Otago Sculpture Trust

In Site Library - Greater Dunedin: James Macandrew (Queens Gardens) (1891)

Insite

James Macandrew Bust..... Otago Settlers Museum......Geo. Munro and Coy, monumental masons.

The circumstances of James Macandrew's death in 1887 were surprising and distressing to the citizens of Otago. Driving home one evening the 67 year old Macandrew was thrown from his buggy when his horse bolted. He died shortly after at home.

James Macandrew was a prominent citizen of Otago, its second superintendent after Cargill and a member of the University council. He represented Otago in the House of Representatives and in 1877 was appointed Secretary for Lands and Minister of Immigration and Public Works in George Grey's Government. On his death a subscription was opened to mark his passing. After some debate it was decided that part of the monies raised should be set aside to endow a University scholarship and the rest used to commission a marble bust.

The commission for this work went to the Dunedin firm of monumental masons George Munro and Sons who had the bust carved in the sculpture factories of Carrara in Italy. It is probably based on the portrait by E.K. (Kate) Sperrey which hangs in the entrance hallway of the University Registry. Painted two year before James Macandrew's death this seems to have been used as the model for line drawings that appeared in the Otago Witness to illustrate news about his business. Kate Sperrey's genial statesman and Member of the House of Representatives has been transformed by some unknown Italian craftsman into the more sombre figure appropriate to a memorial statue.

The finished sculpture was raised on a high pedestal and was unveiled by James Macandrew's daughter in July 1891 at the north end of what was known as the Triangle, part of Queen's Gardens. It was criticised by the ageless Civis in the Otago Daily Times as looking like a cockatoo on the top of pole when seen from a distance.

The pedestal weathered badly and eventually in 1948 the bust was taken into the Settlers Museum where it languished for a year or so on the floor in what critic described as a "comparatively obscure corner of the Early Settlers Hall". Later that year it was sited in its current position outside the Settlers Museum. It had by then been mounted on a new, and shorter, pedestal. This was not met with universal approval. H.S. Bingham, the prominent monumental mason, wrote to the newspaper complaining that the new arrangement looked ridiculous. The bust he noted was larger than life and looked unsightly on a low pedestal. There was no explanatory plaque and the visitor, Mr Bingham suggested, could be excused for thinking it a caricature.

Richard Dingwall

27 January, 2004

Text Copyright Richard Dingwall