<strong>Bay</strong> <strong>Harbour</strong> News Wednesday <strong>December</strong> <strong>13</strong> <strong>2023</strong> 22 TREASURES FROM THE PAST Lyttelton <strong>Harbour</strong> Board’s cool store ABOUT JANUARY 5, 1905 in the port of Lyttelton, 3486 boxes of South Island butter, totalling 1743 hundredweight (CWT) or 88.5 tonnes, along with 185 cases of fine Canterbury cheese, weighing an additional 214 CWT (1.1 tonne), were unpacked from the Lyttelton <strong>Harbour</strong> Board’s cool store adjacent to the railyard between No 6 and No 7 wharves. The cheese crates each contained two round cheeses separated by a board, giving strength to the case. Being round the cases could be rolled on the edge of the base like a barrel. The lengthwise boards featured slight gaps for ventilation, allowing testers to insert tubes for core samples. This testing regime was required to both grade the cheese and ensure it was at a stable temperature of around 7 deg C while in cool storage before being loaded for transport. Hauled by LHB workers onto flatbed rail cars, which were then drawn by the railway workers’ horses onto the wharf, the cheeses were loaded into the refrigerated hold of the SS Ruapehu, operated by the New Zealand Shipping Company, destined for the London markets. This refrigerated dairy trade with the motherland was an economic boon for the Dominion of New Zealand. Almost a decade later, by April 1914, the quantity of butter awaiting export in port-side cool stores around the country totalled 88,062 boxes (2237 tonnes), a year on year increase of 37 per cent, reflecting the huge growth in New Zealand’s early 20th century export dairy industry. This growth was made possible by the invention and industrial use of mechanical Lyttelton <strong>Harbour</strong> Board employees unloading cheese at the cool store. Te Ūaka The Lyttelton Museum ref. 9072.1 https://www.teuaka.org.nz/online-collection/1129256 refrigeration just three decades earlier. The ancient world, from the Romans to the Persians and Chinese, harvested and stored ice for their refrigeration needs, and also used evaporative cooling. These methods continued well into the 19th century until innovations in steam-driven compressed gas refrigeration technology proved their profitability. The Australasian colonies of the British Crown were at the forefront of this technological drive due to the need to trade frozen meat and dairy products, with their biggest markets on the other side of the planet. Queenslander Thomas McIlwraith delivered the first shipment of 40 tonnes of unspoilt frozen Australian beef and mutton to London in 1879 using a patented ‘Bell-Coleman’ gas refrigeration unit on board the Strathleven. Then in 1882, Scotsmen Davidson and Brydone managed New Zealand’s inaugural shipment of 4909 frozen mutton and lamb carcasses from Totara Estate near Oamaru, on board the Dunedin out of Port Chalmers to London, marking a pivotal moment for the colony’s struggling economy. This achievement, coupled with subsequent profitable voyages, laid the foundation for the worldwide refrigerated shipping industry, transforming New Zealand’s economy by making frozen meat and dairy exports a cornerstone of the colony’s late 19th into 20th-century economic prosperity. In 1889, the Canterbury Frozen Meat and Dairy Produce Export Company opened the Belfast Freezing Works for meat due for export out of Lyttelton port. In 1890, the LHB’s committee on cool chambers suggested repurposing the port’s grain agency shed as a cool store, and urged the Government to appoint an expert for butter and cheese inspection in Canterbury. The export of dairy produce out of Lyttelton port in 1889 was worth £52,473 ($17 million NZD), but it was believed to be a fraction of the Canterbury dairy industry’s potential. In early 1891, the LHB decided spending £5000 ($1.6 million NZD) on a cool store for the Lyttelton port would accelerate the industry’s growth, even if the returns on the investment were not immediately apparent. The development of the cool store was accelerated when in July 1891, The Grocer, a prominent trade journal in the United Kingdom, expressed serious concerns about the condition of New Zealand butter and cheese during long voyages, advocating for quarantine measures and proper cool-chamber conditions, otherwise the “dairying industry in New Zealand is threatened with partial, if not complete, collapse!” The Lyttelton <strong>Harbour</strong> Board cool store. Te Ūaka The Lyttelton Museum ref. <strong>13</strong>0<strong>13</strong>.1 https://www.teuaka.org.nz/ online-collection/1<strong>13</strong>3712 By June 30, 1893, a storage rate of 1s 6d per imperial tonne was in effect at the newly built Lyttelton <strong>Harbour</strong> Board cool store for handling produce destined for the rapidly growing refrigerated export market. Almost a quarter of a century later in 1916, the Public Works Department announced the imminent activation of an electrical substation at the cool store. Plans for electrifying the town followed, with an initial phase providing electricity from Norwich Quay through to London St, up Canterbury and Oxford Sts to Winchester, Dublin and Exeter Sts, at a capital outlay of £750 ($164,000 NZD). Thus it was that a modernised cool store helped extinguish Lyttelton’s gas lamps and usher in the electric 20th century. Dock workers loading boxed cargo, possibly butter, onto a ship at Lyttelton port. Te Ūaka The Lyttelton Museum ref. 9057.1 https://www.teuaka.org.nz/ online-collection/1129241
Wednesday <strong>December</strong> <strong>13</strong> <strong>2023</strong> <strong>Bay</strong> <strong>Harbour</strong> News 23 from from CHRISTCHURCH MITSUBISHI 386 Moorhouse Avenue, Christchurch | Ph 03 379 0588 | christchurchmitsubishi.co.nz *Prices listed are for Eclipse Cross XLS & Outlander LS models. VRX models pictured. Prices excludes on road costs, which includes WoF, Registration and a full tank of fuel. Red and White Diamond colours are available on selected models for an additional $500. Visit www.mmnz.co.nz for full Diamond Advantage Warranty conditions. The Clean Car Discount Scheme is operated by Waka Kotahi and is independent of Christchurch Mitsubishi and Mitsubishi Motors NZ. * CHRISTCHURCH NISSAN, 380 Moorhouse Avenue, Christchurch Ph: 03 595 6820 www.christchurchnissan.co.nz christchurchnissan.co.nz