Queen Victoria Statue/Canterbury Jubilee Memorial and Setting

In July 1900 a memorial committee chaired by H. F. Wigram met in the city council chambers to decide how Canterbury’s fiftieth jubilee should be marked, weighing proposals that included completing the north transept of ChristChurch Cathedral and a jubilee home for incurable and chronic cases, before resolving to ballot members on the twenty-four schemes put forward.

THE JUBILEE MEMORIAL (Star, 24 July 1900) · 24 Jul 1900 · National Library of New Zealand

In August 1900 the committee adopted a scheme by the mayor, William Reece: a stone obelisk surmounted by a seated bronze figure of Queen Victoria, its base carrying bas-relief groups for the pioneers, the province’s industries and the sending forth of soldiers to South Africa, with a bronze tablet recording the foundation of the province.

THE JUBILEE MEMORIAL (Star, 10 August 1900) · 10 Aug 1900 · National Library of New Zealand

After Queen Victoria’s death in January 1901 the committee decided the memorial would be a statue of the late Queen, and ordered it from England while subscriptions stood at about £816 of the £2,000 estimated cost.

JUBILEE MEMORIAL. (Star, 23 February 1901) · 23 Feb 1901 · National Library of New Zealand

The public subscribed slowly: by April 1901 the committee was still about £600 short of the £2,000 estimate, the Ashburton Borough Council’s circulated list had gathered under twenty shillings, and a subscription list at the Farmers’ Co-operative Association had drawn a single shilling.

JUBILEE MEMORIAL. (Star, 13 April 1901) · 13 Apr 1901 · National Library of New Zealand

The Duke of Cornwall and York laid the memorial’s foundation stone on 22 June 1901 during the royal visit to Christchurch — the only ceremony that day — with mayor A. E. G. Rhodes handing him the trowel.

THE ROYAL VISIT. ENTRY INTO CHRISTCHURCH. (Evening Post, 24 June 1901) · 24 Jun 1901 · National Library of New Zealand

The memorial also stood as the province’s South African war memorial: its estimated cost covered the Queen’s statue and “the memorial to our soldiers who have fallen in South Africa”, and it was to carry the names of the Canterbury men who fell.

JUBILEE MEMORIAL. (Star, 13 April 1901) · 13 Apr 1901 · National Library of New Zealand

By April 1903 the statue was in position in Victoria Square, and the committee decided not to wait for the contingent panels still expected from England about 10 June, planning the unveiling before 24 May.

Canterbury Jubilee Memorial. (Colonist, 22 April 1903) · 22 Apr 1903 · National Library of New Zealand

Mrs Wigram, wife of mayor H. F. Wigram, unveiled the memorial in Victoria Square on Empire Day, 25 May 1903, before a large crowd; the statue faces Victoria Street from a high pedestal above a grassed mound.

EMPIRE DAY. (Star, 25 May 1903) · 25 May 1903 · National Library of New Zealand

The subscription appeal ran in the Star week after week through March 1901, the committee publishing its running total — £911, then £939, £960, £1,007, £1,024, £1,032, £1,047 — as it inched toward the £2,000 estimate.

JUBILEE MEMORIAL. (Star, 02 March 1901) · 2 Mar 1901 · National Library of New Zealand