William Mason (architect) - Later Career in Dunedin and Later Life

Later Career in Dunedin and Later Life

Mason retired from architectural practice when he became Mayor and subsequently devoted himself to an estate in north Otago, the Punchbowl at Maheno. But the partnership with Clayton ended in 1868 and in 1871 Mason formed a new one with his old clerk of works, N.Y.A. Wales (1832–1903). Now in his seventh decade he remained a vigorous designer. He completed Bishopscourt in Highgate for the Anglican bishop S.T. Nevill in 1872 and St Matthew's Anglican church in Stafford Street, was started in 1873. The large stone house, high on the ridge behind the city, is somewhere between the perpendicular and Tudor forms of Gothic. It was later extended and survives as the core of Columba College, a Presbyterian girls school.

St Matthews, in Caversham bluestone with unusual Port Chalmers stone dressings, is a large church, of strong design, very English in feeling, with aisles and octagonal piers. It is a contrast to All Saints and reflects a return to convention in English church design.

Before it was completed Mason's wife Sarah died, on 22 September 1873. On 20 December that year he married Catherine Fenn, a widow thirty years his junior. Mason was still designing, completing the Otepopo Presbyterian church and the Standard Insurance Company's office in Princes Street, the Clarion building, in 1874, both of which survive. He then dissolved his partnership with Wales, may have visited England and anyway moved with his new wife to Queenstown in 1876.

He became active in public affairs there, later moved further into the high country to Paradise at the head of Lake Wakatipu before eventually returning to Dunedin at the time of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. He had sold his city house and was staying at the Grand Hotel, now the Southern Cross, when he died.