Woolston / Heathcote Cemetery Tour - Christchurch City Libraries

In 1872 Ferry Road storekeeper Joseph Harrop Hopkins was elected to the board and,
despite the enmity of John Ollivier, campaigned for the abolition of the tolls.
Sandwich men went about supporting his cause and a cartoon was produced. This
shows John Ollivier whistling cheerfully much to the chagrin of a poor fisherman
whom the great politician has condemned to pay tolls as he crosses the Heathcote
bridge each day in search of a livelihood. The item was picked up by bibliophile and
historian Thomas Morland Hocken and is now held at the Hocken Library in
Dunedin.
The 20 April 1872 Star comments on the cartoon:
A boldly drawn, rather well executed and not altogether pointless cartoon has
just been issued. A prominent provincial official who made a long speech at
the late meeting against the abolition of tolls is represented driving into town
at a smart pace in a well-horsed trap; he passes a fisherman who we may
suppose has crossed over the bridge and paid tolls for his donkey cart - if it is
a donkey cart – and the latter remarks: “Ah, if you had to pay toll, you’d soon
alter your whistle”.
Ollivier turned a barbed tongue on his younger opponent: “It’s an evil bird which
fouls its own nest” and “Mr. Hopkins or Popkins, I hardly know which”. At a
meeting of ratepayers at the Heathcote Valley School, the board chairman, James
Fisher, was subject to a vote of no-confidence. The rest of the board resigned and, at
the subsequent election, only Fisher was returned; Hopkins was at the top of the
defeated candidates.
In his later years, Ollivier generally lived a quiet life though, occasionally, he would
come out fighting. In 1881, at Phillipstown, the Rev. H. J. C. Gilbert presided over
ameeting where it was proposed that B. W. Mountfort’s plan for a substantial church
should be approved. The Press noted that Ollivier proposed:
That this meeting, fully recognising the great need of the proposed building,
pledges itself to support the vestry to the utmost of its power in procuring the
new church according to the designs furnished by Mr. Mountfort’. He urged
the claims of the district to increased church accommodation in a forcible
speech …. The motion was carried unanimously.
Plans were thus made for the building of the brick Church of the Good Shepherd.
When W. S. Moorhouse died in 1881, Christchurch Mayor James Gapes initiated a
movement to raise a subscription for the purpose of erecting a statue of the
exSuperintendent. A committee was formed, of which Ollivier became chairman, and
arrangements were made for the statue to be created in England and placed in the
Botanic Gardens. the face looking towards the Port Hills tunnel. Those present on the
occasion of the unveiling of the statue on 22 December 1885 included political ally
Hugh Murray-Aynsley and long-term critic C. C. Bowen, the Governor, Bishop
Harper and Julius von Haast. Ollivier, the first speaker, reminded the audience of
Moorhouse’s chief work - the railway tunnel – and of his contribution towards the
Woolston / Heathcote Cemetery
2006
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