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ment. He settled in Canterbury and was returned to the first New Zealand Parliament as member for the Christchurch Country District which included the then almost unoccupied Ashburton area. Again, from 1871 to 1875, he represented Christchurch East. But by then he was a confirmed alcoholic. He had lost his money, and his wife and child had left him. So he entered the old men’s home late in 1878—he may indeed have been in the district earlier—and, although he was well enough to give two of the public readings for which he was well known, he died there early the following year. Joseph Ward, lay reader, conducted the funeral.

From forty to seventy men lived at the home during most of the period. One of them, Neil Campbell, reached 101 years. Many were old soldiers, like William Lackey Gallagher, ex-Royal Artillery and New Zealand Police Force, who lived there because incapacitated by a broken leg. But some were young, being unable, for example because of weak hearts, to maintain themselves.

The buildings, in Short Street, were ‘make-shift, draughty, inconvenient’ and constantly in need of repair. Worse still in some ways they were infested with ‘the bugs of London lodging houses’. On one occasion men found wandering outside late at night declared that ‘death would be preferable to the manner they were tormented night after night’. An Ashburton Guardian headline described conditions as ‘A Public Scandal’.⁷⁵ Yet the master and matron did all they could with carbolic, kerosene and chloride of lime. In fact, despite their condition, the buildings were kept neat and clean.

The use for so long of these ‘temporary’ quarters was due both to the economic conditions and to distant control. The people of Ashburton regularly supplied the home with gifts of food, fruit, books and tobacco; but they were unlikely to agitate for a new building while the post office and railway station buildings were almost as decrepit. Ashburton had only one representative on the Charitable Aid Board and other members seldom inspected the premises. However in 1890 a large bequest (£2000 p.a.) to the home by Stephen Cole Moule of Prebbleton, although it did not become available immediately, held out hope of improvement. A condition of payment was that the government must spend a pound for every ten shillings received from the trustees. The board had to act if it was to take advantage of this gift, and so in 1900 secured a new site. The Hon. W. C. Walker, Minister of Education, and one-time Ashburton parliamentary representative and