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New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22657, 19 February 1937, Page 6

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HISTORIC BUILDING ! LANDMARK TO DISAPPEAR TARANAKI'S EARLY DAYS } ( [BY TELEGRAPH —OWN CORRESPONDENT] NEW PLYMOUTH, Thursday Another link with early New Ply, mouth will be broken during the next few months. The New Plymouth Harbour Board has decided to demolish an old shabby building that now stands alongside the Carnegie Library, jj, King Street. Few save those who have an active interest in the early his. Tory of the province and its capita) realise that the paint-flaked, weatherbeaten structure was once the architectural pride of Taranaki—"the Provincial Government building, oubstantially built in the modern and pleasing style, with wide eaves." After years of agitation and pla n . nig the offices of the Provincial Government were opened for use on Jufy 22, 1865. They had been designed by an architect, Mr. Kelly, and i "modified" by Mr. J. C. Richmond. The top floor contained also .the offices of the Town Board and accommodation for sittings of the Supreme Court and Magistrate's Court, and the lower floor was used as library quarters for the Taranaki Institute, by which name, ai time went on, the entire building be. came known. Removed to Present Site Later, when the town was of borough size, the municipal offices were situated in the building, and remained there for nearly half-a-century, until the construction of the present building in Liardet Street allowed of the transfer of the staff to more convenient quarters. When King Street was extended in 1900, the old building, then straddling the surveyed street, was taken down piece-meal and re-erected by the contractors on its present site, where for the* last 36 years it has done service not only as municipal offices and Town Hall, but as a club for returned soldiers and as business premises for various firms. Some famous Trials It is from its service as a Courthouse in the early days that the building derives its most vivid historical colour. On more than one occasion trials famous in New Zealand legal history were held in the now dilapidated upper rooms. Murderers were there condemned to death on the gallows at the New Plymouth gaol. Hiroki, murder® of Pakeha McLean, heard the death sentence there, later to meet his fate with defiant courage on a scaffold described in the Taranaki News as "possessing all the latest improvements." Te Whiti, the rebel, in the same year listened* "with great interest and intentness," to the evidence of pakehas against him and was committed for trial on chargei of sedition.