Memory boxes
Heritage consultant Ann McEwan finds a slightly besmirched piece of history in Dey Street. The road cones are out in Hamilton East’s Dey Street. It’s tempting to think that a certain number of cones have to be out in the world at any given moment, so as to avoid the storage nightmare that would ensue if they were all put away. But in Dey Street they are needed as the Hamilton Ring Road has reached this part of the city.
One of Dey Street’s historic claims to fame is that it was where two ammunition factories were located during World War II. The decision was made to relocate the Colonial Ammunition Company’s operations to Hamilton in January 1942, after the company’s Auckland site was deemed vulnerable to attack. Two factories were built in Dey Street, one at the south end [called Norton] and another just north of Cambridge Road [Galloway]; the idea being that production at a dispersed site would only be partly affected ‘‘in the event of one unit being put out of action’’ (Auckland Star, 18 December 1943, p. 6).
Today demolition has largely erased the physical reminders of this local contribution to the war effort. The National Library holds a collection of photographs of Hamilton’s munitions workers by JD Pascoe and Hamilton City Libraries has an oral history interview with Dorrie Connelly, in which she recalls the painstaking work of checking bullets.
One notable building does, however, provide a tangible link to Dey Street’s military past. It’s the former magazine in what is now Flynn Park, built from sturdy brick to store the bullets made by the CAC workers. It has a rectangular footprint, a half-hipped gable roof covered in clay tiles, and features distinctive air vents with steel covers along each long side of the building.
Whereas Dorrie Connelly lived locally,
World War II Magazine, Flynn Park, Dey Street, Hamilton East. the out-of-town women who were manpowered to Hamilton’s CAC factories were accommodated in Peachgrove Road’s Artillery Flats. According to his Dictionary of New Zealand Biography entry, Bill Gallagher was also manpowered to the Dey Street factories in 1942.
After the war, as is well known, Gallagher went on to found Gallagher Engineering.
Today the former magazine is the clubrooms of the Hamilton Light Horse Club, which is itself historic, having been established in May 1945 according to its website. It is hard to tell, from the plans that are provided on the council’s website, how the magazine will be affected by the ring road. It is hoped that someone involved in the project has a clear view of the need to preserve a local heritage building that is of national significance. The Wellington-based military heritage expert I consulted as I wrote this story commented that it is an ‘‘elegant example’’ of a WWII magazine. Conservation plan, anyone? Postscript: After I thought I had finished writing this article I received some further comments from ‘my’ military heritage expert: ‘‘Just a word about the Explosive Store House (ESH) that you have there. Note the flimsy roof. The intention is that if an ESH blows up, the explosion will seek out the weakest part of the building, in this case the roof. It means that ESHs don’t build up huge pressures and blow out the sides, with the potential to take out other ESHs nearby.’’
With thanks to Michael Kelly for sharing his knowledge and expertise. This humorous remark is often used to remind people that, although the speaker may be small or insignificant, he is also not easily ignored.