Built in 1886, the well-preserved Schoolteacher’s House at Karioitahi reflects the commitment of the Auckland Education Board (AEB) to rural schooling after the passing of the 1877 Education Act. Purpose-designed by AEB architect Henry Allright, the single-storey timber villa housed successive teachers for the adjacent Karioitahi School, whose in-ground remains also survive within the place. Significant as a very early surviving example of Allright’s use of square-plan pyramid villas for teacher’s residences – which remained a standard type into the early 1900s – the house continued to be used for its original purpose until the late 1960s. It has close associations with several notable occupants including Alfred, Hugh and Montague Goldsbury – prominent individuals in the history of Quaker education in New Zealand – and Vivian Ramsay, who died while serving on the Somme in 1918. Both Ramsay and the Goldsbury family are significant for their links with pacifism and conscientious objection during the First World War (1914-18). Situated between the Manukau Harbour and Waikato River, Karioitahi lies within the rohe of Ngāti Te Ata. The locality was strategically important as well as providing food and other resources at Lakes Rotoiti and Whatihua, and elsewhere. Following the Waikato War (1863-4), the area was subject to raupatu or confiscation by the Crown with long-term, traumatic consequences for tangata whenua. In 1865, the colonial government provided ten-acre grants to immigrants, encouraging them to establish small farms. After the 1877 Education Act introduced free and compulsory secular schooling for all Pākehā New Zealand children, Karioitahi settlers sought the construction of dedicated facilities. In 1883, the AEB erected a single-classroom school consisting of a former Wesleyan chapel relocated from nearby Waiuku. This was built on a three-acre site overlooking the settlement. In 1886, a teacher’s residence was added in a prominent position beside the school. Purpose-built housing was considered essential to attract married staff to teach in rural areas and improve ‘the progress of education’. Construction occurred during a major expansion of AEB facilities overseen by Henry Allright after introduction of the 1877 Act. His design for a square-plan pyramid villa at Karioitahi was of a generous size and quality, and formed a very early example of what became a broadly standard AEB type. The new building incorporated a parlour, three bedrooms, large kitchen and scullery, as well as a prominent front verandah. Its earliest occupants were Quaker schoolteacher Alfred Goldsbury (1849-1935) and his young family. Goldsbury later became clerk to the General Meeting of the Society of Friends; actively promoted pacifism; and helped establish the country’s first Quaker boarding school at St John’s Hill, Whanganui. Two of his sons Hugh and Montague, brought up at Karioitahi, were the first principals of the latter. Hugh and another son Noel were additionally involved in conscientious objection during the First World War, with Noel being imprisoned for his views. Of subsequent occupants, pre-war schoolteacher Vivian Ramsay was also a pacifist. Having initially volunteered for the conflict as a combatant, he transferred to the Medical Corps following a crisis of conscience and died in northern France. The house remained in use as a teacher’s residence until the 1960s, although the initial school building was demolished in 1933 after a new facility was built on adjacent land. The 1883 school remnants include earthworks linked with a tennis court – reflecting early twentieth-century approaches to health and physical exercise. The main residence survives with minor changes, and remains in private use (2021).
Location
List Entry Information
Overview
Detailed List Entry
Status
Listed
List Entry Status
Historic Place Category 2
Access
Private/No Public Access
List Number
9844
Date Entered
7th July 2021
Date of Effect
7th July 2021
City/District Council
Waikato District
Region
Waikato Region
Extent of List Entry
Extent includes the land described as Allot 46 Sbrn Sec 1 Parish of Waipipi (RT NA67C/118), North Auckland Land District, and the building and structures known as Schoolteacher’s House (Former) thereon.
Legal description
Allot 46 Sbrn Sec 1 Parish of Waipipi (RT NA67C/118), North Auckland Land District.
Location Description
Additional Location Information NZTM Easting: 1749382.0 NZTM Northing: 5873633.0 47 Binns Road (previously 47 Karioitahi School Road) Karioitahi
Status
Listed
List Entry Status
Historic Place Category 2
Access
Private/No Public Access
List Number
9844
Date Entered
7th July 2021
Date of Effect
7th July 2021
City/District Council
Waikato District
Region
Waikato Region
Extent of List Entry
Extent includes the land described as Allot 46 Sbrn Sec 1 Parish of Waipipi (RT NA67C/118), North Auckland Land District, and the building and structures known as Schoolteacher’s House (Former) thereon.
Legal description
Allot 46 Sbrn Sec 1 Parish of Waipipi (RT NA67C/118), North Auckland Land District.
Location Description
Additional Location Information NZTM Easting: 1749382.0 NZTM Northing: 5873633.0 47 Binns Road (previously 47 Karioitahi School Road) Karioitahi
Historic Significance
Historical Significance or Value The place is historically significant for its close associations with the provision of free and compulsory education in New Zealand after the introduction of the 1877 Education Act. It is especially connected with the significant expansion of schooling in the Auckland Education Board district during the first decade after the Act, including to settlements created by European migrants under the Waikato Immigration Scheme. Through the initial occupants of the schoolteacher’s house, Alfred Goldsworthy and his immediate family, the place has connections with the history of Quakerism and conscientious objection in New Zealand. Another teacher, Vivian Ramsay, also became a conscientious objector during the First World War. Through other of its occupants, the place has historical significance for its connections with female employment, especially that of single women teachers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Physical Significance
Archaeological Significance or Value The place has archaeological value for its potential to provide information about activities connected with children’s education between the 1880s and early 1930s, and beyond. It incorporates a physically well-preserved teacher’s residence, and the visible surface and in-ground remains of an associated school site. The former contains remnants of décor and graffiti, as well as extensive structural fabric; while the latter encompasses a range of material, including surfaces connected with the school, the remains of a playground and 1920s tennis court, and scatters of artefactual midden. Collectively, they have the capacity to provide knowledge about a wide variety of aspects, including children’s recreation, use of the school as a place of public gathering and the detail of teachers’ housing. Architectural Significance or Value The place is architecturally significant as a well-preserved and very early surviving example of a pyramid villa designed as a teacher’s residence by Henry Allright, long-serving architect for the Auckland Education Board. Pyramid villas became a standard form for such residences in the Auckland Education Board district, also being adopted by subsequent Board architects such as Mitchell and Watt, and John Farrell. The overall nature and quality of the design reflects the status of schoolteachers at this time, particularly in rural communities. Teachers’ residences formed significant features of educational sites in colonial-era New Zealand, being necessary to retain staff, especially in more remote areas. The residence is an uncommon survival of an early schoolteacher’s house associated with the Auckland Education Board in the Waikato region.
Detail Of Assessed Criteria
This place was assessed against the Section 66(3) criteria and found to qualify under the following criteria: a, b, c and g. The assessment concludes that this place should be listed as a Category 2 historic place. (a) The extent to which the place reflects important or representative aspects of New Zealand history The place reflects the growth of educational facilities in rural New Zealand communities after the 1877 Education Act – an important development in the history of education in this country. It especially demonstrates the major expansion of facilities under the Auckland Education Board during the first decade of the Act. Both the teacher’s residence and school site directly reflect the importance of schooling as a symbol for future progress and continuity within early Pākehā settlements. The well-preserved residence demonstrates the status of teachers in these communities. Surviving remnants of the school site - notably the remains of an early school tennis court - reflect changing attitudes to health after the 1918 Influenza Epidemic. Shifting attitudes to children’s physical well-being are also demonstrated by removal of the school in favour of a better lit and ventilated structure in the early 1930s. The wider site reflects the organisation of school landscapes, including requirements for surrounding pasture to assist with horse transport and supporting funds. (b) The association of the place with events, persons, or ideas of importance in New Zealand history As part of substantial Māori lands confiscated by the government to the south of the Manukau Harbour after the Waikato War, the place is associated with raupatu. It is particularly connected with the creation of European settlements under the Waikato Immigration scheme in the mid-1860s, notably that at Karioitahi. Through several occupants of its main residence, the place has connections with the history of pacifism and conscientious objection in this country, including during the First World War. These individuals include schoolteachers Alfred Goldsbury and Vivian Ramsay. Other connections with the war include use of the school site for public gatherings to raise funds for patriotic causes; and numerous former pupils of the school serving in the military forces during the conflict. The place has long and close connections with the Auckland Education Board, an important institution connected with the expansion of schooling throughout northern New Zealand in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. (c) The potential of the place to provide knowledge of New Zealand history Through its well-preserved 1880s residence and associated in-ground school site, the place can provide knowledge about a variety of activities linked with children’s education, notably within a late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century rural community context. This potential is enhanced by the nearby survival of the 1931 Karioitahi School, with which the place is closely associated in the mid-1900s. It is also increased by the survival in external archives of a high level of associated documentary information - including plans, maps and writings - potentially enabling more effective and nuanced interpretations of activity on the site. (g) The technical accomplishment, value, or design of the place The place has technical value as a very early surviving teacher’s residence of pyramid-villa type designed by Henry Allright. Overseeing the creation of school facilities after introduction of the 1877 Education Act, Allright adopted this design from the mid-1880s after first employing other forms. Pyramid villas were to become widespread in the Auckland Education Board area in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including under succeeding Board architects. The importance of the residence at Karioitahi is emphasised by its unusually well-preserved nature, retaining a very high proportion of both its external and internal form and fabric. Summary of Significance or Values The place is of significance as a Category 2 historic place for reasons that include the extent to which it reflects the growth of educational facilities in rural New Zealand communities after introduction of the 1877 Education Act; its connections with important aspects of New Zealand history such as early twentieth-century conscientious objection; its potential to provide knowledge about a variety of activities linked with children’s education, notably within a late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century rural community; and its status as a very early and well-preserved teacher’s residence of pyramid-villa type – a form that became widespread throughout northern New Zealand in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Construction Professional
Biography
No biography is currently available for this construction professional
Name
Miller, A.B
Type
Architect
Biography
Henry Pitts (1833-1891) Henry Pitts was likely born in Bicker, Lincolnshire, England in 1833. The son of a carpenter, he worked as a joiner in Nottingham before emigrating with his wife Elizabeth and young family to Auckland in 1864. By the late 1860s, Pitts was designing and building structures on Auckland’s North Shore, where he remained based for the rest of his life. Early buildings that he erected in and around Devonport included the settlement’s first Presbyterian Church (1867); a dwelling for W. H. Cobley (1868), claimed at the time to be one of the most elegant and commodious marine villa residences in Auckland Province; and a Sunday School for Holy Trinity Church (1872) – both of the latter to his own plans. Pitts was additionally involved in road construction, including local works in Devonport. During the 1880s, Pitts gained work further afield. In 1882 he created additions to the Masonic Hotel at Cambridge, in the Waikato. He appears to have been particularly successful in gaining contracts from the Auckland Education Board. After creating or extending several buildings connected with Devonport School in 1881-6, he successfully tendered for the construction of teacher’s residences at Puni (1886), Karioitahi (1886) and Ōhinewai (1890). He also erected schools at Napier Street (1887) and Richmond Road (1888), Auckland, and extensions to Northcote School (1886) and Huntly School (1887). A business probably run by his sons, known as Pitts Brothers, was also awarded a contract to erect Point Chevalier School (1887). In addition to his work as a builder and contractor, Pitts was active in public affairs as an inaugural Devonport Borough Councillor; a trustee of the Devonport Highway District and a member of the Devonport Road Board; and a member of the Devonport District School Committee. He also served as a member of the Devonport Licensing District Committee, clerk of the scales for the Takapuna Jockey Club, and a committee member of the North Shore Regatta. Henry Pitts died in 1891 and was buried at the Anglican cemetery in Devonport.
Name
Pitts, Henry
Type
Builder
Biography
Allright (1827-1906) was born in Kent in 1827. After training as an architect, he emigrated to New Zealand in 1854. From 1856 he was employed in various positions by the Auckland Provincial Board of Works, becoming Provincial Engineer in 1874. In 1877 he was appointed architect to the Auckland Board of Education. He held this position for 15 years during a period of major building expansion following the passing of the 1877 Education Act. In 1883 he was appointed engineer to the Waitemata County, although he retained his position with the Education Board. He retired from the Education Board in 1892 and entered into practice as an engineer, from which he retired in 1901. He died in 1906. From 1881-85, he was a member of the Auckland Institute of Engineers.
Name
Allright, Henry
Type
Architect
Construction Details
Description
School, later demolished
Start Year
1883
Type
Original Construction
Description
Schoolteacher’s House
Start Year
1886
Type
Original Construction
Description
Schoolteacher's House
Finish Year
1892
Start Year
1891
Type
Original Construction
Description
Paths around house created
Start Year
1913
Type
Modification
Description
School tennis court created
Start Year
1921
Type
Modification
Description
School building removed
Start Year
1933
Type
Demolished - prior building
Description
Rear lean-to of house extended to include new kitchen; former scullery partitioned to create a water closet and bathroom.
Start Year
1954
Type
Modification
Description
Attached garage at rear of house
Period
1990s
Type
Addition
Construction Materials
Timber, with corrugated metal roof and brick chimney
Early history Situated between the south Manukau Harbour and the west coast, Karioitahi forms part of the rohe of Ngāti Te Ata. Traditionally, land in the south Manukau area was settled by successive peoples including those connected with the Tainui waka and Waiohua. Ngāti Te Ata descend from both these groups, being named after Te Ata I Rehia of Waiohua who married a prominent Waikato rangatira, Tapaue. Their lands between the Manukau Harbour and Waikato River were strategically important for connecting peoples and resources linked with both major waterways. Karioitahi itself lay close to marine access at Karioitahi Beach, as well as encompassing a group of small lakes including Rotoiti and Whatihua, which provided traditional freshwater resources such as kōura, tuna and native fish. After temporary depopulation during Ngāpuhi incursions in the 1820s and 1830s, iwi in the south Manukau began to grow crops and other produce for the European market, particularly after Auckland was founded in 1840 to be New Zealand’s colonial capital. A short distance from Karioitahi, Waiuku formed an important European toehold on the south Manukau shores around which expanding Pākehā settlement occurred. Following the Waikato War (1863-4), during which Ngāti Te Ata supported the Kīngitanga, additional land in the south Manukau - including at Karioitahi - was obtained by Europeans through government confiscation or raupatu. This event had long-term and traumatic consequences for Ngāti Te Ata and other dispossessed peoples. In 1865, the colonial government provided ten-acre grants at Karioitahi to a number of British immigrant families who had arrived in Auckland on the Matoaka from overseas. Forming part of the Waikato Immigration Scheme to populate lands south of Auckland with European settlers, the new arrivals were required to create public infrastructure such as roads and bridges construction, and occupy the land for three years to qualify for ownership. The landscape was gradually converted to small-scale farms. In new European rural settlements, schools symbolised the potential for a future community. At Karioitahi, early educational needs were initially met through private tuition at the home of one of the settlers, John Holmes. In 1876, a teacher was requested from the Auckland Education Board (AEB), which controlled secular education throughout the northern half of the North Island. Two years after the 1877 Education Act introduced free and compulsory secular schooling for Pākehā New Zealand children, a school formally opened in Holmes’ house, by this time owned by George Bennett – a prominent local farmer who had led a petition to request permanent educational facilities. Plans for a dedicated school building eventually came to fruition in 1883 following the gazettal of a three-acre site on a prominent, elevated knoll overlooking many of the fledgling farms. A single-classroom school was soon erected on the highest point of the reserve. Reflecting the often close connection between education and religion in earlier colonial New Zealand, the simple, timber building consisted of a former Wesleyan chapel relocated from nearby Waiuku. Of gabled construction with a porch at one end and an added chimney at the other, the structure was erected in July 1883 by Waiuku contractors Hammond and Hennessy after the ground had been cleared of ‘light tea tree, fern or other vegetation’, levelled and drained. With a roll of 30 children, the school was granted full-time status in 1884. Plans were soon underway for it to be joined on the reserve by a schoolteacher’s house. Construction and early use of the Schoolteacher’s House (1886-1930) Teacher’s residences were a distinctive feature of schools in colonial New Zealand, particularly in rural situations. Immediately after introduction of the 1877 Education Act, the AEB purchased or adapted pre-existing buildings for teachers’ accommodation, but soon began creating purpose-built dwellings. Intending to reflect well on the status of schoolteachers in colonial society, the latter were generally of good quality construction. Early examples were single-storey timber bay villas, succeeded by square-fronted villa designs with front verandahs and hipped or gabled roofs. In 1885, more than half of the AEB’s 234 schools had associated housing, although this was still felt insufficient for the need. At this time, additional residences were required ‘for the location of teachers, without which married men with families cannot be induced to settle in the country appointments.’ Such housing was also considered to improve ‘the progress of education’ by reducing teacher turnover. At Karioitahi, the school reserve was organised to encompass a relatively small area for the school, an adjoining space set aside for a residence, a large paddock for the teacher’s horse or horses – which were necessary for travel – and a ‘glebe’ for gaining additional income. Plans and specifications for a teacher’s residence were prepared in September 1886. This occurred at the end of a period of major expansion in AEB school facilities between introduction of the 1877 Education Act and the onset of economic depression in the mid-1880s. The Karioitahi plans were almost certainly either prepared or overseen by the Board’s architect, Henry Allright (1827-1906), who had been responsible for the design of AEB school buildings throughout this period. Trained in England, Allright was also notable for having been Auckland Provincial Engineer. The successful tenderer for construction was North Shore builder, Henry Pitts (1833-1891), who gained several AEB contracts during the 1880s – as well as being prominent in Devonport’s public affairs as a borough councillor and member of numerous local committees. Assistance came from Karioitahi community members, who transported relevant materials to the site from Waiuku wharf and provided pūriri house blocks free of charge. The plans were for a comfortable, family-size timber villa of sufficient scale and quality to demonstrate the schoolteacher’s elevated status within rural society. The single-storey, weatherboard house also directly reflected this in its physical position, being built at the crest of the knoll, immediately next to the school. Incorporating a prominent front verandah, the building looked out over the associated farmscape. As a ‘respectable’ middle-class residence, its internal layout incorporated a front parlour, three bedrooms, a large kitchen and a scullery at the rear – common to earlier AEB residence plans. It differed from most previous examples, however, by incorporating a roof of pyramid type with an integral rear lean-to. Pyramid villas were to remain the standard type for teacher’s residences in northern New Zealand into the early twentieth century, including under subsequent AEB architects Mitchell and Watt, and John Farrell. A separate washhouse and combined earth closet and woodhouse were located in the back yard, nearest the school. The residence’s first occupants after its completion probably towards the end of 1886 were the Karioitahi schoolteacher, Alfred Goldsbury (1849-1935), and his family. Goldsbury taught at Karioitahi between 1881 and 1888, and was for a considerable period the school’s longest-serving teacher. Goldsbury and his family – including his wife Margaret – were active members of the relatively small community of Society of Friends, or Quakers, in New Zealand, and became particularly prominent after leaving rural Karioitahi for Whanganui. Quaker beliefs strongly emphasised the value of education. In the early 1900s, Goldsbury helped establish New Zealand’s first boarding school for Quaker children at St John’s Hill, Whanganui, eventually opened in 1920; and as clerk to the General Meeting of the Society of Friends for ten years, actively promoted pacifism before and during the First World War (1914-18). At his death he was ‘one of the very few recording ministers of the society in the Dominion’. Other family members who occupied the residence included son Noel Goldsbury (1884-?), who became notable as the only Society of Friends member to be imprisoned as a conscientious objector in Canterbury during the First World War. Of similar beliefs, eldest son Hugh Goldsbury (1877-1951) resigned as a teacher with the Wanganui Education Board after refusing to salute the British flag during the latter part of the same conflict, becoming a local cause celèbre. Hugh subsequently became the St John’s Hill school’s first principal. Another son, Montague Goldsbury (1881-1958), became its second. Early subjects taught by Alfred Goldsbury at Karioitahi School included drawing, history, geography and elementary science, as well as additionally required topics such as repetition and recitation, ‘drill and exercises’, singing and needlework. The school contained a library, probably also opened in late 1886. In 1887, a shelter shed was added to the school grounds, with the local community contributing half of the £20 cost. Gender divisions in New Zealand schools, including within the teaching workforce, were strong. For much of the period between Alfred Goldsbury’s departure in 1888 and the First World War, the house was occupied by a succession of relatively short-term incumbents, who were in most cases single women. In late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century New Zealand, teaching was one of relatively few careers in which female practitioners could earn a living, although children in sole-charge schools – especially in rough, rural locations – were more usually taught by men. Within a conservative rural community, objections were raised when the first unmarried female teacher at Karioitahi, Marianne Wann, was appointed in 1889, with concerns being expressed about a ‘young lady’ serving at an out-of-the-way country school and occupying the recently-erected residence. In 1891-2, funds were granted for the construction of a shelter porch at the rear door nearest the school – perhaps suggesting its more frequent use than the front door at this time. In 1892-3, when the residence was occupied by Wann’s male replacement, J.A.C. Lamont, the house was additionally provided with a cooking stove, the school fencing renewed and a number of shelter and ornamental trees planted. A specialist sewing teacher, Mrs Binns was also appointed. Due to a reported decline in school attendance in the mid-1890s, attempts to find a male successor to Lamont were explicitly abandoned in favour of the appointment of a female incumbent. In the early 1900s, women teachers’ wages were significantly less than those for their male colleagues, and they were often employed as cheap labour. For many decades, sole teacher institutions were the only schools that women were allowed to head. As the only public building in Karioitahi, the adjoining school formed a major focus for the settlement’s community activities. It was used for religious services by several denominations, as well as dances and meetings. During the First World War, patriotic events at the school included social gatherings in aid of the Belgian and Hospital Ship Funds, and donations were also provided to the Children’s Day, Russian Prisoners’ and Navy Relief Funds (1915-16). The piano of teacher Estelle Tisdall was evidently borrowed for at least one money-raising event, accompanying songs delivered in both te reo Māori and English. In 1918, a former teacher and occupant of the residence, Harold V. (Vivian) Ramsay (1889-1918) was killed in action at the Somme, while serving in the Medical Corps. Like the Goldsburys, he was a conscientious objector – having resigned his initial position as an officer in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force to become a private in the Field Ambulance. At his resignation, he wrote: I come from worthy stock, of Scotland and of Devon. I have been brought up to consider patriotism the very breath of life. I have drunk of the spirit of Kingsley and of Burns, of Tennyson and of Scott. I have loved England well, and love her still. In the present struggle I know surely that if national causes be compared that of England is right and that of Germany damnably wrong. But I know now that for me there is the call of a higher cause which cannot be linked with that of the nation. England's cause may be just, but her hands are not clean. She is in no true sense a Christian nation; her real reliance at this moment is not in God but in material forces - in armaments and in men. In 1919, children from Karioitahi and other schools in the area paraded through Waiuku as part of Peace Day celebrations. The following year, a roll of honour was unveiled inside the school, remembering 30 former pupils as well as Vivian Ramsay. Some of those commemorated had fought at Gallipoli. John Henry Tupara Pickard (1892-1915) died of wounds received, while Claude Russell Hill (1882–?) and Charles McNaughton (1881-1952) were also both wounded in the campaign. Another former pupil who served was Robert Haldane Makgill (1870-1946), who was ‘one of the architects of New Zealand’s public health system in the twentieth century’. Makgill served as a doctor in the Medical Corps during the conflict and was recalled from the Department of Defence to return to Wellington and help manage the official response to the Influenza Epidemic in 1918. He was also responsible for drafting the 1920 Health Act. Robert Makgill’s brother David was a prominent figure in Karioitahi’s school affairs. Reflecting wider moves to improve public health after the influenza epidemic, changes to the school grounds in the 1920s included improvements connected with children’s physical well-being. A tennis court created in circa 1921 reflected the increasing importance of sport and outdoor recreation to promote health among schoolchildren of both sexes. At this time, tennis in New Zealand was developing from a game played predominantly by wealthy members of society to a more popular pastime. As a community facility, the Karioitahi tennis court also had an impact on local adults, with the formation of a tennis club stimulating surrounding districts to follow its lead. When Karioitahi gained its own school committee in 1929, David Makgill was its first secretary and treasurer. Removal of Karioitahi School, and ongoing use of the residence (1931-1972) By the late 1920s, the school building was seen as unhealthy in both its condition and exposed position on a knoll. Following a visit by the Minister of Education, Harry Atmore, a decision was made to create a more modern, two-classroom building on lower ground, within a nearby property further north on Binns Road. Exhibiting large windows for greater lighting and ventilation, the new structure opened in 1931. In December 1933, the old school building was dismantled. Component elements, including timber, bricks and corrugated iron were sold to local farmers for re-use. The house was retained as the teacher’s residence, now directly looking out over the new school. Between 1921 and 1934, it was occupied by long-serving head teacher Frank Shepherd. Relatively minor changes to the house before and after the Second World War (1939-45) included the installation of electricity in 1929 and built-in cupboards in 1948. Accompanying the provision of running water in 1954, the former scullery and rear porch were converted into an inside toilet, bathroom and kitchen. Plans to demolish and replace the residence were deferred as a result of the closure of Karioitahi School in 1968. Amalgamation with other school facilities had been considered since at least 1957. For a short period in the late 1960s, the residence accommodated staff working at other schools. At this time, the property included a temporary bedroom brought in from Papakura School. The entire three-acre reserve, including the residence, was sold into private hands in 1972. Few alterations have since been made to the house and immediate school grounds. Several pine trees, believed to have been planted in the late nineteenth century, have been removed, and a low, monopitch-roof garage added to a rear corner of the house. The latter replaced a porch erected in 1954. The grounds beyond the immediate house and school site have been retained as grazing. Maintaining its rural situation and vista, the property has been occupied as a family home and smallholding for the past fifty years. The residence is currently considered to be an uncommon survival of an early schoolteacher’s house associated with the Auckland Education Board in the Waikato region.
Current Description Context The Schoolteacher’s House (Former) is situated in the dispersed rural settlement of Karioitahi. Karioitahi lies approximately four kilometres southwest of Waiuku, a short distance inland from both the Manukau Harbour and the North Island’s western coastline. Karioitahi retains features of significance to Māori within the landscape, including lakes Rotoiti and Whatihua; as well as a small number of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century buildings. Apart from the former Schoolteacher’s House, a 1931 school building survives a short distance to the north on Binns Road. The Schoolteacher’s House (Former) occupies elevated ground, overlooking the 1931 school and extensive surrounding farmland. Although a couple of more recent houses have been erected nearby, the residence retains its prominent and distinctive position within the rural landscape. The site The site extent encompasses the full historical curtilage associated with the schoolteacher’s residence and 1883 school. It is broadly rectangular in plan, and lies on the east side of a sharp bend in Binns Road. The land occupies the top of a raised knoll and its associated slopes to the north, east and south. Parts of the latter ground are relatively steep. The single-storey, timber residence is situated in the central northern part of the site, on moderately sloping ground near the crest of the knoll. It is surrounded by a small, fenced garden. The 1883 school building site occupies flat ground on the top of the rise, immediately to the west. A track crosses the school site to connect the residence with Binns Road. The rest of the site is under pasture, and is fenced. House The residence consists of a square-plan pyramid villa with a front verandah and integral rear lean-to. It is orientated with its main axis approximately northeast-southwest. It is very well-preserved, both externally and internally. The house was specifically designed for its elevated, sloping site, with its full-length front verandah both offering extensive vistas, and being visible from a distance. The only modifications to its 1880s external form are a slight extension to the rear lean-to and an adjoining low, attached timber garage of relatively unobtrusive type. Detached water tanks of modern type are also situated at the rear. Trees associated with the residence include a small pōhutukawa near its northwest elevation. Exterior The structure is clad throughout with overlapping, horizontal weatherboards. Its roof is covered with corrugated metal. A brick chimney extends from the roof on the southwest side of the building. This protrudes a maximum of 19 courses high above roof level. The front (northeast) elevation of the building incorporates a full-length verandah with an elegant, concave roof. Reached from the front garden via a set of low, timber steps, the verandah incorporates ornamental cross-braced railing between single-post supports. Both ends of the verandah are enclosed by vertical-board walls. Behind the verandah is a centrally-positioned door with two lower panels, two upper arched lights and a rectangular fanlight above. Flanking windows on either side of the door are of four-pane, double-hung sash type. The side elevation on the southeast contains two windows of similar design. A corrugated iron water tank of some antiquity at the rear corner sits on a standalone timber base. This received rainwater running from the roof of the back lean-to. The rear or southwest elevation contains smaller windows connected with the 1950s toilet and bathroom. As shown by joints in the weatherboards, the latter has visibly replaced an earlier sash window of similar size to those at the front. The recessed western extension of the rear lean-to, created in the 1950s, has horizontal weatherboards in keeping with the rest of the house. A more recent attached garage at the west corner, which incorporates a monopitch roof, is similarly clad. The elevation on the northwest side incorporates a four-pane, double-hung sash window, which lights the former kitchen, now living room. Interior Internally, the house retains nearly all of its 1880s layout and features, in addition to modifications undertaken in the 1950s when it remained in use as a schoolteacher’s residence. It demonstrates both the initial nature of the accommodation, and improvements in rural teachers’ housing carried out during the twentieth century, including improved sanitation and lighting. The house layout features a central hall with flanking parlour and main bedroom. The hall leads to a larger room towards the rear, initially a kitchen then converted into a living room, from which access to a second bedroom is reached on one side. A door at the back of the former kitchen leads into a rear lean-to. This retains an original third bedroom at one end. The remainder of the lean-to incorporates a passage, bathroom and toilet, as well a kitchen at its west corner – all created in the 1950s although retaining some earlier fabric including the 1880s rear door. A relatively unobtrusive timber garage of low, monopitch-roof design has been more recently erected at the same corner as the kitchen, through which access to the exterior is gained. The interior retains its early floorboards, skirting, beaded-board wall linings, cornices and ceiling boards, in addition to its four-panel doors. The 1880s, back-to-back fireplace in the parlour and former kitchen remains. A timber fireplace surround in the parlour is a replacement, and the former kitchen fireplace has been converted into a smaller hearth using high-quality brickwork – reflecting subsequent conversion of this space to a living room. All of the rooms in the main part of the house have board and batten ceilings. Other remnants of décor survive. These include fragments of scrim and ornamental wallpaper in the former kitchen, which pre-date a cupboard possibly inserted in the 1940s. In the 1880s lean-to, the floor, wall and roof linings also survive. The latter two use the same beaded, tongued-and-grooved boards as employed in the main part of the building. Pencil graffiti on the wall lining in the rear bedroom pre-dates scrim, and could belong to an early phase of the building. This consists of a drawing of two figures, one in a top hat and tunic or frock coat, and the other wearing a hat of more rounded design. During the 1880s, this space is likely to have been a children’s bedroom. The 1950s alterations in the rear lean-to and its westward extension are also well-preserved. These consist of rooms lined with tongued and grooved horizontal boards, containing cupboards of narrow, vertical matchboard design. A large number of these cupboards line the northeast wall of the kitchen. The kitchen sink and associated preparation areas are in the same position as on 1954 architect’s plans. School site The site of the 1883 school building occupies a large flat area to the southwest of the house. Patches of tarmacadam connected with the school building surrounds are visible. Midden scatters are present, predominantly incorporating fragments of ceramic, bottle glass and window glass. A large, flat area immediately to the south has been terraced into the side of the hilltop. This represents a playground that probably also served as tennis courts from circa 1921. The land may also contain in-ground remnants linked with structures known to have existed on the site including a flagpole, shelter sheds, and boys’ and girls’ toilet facilities.
Public NZAA Number
R12/1185
Completion Date
6th June 2021
Report Written By
Martin Jones
Information Sources
Manawatu Standard
Manawatu Standard
New Zealand Herald
New Zealand Herald
Auckland War Memorial Museum
Auckland War Memorial Museum, ‘Harold Vivian Ramsay’, Online Cenotaph https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/war-memorial/online-cenotaph/record/C12761
Cumming, Ian
Cumming, Ian, Glorious Enterprise: The History of the Auckland Education Board 1857-1957, Christchurch, 1959.
Kariaotahi Jubilee Committee
Kariaotahi Jubilee Committee, Kariaotahi School: 80th Anniversary 1879-1959, [Karioitahi], 1959.
Kellaway, 1981
Kellaway, Warwick, Education 150: From Schoolhouse to Classpace in the Waikato – Bay of Plenty, [Hamilton], 1981.
Lovell-Smith, Margaret
Lovell-Smith, Margaret, ‘The case of Noel Goldsbury: A Quaker whose 'leave of absence' caused a furore’, http://voicesagainstwar.nz/exhibits/show/conscription--and-those-who-ob/the-case-of-noel-goldsbury--a-
May, 2005
May, Helen, School Beginnings: A Nineteenth Century Colonial Story, Wellington, 2005.
Montgomerie, Deborah
Montgomerie, Deborah, ‘Harold Vivian Ramsay’, First World War Centenary 2014-2018, Special Collections, University of Auckland, http://www.specialcollections.auckland.ac.nz/ww1-centenary/collegians-at-war/their-stories/harold-vivian-ramsay
Report Written By
A fully referenced New Zealand Heritage List report is available on request from the Mid-Northern Area Office of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Disclaimer Please note that entry on the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero identifies only the heritage values of the property concerned, and should not be construed as advice on the state of the property, or as a comment of its soundness or safety, including in regard to earthquake risk, safety in the event of fire, or insanitary conditions. Archaeological sites are protected by the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014, regardless of whether they are entered on the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero or not. Archaeological sites include ‘places associated with pre-1900 human activity, where there may be evidence relating to the history of New Zealand’. This List entry report should not be read as a statement on whether or not the archaeological provisions of the Act apply to the property (s) concerned. Please contact your local Heritage New Zealand office for archaeological advice.
Current Usages
Uses: Accommodation
Specific Usage: House
Former Usages
General Usage:: Education
Specific Usage: School
General Usage:: Education
Specific Usage: Staff housing
Themes
Of Significance to Maori