Freemans Bay


Freemans Bay is the name of a former bay and now inner city suburb of Auckland, in the North Island of New Zealand. The bay has been filled in to a considerable extent, with the reclamation area now totally concealing the ancient shoreline. Historically a poor and often disreputable quarter, it is now a comparatively wealthy and desirable neighbourhood known for its mix of heritage homes and more recent single-dwelling houses, as well as for its two large parks.

Demographics

Freemans Bay had a population of 4,407 at the 2018 New Zealand census, an increase of 201 people since the 2013 census, and an increase of 576 people since the 2006 census. There were 1,920 households. There were 2,196 males and 2,208 females, giving a sex ratio of 0.99 males per female. The median age was 36.9 years, with 399 people aged under 15 years, 1,116 aged 15 to 29, 2,370 aged 30 to 64, and 522 aged 65 or older.
Ethnicities were 80.1% European/Pākehā, 7.9% Māori, 5.4% Pacific peoples, 11.7% Asian, and 4.6% other ethnicities.
The proportion of people born overseas was 35.0%, compared with 27.1% nationally.
Although some people objected to giving their religion, 59.3% had no religion, 28.4% were Christian, and 6.9% had other religions.
Of those at least 15 years old, 2,073 people had a bachelor or higher degree, and 210 people had no formal qualifications. The median income was $54,600. The employment status of those at least 15 was that 2,520 people were employed full-time, 489 were part-time, and 117 were unemployed.

Geography

Since the turn of the 20th century, extensive land reclamation has seen Freemans Bay itself disappear. The reclamation of the old bay was finished in 1901, and Victoria Park was created on most of the resulting flat area. It is still public land used mostly for sports purposes.
The coastline shifted more than one kilometre to the northwest of the city centre and is now composed of the concrete wharves of Viaduct Basin and the Tank Farm or as it is now renamed, the Wynyard Quarter.

History

Māori origins

Waiatarau was the Māori name for the bay that is now Victoria Park, although other names were used to refer to the area; such as Wai Kōtota and Te Koranga. A stream called Waikuta discharged into the south eastern corner of the bay while the Tunamau stream came down from what is now Western Park and met the bay at the bottom of what is now Franklin Road.

European name

Freemans Bay is one of the earliest settled areas in Auckland, and was earmarked for development and land reclamation in the 1840s by Colonial Surveyor Felton Matthew who laid out the streets along the shores of the local bays.
Freemans Bay is probably named after Captain William Hobson’s secretary, James Stuart Freeman who apparently lived in the area. He was described by Dr John Logan Campbell in 1844 as "the most disgustingly immoral swindling scoundrel in town".
Local gossip had it that he was not actually married to the woman he was living with, or that there was something amiss in her past. She apparently had been on intimate terms with Mrs Hobson and others in the Government House circle but after William Hobson's death in 1842 and Mrs Hobson's return to Britain she found herself shut out of genteel society in Auckland. This pained Eleanor Freeman enormously and enraged her husband. Living in a workers cottage on the wrong side of town certainly couldn't have helped her social status. After her early death at the age of 26 on 17 December 1844 Freeman added to the wagging tongues by remarrying just six weeks later. After his marriage to Mary Ann Miller on 29 January 1845 the Freemans left New Zealand.

Industry and slums

While settled as one of the earliest parts of the country by Europeans, the area was never seen as a desirable place to live. The rich favoured the other side of Queen Street, clustering around the governor's mansion and enjoying views of the harbour and Rangitoto, this was even referred to as the 'right side' of Queen Street.
On the "wrong side of Queen Street" were located most of the smelly and noisy industries including the abattoir and the gasworks of the Auckland Gas Company. As well as brickworks, by 1883 the area was the location of nine shipyards, three sawmills, a brass and iron foundry, a glassworks, an asphalt works, as well as several coal and lime traders. Also found here were several public facilities like the city morgue, a night soil dump and from 1905 the city rubbish incinerator.
Around these occupations were gathered some of the more modest houses in 19th century Auckland. Two land auctions in 1864 in this area were the "Brookville" estate and "Alma Place". The large number of building sites are probably an indication of the very small size of the building sections. These workers cottages were built very close together and often poorly constructed, sometimes being little better than hovels with dirt floors. Not all the housing in the area was so modest, however; on Franklin Road, which rises up the hill towards the Ponsonby ridge, were built larger houses, including several two storied houses, and in 1873 the street was beautified by the City Council by planting it with plane trees. Many of these larger houses subsequently became boarding establishments for male workers from the adjacent industries.
In 1910 the average house for sale on Franklin Road was advertised for £736, while the average house in Victoria Road, Remuera, was considered worth £1279 at the time.
In 1905 Victoria Park was created which included sports grounds, a sports pavilion and a children's playground. The playground equipment was donated by Mr John Court of the John Court Department Store. In 1909 a kindergarten for the local children was opened. It soon ran into financial problems, however, from which it was rescued by Dr John Logan Campbell. The brick building stood for many years unused, recently restored by Auckland Council and NZTA as part of the works around the Victoria Park Tunnel. During the 1918 flu epidemic, the sports pavilion was used as a depot for corpses awaiting transportation by rail to the city cemeteries.

Urban renewal

As a working class area, Freemans Bay was greatly affected by the Great Depression. By 1930, the percentage of unskilled workers amongst the male population of Freemans Bay had risen to 39%, whereas in affluent Remuera it was only 2%. Conversely, only 11% of all males of Freemans Bay worked in "white-collar" or "business and professional" roles, whereas in Remuera the same percentage had grown to 86% by that time, a sign of the increasing homogenisation of Auckland suburbs.
Freemans Bay was seen as a centre of crime, prostitution, sedition and Union Activity. There were also concerns about it being a source of infectious diseases, including plague and tuberculosis. In the 1930s, the Auckland City Council set up a committee called "The Decadent Areas Committee" largely to deal with the area. In the 1930s and 1940s, many Māori who moved into the city looking for work came to live in the cheap housing of the area. This pattern was repeated in the 1950s and 1960s when Pacific Islanders arrived in New Zealand seeking employment as well.
During the Second World War, Victoria Park was commandeered and covered with a military camp for the American Armed Forces. The adjacent areas St Mary's Bay and Freemans Bay became notorious as the location of many brothels along with illicit drinking and gambling establishments. Many of the women in the area were keen to have fun with the American troops who were known to be generous with money, cigarettes and nylon stockings. The distinction made by the authorities and most respectable people between a female being a 'loose woman' and being a prostitute was pretty vague. St Mary's Bay was known for being more expensive and tended to cater for the officers, while Freeman's Bay was for the lower end of the market. This reputation clung to the area after the war.
When the motorway system was constructed from 1955 onwards, it was an ideal excuse to demolish large areas of Freemans Bay in the name of slum clearance and progress. The motorway cut large swathes through Freemans Bay taking out good housing as well as slum-type buildings. It has been alleged by some critics that the decision to delay completion of the Western Ring Route was motivated by the fact that the new Auckland Harbour Bridge required higher toll revenues to repay its construction cost.
Several developments of flats and townhouses were built in the area during the 1960s and 1970s both by Auckland City Council and Central Government - though a much more extensive 1950s plan, which would have seen most of Freemans Bays' houses levelled and replaced by medium-density housing blocks, did not come to pass. Only a few blocks were constructed along Whitson Terrace where they are still present today. Later, during the 1980s and 1990s, the remaining Victorian houses began to be gentrified along with the neighbouring suburbs of Ponsonby and St Marys Bay and they are now some of Auckland's most fashionable and desirable residences.
On Victoria Street opposite Victoria Park stands a group of brick Edwardian industrial buildings. Built between 1905 & 1915 and known as "the Destructor", this facility generated electricity by burning the city's rubbish. Opened by the Mayor Arthur Myers, this facility was closed in 1972, and in 1983 it was converted into a market called Victoria Park Market, latterly rebranded as Victoria Park Village.
Behind Victoria Park Village is the Drake hotel which sits at a slightly higher level than the Village, Victoria Street and the park. This shows the outline of the ancient sea cliff. From 1905 onwards, Freemans Bay was filled in to create the park. After 1919 the reclamations continued and the area north of the park was created to provide more wharf area for the expanding Ports of Auckland. This included the Lighter Basin to the east and Wynyard Wharf to the west.
From 2000 to 2003, the Lighter Basin was redeveloped as the Viaduct Basin, which served as a headquarters for the various yachting syndicates involved in the America's Cup campaigns of 2000 and 2003. The area is now an upper-class residential area. On the adjacent Fanshawe Street, previously dilapidated warehouses have been replaced by new prestigious office blocks, including Vodafone New Zealand. The Wynyard Quarter is also undergoing a great deal of redevelopment, which includes the new Silo Park.
The suburb is now home to a much more affluent populace, with the 2006 median income at $41,400, much higher than the $26,800 average Auckland-wide. Around 32% of all residents live in single-person households, some in the many former Council and State Housing flats still existing in the area, though the housing stock is varied.

Notable buildings

Freemans Bay School is a coeducational contributing primary school with a roll of as of
Close by local State secondary schools are Auckland Girls' Grammar School and the Catholic St Paul's College for boys and St Mary's College for girls.