Early days at BCC: 1912–1920s

The story of Birkenhead Community Church is the story of people, of their vision, their faith, and their walk with God within this community – one that is intertwined with the story of Birkenhead itself.

View looking up Hauraki Street (Hinemoa St), c. 1910

View looking along Hauraki Street, Birkenhead, Auckland. Ref: 1/2-000288-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand./records/22567598 (Many of the buildings on the left are still surviving today. The two-storey building in the foreground housed the Gumdiggers Restaurant for many years.)

In 1912, Birkenhead was a small, satellite village of Auckland, surrounded by farms. The sugar works was the major employer in the area. Birkenhead Borough was then 24 years old, and in 1911 had recorded a population of 1700. The Birkenhead Post Office had just opened in lower Hauraki Street (now called Hinemoa St), and a few horse-drawn buses ran intermittently from the wharf. The borough was thriving, with a tight-knit community committed to the welfare and development of the area.

Two families right at the heart of the community were the Stotts and the Stewarts. Mr Robert Stott was the butcher, with premises in Hinemoa St (he later relocated to Highbury); he was a well-known local figure with much influence and involvement, which his family continued throughout the century. Many residents of Birkenhead today still remember Stott the Butchers. Mr Frank Stewart was a civil servant, a borough councillor, on the boards of Birkdale and Northcote schools, a property owner, and founding director of the Birkenhead Motor Bus and Transit Company. Mr and Mrs Stewart’s daughter, Marjorie Stansfield, was a long-time member of our church.

Memories and records differ, so perhaps in 1910, and certainly by 1912, the two families founded this church, an assembly in the Open Brethren denomination, for the purpose of “worship and remembrance”. Initially, they met in the home of Mr & Mrs Stott in Onewa Road.

Foresters Hall Birkenhead, Hinemoa St, 1915

Birkenhead Motor Bus and Transit Company buses can be seen in front of the Hall. It is likely Mr Stewart is one of the pictured passengers as this photo was taken to mark the company opening day. From Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections B0002.

The congregation grew, and by 1915 they were renting the upper room of the Foresters Hall in Hinemoa Street for their Sunday meetings. Built in 1911, the hall was owned by a local Friendly Society (The Ancient Order of Foresters), and used as a picture house, concert hall, dance rooms, for Anzac Day commemorations and community events. Mrs Stansfield recalled (in an oral history recording available through Auckland Libraries) that the stench of stale cigarette smoke still lingered in the building on Sunday mornings following the Saturday night entertainments!

A number of other churches in Birkenhead also hired the hall while their own building projects were underway, Birkenhead School used the rooms until their current site was developed, and in 1918 the building housed the Influenza Epidemic hospital. You could say it was the early 20th Century version of the Rawene Centre. Right from the start, the Assembly was in the heart of the community.

Foresters Hall, seen from Rawene Road, c.1920s

In the above photograph, taken in the 1920s, the hall (situated on Hinemoa St) can be seen just left of centre. Rawene Road crosses the foreground, with the Nell Fisher Reserve in the middle ground. The current Birkenhead Library now occupies the site of the civic buildings in the right of the picture. The buildings to the left of the Foresters Hall still stand today. (Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections B0392)

This history of BCC continues at Birkenhead Gospel Hall: 1920s–1940s