Well-known Fendaltonians

Fendalton was a delightful place to live at the turn of the century. Several well-known figures have recorded their impressions in their autobiographies/biographies.

Ngaio Marsh

Born in Fendalton on 23 April, 1895, Ngaio Marsh and her family lived in a rented house on Carlton Mill Road. Her father built a house at Cashmere while she was still a child and they left Fendalton "seated on top of our tents and boxes in a spring-wagon". From 1910 Ngaio Marsh attended St. Margarets Girls' School, referring to it as "Miss Ross’s school".

The following is an extract from her autobiography: 'Black Beech and Honeydew'.

"In the first decade of this century, Fendalton was a small genteel suburb on the outskirts of Christchurch… Large Edwardian houses stood back in their own grounds masked by English trees. Small houses hid with refinement behind high evergreen fences. Ours was a small house. There was a lawn in front and an orchard behind. To me they were extensive but I don't suppose they amounted to more than a quarter of an acre… From the branches of a Wellingtonia I looked south across rooftops and gardens to a plantation of oaks with a river flowing through it where we kept our rowing-boat" p12.

"Across the land in a very big house (The home of Arthur E.G. Rhodes "Te Koraha" now part of Rangi Ruru School) with a long drive, a lodge at the gates, a horse-paddock, carriages and gigs, a motor, grooms, servants and a nanny, lived a boy and girl with whom I loved to play when my mother visited there… The Duke and Duchess of York (afterwards King George V and Queen Mary) came to stay at this house. I remember being lifted on a high evergreen fence to watch my friend’s uncle wire-jumping his horse for the Duke’s entertainment and I remember my parents making ready for a royal reception" p36-37.

Marsh, Ngaio, 1895 - 1982. Black beech and honeydew: an autobiography. Boston: Little, Brown, 1965.

See also: Ngaio Marsh

James and Elizabeth McCombs

James McCombs became MP for Lyttelton and his wife, Elizabeth, succeeded him on his death becoming the first woman MP in 1933. They were residents of Fendalton for a time from 1904 when they moved to a house they had bought for one thousand pounds on a site where Tui Street runs off Fendalton Road.

The following is an extract from Elizabeth McCombs' biography 'My dear girl'.

"It had ten rooms and stood in five acres of beautiful woodlands with a stream at the bottom of the garden. They called it Adare… The subdivision of the extensive grounds was to be one way the McCombs family were able to survive in a most comfortable style for a good decade" p28.

"Patricia (a daughter) remembers: My swing hung from a great wattle tree which hid the back lawn and washing lines from the croquet lawn at the side of the house. The orchard was divided from the lawns and garden by a series of arches which were covered with roses. The drive swept in between romantic cypresses which hid the house and garden from the road. The path to the kitchen was between a laurel hedge and a stand of large pear trees. Opposite the kitchen were two large tanks on lanky legs, twenty feet tall, and above that the windmill" p40.

In 1907 the McCombs' subdivided the property into 18 sections creating a new street (Tui Street). The first was sold off in 1910. Adare was demolished in the early 1920s.

Gee, David, My dear girl: a biography of Elizabeth McCombs, New Zealand’s first woman member of Parliament, and her husband, James McCombs, member of Parliament for Lyttelton for twenty years. Christchurch, NZ: Tree House, 1993.

See also: Elizabeth McCombs

Oscar Thorwald Johan Alpers (1867-1927)

Born in Denmark and emigrating to NZ in 1875, Oscar Alpers had a varied career in Christchurch with success as an actor, teacher, journalist and lawyer. In 1925 he took his seat on the bench as a Supreme Court Judge. These extracts describing his home at 55 Fendalton Road are from his biography written by his son Antony Alpers.

In the punt at 'Linburn' about 1912.

"During the autumn of 1911… O.T.J. was having a house built, off Fendalton Road beside the Wairarapa Stream … The sweeping lawns slope down to the river still, admired by envious tourists in hired punts who probably imagine they are looking at the one-time home of a wealthy man" p128.

"The house was designed for O.T.J. by Cecil Wood… It is a good example of his early work… facing the driveway of Mona Vale. Because there was flax growing down by the stream when he bought the section, O.T.J. named the house Linburn. In 1989 there was still wild flax nearby" p114.

"After their marriage in 1911 O.T.J. and Natalie were seldom apart … Linburn, of pre-war serenity, made a tranquil setting for a life of domesticity… Each evening at dusk a hundred noisy rooks high up in the Humphreys' gum trees just across the river" p132.

The Humphreys' then lived at Daresbury, 67 Fendalton Road.

55 Fendalton Road is still there but its Fendalton Road frontage has been split off with a townhouse built on the site.

Alpers, O.T.J. Confident tomorrows: a biographical self-portrait of O.T.J. Alpers, 18671927. Auckland, N.Z.: Godwit Press, 1993.