The Man behind the Museum
Auckland Museum’s new path would greatly have stirred the man who started it all.
For a while, you could say Thomas Cheeseman was the Auckland Museum —sparking the launch of a worldwide competition in 1919 to design a new, landmark home for the Auckland icon.
It was a beginning that feels entirely relevant in today’s world as the museum—now about to enjoy its 90th anniversary at the Domain site — proceeds with an $85 million transformation project which will, among other things, provide interactive forums for people to discuss and debate big issues like climate change and the future place of cars in the city.
Back in Cheeseman’s day, the plan was similar — to make the museum a central part of Auckland’s development on a site which resonated with the city.
Cheeseman, a botanist with a strong grounding in Māori art and history, was named curator of the museum in 1874. But the original site was anything but grand — a tworoomed cottage in Grafton, with one room for collections, the other for the curator.
The museum’s appeal saw it rehoused three times in city buildings, each time outgrowing its premises as it thrived. Cheeseman was worried about the crowded conditions when, in spite of two additions, the Princes Street building still proved inadequate for a city the size of Auckland.
In 1913, Cheeseman supported a bid to build a new museum in the Auckland Domain —and he was also behind the thrust to build the museum as a war memorial.
Aucklanders were keen for a memorial to honour the 18,166 New Zealanders who died in World War I; the Returned Servicemen’s Association was on board and the Domain was already significant to Māori as a memorial to those who died in the 1820s musket wars.
The Auckland Institute and Museum committee found the ideal building site of “2 acres, 3 roods and 19 perches” in the Domain, leased from the city for £1 a year. Then it was a matter of finding the funds — around £240,000— for a memorable building overlooking the city and Waitemata Harbour.
To help fund the building, Cheeseman sent a pamphlet out to Aucklanders requesting donations for the last £50,000 sterling required. It said: “The time has come when the City and Province of Auckland feel that the duty which they owe to their fallen must be discharged. The question at issue is — will Auckland rise to the occasion? Will those generous citizens who have civic pride and patriotism at heart, lend their aid to make this memorial worthy of the ‘Queen City of the North’.”
So that was the funding and the site —what about the design?
In 1919, 74 architects from around the world entered the competition to design a new museum for Auckland to stand on the edge of the crater of Pukekawa— Māori for the “hill of bitter memories” — in the Domain.
The entries came from England, Canada, Australia, India and the United States. Among four designs from New Zealand was an elaborately detailed Greek revival building by three young Auckland architects — Grierson, Aimer and Draffin — who would ultimately collect the £1000 first prize.
Auckland Museum Head of Documentary Heritage, Catherine Hammond, says Grierson, Aimer and Draffin won because “as an influential and young architectural practice of returned servicemen their scheme exemplified the spirit and ambition of the project.
“Their grand design said Tāmaki Makaurau and its people matter.”
The judges were not only impressed by the trio’s proposal but felt it appropriate all three men had fought in World War I. Hugh Grierson fought with the New Zealand Rifle Brigade in France; his brother Walter was killed in action in Gallipoli in May 1915. Kenneth Aimer, with the 2nd Auckland Battalion, was wounded at Passchendaele and sent home in 1917. He lost a brother, George, a pilot with the Royal Flying Corps, in an air accident in England.
Keith Draffin started his long war service with the NZ Field Engineers in Gallipoli and was one of the last men to leave Anzac Cove when it was evacuated. He then fought in France, earning the Military Cross for gallantry.
Sadly, Cheeseman did not live to see the majestic museum built on the hill. After half a century as curator, he died in 1923 — six years before the heavy museum doors finally swung open.
He would have been intensely interested to have seen the developments in the 1960s, the early 2000s and now the transformation for future generations – which the museum’s chief executive, Dr David Gaimster, prefaced by saying: “We are the living room of Auckland and have been at its heart since its beginnings; no other institution can do this.”
New exhibition halls and interactive forums will create a higher frequency of changing exhibits each year, bringing more people through and making the museum even more an Auckland centerpiece.
You get the distinct feeling Thomas Cheeseman would have approved.