Wellington Museum deputy director Paul Thompson sits with a statue of Paddy the Wanderer.

It is one of the strangest funerals Wellington has ever seen.

When the Wellington Harbour Board's assistant night watchman for pirates, smugglers, and rodents died, a fleet of taxis formed his funeral procession.

He was a loved, well-travelled public figure who never spoke a word.

Paddy the Wanderer was a ginger and down Airedale terrier who died on July 17, 1939 - 76 years ago this week.

He was a dog that would ride trams, stowaway on ships, and was known around Wellington - especially on the waterfront.

"Paddy was extraordinarily intelligent," The Evening Post reported on the day he died.

"For instance, he knew the traffic lights and would not cross a street until the green showed."

Paddy had fallen ill a fortnight earlier.

Taxi drivers - who had developed an attachment to the dog - sent him to a "home for dogs" to recuperate but Paddy did not like it.

A taxi driver went to visit Paddy and the dog jumped into the cab, marking the end of his convalescence.

Later, he wandered down to the wharves and took refuge in shed Number 1 but the July cold was too much and he died.

Paddy's body was wrapped in a shroud and put in a coffin with the words "Paddy the Wanderer - at rest".

He was put in the back of one of a dozen taxis that would form his procession.

"Fifty or sixty watersiders and seamen watched the cortege start on its short journey from Queens Wharf to the incinerator. A traffic officer led the way."

It was "no mock affair but a touching tribute to a good comrade", the newspaper reported.

Paddy the Wanderer - or Dash - with original owners, seaman and his daughter Elsie.

Despite his high-profile death, little was known about his early life till - the day after the funeral - Mrs G Gardner of Newman Tce, Wellington contacted the newspaper adding another tragic element to the tale.

The family had been living in Adams Tce, off Aro Valley, then moved to Newman Tce in Thorndon.

"He was given to my little daughter by Mr PB Mason, the horse trainer, of Christchurch," Gardner said.

"My daughter died 11 years ago and Paddy ran away."

Auckland journalist Dianne Haworth, who wrote a book about Paddy, offered another, similar tale.

He was the family pet of seaman John Glasgow, his wife Alice and daughter Elsie. When Elsie died of pneumonia before her fourth birthday, Paddy left home.

Nzhistory.net.nz says Paddy - thought to originally be called Dash - made his way to the waterfronts, possibly "in search of his lost playmate".

What was going on in the terrier's mind is entirely speculation but what is undoubted is that Paddy soon became an identity around Wellington.

One year the seamen took a collection and registered him, next it was the watersiders, and in 1935 taxi drivers bought him a collar.

That same year Paddy - who had already been given the freedom of Wellington and been made "Assistant Night Watchman responsible for pirates, smugglers and rodents" by the Harbour Board - was taken up in a Gipsy Moth plane.

It only seemed right.

"Paddy, by virtue of his freedom of the city, has travelled, it is claimed, in every form of conveyance, public and private, except in an aeroplane and a submarine," it was reported.

"The old dog will be accommodated in the front cockpit of the machine, with a taxi man to hold him in. This safe-guard is thought necessary as Paddy's reactions to air transport are as yet unknown."

Paddy was regarded as a "vagabond", a reputation earned by his habit of going missing then turning up again in Wellington.

He was hit by a car then next appeared in Whanganui, having travelled there by coastal boat via Picton.

"Ever since people can remember him the wanderlust was strong in Paddy," The Evening Post reported.

"By air, land, and sea ... he travelled all around the New Zealand coast and to many inland towns, and even further afield.

"He was one stowaway who was greeted cheerfully whenever he came aboard."

When Paddy visited Auckland in 1935, watersiders kidnapped him, aiming to keep him in their city. But when news filtered south, the plotters - fearing the wrath of angry Wellingtonians - quickly released their hostage and shipped him home.

Paddy the Wanderer died six weeks before the start of World War II.

In 1945, the year the war ended, a memorial to Paddy was unveiled on Queens Wharf in Wellington.

It remains there today with a drinking fountain for people and two, lower down, for dogs.

Wellington Museum deputy director Paul Thompson said a statue of Paddy in the Queens Wharf museum remains a favourite - for the children who love patting dogs with their greasy hands and for the grandparents who fondly remember Paddy.

"We sometimes have to give old Paddy a bit of a wipe."