Jubilee pictorial history of the Churches of Christ in Australasia (Wellington chapters)

The Churches of Christ was an early evangelical Protestant Christian movement which had its origins in (but was independent from) what became known as the Restoration Movement. This religious reform movement emerged in the United Kingdom in the early 19th century and was later also influenced by similar movements arising in the United States. The activities of the church spread to New Zealand from Australia where it had begun in the 1860s. The church grew rapidly and by the time this jubilee history was published in 1903, there were branches across the country. This rare volume, of which the chapters relating to Wellington have been digitised and are included here, was gifted to the Central Library in 1903 by the two local branches of the church. Established in the late 1860s, the main Wellington branch of the church built its first permanent chapel on the corner of Dixon Street and Eva Street in 1883. Though it now has a masonry fascade which alters its street-front appearance, remarkably this structure has survived to the present day (2021) and it is now one of the oldest surviving buildings in Te Aro. Ironically, considering its original use as a fundamentalist Christian church and Sunday School, the building is today occupied by a strip club and brothel. 

The expansion of the movement led to the formation of a second branch in Newtown in 1896. Their first chapel was in Riddiford Street but in 1915 this was replaced with a larger church on the corner of Rintoul and Colombo streets. This building also survives to the present day; in 1975 it was purchased by the Wellington City Council and today it operates as the Newtown Community Centre.