| Statue of William Rolleston | |
|---|---|
 Rolleston Statue outside the Canterbury Museum in November 2010 | |
.svg)  Statue of William Rolleston | |
| Artist | Herbert Hampton |
| Year | 1906 (1906) |
| Catalogue | 1946 |
| Medium | White marble |
| Subject | William Rolleston |
| Designation | Category II historic place |
| Location | Canterbury Museum, Christchurch |
| Coordinates | 43°31′51″S172°37′39″E / 43.5309°S 172.6275°E /-43.5309; 172.6275 |
| Designated | 26 November 1981 |
| Reference no. | 1946 |
TheRolleston Statue is a whitemarblestatue situated outsideCanterbury Museum on Rolleston Avenue inChristchurch, New Zealand. It commemoratesWilliam Rolleston, who wasSuperintendent of theCanterbury Province from 1868 until 1877.
The statue was unveiled on 26 May 1906 by SirJohn Hall KCMG, Mayor of Christchurch and personal friend, who writes the "City Council arrived in carriages to Statue".[1] The Rolleston Statue fell off its plinth in the2011 Christchurch earthquake, suffering damage repaired in 2016.
Rolleston was the fourth and last Canterbury Superintendent. He was also aMember of Parliament, from 1868 to 1899 with two breaks in the later years.[2] Rolleston died in 1903.[3]
Rolleston was the politician who had been instrumental in the establishment of the Canterbury Museum and theCanterbury College, which now houses theArts Centre. It was thus seen as appropriate to place the statue outside the museum, with Rolleston looking across Antigua Street (with this section since renamed to Rolleston Avenue[4]) at the Canterbury College.[5]
The statue, by English sculptorHerbert Hampton, was unveiled in 1906, where it stood on a stoneplinth.[6] The plinth reads: "William Rolleston Superintendent of Canterbury 1866–1876."[7]
At the time of its unveiling, the sculpture was regarded as a good likeness of Rolleston though has been criticised in more recent times as being "rigid" and "lacking surface interest" when compared to the other Christchurch statues sculpted byThomas Woolner andGeorge Lawson.[8] The statue toppled off its plinth during the February2011 Christchurch earthquake and the head broke off.[9] During repairs, it was discovered that the statue had simply been mortared into place. An anchor was fitted so that the statue will not topple over again in future earthquakes. The repaired statue was unveiled, with many of Rolleston's descendants present, on 21 December 2016; almost six years after the earthquake.[10]
On 26 November 1981, the statue was registered byHeritage New Zealand as a Category II historic place, with the registration number being 1946.[6] It is one of the three statues that commemorate superintendents of Canterbury (the other statues commemorateJames FitzGerald andWilliam Sefton Moorhouse) and they are all placed on Rolleston Avenue (Moorhouse's statue is some distance inside theBotanic Gardens). The three statues thus form an important historical setting.[6]
Media related toRolleston Statue at Wikimedia Commons