The leatherjacket (Novodon convexirostris), or kokiri of the Maoris, is a small rough-skinned fish with a tiny mouth and a triggerlike spine on the back which can be locked into a vertical position at will. This fish resembles brown suede leather, except for the fins which are bright yellow. It is a good food fish and is sold in the Auckland markets in the form of skinned fillets under the name of “cream fish”. The leatherjacket is less than a foot in length and is common in the outer Hauraki Gulf, where it is often seen feeding around seaweed-covered rocks.

by Arthur William Baden Powell, Assistant Director, Auckland Institute and Museum.

(1833–1902).

Architect.

A new biography of Lawson, Robert Arthur appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Robert Arthur Lawson was born at Newburgh of Fife in Scotland on January 1833 and studied architecture at Perth and, later, at Edinburgh. When he was 21 he emigrated to Australia, leaving London on 15 July 1834 in the ship Tongataboo bound for Melbourne. In Australia, like other new arrivals, he worked at various occupations, including gold mining and journalism, but eventually returned to architectural work in Melbourne. In 1861 he was successful in a competition for a design for a new “First Church” in Dunedin. This success enabled him to commence practice in that city, where he settled in 1862. On 15 November 1864 he married Jessie Sinclair Hepburn, a daughter of George Hepburn, the second session clerk of the church. They had three daughters and one son.

The “First Church” was completed in 1874, but during its construction and afterwards he was commissioned to design many other churches, public buildings, and private homes in and around Dunedin. Among these may be mentioned “Knox Church” opened in 1876; Presbyterian churches at Milton, Hampden, and East Taieri; the Manse, at Palmerston; Seacliff Asylum; the Gothic monument in the Northern Cemetery, Dunedin; the old fire station; the Bank of New Zealand; Otago Boys' High School; and Larnach Castle. He also designed buildings for the 1882 exhibition at Christchurch and the opera house in the same city; the municipal building in Dunedin was erected under his supervision, the original design having been won in competition by T. B. Cameron, of Auckland. In 1887 he was in Wellington acting as locum tenens for Thomas Turnbull, and in 1888 he announced his retirement from local practice. In 1890 Lawson returned to Melbourne, but came back to Dunedin in 1900 to resume practice in partnership with J. L. Salmond. A number of commercial buildings were erected under their joint names; but the partnership was of short duration as Lawson died at Pleasant Point, Canterbury, on 3 December 1902 at the age of 69.

To evaluate the quality of Lawson's architecture it is necessary to recognise the stylistic character prevailing at that time. Architecture, because it is a social art, has its characteristic mannerisms at a particular time and place, although these do not necessarily invalidate the fundamental qualities of “Strength”, “Use”, and “Beauty”, which are the basis of architectural criticism. The nineteenth century was an eclectic period when architectural expression tried to retain the grandeur of a social aristocracy in the face of the universal levelling created by a new democratic society. It faithfully expressed the prevailing conditions because the social revolution was by no means complete. There were two main design schools in vogue – “Classic” and “Gothic”; both were traditional and, whilst they were fiercely antagonistic early in the century, they eventually reached the compromise of using Gothic for ecclesiastical work and classic for commercial buildings. Lawson was clearly well versed in the principles of Gothic design; the “First Church”, Dunedin, is a remarkable achievement in this young community; it has been described by the Institute of Architects as a “Magnificent example of Gothic Architecture”. It is certainly one of the finest “Period pieces” in the Dominion. The proportions of the tower and spire and the architect's skilful use of light and shade in the elevational masses give it great beauty. His skill in achieving the soaring quality in the design of spires is seen again at Knox Church, Dunedin, which is plainer and not so elegant but is no less well proportioned.

The church at Taieri has a tower and spire over the entrance, which is an English traditional feature in parish churches; it is the dominant feature of the design and is again well proportioned. In this example Lawson combines stone and brickwork in the walls; the former as quoins for wall openings and for external angles, the latter for the main body of the walls. This feature is seen again at the Bank of New Zealand, the Otago Boys' High School, and at Larnach Castle. It is an early Renaissance treatment, but its significance here is in the skilful use of local building materials; excellent bricks were available in Dunedin, but stone came principally from Oamaru. He showed his wisdom, too, in rejecting stone vaults for the interior of his churches, using instead delightful timber treatments.

Lawson's best work is in the ecclesiastical field; his commercial buildings were never as convincing as his churches, and in the “First Church” he achieved his masterpiece. In this creation he endowed New Zealand with a building which is revered by its people for its beauty, irrespective of its stylistic or functional qualities. He was perhaps fortunate that he practised in Dunedin during a period of prosperity and great confidence in the future; but Dunedin and, indirectly, New Zealand were equally favoured in that a designer of his quality chose to practise there within a few years of the foundation of the city.

by Cyril Roy Knight, M.A., BARCH. (LIVERPOOL), F.R.I.B.A., F.R.S.A., F.N.Z.I.A., Professor Emeritus, University of Auckland.

Otago Daily Times, 4 Dec 1902 (Obit).

is situated in south-eastern Otago on an alluvial flat among the valleys and hills east of the Tuapeka River, an east bank tributary of the Clutha River. The Roxburgh branch goods railway and a highway into Central Otago pass through the town. Lawrence is 24 miles north-west of Milton, 37 miles south-east of Roxburgh, and 60 miles west of Dunedin by road or rail. Mixed farming on the flats and extensive sheep farming on the higher country are the most important rural activities. Lawrence is a servicing centre and the town's only important industry is a small woollen factory. The town attracts visitors because of historical associations, notably at Gabriels Gully.

Gabriels Gully Stream, and the valley from which it is named, were originally within the boundaries of a run taken up in September 1853 by James Smith and James Allan. This run was managed by George Munro, who was the pioneer resident of the district. In March 1858 Edward Peters (“Black Peter”), an Eurasian on a nearby run, found gold while sinking post holes. Later he prospected for and found gold on Evans Flat. His finds and those of Alexander Garvie's survey party, made shortly afterwards near the junction of the Tuapeka and Clutha Rivers, were not widely publicised. Gabriel Read commenced prospecting on Evans Flat in May 1861 on the upper course of the Tuapeka River. On 20 May he followed up the stream in what was afterwards called Gabriels Gully, and in less than a mile from the present site of Lawrence obtained convincing evidence of a payable goldfield. Read returned to Dunedin and reported his discovery and soon afterwards a rusn to the district occurred. By July 1861 the population of the goldfield was 11,472 – more than twice that of contemporary Dunedin. Later the diggers shifted camp to the head of the valley and eventually moved on to the ridge where the township of Blue Spur was established. In the meantime, at the entrance to the valley, where Wetherstones (properly Weatherstons) and Gabriels Gully Streams united before flowing on to the Tuapeka River, a third and more permanent settlement had come into existence. This place was called The Junction. Robert Grigor, of Balclutha, surveyed the town site at The Junction in 1862, and on 2 November the first auction of sections took place. A post office was opened on 1 April 1863 and the name Tuapeka was adopted, but on 6 November 1866 the town was renamed Lawrence in honour of Sir Henry Montgomerie Lawrence, the hero of the defence of Lucknow (1857). The peak of the gold boom period was reached as early as 1862 when nearly 200,000 oz were taken out by the gold escort; by 1866 the yield was less than 28,000 oz. Gold mining thereafter continued gradually to decline, and by the late 1930s had ceased. Lawrence was created a municipality with borough status on 20 July 1866.

The meaning and origin of the Maori place name Tuapeka are obscure.

POPULATION: 1951 census, 638; 1956 census, 589; 1961 census, 594.

by Brian Newton Davis, M.A., Vicar, St. Philips, Karori West, Wellington and Edward Stewart Dollimore, Research Officer, Department of Lands and Survey, Wellington.

New Zealand law is a remarkable mixture of radicalism and conservatism. The key to this is the pragmatic temper of lawmakers and the community generally. As a rule, actual injustices are remedied and real needs supplied without fear that traditional doctrines or institutions will be damaged in the process. Where the spur of human needs is absent, change is strongly resisted. Thus State life insurance and State trusteeship were introduced in 1869 and 1872 respectively, during the heyday of laissez faire. The Victorian attitude towards marriage did not prevent legislation in 1877 enabling the children of de facto marriages to share in their father's estate. On the other hand, the anomalous distinctions between libel and slander remained until 1954, the grand jury lingered until 1962, and mothers still have no share in the guardianship of their children while the parents are living together. Similarly, long-standing and ample protection for women as wives and mothers is coupled with conservatism towards women in public affairs, for example, as jurors.

One frequently stated aim has been to keep New Zealand law in line with English law. This has undoubtedly – and understandably – had a strong influence. It is misleading, however, to look merely at what legislators have said, perhaps as conventional rhetoric, and to ignore what they have done. Even when the “mother-complex” was strongest during the twenties and thirties, some legislation was imported from other places or had a purely local content. Where the social element is pronounced, there has been less hesitation in going our own way. In more strictly legal fields, however, the tradition of following English law, together with a certain natural apathy to innovate, has prevented or delayed many useful changes. Admitting the advantages of Commonwealth uniformity in this matter, it can nevertheless be suggested that we have been over-ready to copy or retain the details of English law. Recently there have been signs of a more balanced approach, and New Zealand law may be moving towards a fulfilment of Allen Curnow's prophecy:
“… some child, born in a marvellous year,
Will learn the trick of standing upright here”.

by Bruce James Cameron, B.A., LL.M., Legal Adviser, Department of Justice, Wellington.

A new era began in 1936 following the appointment of H. G. R. Mason as Attorney-General in the first Labour Government and the creation of an organisation in the Justice Department to initiate and study proposals for reform. For the first time, law reform was pursued systematically and on a full-time basis. Another innovation was the establishment in 1937 of the Law Revision Committee to bring outside interests regularly into the work of reforming the law. This did much to improve the quality of legislation of a more legal character. The volume and range of legislation since 1936 has been great, but the most fundamental development was probably the adoption of the Statute of Westminster in 1947. Hitherto legislation inconsistent with an Act of the British Parliament extending to New Zealand was invalid, and British legislation could theoretically over-ride any New Zealand Act. Since 1947 the New Zealand Parliament has been fully sovereign, and there are no legal restrictions on the laws it can make.

Much legislation is avowedly social or economic and reflects the policy of the party in power. Relationships between the law and the social system are equally close, however, at what may be called the subpolitical level. Social and legal reform in New Zealand over the past 90 years has been an unbroken process, now speeding up, now faltering, but illustrating an underlying continuity in our history, and its rhythm has not followed closely the political complexion of Governments.

One persistent theme is a preoccupation with the welfare of the family, particularly wives and children. In this sphere New Zealand has never been content simply to follow others. This is testified by legislation relating to adoption, family protection, joint family homes, the capitalisation of family benefits, and many other matters. Even the extensions of the grounds of divorce have had as a principal object the helping of families by giving legal status to stable de facto unions. Much of the licensing legislation affords another instance, since a dominant motive was to save the family from the abuses of liquor.

A related tradition is the intervention of the State to assist the small man whose ambitions are independence, security, and a modest living. While the law has shown a deep distrust of that figure, supposedly typical of our society, the man alone, it has tried to give reality to the image of New Zealand as the paradise of the common family man. Likewise, numerous statutes license and regulate those on whose honesty or skill others must rely. Although this is not unique to New Zealand, it is characteristic.

The first years of Parliamentary government saw few enactments of importance, but between about 1870 and 1910 there was a mass of legislation remarkable both for its volume and for its novel and often radical character. Many of the important differences between New Zealand and English law can be traced back to these decades. Thus the land transfer system was introduced (1870), primogeniture abolished (1874 and 1879), the procedure of the Supreme Court revised (1882), much of the present bankruptcy law established (1883), adoption (1881), legitimation (1894), and family protection (1900) introduced, married women given the right to own property (1883), the criminal law codified (1893), the principle of the Crown's liability for its servants' acts recognised (1877 and 1910), provision made for industrial arbitration (1894) and workers' compensation (1900), unsuccessful anti-monopoly legislation enacted (1910), and far-reaching reforms made in the field of criminal justice (1910). This was during a period when such questions as land tenures, electoral reforms, and the liquor problem were themselves responsible for much legislation.

Subsequently the flow of reform dwindled. A certain amount was done – the legislation providing for divorce on the ground of three years' separation, compulsory registration of land title, compulsory third-party insurance, and the relief of mortgagors and lessees was a product of the 1911–35 period. Nevertheless, insufficient attention was given to revising the law and keeping it up to date. Many English reforms were ignored and on several occasions the Law Society was critical of the failure to remedy various defects.

The Supreme Court has existed since its first constitution in 1841. On the other hand many lower Courts with many names were experimented with at first. There gradually emerged three tiers of Courts with original, as distinct from purely appellate, jurisdiction – Supreme Court, District Courts, and Magistrates' Courts. The germ of these last was the Resident Magistrates' Courts, established by ordinance of the Legislative Council in 1846, and the general criminal jurisdiction of Justices of the Peace. District Courts fell into disuse and were abolished in 1925. The highest Court in New Zealand is the Court of Appeal, set up in 1862 and reconstituted in 1957. The procedure of the Courts has likewise undergone much change over the years, in many instances prompted by reforms in England; but there has been no reluctance to anticipate or innovate where this has been thought advisable.

Government and people have always taken for granted the independence and incorruptibility of the Courts. These have certainly enjoyed a merited respect that has occasionally become a too-uncritical reverence. The first Chief Justice was closely associated with early legislation, and as late as the sixties we find published reports by Judges on legislative and other matters. More recently, the judiciary has held itself strictly aloof from public affairs.

The generally accepted concept of the functions of the Courts in New Zealand is a narrow one. Judges usually follow English decisions scrupulously, and lip-service at least is widely paid to the fiction that Courts simply apply existing rules to cases coming before them. These things have helped to protect the judiciary from controversy. On the other hand they have meant that the role of our Courts in developing the law has been slighter than in England or Australia and stands at the opposite extreme to the position in the United States.

A characteristic of New Zealand law from the beginning has been the free use of legislation to remedy evils and improve conditions. The immediate task was to adapt English law more closely to the colony's needs, and this produced a spate of Legislative Council ordinances. The first reaction of James Stephen, Under-Secretary at the Colonial Office, was that there had been “a morbid propensity to interfere with everything”, though he later admitted that wisdom had been shown in placing the law of the new colony on a right and durable basis. While the extent and novelty of this legislation has sometimes been exaggerated, what had to be done was done soundly. This is notably true of the major reforms effected by the Deeds Registration and Property Law Ordinances of 1842.

When New Zealand came under British sovereignty in 1840, it acquired, as a colony of settlement, the law of England – that is, the common law, together with those statutes applicable to the circumstances of the colony at the time. This law applied in theory and, later, in practice to Maori as well as to Pakeha. The natives outside the settlements could have been left to be governed largely by their own customs, as happened in some other colonies, and in the early forties the Colonial Office inclined to this view. Tentative and short-lived steps were indeed taken in 1844 and 1846 towards adapting criminal procedure to Maori conditions. Further than this the authorities were unwilling to go and, except in the case of land, Maoris and Europeans have always been subject to the same law.

A comprehensive system of Courts was quickly established. Despite shortcomings in earlier years due to primitive conditions, the need to use inexperienced laymen in lower Courts, and the small numbers from whom to choose, the Courts have throughout our history performed with impartiality and, on the whole, with efficiency the function of administering justice according to law.

(1798–1878).

King's Commissioner for the French Settlement at Akaroa.

Charles Francois Lavaud was born on 23 March 1798 at Lorient, France. He was the son of a Bordelaise naval officer who had suffered during the St. Domingo revolt, and a Breton mother. In 1810 he joined the French Navy and served on the Nymphe during the Java campaign (1810–11). He was a midshipman on the Tourville, gained his ensigncy in 1819 and his lieutenancy in 1825. Between 1817 and 1824 he visited the West Indies and the South Seas. During the Greek War of Independence (1827) he served on the Junon, and, from 1829 till 1838, made hydrographic surveys off Newfoundland. In 1839, after a short period in the Ministry of Marine in Paris, Lavaud was given command of L'Aube and instructed to proceed to New Zealand as Commissaire du Roi to prepare for the reception of the French colonists whom the Nanto-Bordelaise Company were sending to Akaroa. He arrived at the Bay of Islands on 10 June 1840 to find that Hobson had already proclaimed British sovereignty. Although he was not prepared to recognise Hobson's position as Lieutenant-Governor, Lavaud discussed his mission with him and with Pompallier and De Thierry. In order to safeguard British rights of sovereignty, Hobson dispatched the Britomart to Akaroa to establish British civil authority. Thus, when Lavaud arrived there on 15 August 1840, he found a Magistrate's Court already in existence. (This is the origin of the legend, “the race for Akaroa”.) Very wisely, he decided to cooperate with Robinson, the Magistrate, until such time as their respective Governments had settled the question of sovereignty, and, after the French colonists arrived, he assisted him to maintain order in the settlement. In January 1843 Lavaud was recalled to France, where his tactful handling of the situation at Akaroa earned him the Legion of Honour.

From 1846 till 1850 Lavaud was Governor of the French establishments in Oceania and commander of the naval station there. He returned to France in the latter year and was promoted to the rank of Contre Amiral (Rear-Admiral) on 11 June 1853. He became a Grand Officer in the Legion of Honour on 6 August 1860 and was posted to the reserve on 25 March 1860. Lavaud died on 11 March 1878.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

Crown Colony Government in New Zealand, McLintock, A. H. (1958); The French at Akaroa, Buick, T. L. (1928); L'Expansion Francais dans le Pacifique, 1800–1842, Faivre, J-P. (1953).

In April 1871 W. J. M. Larnach acquired a magnificent building site on the Otago Peninsula, 800 ft above sea level, from which were almost unsurpassed panoramic views of harbour, ocean, and coastline, and the environs of Dunedin. Plans for a mansion in keeping with Larnach's style of living were prepared overseas and supervised locally – and perhaps modified – by R. A. Lawson, a leading Dunedin architect. The mansion was to be an “elegant house” of three storeys, with a tower carrying an additional storey and the whole surmounted by a turret rising to a height of 70 ft. It was stated that the style would be “English manorial”, but in point of fact it became an extraordinary architectural creation with Scottish Baronial predominating. The interior decorations were equally grandiose, with intricately carved ceilings and staircases showing an Italian influence. Work began in early 1873 and continued for three years, the Otago Daily Times recording on 12 April 1876 that the building was at last finished “… doubtless the most princely, as it is the most substantial and elegant residence in New Zealand …”. Much of the stone for the exterior was quarried locally, but Italian marble, Aberdeen stone, Venetian glass, and rare woods were imported for special purposes. The ornamentation, the work of skilled carvers, some of whom were brought from Europe, was wonderfully executed and the furniture was designed to match. An impressive feature was a spiral hanging staircase, the rails of which were carved from solid blocks of kauri. Equally impressive was the ballroom, 90 ft by 30 ft.

The main approach to the building was guarded by massive stone lions, while at the entrance door were carved eagles with outstretched wings. The exterior buildings included stables paved with Marseilles cobbles, coach houses, harness rooms, and extensive glasshouses and conservatories, all in a setting of superb gardens. Not without reason was it known locally as “The Castle”. But Larnach called it “The Camp” because the family “camped” in another building on the site while work was under way. Various estimates have been made as to the cost, which was probably around £100,000 for the buildings and £50,000 on “extras” and grounds. In terms of present-day values this would represent an expenditure of at least half a million pounds.

Although today Larnach's Castle has lost much of its former glory, it is undoubtedly one of New Zealand's most interesting buildings and, in its class, unique. A.H.MCL.

Larnach and His Castle, Reed, A. H. (1950).