Joyce Lockyer Honoured in Civic Awards

By Frank Neill

Hutt City’s Deputy Mayor Tui Lewis (left) presenting the Civic Award to Joyce Lockyer.

Joyce Lockyer, who i launched the initiatve to restore Wainuiomta’s Pioneer Church, was honoured at this year’s Hutt Civic Awards.

She was presented with the Civic Honour in Cultural Affairs and Educational Service by the Deputy Mayor Tui Lewis.

Joyce “has a passion for the Wainuiomata community and the Wainuiomata Pioneer Church,” her award citation says.

“From when she moved to the suburb in 1962, Joyce immersed herself in the community by being elected Secretary of the Wainuiomata Free Kindergarten and serving on the Wainuiomata Intermediate and College committees, as well as numerous other community groups.

“But arguably her most impactful work is initiating the restoration of the Coast Road Pioneer

Church.

“Joyce formed a committee in 2012, and instigated and organised countless fundraising projects to help fully restore the church, which is now a Heritage Building the community can proudly use.

“Joyce continues to tirelessly work for the church, always being one of the first to raise her hand to volunteer as well as looking after the grounds as part of their garden group,” the citation says.

Joyce received the award for her contributions both to the Coast Road Pioneer Church and also to the wider Wainuiomata community.

Sitting in Wainuiomata’s oldest churchyard, complete with the graves of early settlers, the church held its first service on 6 February 1866.

The opening came some 13 years after Richard Prouse Snr bought the land where the church now stands. He sold the land to the Methodist Church on 4 January 1865 for five shillings.

The first known burial in the churchyard was of James Riddle, a local labourer who died on 12 August 1862.

Although built as a Methodist place of worship, all denominations attended services there as it was the only church in the valley for many years. This is evidenced by some of the burials in the churchyard, which are of Roman Catholics.

With the building of St Stephen’s Church in 1957 and its opening in early 1958, the Coast Road church fell into disuse apart from the occasional wedding and funeral.

The Wainuiomata Arts Society then used the building from 1974 to 2009, when the society folded.

The Wainuiomata Pioneer Church Preservation Society Incorporated took over possession of the church and has managed the full renovation, rebuilding of the vestry, and ongoing asset and operational management of the building, churchyard and grounds since.