If These Walls Could Talk: The Story of Timaru’s Trades Hall Societies Clyde Carr Memorial Hall

By Roselyn Fauth
Thank you to Grant Jenkins for showing me around. Grant Jenkins Contracting Ltd

Clyde Carr Memorial Hall Opens Today: Timaru Trades Hall Society Represents Labour Groups Formed 24 Years Ago (14 June 1969). Aoraki Heritage Collection, accessed 02/11/2025: https://aorakiheritage.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/681

52 North Street will turn 57 years old in June 2026. You’ve probably driven past it many times without realising it holds a century of Timaru’s working-class story in its walls...

This modern façade hides an interesting past. And today's blog is inspired by a digitised Timaru Herald clipping in the Aoraki Heritage Collection that shared its history — the 1969 opening of the Clyde Carr Memorial Hall, formerly Timaru Trades Hall.

I found it while on a deep dive, trying to learn about women’s marriage bars and Clyde Carr when the headline caught my eye. "Clyde Carr Memorial Hall Opens Today: Timaru Trades Hall Society Represents Labour Groups Formed 24 Years Ago". If the Timaru District Libraries hadn’t digitised it, I might never have found it...

You might recognise this building today as Grant Jenkins Contracting. But did you know it was once Timaru Trades Hall? Join me on my history hunt into what was once the heart of Timaru’s labour movement...

This Hall was built for the trade unions and the Labour Party, a new home for working people whose collective action had shaped much of 20th-century Timaru. The First Trades Hall established: 1945–46, then they relocated to the Clyde Carr Memorial Hall, which opened in: 1969 Oh, to have been a fly on the wall here! 

Aoraki Heritage Collection, accessed 02/11/2025: https://aorakiheritage.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/681

So for about 25 years before the new hall opened, the heart of Timaru’s labour movement stood at 27 Sophia Street. That earlier Trades Hall, established soon after the Timaru Trades Hall Society was formed on 18 December 1945, was a hive of worker life where they held meetings, planned strikes, socials, and I am sure debated strategies that could have stretched long into the night.

The Society was formally incorporated the following year, with D. H. Beswick as president, J. W. Downes as vice-president, E. J. T. Wood as secretary, and W. E. D. Shepherd as treasurer.

It represented a wide range of workers: Drivers, Watersiders, Railwaymen, Freezing Workers, Carpenters, Engineers, Boilermakers, Electrical Workers, Labourers, and Shop Employees — all united under the post-war spirit of fairness and reform.

A New Home for the Movement

By the late 1960s, the old Sophia Street hall had served its generation. Timaru’s labour movement was ready for a new home. By 1969, the earlier building was sold to help fund the new hall on North Street, its site eventually absorbed by later commercial development.

On 14 June 1969, the Timaru Trades Hall Society (Inc.) officially opened the Clyde Carr Memorial Hall at 52 North Street.
The ceremony was led by Norman Kirk, who became Prime Minister four years later.

The $14,000 project was the result of immense local collaboration. The building was designed by J. W. Maunsell of Maunsell and Partner, built by Timaru Builders Ltd., and managed by a team led by R. G. Blackham and G. E. Tregenza, who oversaw the land purchase, plans, and construction. Even the furnishings were proudly local: D. R. Dowell Ltd supplied the office furniture, Hardie & McKay handled the electrical work, and Butterfields laid the carpets.

The hall could seat 400 and included a supper room, kitchen, offices, and committee rooms for affiliated unions. It was centrally heated, fitted with fluorescent lighting, and even had off-street parking for about 20 cars — a detail proudly noted in the newspaper, symbolising progress and comfort for a new era of meetings, weddings, socials, and 21st birthdays.

The original building is still standing although its face on the street has had a uplift. Inside there was a re-jig but the original kitchen is still in tact.

Norman Kirk Mural Waimate - Photography by Geoff Cloake

In the Name of Fairness

The new hall’s name honoured the late Reverend Clyde Carr, Labour M.P. for Timaru from 1928 to 1962, one of New Zealand’s longest-serving and most principled parliamentarians.

Carr was known for his compassion and independence of thought — a man whose speeches championed education, women’s rights, and social justice long before they were mainstream. He famously said in 1935:

“I believe in the economic independence of women. I believe that a woman has as much right to earn her living as a man.” — Timaru Herald, 3 April 1935

Carr also helped establish the South Canterbury Historical Museum, advocated for teachers’ rights, and worked tirelessly to promote local pride and identity. Naming the new Trades Hall after him was no accident — it was a statement. The Clyde Carr Memorial Hall embodied the values he spent a lifetime championing: community cooperation, lifelong learning, and civic participation.

From Union Hall to Urban Memory

For decades, the Clyde Carr Memorial Hall hosted the hum of working life — meetings, dances, and union gatherings where workers’ voices helped shape both local and national conversations. It was a space of belonging, celebration, and solidarity.

As time moved on, the building’s purpose evolved. Union membership declined, community life diversified, and the hall gradually shifted from industrial roots to broader civic and social uses. Yet the spirit of collective effort remained. Every coat of paint and every new purpose layered another chapter of Timaru’s story.

Today, it may no longer echo with fiery debate or the rustle of union minutes, but the story still lives in its bricks — in the community labour that raised it and in the principle that ordinary people deserve a place to gather, speak, and be heard.

Labour Party - Signs at Clyde Carr Hall. Anderson & Bremford Photographic Collection. dated 16 October 1972. South Canterbury Museum T6546 [1972]

Why I Think This Building Matters

I think buildings like this remind us that heritage doesn't always have to be grand or ornate. Sometimes it's modest and practical.

Behind the Clyde Carr Memorial Hall stands a story of ordinary people doing extraordinary things — meetings held after long shifts, raffles to raise money, and cups of tea poured in solidarity. It tells of Timaru’s workers who believed that fairness and cooperation could make life better for everyone.

So next time you drive along North Street, take a second look at that unassuming hall. Its façade may have changed with time, but the original bones connect us to almost a century of South Canterbury’s social history — a story of hard work, hope, and the people who believed in progress built by many hands.

Side Quest: Why We Needed a Union — and Was Timaru Unique?

Every generation has its “enough is enough” moment. For New Zealand workers, I think one of those moments came in the 19th century — when 12 hour days, six-day weeks, and unsafe conditions were pretty standard. Wages were low, accidents were common, and there were no laws to protect employees from dismissal, injury, or exploitation. Out of this struggle grew the idea that workers could join together to negotiate better pay and fairer conditions — and so the trade union was born.

Early Union Voices

New Zealand’s first unions formed in the 1840s and 1850s, mostly among English and Scottish settlers who had belonged to unions in Britain. They brought with them the rallying cry for an eight-hour working day and a 48-hour week — ideas that helped shape our national identity of fairness and balance between work and life.

By the 1880s, the movement had gathered strength. The Maritime Council, formed in 1889 by seamen, wharf labourers, and coal miners, was the first attempt at a national federation of labour. But when the 1890 Maritime Strike collapsed after major employers blacklisted union members, thousands lost their livelihoods. The defeat exposed the power imbalance between workers and employers — and the need for legal protection.

A World-First Solution

In response, Liberal Minister of Labour William Pember Reeves introduced the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1894, making New Zealand the first country in the world to legally recognise unions and establish a national arbitration system to settle disputes. Strikes were banned while arbitration took place, but in exchange, workers gained secure recognition and a pathway to fair wages.

The Act became the foundation of New Zealand’s industrial relations for nearly 80 years, helping to create one of the most unionised societies in the world by the early 1900s.

Labour Social Club at Clyde Car Hall, Timaru, dated 26 April 1972 South Canterbury Museum T6030 [1972]

A New Era — and a Local Expression

After the Second World War, New Zealand’s union movement remained strong, though often divided between moderate and militant factions. The 1951 Waterfront Lockout, the country’s largest industrial dispute, tested the limits of that unity but also underscored how deeply organised labour had become embedded in national life.

It was in this post-war climate that Timaru’s Trades Hall Society was formed in 1945 — a regional branch of the same national movement that had been building for half a century. The Society united local unions under one roof: drivers, freezing workers, carpenters, engineers, and shop employees. What made Timaru distinctive wasn’t so much the isolation but collective strength on a smaller scale — a provincial expression of a national idea.

When the Society built the Clyde Carr Memorial Hall in 1969, it wasn’t creating something separate from New Zealand’s wider labour story. It was adding a South Canterbury chapter to it — a local home for the same values that had reshaped the country since 1894: solidarity, fairness, and community cooperation.

Geoffrey Palmer pictured campaigning for Sir Basil Arthur during an election, circa 1984. South Canterbury Museum 20121867516

From Depression to Reform

Union membership declined during the Great Depression of the 1930s, as unemployment soared. When the first Labour Government was elected in 1935, it worked closely with the Federation of Labour (FOL) to rebuild worker confidence. The government introduced compulsory union membership, old-age pensions, and paid annual leave — reforms that shaped the modern welfare state.

Today, those values continue through the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (Te Kauae Kaimahi), which represents around 320,000 members across 27 affiliated unions. Though the Fair Pay Agreements Act 2022 was repealed in 2023, the principle of collective bargaining — the idea that people achieve more together than alone — remains at the heart of how New Zealanders think about work, rights, and fairness.

So, while the Clyde Carr Memorial Hall may look like just another local building, its story sits firmly inside a national journey — one that began with the fight for an eight-hour day and continues wherever workers stand together for dignity and respect.

Timaru's Member of Parliament Sir Basil Arthur and the other Labour officials celebrate the confirmation of Labour's win for Timaru, in the 1980's. Pictured are (left to right): Mr W F Westerby (or Westoby), Sir Basil Arthur, Lady Arthur, Mr C D Townshend, Mr O J Gavigan and Mr A S Aldridge. South Canterbury Museum 2012/186.0350

Sir Basil Arthur was a Timaru-born union leader who rose from freezing-works and saw-mill jobs to the national executive of the New Zealand Workers’ Union, later serving as Timaru’s long-standing Labour MP. His early union activism shaped his lifelong advocacy for workers’ rights, making him an influential voice for ordinary people both in the union movement and in Parliament.

Sir Basil Arthur's Funeral hearse driving past Timaru's Clyde Carr Memorial Hall, the local Labour Party Headquarters, 1985. South Canterbury Museum

Piper Donald Murray Macintyre, of the South Canterbury Highland Band, leading Prime Minister Robert Muldoon and Timaru Mayor Ray Bennett onto the stage at the Theatre Royal, Timaru. Taken sometime during Bennett's second term in office (1977 to 1982). Bears a number of identification notations on the verso, including the partial date "Oct 31, 19?", identification of the location and those pictured, the photographer's reference "623X/4, and the stamp of Kingham's Photo Services Ltd. South Canterbury Museum 2021/084.02

Side Note: What About the National Party?

I don’t usually write about politics, but history often runs alongside it... especially when buildings like the Clyde Carr Memorial Hall are involved. The story of Timaru’s Trades Hall isn’t just about bricks and meetings; it’s about ideas that shaped how New Zealand saw fairness, work, and progress.

While the hall represented the Labour movement’s close ties to trade unions, the National Party reflected another side of New Zealand’s character — one built on enterprise, farming, and the belief that prosperity came through personal effort and private initiative.

The Labour Party, founded in 1916, grew directly out of the union movement. Many of its early members were organisers, teachers, and tradespeople who believed in collective action and a fair deal for workers. Clyde Carr embodied those ideals: a clergyman and Labour MP who spoke up for education, equality, and cooperation. The Trades Hall and, later, the hall that bears his name were physical symbols of that partnership between people and purpose.

The National Party, formed in 1936, came together from the older Reform and United parties soon after Labour’s first big win. Its supporters were largely farmers, business owners, and professionals who wanted to balance worker rights with individual freedom and responsibility. They accepted the system of industrial arbitration that had guided New Zealand since the 1890s but were cautious about compulsory union membership and large-scale state involvement.

Through the mid-20th century, from my understanding, it looks like both parties shared a broad goal: stability and prosperity. So I think, where they differed was more about how to get there.

Labour saw unions as the organised voice of fairness — a way to lift everyone through cooperation.

National viewed unions as one voice among many, to be balanced with business, farming, and community interests.

I think there are plenty of stories that demonstrate how Timaru and our wider region, reflected both parties. It was, and still is, a place where industry and enterprise sit side by side. The Trades Hall stood as a reminder that progress isn’t built by one idea alone, and that progress is built by many voices in conversation.

New Zealand National candidate Maurice McTigue pictured on top of the Government Life Building, dated 1985. In the background, the Centennial Memorial Building can be seen as well as a view of the surrounding area. South Canterbury Museum 2012/186.7042

Thomas (Tom) Skinner, president of the Trades Council at a stopwork meeting, dated 1975. South Canterbury Museum 20121869066

Side Quest: The Bigger Union Story

Timaru’s Trades Hall was never just a local place. It sat inside a much wider movement, a web of workers’ voices stretching from the freezing-works and wool sheds of South Canterbury to the national stages of Wellington and Auckland. And if you zoom out for a moment, two figures help anchor that larger story.

The first is Sir Basil Arthur, born right here in Timaru. Before he ever became an MP, he stood in muddy boots in freezing-works and sawmills, organising alongside the men who worked beside him. His rise through the New Zealand Workers’ Union, from Waikato secretary to the national executive, shows how deeply the labour movement shaped his life. When he eventually carried Timaru’s voice into Parliament, and later became Speaker of the House, he did so with the plain-speaking confidence of someone who never forgot where he started.

The second is Sir Tom Skinner, not a Timaru man but a giant in the national labour movement. As President of the New Zealand Federation of Labour, he was the calm but powerful voice that carried through stop-work meetings and tense negotiations during the 1960s and 70s. The issues he thundered about in big city halls were the same ones being discussed in quieter rooms in Timaru, where workers gathered after shifts, leaning forward over wooden tables in the Sophia Street Trades Hall or later the Clyde Carr Memorial Hall.

Skinner and Arthur never worked side by side in Timaru, yet their stories run parallel to its union history. One shaped the national mood. The other carried our district’s concerns right into the heart of government. Together they remind us that the Trades Hall was part of something larger — a movement of ordinary people organising, debating, and daring to believe they could change the conditions of their working lives.

And in their own ways, they did.

By Roselyn Fauth

The original building including the kitchen is still intact. As you can see it has had a new face list and fit out.

Jim Sutton, Member of Parliament for Aoraki, posed at the Timaru Trade Union building, that used to be at 56 Bank Street, Timaru dated 5 October 1999. South Canterbury Museum 2012/186.9629

Who was Sir Basil Arthur and how does he connect to this story?

Sir Basil Malcolm Arthur (1928–1985)
Union leader, long-serving MP for Timaru, and Speaker of the House of Representatives

Sir Basil Arthur’s story begins in Timaru, where he was born in 1928 and educated at Timaru Boys’ High School. After an early clerical job with New Zealand Railways, he left the office behind and took up the kind of labouring work that grounded him for life. He worked in freezing-works and sawmills, shoulder to shoulder with the men whose rights he would later defend. It was in that environment that he first joined the New Zealand Workers’ Union (NZWU), one of the country’s most significant industrial unions.

Arthur quickly proved himself as a natural organiser. While working in a Taupō sawmill he became secretary of the Waikato section of the Workers’ Union, and by 1956 he had risen to the National Executive. His union peers saw him as practical, steady and fair minded. Later he served as president of the Auckland branch (1971), taking a national role in advocating for safer workplaces, fair wages and stronger protections for rural and industrial workers. In many ways, he embodied the classic Trades Hall tradition: a worker whose leadership was born on the job, not in the lecture theatre.

His union grounding shaped the rest of his life. When he won the Timaru parliamentary by-election in 1962, he arrived in Wellington not as a career politician but as a representative of working people. He held the seat for 23 years, one of the longest uninterrupted parliamentary careers in Timaru’s history. In the Third Labour Government he served as Minister of Transport, overseeing rail and road reform, and later became Speaker of the House (1984–1985), one of the highest constitutional roles in the country.

Arthur’s legacy is that rare combination of grassroots union advocacy and national political influence. He never lost the straightforward manner of the freezing-works or the sawmill. Those who knew him remembered him as approachable, plain-speaking and loyal. His journey from NZWU organiser to Cabinet Minister and Speaker of the House shows the strength of New Zealand’s labour movement in the mid-twentieth century, and the kind of leadership that could grow from it. For Timaru, he remains one of its most significant political figures, a hometown union man who carried the voice of ordinary workers all the way into the heart of Parliament.

Sources

Clyde Carr Memorial Hall Opens Today: Timaru Trades Hall Society Represents Labour Groups Formed 24 Years Ago (14 Jun 1969). Aoraki Heritage Collection, accessed 02/11/2025, https://aorakiheritage.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/681

Timaru Herald, “Clyde Carr Memorial Hall Opens Today,” 14 June 1969, p. 22.

Timaru Herald, “Rev. Clyde Carr Dies in Christchurch at 76,” 19 September 1962.

Timaru Herald, “Married or Single Teachers? Views of Member for Timaru,” 3 April 1935, p. 5.

Timaru Herald, “S.C. Historical Museum Officially Opened on Saturday Afternoon,” 1957.

Dictionary of New Zealand Biography: Colin Brown, “Carr, Clyde Leonard,” Te Ara — The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, 1998.

A “Trades Council” in Timaru is mentioned in the Timaru Herald as early as November 1945, representing about 4,300 workers. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/THD19451107.2.69

A person associated with the Trades Hall Society is Oliver Joseph Gavigan, born in Timaru 1923-1994, who worked as caretaker / organiser for the Labour Party and the Trades Hall. https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22420939

Oliver Gavigan born Timaru. Outlines early life living with parents and grandparents and attending Salisbury School and Sacred Heart School, Timaru. Mentions parent's car, an Essex Sedan. Talks about Depression (1930s) and grandparent's contribution to those in need including Swaggers. Refers to uncle, John Gavigan, who was invalided while working on the Main Trunk Line in the North Island. Recalls working at Dominion Hotel as night porter for ten years, Woollen Mills for a period of eight years, caretaker for Municipal Building and Public Library, before joining New Zealand Labour Party and Trades Hall Society as caretaker and fundraiser - gives details of fundraising. Descripes experiences as Secretary of LEC and recalls battling with Timaru Herlad for press coverage for New Zealand Labour Party, with reference to Pat Hannifen and Basil Arthur. Other people mentioned include: Gordon Rae, David Braithwaite, David Lange, Jan Walker, Gary Clark, Norman Kirk, Walter Nash, Arnold Nordmeyer, Colin Moyle and Jim Collins. Recalls completion of Clyde Hall in Timaru. Talks about the `Catholic vote' and mentions SPUC (Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child) on the abortion issue. https://natlib.govt.nz/records/35831472?search%5Bi%5D%5Bname_authority_id%5D=-134200&search%5Bpath%5D=items

The Society gave the new building its name — the Clyde Carr Memorial Hall — and had a board/task-group that handled land purchase, building supervision and so forth (per the 1969 article).

https://teara.govt.nz/en/unions-and-employee-organisations

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/strikes-outlawed-the-industrial-conciliation-and-arbitration-act-passes-into-law

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/trades-hall-bombing-0

https://union.org.nz/nzctu-history-the-federation-of-labour-1937-1987/

https://www.mbie.govt.nz/business-and-employment/employment-and-skills/fair-pay-agreements

https://figure.nz/chart/nvVfvd43iJUbwFXz

Timeline of Key Events and Facts

1892–69

• Clyde Carr served as Labour Member of Parliament for Timaru for 34 years, from 1935 to 1969 (the article notes “34 years, 1935–69,” but he retired before 1969).

December 18, 1945

• The Timaru Trades Hall Society (Inc.) was established, representing local labour, political, and industrial organisations.

• This followed the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, encouraging unions to cooperate under a single structure.

1946

• The Society was granted incorporation under the Incorporated Societies Act.

• The first executive officers were:

  • President: Mr. D. H. Beswick

  • Vice-President: Mr. J. W. Downes

  • Secretary: Mr. E. J. T. Wood

  • Treasurer: Mr. W. E. D. Shepherd

1945–1969

• The Trades Hall, Sophia Street, served as the headquarters for Timaru’s political and industrial labour movements for nearly 24 years.

Mid-1960s (exact year not stated)

• Plans were drawn up for a new building to replace the old Trades Hall, which had become unsuitable.

1969

• Construction completed on the new Clyde Carr Memorial Hall, named in honour of Rev. Clyde Carr, late Labour M.P. for Timaru.

• The new hall was located at 52 North Street, Timaru.

• Total project cost: approximately $14,000.

• Main contractor: Timaru Builders Ltd.

• Architect: J. W. Maunsell of Maunsell and Partner.

• The hall featured:

  • Main hall seating for 400

  • Supper room and kitchen facilities

  • Offices for affiliated unions

  • Committee rooms

  • Central heating

  • Off-street parking

• The hall was available for public meetings, weddings, 21st birthdays, and social events.

June 14, 1969

• The official opening of the Clyde Carr Memorial Hall took place, led by Mr. N. E. Kirk, Leader of the Opposition (later Prime Minister).

• The event was organised by the Timaru Trades Hall Society (Inc.).

Notable contributors to the new hall project:

• Mr. R. G. Blackham and Mr. G. E. Tregenza coordinated the “package deal” for purchasing land, preparing plans, and supervising construction.

Key Details About the Timaru Trades Hall Society

• Formed to unify labour and industrial organisations in South Canterbury.

• Member unions included: Drivers, Watersiders, Railway Workers, Freezing Workers, Carpenters, Engineers, Boilermakers, Electrical Workers, and others.

• The society also worked with political Labour branches.

• The hall served as a hub for labour activity and community gatherings for over two decades.