Dialogue: Monument was many decades in the making

The obelisk that now stands without a tree on One Tree Hill has an interesting story of its own. RUSSELL STONE* traces its construction.

With the felling of the pine on the summit of Maungakiekie last year, the obelisk which was once its companion now stands alone like the totara of old. Most Aucklanders know little about this monument. Yet how it came to be there is one of our more interesting stories.

In 1901 the mayor of Auckland, Sir John Logan Campbell, gifted his suburban farm, which he named One Tree Hill, to the people of New Zealand. The land was made up of two parts. The inner portion, which Campbell considered the cream of the estate, was to be an open park. The outer portion was to be endowment land to finance the upkeep and development of the park, which was named Cornwall Park to honour the Duke of Cornwall (later George V), who happened to be visiting the colony at the time of the handing over of the deeds.

In 1906, a statue of Campbell was unveiled at the Manukau Rd entrance of the new park. At this ceremony, the aged Campbell announced that he wanted to complete his gift by erecting "a towering obelisk uprearing heavenward from the summit of One Tree Hill in memoriam to the great Maori race."

Some of us may consider an Egyptian obelisk an unsuitable monument to honour a South Pacific people. But for Campbell an obelisk was the noblest of monuments. He regarded it as the supreme compliment he could make to the "people of the land," whom he had first encountered in 1840.

On Campbell's death in 1912, it was found that he had provided in his will for £5000 - then a considerable sum - to pay for such a monument. The executors of the estate, some of whom were also Cornwall Park trustees, did not act on this provision until 1925, when they commissioned Atkinson Abbott, a prominent Auckland architect, to prepare working drawings for a tapered column that would have (in Abbott's words) "monumental proportions" yet "not overpower the hill."

Unforeseen engineering difficulties and the Great Slump put the scheme on hold. However, the delay brought some gains.

When the trustees pressed ahead in 1933 to erect a 33m concrete column with granolithic facing, they were able to improve on the original concept. Abbott now provided for a "bronze figure of a Maori chief of heroic mould" to stand on the corbel at the base of the column on the side which faced Campbell's grave on the summit of the hill. This statue was to be by Richard Gross, a fine local sculptor.

There were further revisions to the plan. These involved a flattening of the summit to enable a paved courtyard to be laid down around the obelisk and Campbell's grave, together with extensive bluestone walling for retaining the summit and improving the approach road to it.

These additions led to an escalation of costs and further delays in construction. As a result, the trustees were twice forced to seek the permission of Parliament to depart from the original provisions of the will, so that ultimately they were empowered to spend not £5000 but £15,000.

Early in 1939, Thomas Clements, an Otahuhu contractor, began site preparations and construction of the monument, which he undertook to finish in time for an unveiling ceremony planned for January 28, 1940.

The date chosen marked the beginning of a three-day celebration built around Auckland's anniversary day. January 29 on this occasion had an added significance. It was 100 years to the day since the Herald dropped anchor in the Bay of Islands bearing Captain Hobson, who was to negotiate with Maori chiefs so that New Zealand could become a British colony.

The monument was not completed by the due date. Auckland had an unusually severe winter in 1939. The workers on the exposed and windswept summit might well have imagined they were in Siberia. And the outbreak of war with Germany in September meant there was a delay in the delivery from England (where its bronze casting was taking place) of the statue.

Although the monument was completed late in 1940, the unveiling ceremony was postponed. Shortly after New Zealand entered the war, Te Akarana Association, the group that unofficially represented Maori interests in Auckland, placed an embargo on any unveiling ceremony.

Tikanga Maori (Maori tradition) dictated, in the view of the Akarana association, that no dedication of a memorial could take place "while blood is being spilt."

The official opening was on April 24, 1948. That the day chosen was immediately before Anzac Day was poignantly fitting. The loss of life in the Maori Battalion during the Second World War was heavy.

At noon, a party of Ngati Whenua of Tamaki, the tangata whenua (traditional owners) of the isthmus on which Auckland now stands, welcomed to the summit the official party, which included 20 Waikato elders from Ngaruawahia. After some short speeches, Koroki Te Wherowhero, the Maori King, unveiled the monument. It was a modest ceremony that caused no great stir at the time.

Perhaps on our anniversary day, this account of how the obelisk came into being will help Aucklanders to appreciate the significance of the monument which now dominates our suburban skyscape.

* Russell Stone is an Auckland historian.