Extraordinaryaucklander remembered
Two hundred descendants of one of Auckland’s most influential founding fathers celebrated the life and dedication of Arthur Guyon Purchas in Parnell over Easter.
A doctor and surgeon, Arthur and his young wife Olivia arrived in Auckland on October 15, 1846. They helped establish a settlement at the St John’s Theological College in Meadowbank, which still exists today as the sole educator of Anglican clergy in New Zealand.
As well as his specialist medical skills from England, Arthur went on to train at St John’s as a Priest becoming the first vicar at St Peter’s Anglican church in Onehunga, where he remained from 1847-1875, while often caring for the sick in the newly developing Auckland.
In 1875 he fully resumed his medical career and became known for his innovative surgical techniques operating on several women suffering abdominal cancers, all of whom survived except one patient whose cancer was too far advanced.
Most other surgeons refused to undertake these operations because they were considered too risky for the time. He also invented his own surgical clamps and was an early adopter of the key importance of hygiene, the treatment of surgical wounds via suturing and cleaning and improved methods of sealing and bandaging in post-operative care.
In addition to medicine and the Anglican Church, Arthur Purchas played a key role in
developing many other areas of achievement in the region including designing the first Mangere bridge, several Selwyn designed churches around Auckland, helping found and foster the Auckland Choral Society, and being declared ‘one of the best chemists in the colony’ by the New Zealand Advancement Society.
As a musician he created a Braille machine to read music for the blind, taught young Maori students to sing Handel’s
Messiah with a different notation system, and was musical director of the New Zealand Anglican Diocese, leading him to produce two national hymnals in English and Maori, which he spoke fluently.
He was a founding member of the Auckland Museum and the Auckland Society of Arts, made horticultural and botanical discoveries, and the first European discovery of coal deposits in the Waikato.
A member of the reunion organising committee, Tina Frantzen, says the event brought together descendants from Italy,
Australia and throughout New Zealand who travelled to Auckland, as well as many online families.
“This is a momentous time for the family. After years of planning interrupted by Covid, we will definitely be honouring AGP and recognising his many invaluable contributions to New Zealand society. This will be the first time that Auckland has been made aware of the significance of his influence in so many spheres in its early history. I would like to say he would have been proud of that, but he was a very humble man,” she says.