It is widely believed that Takapuna Library dates from 1879, when the Lake Takapuna Public Library was incorporated under the 1875 Public Library Powers Act. However, at the July 1875 annual meeting of the Lake Highway Board, chairman Thomas Seaman reported the establishment of a district library during the previous year.
Further, the library received a grant from the Auckland Provincial Council in 1874, as with other similar libraries. It was housed at the public school at the south-western corner of Taharoto and Northcote Roads.
The Auckland Provincial Council went out of existence in 1876, and education became a nationwide responsibility. Takapuna Library then received a grant from the Education Department for the 1877-1878 financial year, in accordance with the 1877 Public Library Subsidy Act. It also received grants from 1883 to 1886, but from 1887 the government for a time ceased those grants.
The Takapuna School moved to Katrine, later Anzac Street, around 1899 with the library. The subsidy grant from the Education Department started again from 1898 to 1913, but that money was only to be used to purchase books.
In 1913 the Takapuna Borough Council was formed and in 1916 opened new Council Chambers, including a room for the library. That library then continued to be administered by three council representatives and three representing library members, with a grant from the council.
In 1923, a room in the Strand Chambers at the south-eastern corner of The Strand and Lake Road was set aside for the library and this was later expanded into other rooms. The council paid the annual rent. In 1923, there were 285 subscribers, who paid an annual subscription in order to borrow books, and in that year 101 pounds was spent on book purchases.
In 1936 there was a series of newspaper letters expressing ‘disgust’ at what was described as a ‘stale’ and ‘poorly maintained book stock’. It appears that Takapuna Library remained as a volunteer-managed library to 1956.
However, three sets of donors came to the rescue. The Trimble family arrived in Katikati in September 1875 from what is now Northern Ireland. One of two unmarried sisters, Fanny, died 25 January 1945 aged 83, and her estate was left to sister Catherine, who died 13 August 1950 aged 88. Their accountant/inventor father William Humphrey Trimble had died 12 February 1924 and around that time the family moved from Devonport to the south-west corner of Strand and Gibbons, where the current library now is.
The residue of Catherine’s estate (around 4,600 pounds) was given to “the Mayor, Councillors and Burgesses of the Borough of Takapuna to establish and equip a free reading room to be used in conjunction with the Municipal Library of the Council."
Back in 1939, R. & W. Hellaby had offered a triangle shaped small block of land at the back of their Hurstmere Rd butcher’s shop for a library, and the approximately 900 square foot library opened 13 March 1956.
The third donor Grace Adelaide Abbott (nee Fletcher) died 4 October 1949, aged 94, and her will stated that Takapuna Borough “Council is the residuary beneficiary in the estate, which residue is to be held by you upon trust as a fund to be applied in your discretion for and towards the erection and/or equipment of a public reading room within the Borough of Takapuna to be called ‘The Grace A Abbott Bequest’ in memory of her son Robert MacFarlane Roy”. Roy was the surname of her first husband and their son had died in 1907.
Her relative Eustace Fletcher still lived at her property on the north-western corner of Esmonde and Lake Roads until his death in 1959, and that property was then purchased by the North Shore Drainage Board in November 1960. The money from the house sale and from investments approached 20,000 pounds and another 10,000-pound council loan afforded very significant extensions to the 1956 library building. The extended library was opened 9 February 1963, while the current library was opened 5 July 1989.
By David Verran
