Foundation Stone
The Trades and Labour Hall was built to be the home of the New Zealand trade union movement and the Labour Party. It later became Wellington Trades Hall when the Labour Party moved to their own premises in 1939.
The foundation stone for the Trades and Labour Hall was laid by Harry Holland, the leader of the Labour Party, an MP, and an avowed left wing socialist. The opening of a complex of three buildings was considered a great event for New Zealand workers. There were celebrations lasting four days to mark the event and a 20 page special edition of the New Zealand Worker was published.
The entire construction project was described by the Trades and Labour Council as a venture ‘easily the greatest undertaken by the [labour] Movement in this country up to the present time.’ In pronouncing it as ‘one of the steps which opens up the way… [to] a Government that will organise an industrial, political, and social system in which all shall contribute according to their ability, and shall receive according to their needs’, Labour Party secretary (and future prime minister) Walter Nash saw its presence as a sign of the party’s progress in the ascension to government.