Visitors to Auckland’s Zoo encounter not only wildlife but a history that links some of our city’s most influential citizens.

It’s a story of architecture, taxidermy, philanthropy and an elephant whose life brought joy to the hundreds of thousands who visited her over her 42-year career at the zoo.

The elephant was Jamuna. She was gift to the city’s children provided by Purewa Notable, John Court, a retail entrepreneur and civic leader whose life-long passion for providing playgrounds, recreation and opportunity for the young left a lasting legacy in Auckland.

(Court was also elected the Auckland Zoological Society’s first life member in 1929.)

Another Purewa connection to the zoo is its architecture: the Old Elephant House, an original Auckland Zoo building built in 1922 to house Jamuna and, later, her companion, Rajah. A veteran of Gallipoli, Keith Draffin, was the architect who designed the Elephant House and early Zoo buildings, including the Band Rotunda. Draffin was also one of the Auckland War Memorial Museum architects, and is a Purewa Notable.

(Today the Elephant House is a modernly elegant bistro that pays homage to the Zoo’s history and its famed elephants.)

Yet another connection between Purewa, the Museum and the Zoo lies in the fate of Rajah, whose volatile behaviour required him to be put down in 1936. Auckland Museum taxidermist Charles Dover preserved Rajah’s remains, which became a popular fixture in the Hall of General Natural History.

Dover and his predecessor, original Museum taxidermist Louis Griffin are also interred and memorialised at Purewa. (Strengthening, the ties, Griffin was also the Zoo’s animal curator until his death in 1935!)