Tauranga Courthouse Update

Map of the ‘Town of Tauranga’ created by George Pulman in 1864-1865
The two buildings circled in red have been identified as accommodating the Magistrate’s Court prior to 1874
Image courtesy of Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections Map 4498-4

In my November 2022 blog about Tauranga courthouses, I commented that the original site of the Magistrate’s Court was unknown – to me at least[i]. As is often the case with research, information comes to light when you’ve stopped looking for it and I can now report that the Magistrate’s Court in Tauranga was held in two further locations before the erection of the Government Building in 1874.

George Clarke (1798-1875), his wife Martha and their thirteen children, c. 1868, probably at Waimate North
It is likely that both Hopkins and Henry Clarke will be in this photograph
Collection of Tauranga City Library, Pae Korokī Ref. 09-117

Oddly this information was gleaned from a court case brought by the Tauranga Town Board against Hopkins Clarke, Clerk of the Resident Magistrate’s Court, and brother of Henry Tacy Clarke, who was the Resident Magistrate in Tauranga during the 1860s and early 1870s. The Board was trying to obtain £5 15s in unpaid rates for a building Hopkins Clarke was occupying. Clarke claimed that, as the house and land was owned by the Government and used for Government purposes, he should be exempt:

“I shall be able to produce witnesses to prove that since I have been residing in that house it has been used as a Court house and also as a Government store ... there is a room used as a Court house, with a bar across for keeping the public from the bench; that bar is still in existence.”[ii]

The plaintiff also called several witnesses, including Ebenezer Norris, a member of the Town Board. Norris maintained that, although court cases had at one time been held in the building, it was his belief that it wasn’t during Hopkins Clarke’s residence. This is supported by a statement which appeared in the Bay of Plenty Times in September 1872:

“The old Mission school house is now converted into public offices. Here one will find Telegraph, Post, and Public Works Offices; also, Resident Magistrate’s Court.”[iii]

So, it appears that both the Resident Magistrate’s dwelling and the Mission school house, better known as the Native Institute, were used as the town’s first courthouses.[iv]

Resident Magistrate’s house on the left and Native Institute on the right
Photograph taken from Tauranga Town Wharf circa 1870s
Collection of Tauranga City Library, Pae Korokī Ref. 16-011

 

Resident Magistrate’s house visible beyond the Bank of New Zealand on Wharf Street, circa 1880s
This house would be later be moved to a corner of the site to accommodate the Town Hall
Collection of Tauranga City Library, Pae Korokī Ref. 04-383

 

The Native Institute, Tauranga
This building was erected in 1861 and according to the Central Tauranga Heritage Study, written in 2008, demolished in 1874 to make way for the new Government Building
Collection of Tauranga City Library, Pae Korokī Ref. 01-140

References

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[i] http://taurangahistorical.blogspot.com/2022/11/prosperity-to-this-building-and-to.html

[ii] Bay of Plenty Times, Volume II, Issue 187, 20 June 1874.

[iii] Bay of Plenty Times, Volume 1, Issue 8, 28 September 1872.

[iv] The Bench found in favour of the defendant Hopkins Clarke “The plaintiff has failed to show that the tenement on which recovery of rates issued is not in the occupation of the General Government of the colony.” Bay of Plenty Times, Volume II, Issue 189, 27 June 1874.