Richmond Cottage Demands the Respect That Was Promised

Summary

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THE NEW PLYMOUTH District Council will need to tread carefully around Richmond Cottage. It is disappointing enough that the handsome relic from the city's earliest years -- and the former home of a noted pioneer family -- no longer lives up to the brochures and websites that still promote its previous public display of furniture and artefacts from a colonial home of 150 years ago. It has been empty for three years, since work started on the surrounding Puke Ariki Museum, and will likely remain that way for at least several months more. In fact, no one knows how long. The council and the museum's management say they are open to ideas for its future use, but they are increasingly giving the impression that the cottage, though viewed with affection by the public, is something of an inconvenience.

Perhaps it is even an embarrassment. In this politically correct age, in an institution that refers to Aotearoa as frequently as it mentions New Zealand, the cottage's association with two families who energetically and relentlessly advanced the interests of farmer- settlers in the second half of the 1800s might not be as welcomed as in earlier decades. Originally called Beach Cottage, it was built in 1853 for Christopher Richmond at the ocean edge of New Plymouth's original suburb around Kawaroa Point. Richmond's sister, Maria, married Arthur Atkinson, who, with his brother, Harry, were active in Taranaki and national politics (Harry was premier four times) and were dedicated to the concept of acquiring land from Maori and converting the bush into productive farms. This they, and countless others, certainly accomplished, and to Taranaki's enduring agricultural strength, but in 2004 the separation of 1800s Maori from their land -- by purchase, post-war confiscations or dubious legislation -- is a highly sensitive subject.

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Richmond Cottage Demands the Respect That Was Promised

However, it would be a pity if the fashionable dem...

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