Auckland's Commercial vehicle history

The Milner-Daimler 5 ton truck imported by Ryan & Co for Mr McCullum of New Plymouth.

The first motor cycle arrived in Auckland in 1899, the first car a year later and these have been well documented. It was another five years before the first commercial vehicles arrived.

The Auckland City Council passed a resolution in 1903 forbidding motor buses and lorries on the roads unless the vehicle was preceded by a man walking with a red flag. I could not see where they enforced the law. Smith and Caughey purchased a single cylinder Cadillac through Dexter and Crozier in 1904. The van body was built by Cousins and Cousins in Lorne Street and it was first sighted on the streets of Auckland in October 1904. Smith and Caughey replaced the Cadillac in 1913 with a 15hp Albion.

In 1904 W A Ryan imported three Milnes-Daimler 20hp chassis from England. One was sent to Mr McCallum in New Plymouth as a truck to move coal and the other two were bodied in Auckland by Cousins and Cousins with large tram-like bus bodies. The first bus, named Pioneer, seated 16 passengers and the second, Advance, seated 25. Pioneer was used on the run to Howick which started on 2 June 1904. The bus left the Northern Club at 11am and returned in the afternoon. There was quite a party in Howick the day the first bus arrived. When the vehicle broke down or got bogged, as it did in the winter, they would send the mechanic out in a single cylinder Oldsmobile, or by horse and cart, to assist. It would have been no mean feat for the mechanic to move a three ton vehicle on solid rubber tyres stuck in the mud. It was reported in the New Zealand Herald at the time that the noise from the bus resembled a traction engine and that the ride was very rough. On 15 September 1904 the newspaper reported that the bus had broken four axles in two weeks and would be off the road for a few days.

The horse bus had been taking two and a half hours to make the journey to Howick but the Milnes-Daimlers could make the journey in an hour if they did not peel off a tire, break an axle, have problems with the steering gear or get stuck in the mud. In October the Milnes-Daimlers were taken off the Howick run and used instead on runs to Mt Roskill and Mt Eden where the roads were better. The two buses were apparently not a success as by 1906 they had been sold to a bus company in Timaru.

A fourth chassis was imported for a bus service between Dargaville and Te Kopuru but whether it went there we can’t be sure. We do know a third Milnes-Daimler went to Howick and this could have been sold later to the same company in Timaru. In December 1906 W A Ryan had a major fire and lost one truck and 15 cars. Was it the fire or warranty issues around the buses that caused the name to disappear in 1909?

About three months later the Takapuna Bus Company purchased a 1904 Gardner- Serpollet steamer and two Chelmsford steamers which were based in Devonport. Cousins and Atkin in Auckland were the agents and also built the bodies on the three vehicles. The Chelmsfords seated 16 people and the Gardner-Serpollet nine. The Chelmsfords were used between Devonport and the lake while the Gardner- Serpollet was used for auxiliary services off the main route. The vehicles were fitted with 30hp steam motors with an ordinary working pressure of 350 lbs and heated by kerosene. In 1905 two more Gardner- Serpollets were added to the fleet and the bodies extended to carry 12. The steam buses were not a great success and within two years the company had disappeared. In September 1907 the two Chelmsford steam buses and the three Serpollet buses were for sale in Henning’s garage. Henning’s were unable to sell all of them and they may have been broken up for scrap. A motor for one of these Gardner-Serpollets was recently for sale on the internet. The Devonport Ferry Company, a new company in 1913, acquired three 28hp Dennis buses which they ran between Devonport and Milford, and purchased a fourth one a year later. The ferries, steam tramway system, and the buses on the North Shore were established by a syndicate of property developers.

Devonport Steam buses.

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