Judy Siers - Researching HB History and the Women's Rest

Judy Siers has been busy over the las few years involved in a lot of local history projects, one in particular was the "King George Coronation Hall" in Petane built in 1911 to celebrate the coronation of King George. Designed by world-renowned Art Deco architect, Louis Hay, the King George Hall has been an important part of the Bay View community since 1911. It has recently been renovated and painted and Napier City Coincil have commissioned her to write its history.

In her travels she noticed that Hastings have a coronation fountain and monument as a tribute to King Henry in Cornwall Park. Mayor Viggor Brown had a Coronation Hall built in Napier.

Judy Commented on how she is still finding information on James Walter Chapman Taylor.

She showed us 3 painting she had found Turama, Tauroa, and Frederick House he built for his parents all watercolours.

The Womens Rest

The history really started back in 1885 when members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union movement who were recruited to come out to Nz Australia and help women and families.

by the end of 1885 there were 15 branches established in New Zealand including one in Napier.
The WCTU was organized by women who were concerned about the the destructive power of alcohol and the problems it was causing their families and society.
They met in churches to pray and then marched to the saloons to ask the owners to close their establishments. These activities are often referred to as the "Women's Crusades" and their success was both the forerunner and impetus for the founding of the WCTU.
The most famous member and second president of the WCTU was Frances E. Willard who served from 1879 until her death in 1898.

One of the most famous WCTU members was Mrs Lovell-Smith the wife of Hastings photographer Herbert Lovell-Smith who was instrumental in getting the Hastings Branch of WCTU up and running in 1903. The white Ribbon "For God Home and Humanity" was worn by all members. By 1904 Napier Branch had large membership and funds they built the "Willard Institute Building for the WCTU named after teh founder in America.

Ruth Lovell-Smith moved to Hastings in 1918 was always pushing Council to build a "Womens Rest". Not taking no for an answer she set about opening a "Mothers Rest" in Heretaunga Street to prove to Council that Hastings need one. It was so popular and drew the attention o the media. Ruth then got Council on her side and things started to happen. The Garnett Family agreed to sell their timber yard to make way for roading and a "Women's Rest" Mrs garnett said she would give back 750 pound to Council when the Women's rest was built.

Sir George Ebbett who was the incoming mayor continued with the project clearing land and finally laid the first stone of the Women's Rest on the 23rd March 1921.

Plunket were also keen to see a Women's rest established and were also backing the movement

lead by Ruth Lovel-Smith. The Plunket have been part of the Women's right from when it opened.

The Hastings Municipal Women's Rest, built in 1921, is likely the first example of a women's rest built exclusively and separately for this purpose in New Zealand. Funded largely by private contributions and administered and constructed by the Hastings Borough Council this rest took over from an earlier rest room in the area that had been furnished and administered by the Hastings branch of the Women's Christian Temperance Union.The building is a very good example of the Californian bungalow style of architecture, a domestic building normally associated with residential dwellings. The building exhibits many of the distinguishing features of the style and remains in remarkably authentic condition after 85 years in the same use. The building also demonstrates what Cooper et al refer to as a shift from 'public lavatories' to the elaborate buildings of 'rest rooms' designed to accommodate mothers and workingwomen. Located in the central business district in the city's civic square, the Hastings Municipal Women's Rest provided a centrally located rest room space for women and access to other facilities, such as the Hastings branch of the Plunket Society. From the beginning, the rest room facilities were widely used by women from out of town, women who worked in Hastings, and mothers who were visiting Plunket. Since 2003, the building has also been used as a base for the Heretaunga Women's Centre. It continues to be used as a space for women today. As an early example of a women's rest room and most likely the first women's rest built exclusively and separately for this purpose the Hastings Municipal Women's Rest merits Category I registration. The history of the Hastings Municipal Women's Rest assists in showing not only the struggle of women to obtain these services in their community and the evolving provision of these services by volunteers and borough councils, but also touches on the work of organisations of high significance to women at this time such as the WCTU and Plunket. The integrity of the building and its aesthetically pleasing surroundings assist in the telling of this story. The Hastings Municipal Women's Rest is also socially significant within the Hastings region as it has been patronised both by local residents and visitors from the country for over 85 years.

Judy Siers - Researching HB History and the Women's Rest

Judy Siers will talk on researching Hawke's Bay history, with special mention of the Hastings Women's Rest building.
Tuesday 10th August 2010
5.30pm
Hastings Central Library

Overview of James Chapman Taylor From Judy Siers Talk & Book

James Walter Chapman-Taylor’s life was dedicated to designing and building houses. His style, consistency and commitment aligned with the principles of William Morris, and Chapman-Taylor would become his farthest-flung follower. The two did not meet: William Morris died in 1896, and it was not until 1909 that Chapman-Taylor returned to England, the country of his birth, which he had left in 1880. However, in 1909 he was to meet English architects who followed the Arts and Crafts creed, and who further inspired him.
Chapman-Taylor built his first house in 1903, and the 96 buildings that followed all revealed his commitment to the English Arts and Crafts Movement, which had become, by that time, an international movement.
His childhood was spent in colonial Ngaire, south of Stratford in Taranaki, living with his parents on heavily forested land that they slowly converted to a highly productive dairy farm. The assumption was that Chapman-Taylor would become a dairy farmer but his ambition lay elsewehere, as did his heart. He wanted to design and build houses, and the first step was a building apprenticeship with Boon Bros Construction Company in Taranaki. As well, he studied architecture by correspondence with the International Correspondence School, Pennsylvania, USA. He graduated and his career unfurled and flourished in Wellington through the early 1900s.
His education was superior to that of many colonial children, as he was taught by both parents: Theodore, his highly educated father, and his mother, Ada, who had been employed as a governess in England and Europe before her marriage. She was also an experienced writer and regularly contributed to English and New Zealand newspapers. She taught her children to learn literary tracts by heart – the Bible, Shakespeare, the classics – and they learnt astronomy. Chapman-Taylor became enthralled with the mysteries of the southern skies – so bright and clear in the darkness of the Taranaki bush – and later in life he would become a highly successful, professional astrologer. The family was isolated, with few neighbours, and they developed their imaginations and a creative understanding of the world around them – the spiritual world of the trees, the birds, all under the shadow of the Mount Taranaki that Chapman-Taylor would photograph as an adult and about which he would write his romantic descriptions:
“Taranaki gathers his Korowai cloak around his shoulders. The gathering clouds tinged to rose-pink with the colours of the sunset, are likened to a Maori cloak lined with the feathers of the Kaka.”

Chapman-Taylor attended the local Ngaire School that opened in 1882. Here the standards of scholastic achievement were variable, and, in country style, adventure was never far away. Stories of the boys’ escapades have survived, and some are retold in the Ngaire School Souvenir Booklet, A History of the School and District 1882-1957; Chapman-Taylor contributed his story, titled “An Old Boy Looks Backwards”. Here he explained the inability of the teacher to control the children, of whom he was one: “For justification my words must speak. My ‘concrete’ mind developed later on, but in childhood I lived in a dream-world of romance which was evidence of things to come, if only my parents had known it.”
Theodore had a passion for English heritage and volumes of books that he could share with his children. Ada’s interests included art, architecture, education and socialism, and books included John Ruskin’s and William Morris’s writings. Reading these with his parents, alongside the regular magazines and newspapers from London, shaped and influenced the young Chapman-Taylor. Many of the books became his enduring literary treasures.
Chapman-Taylor married Mary Gibson in 1900, two children were born soon after, and the family moved to Wellington in 1905. He designed and built their first home, at Island Bay, a house the locals called “The Church House” because of the high gabled extension to the roof, above the front entrance.
He advertised and promoted himself as “architect and craftsman”, and his business cards offered designs for “houses, furniture and gardens”. His first houses were signposts of the future, revealing his distinctive touch and his vernacular interpretation of the English cottage style that the Arts and Crafts Movement promoted, and Chapman-Taylor preferred.
They were constructed in timber, followed by experiments in lath and plaster with rough-cast, exterior finish; but also employing brick, stone, and concrete block. Reinforced concrete houses would follow after 1912. The characteristic high roof with Marseille tiles, small paned windows and a love of jarrah timber in the interiors of the houses defined his work. Many room designs were completed with both built-in and free standing furniture, an opportunity Chapman-Taylor welcomed. He worked the timber with a distinctive adzed finish – a technique he had perfected as a child on the farm. He designed his houses, interiors and furniture to suit the client’s way of life, and he often included careful planning of how the rooms would be used to full advantage – a position for the writing desk, for example, shelves for books, the studio space, the piano. His fireplaces were either an inglenook design, with built-in seating, or corner pieces with seats on each side.
The mantle pieces were artfully planned for ornaments, lamps, candles, flowers and niches for special artistic objects; and, imagining that members of the family could well seek quietness within the embrace of the family, in the sitting room (often referred to in Arts and Crafts language as the “Houseplace”), he offered half-walled corner designs that he called “the den”.
Small windows, sometimes rounded, were positioned for just enough light into the allotted space, often onto the ingle-nook – practical but with a theatrical flair.
Chapman-Taylor loved his houses as if they were for himself and kept in contact with his clients over many years, some until his death. It was hard for him to let them out of his life – visiting them regularly and taking photographs. Yet he knew his limits and wrote that “the craftsman builds the house but those who live in it make the home”.
His magazine articles, as early as 1907, are evidence of a confident young architect and designer, and an indication of his search for more than the material results in his achievements. Romance engaged with the spiritual path and the magical ingredients of love, commitment, truth and beauty. The words of William Morris - “have nothing in your houses which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful” – resonated, were consumed and took flight in Chapman-Taylor’s vocabulary:
“When we set out to build a cottage it is well that we should realise the responsibility of our undertaking. We all know that man is the result of a chain of circumstances which from his earliest moments gradually builds and moulds his character. Man is influenced by his environment for good and evil. But besides its mechanical perfection it has spiritual beauty. Most of us are born in cottages. In them we receive our earliest and most lasting impressions. In them we live out our lives. Our cottage exercises an influence on our characters such as most of us little dream. Beauty in our homes will put beauty in our hearts.”
Later in his life, from the mid-1920s, Chapman-Taylor turned his remarkable multi-talents to photography; and his understanding of astronomy to astrology and the production of horoscopes. These became professional activities in addition to his architectural and building commissions, and served him well during the lean years up to and during the Depression; he continued until his death.

Judy Siers - Mystery Speaker

Judy Siers author and publisher in her private life and in 2007 published the biography: The life and times of James Walter Chapman-Taylor, architect and builder, best known in Havelock North for his Arts and Crafts houses.
Judy was previously a Wellington City Councillor, 1992- 2004, working in all areas of Council business. Her particular focus was the community, natural and built environment; and in cultural heritage which fits well with the Napier Art Deco and Heritage City objectives.

Judy gave us an inspiring talking about history, from her house in Ngaio to the Wellington area and the "Onslow Historical Society" to "James Walter Chapman-Taylor"
Judy was over-whelmed with the fabulous response to the first edition. 1,500 copies sold in 10 months and the correspondence from readers who have enjoyed the work has been hugely appreciated. So much so that a second volume book is now underway. This is a form of epilogue that could have been included in the first edition except for the size and scale of The Life and Times of James Walter Chapman-Taylor - it was already a massive tome.
'The Life and Times of James Walter Chapman-Taylor' judy enabled us to enter into the life and times of a man, a family, a society, and ways of thinking and acting different to, yet not so distant from, our own. We enter the world of an architect, who is also an artist; builder, craftsman; a theosophist, an astrologer, a photographer, a furniture maker. We are presented with the life story of a complex and talented man, a man who influenced the lives of others, and was influenced by particular beliefs, both religious and artistic.
A fabulous night enjoyed by a group of 48 interested Historians, Genealogists, Librarians and members of the community.