Overview
Ella Pharazyn was born into one of the Wairarapa’s oldest and wealthiest colonial families – a family who had built their fortune on sheep farming.
The patriarch of the family, Charles Pharazyn, first leased land at Palliser Bay to graze sheep in 1845 – when sheep farming was almost unheard of in this country. His daring enterprise paid off, and he soon owned many thousands of acres. His sons also became sheep farmers, and one of them, Charles Junior, was Ella Pharazyn’s father.
After being sent to Britain for an education, Ella Pharazyn returned to New Zealand a young woman, and in 1890 married Charles Chapman Elgar, a wealthy entrepreneur who had gone into partnership with her grandfather. The newlyweds lived at Fernside, Charles’ 1,134 acre estate near Featherston. The following year they had a daughter, Enid.
Ella Elgar’s father died in 1903, leaving an estate worth more than 150,000 pounds. In those days, this was a lot of money!
The Elgars made regular trips to Europe, China, and Japan, where they bought valuable antique furnishings for their country mansion, Fernside. They lived there in the summertime, but often rented a house in Wellington around the middle of the year to escape the harsh rural winter and be part of the capital city’s social season.
Despite her riches, Ella Elgar’s life was no fairytale. Her only sister, Ida, had been killed at the age of twelve when a train she was riding in blew off the tracks over the Rimutaka Hill. Then in 1916, Ella’s only child, Enid, died of tuberculosis.
In 1923, while staying in Wellington, the Elgars received news that Fernside had burned to the ground, taking with it all their possessions.
They commissioned the Christchurch architect Heathcote Helmore to design a new Fernside – a vast neo-Georgian mansion. In order to furnish it, Ella Elgar made several trips to England to buy a whole new collection of antiques.
In 1930, Charles Elgar died at a Tauherenikau race meeting. Ella continued living at Fernside until 1943, when, at the age of 74, she moved to Christchurch. Two years later, she died. In 1946 the Dominion Museum, one of Te Papa’s predecessors, received a marvellous bequest from her will: some of Fernside’s finest antiques, including a black lacquer cabinet. These were displayed in period rooms at the Museum until 1992, and many of them can be seen in current Te Papa exhibitions.
Text originally published in Tai Awatea, Te Papa's onfloor multimedia database (1998).