Page:Ashburton•Scotter•1972.pdf/142

water direct from the creek. Nor was the borough fire brigade available, as the board refused to guarantee the payment of expenses. Fortunately, the district enjoyed the same comparative immunity from fires as did the borough.

The Borough Council would have welcomed the inclusion within the borough of both Hampstead and the residential parts of Allenton. The population of the former alone was half that of the borough. In 1891 Hugo Friedlander, the mayor, seized the opportunity of differences of opinion within Hampstead and of someinterest expressed in amalgamation to call a meeting on the subject. The council made promises of highly favourable treatment to both areas. The borough rates were already lower than theirs. Nevertheless the meeting rejected a motion in favour of joining the borough moved by James C. Duncan and G. W. Andrews, residents in the two suburbs.

Before the annual election a few years later (1897), the town board decided by a narrow majority in favour of amalgamation. But those against change canvassed vigorously and defeated all but one of the reformers. The issue was clearly between those who were intent on improving the district and the others who favoured freedom from all sanitary restrictions especially those on the keeping of pigs or the maintenance of ‘disgracefully dirty and smelly slaughter-houses’.⁷² Nevertheless, in 1901 Hampstead was created a scavenging district which meant a compulsory sanitary collection—a clear step towards better living conditions.

Probably, apart from the vicars and Presbyterian ministers, George William Andrews was the best known Hampstead resident of those times, and he remained while the parsons were birds of passage. Andrews arrived in 1875 from Nelson, established himself as a builder, became the first Wesleyan circuit steward and served on both borough and Hampstead school committees. He was a member of the town board for almost the whole period and in 1901 became chairman of the latter and also a borough councillor. In some circles he was known as ‘the father of cricket in the county’.⁷³ Only his extreme loquaciousness detracted from his usefulness and popularity as a citizen.

The Ashburton hospital was not, during this period, administered by a separate local body. The County Council built it as an