Fyfe Street /Fife Street that used to be in the Central City, Christchurch

Fyfe Street / Fife Street. This street doesn’t exist any longer and it ran from Moorhouse Ave to Madras Street and was part of William Wilson’s land. Entries on Papers Past have both spellings and it is most likely named after Fife in Scotland as this is where William Wilson’s wife Elizabeth was from. In 1880 the council called for tenders for the forming of the street. Some of the surnames for families living here were Tallet, Batchelor, Morrison and Cox. Daniel Cox had worked at the railway station for many years going by his obituary. In 1886 a resident cut down part of the school fence so that he could built a fowl house. In 1920 there was a mortgagee sale of two houses on the street and in the same year a substation was built here. The brush company Bunting & Co in the early1920s and were till here until the 1940s.It must have had a nice factory garden as it entered factory garden competitions. The factory had several fires but luckily they were minor fires. The dates of the fires were 1923, 1927, 1939 and 1944. There were still people living here in 1933 and in 1936 an article about the slums of Christchurch included this street. The houses were described as rundown and filthy and crowded up against a high brick wall of the factory. In 1926 Mr F E Shaw sold his property containing 5 houses to the Education Dept and in 1938 there was an article about new additions to the Technical College covering three sections on Fife St. In 1944 under the Public Works Act the street was closed. Where the street would have been is now part of the Ara Institute Campus. I obviously didn’t walk it as it no longer exists and there are buildings there.