Arthur Rhodes — social lion of early Christchurch

Press, 10 March 1984, Page 17

Arthur Rhodes — social lion of early Christchurch

By

ROSEMARY BRITTEN

“The member for Geraldine,” wrote a brutally frank parliamentary reporter, “has few of the requisites for a public speaker. His manner is singularly awkward. Words do not come readily to his bidding and when they do come they are not always employed in the right place.” This was A. E. G. Rhodes who, in 1887, became the first New Zealand- born man to be elected to the House of Representatives. Heavy and slow in movement and speech, sometimes thought to be rough in manner, he was also a successful lawyer and sportsman, host to royalty and vice-royalty, and a leader of the business and social life of Christchurch with a formidable list of directorships and chairmanships to his credit. In 1884 he began to build Te Koraha, his splendid Tudor-style mansion. The house — boarding hostel for Rangi Ruru Girls’ School since 1923 — will this year celebrate its centennial with a suitably elegant garden party and ball on March 31.

Arthur Edgar Gravenor Rhodes was born in 1859, the third son of George Rhodes of the Levels, near Timaru. George Rhodes and his brothers came early to Canterbury, and they and their descendants have played a large part in the business and pastoral history of the province. Like his brothers, Arthur was educated at Christ’s College, but he broke with family tradition when he pursued studies in law, instead of returning to the land. After a schooling made notable by both academic and sporting success he completed his education at Jesus College, Cambridge, and graduated in law, being called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1882.

Two years later Arthur Rhodes returned to Christchurch and proceded to establish himself as a man of some note and substance. He bought land (the area now bounded by Merivale Lane, Hewitts Road, Carlton Mill Road, and Rossall Street), sold a number of small cottages then on the property and had them removed to Riccarton, and began to build a residence fit for a gentleman and his family. Showing where his priorities lay, he began with coach-house and stables, but soon followed this with the first part of the house. He named his home Te Koraha — the wilderness — but energetically set about transforming his wilderness into a garden well planted with trees, lawns, and flower beds, though always retaining plenty of space for his beloved horses. After his marriage in 1892 the house was extensively enlarged. The new two-story wing included a library (with built-in strongroom), a ballroom complete with sprung floor, big airy bedrooms opening on to a balcony, and nurseries for the coming family. His wife was Rose Moorhouse, beautiful, fashionable, popular, and well-connected (her uncle was W. S. Moorhouse, that most vigorous of Canterbury’s provincial superintendents). He was ambitious and hard-working, she charming and warm-hearted, and the two swiftly became leaders of the Christchurch social scene.

Two children were born, Arthur Tahu Gravenor in 1893, and Rose Mairehau the following year. By this time their father was deeply involved in politics and the Maori names were chosen on the recommendation of the Maori people of his electorate. Mr Rhodes was elected with a large majority to the South Canterbury Gladstone seat in 1887, and again for Geraldine (with similar electoral boundaries) in 1890. In Parliament he acquitted himself in a painstaking and persistent manner, if not with any great brilliance. He was stoutly against allowing women the right to vote, and the coming of women’s franchise may have been a factor in his later electoral defeats. Meanwhile Mrs Rhodes was consolidating her place as a leader of fashion in Christchurch. The couple entertained lavishly; at Te Koraha garden parties a band played under the elms and strawberries and

cream were handed to the elegant guests by liveried servants. Mr Rhodes was a capable man, determined to get to the top, and for many years his name headed the list of dignitaries at every public occasion. The same energy that he put into his business and social life he also gave to polo and to hunting. His keen interest in horse riding was passed on to his family and, before they were five years old, his children and their ponies were winning prizes at shows and fetes. Social ambitions were not aided by Mr Rhodes’s heavy figure on which his clothes hung untidily, nor by some awkward personal mannerisms. He was thought by some contemporaries to be uncouth, if not downright rude. It seems likely that he was really a desperately shy man, who forced himself into public life, not because he enjoyed

it, but more because of his family’s expectations and his own driving need to be recognised as a man of some importance. The year 1901 was a high point in his career. By this time his business was prospering and he had built his own offices, Gravenor Buildings, a massive Victorian pile (since replaced) on the corner of Hereford and Manchester Streets. Early in the year he was elected Mayor of Christchurch, some reward for the years of work he had given his city. This was the year of a royal visit: Queen Victoria had died, King Edward VII was yet uncrowned, and the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York (later King George V and Queen Mary) set out on a tour of the Empire.

It was decided that while in Christchurch the royal party should stay at Coker’s Hotel, and this arrangement provoked the sort of public dissension that the city is still so good at. The new Mayor offered his home as a royal residence, it was gratefully accepted, and the public debate subsided. For the three-day visit in June the house was completely redecorated. Mrs Rhodes planned the colour schemes in stylish pastel shades and the house was furnished by Strange and Co’s Emporium. The rooms, overcrowded for today’s taste, were the height of fashion. Huge mirrors in the public rooms reflected colourful Axminster carpets, bearskin rugs, quantities of carved walnut furniture, and heavy velvet curtains. In the hall hung a collection of Gully landscapes, borrowed for the occasion. The house was lit by electricity

generated in a machine shed in the stable-block, and the table-lamps were fitted with different coloured frilly shades for each evening. A telephone was installed. On the eve of the visit, the Rhodes family moved out to stay with their cousins at Elmwood, leaving the house free for the royal party. There were far too many in the entourage for even Mr Rhodes’s large house and the overflow stayed at Mr Beswick’s house (at the comer of Holmwood and Garden Roads) and at the Christchurch Club.

The Duke laid the foundation stone for the statue of Queen Victoria, listened to loyal speeches, inspected troops and schoolchildren, and expressed a wish to see some horse riding. Mr Rhodes called in his cousin, Robert Heaton Rhodes, and the two men gave an impromptu demonstration of wirejumping in the paddock at Te Koraha. Later, Arthur Rhodes was a guest in his own house at the state dinner.

At the close of the same year came another visitor who became a close friend of the family. Captain Robert Falcon Scott spent a month there before leaving on his first Antarctic expedition. The children loved him; more than 80 years later Mairehau remembered hiding on the roof with Captain Scott while her brother searched the garden for them in a game of hide-and-seek.

When the relief ship, Morning, went south, she carried letters and books from the Rhodes children. Captain Scott replied, describing penguins and seals, icebergs and

Mount Erebus. “We will have some splendid games in the garden when I do come back,” he wrote. New Zealand governors and gov-ernors-general also stayed at Te Koraha. Lord and Lady Ranfurly travelled with the Duke and Duchess in 1901, and in 1911 Lord and Lady Islington spent a few days there. Sir George Grey is reputed to have stayed there too. By 1911 Arthur Rhodes was able to take into partnership his nephew, M. H. Godby, and E. J. Ross, and the firm became Rhodes, Ross, and Godby.

Every few years Mr and Mrs Rhodes travelled to England where they rented a house in a fashionable area of London and entertained on the same lavish scale as they did at home. A wartime visit in 1915-16 saw both their children married. In December, 1915, Mairehau married Major George Hutton, A.D.C. to the New Zealand Governor, Lord Liverpool. Her father sent about 14 pounds of cake to New Zealand and asked his nephew to distribute it (and “wedding cake,” he said, “is worth two shillings a pound”).

Tahu’s engagement was announced almost immediately after, and in January, 1916, he married Nelly Plunket, a daughter of the former governor.

Mr and Mrs Rhodes returned to Christchurch, where Mrs Rhodes resumed her role as a leader of fashion. Even in the post-war era of daring clothes she always attracted attention; she was one of the first women to wear make-up and to try the more exciting frizzed hair styles. Mr Rhodes took a less active part in public life, and was much occupied in caring for Rhodes family properties all over New Zealand. He did find some time for sporting and other interests, and he received the 0.8. E. for his services to the Red Cross. A. E. G. Rhodes died at Te Koraha on Boxing Day, 1922. Mrs Rhodes went to live in England, and died there 10 years later. Te Koraha passed to their son, Tahu, who promptly offered it for sale. This large house and its spacious grounds appealed to the Gibson family who were then running a school for girls, Rangi-Ruru, in the house on the comer of Webb Street and Papanui Road (now Roseneath Maori girls’ hostel) and were finding themselves cramped for space. They moved in, with 18 boarders, in the August school holidays of 1923. The house is still there, lived in and cared for, though new school buildings take up much of the garden and pony paddocks, and sports fields cover the cow paddock.

Now 90 girls live in the house Mr Rhodes built for his family of four (and a staff of servants) and the school dining room includes the former ballroom and day nursery as well as a later extension. One of the 21 bedrooms is called Rhodes, and others are Kings and Scotts, to commemorate the important guests of 1901. Visitors to the house at the centenary week-end will find that, though it has been a school for 60 years, Te Koraha retains much of the character of its earlier days.