OBITUARY

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21226, 26 July 1934, Page 17

OBITUARY

MR W. E. BATEMAN Believed to be the only man of his craft in New Zealand, Mr William Edwin Bateman, well known to builders and architects of Christchurch as a maker of accurate and clever models of houses and other buildings, has dited after a short illness. For nearly 30 years Mr Bateman worked at putting architects' plans and drawings into model form, and many of the fascinating models shown at the town planning and housing exhibition held in Christchurch early this year were the products of his skill. Mr Bateman's work was known not only to Christchurch architects, but also in Wellington and even in Auckland. In his lifetime he must have constructed many thousands of pounds worth of models and he expressed m cardboard and three-ply the ideas of many of the best-knowA architects in the Dominion. Trained as a cabinet-maker, Mr Bateman took up model building as a hobby. One of his earliest public ventures was the construction of a number of models for the Christchurch Exhibition, in 1906. All his work was done from architects' plans, and was so accurate that when photographed his models were almost indistinguishable from the completed buildings th'ey represented. One of the most striking of his models was that of the Nelson Cathedral, which was shown at the recent town planning exhibition. It was constructed to a scale of an inch and a half to a foot, and took more than a month to build. More than 1000 mitres had to be cut in its construction, and the model when completed stood between two and three feet high. Other models which he constructed were miniatures of Bishopscourt and the Christchurch Nurses' Home, as Wall as models of many private houses in and about the city. Mr Bateman was 58 years old at the time of his death. He is survived by his wife, three sons, and thi'ee daughters.