Local history publication:
Dick Scott's book In Old Mt Albert (1983), is the only major local history. Although written to celebrate Mount Albert Borough, formed in 1911, it has significant material describing the 19th century and early 20th century Pakeha settlement of the Mount Albert area. This includes the origins of some street names and profiles of historic buildings in the area. The book also includes early descriptions of the district, as well as historical maps and photographs.
Council archives:
Auckland City Archives has records of the Mount Albert Road Board and Council 1866 - 1989.
Mt Albert Community Library's local history collection:
The Mt Albert Community Library's local history collection is comprised of:
- two scrapbooks with newspaper cuttings from the 1850s up to the 1920s
- eight maps from 1884 to the 1960s
- council balance sheets 1925-1976
- some handwritten notes on Mt Albert history
- a small collection of ephemera (programmes, booklets, school and church jubilee programmes etc)
- five wooden block plates
- 92 photographs
- an extensive file of newspaper clippings from 1975 to the present.
The basis of the collection was a donation by Gladys McGehan, widow of the late Frederick Charles McGehan, of her husband's papers and photographs relating to the history of the Mt Albert area. Fred McGehan, QSM, JP, who died in 1975, was a Mt Albert Borough councillor for 15 years. He was also a past president of the Auckland Historical Society. There were approximately 100 photographs in his collection, dating from the 1850s up till about 1920. Dick Scott used many of these in his book In Old Mt Albert. The originals of the photos are now housed at the Central City Library. Mt Albert Community Library holds a few (13) copies, and also a set of 32 mounted enlargements.
Other photographs are: 11 mounted photos of Gribblehirst Park, and a collection of 36 mounted photos of the rebuilding of St Lukes mall in 1990, donated by Ken Browning
Library staff have continued to collect clippings from local and daily newspapers of anything relating to the Mt Albert area since the library was opened in 1975.
Books relating to Mt Albert held at Mt Albert Community Library:
Mt Albert memoirs
In 1999, for the International Year of Older Persons, library staff compiled a collection of twenty five reminiscences of Mt Albert in previous times. Patsy Burton and Alison Fitzpatrick initiated the project, with guidance from Bruce Ralston, former family history librarian. Library customers were approached, word of mouth spread the message, and an article in Age Concern provided wider advertisement. Archival paper was provided, and people were requested to write by hand, in order to preserve their hand-writing. Transcripts have been inserted on facing pages in the final volume, which has been bound by the Auckland City Libraries' Preservation unit.
Several precious photographs were lent for copying, and these have been included. Patsy has added hand decorating.
Common threads in these early memories of the elderly of today are of a semi-rural Mt Albert of metal roads and farmlands, where people bought eggs and milk at Carrie's farm, or had milk and bread delivered by horse and cart. People got about by foot a lot, though steam trains and trams provided transport. Children commonly walked barefoot to school. There was frequent flooding in the low-lying areas of Sandringham, where Eden Park and Gribblehurst Park are now, and children sailed homemade boats on Cabbage Tree Swamp, as it was then known. The night-cart men called right up till the 1930s.
Several people lamented the loss of a sense of community, where you spoke to passersby in the streets, and never locked your door.
The volume has been indexed. It can be viewed at the Mt Albert Community Library.
In 2002 we asked for some further memories of Mt Albert. Forty four Mt Albert residents who lived in the area during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s sent in their memories and photographs. These have been bound into Mt Albert memoirs -book two. | 
