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Introducing Auckland
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Introducing Auckland
St Patricks's Square historyHistory of St Patrick's Square | 19th century changes | 20th and 21st century changes | St Patrick's square upgrade 19th century changesSt Patrick's Cathedral: 19th centuryThe change to the layout of this area of Section 18 must have been made after May 1841, when Bishop Pompallier of the Roman Catholic Church wrote to Governor Hobson asking for a grant of "a sufficient space of land for a church, dwelling house and for Roman Catholic public" in the new capital. Hobson's reply was that land for a chapel would be granted to him along Wyndham Street.5 Meetings to raise subscriptions for building the first Catholic chapel there began in July of that year. On 6 August, Bishop Pompallier presided over one such meeting and named the intended church after St Patrick and St Joseph. The first building, a chapel house for the priest, was completed by March 1842, and the first wooden chapel itself was opened on 29 January 1843. 6 On application to the Government of a further grant of land for a school, the parish received half an acre on the west side of Hobson Street, and a "Ladies Seminary" was ready on that site by January 1845. 7 The wooden chapel was only meant to be a temporary step, leading towards the construction on the Wyndham Street site of a more permanent stone cathedral. The first part of this plan began with the calling for tenders in early 1846, the foundation stone laid on 1 March by Bishop Viard, and in April permission was granted to the church trustees to quarry for stone from Mount Eden. The architect Walter Robertson arrived in Auckland in 1847, accelerating work on the cathedral which was finally consecrated on 19 March 1848, on the day of the feast of St Joseph. 8 The complex from 1848 until the further development in the 1880s has been described as "...a massive building standing out above all the buildings around it ... with the old wooden church and the schoolteacher's house on the north side of the section, the buildings formed a U shape, with an open end facing Hobson Street." 9 The 1843 wooden chapel was moved to accommodate the new stone church, and continued to be in use until 1896, serving as a convent and later a boy's school. 10 As at 1851, on the parish's quarter-acre section in the middle of what was now known as Chapel Square, there was the stone church, presbytery, boy's school, teacher's house, girl's school, orphanage and convent. 11 In the early 1880s it was decided to proceed with the cathedral development. By now, the parish had the services of noted Auckland architect Edward Mahoney to call upon, and over the next three decades he and his son Thomas were to become well known for their architectural design of Catholic churches and cathedrals not only in Auckland but across the top of the North Island. 12The foundation stone was laid for the new cathedral in 1884, with the design incorporating the 1848 stone chapel as the transept. 13 The cathedral was opened and blessed on 15 March 1885. 14 Crown titles for the cathedral section were issued in late November and early December 1850. 15 These were re-recorded in 1898 when the parish discovered that the dedicated road (western side of Chapel Square) ran under the nave and entrance to the new cathedral. 16 Section 33, the corner site facing Hobson Street, had been purchased by Bishop Pompallier in 1855, 17 while Bishop Lenihan purchased Section 32 in 1900. 18Earlier, in 1898, two representatives, possibly parish trustees (Patrick Dignan and Hugh Coolahan) transferred part of both these sections back to public ownership so that the road could be altered. 19The road, however, had already been changed on maps dating back at least to 1882. 20 The parish built the Presbytery on the Hobson Street corner with Wyndham Street in 1888. 21 19th century patterns of settlementThe Marist Messenger in April 1938 published one description of what the area around the Square was like back in the mid-19th century: "Then, over the fern and through the ti-tree of the slopes and gullies now covered with the warehouses and the other centres of commercial life which adorn the city, came the worshippers. On shaky stepping stones, they crossed the little muddy stream that ran where Queen Street now re-echoes its busy traffic, and made up the steep slope to the little church ..." 22 This would not have been far from the truth in terms of the area's description at that time. By 1852, while a number of dwellings had started to appear up the slopes towards Hobson Street ridge, the original stone chapel stood out clearly as a landmark. 23 Chapel Street by the 1880s was a working class area, with residential land use pre-dominating. Here workers such as seamen, midwives, retired coal merchants and "manglers" lived. 24 Close to St Patrick's Cathedral was a boarding house run by William Smith, and three hotels were in the vicinity. This visual pre-dominance of the Cathedral over the surrounding area would continue until the early 20th century.
5 E. R.
Simmons, In Cruce Salus, A History of the Diocese of Auckland
1848-1980, p. 31 |
