NORTH SHORE HISTORY WITH DAVID VERRAN
The well-travelled Mr Stark - Part One Robert Adam Mozley Stark is remembered in Devonport for the misspelt Mozeley Avenue in Stanley Bay and nationally for the ‘Stark purchase’ of Fort Takapuna, about which there was much public and newspaper speculation and ultimately a Royal Commission of Inquiry. Stark was born 6 June 1846 in Wakefield, Yorkshire. His two middle names acknowledge his grandfather, Adam Stark, and his grandmother, Harriet Mozley, who was Adam Stark’s second wife. Robert Stark’s father was a lawyer, although not a very successful one, and the family immigrated to Melbourne in April 1853. Robert Stark was one of six siblings. His father died in Melbourne 11 July 1859 and Robert moved back to England where he married for the first time. He worked as a fitter in a locomotive shop in Manchester and trained as an engineer, working in places such as Southampton, Belgium and Calcutta, India. In 1870 he was in France, but he eventually returned to Australia including working as ‘lighthouse engineer’ for the Port Adelaide Lighthouse. By then he was already quite wealthy.
In July 1881 he was elected as one of four trustees on the Devonport Highway District and served as Chairman from 1881 to 1883, serving with Ewen Alison. From late 1877 he began to feature in Auckland news reports and became a director of the Auckland Gas Company in September 1878. In November 1878 he was a candidate for the Takapuna Riding of the Waitemata County, but managed only 67 votes. Nevertheless, in July 1879 he was called on to chair the annual public meeting of the Devonport Highway Board. At the 1879 general election, he first talked of standing for the Waitemata electorate, but instead stood for Auckland City West declaring himself a ‘Liberal’ and the ‘workingman’s candidate’, being both pro-tariff protection and anti-Chinese. Unsuccessful, he and his second wife departed their North Head home for San Francisco and Europe on 27 April 1880. On 29 May 1881, over a year later, he and Eliza returned to Auckland to continue his business interests. In July 1881 he was elected as one of four trustees on the Devonport Highway District and served as Chairman from
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Issue 73 - February 2017 www.channelmag.co.nz
The March 1886 survey of Stark's property, SO 3825, supplied by author.
1881 to 1883, serving with Ewen Alison. He endorsed the candidacy of, and chaired meetings for, Ewen Alison’s first bid for Parliament in 1881, who was standing as a pro-Sir Grey ‘Liberal’. He became a director of the new Devonport Steam Ferry Company from 1881, a paid managing director of that Company from 1883 to 1886, a President of the North Shore Cricket Club and served on the Vestry of Trinity Anglican Church in Devonport. However, in 1883 both he and Alison were alleged to have favoured their 41.5 acre Melrose housing estate development with Highway District funding for roads and both he and Alison decided not to stand again. Note that no corruption was ever proven. Mozeley Avenue is in the middle of the Melrose estate. Stark became a steward of the Takapuna Jockey Club in 1882, chaired the North Shore Regatta and helped form the Albion Lodge in Devonport in 1883. In February 1883 he unsuccessfully ran for the Auckland Harbour Board and in August 1885 he became a provisional director of the Devonport and Lake Takapuna Tramway Company (Ltd), which was to offer a horse-drawn tramway service around Devonport and to Takapuna. He had also promoted a Beach Road ‘strawberries and cream’ attraction with Robert Quick. In July 1881 he had bought land on what was known as ‘Mr Stark’s Point’ (later Fort Takapuna), and built a large house there in 1882, having sold off his nine room house opposite Trinity Church in Devonport in September 1881. The Point had, and still has, spectacular views of the channel entrance to the Waitemata Harbour. In March 1885 it was announced that at a time of a ‘Russian invasion’ scare, both Stark’s Point and the Kissling property in Parnell were under investigation as sites for gun batteries. Stark’s property was then surveyed by the Government Surveyor, G.W. Williams, and there was a second survey on the 15th of October 1885. By David Verran