The builder who left a mark on Frankton THE DEAD TELL TALES
Arthur Thomas Maunder 1887- 1942
Arthur Maunder and his father Thomas Wills (’TW’) Maunder were two of Hamilton’s earliest property developers. TW and his father, also named Thomas, had several Waikato businesses in the 1880s-90s: a flaxmill, a butter box factory, and a sawmill. TW established a general hardware business in Hamilton and was the agent for the Mountain Rimu Timber Company. TW and his brother Alfred were builders and TW was an undertaker.
Arthur was born in 1887 to TW and his wife Fanny Stow Maunder. The family owned nearly three acres on Seddon Rd, including the villa at No.85. They not only lived there, the Maunders almost certainly built it, plus adjacent houses. They also owned several residential lots on the north side of Marama St and built a row of villas that became known as “the Seven Sisters”.
The villas and the Seddon Rd house appear in photographs in the Maunder collection at Hamilton Libraries. A few years ago, Hamilton Libraries received a donation of 228 glass plate negatives with images of the Waikato. The donor, Geoff Stevens, had found them under a house in Mt Albert, Auckland, which had once belonged to John and Fanny Mason. Research found that in 1914 Fanny Edith Maunder, Arthur’s sister, married John Mason at ‘Punawai’, Hamilton. ‘Punawai’ was a large villa in Tainui St, owned by TW Maunder from the early 1900s and features in several photos.
In January 1894, when he was six years old, Arthur suffered a serious accident – and an unusual one. His uncle Alfred was unloading sacks of chaff from a dray outside the Maunders’ shop, throwing them onto the footpath. Arthur ran underneath and a heavy bag fell onto his head and threw him violently to the ground. Fears that his neck was broken were unfounded but his thigh was broken and he was taken to hospital.
A few years later it was a serious illness that laid him low: an undated photo in the Maunder collection shows Arthur as an invalid lying in a bed on the front verandah of a bay villa. The verandah is partly protected from the elements with awnings, and putting together this clue with the fresh air treatment of TB patients, plus other photos showing Maunder family members at Te Waikato Sanatorium, it is possible that Arthur had TB (tuberculosis).
The Maunders built several Hamilton buildings, including the Alexandra Buildings and a smaller shop on the east side of Victoria St, but one ambitious project that Arthur never completed was the Hotel Cecil. This was intended to be a six-storey private hotel with (gasp!) hot and cold water in every bedroom. Begun in 1923, it seems the Hotel Cecil (or Cecil Hotel) was never completed. All that was left for many years were some low concrete walls amongst a lot of weeds.
Arthur and Rita Arnold were the first couple to be married in the Methodist church in Frankton.
They lived in a substantial house at the corner of Seddon Rd and Tainui St – the house, garage and part of the original front wall remains. Designed by prominent architects Daniell and Cray, it had an imposing presence on “Tower Hill”.
When Arthur and Rita celebrated their silver wedding in 1939 they were living at Waihi Beach. Arthur died in 1942, and was buried at Waikumete Cemetery in Auckland. The Mayor of Waihi, Mr WM Wallnut, spoke of Maunder at a monthly meeting of the Waihi Borough Council. He noted that Maunder had been a member of council from 1933 to 1935, and that he was “a man of unassuming and unobtrusive nature [who] had done much useful work for the town, and had freely given the benefit of his practical experience as a builder and contractor” as well as being a Justice of the Peace.
Arthur Maunder’s legacy in Hamilton exists in several buildings he constructed in the early decades of the 20th century.