This grave is the burial plot of Mary Anne Swainson. She was born in 1833 near Hull in the English Midlands and arrived in New Zealand in 1856. In 1859 she married George Swainson, a surveyor, who unfortunately became alcoholic and died in 1870.
In 1869, to provide some family income, Mary opened a school for girls on the corner of Woodward Street and The Terrace. In 1878, as by now school education was becoming government funded, she opened a new school for day girls and boarders in Fitzherbert Terrace, Thorndon, where the garden for the blind is today . She created a very family-orientated, friendly supportive environment, she had excellent staff including the cities leading music teacher, and she had a very close relationship with Old St Pauls and the Diocese. The new railway connections to the Wairarapa and the Manawatu in the 1880s allowed wealthy landowners and farmers to send their daughters to board at the school and the school thrived.
Mary died in 1897 and her daughter took over running the school. In 1920 the Diocese of Wellington acquired the school. It was renamed the Samuel Marsden Collegiate School and in 1926 it was moved to its current site in Karori. Samuel Marsden remains one of the city’s leading secondary schools with excellent grounds and facilities.
Mary Swainson was commemorated in 1898 in Old St Paul’s by a large stained-glass window in the north wall depicting Christ Blessing the Children, and an elegant oak litany desk, still in daily use, both funded by public subscription.
