In late 2020, somebody delivered a sheaf of papers to Avebury House, for the history collection.
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It is a shame that nobody managed to get their name as we have been unable to say “Thank you”. One of the items is a new addition to our collection of material about the history of Richmond; an 11-page typewritten record of “An address given by Mr H. de Rie Flesher to the PTA on 16th October 1956”. The first seven pages consist of Mr Flesher’s talk; the other four pages are memories of Richmond School and the surrounding suburb, in response, by other long-term residents. The material is entertaining reading and offers many personal insights and stories as well as information about Richmond in days gone by. 

Hubert Flesher (1901—1989) was the son of James and Margaret Flesher and the third generation of the Flesher family to live at Avebury, and so was a long-time Richmond resident.

In the document below, I have transcribed the material. In doing so I have applied some light editing: correcting obvious spelling and typing errors and regularising punctuation, but otherwise have tried to keep the look and feel of the typewritten original. l have provided some notes to expand on items and to correct some errors.

In his 1973 book “Richmond a Regional History”, George Walsh refers to “some notes by Mr H. de R. Flesher”. This typescript appears to be a copy of those notes; in a number of places, the wording is identical or similar, and some of the factual errors in the document are repeated in Mr Walsh’s book. The document is a valuable addition to the limited material available about Richmond’s history, and above all, it is an informative and sometimes amusing read. The original typescript is now housed in the Richmond History Group collection at Avebury House.

David Hollander
June 2021

For some time, members of the Richmond History group have been researching the people whose names appear on the Richmond School Roll of Honour, which is now housed at Avebury House. We have recently completed a document that tells the stories of Richmond men who perished during the First World War.

The 60-page document, available via the link below, includes some background about the honour roll as well as detailed information about 46 people we have identified as having died in the conflict. Of these, only two are buried in Christchurch, all the rest are buried or memorialised overseas, many thousands of miles from home.

This may help explain why there are so many memorials commemorating the war throughout New Zealand; apart from the many official war memorials around the country, there are hundreds of these honour rolls that record the names of service men and women connected with schools, workplaces, churches and a wide range of other groups and organisations. These local memorials may have served as a focus, particularly for people who had lost friends and relatives, when there was little or no hope of ever visiting their graves.

In 1879, George Alfred Buck published a Christchurch and Suburban Directory. The 379-page directory offers a snapshot of Christchurch only 29 years after its founding. At this time there was no suburb of Richmond; this area was known as Bingsland, after Morice Bing (1830–1877) who had owned land in the area. By 1879, Bingsland was becoming more closely settled; the area’s growing population meant Bingsland was included in the directory as one of Christchurch’s suburbs, outside the city area bounded by the four town belts (now the four avenues).

In 1868, a Methodist Church had been established on Stanmore Road, on land donated by Mr Bing. The Bingsland School had opened on its Stanmore Road site in 1875. These developments reflected an increasing local population and were beginning to set the area apart from much of the rest of the largely rural surrounding area.
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In the 14-page document below I have added some more information about the directory and Christchurch at the time. I have also transcribed the names of Bingsland residents from the directory, firstly in name order as they appear in the directory and then in order by street and lastly by occupation, where this has been given (about 10% of entries). Later in the document are some descriptions of the area around this time, followed by a series of newspaper articles transcribed from Papers Past, which illustrate some of the matters concerning Bingsland residents in 1879.

 Thanks are due to Don Hudson of Kiwi Publishers who recently donated several copies of the Kiwi Publishers 1998 reprint of George Walsh’s book “Richmond Christchurch – a Regional History” to the Richmond History Group. Don has also given us permission to copy the book and make it available online, so it is great to be able to make this scarce publication more readily available. The 48-page booklet, originally published in 1973, is hard to find nowadays; there are copies available in the New Zealand Collection at Tūranga, but these cannot be borrowed. The booklet is now available here as an 18MB PDF file; click the link at the end of this post.

George Walsh (1901–1975) was born in Richmond and his parents were long-time residents. His book is still the only publication that describes the development of Richmond from rural hinterland in the 1850s–60s to inner city suburb by 1890s and after.
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The booklet is not without faults; the title is something of a misnomer — there is nothing regional about the book, and some of the history pages include errors and should be read with a grain of salt. The strongest sections are:

Despite its shortcomings, the book is a valuable resource for people interested in our local history and we are indebted to Don Hudson for making it so readily available. 

Papers Past (https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/) is a wonderful resource for anyone interested in our history. The website is a service of the National Library of New Zealand and houses scanned copies of many historical New Zealand publications. Items include more than 150 newspapers, as well as magazines & journals, letters & diaries and parliamentary papers.

The 2 September 1918 issue of The Star included an article about Richmond on page 6. The image above has been compiled to make the article easier to read on-screen — the article originally appeared as a single column running almost the whole length of the page. 

There are several errors in the article, but it gives a vivid impression of Richmond 100 years ago, especially the area beyond North Avon Road, which had not long become part of Christchurch City. In the document below I have transcribed the article and included a contemporary map of the area. I have also added some notes where appropriate, to provide context and correct the errors. It’s good to know we live in a ‘sturdy’ suburb.
Feel free to explore the riches of Papers Past.

PERMANENT LINK TO THIS ITEM: 
​https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TS19180902.2.47

The image above shows the cover of the St Saviour’s Orphanage Monthly News for March 1923. The orphanage had a large presence here in Richmond where, from 1910, the St. Saviour’s Home for Girls was located at 73 Stapletons Rd (the site later became Churchill Courts). However the photo on the cover of this issue shows the Boys’ Home which was located in Morgans Road, Timaru. The full 8-page document is available for download below.

The regular bulletin included news from the orphanages and acknowledgements of donations of goods and cash to the orphanages. Both homes relied completely on donations and represented a huge voluntary effort on the part of many people to function. To give an idea of the scale of the operations, the Timaru Home was built in 1918, not long after a new building had been added on the Richmond site. The combined cost of the two projects was £30,000 — equivalent to over $3 million* today(!?) and all from donations. This probably explains the emphasis on the money side of things in this and other orphanage publications.

* Calculated using the Reserve Bank inflation calculator (www.rbnz.govt.nz/monetary-policy/inflation-calculator)

​In August David Grantham donated a set of nineteen Richmond School class photos, taken between 1956 and 1974, the period when David's father, Tom Grantham, was a teacher at the school. As well as ten formal class photos there are three staff groups and several other photos of sports and cultural groups, as well as a few informal photos taken on school outings. I have scanned these photos and combined them in a PDF document which is available below for viewing and/or downloading.

I have recorded pupils’ names underneath each scanned photo. I have transcribed these names as best I can; some of the handwriting is difficult to decipher. If people can help correct any spelling errors, add their own memories or other information about the photos, we would love to hear from you — please contact Avebury House: (admin@aveburyhouse.co.nz).
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Our thanks to David Grantham for his generous gift. The photos are now stored with the Richmond History Group collection in the Richmond Room at Avebury House, along with a wide range other material recording Richmond's history.

This short history (40 pages) of Holy Trinity Church, Avonside, was written for the parish's centenary in 1955 by the vicar of the time, Archdeacon W. T. Williams. I came across a copy in a bookshop some time ago and have scanned it for others to enjoy.

The booklet makes interesting reading...if you're into that kind of thing. We learn, for example, on p21, that the building now known as Chrystal Palace at 12 Chrystal St, was originally St Aidan’s Mission House, an outpost of Holy Trinity Avonside, established after 1912 when Rev. O. Fitzgerald became vicar.

Although the stone church at Avonside was demolished after the 2011 earthquake, the churchyard and cemetery are still well worth a visit. Richard Greenaway has compiled a guide to the cemetery and the many people who are buried there, available on the Christchurch City Libraries website: http://christchurchcitylibraries.com/Heritage/Cemeteries/Avonside/AvonsideParishCemetery.pdf

​David Hollander

Some years ago, it was proposed to have Avebury House registered as a historic place. The Canterbury earthquakes and their aftermath caused some delay, but the process has now been completed and Avebury House has recently been classed as a Category 2 historic place (#9075) by Heritage New Zealand. 

The report below was prepared by Robyn Burgess of Heritage New Zealand as part of their investigations. While there are some overlaps with the two CCC Avebury House documents posted on this site recently, this report offers a different perspective and brings the official record of Avebury up-to-date.
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List Entry Type: Historic Place Category 2
List Number: 9075
Date Entered: 16th May 2019
Date of Effect: 5th June 2019