Old Union Bank of Aus­tralia

Roselyn Fauth
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When I walked through the old Union Bank of Aus­tralia build­ing recently, I found myself ima­gin­ing being in Charles Gri­er­son’s shoes.

He was the first bank man­ager to step into this new blue­stone bank when it opened on Stafford St in 1877, and lived upstairs, keep­ing watch over the safe.

Stand­ing there dur­ing the recent renov­a­tion by Timaru Dis­trict Hold­ings Ltd (TDHL), I felt unex­pec­tedly con­nec­ted to that earlier world.

The Union Bank story began far from Timaru. It issued its first pro­spectus in Lon­don in 1837 and became the first bank to oper­ate in New Zea­l­and, open­ing a branch in Wel­ling­ton in 1840. By the time it reached Timaru in 1867, it was well estab­lished across the coun­try and staffed here by a man­ager and six bank­ing officers.

Gri­er­son was in charge when the new build­ing opened.

The bank would remain in this spot for 74 years before mer­ging in 1951 with the Bank of Aus­tralasia to become the ANZ.

The build­ing was designed by Thomas Roberts, a Timaru archi­tect who trained as an engin­eer in Eng­land before emig­rat­ing to Can­ter­bury in 1870. He later designed Sealy House, now Shand House at Craighead Dio­cesan School.

The con­tractor was Thomas Machin, who would later prac­tise as an archi­tect.

Together they cre­ated a Vic­torian com­mer­cial clas­sical build­ing with real pres­ence, con­struc­ted in Timaru blue­stone with cement plaster, brick, slate and cor­rug­ated iron. The project cost about £3000, a sig­ni­fic­ant invest­ment for a town still recov­er­ing from the dev­ast­at­ing 1868 fire that des­troyed much of its wooden CBD. It was a build­ing that needed to look trust­worthy, and it did.

Over the years the facade evolved. A sus­pen­ded ver­anda was added and, in the 1950s and 1960s, mod­ern shop fronts were built in front of the ori­ginal struc­ture.

This is the build­ing I remem­ber grow­ing up in Timaru, where I bought cla­ri­net reeds and Theatre Royal tick­ets from New­man’s Music Store. See­ing the scaf­fold­ing come down to reveal the restored blue­stone was a real thrill. Remov­ing the later plaster has brought back a strong sense of her­it­age char­ac­ter that anchors the whole streets­cape.

Inside, sev­eral ori­ginal fea­tures have sur­vived. Fire­places, a koru stair ban­is­ter, columns with Cor­inthian cap­it­als and the won­der­ful old safe door that still opens into the stron­groom. These details make it easy to ima­gine those early bank­ing staff step­ping between coun­ters and ledgers.

TDHL pur­chased the prop­erty in 2018. In 2023, they com­mit­ted to strength­en­ing and restor­ing it to sup­port and com­ple­ment the south end redevel­op­ment.

The former bank man­ager’s res­id­ence on the first floor has been the TDHL office since 2024, and the ground floor is now home to Ven­ture Timaru.

TDHL gen­eral man­ager Frazer Munro showed me around upstairs and said it had been a fant­astic project to be involved with, espe­cially reach­ing the com­ple­tion of the facade res­tor­a­tion. The high ceil­ings and her­it­age ele­ments in all the rooms cre­ate a calm­ing and invit­ing atmo­sphere.

Ven­ture Timaru oper­a­tions and des­tin­a­tion man­ager Di Hay told me what a priv­ilege it was to now be loc­ated in this her­it­age build­ing, where the care­ful renov­a­tion pro­cess has cel­eb­rated the past and also the present, with some nice mod­ern touches.

Build­ings like this help us under­stand where we have come from and who we are today. Keep­ing them alive means allow­ing them to evolve while hon­our­ing their past. Every­one involved should feel proud. It is won­der­ful to see this place hum­ming with life again at the south end of Stafford St.

Brought to you by the Timaru Civic Trust, cel­eb­rat­ing our built her­it­age and the people who keep it alive.