Whare In An English Garden

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30895, 30 October 1965, Page 12

Whare In An English Garden

ISpeciaUy written for “The Press" by

WALTER BROOKES.]

ZEALANDERS looking at the stately homes and historic architecture of England may well find something that interests them most at Clandon Park in Surrey—a Maori whare which sheltered many people at Wairoa during the Tarawera eruption that almost buried the famous pink and white terraces in June, 1886.

It was almost covered with lava and ashes and might well have been the tomb of those who took refuge there. They were, however, rescued in time.

The whare remained half buried till the fourth Earl of Onslow, who was Governor of New Zealand from the middle of 1889 till the end of 1891, had it dug out, sent to England, and set up in the garden of his home at Clandon park. It still stands there, in remarkably good condition when one considers its fate, though some of the Maori carving had to be replaced by plain board. It is an object of curiosity to English and European visitors on what is now National Trust property, and children are particularly fond of it. My wife and I had to assure one English dad that it wouldn’t do any harm if his little boy and girl went inside. Lord Onslow was a man who took his duties seriously, and he fell out with both the Atkinson Government and the Ballance Government, which succeeded it in 1890-91, about the appointment of members to the Old Legislative Council which had the power to embarrass either the retiring Tory party or the Liberals who followed and were to remain in power till 1912. His right to veto the appointments seemed to him a little doubtful, and he was continually harassing the Colonial Secretary in England with despatches. He probably saw these moves about the Upper House simply as political jockeying for power. He had given way to Atkinson, who hung on to power as long as he could after defeat of his party in

the elections of December, 1890, and managed to get himself appointed Speaker of the Upper House. When Ballance took over, it was now his turn to plague the Governor about appointments he wanted, although he had protested against Atkinson’s as unconstitutional. He even did this after Onslow had retired at the end of 1891 and was waiting to go back to England. Perhaps the Governor thought that his right to consent was now completely unconstitutional, and he refused to do what Ballance wanted. He was possibly now in full agreement with Thomas Bracken about: The Parliament of sham the botheration of the world. Onslow was more happy about his interest in the Maori people and their welfare, acclimatisation, agriculture, and setting up bird sanctuaries. In these matters the New Zealand Government did not worry him at all, and he seemed able to salvage the historic whare and have it sent to England without any protest from either party. His short term of office and retirement from it may be explained by his difficulty in

dealing with politicians during what proved to be a momentous change of government which, as it happened, led to a progressive and prosperous period in New Zealand’s history which lasted some 22 years, placed New Zealand as one of the most advanced countries in the world. The change possibly killed off both Atkinson and Ballance, who died soon afterwards, but it brought many able men into power, including Richard John Seddon and Sir Joseph Ward. New Zealand became “God’s Own Country.” “King Dick” evidently remembered Onslow, for he sent his wife, Florence, a present of an astonishingly big lump of greenstone in 1905. It sits hugely under a cabinet of Maori artifacts in one of the rooms at Clandon Park used as a museum which contains, among other things, Onslow’s commission as honorary colonel of the Canterbury Yeomanry Cavalry and an illuminated address presented to him by the City of Auckland on the Golden Jubilee of New Zealand in 1890 at the height of his political difficulties.

The early death of the former Governor at the age of 58 in 1911 is thought by Pamela, the present countess, to have been caused by the toll taken of his health by his ceaseless political activities. In England he was Lord-in-Waiting to Queen Victoria, Under-Secretary for the Colonies twice, Under-Secre-tary of State for India, a Privy Councillor, President of the Board of Agriculture, Secretary of the Board of Trade, and finally Chairman of Committees in the House of Lords. Before his political work he had found time to restore the house at Clandon Park which he inherited with the title at the age of 17. Not one of the largest of the stately homes of England, it is one of the most elegant, and some of the finely moulded ceilings are said “to take your breath away.” It is designed by a Venetian architect, Leoni, and completed in 1733. The gardens were laid out by Capability Brown, the most famous of 18th century landscape gardeners. When the energetic teenager took over the place was derelict. It had been shut up for 43 years with only a

woman, now grown old, as caretaker. Painting and repairs had been neglected, and much of the furniture had been removed. Well before he became Governor of New Zealand the young Earl restored the house and lived in it. In the First World War Clandon was used as a hospital for Dominion soldiers, including many Australians and New Zealanders; it has a bronze plaque in the entrance hall commemorating those who died. In the last war it was taken over by the Public Record Office. The present Earl is a man like his grandfather. In the war he was in the Western Desert, took command of his regiment a Salerno in the invasion of Italy, went back to England to assist in making the plans for the invasion of Europe in Normandy, but was taken prisoner ten days after D-Day. He returned to England from a German prison camp in 1945, came into the title a month later, moved into Clandon with his wife and two children, and saw the last lorry loads of stacks of papers move out to Chancery Lane. But times had changed; high taxation and the cost of

labour and materials had made him realise after five years that he had taken on an impossible task, and that he and his family could no longer live in his two-century-old home. He moved into what a local resident described to us as “a smaller house of 25 rooms in the village." He still has a farm on the estate. The bus-driver pointed it out to us on the way back. The Guinness family came to the rescue of the big house at Clandon. its garden, and the Maori whare. The Earl’s aunt, the Countess of Iveagh —lveagh is the Guinness title —presented the property, with an endowment, to the National Trust. The result is that house, garden. and whare are beautifully kept. They are a good memorial to a Governor of New Zealand who was conscientious to the exlent of exasperating everybody except the Maoris, and seems to have been slightly lacking in tact. He even left a letter for his successor, the Earl of Glasgow, telling him not to appoint the 12 men to the Upper House that Ballance wanted Ballance got round this. Onslow’s interest in t|ie Maoris was shown by his having his second son christened Huia and presenting him for adoption by the Ngati-Huia tribe. The name may have been an embarrassment to the boy when he went to school in England, but he survived it. Sir Huia, according to the present countess, was a Gentleman Usher at the coronation of King George V and wore a fine sword with a paste hilt, a family heirloom. Objects of this kind are on view at Clandon in the same room as the greenstone and Maori relics. The Onslow name is remembered in New Zealand by the Onslow electorate. Onslow College, and Onslow Football Club in Wellington. New Zealanders in London who wish to see the whare can take a Green Line bus to Guildford and a local bus, which passes the gates, to West Clandon. They will know that they are getting near home when they pass Maori road on the way.