The New Zealand Shipping Company fire, Quay Street East, 1900
1900 (Henry Winkelmann) – 2026
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1900 image: Henry Winkelmann | Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1-W0184
People inspecting the gutted and still-smoking ruins of the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency company's premises on Quay Street East after a fire which took place on the evening of 1 March, 1900.
Below: The headline for an account of the incident in the Auckland Star, 2 March, which described the "immense crowd" of spectators drawn to Quay Street by the "magnificent sight" of the conflagration. The Star's report can be read in full on the Papers Past site, here.
Below: The building as it was before the fire is at centre in this 1890s view looking toward Quay Street East from the harbour. It was designed for the Loan and Mercantile Agency and New Zealand Shipping Company by the firm of Edward Mahoney and Son and constructed in 1892-93 (Auckland Star, 23 May 1893, page 4).
1890s image: H Utting (copy by JD Richardson) | Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 4-00960 (detail)
Below: The building was rebuilt with an appearance strikingly similar to its predecessor; it's at centre in this detail from a Charles Spencer photograph looking along Quay Street made around 1904.
ca.1904 image: Charles Spencer | Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 4_01059 (detail)
