New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero – Report for a Historic Place Mercer Morgue (Former), MERCER (List No. 1560, Category 2) Mercer Morgue (Former), looking southeast from Glass Road (Martin Jones, HNZPT, 18 March 2021) Martin Jones Last amended 15 June 2021 Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3 1. IDENTIFICATION 4 1.1. Name of Place 4 1.2. Location Information 4 1.3. Legal Description 5 1.4. Extent of List Entry 5 1.5. Eligibility 5 1.6. Existing Heritage Recognition 5 2. SUPPORTING INFORMATION 6 2.1. Historical Information 6 2.2. Physical Information 16 2.3. Chattels 26 2.4. Sources 26 3. SIGNIFICANCE ASSESSMENT 27 3.1. Section 66 (1) Assessment 27 3.2. Section 66 (3) Assessment 28 4. APPENDICES 31 4.1. Appendix 1: Visual Identification Aids 31 4.2. Appendix 2: Visual Aids to Historical Information 34 4.3. Appendix 3: Visual Aids to Physical Information 34 4.4. Appendix 4: Significance Assessment Information 34 Disclaimer Please note that entry on the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero identifies only the heritage values of the property concerned, and should not be construed as advice on the state of the property, or as a comment of its soundness or safety, including in regard to earthquake risk, safety in the event of fire, or insanitary conditions. Archaeological sites are protected by the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014, regardless of whether they are entered on the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero or not. Archaeological sites include ‘places associated with pre-1900 human activity, where there may be evidence relating to the history of New Zealand’. This List entry report should not be read as a statement on whether or not the archaeological provisions of the Act apply to the property (s) concerned. Please contact your local Heritage New Zealand office for archaeological advice. Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga – List Entry Report for a Historic Place, List No. 1560 2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Purpose of this report The purpose of this report is to provide evidence to support the inclusion of Mercer Morgue (Former) in the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero as a Category 2 historic place. Summary Regarded as tapu, the Mercer Morgue (Former) lies within a landscape at Te Paina of high significance to Waikato Māori. The small concrete structure was built in 1936, and forms a relatively uncommon survival of an early to mid-twentieth century rural morgue. Situated within the Mercer cemetery reserve, the building reflects shifts from the employment of rudimentary hotel morgues to more sanitary structures erected by civic authorities. Construction occurred soon after its predecessor - an ‘airless’ structure forming part of the Mercer Hotel - had been exposed as unsuitable by an article published in the campaigning newspaper New Zealand Truth, demonstrating the power of national newspapers at this time. Believed to have been used until the early 1960s, the building accommodated individuals from both Pākehā and Māori communities. The structure is considered tapu for its associations with death and tūpāpaku, and was blessed in 2020. The site lies within an important landscape at Te Paina occupied by Māori communities for many centuries, including those connected with Waikato-Tainui. In the early 1860s, it lay immediately to the south of the aukati or boundary established by the Kīngitanga movement to preserve Māori autonomy in the area. The adjacent landscape contains remnants linked with the defence of this land and subsequent invasion by Crown forces in 1863, after which the land was subject to raupatu or confiscation - creating long-term suffering for its Māori inhabitants. After Mercer’s emergence as a colonial township, Mercer cemetery was established in 1881. A strong Māori presence remained, particularly after Te Puea Hērangi created Te Paina kāinga in the 1910s. In September 1936, a single-room morgue was erected within the cemetery reserve by local builder Frank Hitchcock. This occurred three months after the New Zealand Truth, a popular and controversial national newspaper, published an article decrying insanitary, hotel-based morgues in country communities and illustrating it with an image of the existing morgue in the Mercer Hotel. Morgues were specifically for holding bodies or tūpāpaku whose examination might be required for a coroner’s inquest - the latter events traditionally held in hotels during the colonial period, and later in more remote areas. Commissioned by the Mercer Town Board, the new morgue contained more up-to-date sanitary facilities, including ventilation, washable surfaces and a water supply from an adjoining concrete tank. The building interior was also painted and provided with window shuttering, Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga – List Entry Report for a Historic Place, List No. 1560 3 respectively for greater dignity and privacy. Three years after its completion, improved internal drainage was also supplied. The bodies of individuals belonging to both the Pākehā and Māori communities were held at various times inside the building. Within a Māori context, structures such as morgues would have been foreign and uncomfortable, as at this time they were built according to European concepts that did not specifically accommodate tikanga being carried out. On one occasion, the morgue housed the tūpāpaku of a young man, Kōpū Puru, brought from Te Kauwhata, some 20 kilometres distant. On another, the remains of two railway employees who died in a train accident involving the Auckland- Wellington express near Mercer Station were simultaneously held in the building. A subsequent Board of Inquiry concluded that all trains should be fitted with speedometers, and that improved signage be added before bends to enable trains to slow down. This occurred in 1940, at the peak of passenger rail transport in New Zealand. The morgue is believed to have been used until approximately 1962, when Mercer Town Board was disbanded. Remaining tapu, the building was blessed by representatives of the Māori Anglican Church in 2020, in a ceremony attended by other community members. 1. IDENTIFICATION1 1.1. Name of Place Name Mercer Morgue (Former) Other Names Morgue 1.2. Location Information Address 24 Glass Road MERCER Additional Location Information NZTM Easting: 1782338.0 1 This section is supplemented by visual aids in Appendix 1 of the report. Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga – List Entry Report for a Historic Place, List No. 1560 4 NZTM Northing: 5872455.02 Local Authority Waikato District Council 1.3. Legal Description Lot 96A Parish of Koheroa (NZ Gazette 1881, p.1221) and Legal Road, North Auckland Land District. 1.4. Extent of List Entry Extent includes part of the land described as Lot 96A Parish of Koheroa (NZ Gazette 1881, p.1221) and part of the land described as Legal Road, North Auckland Land District, and the building and structures known as Mercer Morgue (Former), thereon. (Refer to map in Appendix 1 of the List entry report for further information). 1.5. Eligibility There is sufficient information included in this report to identify this place. This place is physically eligible for consideration as a historic place. It consists of land, and a building and structures that are fixed to land which lies within the territorial limits of New Zealand. 1.6. Existing Heritage Recognition Local Authority and Regional Authority Plan Scheduling Not scheduled in Waikato District Plan, Operative 26 March 2013, or Waikato Regional Plan, Operative April 2012. Not included in the Proposed Waikato District Plan, 18 July 2018. 2 Approximate centre of the place. Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga – List Entry Report for a Historic Place, List No. 1560 5 2. SUPPORTING INFORMATION 2.1. Historical Information Early history Traditionally known as Te Paina, the area now occupied by Mercer township is strategically situated beside the Waikato River, to the south of the latter’s confluence with the Mangatāwhiri awa. Tangata whenua consider both waterways to be sacred, with the latter being tapu as the home of three taniwha: Karu Tahi, the one-eyed guardian; Waiwaia, the wanderer; and Te Ia Roa, the swift.3 Incorporating a mixture of riverine, swamp and cultivable land, Te Paina was rich in food and other resources necessary for human settlement.4 Sometimes contested, it contained a number of different settlement types, including fortified pā such as one a short distance to the northwest of the current Mercer cemetery.5 The area is associated with the whakapapa, tūpuna, kaitiaki and oral traditions of Waikato-Tainui including the hapū of Ngāti Amaru, Te Uri o Haupa, Ngāti Naho, Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Te Aho, Ngāti Haua, Ngāti Hine, Ngāti Pou, Ngāti Tamaoho, Te Ākitai Waiohua, Ngāti Te Ata, Ngāti Tipa, Ngāti Paoa, Ngā Muka Development Trust Marae and the descendants of those people for whom Te Pūaha o Waikato and Kei o Te Waka rohe was home.6 After the arrival of large-scale European settlement on the Tāmaki isthmus in the 1840s, Te Paina remained under Māori control. With rising tensions between Waikato iwi and the Crown in the 1850s and 1860s, the Mangatāwhiri River became the northern aukati or boundary of lands loyal to the Kīngitanga movement, which sought to retain Māori autonomy. In 1863, Crown troops crossed the Mangatāwhiri just north of Te Paina, marking the beginning of the British invasion of the Waikato. To slow down the British advance, Kīngitanga forces created defensive entrenchments on ridges to the north and south of the current Mercer cemetery. The Koheroa ridges to the north formed the site of the first encounters between the Crown and Kīngitangi forces in the Waikato War (1863-4), where both sides suffered casualties.7 3 Makere Rika-Heke, ‘Registration Report for a Wāhi Tapu, Te Aukati Ki Mangatawhiri, Pokeno (Register no. 9632)’, New Zealand Historic Places Trust Pouhere Taonga, 2013, p.5.