WATT MEMORIAL FOUNTAIN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 279, 24 November 1937, Page 6

WATT MEMORIAL FOUNTAIN

GUARDING LIBRARY ENTRANCE AN OLD AVENUE LANDMARK. “It used to be a great place for men to congregate, talk politics and generally argue the point,” stated a friendly voice to a “Chronicle” reporter who yesterday studied the Watt Memorial fountain in Queen’s Park, which guards the entrance to the Alexander Library. The fountain bears an inscription advising the curious that it was given by the people of Wanganui in 1881 to commemorate the generous action of Mr. William H. Watt in making a gift of Westmere Lake to the city for a water supply. As a fountain the erection first stood at the intersection of Victoria Avenue and Ridgway Street. There it assumed all the significance of a village pump, but with a great deal more dignity. Men congregated there in their hours of idleness and discussed the rise and fall of Governments. As a matter of fact it became a sort of labour bureau, in that if a man wanted another to work for him he often headed for the fountain to find him. But the people who put the fountain in the centre of the town’s busiest spot had not read Jules Verne very carefully, or, if they had, had deemed his view of mechanised transport as very far-fetch?d. With the coming of the motor-car the fountain had to be removed from the centre of the street and it is significant that when it was taken away to Cook’s Gardens, to stand in comparative peace there for a time, the gatherings of men shifted their place of meeting to under the friendly windows of the Post Office, where conveniently-placed seats permitted them to sit down and argue about the rise and fall of Governments.

The Watt Memorial (for it is a memorial to a man who did much for Wanganui) was more or less forgotten in Cook’s Gardens near the band practice room, and it was not until the library was erected that the decision to move it to a place of eminence more fitting was concei cd. It was transferred from Cook’s Gardens to Queen’s Park. It stands to-day still a fountain in name but not in actual fact. There is no water spraying from it as in days of yore. For all that it is an interesting landmark, and on guard outside the new library it is a tangible reminder of hands which laboured to lay the foundations of Wanganui.