page_title: Benjamin Mountfort
section_title: New Zealand
hierarchical_section_title: Benjamin Mountfort / New Zealand
caption_attribution_description: Canterbury College, Christchurch.
context_page_description: Benjamin Woolfield Mountfort was an English emigrant to New Zealand, where he became one of that country's most prominent 19th-century architects. He was instrumental in shaping the city of Christchurch's unique architectural identity and culture, and was appointed the first official Provincial Architect of the developing province of Canterbury. Heavily influenced by the Anglo-Catholic philosophy behind early Victorian architecture, he is credited with importing the Gothic revival style to New Zealand. His Gothic designs constructed in both wood and stone in the province are considered unique to New Zealand. Today, he is considered the founding architect of the province of Canterbury.
context_section_description: Mountfort arrived in Canterbury full of ambition and drive to begin designing in 1850 as one of a wave of settlers encouraged to immigrate to the new colony of New Zealand by the British Government. With him and his wife from England also came his brother Charles, sister Susannah, and Charles' wife, all five of them aged between 21 and 26. Life in New Zealand at first was hard and disappointing: Mountfort found that there was little call for architects. Christchurch was little more than a large village of basic wooden huts on a windswept plain.
  The new émigré's architectural life in New Zealand had a disastrous beginning. His first commission in New Zealand was the Church of the Most Holy Trinity in Lyttelton, built in 1852 by Isaac Luck. The building proved vulnerable to high winds and was considered unsafe. It was demolished in 1857.  This calamity was attributed to the use of unseasoned wood and his lack of knowledge of the local building materials. Whatever the cause, the result was a crushing blow to his reputation. A local newspaper called him "... a half-educated architect whose buildings... have given anything but satisfaction, he being evidently deficient in all knowledge of the principles of construction, though a clever draughtsman and a man of some taste.".
  Due to this blow to his reputation, he began running a stationery shop, working as a newspaper agent, and giving drawing lessons until 1857 to supplement his architectural work. It was during this period in the architectural wilderness that he developed a lifelong interest in photography and supplemented his meagre income by taking photographic portraits.
  Mountfort was a Freemason and an early member of the Lodge of Unanimity, the main building of which he designed in 1863. The Lodge of Unanimity was the first Masonic Lodge in the South Island.
caption: Canterbury College, designed by Benjamin Mountfort in 1877, is dominated by a central clock tower, with a medieval style great hall to the right.
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