Part Two
A Splendid Gift
by Toby West*
Left: St. Mary’s Cathedral viewed from Parnell Road, 1928. Right: Alfred Walter Averill, Bishop of Auckland and later Archbishop of New Zealand, 1938.
On the morning of the 14th of October 1926, a large group of Auckland’s Anglican community assembled in St. Mary’s – the Victorian timber church which had served as the city’s cathedral for the last forty years. This group, which consisted of clergy and laity alike, was there to take part in that year’s synod, the annual council convened by the diocese to discuss important church matters. The five-day event was presided over by the bishop of Auckland, Alfred Walter Averill. There was a wide variety of items on the agenda that year, including the appointment of a bishop to the newly-created Māori diocese and the ordering of an inquiry into lost pension funds. In addition to these matters, bishop Averill sought to bring to the synod’s attention the awkward question of Auckland’s cathedral itself. Standing in the relatively small, wooden cathedral, he was painfully aware that the one-hundredth anniversary of Bishop Selwyn’s arrival in Auckland was drawing near, and yet no progress had been made on the bishop’s vision of a grand, permanent cathedral in Parnell. Addressing the audience in St. Mary’s, he made the following remarks:
“In 1942, the Church of this province, and in particular the Church of the diocese of Auckland, will be celebrating the centenary of the arrival of Bishop George Augustus Selwyn, and it will be a reflection upon the ideals, hopes and work of the great bishop if no definite steps have been taken within the century to commence the building of a permanent cathedral in the city of Auckland. It is now over 84 years since Bishop Selwyn purchased what is known as the cathedral site in Parnell, and yet no steps have been taken to erect a permanent cathedral thereon, or any real effort made to raise a fund for the purpose.”
At that time, multiple cities in New Zealand already possessed grand, permanent cathedrals built of stone. The most iconic of these was the neo-gothic cathedral in Christchurch, designed by Benjamin Mountfort. For decades, Aucklanders had had to make do with St Mary’s. This large wooden church (also designed by Mountfort) was only ever intended to serve as the city’s cathedral on a temporary basis. While St. Mary’s was an undeniably charming building, the creaking timber church paled in comparison to Mountfort’s magnum opus which proudly stood in the centre of Christchurch. Despite being the largest city in the country, and having had a site earmarked for this very purpose for over 80 years, Auckland still lacked a proper Anglican cathedral of its own. In the meantime, the plot of land which Selwyn had originally selected was being used as a tennis court.
There were two funds set up to finance the project; the original one established by Bishop Selwyn, and the second established by his successor, Bishop William Cowie. However, these accounts had not grown in any significant way and collectively held less than £4,000. It was not until 1935, in the midst of the great depression, that the church’s fortunes appeared to change. In May of that year, a woman named Mina Tait Horton passed away, leaving a large bequeathment to the church. The funds gifted by Miss Horton amounted to £63,000 – approximately one third of the total estimated cost of the project at that time. This unexpected injection of funds promised to transform Auckland’s cathedral from a far-off pipe dream into a tantalisingly attainable goal.
Mina Tait Horton.
Mina Horton (born 1887) had been the daughter of Alfred George Horton (1842/3–1903), a local business magnate who had owned The New Zealand Herald and had been a founding member of the New Zealand Sugar Company. After Mr. Horton had passed away, his large fortune had been divided among his six children, including Mina. In 1905, the 18-year-old Mina was engaged to be married, but her would-be husband abandoned her at the altar. Understandably devastated, she never attempted marriage again and instead devoted the rest of her life to her local community. Without children of her own, Miss Horton still had a large personal fortune by the time of her death and no direct descendants to inherit it. Instead, she bequeathed three quarters of her remaining estate to the cathedral-building project. In lieu of a family of her own, Miss Horton’s legacy would be to bring Bishop Selwyn’s dream to life and initiate the construction of a cathedral on the site chosen by the bishop nearly a century earlier.
Mina Horton’s generous bequeathment was celebrated by Auckland’s Anglican community, and was described in the newspapers as a “splendid gift.” But this “gift” came with two important time-sensitive stipulations. Firstly, a design competition for the cathedral must be held within seven years. Secondly, construction must begin no less than a decade after her death – effectively setting the deadline in May 1945. If the project failed to commence within this timeframe, the money would be forfeited, and would instead pass to “the university, the Diocesan High School, and £1000 for the city to buy an oil painting.” And so, the race was on to select a design and begin construction.
In keeping with Miss Horton’s wishes, a design competition was duly held over the following years, open only to members of the New Zealand Institute of Architects. The competition did not dictate any particular architectural style, but the official guidelines implied that the building should take inspiration from traditional examples, suggesting “a design in the spirit (but not slavishly imitative) of the great Cathedrals of England and Europe, related to our own time but definitely not ultramodern.” Appropriately then, the man tasked with selecting a winner was Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the English architect famous for synthesising gothic and modern styles in his design for Liverpool Cathedral (then under construction). The deadline for the competition was the 15th of November 1939, by which time 29 different designs had been submitted to London where they were to be judged.
Left: The architect Charles Towle, 1939. Right: Towle’s prize-winning cathedral design.
First place – which came with a healthy prize of £1,000 – was awarded to Charles Towle, an Aucklander then based in Sydney. The sketches he submitted certainly met the brief. The cathedral was designed, in his own words “rather as a descendent of the traditional cathedrals than as a copy of them, either in mass or in detail.” In keeping with tradition, Towle’s plans included a central tower rising 123 feet above the ground, and other features typical of medieval European cathedrals such as aisles on each side of the nave – supported by rows of lofty pillars – and a semicircular apse at the far end of the building.
Yet, the shape of the land which Selwyn had set aside forced Mr. Towle to break with tradition in one key respect. Typically, cathedrals are built on an east-west axis, with the facade pointing west and the chancel (the area around the altar) pointing east. This means, at least in Europe, that the congregation sits facing in the direction of Jerusalem. Despite New Zealand’s antipodal placement on the globe, this tradition was often observed here as well – indeed, St. Mary’s pro-cathedral was erected with the altar pointing east, as was Christchurch Cathedral. In contrast, Towle’s design would have the building positioned on a north-south access, parallel to Parnell Road, as this orientation allowed for the building to make the best use of the available land. Luckily, Miss. Horton’s will had made clear that “correct orientation is not mandatory.”
Left: Consecration of Bishop William John Simkin, 1940. Right: Queen Elizabeth II visits St. Mary’s, 1953.
It was originally hoped that work on the cathedral might commence in 1942, to coincide with the centenary of Bishop Selwyn’s arrival in New Zealand. However, while the design competition had been a success and the diocese now had a splendid design for their cathedral, the grand construction project had come at the worst possible time with respect to global geopolitical events. By the time Selwyn’s centenary arrived, the world was once again engulfed in a world-wide conflict, and much of the country’s resources and manpower were being diverted to the war effort. Rising prices of materials and labour meant that, by 1941, the estimated cost of construction had already ballooned from £200,000 to £300,000.
With insufficient funds, and no immediate end to the war in sight, the looming deadline of 1945 seemed increasingly unrealistic. In light of this situation, the Diocese petitioned parliament for a time extension on the conditions of Miss Horton’s will. Parliament agreed, and the “Mina Tait Horton Estate Act” was passed in 1942, changing the conditions of the bequeathment such that the diocese would have until “seven years from the date of the termination of the present war” to commence construction.
The Second World War ended when Japan announced its surrender on the 15th of August 1945, theoretically setting a new extended deadline in 1952. Yet this deadline came and went, and the cathedral was no closer to being built. In 1955, the church once again petitioned parliament, this time asking for assurance that they would receive all of the bequeathed money so that funding could be secured for the “first portion of the design.” Citing “the greatly increased cost of building,” the church explained that it would be practically impossible to finance the first stage of the project without a guarantee that they would receive the funds in their entirety. Again, parliament accepted their request, passing an amendment to the previous act which ensured that the church would receive the money so long as they began work on the “first portion” as set out in Towle’s design (i.e. the chancel).
Aerial view of the vacant cathedral site in Parnell, with tennis club visible, 1957.
Nevertheless, the Second World War had already been over for a decade. One might reasonably assume that the money from Miss Horton’s will was now forfeit, and that the city could look forward to receiving a new oil painting. But the Church’s lawyers had discovered a loophole. While Japan had indeed surrendered in 1945, a formal peace treaty was not signed with New Zealand until the 28th of April 1952 when the period of American occupation had ended and Japan had been welcomed back into the international community as a sovereign state. This meant that, at least on paper, New Zealand and Japan had still been at war for nearly seven years after the actual end of hostilities, and thus it could be argued that the “termination of the present war” had only occurred in 1952. This argument was accepted, and a further amendment to Miss Horton’s will was enacted by parliament in 1957, clarifying that the war referred to in the original act had only ended when this peace treaty between New Zealand and Japan was ratified. It was from this date that the seven-year window was to be measured, retroactively granting the church yet another time extension.
The sheer amount of fuss and controversy that resulted from the bequeathment led Reverend Arthur Russell Allerton of St .Thomas’ Church, Freeman’s Bay, to comment that the “Synod seems more interested in the will of Miss Horton than the will of almighty God.” The end result of the church’s many petitions to parliament was effectively a 14-year time extension, and a promise that they would receive the entirety of the funds so long as they began construction on the “first portion” of the building. Finally, amid much pomp and circumstance, Bishop Simkin laid the foundation stone on the site on the 13th of June 1957. Two years later, the Diocese secured a contract with Fletcher Construction, officially signalling the commencement of construction just in time for the deadline in April 1959. The church finally received the Horton request, which had grown to £155,957 with 20 years of accumulated interest.
Things may have been looking up for Holy Trinity, but the trials and tribulations of the cathedral’s construction had only just begun. While the building of the chancel would go ahead as planned, the rest of the cathedral’s design would be a source of controversy for decades to come.
Ceremony for the laying of the foundation stone at Holy Trinity Cathedral, 1957.