People travel for all manner of reasons but one reason is to learn new things about other places and perhaps themselves. A recent visit to Auckland turned up a little gem you will not read about in any guidebook.

One street back from the Auckland waterfront runs Customs Street. Leading up the hill from Customs Street on the Southern end is Emily Place. A short way up Emily Place you come across a large triangular shaped park the top end of which borders Shortland Street. Within the park is a large obelisk. It is this that holds the interest and provides questions with few answers.

The monument was discussed immediately after the death of the Reverend JF Churton, the first Colonial Chaplain in 1853. It was eventually handed over to the City of Auckland in a ceremony in 1909. It was noted in the speech by the then first Mayor of Auckland Arthur Myers, this was the first public monument erected to an Aucklander by his fellow citizens.

It stands on the site of the original St Pauls Church which was within the grounds of Fort Britomart. This was early days in Auckland and New Zealand, law and order and protection were by no means guaranteed. St Paul’s Church was eventually relocated to Symonds Street in the City as the original needed to be moved to make way for expansions to the infrastructure of the Fort.

The original missionaries to New Zealand were moved by the word of God and had become troublesome to authorities as they made it clear the Maori were struggling under white colonisation and were not fully committed to the new faith. Disruption to the process was unwelcome as far as they were concerned.

So when the New Zealand Company began the carving up of land parcels around the country and encouraged people to move from England to the new country as settlers, "your own little piece of paradise," The Reverend JF Churton was one of the original members of the clergy to be sent to look after the interests of white settlers.

As was noted by HT Ruchas in “A History of the English Church in New Zealand”, the impetus for this new breed of clergy was not to ignore the rights of the dark skinned inhabitants completely but they should not be allowed to stand in the way of progress and expansion. The belief was the world was made for England and in the case of Maori, if they came between the goals of the white settlement, so much the worse for them. A common theme in history!

From all accounts Rev JF Churton was a feisty man who whilst not necessarily liked in other parts of New Zealand where he had sought to establish himself, found his niche as pastor to the military and people under its umbrella of care in Fort Britomart.

What makes the monument so interesting is a mistake.

You know those jobs you get to do sometimes and you are almost finished but you get distracted, just for a moment and then you make a mistake. I am sure these moments gave rise to the swear word some time way back in history!  Much of the time a mistake can be smudged over but when you are chiseling a large block of granite there is no quick fix. What do you do when you miss out a letter, make a spelling mistake? What would you do?

The Effort versus Time graph has some lessons and may tell you something about yourself. The line represents the quality of the outcome or job. The more time and effort one puts in, theoretically the better the job or final outcome. Personally I have always aimed for the arrow point, the maximum result for the smallest amount of time spent. Life is too short.

So too with the monument to JF Churton, “ love you mate but near enough is good enough,” or that is how it seems. Imagine the stone mason’s face when he realised what he had done, or not done in this case. What would his boss have said? Did they meet with the backers of the project and what transpired then? There are no Auckland City Council records relating to the error as this monument was not under the auspices of Council but private backers, particularly from those who were in the regiment at Fort Britomart. Did the stone mason go home and tell his wife? ”You useless sod you were never any good at anything” or “Don’t worry darling. We all make mistakes don’t we?” Did his children get  bullied at school? “ Ha ha! Can’t spell can’t spell can’t spell!”

And the outcome, a missing letter marked back in with a circumflex, is it okay? The money collected to pave the way for a monument was originally going to go to a school or other public good but was eventually promoted for the monument. I think even the hard man that appears to be Churton would have agreed to let it go, perhaps as a symbol of the fallibility of man.

If you look to modern times the making of a monument would no doubt have to have planning permission, the work would be subcontracted out after tender and payment would only be made once the work was completed satisfactorily. I doubt a spelling mistake and crude correction would ever make it these days. But that might also tell us something, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.”

A perfect world is less than perfect, an imperfect one is interesting.