Church 100 years old

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33739, 11 January 1975, Page 14

Church 100 years old

The centenary celebrations of St Paul’s Trinity Congregational Church will be held next week-end — less than a month after the church was sold to the neighbouring State Insurance Office.

Almost immediately after the celebrations the building, on the corner of Manchester and Worcester streets, will be handed over to its new owners who plan to renovate it and offer it for use in the community particularly as an intimate theatre for amateur groups.

The celebrations will begin at 7 p.m. next Friday with a display of original drawings, sketches and photographs relating to the building and its architecture. At 8 p.m. a seminar will be held and Dr R. B. Keey, Mr J. A. Hendry and the Rev. K. Faletoese will speak on “Trinity Church—the building and its people.” The chairman will be Professor W. D. Mclntyre. On Saturday evening a Fiafia (an evening of cultural and social items) will be held in the Horticultural Hall by the church’s Cook Island and Samoan committees.

A centennial service will be held at the church at 11 a.m. on Sunday morning. The sermon will be given by the Rev. J. B. Chambers, chairman of the Congregational Union < if New Zealand. At the conclusion of the service Mr Chambers will unveil the centennial memorial. Between 100 and 200 people from Auckland to Bluff are expected to attend the centenary celebrations. BOOK WRITTEN A book called “To Him Be the Glory” was written by Dr Keey to mark the centenary. The book tells of the coming of the Pacific Islanders, the first congregational fellowship and the steps that led to the erection of the church. It is available for $2.50 and proceeds will go to the new hall building fund.

On January 17, 1875, the opening services of Trinity Congregational Church were taken by the Rev. A. M. Henderson from Melbourne, Victoria. The foundation stone of .the chapel was laid 14 months earlier by Mr W. M. Rolleston, the church’s Superintendent of Canterbury. The architect was Benjamin Mountfort, who had already designed the Provincial Buildings# and the Can-

terbury Museum in a similar early English style. The builder was Daniel Reese. FIRST PASTOR

A brief history in the centennial leaflet said the bold stone edifice was a fitting memorial to the untiring ministry of William James Habens, who was sent by the Colonial Missionary Society in London in 1863 to be the first pastor of a growing body of independents in Canterbury. That the building seemed to have acquired the status of a national monument would have astonished its founders, it said.

The purchase of the building by the insurance company will enable the Presbyterian Church to proceed with its plans to build a new community centre in Cashel Street for the use, primarily, of the city’s Polynesian population.

The fate of the church has been in the balance for more than a year and several proposals have been mode for its use. The most concrete of these, which in August last year seemed to be a certainty, was to convert the church into a restaurant with as few changes to the original building as possible