Compassion to be swept aside by motorway construction?

BY JOANNA NEWMAN

With plans for motorway construction around the Basin Reserve and a second Mt Victoria tunnel, once more Wellington's heritage is under threat.

Many Wellingtonians know the Basin Reserve is significant historically, as well as having great recreational and cultural meaning.

However, some of the features of this historic area are not so well known.

Who knows about the grand home in "fancy colonial style" built in 1869?

Or the small building where the woman, who will possibly be New Zealand's first saint, set up her "daylight home for babies"?

And what of Ettrick Cottage, which has already survived one heritage battle and lives on to tell its stories in Mt Victoria?

Located at 19 Paterson St, Ettrick Cottage is in the path of the proposed new motorway.

It was saved from the wrecker's ball and moved there in 1994 because of its historical significance.

Previously Ettrick Cottage was one of the first houses in Austin St, dating from the early 1870s.

In 1874 it was bought by Samuel Atkins, a much-decorated former sergeant in the Seaforth Highlanders, who became an identity about town.

When the Seaforth Highlanders visited Wellington in 1901, New Zealand Freelance reported: "Sam Atkins has been looking forward, with all the zeal and anxiety of a bride for her wedding day, to the coming of the troops, and from an early hour on Saturday he strutted the town dressed, like Hooligan, in `his best suit o' clothes'. The uniform was resplendent in its newness and cast something of a reflection upon those of the Seaforths at the head of whom Sam proudly strode."

Atkins died at the age of 93 and his headstone in Karori Cemetery is engraved with the words "Hold the Fort".

Two unmarried daughters lived on in the cottage until 1955, so the home remained in the Atkins family for 81 years.

In contrast, just down the road at No7 Paterson St is the original home of William Waring Taylor.

Still with many original features in place after more than 140 years, this is the house built for the man who was once a member of the House of Representatives for Wellington City, serving as its speaker for a decade from 1865, and deputy superintendent of Wellington Province.

Waring Taylor St in the city is named after him.

A colourful character who became prosperous through his business activities, he was unfortunately also known as "a kindly, well-meaning muddler" and in 1884 was arrested for fraud.

He was convicted on one of the indictments brought against him and sentenced to five years' jail.

There was a move in 1885 to change the name of the street commemorating him, but councillors felt his earlier contributions deserved to be remembered.

After Waring Taylor sold the house in 1878, it was occupied by a number of other notable Wellingtonians – and Harry Crump, who built all but two of the remaining houses in Paterson St.

These seven houses, built between 1899 and 1904, are all of considerable historic value.

In 1909 the Waring Taylor house was bought by Archbishop Redwood and Father O'Shea for the Catholic Church and was occupied by the church until sold to Transit New Zealand in 1989.

For nearly half a century it was known as "Archbishop's House". When O'Shea was consecrated Archbishop in 1913, a torchlight procession went from Paterson St, down Ellice St, to the Town Hall.

The last of the three notable heritage buildings can be found on the northern edge of the road across from the Basin Reserve. A solid little building designed by well-known architect John Swan, it once housed a creche run by Suzanne Aubert's Sisters of Compassion, and is the last remaining evidence of Mother Aubert's original mission in Wellington.

Mother Aubert arrived in Wellington in 1899 in response to repeated calls from priests to help work with the sick poor. She came from her mission up the Whanganui River with three sisters and they occupied a small cottage next to St Joseph's on Buckle St.

They immediately started going round the streets and alleys of Te Aro, night and day, and were shocked at the terrible cases they found.

To feed the sick poor, they went begging for food, pushing large wicker hampers on wheels.

A year after Mother Aubert arrived in Buckle St, she bought a property there and opened the St Joseph's Home for Incurables. Nobody else cared for such people in New Zealand at the time, and the home was soon caring for crippled and disabled children as well.

In 1903, she opened the first creche in New Zealand on this site – a daytime home for poor children whose parents needed to work.

On arrival the children were cleanly clothed, then fed and cared for from 7am to 5pm, for a charge of only a few pence to cover milk.

In 1915 the Sisters rebuilt the creche as it exists today and standardised the routine of child-rearing under the Plunket system – the first institution in Wellington to do so. The operated until 1996.

All this history, to be celebrated and shared, will potentially be lost to get cars around the Basin and through the hill a few minutes faster.

- The Wellingtonian