History wiped from the map
Rations were tight and the seas were rough when 23-year-old Horatio Henwood made his way to New Zealand.
It was the mid-1800s. A trained carpenter from Cornwall, England, Horatio decided to forge a new life in the colonies, alongside much of his family.
After four months on the Joseph Fletcher ship, the Henwoods arrived in Lyttelton on October 23, 1856, less than six years after the Charlotte Jane, the first of four ships to arrive in Canterbury.
Little did Horatio know that a street in central Christchurch would soon bear his name, a name it held more than 140 years before being permanently closed to make way for the city’s new metro sports facility.
On February 10, 2017, Horatio St, between Antigua St and Stewart St, ceased to exist. Future netballers and competitive swimmers would be none the wiser to the man who once administered the land.
Born in 1833, Horatio trained as a carpenter and joined the family decision to emigrate to New Zealand.
Horatio wrote a diary during the trip, transcribed in 1991 by Canterbury Museum. He described a journey of meagre rations and rough seas. Eight people died during the trip, but a seam of excitement ran through his often rambling prose.
‘‘I think laying out with no bed agree[d] with me very much for I never felt better in my life, although you could almost read a newspaper through me now I am so thin,’’ he said a month into the journey.
Horatio’s sister, Rebecca Fisher, gave birth to a son 10 days before arriving in Lyttelton. They spotted land five days later; ‘‘New Zealand appear[ed] like a cloud, some parts of it very high’’.
‘‘It is a beautiful sight to see the mountains about 40 or 50 miles of covered with snow on the tops of them,’’ he said a day before disembarking.
Within a few years, Horatio was living in a house on Antigua St. He married Mary Ann Elizabeth May on September 19, 1859, in Dampier Bay. The couple had at least six children, although records are incomplete.
A prolific carpenter and builder, he built the city’s first railway station in 1863. By 1874 it was considered inadequate and was replaced by 1877.
As Christchurch Clerk of Works, he oversaw the building of Addington Gaol (Jail) in 1872 and the extension of Lyttelton Gaol a year later. He also oversaw Government labour gangs in the 1860s.
As owners and administrators for a city block, Horatio and Mary leased land to workshops, shoemakers and tradesmen who all called Horatio St home for decades. Horatio and his family lived in a property at the corner of Horatio and Antigua streets.
Tragedy struck in 1872. Their youngest daughter Minnie died, aged 2. Their next youngest daughter, Emma, died in 1885, aged 17. A death notice in The Press said her her loss was ‘‘deeply regretted by all who knew her’’.
In 1891, Mary died ‘‘after a short illness’’. She was buried in Addington Cemetery. Over the next 20 years, Horatio lost three sons, including his youngest, Ernest, and his eldest, Horatio.
On October 31, 1922, Horatio Henwood died, aged 89. A funeral was held the next day and he was buried alongside Mary at Addington Cemetery.
Almost 100 years later, the street that bore his name was closed, along with part of nearby Balfour Tce.
‘‘These two streets run through the middle of the site and the time has come to remove the roads and the services underneath them,’’ O¯ ta¯ karo chief executive Albert Brantley said in February.
The Press asked the Christchurch City Council, which will operate the metro sports facility, if Horatio would be remembered in any way.
‘‘At this time the council has not considered acknowledgements of this nature,’’ council head of recreation and sports unit John Filsell said.
Horatio St joins Bedford Row and Liverpool St as other central city streets that have been permanently closed.