Builder who bought former Wellington mayoral desk happy to give it back

Raymond Morgan bought an old rimu desk used by four Wellington mayors and found more than 200 confidential documents inside it. Photo / Raymond Morgan

By Phil Pennington of RNZ

A builder who bought Wellington’s most embarrassing old desk says he would be happy to give it back to the city if it goes into a museum.

A furniture historian said it was “outrageous” that the city council ever got rid of the desk, used by four past mayors.

But the council disputed that it had any historical value.

It does, however, have a lot of stories to tell. The large rimu desk, made perhaps 120 years ago, graced the mayoral chambers through four incumbents from the 1980s, then the Happy Valley tip’s secondhand shop in 2025. It now sits beside a boat on Breaker Bay Rd, exposed to Wellington’s sewage-laced wind.

“I’d happily give [it] back to the council if they were to keep it forever in posterity,” Raymond Morgan told RNZ on Friday, as he popped out to take photos of the desk sitting by a neighbour’s runabout.

He bought it for $200 last year, then found more than 200 documents, dated between 1988 and 2004, in a locked side cupboard – “obvious and poking out”, he said.

Morgan is willing to give the desk back to the council if it's preserved in a museum. Photo / Raymond Morgan

They turned out to be what the council called “sensitive and confidential historic documents”; it quickly sent out a public alert in September, apologising about how it had disposed of furniture from the old Town Hall via the tip shop.

It got the documents back, and this week also got back a damning report from an inquiry into the farce that it had ordered from consultants Grant Thornton.

But Morgan said he had not been contacted at any stage, even for the inquiry.

“I think if they come to me and make an offer, I mean, I wouldn’t charge the city for it ... they never contacted me.”

Art historian Dr William Cottrell said the desk was of national significance, made about 120 years ago for the council, and, unusually, its full history was known.

“Clearly, it was just somebody just taking truckloads down there [to the tip shop].

“This is an outrageous example of where somebody’s just taken it upon themselves in ignorance and lost this furniture, which is furniture that belongs to the citizens of Wellington.”

But the city council rejected that.

“We disagree with the claim it has any great significance, otherwise it would likely already be in a museum,” a spokesperson said on Friday, adding that they would see if anyone had any use for the desk.

It would likely be brought up at a committee meeting next week.

The council disputed that it was obvious the documents were in the side cupboard - though Morgan said someone had been in touch who had seen them at the tip shop, sticking out, and tried to pull them out.

The Grant Thornton report said three lots of checks on the desk by council staff had failed to find the documents, which should have been destroyed.

Earlier this week, before the idea of gifting it back was raised with him, Morgan said he had other plans for it.

“I’m going to use the desktop as part of my whisky cabinet.”

As it was, the desk was proving a “showpiece” for people walking past. “People that live in Wellington who do the Eastern Walkway stop and admire it, and they recognise straight away what it is.”

It seemed to him that the desk had been renovated in some way a few decades ago.

But it was still a “damn good idea” to save and display it, he said.

“Because there’s a story to it and it raised a few eyebrows, and I think it’s always interesting to have an interesting story around Wellington city ... [It was] not necessarily an embarrassment. I think it adds to the flavour of it.”

- RNZ