Reverend John Kinder arrived in Auckland from England in the 1850s and became headmaster of the nearby Church of England Grammar School.
The two-storey Kinder House, constructed using Rangitoto volcanic rock, was built for Kinder in 1857. His mother and sister lived with him, then his new wife.
They had no kids of their own. But when John’s brother, Henry, was tragically murdered in Australia, they adopted his two children. Henry Kinder’s death by poisoning in 1865 was part of an elaborate plot by his wife and her lover. The details which emerged during the subsequent murder trial shocked colonial Australia.
All of this was in stark contrast to John Kinder’s orderly life. He lived at the house on Ayr Street, Parnell, for 17 years and taught Latin, Greek and calculus at the school.
A bushy-bearded churchman and teacher, he also dabbled in watercolours and photography. It is for these glimpses of early colonial life that he is mostly remembered.
Kinder was inspired by the freshness of the New Zealand landscape. He taught himself how to use a camera, mostly photographing the countryside and the brand-new suburb of Parnell. However, he also did a few portraits of local Maori and Pakeha.
His watercolours were primarily landscapes. Kinder’s even-handed style and portrayal of New Zealand as a permanently serene place (in his paintings the weather is always calm) has been interpreted as an attempt to impose some kind of order and idealise the New Zealand outdoors, making it seem almost utopian.
Today his pictures are popular because they reveal aspects of 19th century Auckland, which Kinder recorded as the city evolved. Apart from the Kinder House display, two major collections of his work are held at the Auckland Art Gallery and the Hocken Library in Dunedin.
Kinder died in his Remuera home in 1903 and was buried in the St John’s College graveyard. Volunteers keep Kinder House running, which is open to the general public and now owned by Auckland City.