Early Napier
The Ahuriri area’s rivers, wetlands, lagoons and fertile land produced important resources, making it an attractive place to live. Settlement is thought to have begun in the twelfth or thirteenth century and Ngāti Kahungunu became the dominant iwi from the sixteenth century. There were several pā at what became Port Ahuriri and Napier. As a result of inter tribal warfare, around the 1830s many local Ngāti Kahungunu sought refuge in Māhia. When missionaries and other Europeans began arriving in earnest after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, the exiles had returned and Te Koau, near Te Pakake, became the principal local pā.
With the Ahuriri Purchase of 1851, the Crown acquired the lands between the Tutaekuri River and north to the Mōhaka area, inclusive of Mataruahou (Napier Hill) and most of its surrounds. A few years later, in 1855, Napier was established by the government, with the town primarily located on the hill and around its base, as well as the narrow spits extending south and west. The site was not promising because road access was difficult and future expansion would be challenging. However, Napier had a port, which was an important factor in Napier becoming Hawke’s Bay’s early administrative, commercial, and social centre.
The 1885 town plan for Napier was produced by Alfred Domett (1811 1887), Commissioner of Crown Lands in Hawke’s Bay, and included an area of land named Clive Square, envisaged as a recreation space or ‘village green’. Archaeological work has found evidence of pre-European Māori occupation of Clive Square. From early on in Napier’s colonial history, Clive Square was used for sporting and cultural activities and entertainment.
In 1884, private funders supported the Napier Borough Council to undertake ‘beautification’ of the southern end of the Square, including gardens and a band rotunda. The northern end was left undeveloped to serve as the playground for Napier Main School located across the road. Despite being used for many years as a road, it wasn’t until 1962 that a strip of land dividing Clive Square gained the status of a legal road (Emerson Street).
Memorialising the First World War
Troops had assembled at Clive Square before departing for the First World War, and on 25 April 1916 a large crowd gathered there for the procession that marked Napier’s first Anzac Day commemorations. As such, it was fitting that after the war Clive Square became a centre for Napier’s remembrance of its fallen soldiers.
Following the end of the First World War there was widespread debate about what form war memorials should take. Initially, many communities showed enthusiasm for ‘useful’ memorials such as halls, hospitals and bridges. However, advocates of more traditional European style monuments argued that utilitarian memorials obscured the heroic deeds they were meant to remember, and their memorial purpose would soon be forgotten. Instead they favoured traditional monuments as artistic expressions of the principles service personnel had fought for, and would serve as a ‘surrogate tomb’ for families whose sons lay buried overseas. Ultimately the anti utilitarian argument triumphed and as a result only a limited number of ‘useful’ First World War memorials were constructed. The decision to erect both a women’s rest and a cenotaph as a war memorial in Clive Square was perhaps a compromise between these two schools of thought. The limited number of ‘useful memorials’ built after the war makes the Napier Women’s Rest highly unusual, and it is made even more unusual because it is a war memorial specifically providing for the needs of women.
There was much discussion about the form war memorials should take throughout the Hawke’s Bay. A province wide Hawke’s Bay Memorial Fund eventually funded the Hastings Cenotaph (1923, List No. 1083), and the Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers Memorial Hospital (1927) in Hastings. In Napier, the Plunket Society made an early suggestion of a ‘baby hospital’ as a memorial, and a large public appeal was made in 1919 to raise money towards a new boys’ war memorial college, but this idea appears to have been dropped the following year. By late 1921 the Napier War Memorial Committee had received ‘no less than 20 suggestions…as to what design the Napier memorial should be.’
In February 1924, more than five years after the end of the war, the Poverty Bay Herald noted that ‘considerable controversy has taken place at Napier, extending over a lengthy period, respecting the erection of a suitable war memorial. It has now been decided that the memorial should take the form of a mothers’ rest and cenotaph in the northern portion of Clive Square.’ The Cenotaph was finally unveiled on 9 November 1924, and another war memorial, a large stone cross, was unveiled a few months earlier in 1924 in front of Napier Cathedral.
Women’s Rests
The popularity of the Hastings Municipal Women’s Rest, which had opened three years prior to the decision to erect a mothers’ rest in Napier, may have influenced Napier’s choice of war memorial. The Hastings Rest is likely to be the first example of a women's rest built exclusively and separately for this purpose in New Zealand, and almost 10,000 visitors made use of that facility in its first year.
Access to public toilets was a very practical element of the broader fight for women’s rights in New Zealand. New Zealand’s major urban centres have long had more female than male inhabitants, yet it took decades for the provision of public toilets for women to catch up with those for men. By the 1920s, women’s organisations were actively campaigning for ‘rest rooms’ for women. As Caroline Daley has noted, ‘public conveniences were necessary for women to be more active participants in the life of their city’ but local government resisted the idea, arguing that women would not want to be seen entering a public space so obviously linked to basic bodily functions. This sense of propriety is why women’s ‘rest rooms’ were initially more than just the basic toilet and wash basin facilities afforded to men, but comfortably appointed spaces where women could ‘refresh’, wait, get changed after work and attend to the needs of young children as well as relieve themselves. They became highly valued not only by urban residents but also by country women visiting town. In the case of both Hastings and Napier, these buildings were made to look as comfortable and homelike as possible.
Napier Women’s Rest
The plans for the ‘mothers’ rest’ were completed by James Augustus Louis Hay in May 1925. Hay was one of Hawke’s Bay’s most prominent early twentieth century architects and his early work was mainly domestic for wealthy private clients; the Women’s Rest, along with the Napier Soldiers’ Club (1916) and Napier Central Fire Station (1921) were the only public commissions in his pre earthquake portfolio. After the 1931 earthquake, Hay was a significant contributor to the rebuilding of Napier, designing prominent civic and commercial buildings such as the National Tobacco Company, AMP, Bowman and Hildebrandts buildings, Parkers Chambers, and the Hawke’s Bay Art Gallery and Museum, among others. He was also a member of the Napier Reconstruction Committee, ‘which meant that he was vitally involved in the decisions regarding the rebuilding of the destroyed town.’
Hay was heavily influenced by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie Style of the American Midwest, which was defined by an ‘emphasis on the horizontal rather than the vertical’. Buildings often include flat or shallow hipped roof lines, brick or stucco exteriors, connected indoor and outdoor spaces and restrained use of ornamentation. These features are all evident in the original design of the Napier Women’s Rest, constructed in brick with a low hipped roof and deep eaves which enhance the building’s horizontal emphasis.
An important part of the original function of the building was that it was to serve as a Plunket Rooms. The Royal New Zealand Plunket Society was by this time a national health institution. Plunket Rooms were built in each town, funded by a local committee of women, where mothers could bring their babies to be checked by Plunket nurses. Often the functions of women’s rest rooms and Plunket rooms were combined in one building. The finance raised for the building of Napier’s Women’s Rest came partly from donations, so it is likely that some of these donations came from Plunket Society fundraising.
The original plans for the Women’s Rest show a deep verandah wrapping around the front three sides, including a ‘piazza’ space at the front of the building, with the low wall forming a v shape (similar to features in some of Frank Lloyd Wright’s house plans), and built in seats and flower boxes. The walls were constructed from double brick, lined with plaster. Internally there was a large central ‘rest room’, which featured a large curved brick fireplace, akin to fireplaces in houses designed by Lloyd Wright. Along the front of this space were large sliding wooden double doors opening into the piazza space. To the left of the rest room was a kitchen and an ‘elderly women’s room’. A hall and Plunket waiting rooms were to the right. The Plunket nurse’s office (accessed by a ramp), six toilets and a boiler room ran along the back of the building. A set of lockers were in the passageway.
During an official visit to Napier, the Governor General, Sir Charles Fergusson, affixed a memorial plaque to the in progress Women’s Rest on 24 October 1925, on an exterior wall beside the main door. After the ceremony the Governor General met Hay and ‘complimented him upon the fine building’ and the Napier Girl Guides paraded on the grounds. The marble plaque clearly denoted the building as a women’s rest, but also as a war memorial.
The completed building was opened by Mayor J. B. Andrew as part of Napier’s 1926 Anzac Day commemorations. A photograph of the opening ceremony shows a huge crowd gathered in the Square and on the building’s verandah. During his speech, the Mayor announced that the northern end of Clive Square on which the Women’s Rest and Cenotaph stood would be renamed Memorial Square. He stressed ‘the benefit that would accrue by embracing the Plunket rooms within the building’. He also thanked the Mayor and citizens of Hastings, who had given advice based on their experience of their own Women’s Rest. Images of Memorial Square at this time show new concrete paths wrapping around the Rest and the Cenotaph, closely clipped lawns and newly planted palm trees; a more formal space than the Clive Square gardens to the south.
Just after the opening, a newspaper reported ‘Napier has every reason to feel proud of its memorial to its glorious dead…With its Cenotaph, Mother’s Rest and beautifully laid out grounds…the square is now one that the residents can take pride in.’ Indeed, entries in the 1926 1946 Visitors’ Book include comments that it was ‘Very comfortable & convenient’, ‘A great asset to the town’ and ‘Splendid in every appointment’ and one visitor from England commented it was ‘The nicest war memorial I have seen’.
The building would not simply have been used by women accessing the toilets, but as a place for women working in offices to spend their lunch hour and for rural women visiting the city for the day to rest and obtain light refreshments, warm their babies' bottles, leave their parcels and write letters. The Council appointed a ‘matron’, who cared for the building and its visitors. In June 1929 it was reported that 1,400 visitors had patronised the Rest in just one month. During the 1920s and 1930s residents of other small towns expressed a wish to copy the example of the women’s rests in Napier and Hastings.
Earthquake and Recovery
On 3 February 1931 a magnitude 7.8 earthquake killed at least 256 and injured thousands more in Hawke’s Bay. Buildings in Napier and Hastings crumbled and fire quickly tore through Napier’s central business district. The damage was catastrophic. A small plaque affixed to the Rest above the original plaque now states it was ‘Destroyed by earthquake 1931 / Rebuilt 1934.’ While the word ‘destroyed’ implies the building was irreparably damaged, this seems to be an exaggeration. A photograph of the Rest following the earthquake shows a corner of the exterior wall reduced to a pile of bricks, and other photographs show the chimneys no longer in place but the roof still intact. Indeed, the entire roofline of the Rest is visible in photographs taken soon after showing what became known as ‘Tin Town’.
The Rest has a strong connection to post earthquake life from 1931 until 1933. In the weeks following the earthquake, the rebuilding of central city business premises was forbidden, to allow thoughtful planning of the town centre’s reconstruction. Instead, government funding was provided for the construction of temporary shops and offices in Clive and Memorial Squares. In Memorial Square, the roofs of the corrugated iron structures (hence ‘Tin Town’) were directly connected to the roof of the Rest, effectively ‘wrapping’ the Rest building, except for its front and rear façades. It was then used as base for post earthquake recovery: a newspaper report from November 1931 mentions the ‘Women’s Rest has been partially restored and made habitable, and is housing three of the beneficent public services that are operating for the benefit of citizens.’
By May 1933, ‘Tin Town’ had been completely dismantled. Four schemes were considered for the restoration of the Rest. Hay (the original architect) was consulted during this process. Three of the schemes involved retaining only the back wall of the building and demolishing the remainder for complete reconstruction with timber framed walls and a plaster finish. Hay himself noted that this way the Council ‘may feel sure that the building will not only be safe, but will help those using it to forget the earthquake. With bright tinted walls and suitable relief it should become a distinct acquisition to this part of the town’.
It appears the Council proposed making the Rest into a ‘general utility place’, but the Napier Returned and Services Association (RSA) vigorously protested any change of use. The Association opposed the building being ‘turned into a women’s club’ and recalled ‘we had trouble some years ago when some people started playing bridge there, but we soon squashed that’. They also noted that the terms of the loan raised to build the Rest specified it was to be both ‘a Women’s Rest and a soldiers’ memorial’.
In August 1934 the Borough Engineer examined the building and found the walls ‘pretty extensively damaged,’ but the lower portions of the brickwork reasonably sound. Unlike previous schemes, the engineer’s new scheme for repairs aimed to ‘make the building light and flexible while not losing the general original form’. It retained the existing exterior brickwork up the height of the lower windowsills, then constructed the remainder of the exterior walls with timber framing and plaster, and the internal walls with either hollow reinforced concrete block or timber framing. The engineer also specified products meant to be safer in earthquakes in the future. The heating was electric but the chimney in the main room was rebuilt with a fireplace on a smaller scale. The roof was supported by false work while the walls were pulled down and rebuilt. The Department of Labour provided a subsidy to employ registered unemployed men to complete the work; it must have progressed quickly because just before the end of 1934 the Rest was reopened.
Second World War and After
At the beginning of the Second World War the Rest was leased to the St John’s Ambulance Association, on the condition that it provide an attendant to maintain the Women’s Rest Room, as well as the Hawke’s Bay Merchant Navy Club and the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA). In 1942, soldiers were using the Rest for recreation on weekends and a sunporch was enclosed to create another room. In 1947, the Plunket Society was given a large donation by the United Friendly Societies to build a crèche within the building, although it is not clear whether this eventuated. In the 1950s a booklet created to attract visitors to Napier called Sunny Napier contained photographs of the Rest as a feature of the town.
St John’s and the Merchant Navy Club remained in the building after the war and during the 1950s some alterations were made to the building. Parts of the veranda were enclosed and an extension was added to the back. By 1958 the Merchant Navy Club had sole lease of the Rest; as part of the lease, the club were required to ‘keep the public conveniences open and a responsible person in attendance’ during weekdays, to ‘provide teas for women and girls at reasonable charges and the heating of babies bottles’ and to clean and maintain the building.
In 1969 further additions were made to the south west corner of the Rest to create separate men’s and women’s public toilet facilities, with external doors to enable access without entering the main building. By the 1970s parts of the Rest were being used by a variety of social services including the Presbyterian Social Service Association, which operated a ‘Day Centre for elderly and disabled people.’ By 1981 the Rest included a Citizens Advice Bureau, which undertook its own extensions and alterations, including the removal of built in brick planter boxes to enable an extension to the north east corner.
In 1993 the toilets located in the south west corner of the building were again renovated. At this time a 20 cent charge for use of the toilets was instituted to recognise the serviced nature of the toilets. The ‘Women’s Rest Area’ became a Community Rest Room, available for ‘general use under supervision to take into account male caregivers’, and the Rest’s name was changed to the ‘Memorial Square Community Rooms’, removing the named connection between women and the building. Its reopening in 1993 was used as Napier’s official celebration of the centenary of women’s suffrage in New Zealand. The different spaces within the Rest could be hired by community groups, and for functions.
In April 2013 a seismic report recommended the building be vacated until strengthening was carried out. The Citizen’s Advice Bureau vacated the building and it was closed to the public. Temporary metal gates were erected in 2016 as a security measure. In 2017 the Napier City Council considered options for building a new public library in the city, including possibly incorporating the Rest into the new structure or demolishing the Rest completely a fate which the Art Deco Trust had considered there was little likelihood of in 2013 because of it being a building of such special interest. The Council faced community opposition to the idea of demolishing the Rest, which currently remains closed to the public.
