Rutherford Memorial Hall - Foxhill School

Many an educational institution claims to have educated Lord Ernest Rutherford, the founder of modern science, and all of them, though they may have hosted the scholar for a time, are shooting in the wind.

Rutherford was an intensely self motivated learner, one of 12 siblings whose mother encouraged their education. The claimants in this merry go round are Havelock, Marlborough, Brightwater, Nelson, Canterbury Univeristy, Canada, and Cambridge and Manchester Universities.

There is inalienable fact in the mix and that is the very first place Rutherford and some of his siblings went to school was here in modest little Foxhill. The teacher was Mr Harry Ladley, and he attempted to satisfy young Rutherfords craving to learn with extra homework in maths and science. The school is now a hall, and named Rutherford Memorial Hall. While the other sites Rutherford graced are held in great esteem, like thescience centre at his den in Christchurch, and his grave at Westminster Abbey, this little hall is in a tired state.

A community trust manages it's maintenance, and potential restoration to it's original 1880 state, but the task is enormous and the community small. They hang their hopes on the most famous of Rutherford's few quotes, “We haven’t the money so we’ve got to think”, a reference to his background in working family in small town New Zealand.

Image Credit: Lord Rutherford Memorial Hall