In the 1950s and 1960s, as the new Cathedral took form, many people began to be concerned about the fate of St Paul’s, as the Anglican Church had made it clear it did not want to continue to maintain a church so close to the Cathedral.  This cartoon from 1965 shows an activist couple choosing which campaign to join that week.  An anti-Vietnam War protest? Or one to campaign against the Wellington Motorway, or to save Bolton Street Cemetery?  A campaign against the New Zealand rugby team going to South Africa without their Maori players?  Or to stop Pacific nuclear testing?

Or should it be: ‘Keep St Paul’s in Wellington’ this week?

'What Will it Be This Week?', Neville Lodge Cartoon, 1965
‘What Will it Be This Week?’, Neville Lodge Cartoon, 1965

This cartoon by Nevile Lodge was drawn soon after the church was been closed in 1964; one of the suggestions for what to do with the church at the time was that St Paul’s could be shipped over the hill to the Wairarapa, to be the school chapel at Rathkeale College.

Image – Nevile Sidney Lodge cartoon ‘Which will it be this week?’, 1965. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22454706