File:Kingsland Tram Service (15186894163).jpg

On November 17 1902, Sir John Logan Campbell opened the Auckland Electric Tram service. Campbell was the former mayor of Auckland who had gifted Cornwall Park to the nation in 1901. The first tram was driven by Campbell from Queen Street to the Choral Hall. Auckland City had horse trams from 1884, but the expansion of the city called for a change in the transport network. The opening of the tram service was delayed because three motormen from Sydney, Australia, were involved in the SS Elingamite shipwreck near Three Kings Islands on 9 November 1902, in which they drowned. Full public service commenced a week later on 23 November 1902, and continued to 29 December 1956. With services running from downtown at the Waitemata Harbour, across to Onehunga on the Manukau Harbour, Auckland had the world’s only 'coast to coast' tramway system. They were replaced by trolleybuses and buses.

The Museum of Transport and Technology in Auckland has examples of the tram carriages used on the service. The image shown here is of the tram that served the inner city suburb of Kingsland from around 1903. The picture is from a series of photos transferred to Archives New Zealand from the Former Post and Telegraph Museum. This series is the collection extracted from the holdings of New Zealand Post Archives, which was part of the Post Office Museum and Archives. There are a number of transfers from NZ Post Office [NZPO] since 1987 when NZPO split into Telecom, NZ Post and Post Bank.

The records were physically stored and managed within more or less loosely defined archival series. There have been several archivists involved with the NZ Post Archives holdings over time, and each had developed their own systems and series.

There is a large amount of photographic material within this collection. There is a numbered sequence of photographic positives and negatives. In addition, there are also photograph albums, donated photo collections, and loose photographs. Not all the photographs were originally created by NZPO, some were copies from other photographic collections. Some photographs have no title on them.

These photos can be seen in the Wellington Reading Room. For details on items in series 8106, click on the ‘Records’ tab at this link - <a href="http://archway.archives.govt.nz/ViewEntity.do?code=8106" rel="nofollow">archway.archives.govt.nz/ViewEntity.do?code=8106</a>

File Reference: AAME W5603 8106 Box 126 - <a href="http://archway.archives.govt.nz/ViewFullItem.do?code=20941011" rel="nofollow">archway.archives.govt.nz/ViewFullItem.do?code=20941011</a>

For further enquiries please email Research.Archives@dia.govt.nz