Abstract
This chapter will argue that the Antipodean port city drew on significant cultural influences that stretched beyond the British Empire when conceiving their built environment and political strategies. Indeed, in exploring the importance of imperial culture, historians have often overlooked the significance of the port as a place of cultural exchange and of influences that lay outside of the imperial system. The port was a receptacle for international culture that influenced its built environment and reminded the population that there were alternatives to the British imperial system. The Antipodean port’s mixed Anglo-American culture frustrated the urban elites’ attempts to cement mass imperial sentiment through advocating closer political ties with Britain and the establishment of imperial societies failed.
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Notes
- 1.
See, for example, the way Melbourne is placed alongside other imperial cities in A. Briggs (1965), Victorian Cities (London: Odhams); T. Hunt (2014), Ten Cities that Made an Empire (London: Penguin), and A. Jackson, (2014), Buildings of Empire (Oxford: University Press).
- 2.
J. Rose, Akarana: The Ports Of Auckland, (Auckland: Whitcombe and Tombs, 1971), p. 120.
- 3.
See J.R. Buckrich, The Long and Perilous Journey: A History of the Port of Melbourne, (Melbourne Books, 2002), p. 10.
- 4.
D. Johnson, Wellington Harbour (Harbour Trust, Wellington, 1996), p. 137.
- 5.
A. McEwan, “‘An American Dream” in the “England of the Pacific”: American Influences on New Zealand Architecture’ 1840-1940’ (PhD thesis, University of Canterbury. 2001), p. 192. Among the noted New Zealand architects to take these courses was Edmund Anscombe who designed the Centennial Exhibition staged in Wellington in 1940. The style he used was streamline moderne art deco, and he was influenced by his visits to the Chicago Exhibition of 1933 and to the New York World’s Fair and San Francisco’s Golden Gate Exposition, both staged in 1939. See P. Shaw, New Zealand Architecture: From Polynesian to 1990 (Auckland: Hodder and Stoughton, 1991), p. 134. Joseph Dawson designed factories for the Ford Motor Company in various locations in New Zealand. For this see J. Gatley ‘For(war)d Thinking: The Ford Building Seaview in J. Wilson (ed.) Zeal and Crusade: The Modern Movement in Wellington, (Christchurch: Te Waihora, 1996), pp. 21–27. J. W. Chapman Taylor was heavily influenced by the arts and crafts style and admired C.F.A. Voysey. See McEwan, ‘An American Dream’ p. 194; Shaw, ‘New Zealand Architecture’ p. 80.
- 6.
For example, J. Griffiths, ‘Were there Municipal Networks in the British World c. 1890-1939?’ Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History Vol. 37:4 (2009), pp. 575–598; McEwan, ‘An American Dream’.
- 7.
For more on Gummer and his work in both Auckland and Wellington and his American influences see K.J. Shanahan, ‘The Work of W. H. Gummer Architect, (unpublished B. Arch dissertation, University of Auckland, 1983), pp. 30–2.
- 8.
Noted in M. Lewis, et al, Melbourne: The City’s History and Development, (Melbourne: City of Melbourne, 1995), p. 81.
- 9.
Lewis, et al, Melbourne, p. 81.
- 10.
Lewis, et al, Melbourne, p. 7.
- 11.
A. Brown-May ‘The Australian Building’ in A. Brown-May and S. Swain, (eds.) Encyclopedia of Melbourne (Cambridge: University Press, 2005) p. 44.
- 12.
For Finks Building see www.walkingmelbourne.com/building507.html and for the New York Permanent Building Society see www.walkingmelbourne.com/building603.html accessed 17 August 2014.
- 13.
R. Storey, ‘Skyscrapers’ in Brown-May and Swain (eds.) Encyclopedia of Melbourne, p. 665.
- 14.
M. Lewis, Melbourne: The City’s History and Development, p. 81.
- 15.
Walking Melbourne. www.walkingmelbourne.com/building459_dovers-building. M. Lewis, ‘Building Technology’ in Brown-May and Swain (eds.) Encylopedia of Melbourne, p. 99.
- 16.
Walking Melbourne, www.walkingmelbourne.com/building459_dovers-building.html
- 17.
S. Gardyne, ‘Transition in Architectural Style from Beaux Arts to Bauhaus: Wellington Between the Wars 1919-1939’ (PhD thesis, Victoria University Wellington, 1981), p. 19.
- 18.
The contract to construct the building had been bid for by the San Francisco company Reid Brothers, but was rejected by Campbell’s Government Department. See McEwan, ‘An American Dream’, p. 124.
- 19.
P. Richardson, ‘An Architect of Empire: The Government Buildings of John Campbell in New Zealand’ (unpublished MA thesis, University of Canterbury, 1988), p. 95.
- 20.
Richardson, ‘An Architect of Empire’, p. 95.
- 21.
See ‘Rebuilding Melbourne: Modern Architecture’ in The Argus, 22 June 1912, p 7. J.M. Freeland contends that this new technique first appeared in an Australian context in Sydney in 1910. Freeland, Architecture in Australia (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1972), p. 249.
- 22.
Freeland, Architecture in Australia, p. 219.
- 23.
For these see N.Z. Building Progress, July 1917, p. 1003; P. Shaw, New Zealand Architecture: From Polynesian to 1990 (Auckland: Hodder and Stoughton, 1991), p. 103; McEwan, ‘An American Dream’ p. 106. For the Californian/Spanish mission style in an Australian context, see P. Goad, Melbourne Architecture (Balmain NSW: Watermark Press, 2009), p. 117.
- 24.
Advocated by L. M. Wilkinson, first Professor of Architecture at the University of Sydney. See Freeland, Architecture in Australia, p. 233.
- 25.
See, for example, the advertisement for the Hotel St. George in Journal of the New Zealand Institute of Architects Vol. 14.2 June 1935, p. ii.
- 26.
R. Storey, Walking Melbourne: The National Trust Guide to the Historic and Architectural landmarks of Central Melbourne (Victoria, National Trust of Australia, 2004), p. 33.
- 27.
M. A. Bruce, ‘R. A. Lippencott, The American Connection’ (BArch thesis, University of Auckland, 1985).
- 28.
Shaw, New Zealand Architecture, p. 111.
- 29.
M. A. Bruce, ‘Lippencott, The American Connection’ (BArch Thesis, University of Auckland, 1985), p. 74.
- 30.
I. Lochead, ‘New Zealand Architecture in the Thirties: The Impact of Modernism’ Landfall, Vol. 38:4 (1984), p. 470.
- 31.
The Argus, 29 July 1925, p. 23.
- 32.
The West Australian, 6 May 1927, p. 12.
- 33.
The West Australian, p. 12. For a full exploration of Melbourne’s interwar inner city building redevelopment, see B. Schrader, ‘Rebuilding Melbourne: Modernity and Progress in the Central Business District’ (PhD thesis, University of Melbourne, 2001).
- 34.
The Argus, 30 July 1932, p. 24. See also B. Schrader, ‘Paris or New York? Contesting Melbourne’s Skyline, 1880-1958’ Journal of Urban History, Vol. 36: 6 (2010), pp. 823–824.
- 35.
The Argus, 30 July 1932, p. 24.
- 36.
New Zealand Building Progress September 1923, p. 8.
- 37.
Schrader, ‘Modernising Wellington’, p. 15.
- 38.
Gardyne, ‘Transition in Architectural Style from Beaux Arts to Bauhaus’, p. 15.
- 39.
Gardyne, ‘Transition’, p. 15.
- 40.
Gardyne, ‘Transition’, p. 60.
- 41.
For Melbourne’s version see Goad, Melbourne Architecture, p. 118.
- 42.
McEwan, “‘An American Dream” p. 132.
- 43.
G. Martin, ‘Empire Federalism and Imperial Parliamentary Union 1820-1870’ Historical Journal, Vol. 16: 1 (1973), pp. 65–92. For the IFL’s formation and early activity, see M. Burgess, ‘Lord Rosebery and the Imperial Federation League 1884-1893’ New Zealand Journal of History, Vol. 13:2 (1979), pp. 64–77.
- 44.
For a useful overview, see D. Bell, The Idea of Greater Britain: Empire and the Future World Order 1860–1900 (Princeton: University Press, 2007).
- 45.
G. Blainey, A History of Victoria (Cambridge: University Press, 2006), pp. 68-69.
- 46.
The Age, 29 July 1884, p. 4.
- 47.
L. Foster, ‘The Imperial Federation League in Victoria after Australian Federation: An Analysis of its Structure, Personnel, Aims and Decline’ (BA Hons Thesis, Monash University, 1979).
- 48.
The Argus, 30 October 1899, pp. 4–5.
- 49.
The Argus, 30 October 1899, pp. 4–5.
- 50.
Otago Witness, 19 October 1899, p. 23.
- 51.
The Age, 23 May 1900, p. 6.
- 52.
The Age, 23 May 1900, p. 6.
- 53.
The Age, 24 May 1900, p. 6.
- 54.
The Age, p. 8.
- 55.
The Age, p. 8.
- 56.
The Age, p. 8.
- 57.
The Age, p. 8.
- 58.
The Age, p. 8.
- 59.
The Age, p. 8.
- 60.
J. Griffiths, Imperial Culture in Antipodean Cities, 1880–1939 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2014).
- 61.
The Round Table: A Quarterly Review of the Politics of the British Empire Vol. 1:1 (1910), p. 1.
- 62.
For the rather supercilious attitude of the Oxbridge-educated London core towards the Dominion-based groups, see A. May, ‘The Round Table 1910-66’ (DPhil thesis, Oxford University, 1995).
- 63.
V. Yarwood, ‘Shibboleth of Empire: Attitudes to Empire in New Zealand Writing 1890-1930’ (MA thesis, University of Auckland, 1982), p. 76.
- 64.
J. Brett (2003), Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class: From Alfred Deakin to John Howard, (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press), p. 57.
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Griffiths, J. (2016). On the Margins of Empire: Antipodean Port Cities and Imperial Culture c. 1880–1939. In: Beaven, B., Bell, K., James, R. (eds) Port Towns and Urban Cultures. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-48316-4_6
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