Huntly Township was originally known as Rahui Pokeka and, like much of the Waikato, it was occupied by descendants of the Tainui Canoe. Settlements are said to have been present on either side of the Waikato River at Rahui Pokeka. It is possible that the area was mainly occupied seasonally during times of eel harvest and that the main occupation areas were in Taupiri. Rahui Pokeka means ‘reserved area’, or ‘a closed season’ and the area is thought to have been named as the result of dispute over resources by the two settlements. Missionary Benjamin Ashwell established a mission near Taupiri in 1843 and was shown coal seams by local Maori. Government surveys of the area were carried out prior to the New Zealand Wars and later published in the 1870s. Amongst the military settlers invited to settle in New Zealand were Anthony and Margaret Ralph who were initially based at Onehunga. Anthony Ralph was a former sergeant who had been stationed in India. Ralph served in the Waikato Militia and received a 300 acre land grant in Huntly, at the end of the New Zealand Wars, of land confiscated from Tainui. Their eldest surviving son Robert also served in the militia and received a land grant. The Ralphs established the Coal Mine Hotel and in the early 1870s, Robert discovered coal on some of the family land. Anthony Ralph died in 1873, but Margaret and her children continued in business owning and running Waikato hotels and coal mines in Huntly. Margaret remarried in 1876 to a farmer named Albert Schlinker. The Ralph family were prominent in the area and unusually for the period it was the women in the family who controlled the finances and decision-making. Three of the Ralph daughters became landowners creating both personal and business wealth and contributed greatly to the economic prosperity of the region. Daughter Louisa Ralph and her husband Lewis Harris were at times proprietors of the Royal Hotel in Hamilton East, the Delta Hotel in Ngaruawahia and the Huntly Hotel. Daughter Rosanna Ralph and her common-law husband William Lovell owned substantial land holdings in Taupiri and built a store and hotel there. Youngest daughter Sarah had entered a convent near Dunedin but returned to Huntly in 1903 and helped Robert and another brother, William, to run the coalmining business, called Taupiri Coal Mines Limited. Robert died in 1905 and the business and land holdings were managed by Sarah and William. By 1884 the future Convent site and other considerable areas of land in and around Huntly had been acquired by the Ralph family. In 1884 Margaret Schlinker had 86 acres of her landholdings surveyed and subdivided; this was almost all the area covered by today’s Huntly business area, and extending south of the convent. On 20 February 1890 title for 86 acres, being Sections 52 and 53 Parish of Taupiri, was given to Margaret Reilly Schlinker. On 1 September 1890 she transferred ownership of Lots 28 and 29 to the Roman Catholic Bishop Diocese of Auckland for the sum of five shillings. The Ralph family also provided land for the courthouse, a hospital, a Presbyterian church and the Miners Union. The Catholic Church was established in the Huntly area first by Antoine Pompallier, nephew of Bishop Jean Baptiste Pompallier, Roman Catholic Bishop of Auckland. Antoine Pompallier set up a mission in 1861-62 at Ngaruawahia, but vacated it in 1863 in advance of the government’s military forces. After the Waikato wars a church was built at Ngaruawahia, but it was 1903 before a priest was stationed there. Mass was celebrated at the public school in Huntly. In Huntly on 3 August 1903 Bishop Lenihan laid the foundation stone for St Anthony’s Church on Lots 28-29. The church was opened in December 1903, built further back from the road than the convent now is. The church’s name was that of Margaret’s first husband. The Huntly and Ngaruawahia parishes were then separated. In about 1908 Sarah Ralph built a large two-storey house to the south of the church, on Lot 31, and although she is believed to have lived in it, this has not been substantiated. In 1912 Sarah Ralph donated the house, the land on which it stood, and neighbouring lots to the Bishop of Auckland. She intended the house to be used as accommodation for the Catholic nuns who would teach at the school. In late 1912 a schoolroom was under construction to the south of the convent, also on land donated by Sarah Ralph. It was not until the beginning of 1914, however, that a party of Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions arrived from Christchurch, and four stayed to live in the convent and teach at the school. The Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions (Religieuses de Notre Dame des Missions - RNDM) was a religious congregation founded in 1861 by Adele-Euphrasie Barbier. In 1865 four French Mission Sisters arrived in New Zealand and established a school and convent at Napier. Several other such schools and convents were established over the next decades, including in Hamilton in 1884, successfully teaching Catholic primary school children in religious faith and practice in addition to the standard curriculum. Catholic schools provided an environment for “the socialisation of the young into the social reality of the nation, and the development of their religious formation as members of the Roman Catholic Church”. As such, it can be seen that the establishment and successful continuance of St Anthony’s School was of major importance to Huntly Catholic parishioners. The contribution of the teaching Sisters was fundamental within this culture. St Anthony’s Convent School first opened for the new term on 2 February 1914 with 62 pupils. Sarah Ralph had equipped the school with kauri desks and other furniture and equipment, and had also furnished and stocked the convent, which was also known as St Genevieve’s. At the official opening on 22 February by Bishop Cleary, it was stated that this was the first time the Auckland Diocese had received from one donor the unsolicited and unconditional gift of a school with its site and furniture. Bishop Cleary bestowed an Episcopal blessing upon Sarah Ralph. A presbytery, a wooden villa, was built in 1912 on Lot 27, the site of the current church building. Fund-raising was undertaken for the presbytery on at least two occasions, a dance, auction and a bazaar being well supported by the community. The school participated in the war effort during the First World War, including entering a pupil in the Queens Carnival. During the influenza epidemic in 1918 the school and rooms in the convent were used as a hospital with the nuns tending the sick. On 20 June 1931, when five Sisters and the Mother Superior were living there, the wooden convent burnt down. All the contents were salvaged, thanks to helpers including a team of footballers. The Sisters lived in the presbytery until a new convent was built. By September 1931 the first draft of plans for a new convent had been prepared by architect Henry E. White. The community rallied around with fund-raising, including a dance and card party in November. Henry E. White was a successful and prolific architect working in New Zealand and Australia, known primarily for his theatres. Two versions of the convent plans exist; one dated 27/10/31 is titled “Convent at Great South Road Huntly for Rev. Father Curley; Revised Plans” but this is not the as-built version; the plan which shows the as-built design has lost the corner which would have shown its title and date. The blueprint that shows details and a locality plan is dated 13.9.1931. The plans, therefore, must have been drawn three times. The 27 October version is essentially the same as the as-built plan but the northern wing is much shorter and did not include the music room. The archives office of the Sisters of the Mission has the construction schedule. The application for building consent was sent to council on 29 October 1931. The church building was moved to the south and the convent built on Lots 28 and 29 over the summer of 1931-32. The new convent building was built by Thomas Clements of Otahuhu. He built one other convent, the Star of the Sea Convent at Howick (Register no. 5430). The new St Anthony’s Convent was two-storeyed with accommodation for six nuns. Upstairs were the bedrooms and downstairs there were living rooms, service rooms, a music room, a parlour for visitors, and a chapel on the northern side. Provision was made for the secluded nature of the nuns’ lifestyle, with grilles in the inner front door and in the wall dividing the parlours. The music room had a separate external door for students to enter. Teaching piano and violin to parishioners and non-Catholics was a major activity for the Sisters. The Sisters moved into the new convent on 5 February 1932 and it was officially opened on 13 March 1932. In 1934 St Anthony’s Church was renovated and clad in brick. The school was enlarged in 1923 and in 1941 the school building was shifted south and turned at right angles to make better use of its narrow site. As the school role continued to grow other buildings were added, in c.1943 and 1959. The rear (west) end of this and neighbouring sections was swampy, the swamp being bordered on the west by the Waikato River. Floods were common, inundating the school buildings and convent garden. In February 1958 the former convent building was inundated. A septic tank was positioned to the west of the building. The property appears to have been connected to the town sewerage reticulation in approximately 1959. In 1962 the convent was painted, a light green for the walls and dark green for the doors, and red for the roof. Sometime in the 1960s new kitchen units were installed and a new stove installed in place of the range. In 1967 a new church was built to the north of the convent, officially opened in February 1968. A car was purchased for the nuns’ use in 1964 and in September 1973 a garage was built. In 1975 the Private Schools Conditional Integration (PSCI) Act was passed; this enabled Catholic and other schools to receive full state aid. However, it also meant a requirement for state-trained teachers and the state curriculum, and most of the Sisters were not sufficiently qualified. Lay teachers were brought in (from 1961 as the number of nuns had dwindled nationwide) and the role of the Sisters diminished except for religious instruction and support. In November 1978 the Sisters were informed that the convent now belonged to the parish, as opposed to the diocese, although this is not reflected in the ownership of the land. The “Huntly House Book” records that the Convent of St Genevieve closed on 15 January 1979. Only two nuns still lived in the convent when it finally closed. Two Sisters remained, living in a private house and doing Catechitical work in the community. The parish continued to use the convent building, for example as a library for the school. St Anthony’s School was designated as having insufficient land for the number of students. In addition, a new by-pass (Tumate Mahuta Drive) on the west side and the noise levels from the ever-busier highway on the east made for uncomfortable study and teaching conditions and access for pedestrians became more dangerous. In 1986 St Anthony’s School shifted across Huntly to Bailey Street, with 140 pupils. The original school buildings were removed and a new presbytery was built in Russell Road. The property was resurveyed in December 1990 to separate the convent site off from the church and parish land to the north. A new title was issued on 30 April 1991 to the Roman Catholic Bishop Diocese of Hamilton. On 13 March 1992 title was transferred to Thomas Turton, television serviceman, and Patricia Ann Chubb, bank officer, both of Hamilton. Tom and Lesley Turton made some interior alterations and ran a television and video repair shop from the building. The business, ‘TV Town’ also sold secondhand televisions and videos. The alterations included the removal of interior walls in the main part of the building on the ground floor to make two larger spaces, one at the northern end and one at the southern end. The floor of the sanctuary was re-laid in 1992-93. On 1 August 1994 Chubb’s ½ share was transferred to Philip G. Ludwig and Louise M. Ludwig of Huntly (½ share jointly). The Ludwigs installed the protective grilles across the windows, using some of the southern rooms as an art gallery; this business closed before the television repair shop which occupied the northern rooms. On 4 April 1995 the Roman Catholic Bishop Diocese of Hamilton again acquired the title, intending to use the former convent as a parish centre. This did not eventuate although the walls of two cubicles upstairs were removed and St Anthony’s Church youth group used the enlarged room for meetings and social activities. By August 2006 General Distributors Ltd owned the property along with the larger parcels of land to the south on which a supermarket was built. On 6 November 2006 the current owners, G.P. and N. Harkness bought the property; the former convent has remained empty and unused since then. Comparative analysis The NZHPT Register includes nineteen former or current convents. One of these is Wahi Tapu, three of these are buildings included in Historic Areas. Only ten are individually registered, purpose-built convent buildings. Of these ten purpose-built convents, one has been relocated, five are located in the South Island; one is in Auckland, two in Wellington and one in Jerusalem. St Mary’s Convent in Hamilton remains, however it is not registered with NZHPT. St Anthony’s Convent (Former) will be the only registered purpose-built convent in the Waikato.

St Anthony’s Convent (Former) is located on Great South Road at a bend joining part of State Highway One, by-passing the town centre to the east. A large Countdown supermarket sits to the south. Adjacent to the north of the former convent is St Anthony’s Church and north of that is the Church Centre for St Anthony’s Parish. Visually, the former convent retains some Catholic links with its proximity to the two parish buildings. Positioned very close to the road, the convent building is a striking and distinctive landscape feature, particularly for north-bound travellers. The former convent is built in Spanish Mission Revival style “typical of other Catholic buildings of the era, which drew their inspiration from Spanish missions of California and Texas. The convent/chapel complex in Hamilton East and St Mary’s in Auckland share the same pedigree.” The convent is comprised of a two-storey rectangular building with two single-storey wings forming a U-shaped footprint. The main building is aligned approximately north-south, stands slightly north of due east and faces the road. The main building and the wings have gabled ends with their ridges running north-south and east-west respectively. The two wings partly enclose an exterior courtyard. The north elevation of the main building has a vaulted single-storey extension (originally the chapel sanctuary) with a half-octagonal floor plan and a hipped roof. The main building is 15.24 metres (plus the 2.4 metre sanctuary) long by 4.5 metres wide. The southern wing is 1.2 metres longer than the original northern wing (7.10m and 5.88m respectively); the wings are 4.75 metres wide (north-south). The end of the northern wing includes a 1973 addition, a garage with metal roller door facing north onto the access drive, with a door in its southern elevation opening into the courtyard. A small porch is positioned in the angle between the west elevation of the chapel and the northern wing. From this porch is a door leading into the former sanctuary and another into the former music room. The building is constructed of pale yellow Huntly brick plastered with a smooth finish and painted. The piles are also of Huntly brick. The roofs are corrugated iron, much of which needs replacing. Window sashes and doors are wooden, likely rimu as are the four-panelled interior doors. The rimu floor boards are 14 cm wide. The garage is in concrete block, also smooth-plastered, on its north and south elevations only. The gabled roof of the garage has a lower pitch. A feature of all the roofing is the herringbone effect of the plaster work and lead flashing around the chimneys and at the joins of gables to vertical walls. The downpipe fittings have diamond-shaped brackets. Two plastered brick chimneys protrude from the ridges of the wings. A double chimney served the kitchen fire place (presumably a coal range) and a copper in the laundry, and a single chimney served the open fire in the community room – the latter would have been on the end gable wall; the base of this is now visible inside the garage. The floor of the north side porch is pale Huntly brick. There are vents around the footing of each wall, to provide under-floor aeration. The Romanesque styled front entrance door is central in the east elevation with the windows on both floors positioned symmetrically. The door is 1 metre wide, solid wood with six panel inserts, and sits slightly recessed in a red brick arched surround proud of the walls; brick steps lead up to the door. The doors facing into the courtyard are of timber tongue-and-groove; concrete steps lead up to the doors. As built, the ground floor comprised (from north to south across the front) the chapel complex (see below), a cubicle, a vestibule opening from the front door, a grille parlour and parlour. A corridor ran across the west side of some of these rooms, giving access to the wings and to the stairs. A small toilet room accessed from the rear corridor is beneath the stairs, and opposite is a small alcove with fitted cupboards. Opposite the front door in the vestibule is a wooden six-panel door with a grille, and a five-light ripple-glass bottom-hinged window above. Beside this door is a rotatable shelf unit set into the wall; items could be placed on this and the unit turned to receive the items from the other side of the closed door. This door opens into an alcove that connects to the rear corridor. In the ceiling of the alcove a piece of chimney pipe protrudes through, indicating a wood-burner had been positioned there. The pipe has been crudely installed with no finishing plaster work and is presumed to post-date the building’s use as a convent. In the southern wing as built were the refectory, corridor, kitchen, laundry and pantry; the kitchen and laundry had exterior doors leading into the central courtyard. In the northern wing were a music room (3 metres square), which had an exterior door opening in the north elevation, a short corridor and a community room (4.2 metres square). On the upper floor were six small rooms (cubicles), a bathroom, toilet and a small washing space, now a shower cubicle; a corridor ran along the west side. As built, five of the cubicles were 2m x 3.4m; the northernmost incorporated the width of the corridor and was larger at 2.1m x 4.5m. The walls between the northern three cubicles have been removed to create a larger room. The outline of the cubicle walls is traceable on the floor indicating that the floor was laid before the partitions were erected. A wooden cupboard was situated in the northwest corner of each cubicle; three of these remain. Centrally placed windows in each cubicle are 690mm wide by 1.16m high. The ceilings consist of four plastered panels. There is a vent above each of the doors into the remaining three cubicles. The brass fittings for the light are still evident. A cupboard, identified on the plans as for linen, is now part of the enlarged north room. It has a sloping ceiling and is fitted with lockers of more recent date with the same hinge plates as the kitchen and pantry cupboards. The chapel complex consisted of a vestry opening through an external door onto the porch to the west and through an internal door to the sanctuary to the east; from the sanctuary was the chapel itself, separated only by structural features including a substantial reinforced concrete beam and a short altar rail. The chapel measured 4m by 3m wide. The south wall of the chapel had a wide grille in the wall which opened into a cubicle (2.1m x 3.3m) accessed from the front vestibule or from the corridor. A confessional booth, divided by a partition which had a grille in it, could be accessed from the chapel for one part and from the vestry for the other. The sanctuary has a higher stud height than the other rooms. The confessional booth remains, but the intermediate walls between vestry and sanctuary, chapel and cubicle have been removed to create a much larger space. The wall between the cubicle and the chapel has been replaced with a partial wall with arch. The floor of the sanctuary has been re-laid. Other walls removed include that between the refectory and the parlour, and between the parlour and the grille parlour; both replaced by partial walls with arches. The door from the refectory to the corridor has been removed and the gap filled in. The wooden mantle and fire-surround has been removed from the community room. The main windows are six- light double-hung sashes; the upper floor windows have smaller dimensions. In the east (front) ground floor elevation there are two windows each side of the front door; on the upper floor the windows are smaller with one above the front door and three windows either side, evenly spaced across the frontage. The central window is fitted with wooden slatted shutters. On the south elevation of the main building there is one window on the ground floor and one on the upper floor; the upper floor window, which illuminates the toilet, has arctic patterned glass. The rear elevation of the main building has casement windows; these are eight or six-light, with a double-height centrally-placed window. The downstairs toilet window is a six-light side-hinged casement with a two-light top-hinged window above. A door in the rear elevation of the main building gives access to the north-south corridor at the foot of the stairs. The windows of the southern wing are: on the south elevation, a single six-light double-hung sash window, illuminating the refectory, and a pair of narrower four-light double-hung sash windows, illuminating the kitchen. The rear elevation of the south wing has two pairs of small eight-light side-hinged casement; one of the pair lighting the pantry has been replaced with a tongue and groove panelled door. The north elevation of the southern wing has a small window illuminating the kitchen and doors giving access to the kitchen and laundry with concrete steps. The windows of the northern wing are: on the north elevation, two six-light double-hung sash windows. The south side of the northern wing has the larger-sized six-light double-hung sash window facing the courtyard from the former community room, and a small window from the corridor. The three windows of the chapel are leadlight with yellow-green and dark green ripple glass. These have been severely vandalised and the windows boarded up. Similarly, above the front door is a semi-circular leadlight window which has been damaged and boarded over. Other ground floor windows have been covered with exterior decorative iron grilles, well-designed to align with the beading between the glass panels. The eaves are tongue-and-groove timber boards. The ceilings are plain plaster panels, as are the interior walls. Cornicing is in two styles. Deeper cornices run across the east side of the downstairs rooms; generally, interior walls have a shallow plainer cornice with a convex profile. Thinner cornice is fitted upstairs. The architraves (10 cm wide) and skirting boards (14.5 cm deep) throughout are plain with two bevelled faces. There is a timber slatted foot plate in one of the doorways. Some upstairs skirtings have been removed. There are picture rails in some rooms and corduroy-pattern pelmets are fitted over some windows. The double-hung windows have brass ring-pulls. The casement windows have the same fittings throughout. The light switches are a mix of 1930s Bakelite and 1970s designs. The wooden stairs have a beaded front edge on each step. The banisters consist of a top rail with turned wood posts set into a square-section footing. The newel posts are square-sectioned. A cupboard exists under the stairs. At the foot of the stairs a wide gap leading through to the northern wing has been sealed up, the job is unfinished. Under the stairs is a small toilet room with WC and hand basin. Another toilet room, also with a WC and hand basin, is upstairs at the south end. Both lavatories have a lead tray lining the floor; the bathroom also had a lead tray under the bath but it and the bath have been removed. The upstairs bathroom has a 1950s/1960s shower cubicle and fittings. The upstairs toilet is a New Electra fitted with a plastic cistern. A wall-mounted iron cistern is in-situ above, bearing mark: “BRITISH MAKE No. 700”. The kitchen has a circa 1960s stainless steel bench and an electric stove in the former coal range space. The plain wooden mantel and fire surround is retained. The alcove beside the chimney piece is fitted with a wooden cupboard, Linoleum covers the floor. There are two sets of cupboards with wooden doors. The pantry is fitted with wooden shelves and cupboards, the bench cupboards are in the same style. The laundry was not inspected. There is some damage to the ceilings due to leaks from the roof but otherwise the building seems to be in sound condition.