several gangs of pit sawyers had established themselves in many of the bays of Banks Peninsula by this time, their contributions to the overall timber supply in the first years of settlement were negligible in comparison to other regions. Timber imports soon picked up though, as did the quantity of timber arriving in the city from Banks Peninsula. By the mid to late 1850s, imports from Tasmania were contributing a significant quantity of timber to the market, and from the early 1860s vessels from North America and the Baltic region were bringing large cargoes of Northern Hemisphere timber, such as Baltic pine, Douglas fir and cedar.

Within the first ten years of the arrival of the settlers, timber imports had increased considerably. This coincided with an increase in the population of Canterbury, as well as the number of wooden dwellings that were being built. This was a pattern observed across the study period, although population tended to increase in a more or less linear fashion, while timber imports fluctuated more but trended upwards almost exponentially overall.

A steep decline in the quantity of timber being imported to Christchurch and Lyttelton occurred in the late 1860s. There were several factors that probably contributed this. The population had continued to grow, and wooden dwellings were also being constructed at an increasing rate, so it was not likely a lack in demand for house building materials. The market commentary in the newspapers around this time suggests that the timber supplies were overstocked, likely due to huge shipments arriving from overseas and the from the Nelson and Marlborough region. On several occasions in 1866 newspaper correspondents reported that the timber market was depressed, Sales were low and likewise timber prices had tanked (Lyttelton Times 7/7/1866: 2, 2/11/1867: 2). This glut in the market likely caused timber merchants to refrain from importing new stocks until the oversupply had diminished and prices had increased. Due to the time lag between orders and shipment this reduction in imports was not fully realised until 1867-1868.

Customhouse Street wharf area, Wellington, circa 1868, with the harbour and Queens wharf in the background. The sailmaking premises of John S Burn, a boat under construction, and a timber yard, are visible.  Couchman, (Mrs), active 1967. Customhouse Street wharf area, Wellington. Ref: 1/2-029401-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22751906

A notable shift in the regions supplying timber occurred after 1864. Shipments from the Wellington and Auckland/Northland regions declined towards the late 1860s, but were replaced with considerable supplies from the upper South Island. Imports from the West Coast were non-existent until around 1867, which coincided with the end of the gold rush in this region. The milling industry in Westland was initially established in order to supply the requirements of gold miners, but, after the rush was over, had expanded significantly. By the 1870s the West Coast milling industry was supplying sawn timber to other regions, including Canterbury, as well as a thriving trans-Tasman export trade (Roche 1990a: 179).

While mainland Australia was a consistent, albeit minor, contributor to timber imports over the study period, Tasmania remained an important supplier to the Canterbury timber economy, from the first cargoes that arrived with the pioneer settlers in 1850, up until at least the early 1870s. It is likely that most, if not all of the timber that was imported from Tasmania at this time was harvested by convict labour. From 1804 convicted felons were transported to Van Diemen’s Land, as it was then known, and forced undertake hard labour while also forming a founding population for the new British colonies. Convict labour was employed in the harvesting of timber, a task that served both as punishment and progressed the economic ambitions of the colony by generating an exportable commodity, which found a ready market in Christchurch (Tuffin and Gibbs 2020; Tuffin et al 2020).

The original human centipede? Convicts hauling a log at Port Arthur c.1836. Image: State Library of Victoria: ML 185. 

The predominant target species were varieties of Eucalyptus, mainly stringy bark and blue gum. Stringy bark was favoured for construction and blue gum was used as a general-purpose timber and for ship building (King 2019; Tuffin et al 2020). The Tasman Peninsula remained a timber production centre until the closure of the Port Arthur penal settlement and prison in 1877. Although Tasmanian timber was available on the Christchurch market, imports from there declined towards the 1870s, possibly as a result of the decline in the use of convict labour.

The number of inward arrivals and quantity of timber being imported dramatically increased again towards the mid-1870s when large quantities of timber began arriving from Auckland. Commonly known as ‘The Vogel Era’, the 1870s was a boom time for the New Zealand economy, stimulated by the flow of money from the gold rushes of the previous decade and the success of the wool export market, and accelerated by a public borrowing programme instituted by Julius Vogel (McLintock 1966). Vogel instigated heavy public investment in infrastructure, such as a roads and railways, which saw a corresponding expansion in timber milling, including the revival of milling at Harewood Forest (Roche 1990a). This increase in arrivals to Christchurch is, therefore, predictable, as millers geared up to supply timber for railways and ports.

Over the course of the entire study period Banks Peninsula supplied the greatest quantity and the highest proportion of timber in total, though this supply began to decline towards the end of the study period. Roche (1990a: 79) notes that the number of sawmills in operation on Banks Peninsula had dropped from at least ten in the late 1850s to just four by 1876; although those that remained were by all accounts “doing a brisk trade”. Milling on the Peninsula had all but ceased by the 1880s, and although the study period doesn’t cover these later years, the data for 1875 seems to reflect the decline of the milling industry on Banks Peninsula with a diminishing contribution to the Christchurch timber market.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to continue the shipping research beyond the latter 1870s. Scrolling through PapersPast collecting this data takes an extraordinary amount of time, but I really want to know what happened to the Canterbury timber economy in final decades of the nineteenth century, through the decline in milling on Banks Peninsula (and the regions that replaced this supply), the 1880s depressions era and the subsequent economic recovery. I probably wouldn’t get your hopes up, but one day I might write a sequel to this story.

Kirsa Webb

References

Bowman, A., 1941. The study of the historical development of domestic architecture in Canterbury, New Zealand. Thesis submitted for membership of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Government Statistician, Registrar-General’s Office, 1874. Results of a Census of the Colony of New Zealand taken for the night of the 1st March 1874. Wellington, NZ: Government Printer.

Isaacs, N.P., 2015. Making the New Zealand House 1792-1982. Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand.

King, S., 2019. The Architecture of Van Diemen’s Land Timber. Fabrications, 29(3): 338-358.

Lyttelton Times 1851-1920. Newspaper [online]. Retrieved from https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/lyttelton-times. Accessed: April 2022.

McLintock, A. H. (ed.), 1966. “The Vogel Era: economic history”. An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand [online].Retrieved from: http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/1966/history-economic/page-3. Accessed: July 2022.

Orwin, 2015. Riccarton and the Deans Family – History and Heritage. Auckland: David Bateman Ltd.

Pawson, E. & Holland, P., 2005. Lowland Canterbury landscapes in the making. New Zealand Geographer, 61:167-175.

Roche, M., 1990. History of New Zealand Forestry. Wellington: New Zealand Forestry Corporation.

Salmond, J., 1986. Old New Zealand Houses 1800 – 1940. Auckland: Heinemann Reed.

Tuffin, R. and Gibbs, M., 2020. The Archaeology of the Convict Probation System: The Labor Landscapes of Port Arthur and the Cascades Probation Station, 1839–55. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 24: 589–617.

Tuffin, R., Gibbs, M., Clark, D., Clark, M. and Rigozzi, P., 2020. ‘…One of the Most Severe Duties …’: Landscapes of Timber-getting at a Former Tasmanian Convict Station. Industrial Archaeology Review 42(2): 126-140.

Cutting Edge: The Banks Peninsula Timber Industry

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We have often mentioned on the blog how Christchurch was built on a swamp (and the inevitable drainage problems that this caused!), but another big issue for early settlers living in a swamp was the lack of available timber and firewood. There were, of course, the small areas of bush standing at Riccarton and Papanui, but these were not sufficient to sustain a developing township, and it was not long before these sources were felled or reserved. A significant amount of timber was actually imported into Christchurch – from elsewhere in New Zealand, from Australia, or from further afield – but that is a topic for another day (hopefully by our magnificent leader Kirsa Webb who just finished her Masters degree on the topic). By far, the largest wooded area within close proximity to the Christchurch settlement was on Banks Peninsula, and so, for a number of decades, timber milling was the dominant industry on the Peninsula.

Long before the arrival of Europeans, Tangata Whenua had cut timber to build dwellings, forts, canoes, and other structures in native woods, but the level of this felling had little impact on the natural forests. During the 1830s, sailors who came to New Zealand as whalers also began to fell the native bush, often assisted by local Māori, and this began the origins of European timber milling in New Zealand. By the mid-1830s, about a third of the European men in New Zealand worked in the timber industry (Swarbrick, 2007).

On Banks Peninsula, former sailors had begun to settle in the numerous bays by the 1840s and mill the dense bush. Following the arrival of the Canterbury Pilgrims in 1850, other landless drifters and squatters soon joined them (Ogilvie, 2007: 119). By the 1860s, there were numerous timber mills in operation throughout the Peninsula (Ogilvie, 2007: 5).

Map of Banks Peninsula, with the shaded area representing forest cover in c.1860 and the location of sawmills indicated with stars. Image: Wood and Pawson, 2008: 455.

Many of the earlier timber mills were of a more temporary nature than those established at a later date. For example, George Holmes mill in Pigeon Bay that he established in 1862, appears much to be a more haphazard building than William Coop’s second mill and home complex that he established at Little River in 1873, further up the valley than his original 1863 mill. Many of these early millers were contracted by governing bodies to fulfil specific orders. Ebenezer Hay of Pigeon Bay was contracted by Canterbury Association in 1850 to supply timber for the new township of Lyttelton, and George Holmes was constructed to supply timber for the Lyttelton Tunnel in the early 1860s.

George Holmes timber mill at Pigeon Bay in c.1865. Image: William Locke, 1865.

William Coop’s home and timber mill at Little River. Image: Cantage – Canterbury Heritage

The bushmen who worked for the mills were often landless drifters and squatters who built primitive whares adjoining the bush they felled. Ogilvie notes that it wasn’t uncommon for most of their earnings to go on grog and they were an unruly element in the small Peninsula communities (Ogilvie, 2007: 119). A survey plan of Okains Bay in 1860 shows the footprint of numerous buildings located within the vicinity of the modern Okains Bay township, which are believed to be the location of the various whare occupied by early bushman in the area.

Photograph of bushman John Raddings outside his slab and totara bark whare located on the spur above Okains Bay. Image: Ogilvie, 2007: 121.

Detail from Black Map 120 showing Okains Bay in 1860, indicating the location of a number of small buildings believed to be the whare of early timber millers (blue circles). Image: Archives New Zealand, 1860.

Initially, the early sawyers concentrated their operations at the heads of the various bays, where they could more easily ship their cargo to their destinations. From the mid-1850s, as the bushmen moved up the valleys, they began to employ the use of mechanical mills, with the first water-driven mill being established near the head of Akaroa Harbour in 1854, and the first steam-powered mill at Le Bons Bay in 1857 (Wood and Pawson, 2008: 453-454). As techniques improved, more and more timber on Banks Peninsula began to be cut. The two largest mills (in terms of potential output) constructed prior to 1880, were William White’s at Little River and John Thacker’s at Okains Bay, which could produce up to 60,000 and 70,000 super feet per week respectively (Wood and Pawson, 2008: 454). By the 1920s, the vast majority of the timber on the Peninsula had been felled.

Deforestation of Banks Peninsula between 1830 and 1920. Image: Boffa Miskell, 2007: 27.

As milling operations moved further and further inland, the bushmen were required to transport their timber cargo over greater distances. The most common form of bush transport was to ‘skidd’ the logs along the ground using teams of bullocks harnessed together in wooden yokes. Sometimes this method brought bushmen in conflict with their local road boards, as logs skidded over roads often caused significant damage to the road’s surface that the road boards worked hard to maintain. John Thacker, for example, was brought before the Magistrate on a number of occasions by the Okains Bay Road Board for just such an offense (Lyttelton Times, 14/8/1875: 3; Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, 30/1/1877: 2). To speed up the timber delivery system, larger sawmills began to construct wooden tramlines to connect their mills with the bush they were felling and to the jetties from which they dispatched their cargo. John Thacker was again in trouble with the Okains Bay Road Board in 1875, when he constructed a tramline along a public road reserve to his mill in Okains Bay without obtaining permission (Lyttleton Times, 21/8/1875: 3). In some cases, the wooden trams required timber viaducts to traverse streams, rivers or particularly unaccommodating terrain. In Thacker’s case he constructed a timber viaduct over the Opara Stream to reach the jetty.

Photograph of a 16-bullock team pulling a log through bush in Northland. Image: Mahoney, 2007.

Photograph of a three-horse team pulling a trolley with a rimu log along a wooden bush tram, probably in Taranaki. Image: Mahoney, 2007. 

Photograph of a John Thacker’s wooden mill tramway viaduct over the Opara Stream in c.1889. Image: Ogilvie, 2007: 120.

Ship with a consignment of timber on a jetty in the 1910s, probably located in the Nelson district. Image: Frederick Nelson Jones.

From Banks Peninsula timber could be shipped around New Zealand or further abroad. Significant consignments of the Banks Peninsula timber were shipped to Lyttelton and then transported via train into the Christchurch township where it was offered for sale at various timber yards in the city.

Front cover of the Kauri Timber Company’s catalogue for their Auckland factory in 1906. Image: Swarbrick, 2007. 

The development of steam powered timber mills was an important advancement for the New Zealand timber industry from the 1860s. During the first decades of settlement in Canterbury, the majority of timber used in the interior of houses was still being imported from overseas. This was because it was cheaper to import foreign finished timber than it was to prepare domestic timber by hand. The development of machine timber processing in New Zealand meant that not only was the cost of domestic timber lowered, but it also materially increased the consumption of timber grown in New Zealand, lowered imports, and provided local employment. The first large scale use of steam power for timber sawing in Christchurch was by Mr F. Jenkins in the early 1860s. Jenkins later extended his business to use machinery to also prepare the timber. But it was not until the early 1870s that this industry really took off in Christchurch, with about five companies branching into the steam timber milling industry during this period (Lyttelton Times, 15/2/1875: 2).

One such Christchurch yard that converted into steam powered milling was the Victorian Sawmills and Timber Yard located on Lichfield Street between Durham and Colombo Streets. Established by James Booth in c.1863, these yards covered half an acre of land. By 1872 Booth had converted his sawmill into steam power and offered a wide range of timber products that could be planed, grooved, beaded, and bevelled to the purchasers needs (Star, 15/2/1875: 2). The business continued to run on the site under various management until 1895. In June 2014 we excavated the site of the former mill and uncovered a large complex of paved brick that is believed to be the main working floor of the sawmill buildings. In addition, we found other paved brick surfaces outside the building, stone and brick footings onto which we suspect the sawmill’s machinery was once fixed, as well as the foundations of the sawmill’s chimney and the likely location of the timber storage yard. You can read more about our excavation of Booth’s sawmill on our blog here.

Photograph showing part of the paved brick floor complex of the Victorian Steam Sawmills and Timber Yard in 2014. Image: Hamish Williams.

Another timber yard that harnessed the power of steam for its sawmill was William Montgomery’s yard located on the southeast corner of Colombo and Tuam Streets. Established in 1873, Montgomery’s business is an example of a successful timber import business from 1862 adapting into a domestic timber milling business in 1873. Montgomery’s business was very successful and in 1876 he constructed a handsome stone office building on his mill premises at the corner of Colombo and Tuam Street. The business continued to run on the site under various management until the 1930s. Between November 2020 and March 2021 UOA excavated part of the former sawmill and timberyard premises and encountered a number of features associated with the old mill, including a brick floor associated with one of the factory buildings, part of the tramline used for transporting timber around the site, and other brick and concrete foundations associated with the various machinery that were used on the site.

Photograph looking southeast towards W. Montgomery and Co.’s brick office building on the corner of Colombo and Tuam Streets in c.1876, not the stacks of timber on the right-hand-side. Image: Early Canterbury Photography, 2009. 

Detail from Strouts’ 1877 map of Christchurch, showing the footprints of the buildings present on W. Montgomery’s premises (outlined in red). Image: Strouts, 1877. 

Photograph showing part of the paved brick floor associated with Montgomery’s steam sawmills and timber yard. Image: Michael Healey.

Photograph of part of the tramline used to transport timber around the timber yard. Image: Michael Healey.

The Banks Peninsula timber milling industry impacted the way in which the City of Christchurch was constructed. Although the timber industry pre-dates the settlement of Christchurch, the arrival of the Canterbury colonists in 1850 led to an increase demand for timber and provided the manpower needed to fell it. For decades timber milling was the dominant industry on the peninsula. It resulted in technological developments, provided cheaper materials with which to construct Christchurch, and ultimately changed the environment and landscape of the peninsula. Today we encounter the remains of the 19th century timber mills right in the heart of the city. These mills not only show a direct link between the city and peninsula, but they also provide a sense of the scale of the industry which was so crucial to the development of Christchurch in the 19th century.

Lydia Mearns

References

Boffa Miskell, 2007. Banks Peninsula Landscape Study: Final Report. Prepared for Christchurch City Council by Boffa Miskell Ltd.

Ogilvie, G., 2007. Banks Peninsula Cradle of Canterbury. Christchurch: Phillips & King.

Swarbrick, N., 2007. ‘Logging native forests’. Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, [online] Available at: <http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/logging-native-forests>

Wood, V., and Pawson, E., 2008. The Banks Peninsula Forests and Akaroa Cocksfoot: Explains a New Zealand Forest Transition. Journal of Environment and History. Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. 449-468.