Clarke's House, 1864-1978

HT CLARKE'S HOUSE

Over a century ago from a hill in the centre of the tiny settlement of Tauranga an attractive wooden house, with a verandah running round three sides of it, looked out over the harbour to the Mount. It had been built in 1864 for Henry Tacey Clarke, then Civil Commissioner in Tauranga, and was set on the high land cut down in 1914 to provide a site for the Town Hall.

The house got off to a shaky start. Its construction was begun in early 1864, and the timber, brought in by ship, was left at the water's edge below the site. Soon after the declaration of hostilities between the Maoris and the Europeans, the timber was appropriated by unfriendly Maoris from the eastern side of the harbour and work had to cease. The house was completed later that year. Thanks to an early copy of the Bay of Plenty Times (2 Aug 1873), we even know the name of the builder. A farewell notice for Mr Frederick George "who has for some years been a resident of the district" says that he "came here shortly after the Imperial troops, at which time he had contracted to erect a comfortable dwelling house for the civil commissioner, Mr H.T. Clarke."

Clarke occupied the house until he left the district for Wellington in 1873. Lack of records leave a gap in the details of occupancy over the next decade, but Borough Council minutes as reported in the Bay of Plenty Times show C.E. Paget, auctioneer, H.H. De Bourbel accountant and commission agent, and Joseph Ellis, brewer, living there and paying rent to the Council. The land became a borough endowment in 1885.

John Hollings Griffiths, clerk to the Tauranga County Council for 37 years moved into the house in 1890, and was still in occupation when the building had to be shifted in 1914 to allow removal of the earth from the site before the Town Hall could be erected.

The house, already fifty years old, survived the invasion of its grounds by its massive neighbour, and overlooked the activity on the building site from its position on the rear of the section.

When the Griffiths family moved out in 1978 to another house of the same vintage in Elizabeth Street (originally built by Capt Tunks in 1866 and recently removed to allow the construction of the new Inland Revenue building) the house was dismantled. It was left in pieces on the site until it was rescued by Mr Robins, and re-erected in Judea, where it still stands, a memorial to Frederick George's sound workmanship.

Jinty Rorke
Archivist