1920s

Boys at Summer Camp - 10-day camps for boys and girls, held at various racecourses outside the Wellington region, were a regular event through the 1920's.

Urban changes - factories replaced housing; rural youth moved to the city for work or new life.

1929

Relief work for the unemployed during the Depression. Oriental Bay can be seen in the distance.

Wider social needs: Greater community response

An act of parliament was passed to establish the independent Wellington City Mission (Anglican) Trust Board. Trustees were civic benefactors and volunteers.

October 1929: The Wall Street crash and ensuing economic decline of the Great Depression. Voluntary welfare organisations were impossibly stretched.

• The Men's Shelter was opened to house and feed the unemployed flooding into the city.
• The Mission became an unofficial employment bureau.
• Hot lunches were provided for neglected elderly in the community.
• There was a huge dependence on donations from firms and individuals and for volunteers to prepare, deliver, serve and repair as the Depression years stretched on.
• 'Our spiritual and social life are essentially one, we want you to see that they are not divided. Should the day come when the two are divided, on that day the life and the work of The Mission will cease.' Fielden Taylor

1930s

The City Mission building in Taranaki Street was built in 1931.

• A soup kitchen was started - 150 fed weekly.
• A 'second-hand shop' was established to provide cheap clothing.

1934

The Mission retrenched as voluntary resources became insufficient to maintain services.