Williams Street in the Central City, Christchurch

Williams Street – Named after Elizabeth Wilson, née Williams, (b. 1836?). She was the wife of William Barbour Wilson (1819- 1897). William Wilson was a nurseryman, businessman and local politician. His wife was the eldest daughter of John and Isabella Williams. In a subdivision of Rural Section 48, land owned by William Wilson. Williams Street appears on an 1874/75 Deposit Plan and first appears in street directories in 1883.

A reasonable amount of information from the library website and most of it is wrong. Yes the land was owned by William Wilson but the street isn’t named after Elizabeth Wilson nee Williams. I covered William Wilson fully when writing up Bedford Row so don’t need to write anything more about him. Between early maps of Christchurch and Papers Past I managed to get a lot of information. The land in this area was sold when William Wilson went bankrupt. I also don’t know when the street became known as Williams Street as it was William Street as late as 1947.In 1879 there were sections available for sale in a mortgagee sale. I am not sure if all the sections were sold as in 1881 most of the block covering Ferry Rd, Wilson Rd and Ropewalk and Madras St were offered for sale. The maps of this area had two streets running parallel to each other and one was called William St and the other was called Wilson St. Both of these streets were named after William Wilson the original owner of the land. In 1882 the residents of both streets requested that they become public streets. The channelling was paid for by the council but the metalling was to be paid by the owners and it was noted in 1884 not everyone had paid their share. William Street – In the 1880s William Stocks who was a monumental mason had a business here and going by death notices he lived on the street as well. In the 1890s a coachbuilder by the name of G D Cronin lived and worked on the street. In 1927 there was at least two suspicious fires in unoccupied houses. A third fire was in an occupied house and a family managed to escape but one person died later in hospital. In 1931 there was a fire at Hurst and Drake the glass merchants. By 1940s this area was mostly just businesses and I couldn’t find a date for when the Polytechnic ( Ara Institute ) took over the street for it’s campus. Wilson Street – Wilson Street no longer exists but because of the link to William St I kept finding references to it. The sections for sale and forming the street information is exactly the same as William St. There was a bakehouse on this street and the surname of the owner was probably Kenny. There was also a furniture manufacturing business owned by H R Wade. He had a huge number of ads in 1907 and 1908. In March 1908 the Bylaw Committee changed the name of the street to Caversham St but both names were used for at least two more years. There was a hotel here called Caversham Hotel which will be why this name and there were many other streets called Wilson which is probably the reason for the name change. I was amused to see that there was a house of ill fame here in 1920. In 1945 there was still a furniture business on the street under the name McDougall Bros. I don’t know when this street ceased to exist and became part of the Polytechnic ( Ara Institute ) but it was still on the map of Christchurch in 1983. Where this street used to be is now a green space at Ara Institute Campus. There was a complaint in 1908 in the a letter to the editor that amused me. The complaint was about the filthy state of both Wilson and William Streets and the writer could see millions of germs blowing along the streets and down as far as Lancaster Park. I found more information than I expected and the early maps on the library website are a great reference.