As the discussion about the imposition of road tolls for users of public highways cycles round yet again, readers may be interested to know that installing toll booths on public roads in Canterbury is not a recent innovation.
“In defence of rights wantonly trifled with…”
An early private example of a toll bar was installed in Governor’s Bay in 1863, by the impressively named Westby Hawkshaw Percival. On 15 September he advertised in The Press his intention to place a toll bar at the junction of Dyer’s Pass Road and Governor’s Bay Road, just by the stone bridge, and instigate a system of mounted and foot patrols on his private property to prevent would-be convivial spirits from gathering at the newly built Foster’s Public House. There was no right of way through Mr. Percival’s property to the pub, so the only access was to approach from the back, through Foster’s own property, involving a rather complicated and challenging roundabout route from the Dyer’s Pass end of Governor’s Bay. Mr Percival was somewhat contemptuous of the failure of the Provincial Government to check that a government road to the pub was in existence before a license was granted.
They made him do it
But he did harbour an ongoing grievance with that particular body. According to his count, since 1858 when he first acquired the property in question and tried to bring a case to settle the issue of access across his land, he had had the misfortune to deal with three different Superintendents, five Provincial Secretaries, nine Executives, and three Provincial Solicitors. Mr. Percival was a regular correspondent to the newspapers on a wide range of subjects and provided several updates to the public on the Governor’s Bay situation between 1858 and 1863 when he finally took action.
Mr. Percival had had enough, and imposed his own toll, charging “foot passengers” a sum of £5 each time they traversed his property, and “horse passengers” £10 per trip. Any form of stock would be charged £3 per head. Which would be considered exorbitant by today’s standards, even without building in inflation increases since the 1860s.
It should be noted that Westby's wife Sarah was also very vocal on the subject of the government road (or lack thereof) and was at pains to point out that the property in question was actually her property. It had been settled on her as part of the marriage settlement made at the time of her marriage to Westby, and that no parts of it could be sold without her agreement, and that her husband was acting in accordance with her wishes. Go Sarah!
Reports in the following months in the local newspapers don’t make it clear whether Mr. Percival actually collected any tolls, but he was charged a few weeks later with obstructing the public thoroughfare. The case was dismissed and Mr. Percival promised to keep the peace, which he chose to interpret in his own way i.e. do what he liked with his land “as he saw fit”. He later came to some sort of mutually satisfactory arrangement with the Provincial Council, and the toll bar appears to have quietly receded into the very foggy annals of history.
The Problem of Papanui
In 1864 the good citizens of Papanui were incensed at the suggestion a toll bar be placed across the Papanui Road forcing all travellers to pay a fee before progressing on their way. The villains of the piece were members of the Avon Road Board. These worthies found themselves in the unenviable position of holding the middle ground between their ratepayers demanding they maintain and repair the road heading north out of central Christchurch, and the Provincial Government, who refused to grant the full sum required for this work.
A Meeting was Called
Mr. W. Thomson Esq., chair of the Avon Road Board (the administrative body responsible for the repair and upkeep of the roads), called a meeting in October of the district’s ratepayers, “for the purpose of explaining the reasons for placing the tollbar on the Papanui Road, near the Carlton Hotel”. Mr. Thomson opened the meeting by reading aloud the report of the Road Board to the Provincial Government, hoping to gain the higher moral ground by casting blame for the move on “them”.
In the report, as explained by Mr. Thomson, the Provincial Council had refused to fund maintenance of the district’s roads by a special rate, preferring the toll-bar option, and unless that action was taken up by the board, no further funds would be forth-coming. The meeting passed four resolutions that exonerated the Avon Road Board from any blame, expressed the ratepayers’ opinion that the use of toll-bars was “fallacious in principle” and impositions of this kind were highly objectionable, that if tolls had to be collected, it should be at a point higher up the Papanui Road, and finally that, in everyone’s opinion, the Provincial Government should be paying for the upkeep of the district’s roads.
Hard to argue with that from the ratepayer’s viewpoint, and would probably be endorsed by many nowadays, but the toll-bar went ahead anyway.
A toll, a toll, a collector for the tolls!
Applications (containing references as to character) for a toll collector for the gate on Papanui Road were called for in December 1864, but the topic had already gained enough notoriety to have featured in the public musings by wandering goldfields balladeer Charles Thatcher who had visited Christchurch a month earlier. One of his Christchurch Town Hall concerts contained a little ditty of the subjects of tolls.
In days gone by no toll-bars stopped the way;
No turnpike-man held out his hand for pay,
Springing out on you from his small abode
Erected on the Papanui road.
This monstrous imposition no one likes:
We’re fond of whitebait, but we can’t bear pikes.
Government is hard up; useless are debentures;
In this vile way to raise the wind it ventures,
Taxing wayfarers to obtain some gold;
And that’s the reason, you and I are told.
A cross-country chase
About the time of Thatcher’s visit some public-spirited members of the community “disappeared” the toll bar overnight. And a police chase ensued when one gentleman tasked with relocating a herd of cattle disputed the toll fees. The drawn-out argument had pulled a lively audience from the nearby Carlton Hotel, but as the police approached, the stockman abandoned his case and his horse and took off across country on foot. The chase was soon over, when the pursued, despite showing “a talent for steeplechasing which won the admiration of all beholders”, was run down, handcuffed after a desperate struggle, and carried off to the police lock-up. The prisoner complained that in the course of the chase he had lost a large sum of money. He had been observed with a bundle of £5 notes on his person during the toll negotiations, but no sign of the money was found again despite a very careful examination of the ground. That the bystanders had dispersed, presumably to the Carlton for a fresh round of drinks, could not possibly be related to the loss of the money.
The toll bar makes a move
Another public meeting was called for 10 January to appeal to the Superintendent of Canterbury, with little result. Perhaps because of the lack of action three members of the public, after liberal alcoholic potations, took it upon themselves to set fire to straw piled up around the tollhouse. The case against them was dismissed in court.
Suggestions to relocate the toll bar further up the Great North Road circulated in the first months of 1865 before the local elections for the Road Board took place. A lengthy electioneering letter to the editor of the Press raised the interesting point that the proposed relocation of the toll bar from Carlton Corner to closer to Papanui meant that two members of the current board and other leading lights of the community would no longer be troubled by the toll fees as they lived “below the bar”. Poorer residents of Papanui would be required to pay if they wanted to graze their animals in the free pasturage located below the new location, while the rich residents of the first stretch of Papanui Road could travel home from their places of business in the city centre without having to dig into their capacious pockets for a toll fee.
More discussion, opposition, and public meetings took place, but it took another year before the toll bar was removed completely.
At the Sign of the Toll Gate
A slightly more successful installation of a toll gate occurred in 1921. Harry Ell, promoter of the Summit Road scheme (complete with resthouses) included the concept of a toll gate at the top of Dyer’s Pass near the Sign Of the Kiwi as a way to underwrite the cost of extending the road along the Port Hills to Gebbies Pass. Foot passengers over 15 years were charged one penny; a horse and rider, or bicycle and rider were charged threepence; a vehicle drawn by horses, or a motorcycle (with or without sidecar) paid sixpence; and a motorcar paid one shilling. Much cheaper rates than Mr. Percival in Governor’s Bay sixty years before!
Ongoing disputes with the Heathcote County Council over the collection of the tolls came to a head ten years later and was resolved when the toll gate was relocated further along the road to Marley’s Hill, crossing the boundary line into Halswell County. It ceased operating with the death of Harry Ell in 1934.
The Hole in the Hill
The most recent example of a toll gate in Ōtautahi Christchurch was the Lyttelton Road Tunnel.
During the second reading of the Christchurch-Lyttelton Road Tunnel Bill in Parliament in 1956, Prime Minister Holland addressed the cost of the tunnel to be built over three years (£2,515,000), and estimated that if tolls were charged to pay for the tunnel as planned, it would take 54 years to recoup the financial outlay. By 1961 some progress was being made on the tunnel plans, with Christchurch architect Peter Beaven appointed to design the toll plaza and administration building. And in 1963 toll charges were announced. Private vehicles would pay two shillings and sixpence, and goods on all cargo to and from shipping would be charged four shillings and sixpence per ton.
Not everyone chose to pay
With the opening of the tunnel on 27 February 1964 users could travel through the tunnel for free for the first six hours. In the first year commercial traffic numbers were much lower than anticipated with carriers choosing to move goods by rail which didn’t attract the same toll, or traverse Evans Pass. These numbers were expected to increase after tolls on goods were reduced by two-thirds in April 1965. In October 1966 toll charges for private vehicles dropped to two shillings. Despite this there continued to be reports in the local newspapers of tunnel-users trying to avoid payment.
By April 1967 the Canterbury Progress League was pushing for a reduction in or complete abolition of tolls. At issue was the repayment of the loan taken to build the tunnel in the first place, and ongoing maintenance costs. Ten years later the tolls were still in place producing a nice little revenue stream, but maintenance was paid for by the local authorities (who were not happy about it) rather than the National Roads Board, and discussions were taking place to increase the charges by 50%.
National election taking a toll
Things turned political at a national level with elections looming in 1978. Labour pledged to reduce and then phase out the toll charges, but was countered by Prime Minister Rob Muldoon committing to remove the charges altogether. With the return of National to government, the tolls were finally abolished on 1 April 1979. An estimated £40,000 worth of unused tickets had to be refunded to ticket-holders. The last toll booths were removed on 24 May 1983.
Student tunnel stunt
One story circulating at the time of the 50th anniversary of the tunnel opening was of a student stunt many years previous (presumably after the abolition of the tolls). A small truck carrying several young people entered the tunnel from the Christchurch end, then circled round and re-entered from the Lyttelton end. The alert tunnel attendant, monitoring the cameras at each end of the tunnel, realised that the vehicle was taking some time to emerge, and when it finally did, conducted a check of the tunnel. The students had painted a pedestrian crossing across the road at the mid-point of the tunnel.
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