the Star and Garter
The Star and Garter Hotel was to be a mainstay of the Avon loop for over 100 years. It was established by John Toovey, who'd bought land in the loop in 1876. Initially, his wife, Phillipa, ran a boarding house here. In 1878, John applied for a licence for the hotel.
Like some of his contemporaries in the loop, John no doubt saw hotelkeeping as his pathway to prosperity. Others - who had varying degrees of success - were Ernest Oppenheim, Ernest’s brother-in-law Thomas (7 Willow Street) and Joseph Francis (396 Oxford Terrace).
As was typical for 19th century hotels in New Zealand, the Star and Garter became a community hub. The local rowing club used it for meetings, as did other organisations. John, who was a druid, mason AND an oddfellow, built a druids’ hall at the hotel, for friendly society meetings.
Also typical was use of the hotel for coronial inquests, particularly for people who had drowned in the Avon. One such inquest was into the death of William James Stoupe in 1885. William ran the store at 231 Kilmore Street and was an alcoholic. The inquest was a community affair, with William's neighbour Hans Jensen giving evidence, whilst Robert Painter senior (another Kilmore Street resident) was the jury foreman.
Another inquest was into Maria Hardie's drowning in 1896. Although no longer resident in the loop, Maria had bought land and built in Willow Street in the 1870s. The house she and her husband Andrew built was particularly small and plain and suggested they could only just afford to build.
After the inquest into Maria's death, John Toovey called for the establishment of a public morgue, to avoid the indignity of storing people's bodies in hotel outbuildings.
