Sydenham Borough formed, 1877

We take it for granted now, but it’s really not that long that Christchurch has had a city council that covered the whole city – only since 1989.

Before that was not only the Christchurch City Council (established in 1862) but also the Waimairi, Paparua, Halswell, and Heathcote County Councils, the Riccarton Borough Council,  and the  Christchurch Drainage and Transport Boards. Phew!

( The Banks Peninsula District Council joined Christchurch City Council later on, in 2005)

The Sydenham municipal building [1903] File Reference CCL PhotoCD 7, IMG0020

And that doesn’t even take into account other councils that had existed prior to that – one of which was the Sydenham Borough Council whose first meeting was held this day in 1877. At the time the population of the borough was between 5-6,000, which grew to around 12,000 by the turn of the century.  According to  The Cyclopedia of New Zealand by 1902 Sydenham had 26 miles of streets, 95 gas lamps for street lighting with 2009 ratepayers. Businesses included butchers, bootmakers, bakers and builders!

But the Borough was not to be long-lived: in early 1903 polls were held in Linwood and St. Albans as well Sydenham to vote on joining Christchurch City Council to make a Greater Christchurch. In Sydenham 939 voted in favour of amalgamation, 421 against, giving a 518 majority vote  in favour.  The first elections for the Greater Christchurch City Council were held on 29 April 1903, but it seems that voters weren’t particularly excited by the whole exercise, as the turnout was less than 50%.

Find out more

• Photographs of other Christchurch Municipal buildings
• Other Sydenham historic photographs
• Read more about Sydenham in  Sydenham: the model borough of old Christchurch.  

 

 

Mafeking celebrations: Christchurch Photo Hunt 2018

October is Photo Hunt month at Christchurch City Libraries. We invite you to share any of your photos and help grow the city’s photographic archive. All entries must be received by 31 October.

Christchurch City Libraries has produced a set of four postcards promoting the competition which are available from your local library.

Mafeking celebrations. Kete Christchurch. Drayton-031b. Entry in the 2014 Christchurch City Libraries Photo Hunt. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand License.

From a photograph album; photographer, Florence Drayton, 1900.

Date: 1900

Entry in the 2014 Christchurch City Libraries Photo Hunt by June E Blank.

About Kete Christchurch

Kete Christchurch is a collection of photographs and stories about Christchurch and Canterbury, past and present. Anyone can join and contribute.

• Visit Kete Christchurch
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