Gibbon Street in the suburb of Sydenham, Christchurch

Gibbon Street in Sydenham – Named after Edward Gibbon (1737-1794). Gibbon was author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. One of the “poets and writers” streets of Sydenham, Addington and Waltham named by a committee of the Sydenham Borough Council on 19 January 1880. First appears in street directories in 1887. Made a public street from 1 January 1888.A small amount of information from the library website. I searched 19th January 1880 on Papers Past but didn’t find anything about the street naming. Looks like I will have to walk into town to the library and see if they have the information. There used to be a nearby Wakefield St so it is possible that it was actually named after Edward Gibbon Wakefield. A John Wakefield lived on Gibbon St and in 1887 a fire destroyed his brand new house. There were many death notices and a few marriage notices. In 1888 the street was to be widened and the residents had to give land for this. In 1905 Amy Amelia Allen was fined for allowing her house to become a nuisance. She was running a poultry farm inside her house. In 1930 a dilapidated house to be pulled down as not only was it dangerous but it was being used by bad characters. In 1900 there were complaints about rubbish being dumped in an old pit. Further reading and I found out that the rubbish was actually nightsoil. Yuk is the only the word I have for this. In 1891 and 1892 there was a lot of articles about something called Gibbon Street Applications. It was very confusing but seems to be some sort of voter fraud. The Council wanted the names removed from the roll and the reason from the council was that they weren’t real owners of the properties. Another article said that 22 people on Gibbon St hadn’t paid their rates. A letter to the editor in 1899 called it the Gibbon Street Transactions of 1891. The letter writer asked if the liquor loving councillors had sunk to corrupt means to further their political ends. The letter mentioned that in 1891 there were 32 sections sold in two days. It was also called Gibbon Street Bogus Elections. I googled to see if I could find out any more information but nothing. I walked this street on Monday and it runs from Ingoldsby St to Rogers St. There are 70 properties on this street and there are two from 1890. There are several from 1910 and some were in good condition but others were looking very sad. Houses date from every decade with many from 1970s. One very modern set of buildings were ugly but there were also some lovely older houses on the street.