Times
Emilia Maude Nixon in her Garden of Memories c1960.
Miss Emilia Maude Nixon of Uxbridge Road, Howick, valued the recommendation of Lord Bledisloe, the former Governor-General of New Zealand, that we should follow the practice of open-air museums of Scandinavia by recording the history of Maori and pakeha in Aotearoa.
In 1935 she developed the “Garden of Memories” honouring Ngai Tai and settlers of Owairoa [later called Howick] “to promote understanding, harmony and goodwill between all people.”
Miss Nixon recognised the importance of The Treaty of Waitangi and that it was signed not far away by the Tamaki River.
She wrote to the Mayor of Auckland City, Sir John Allum, who on March 4, 1953, unveiled a plaque at Karaka Bay commemorating the 17 Maori who signed the Treaty there on March 4, 1840.