Talk:Christ Church, Russell

A fact from Christ Church, Russell appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 11 May 2019 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Charles Darwin contributed funds to the building of New Zealand's oldest surviving church (pictured)?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2019/May. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Christ Church, Russell.

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Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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The first paragraph repeats a lot of information from the following paragraphs (e.g. Darwin's contribution towards the construction, Royal visits etc...). I'm not too sure, for such a short article, such repetition is merited.
The "built" date seems somewhat questionable. In the article itself we see "1986 for its 150th anniversary Prime Minister David Lange..." suggesting that the Church was not completed until 1836. This is corroborated by newspaper articles describing the church's 100th anniversary (e.g. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH19360404.2.193.2?end_date=31-12-1961&items_per_page=10&page=2). Further to this, (https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH19221014.2.159.5?items_per_page=10) suggests that services were held in the church before its completion. Hence, I propose we set built to 1835 - 1836 in alignment with the anniversaries and articles.
Among the labourers who worked on the Church under Baker, Gilbert Mair is named as one of them in a news article (https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NA19350907.2.23?end_date=31-12-1961&items_per_page=10) whereby his daughter (an early colonist) recounts her childhood. Based on (https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/SUNAK19271022.2.192?end_date=31-12-1961&items_per_page=10) it is likely that Charles Nesbit would have had meaningful input to the construction of the church - his name is the most frequently associated with the construction bar Baker
Should a macron be added to the various instances of Kororareka?

Galois1832 (talk) 18:12, 23 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

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