Wellesley Street is a street in the

Auckland City Centre The Auckland Central Business District (CBD), or Auckland city centre, is the geographical and economic heart of the Auckland metropolitan area. It is the area in which Auckland was established in 1840, by William Hobson. It is New Zealand's le ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, located between the south-east corner of

Victoria Park Victoria Park may refer to: Places Australia * Victoria Park Nature Reserve, a protected area in Northern Rivers region, New South Wales * Victoria Park, Adelaide, a park and racecourse * Victoria Park, Brisbane, a public park and former golf ...

and Grafton Road. The street is split into two sections at the junction of Queen Street, Wellesley Street West and Wellesley Street East.

History

The street was named after

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Britain, serving twice as prime minister o ...

. During the late 1880s, Wellesley Street became the cultural centre for Auckland, after the opening of the

Auckland Art Gallery Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki is the principal public gallery in Auckland, New Zealand. It has the most extensive collection of national and international art in New Zealand and frequently hosts travelling international exhibitions. Set be ...

and the Auckland central library. The intersection with Elliott Street was the location of the Fullers Opera House, and the area thrived, with

Vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

theatres and hotels becoming established around Wellesley Street. The Wellesley and Queen Street intersection became a transportation hub in the late 19th century, with the first horse-drawn trams linking Wellesley Street to Ponsonby starting operation in August 1884. By the early 20th century, the intersection was a major stop for the Auckland tramway network. The St James apartments were constructed in 1910 for the

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...

. By 1955, the building had become too small for the YMCA, who relocated, with the building later becoming apartments. A Rotary automatic telephone exchange system was installed in Auckland in 1924, with the central city telephone exchange (WLT) located on Wellesley Street. The new Auckland central library opened on Wellesley Street in 1971. The Auckland Art Gallery also expanded in 1971 and 1981.

Notable locations

*The Auckland central library * Civic Theatre at the junction with Queen Street, which was constructed in 1929. *

Smith & Caughey's Smith & Caughey Ltd, trading as Smith & Caughey's, is a chain of two mid-sized, upscale department stores in Auckland, New Zealand. One of the oldest surviving retail businesses in New Zealand, it was established in 1880 by Ulster-born Mari ...

, a department store established in 1880 * St Matthew's, a historic

neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

Anglican church.

References

{{Streets in Auckland Auckland CBD Streets in Auckland