| Carpenters | 16s. to 20s. per day |
| Brickmakers | 10s. per day |
| Labourers | 8s. per day |
| Men Servants | £4 per month, and board |
| Maid Servants | £36 per annum, and board |
| Boys | 10s. per week, and board |
After the Government had established itself at Auckland, one of the first duties which it undertook was to provide settlers with land. On April 19-20, 1841, the first sale of town lots by auction was held, and the figures realised were stupendous, due to jobbing, which land sharks from Sydney and other parts of Australia had fostered. According to the official “Gazette,” only 116 allotments were sold, the total area comprising 38 acres 1 rood 28 perches, realising £21,299 9s. In addition, twelve allotments measuring 5 acres 3 roods 2½ perches were reserved for Government officers, and realised £2,976 8s. 9d.
Among the names of the purchasers will be found some of Auckland’s most respected citizens, who had the confidence, even in those early days, that Auckland was destined to be a big city.
The size of the town allotments varied from approximately a quarter to half an acre. The plan of the town was the work of Mr. Felton Mathew, Surveyor-General, its principal features being a circus where Albert Park now stands, balanced on the western side of Queen Street by a square, into which Hobson Street and Victoria Street now intersect. The sections were designed so that they had a double front, one to the main street, the other to a lane. Some of these lanes survive to the present, for example, High Street. The principal streets were 66 feet wide, the secondary streets 33 feet, and the lanes somewhat less. Unfortunately for the city’s future, the owners of sections subdivided their lots, and the lanes automatically became important thoroughfares. To-day these narrow streets are completely congested with the traffic, and widening operations must inevitably take place. O’Connell Street, one of those lanes (where the first wooden house[15] erected in Auckland stood for some eighty years), has just undergone this process of widening, and others must follow.
Following upon the sale of town lots, selections of Government land comprising suburban allotments, cultivation allotments and sections suitable for small farms were offered for sale on September 1st of the same year. The first group of sections was situated eastward of Mechanics Bay proceeding towards Hobson’s Bay, which approximates roughly to the Parnell district of to-day. These allotments were each about four acres in size. Of the twenty-five lots offered, eighteen were sold, and realised £2910, the average price per acre being £45 14s. 3d. The ten cultivation sections were intended for market gardens, and were situated “about one mile to the southward of Mechanics Bay, on low, swampy ground under Mount Eden.” Of these, ten were put up and eight sold, the total revenue being £318, or an average of £13 5s. an acre. The farm sections were situated on the flat between Mount St. John, One Tree Hill and the Three Kings, and varied from four to twenty-three acres in extent. Thirty-eight sections were sold, those fronting the proposed Manukau Road selling readiest and realised £1598, the average price per acre being £3 8s.
One of the consequences of this series of sales was the subdivision and reselling by buyers of their sections, with the idea of opening suburban districts. Two of the places were named Parnell and Epsom, which names still survive; but two others, named Anna and Windsor Terrace, have passed from local knowledge. Charles Terry, author of “New Zealand: Its Advantages and Prospects as a British Colony,”[16] published in 1842, caustically remarks: “The towns of ‘Anna,’ ‘Epsom,’ etc., with reserves for churches, market places, hippodromes, with crescents, terraces and streets named after heroes and statesmen, were then advertised with all the technical jargon with which colonial advertisements are characterised.”
Queen Street in 1843, showing Stocks in front of Gaol
After an original water colour in the Old Colonists’ Museum
The population of Auckland in 1841 was estimated by the Colonial Secretary of the day, Mr. Andrew Sinclair, to be 1500 persons. In 1842 it had grown to 2895, due to the influx of settlers following upon the foundation of the capital, and also to the arrival of 500 immigrants by the ship Duchess of Argyle (667 tons, R. G. Tait, captain) and the barque Jane Gifford (558 tons, Captain Paul). These vessels arrived in the harbour on the same date, October 9th, 1842. They were the first ships to bring British immigrants direct to Auckland. Their port of departure was Greenock, and, naturally, the Scottish element predominated among the new arrivals. The Scottish sentiment, which is quite a feature of Auckland, may be traced back to those immigrants. The passengers of these two ships held reunions every tenth year from 1852 to 1892 on the anniversary—10th October—of their landing in Auckland. Out of these gatherings has developed the Old Colonists’ Association, membership of which is confined to colonists of fifty years’ standing and their descendants. The meetings have been held annually since 1898.
The Government was not prepared for such a large influx of immigrants as these two ships had brought. The domestic servants and some of the men were able to obtain employment, but the families were not so fortunate, and they had to be content with the rough accommodation which hastily-built whares could give them. The ship St. George[17] arrived soon after, with over ninety boys from Parkhurst Prison on board. They were placed under the care of Captain Rough, in his capacity of Immigration Agent; but he found them less agreeable subjects to deal with than the earlier immigrants. On the 31st March, 1843, the ship Westminster brought to Auckland a very good class of immigrants, mostly English, and on this occasion the Immigration Agent was better able to provide for their reception than formerly.