Ferner Street in the suburb of Dallington Red Zone, Christchurch

Ferner St in Dallington Red Zone – formerly Smith’s Road/Smit Street and Queensbury Street/Queen Street. Also Madge Street. Smith’s Road/Smith Street ran from McBratneys Road to Birchfield Street from 1920. No residents are ever listed. By 1930 it had been renamed Queen Street. It became part of Queensbury Street from 1939. It appears on a 1954 map as Madge Street but this never appears in street directories. Madge King (1894-1967) owned a small shop in Birchfield Avenue. Re-named Ferner Street in 1955.

A reasonable amount of information on the library website and I couldn’t out where the Ferner name came from. Raymond Ferner a magistrate lived on Heaton St in Fendalton. His son Martin Ferner an engineer also lived at the same address when he was in Christchurch.

The name changes for the street got very confusing and only one map in 1950 shows it as Queensbury St. None of the maps had Queen St on them. The map for 1958 showed it as Madge St. I checked maps for 1912, 1920, 1930, 1941, 1950 and 1958.

There were so many Smith Streets and Smith Roads in Christchurch. I did find a 1897 entry in Papers Past for Smith’s Rd in Dallington where a Harry Bliss was fined for allowing 15 cows to wander on the street. It is likely that the street was named after someone with the surname Smith.

There was an entry in 1925 which included a photo which showed McBratneys Rd intersected by Smith St and that Smith St leads up to Queensbury St. In 1932 Smith St in Waimairi to become a continuation of Queensbury St. Then in 1954 Queensbury St South to be renamed Madge St in honour of shopkeeper Mrs Madge King who is the daughter of Mrs Howell. In 1955 the southern part of Queensbury St to be renamed Ferner St. Confused yet, as I am certainly confused.

In 1958 there were health issues and the residents were wanting sewage to be installed. They were still on night soil collection.

I didn’t attempt to find the original Smith family as there were far too many on Ancestry website. Madge King was Edna Marjorie Howell and she grew up on Birchfield Ave. Edna (Madge) married Anthony Colin King and they lived on Hereford St.

There are no longer any houses on this street as it is in the red zone. I checked street view for 2007 as it looked like a really nice street. At least 3 or 4 houses looked like they dated from the 1920s.