MONEY FOR ANGLICAN CATHEDRAL

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 268, 10 August 1945, Page 6

MONEY FOR ANGLICAN CATHEDRAL

£150,000 Now Required APPEAL TO, CITIZENS OF WELLINGTON

In his capacity as chairman of the committee of prominent citizens which has been formed to assist in raising the further £150,000 needed to enable construction of the Wellington Anglican .Cathedral to begin, the mayor, Mr. Appleton, announced yesterday that the campaign to obtain the money would begin shortly. The campaign is to have two fronts, one within the Church of England and one among citizens generally. The committee of which- Mr. Appleton is the head consists of citizens of Wellington irrespective of denomination. Mr. Appleton said that, the cathedral project having been initiated many years ago, it seemed that the time had arrived for a concentrated effort to finish it. There could be no more favourable time to launch an appeal, because money was plentiful, consumer goods were in short supply, and the psychological effect of the approaching termination of the war should create the right atmosphere. Already the committee had received the warmest commendations for its efforts throughout the province, not only from Anglicans, but also from members of other denominations in all walks of life. The new cathedral would be the cathedral of the Anglican diocese of Wellington and 1 all worship within- its walls must be in harmony with the teaching and practice of the Anglican Church, he said, but its erection would be an opportunity to emphasize the national claim of the Christian faith. Those who were supporting the project hoped that corporate acts of worship could take place there, specially on national or civic occasions, in the manner for which the use of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London had set a precedent. Hundred Years’ Effort.

The Bishop of Wellington, Kt. Rev H. St. Barbe Holland, who was with the mayor, said people were continually asking why Wellington should be in a hurry to build a cathedral when English cathedrals had taken hundreds of years to build. That objection was not valid because, almost without exception, the main edifices of the English cathedrals had been built within one generation, though embellishments had taken longer. Furthermore, the old cathedrals were built of quarried stone and the speed of the work could be adjusted to the flow of subscriptions without waste of labour, but a concrete cathedral could not be conveniently built slowly. Anyhow, he said, Wellington had already spent 100 years on preparing to build its cathedral. About 1845, Bishop Selwyp. planned a national cathedral In Wellington, but failed to receive the support he desired. Every 15 or 20. years since then the conscience of Wellington citizens had been stirred by the feeling of what they lacked, and the proposal had been revived, sites being obtained, or chosen, plans drawn and money collected, but work had never been actually started. The site now fixed on, at the corner of Molesworth Street and Hill Street, and looking past Parliament Buildings to Lambton Quay, was the, finest conceivable in Wellington, and the stage was all set for a reinception of the project after its suspension during the war. Non-Anglican’s View.

Sir Charles Norwood, a member of the citizens’ committee, who was also present, said the mayor and his colleagues had decided wisely that the work would be much more to Wellington than the erection of a Church of England Cathedral. As a non-Anglican he agreed fully with that attitude. Fine as were the religious institutions in Wellington and the Work they were doing, there was nothing architecturally in Wellington to give the visitor the immediate impression that it was a Christian city. He would be surprised if any denomination did not feel it had some interest in the edifice, if not for the reason he had given, then because it was to include a war memorial chapel, preserving the names of all men of the Wellington district, irrespective of religion, who had fallen in the two wars. In anticipation of the question why work should be done on such a building while houses were wanted, it was stated by members of the committee that the type of labour employed on the cathedral would be different from that employed on houses, and that though the money was to be collected immediately several years must elapse, in any case, before the work could reach any considerable scale.

Following are the members of the committee of -which the mayor is ehairman: —Sir Charles Norwood, Sir James Elliott, the Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Holland, the Minister of Finance, Mr. Nash, Mr. Bowden, M.P., Captain S. Holm, Messrs. R. O. Addison, R. L. Button, S. G. Castle, C. O. Coad, D. A. Ewen, M. S. Galloway, B. Hope Gibbons, E. W. Hunt, R. L. Macalister, M. G. C. McCauj, W. R. Newall, Stronach Paterson, W. H. Price, W. H. Stevens, B. R. Webster.