These years saw the Trust acquiring and running properties and deciding
in an organised manner what was worth keeping..
Trust work shifted in emphasis during the 1960s after
the opening of its first flagship properties, Te Waimate Mission House
in 1966 and Pompallier House in 1967. It amassed the bulk of its property
portfolio during the 1970s. A raft of Auckland and Northland early contact-era
properties were purchased before the emphasis switched to South Island
properties, transport structures and industrial estates from the mid 1970s.
Interior,
Te Waimate Mission House
Photo: NZHPT
By the 1960s, the Trust was beginning to feel as though it
had progressed from infancy. A change in emphasis from
administrative machinery to specific tasks, such as the
protracted undertaking of the Waimate North Mission House
restoration, was thought to reflect the greater maturity of the
Trust and its regional committees.
In this frame of mind, the Trust began a long-running
involvement with the Canterbury Orari Gorge farm buildings,
sought to manage more historic reserves and signalled an
interest in controlling Pompallier House, Russell, which had
been administered by the Department of Internal Affairs since 1943. This
last decision was controversial, provoking a rare division at Board level
in 1962, the disagreement ostensibly based upon the wisdom of moving further
toward the front line of historical preservation. It appeared the reluctant
parties lost out, with the 1963 annual report to Parliament recording
chairman Ormond Wilson’s remarks: “Fewer plaques were erected
to mark sites where nothing now remains; more buildings were saved from
decay and destruction. This is how the Trust would always wish it to be.”
As a pioneering case for the Trust, the Waimate Mission House forced
it to define early on its stance on the issue of restoration versus preservation.
Inquiries persuaded the Trust that a restored product could not be completely
faithful to any one period of its existence.
In 1966, the Trust acquired three major properties, Hurworth, New Plymouth,
Pompallier House, Russell, and Old St Paul’s,Wellington, the latter
at long last confirmed with an announcement that the Government would
purchase the property and vest its management with the Trust. November
1966 also saw the acceptance of the historic Pencarrow
Lighthouse, tended by the Marine Department.
Some reorganisations balanced these acquisitions. In 1965,
the Trust agreed to allow the Marlborough Historical Society
to take over the Riverlands Cob Cottage, and two years later
permitted Lawrence District High School, Central Otago, to
control and supervise Gabriel’s Gully Historic Reserve. “This
experiment of directly involving school pupils in the care and
maintenance of an historic site and its marking will be watched with close
interest,” the annual report observed.
Funding questions temporarily resolved themselves in 1969 when the Government
committed to a triennial grant of $15,000 on top of salary payments and
grants to finance
project work. That year, the Trust also welcomed the substantial funds
raised by the Society of the Friends of Old St Paul’s, as well as
its own first Endowment Associate Member, Archbishop J.M. Liston, Bishop
of Auckland, who qualified through the handsome bequest of $500 and had
been heavily involved in the Pompallier House restoration.
By 1970, the idea of large-scale property acquisition as a means of safeguarding
properties and of widening the Trust’s public profile had taken root
in the Trust Board’s thinking. The increasing emphasis on acquisition
was fuelled not just by continuing impressive visitor numbers in the North,
but also the high-profile temporary reopening of Old St Paul’s, which
saw a series of chamber orchestra concerts given under the auspices of
the New Zealand Broadcasting Commission completely selling out. The fate
of the Nelson Provincial Building also drummed up publicity for the Trust,
with the struggle to save the building and then its demolition well documented
by the press in the late 1960s.
Centennial Year
The year 1969 was significant for the Trust’s publicity through
its efforts to commemorate the bicentenary of Captain Cook’s arrival
in New Zealand, his observation of the transit of Venus and the recognition
of the centenary of Te Kooti’s stand at Te Porere. The Trust worked
hard to ensure that the tributes it organised attracted attention. Therefore,
despite the considerable help of the Gisborne Regional Committee, it was
very disappointed that it was not wholly successful in its aims for the
celebrations.
Protracted negotiations with the Canadian owner of the
part of Motuarohia Island off which Cook anchored ended
only with permission to erect a plaque at Cook’s first landing
place, not a reserve or right of access. Years of negotiations
regarding a reserve at Cook Bay near Whitianga, where Cook observed the
transit of Venus resulted only in an offer of two small building sections
at a prohibitive cost, which had to be declined. A plaque was instead
erected on the beach reserve as close to the actual site as practicable.Thanks
to the research of Drs A.C. and N.C. Begg, authors of James Cook and New
Zealand, the Trust located the exact spot on
Arapawa Island, Queen Charlotte Sound, from which Cook
first saw Cook Strait, and marked it with a plaque.
The Trust felt it was able to do justice at Te Porere, site of the last
major operation in the wars of the 1860s, having created a reserve of
some 50 hectares and preserved the redoubt itself. The centenary of the
battle was commemorated by an appropriate gathering of the heirs to those
who took part: from the Arawa tribe, who provided
a significant portion of the Government’s forces, and from Te Kooti’s
spiritual successors, the Ringatu Church. Chants sung at the service had
been composed by Te Kooti himself and were probably heard on the site
at dawn on the day of
the battle.
Heritage
doesn't just consist of grand structures. An example is this cuddy
(thatched totara slab cottage) built in 1854 at Waimate by the Studholme
brothers
Photo: NZHPT
Demand for the many kinds of cultural experience the Historic Places
Trust provided increased during the 1960s. In the North Island, the checklist
of pioneer museums and private trusts operating from historic buildings
opened to the public was impressive. Magnificent properties such as The
Elms, the historic mission station at Tauranga, were placed in the ownership
of a preservation trust in 1972. On a slightly different tack in the South
Island, the Trust itself worked hard to set up private historic reserves
under the Reserves and Domains Act 1953 for places such as the Levels
and the Cuddy at Waimate South.
Offers of properties flew thick and fast from 1968, but many had to be
turned down or deferred by the Trust, which scrambled to find capital.
To prevent this from happening to Ewelme Cottage, Auckland City in 1968
agreed to fund the bulk of the purchase. This was the first instance where
a local body in association with the Trust took title to ensure
preservation and then transferred control to the Trust, with the 21-year
lease signed off for the tidy rental of 10 cents per annum.
By 1970, with several years’ more experience under its belt, the
Trust declared that it regarded preservation as a greater good than restoration,
while acknowledging there was not always a choice.In addition, it advocated
seeking a new use,even out of character with the original use, for a cherished
building rather than see it resited with its old purposes revived. Retention
of an original site was considered so important that, if this was not
able to be respected, then demolition may be accepted as less vexatious
than removal and re-erection.
Although the Trust had accepted responsibility for several reserves in
the past, it informed Lands and Survey in 1971 that it preferred to make
a financial contribution rather than purchase land at Ruapekapeka.The
following year, three-quarters of the purchase price of Clendon House,
Rawene, was financed by a bank loan, and Alberton, Auckland was accepted
due to an accompanying bequest.
Without this, the Trust would probably have had to decline the offer,
despite Alberton’s significance. Small local authorities proved less
enthusiastic or less able to help the Trust. Only in Auckland was the
Trust able to repeat the success of the Ewelme local partnership when
it sub-let Bell House to the Howick Historical Society. Later, the council
and the Trust took a half share in Highwic, the substantial 15-room house
at Epsom.
New blood
In the midst of these developments, dramatic changes in Trust membership
from 1970 made it inevitable that changes in the Trust’s outlook
and mode of operation followed.The departure of long-serving chairman
Ormond Wilson and secretary Bob Burnett were compounded by the death in
1971 of John Beaglehole, its deputy chairman and last active serving foundation
member. In some respects, the Trust of those days was Wilson, Burnett
and Beaglehole, and so their exits
gave the impetus necessary to formulate demands tentatively debated for
some time.
During 1972, the Trust’s director, J.R.S. Daniels, was installed
at a new head office in Pipitea Street. From the outset, the new chairman,
W.J. Scott, set out to reach the enthusiasm and support of a wider community.The
Trust Board held its first meeting outside Wellington in Christchurch
in November 1972, and managed to meet in another centre nearly every year
thereafter. Scott was a
prolific letter writer and also instituted a policy of frequent visits
to each regional committee with the Trust’s director, designed to
keep members informed on the national work of the Trust.
Financial strictures on the Trust were further loosened in 1971 when
the Government accepted a long-standing request to subsidise membership
fees at a rate of $1 for every $2.
A Maori focus
The Maori Meeting Houses Committee was set up in November 1970 to consider
applications for assistance for restoration projects. The venture had
the support of the Maori and Island Affairs Department,whose Secretary
was a member.The committee made a small contribution to the restoration
of Rongopai Meeting House, near Gisborne, which in 1972 was the Trust’s
first involvement with a Maori building. But not until the restoration
of Te Poho O Rukupo Manutuke Marae in the late 1970s did it embark on
its first large project.
Over time, the scope of the committee broadened to the
development of a Maori buildings restoration programme; to
considering the wording of plaques and noticeboards where these related
to Maori places; and to advising the Trust on a multitude of concerns
for Maori people. After 1980, the committee also considered applications
to have places declared traditional sites, and it seemed more appropriate
for it to be called the Maori Advisory Committee.
Listing at last
The
Buildings Classification Committee meets al fresco alongside St John's
Church, Hira, classifying that day's inspections. From left: John
Stacpoole, Geoff Thornton, John Daniels, Pat Adams, Ruth Ross, Ken
Rowe.
Photo: NZHPT
Better known is the Trust’s crusade to establish a systematised
list of historically significant places to allow it to speak with authority
on matters of preservation. The first attempt to create such a schedule
occurred in 1964, with forms distributed to regional committees asking
for lists of places of architectural or historical interest. There was
little enthusiasm with only two committees responding. The scheme was
temporarily abandoned.
Five years later, secretary Bob Burnett, inspired by the Australian state
registration lists, rejuvenated the concept. Consequently, the Classification
of Historic Buildings Committee was established in March 1970. Initially,
the committee’s brief was to rank a list of buildings chosen on the
basis of architectural merit.
Concerned that this would lead to a list based on personal taste, committee
member Ruth Ross campaigned for the establishment of a multi-disciplinary
team, to base its assessment of historical and architecturally significant
buildings on thorough research and pre-determined criteria.
In 1971, in response to her efforts, the Trust Board established the Record
and Classification Committee: Buildings.
The committee consisted of six members; three architects, two historians
and a librarian, all operating on a voluntary basis. This group developed
the criteria for determining significance. An A listing meant the committee
considered its preservation to be a matter of national importance, while
a C or D was considered more of local significance, but worth recording.
Limited only by the committee’s focus on pre-1900 buildings,
lists of suggested places were soon compiled by regional
committees, who responded very positively to the initiative. As these
lists were sent to the classisications committee, excursions were planned
to examine the sites, which included monuments, bridges, drinking fountains,
water wheels and even a three-seater privy.
These trips have become legendary - they typically lasted three to five
days, during which at least two members of the committee (but usually
most or all of them) would examine up to 70 or 80 places, aided by a local
guide and with recourse to light planes, launches and four-wheel-drive
vehicles in less accessible areas.
An indication of the importance that archaeological considerations assumed
in the Trust’s deliberations was the close working relationship it
had with the New Zealand Archaeological Association (NZAA). The Association
was just a year older than the Trust and the two had worked closely together
from the start.
In 1967, archaeological associations were placed alongside
historical societies and cognate groups in enjoying indirect
membership, and the Historic Places Act was amended in 1970 to allow for
a nominee of the NZAA to be on the Trust Board. Most significant in the
partnership was the 1971 transferral to the Trust of the NZAA register
of 10,000 sites.
The battle for the Trust to employ its own archaeologist
dragged on for almost a decade. Board member Roger Duff had made the first
request for a staff archaeologist as far back as 1960 as a shortage of
resources began to hamper activity.Yet, while Trust resources remained
limited during the 1960s and early 1970s, ameliorating the effects of
state-sponsored energy projects dominated the Trust’s archaeological
work.With funding from the Ministry of Works and the Electricity Department,
the Trust conducted substantial surveys of the areas covered by the Tongariro
power development and the Kapuni and Maui gas pipelines, with the emphasis
on excavation and salvage. Archaeologists were employed on a contract
basis.
Pencarrow
lighthouse.
Photo: Grant Sheehan
By 1968, the pressure of large state-sponsored development
projects on the Trust’s small and informal Archaeology Committee
was beginning to tell. After nine years of repeated requests, the Trust
finally secured the appointment of a staff archaeologist from the Department
of Internal Affairs, making archaeology the first to follow history in
securing a Trust research officer, with their architecture counterparts
being turned down by the department well into the 1970s. Jim McKinlay’s
appointment in May 1969 marked the progress of the Trust from an occasional
patron of specific archaeological salvage or research projects to an institution
involved in archaeology in its own right.
A welcome funding injection from the Government enabled
McKinlay and the committee to work toward the preservation of important
sites of pre-European Maori occupation, such as Alexandra Redoubt, Pirongia,
as well as salvage work on sites doomed for destruction. Yet, salvage
work continued unabated throughout the early 1970s; Mt Maunganui,Taharoa
Ironsands and Lake Manapouri to name but a few of the Trust’s responsibilities
during this time.
Environmental impact reports were implemented into the planning process
from 1972, adding significantly to project
expense and time.
Landmark legislation
The increasing export of Maori artefacts from 1970 concerned the Trust
greatly. Its efforts to rally public awareness culminated in the Antiquities
Act 1975.This was designed to protect and control the export of Maori
artefacts made before 1902, and writing,works of art and European chattels
more than 60 years old.
More crucial to the development of the Trust’s archaeological arm
was the introduction of the Historic Places Amendment Act 1975.The Act
offered legal protection for archaeological sites more than 100 years
old. The provisions were not designed to provide permanent physical protection
for any site but to protect the information in sites, through a consent
procedure where authority to modify a site would be approved pending an
archaeological
investigation carried out at the developer’s expense.Although this
effectively met the Trust Board’s demand for more teeth, for a long
time the authority sat awkwardly with the voluntary “people”
side of the Trust.Tension between its advocacy and regulatory roles has
always been with the Trust, and remains today. There is no other heritage
organisation in the world carrying out both functions.
The widening of the scope of archaeological activities
necessitated a reorganisation of the Trust’s internal machinery,
and this was authorised by the Act. A true archaeology section was established.
McKinlay became Senior Archaeologist and was joined by two Staff Archaeologists
and a Survey Archaeologist (initially Dr
A.J. Challis) responsible for the Register.
Some loosening of control regarding property acquisitions also occurred
at the political level. In September 1974, the
Minister of Internal Affairs informed the Board that “the
Trust may accept properties by gift or bequest, without the
prior approval of Government, provided additional Government finance is
not required”.
The mid 1970s brought a rash of northern, mission-era
related purchases for the Trust, so many that at times
projects for which money was available were stalled due to
a lack of contractors. In August 1974, the Melanesian
Mission Museum was finally handed over to the Trust, to be
run as a museum by its former tenants. Kemp House had
been gifted to the Trust that year and the adjacent Stone
Store was acquired late in 1975 from the estate of Ernest
Kemp.This was an event the Trust considered monumental,
as it illustrated an increasing feeling that it was the agency
properly responsible for safeguarding the country’s most
prized historic places.
Trust acquisitions after these properties were aimed at
providing a better balance to the Trust’s portfolio by
increasing South Island ownership and the number of
industrial sites.This was partly a result of the pluralism that
went hand-in-hand with the Trust’s increasing popularity,
the inevitable increase in the scope of what was considered
“heritage”.What happened in a building and how it related
to its 19th century social background became as important
as its aesthetic qualities.
Whereas North Island properties had mainly been houses, South Island
acquisitions were more varied and included many examples of 19th-century
technology, including the Hayes Engineering Works,Timeball Station at
Lyttelton, the Brunner Industrial Site on the West Coast and Clark’s
Flour Mill at Maheno.
Industrial ruins were often preserved in co-operation with an industry
board, and the director John Daniels, as well as architect Geoffrey Thornton,
played a significant role in facilitating these partnerships.
The Trust acquired its first bridge in 1974, the 61-metre
suspension bridge built in the 1920s at Springvale, where
the Taihape-Napier Road crosses the Rangitikei River
about 40 kilometres from Taihape. For generations, Maori
crossed the Rangitikei at this point, and just upstream of the
bridge lies one of the few moa-hunter sites found in the
North Island.
The Trust had come a long way by the mid 1970s. It was
in the process of gaining the bulk of its property portfolio
and completing a comprehensive survey of structures
nation-wide through the work of the Buildings
Classification Committee. Significantly, it had developed
true archaeological might and, as such, became more
independent in initiating its own projects. Through these
tasks, the Trust increased its influence and developed into
a true multi-disciplinary body equipped with appropriate
powers, and with an enlarged staff was becoming cramped
in its Pipitea Street and Thorndon Quay headquarters.
HERITAGE
PROFILE
Ruth
Ross
1920-82
Historian
Trust Board Member 1963-69
Buildings Classification Committee 1970-81
Northern
Advocate
Board
member Ruth Ross has impeccable standards and vast knowledge.
To facilitate her research, she meticulously accumulated a
lifetime of correspondence
with people throughout the country and beyond, which has delighted
all researchers
who have followed her.
Ross
was originally from Wanganui, but her interest in the history
of the north was piqued during her time as a researcher on
J.W. Heenan’s historical atlas project for the Centennial
Branch of Internal Affairs. It was revitalised when
her husband, Ian, joined the Maori School Service and the
family was posted to
several towns around the region, starting with Motukiore.
Her
unrivalled knowledge of the area’s history was soon recognised.
In 1959,
she reluctantly consented to serve on the Northland Regional
Committee of the
Trust – “Be it on your own heads – whatever
happens, you will have brought it on
yourselves” – and was co-opted from there to the
Trust’s Board from 1963 to 1969.
Even
so, committee work without the stimulus of an immediate practical
task
was not her forte, and she was at her best as a member of
the original Buildings
Classification Committee, whose brief matched her own interest
in the outdoors and her admiration for colonial buildings.
Ross
had qualified for this assignment as an aggressive and erudite
participant
in the debate on the restoration of Waimate North Mission
House, where she ensured that even the roses adorning the
garden were true to history. This led to involvement with
a myriad of Trust properties, including a personal triumph
in
the refurnishing of Pompallier House. After the Trust assumed
responsibility for Pompallier in 1965, it became clear to
Ross – and subsequently everyone else – that restoration
in the 1940s had been based on incorrect assumptions about
the building’s purpose during the first years of the
Catholic mission.
It
was characteristic of her thoroughness that her work for the
Trust often led to other voluntary labours in the interests
of historical research. During the
years, she systematised the archives of the Marist Fathers
(after their help at
Pompallier), was substantially involved in Father E.R. Simmons’
publication on the Catholic Church, lectured to St. john’s
College students and reorganised the property records of the
Melanesian and the General Trust Board.
In
between working on most of the Trust’s assignments, she
enjoyed a three-year fellowship in the History Department
at the University of Auckland, based on academic recognition
for her textual analysis “Te Tiriti o Waitangi”.
Ross
was inevitably involved in the North Island volume of the
Trust’s Historic Buildings of
New Zealand, documenting Maori churches in Northland.
It did her heart good, she wrote, to know that the Trust,
which hadn’t reached its quarter century as a going concern,
could bring out a book that was “so demonstrably looking
at
New Zealand history with Maori and Pakeha eyes”. Her
insistence on Maori
consent and co-operation before undertaking the task and three
weeks of intensive field work in the region were typical.
Ross
died in August 1982 at her home in Weymouth. Some of her energy
in the last months of her life was expended in the fight to
preserve the Church of
St. Mary’s, Parnell, on its original site.
Zoë
Wyatt
HERITAGE
PROFILE
John
Stacpoole
Architect,
historian, author, benefactor
Advisory Architect to the Trust 1965-70
Trust Board Member 1970-78
Deputy Chair 1974-78
Setting
the Tone
Along
with the other prominent mainstays of the 1960s and early
1970s Trust Board, Bob Burnett (secretary), Ormond Wilson
(chairman) and Ruth Ross (historian), John Stacpoole is widely
acknowledged as
setting the tone of work in that period. He began his association
with the Trust when he became the Ministry of Works advisory
architect to the body in 1965 and served as deputy chairman
from 1974 to 1978.
Stacpoole
is also New Zealand’s most prolific architectural historian.
His biography of the colonial architect William Mason and
a commentary
on Victorian Auckland are particularly notable additions to
the literature
of the Trust.
Stacpoole’s
first heritage project for the Trust was the restoration of
the Mission House at Waimate North. The job set in motion
a long association with the Far North and the Bay of Islands;
he worked on the
refurbishment of Pompallier House at Russell, Kemp House at
Kerikeri, Clendon House at Rawene, and the Mangungu Mission
House at Horeke,
penning the Trust guides and brochures for most of these properties
as well.
A faithful citizen of Auckland, he also upervised a host of
restoration projects in the city, including Ewelme Cottage
in Parnell, Alberton in Mt Albert and the Melanesian Mission
House at Mission Bay.
In
the early 1970s, Stacpoole was appointed to the Trust Board,
in which capacity he often contested development projects
affecting historic sites. One such project was an apartment
block proposed for a site beside Pompallier House. Stacpoole
describes this as “quite a sticky
situation”, for the developers’ architect was Peter
Beaven, with whom
Stacpoole was writing New Zealand Architecture.
In
those days of more
informal politics, there could be a simple solution to development
dilemmas; “[Prime Minister] Norman Kirk said, ‘Right,
we’ll take [the property] under the Public Works Act,’
” after he was approached on
a visit to Russell.
It was Stacpoole who located the original Pompallier printing
press in the possession of the Maori Queen, Dame Te Atairangikaahu.
He duly
wrote to her about the matter and travelled to Ngaruawahia
on a
reconnaissance mission with Ruth Ross. Warned by elders not
to ask for the press immediately, he remembers Ruth trying
to translate letters from France regarding the press to the
Queen, when an emissary of the French
Ambassador arrived and reeled them off for everyone, having
called to
arrange an official visit. Later, while they were having drinks
in the
Queen’s private sitting room, Stacpoole rued the fact
it was getting late
and he had planned to drive back to Auckland that night. “May
we have
it?” he asked the Queen. “Yes, I think so,”
she replied, and the press was on its way back north.
John
Stacpoole was appointed an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday
honours
in 1975 and was elected by the Board to Endowment Life Membership
of
the Trust in 1980, and to Honorary Life Membership in 2004.
Zoë
Wyatt
Acknowedgement:
To Rebecca O'Brien, NZHPT Central Region Researcher for sharing her
research into the origins and work of the Buildings Classification Committee.
