King, Bishop, Knight, Pioneer: the Social and Architectural Significance of Old St Paul’s Church, Emily Place, Auckland. 1841-1885

Abstract

This thesis examines the cultural significance of the Anglican Church of St Paul, Emily Place, Auckland (1841-1885), from a variety of social and architectural perspectives. It begins by exploring the social factors which led to the foundation of the church, including the religious aspirations of those early settlers here in New Zealand as well as those of the institutions supporting them back in Britain. Chapter two considers the fluctuating prominence of St Paul’s Church and its leaders with the officially recognised entities of power, namely as vice-regal church of the governors, pro-cathedral for the Anglican Church and Church of the Garrison for the colonial military. Chapter three looks at the more local influences St Paul’s had on Ngāti Whātua [and Ngati Paoa] Anglican converts, its close ties with Auckland freemasonry, its role in establishing and supporting education in the capital, along with social welfare and the care of orphans. Architecturally, St Paul’s was New Zealand’s first Gothic Revival building and appeared during the infancy of this radical design movement in Britain and before anything comparable in Australia. It was also the first New Zealand church to be built of permanent materials and it survived where many others collapsed. The evolution of the building itself is interwoven through these chapters, charting its design, beautification and embellishment, its enlargement, and at the same time noting its problematic ‘patchwork’ construction, and ultimately, the reasons for its demolition. It concludes that these social and architectural factors demonstrate that St Paul’s Church was not only a physical landmark in the colonial township, but also a cultural landmark signifying British intentions for, and authority within, the developing Auckland community, as well as that emerging in the wider colonial context. An attempt is also made in evaluating the ways in which this cultural endeavour proved successful or not. Inspired by four stained glass windows in St Paul’s replacement building, this discussion attempts to chart the complex interrelationships between Church as ‘community’ and Church as ‘building’ in the context of a colonial settlement almost as far from the heart of Empire as one could get.