bought a large section in the Christchurch central city, fronting onto Salisbury and Colombo Streets. A large family home, which he named Wharetiki, was built by 1904. The address was 854 Colombo Street, and his friend and business partner Peter Grant had a house built nearby at 901 Colombo Street two years later. Wharetiki was a large and representative dwelling, displaying the wealth of its owner. It had several servants and Mary Barnett's unmarried younger sister Maria (known as Polly) was in charge of them. Mary's father suffered a brain injury in 1888 and spent the remaining 20 years of his life at Seacliff Mental Hospital. When he died in 1908, his wife Margaret and the children who were still at home moved to a different house in Dunedin, but later on she and her second youngest child, Bill, moved to Christchurch to live at Wharetiki. Margaret Whelan made many spontaneous trips back to Dunedin when she got nostalgic and would stay there for a few weeks at a time, but she would otherwise live at Wharetiki for the rest of her life. Mary Barnett fell ill in 1930 and was confined to a wheel chair. The back stairs of Wharetiki House were replaced with a lift at that stage, so that she could move around the house. After Matthew Barnett's death, the remaining family members put the house up for auction in May 1935. It existed until 2011, when it was demolished after suffering significant damage in the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Wharetiki House was registered by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust as a Category II heritage building. Philanthropy On journeys from Christchurch to Dunedin, Barnett would throw half-crowns to the swagmen working on the roads, as he would remember the hard times that he had when he worked on the roads in Victoria. Cook Statue In 1928, Barnett funded an architectural competition for a statue commemorating the three journeys of James Cook to New Zealand. William Trethewey (1892–1956) won this competition and was chosen as the sculptor; this was his biggest commission in his career so far. A 12-ton block of Carrara marble was imported for this work. Barnett also funded the sculpture itself, which was unveiled on 10 August 1932 in Victoria Square by the Governor-General, Lord Bledisloe. This commission brought Trethewey much publicity, including coverage on Movietone News. The Cook Statue is registered as a