Otago Sculpture Trust

In Site Library - Greater Dunedin: Cargills Monument (Exchange) (1863-4)

InSite

The Cargill Memorial.......The Exchange.....Charles Robert Swyer

It is curious that two of the founders of the Province of Otago, Captain William Cargill and the Reverend Thomas Burns, both plain bluff Scotsmen, were commemorated on their deaths with memorials in the Gothic or "ornamented" style. Burns' memorial, a 22 metre high column, was dismantled from the Octagon in 1948 and he is now remembered by a more modest plaque in the vestibule of First Church. Cargill's monument, one of the oldest stone built structures in the City of Dunedin, now stands on the edge of the Exchange.

One possible explanation for the use of Gothic is the style's association in the Victorian imagination with religious architecture. Furthermore, there is an undoubted homage in the design to George Meikle Kemp's Walter Scott Memorial which was unveiled in Edinburgh in 1846. Thus the monument neatly pays homage to Cargill's piety and to his Scottish origins. Unfortunately the banners inscribed beneath the bowls of the drinking fountains have worn away and can no longer be deciphered. Presumably these memorialised Captain Cargill and gave his dates. There is a puzzle, too, at the base of the spire in the choice of heraldic shield which shows a swan's head above a Ducal crown. This most closely resembles the badge of the Lindsay family but seems to have no connection with Cargill. Perhaps it was arbitrarily inserted while the monument was carved in Melbourne prior to its being installed here late in 1864.

The monument was designed by Charles Robert Swyer, who was the City Engineer. He has left us an original drawing of his idea (which is now in the collection of the Otago Settlers Museum). This shows an elegant little Gothic spire surrounded by an ornamental iron fence. Water plays from the mouths of the drinking fountains. Passers-by stop to admire the structure as they stroll through the pleasure garden at the city's heart. Unfortunately, the finished result was found to be less charming.

The Octagon did not develop into a pleasure garden. The completed monument was seen as squat and over-elaborate. Carved from Tasmanian sandstone it was originally white, and critics compared it to a wedding cake or a piece of barley sugar. A former political opponent of Captain Cargill wondered whether the monument's gargoyles were Cargill family portraits. The drinking fountains were never connected and uncouth youths formed the unsavoury habit of using their basins as spittoons. To prevent this an unseemly wooden paling was built around the memorial.

In 1872, to allow George Street and Princes Street to be joined in a continuous thoroughfare, the monument was moved to its present location. The drinking fountains were at last connected and in 1908 a "much needed" public toilet was constructed beneath it. A photograph from the 1970s shows it stranded on a traffic island but it has since been reunited with dry land where it stands in the lee of the John Wickliffe building, companion to the small bronze statues of yellow eyed penguins.

Richard Dingwall

Text Copyright Richard Dingwall