By BRIAN RUDMAN
Anywhere else in the world, the grave of the "maker of the nation" would be a major historic site, well sign-posted and well cared for.
Here in Auckland we do things differently. We leave poor old Captain William Hobson to fend for himself. A dirty concrete slab, a tatty iron fence, a small bronze plaque you have to kneel down to read and that's that.
From the cultural point of view this neglect should come as little surprise. We Aucklanders do tend to confront our past with the wrecker's ball rather than the historian's pen. Still, for a city built from the fast buck, it is surprising we haven't exploited the tourist potential of the site.
Yesterday, as the sunlight filtered through the surrounding trees, it was just possible to make out the lettering on Hobson's gravestone. What the grubby surface cried out for was a good scrub with some household bleach.
As bad was the white-painted concrete plinth beneath, its paint peeling, the corners and joints gunked up with green slime.
The iron railing holding back the non-existent crowds of gawping tourists and schoolkids was equally unkempt, structurally sound but crying out for a repaint. Some decent signage backgrounding the man who brought us the Treaty of Waitangi would have been helpful too.
Still, Hobson is one of the lucky ones. The gravestones of many of his fellow pioneers have long gone. As for the ones that remain, the ravages of time, souvenir hunters and vandalism have not been kind.
In 1996, the Auckland City Council ordered a conservation and management plan for the long-neglected cemetery.
At the time, ivy and other weeds had all but overwhelmed the grave sites.
Officially closed in 1909 but effectively full since 1886, the cemetery was then a disaster site. Motorway development had cut through parts of it. Also gone were the above-ground masonry and other decoration of "untidy" graves, removed during a time when it was fashionable to turn graveyards into parks.
Since the 1996 review, the cemetery has been managed as a Central Premier Park.
This seems to involve keeping the grass cut, the weeds slashed, the trees trimmed, the paths swept, and - from the poison traps in evidence - the rats down. But there is little money for restoration and development.
Since 1996, just 46 grave sites have been repaired. This involved 18 in 1998 and another 28 between May and June this year.
It's not cheap. This year's work cost $48,173, the highlight being the discovery of the grave of William Henry Partington, of the nearby Partington's Mill family.
Last week, the city council's parks and recreation committee voted to try to find more money to speed up the restoration process.
A stroll through the extensive cemetery grounds, which stretch up and down Grafton Gully on one side of Symonds Street and deep in behind Karangahape Rd and up to the motorway on the other side, reveals the need.
Many tombs have collapsed, others are like the Sainty family who share their fenced-in plot with a mature cabbage tree.
Nearby is a collapsed and moss-covered headstone of someone called Godwin, whose grave is decorated with a concrete replica of a military pith helmet and officer's pouch.
The memorial to Fredrick Maning, author and land court judge, has survived rather better. "Stricken with a painful malady he sought relief in the mother country where he died on 25 July 1883, aged 72 years. His last words were, let me be buried in the far-off land I love so well."
He was. In a sturdy construction that has survived the regrowth of bush all around.
Other prominent names in our city history pop up.
Vaile, for instance, and one with a more contemporary ring, Schnackenberg - a Wesleyan missionary.
These are the ones you can read. Hundreds of others lie neglected as they fell. As a link to our past, it's an archeological treasure house awaiting discovery.
It's also a wonderful tree-filled inner city park waiting to happen. One with a built-in guide to the names of Auckland pioneers. All it needs is a bit of commitment.
When you look at how easy it was for the city to spend $40 million on the Viaduct Basin upgrade, surely more than $50,000 a year can be found for this project.
<i>Rudman's city:</i> Capt Hobson must be turning in his grave
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