Maxwell Bury

Born in Nottinghamshire on 28 July 1825, Bury was the son of an Anglican clergyman and spent part of his youth in Cambridgeshire.

[1] He trained as an engineer near Derby and is thought to have been familiar with Aston Hall near Birmingham which has been seen as the inspiration of some of his New Zealand work, notably the Nelson Provincial Government Buildings.

He married Eleanor Sarah Deighton on 11 August 1853 at Ellesmere in Shropshire and in 1854 sailed with her to Australia in the Zingari a steam-assisted ship he had had a hand in building.

He offered his services as an engineer and a land agent, played a role in public life and was involved in Nelson Anglican church affairs.

It had ogee-roofed towers, bays and prominent nipped and curving gables and was made of wood decorated to resemble stone and was thus unusual as well as striking.

But in his buildings for the University of Otago Bury produced one of colonial New Zealand’s most successful groups which became the core and template for a greater complex.