Bequest Of £140,000 For Art Gallery In Auckland

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28926, 20 June 1959, Page 12

Bequest Of £140,000 For Art Gallery In Auckland

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, June 19,

The Auckland City Council was advised today that £140,000 is available to the city under the will of the late Mr Phillip Augustus Edmiston. Mr Edmiston, a prominent Auckland citizen who died in 1946, expressed the wish that the bequest be used to build an art gallery or to buy works of art.

The will provided that if a suitable site was made available, the trust board could erect or co-operate in the building of an art gallery. Money could also be devoted to the purchase of works of art and to the beautification of any public place or park in the province.

If the board found it was not possible or advisable to carry out the project proposed, it was empowered to to the trust fund for charitable purposes.

The chairman of the trust board * (Mr R. D. Horton) and the deputy chairman (Mr G. R. Buttle) called on the Mayor (Mr K. N-. Buttle) today to inform him that the board wished to confer with the council to decide what action, if any, should be taken to implement the trust. The Mayor was told that it depended largely on the decision of the council as to the objects to which the funds would be de-

voted by the board. The trust board and the council will confer at a later date.

Mr Edmiston was general manager of the New Zealand Accident Insurance Company when he retired in 1906. He went to live in Sydney in 1941 and died there at the age of 92.