Ormond Memorial Chapel, Napier

Ormond Memorial Chapel, Napier

Ormond Memorial Chapel

This building was originally a schoolroom, built for the Academy for Young Gentleman (later the Napier Grammar School) in or around 1865. After a successor school had been closed down in 1918, Fanny Ormond, a member of a wealthy settler family, bought the building, moved it to its present location on the corner of Napier Terrace and Chaucer Street, and presented it to the Cathedral Parish of St John the Evangelist in memory of her nephew, Alexander Ormond. The Ormond Memorial Chapel was dedicated in September 1919.

The dedicatory plaque at the back of the nave reads:-

TO THE GLORY OF GOD / AND IN EVER LOVING MEMORY OF / ALEXANDER ORMOND / KILLED IN ACTION IN FRANCE ON 30 SEPTEMBER 1916 / - / THIS BUILDING FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE OLD GRAMMAR / SCHOOL WAS ERECTED ABOUT 1869 BY THE REVD. W. MARSHALL / ‘IN HUMBLE DEPENDENCE ON GOD’S BLESSING’ / IT WAS REMOVED TO THIS SITE IN SEPTEMBER 1919 AND PRESENTED / BY MISS FANNY ORMOND TO THE CATHEDRAL PARISH / AS A MEMORIAL TO HER NEPHEW ALEXANDER ORMOND.

Sources: Ormond Reunion: Mahia, 1993, Wairoa, 1993, see esp. pp. 37-40; Ormond Chapel (Heritage New Zealand); Judy Mills, A Parish Story, Napier, 2012, pp. 33-4.

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