Catholic precinct’s long history with little change over years MEMORY BOX
Staying with Taumarunui after last week’s look at the Regent Theatre, I was excited to discover a part of the town previously unknown when I got slightly lost on my way to the petrol station the other day. Locals reading this will wonder where on earth I was going but having missed the turn into the forecourt I had to double back and figured I might as well follow the ‘Catholic Church’ sign in doing so.
Few women in colonial New Zealand had such a varied and interesting life as Ann (Annie) Iwersen. Even fewer wrote about it, but in 1890 Annie Iwersen wrote a series of reminiscences for her grandchildren and published them in the Waikato Times as ‘‘Grandmama’s Story’’, in instalments over eight weeks. They covered only ten years of her life, and she wrote them 25-30 years after the events.
Possibly because of her audience but also because of the time that had passed, her accounts need to be read with caution. Descendants who put together a family history, The Waikato Shepherds, went through Annie’s articles carefully, looking for inconsistencies and places where she may have sanitised details or glossed over difficult events. Her accounts are annotated with their research.
They found Annie ‘‘was not strong on dates’’ — they were reminiscences and not drawn from a daily diary.
Ann Curme Keet was born in Liverpool in 1833; she married James Edward Shepherd, a warehouseman, in London in 1852.
They came to New Zealand in 1853 with their baby, Edwin, landing at Auckland. James had been promised a job at New Plymouth, but the job was no longer on offer. Annie details the voyage, being with her two sisters at New Plymouth, the housing conditions (poor), travelling on a sledge drawn by bullocks (‘‘felt quite grand’’), and attending ‘‘a great native meeting’’.
Back in Auckland, the Shepherds went through a period of hardship, having to sell clothing and other property for food.
However a minister arranged for them to go as teachers to Rev John Morgan’s Otawaho [Te Awamutu] mission station. The trip south was over land to the Waikato
On an elevated terrace above the township is not only the Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception but also an enclave of early twentieth century villas and bungalows that are some of the most splendid examples of their kind that I have seen in a long time. At the centre of it all is a Catholic precinct that remains largely intact, albeit with some changes of use over the years.
The current church is the second to serve the Catholic congregation of Taumarunui. It was designed by Wellington architect Michael Fowler in 1972. Fowler (1929-2022), who was also Mayor of Wellington at one time, is best known for promoting the construction of the Michael Fowler Centre (opened 1983), which was designed by Warren & Mahoney. Fowler’s Church of the
River and then the Waipa; the party spent Christmas at Rev Ashwell’s mission station and enjoyed the plentiful cherries.
Otawaho she described as a pretty village ‘‘and the Church would have done credit to a town’’.
However, neither of the Shepherds had any teaching experience, and by her own account, Annie had no domestic skills so could not even teach those basics to the Maori girls. The raupo whare, through which pigs forced their way during the night, was also a shock.
After a year they went to Maungatautari, running a trading store for local Maori at ‘‘Whare Turiri’’.
The Shepherds sold goods that they brought from Auckland. A daughter was born at Te Awamutu, another son at Maungatautari. Annie described the
Immaculate Conception is typical of the period, having been built from concrete blocks with conical, ‘pixie’ roofs over the key spaces. Warren & Mahoney were doing something similar in Christchurch around the same time.
On the other side of High Street are the first church and former convent. The former was built in 1908 and the latter followed eight years later, at the same time as St Patrick’s Catholic School opened. The parish of Taumarunui was established in the winter of 1908 and the Rev Father Molloy was the first priest in charge. The simple hall-type building that opened in early October 1908 initially served as both church and school; a presbytery to house Father Molloy soon followed.
St Joseph’s Convent of the Sacred Heart was officially opened on January 30, 1916
Maungatautari days as ‘‘far way from civilisation, but in the midst of beautiful scenery and surrounded by faithful, though simple, friends’’. In the years leading up to the Waikato Wars, the Shepherds were very aware of the changing demeanour of their hosts. When the chief, Puaka, under whose protection they were living died, it seemed prudent to leave.
They were provided with canoes for the long journey down the Waikato River and through the portage of the Awaroa Stream to Waiuku on the Manukau Harbour. Annie’s descriptions of their Maungatautari years, their friendships with the local people and of the trip down river, are worth reading.
In the 1850s-early 1860s Waiuku was a trading hub reliant on goods coming from the Waikato. James established a store but in 1861, three years after they settled in Waiuku, James died in 1861.
A baby son died one month later. When James died, the store’s owner, David Graham, decided Annie couldn’t run the place by herself and cancelled the lease – but this redoubtable woman simply opened another store a few doors away.
Her popularity with her main customers, local and Waikato Maori, including people from Maungatautari, was such that they took their trade to her.
In 1863, with tension mounting between Waikato iwi and the government, Annie and other women took their children to Onehunga – where again, she set up a store.
The ongoing story of Annie Shepherd and how she came to be buried in Whatawhata Cemetery will be in next week’s The Dead Tell Tales. in memory of Father Williams who had advocated for a convent school in the town but died before seeing his plan come to fruition. The foundation of the new school was laid on the 1st of October in the same year and that building also survives.
Today the first church and former convent, which closed in 2002 and now offers bed and breakfast accommodation, stand across the road from the current church and school. Despite my best efforts earlier in the week I could not discover who designed and built the 1908 church or the convent. While the convent hints at the emerging influence of the bungalow style in its fenestration and overhanging eaves, only the gable end treatment of the church and its entrance porch signal any step beyond the most economical building possible.