Photo above: Mr. Victor R. Bennet looks at the road work on Stewart Dawson's corner where his grandfather, George bennett, reclaimed land over 100 years ago.
The road work now in progress in Lambton Quay at Stewart Dawsons corner holds a special interest for one Wellingtonian.
He is Mr. Victor R. Bennett, whose grandfather owned this corner and over a century ago probably reclaimed from the sea some of the land now being excavated.
Mr. George Bennett arrived in Wellington on the ship Bernecia [sp? Bernicia] in November, 1848.
Photo: Mr George Bennett, pioneer land reclaimer and one -time owner of Windy Point (in Wellington). Annotation in Denton Family Album: Grandpa Bennett.
In those days Lambton Quay was connected with Willis Street by a narrow strip of land running past Clay Point to Windy Point as most people preferred to call it, the present-day Stewart Dawson's corner. Bleak northerlies howled past this high cliff-like promontory that edged down to the sea.
But this did not deter ' George Bennett. A wood worker by trade, he bought a section here and set up his workshop.
The wind was not the only problem; at low tide people could walk past the front of his promises, but at high tide they had to walk round the back. With characteristic vigour of the early colonists he therefore set to work with his pick to cut away a part of Windy Point and build a breastwork against the intrusions of the tide. Methodically he dumped the spoil into the sea.
Mr. Victor Bennett thinks his grandfather may have been the first person in Wellington to attempt any organised reclamation.
"My grandfather may have dumped barrowloads of soil at the spot where they're digging today at Stewart Dawson's corner, and the ancestors of the young Maori men who are working here may have paddled their canoes over the same spot," he said.
Windy Point was sold by, the Bennett family when Mr. George Bennett died in 1891.
"Grandfather's house still stands on The Terrace," said Mr. Bennett. "He built it himself and it must be over a hundred years old.
"The baptismal font at the Brooklyn Methodist Church was turned out of native woods by him in 1850. He probably made it in his very shop at Windy Point."
Mr. Victor Bennett recalls that when he was a boy, old people always referred to Lambton Quay as “The Old Beach."
He often wonders what it would be worth if his father still owned Windy Point today.
It is difficult to realize today that at one time Windy Point was of military
importance, and that during the Maori-pakeha troubles … middle 1840s a [batte… of] three guns was set up … heights of this now [cen …] situated, widely-known Wellington landmark.