Benjamin Mountfort
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Benjamin Mountfort
Benjamin Woolfield Mountfort (13 March 1825 – 15 March 1898) was an English emigrant to New Zealand, where he became one of the country's most prominent 19th-century architects. He was instrumental in shaping the city of Christchurch's unique architectural identity and culture, and was appointed the first official Provincial Architect of the developing province of Canterbury, New Zealand, Canterbury. Heavily influenced by the Anglo-Catholicism, Anglo-Catholic philosophy behind early Victorian architecture, he is credited with importing the Gothic revival style to New Zealand. His Gothic designs constructed in both wood and stone in the province are considered unique to New Zealand. Today, he is considered the founding architect of the province of Canterbury. Early life Mountfort was born in Birmingham, an industrial town in the English Midlands, Midlands of England. He was the son of perfume manufacturer and jeweller Thomas Mountfort and his wife Susanna (née Woolfield). As a ...
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Benjamin Mountfort
Benjamin Woolfield Mountfort (13 March 1825 – 15 March 1898) was an English emigrant to New Zealand, where he became one of the country's most prominent 19th-century architects. He was instrumental in shaping the city of Christchurch's unique architectural identity and culture, and was appointed the first official Provincial Architect of the developing province of Canterbury, New Zealand, Canterbury. Heavily influenced by the Anglo-Catholicism, Anglo-Catholic philosophy behind early Victorian architecture, he is credited with importing the Gothic revival style to New Zealand. His Gothic designs constructed in both wood and stone in the province are considered unique to New Zealand. Today, he is considered the founding architect of the province of Canterbury. Early life Mountfort was born in Birmingham, an industrial town in the English Midlands, Midlands of England. He was the son of perfume manufacturer and jeweller Thomas Mountfort and his wife Susanna (née Woolfield). As a ...
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Isaac Luck
Isaac Luck (12 May 1817 – 15 December 1881) was a New Zealand architect. A professional builder, he arrived in Lyttelton, New Zealand, Lyttelton on the ''Steadfast'' in 1851. He was the third chairman of the Christchurch City Council, Christchurch Town Council. He was the brother-in-law of and in partnership with Benjamin Mountfort, and was the less well-known architectural partner for the design of the Canterbury Provincial Council Buildings. Early life Luck was born in 1817 in Oxford, England; his parents were Jesse and Mary Luck. He worked in a partnership with John Plowman, John Plowman the younger as builder and architect. Some of his buildings in England include the Littlemore Lunatic Asylum (1846, as builder), the parsonage at Burton Dassett (1847, as architect), additions to the Warneford Hospital, Oxford Lunatic Asylum (1847, as architect), and additions to the Union Poor House in Faringdon (1849, as builder). He was the surveyor for the demolition of the old HM Priso ...
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William Brassington
William Brassington (1837 or 1841 – 3 March 1905) was a stonemason, sculptor and builder practising in Christchurch, New Zealand in the late 19th century. His sculptured carving on many of the city's unique Gothic revival public buildings is regarded as some of the finest in the Southern Hemisphere. His work is celebrated around New Zealand and he died when he was around 65 Biography Brassington was born in Nottingham, England, and trained, like his father, to be a stonemason. In 1863 he and his wife Ellen and two daughters emigrated to New Zealand aboard the ship ''Brother's Pride''. His youngest child died on the voyage. On arrival in New Zealand he set up business in a Christchurch cemetery as a monumental mason. The quality of his work was noticed by the official Provincial Architect Benjamin Mountfort who was working on the provincial council chamber in Christchurch. Mountfort immediately employed Brassington to carve the decorated stonework. The work Brassington ex ...
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John Ruskin
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy. Ruskin's writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. He wrote essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, architectural structures and ornamentation. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art gave way in time to plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society. Ruskin was hugely influential in the latter half of the 19th century and up to the First World War. After a period of relative decline, his reputation has steadily improved since the 1960s wi ...
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Victoria Clock Tower
The Victoria Clock Tower, also known as the Diamond Jubilee Clock Tower, is a heritage-registered clock tower located in Christchurch, New Zealand. Designed by Benjamin Mountfort, it is registered as a "Historic Place – Category I" by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust. History Canterbury Provincial Council Buildings Mountfort designed the clock tower in ca 1858, to be placed on top of the first (wooden) section of the Canterbury Provincial Council Buildings. The iron tower and clock was constructed in Coventry and arrived in December 1860 in 147 boxes, but it was determined that the building structure would be unable to support the tower's weight. The clock was then placed in the stone tower of the Provincial Council Buildings in Armagh Street, and whilst its face could not be seen, the chime could be heard for a distance of 2 miles. The clock was not in good repair, impacted by the sea journey, and it remained in the tower for a short time only. The iron tower, meanwhil ...
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Canterbury Provincial Council Buildings
The Canterbury Provincial Council Buildings were the buildings of the Canterbury Provincial Council that administered the Canterbury Province from 1853 until the abolition of provincial government in 1876. The buildings are the only purpose-built provincial government buildings in New Zealand still in existence. The buildings were substantially damaged in the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake, and partially demolished by the Christchurch City Council. Location The buildings are located in Christchurch Central City. They occupy the block surrounded by Armagh Street, Durham Street, Gloucester Street and the Avon River. Historical context The New Zealand Constitution Act 1852, passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, established a bicameral New Zealand Parliament, with the lower house (the House of Representatives) being elected by popular vote, and the upper house (the Legislative Council) being appointed. Votes were to be cast under a simple FPP system by telling ...
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Dunedin
Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. The city has a rich Scottish, Chinese and Māori heritage. With an estimated population of as of , Dunedin is both New Zealand's seventh-most populous metro and urban area. For historic, cultural and geographic reasons the city has long been considered one of New Zealand's four main centres. The urban area of Dunedin lies on the central-eastern coast of Otago, surrounding the head of Otago Harbour, and the harbour and hills around Dunedin are the remnants of an extinct volcano. The city suburbs extend out into the surrounding valleys and hills, onto the isthmus of the Otago Peninsula, and along the shores of the Otago Harbour and the Pacific Ocean. Archaeological evidence points to lengthy occupation of the area by Māori prior to the ar ...
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Johnny Jones (pioneer)
John "Johnny" Jones (March 1809 – 16 March 1869) was a trader and settler in New Zealand. Born in Sydney, Jones was the third son of Thomas Jones, one of the early settlers in New South Wales. He spent his early life on sealing and whaling ships, before becoming a ferryman at Port Jackson. He had an entrepreneurial streak and invested his savings in a way that by the age of 20, he had interests in three whaling ships. He married Sarah Sizemore on 7 January 1828 in Sydney, and they had 11 children, although two died as infants. John Richard Jones was his eldest son. In 1835 Jones and Edwin Palmer went into a partnership to purchase a whaling station in New Zealand and a schooner for whaling. Within the next few years, his shrewd business skills allowed him to gain a controlling interest in seven New Zealand whaling stations. In 1838 he bought a whaling station and land near Waikouaiti, and also purchased a large area of land from Ngāi Tahu chief "Bloody Jack" Tuhawaiki, amoun ...
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Waikouaiti
Waikouaiti is a small town in East Otago, New Zealand, within the city limits of Dunedin. The town is close to the coast and the mouth of the Waikouaiti River. Today, Waikouaiti is a retail trade and servicing centre for the surrounding district, which has sheep farming as the principal primary activity. A major egg producer, Zeagold Foods, a branch of Mainland Poultry LTD has a 500,000-hen factory farming operation here and is in the process of expanding over the next year to meet demand for egg products. Hawksbury, 3 km southwest of Waikouaiti, has a cheese factory and shop, a swimming pool and housing developed from the old mental health institution, Cherry Farm. Karitane, 3 km to the southeast has a small fishing port. History Prior to the arrival of Europeans the area was occupied by Māori, who had a kaik, or unfortified settlement, at modern Karitane and a pa, or fortified settlement, on the adjacent Huriawa Peninsula. An 1826 sketch of the east Otago coast, ...
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South Island
The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, and to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean. The South Island covers , making it the world's 12th-largest island. At low altitude, it has an oceanic climate. The South Island is shaped by the Southern Alps which run along it from north to south. They include New Zealand's highest peak, Aoraki / Mount Cook at . The high Kaikōura Ranges lie to the northeast. The east side of the island is home to the Canterbury Plains while the West Coast is famous for its rough coastlines such as Fiordland, a very high proportion of native bush and national parks, and the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers. The main centres are Christchurch and Dunedin. The economy relies on agriculture and fishing, tourism, and general manufacturing and services. ...
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Masonic Lodge
A Masonic lodge, often termed a private lodge or constituent lodge, is the basic organisational unit of Freemasonry. It is also commonly used as a term for a building in which such a unit meets. Every new lodge must be warranted or chartered by a Grand Lodge, but is subject to its direction only in enforcing the published constitution of the jurisdiction. By exception the three surviving lodges that formed the world's first known grand lodge in London (now merged into the United Grand Lodge of England) have the unique privilege to operate as ''time immemorial'', i.e., without such warrant; only one other lodge operates without a warrant – the Grand Stewards' Lodge in London, although it is not also entitled to the "time immemorial" title. A Freemason is generally entitled to visit any lodge in any jurisdiction (i.e., under any Grand Lodge) in amity with his own. In some jurisdictions this privilege is restricted to Master Masons (that is, Freemasons who have attained the ...
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Freemasonry
Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities and clients. Modern Freemasonry broadly consists of two main recognition groups: * Regular Freemasonry insists that a volume of scripture be open in a working lodge, that every member profess belief in a Supreme Being, that no women be admitted, and that the discussion of religion and politics be banned. * Continental Freemasonry consists of the jurisdictions that have removed some, or all, of these restrictions. The basic, local organisational unit of Freemasonry is the Lodge. These private Lodges are usually supervised at the regional level (usually coterminous with a state, province, or national border) by a Grand Lodge or Grand Orient. There is no international, worldwide Grand Lodge that supervises all of Freemasonry; each Grand Lod ...
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