Buffon Street in the suburb of Waltham, Christchurch

Buffon St in Waltham – Named after Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-1788)Buffon was a French naturalist, mathematician, biologist, cosmologist and author. 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.A small amount of information from the library website. Papers Past as usual for these older streets have many death notices and one stood out for but only because of the surname. In 1940 Mrs Penhalluriack died and I have no idea how to pronounce it and it looks like a Cornish name to me. In 1882 a house was destroyed by a fire but in 1893 2 houses were destroyed by fire plus another one damaged in the same fire. In 1886 the residents were asking for channelling on the street. The Devon Bakery was mentioned in 1897 and it was also mentioned in 1923. The bakery was owned by S D Besley and I found an obituary for him in August 1925. Sam Dixon Besley was born in Bampton, Devon and he died in Lewisham Hospital a few days after an operation. S D Besley came out to NZ in 1891 and he started the bakery business in 1895 with his sons. He left a widow and six sons. I found an entry for 1955 where an old 5 room cottage and disused brick bakehouse was sold at auction. In a letter to the editor in 1926 there was a complaint about schoolboys and girls being a nuisance at night with being noisy and using bad language. This was happening at Edwards corner opposite Besley’s Bakery on the corner of Buffon St and Bunion St. Bunion St amused me as it should be Bunyan St. The writer added that the behaviour was more suitable to a port town. This Lyttelton born person objects to this writer’s attitude. John Brightling a contractor for the removal of the city’s rubbish was in 1900 charged with allowing offensive matter to be deposited on his land. His property must have been bounded by both Buffon St and Bunyan St as I found the same information for both streets. In 1929 a car accessory business increased the size of it’s factory due to the demands for the product. I walked this street on Friday and there are a few older houses but there is a huge number of dwellings built in 2016. On the corner between Bunyan St and Vienna St there was a big complex of housing. This complex is called St Martins Green and is built on an industrial site was was destroyed in the earthquakes. There is a house from 1890 on this street but it was hidden behind a high fence.

Edited to say that the industrial site was PDL and I remember when it was Urlwin Ltd. When I checked google maps I realised which business was there but hadn’t realised that it went so far back to the other streets. Harry Charles Urlwin left London at the age of 16 and came to New Zealand. I couldn’t find much information online about the business when Harry Urlwin owned it. Stewart Robertson who owned PDL purchased the business and Stewart Robertson started out at Urlwin Ltd until he branched out on his own. My uncle who lived on Humboldt St worked at this business.