Short Street in the suburb of Waltham, Christchurch

Short St in Waltham – Formerly Elizabeth Street. Probably named after Elizabeth Wilson, née Williams (b.1836?). Re-named Short Street. Named because it is a short street leading to Te Wai Pounamu Maori Girls’ College. Elizabeth Wilson was the eldest daughter of John and Isabella Williams and wife of William Barbour Wilson (1819-1897). Wilson was a nurseryman, businessman and local politician who owned Rural Section 48 where this street was formed. Elizabeth Wilson was the first mayoress of Christchurch. Elizabeth Street appears on an 1874/75 Deposit Plan. Re-named Short Street in 1899 by the Linwood Borough Council. Plan of suburban property (Rural Section 48) situated on the Ferry Road near the East Town Belt belonging to William Wilson Esq., Deposit Plan 27 1874/75. Map held by Bob Pritchard, subdivisions officer, Christchurch City Council. [The land, 150 acres in Ferry Road, had originally been purchased by W. Draper, father-in law of J. E. Fitzgerald.]

A reasonable amount of information but there is a mistake about the renaming of the street. The renaming of the street in 1899 is because of duplication of street names as there was also a Elizabeth St in Riccarton. It had nothing to do with the college as the college didn’t open until 1921 and it was built on land belonging to the March family. The original name Elizabeth is probably because of Elizabeth Wilson as many of the streets in the area are named after the members of the Wilson family.

There were thousands of entries for Elizabeth St as it was a popular name for streets. I ended up using Linwood and Opawa when researching so I have possibly missed some information. When the street was Elizabeth St is was mostly birth and death notices plus the information in 1898 and 1899 about the street name being changed because of duplication. In the 1910s and 1920s there were several birth notices mentioning Nurse Barson’s Nursing Home. Her name was also mentioned in an inquest where a young woman had died. The young woman died at Christchurch hospital but had been recovering from an operation at Mrs Barson’s Nursing Home. I suspect that the young woman had had an abortion going by the description of the operation by the doctors concerned. In 1915 a Mr M A Elam of New Brighton was subdividing land in this street. By 1950s there was a business on this street called Industrial Metals Ltd and the street has been a mixture of housing and business ever since.

The oldest house on the street is from 1915 and there is a big empty section where houses have obviously been demolished fairly recently. I checked street view on google maps and one of the demolished houses looked like a lovely well maintained 1920s villa. The other demolished house was also from 1920s but wasn’t in the best of condition. Not many houses here and at the end of the street there are a couple of businesses.