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Military Service Act of 1916

July 31, 2016, 12:30 pm
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One hundred years ago today, 1 August 1916, conscription was introduced to New Zealand through the Military Service Act. The first names were drawn under the Act on 15 November 1916, and monthly ballots were repeated for the remainder of the war. As you can see from the poster, there were serious consequences for those who did not enrol.

Ref: Flyer. Military Service Act, 1916. From: Lusty family. Collection of newspapers and ephemera, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, NZMS 1387.

This had its beginnings in the Defence Act of 1909 which introduced compulsory military training to New Zealand. This was a controversial piece of legislation as critics saw it as a short step away from conscription.  

A large number of youths were prosecuted for failing to register, and those who refused on conscientious grounds were fined or imprisoned. By 1914almost 5,000 young menhad been convicted for resisting compulsory military training and some were held in military defaulters’ camps such as Rīpapa Island in Lyttelton Harbour.

One group from Christchurch, the Passive Resisters Union, produced an anti-conscription publication called Repeal. This is a page from John A Lee’s copy of the March 1914 edition and these are his annotations you can see on the page.

Ref: Repeal, no. 12 (Mar. 1914), p. 10, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 355.2 R41.

Within the first week after war was declared 14,000 men volunteered for service at an average age of 23. But the voluntary system failed to provide a steady flow of troops, and led to spikes and troughs in numbers.

Ref: Auckland Weekly News, The new recruiting campaign in Auckland, 16 March 1916, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19160316-37-1.

As the war progressed, there was also a perceived inequality of sacrifice, with some families, regions, classes and occupational groups appearing to contribute greater numbers to the war effort than others. From May 1915 the horrors of Gallipoli and the sinking of the Lusitania led to calls for conscription to remove those inequalities.

Ref: Henry Winkelmann, New Zealand Army Recruiting Station in the centre of Victoria Street West, 23 April 1917, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1-W1594.

The upshot was the Military Service Act of 1916, which established the Expeditionary Force Reserve consisting of every Pākehā male between the ages of 20 and 46 years. From this Reserve all future reinforcements were to be selected by ballot. It was later expanded to include Māori as well. 

Ref: Auckland Weekly News, The first ballot under the compulsion clauses of the New Zealand Military Service Act, 23 November 1916, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19161123-35-1. 

Ref: Auckland Weekly News, Filling up the gaps in New Zealand's reinforcements, 23 November 1916, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19161123-35-2.

A huge amount of resources have been created during the centenary commemorations of the First World War. The National Library have produced a specific research guide on conscientious objectors during the First World War, while Auckland Libraries developed a more general one. Auckland Libraries have also created an online exhibition and an Auckland Weekly News timeline of the First World War in New Zealand.

Author: Andrew Henry
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Our favourite photographs: South Auckland edition

August 7, 2016, 12:30 pm
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Inspired by a recent post on the New York Public Library's blog the team at the South Auckland Research Centre have chosen a selection of their favourite photographs from the collections there. Their choices span a century, from the 1890s through to the 1990s, and show a variety of places around South Auckland and the Counties Manukau area.

Bruce Ringer

The Auckland Libraries Footprints database includes a wide range of captivating and illuminating photographs. It’s difficult to make a choice of favourites, but here are three that stand out in my memory.

Ref: Racing boy, Pakuranga, c1905, photograph reproduced courtesy of Howick Historical Society, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 39.

This photograph looks straightforward but has an element of mystery. It’s a rare example from the time of a shot that captures a person in motion. But it leaves a few questions hanging in the air. Who is this boy? Why is he running? The obvious assumption is that he’s running in a race, but what if the sly smile on his face is a hint that he’s being chased after some piece of mischief but is confident of getting away?

Ref: Trevor Penman, Cars on the beach, Māngere, c1959, photograph reproduced by permission of Trevor Penman and Mrs Gladys Penman, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 22.

A reminder of those innocent times when you could drive your car right on to the sand and step out almost straight into the tide. This photograph is redolent with the nostalgia of lost summer days. A year or two after it was taken this beach was declared off limits to the public and covered by the earthworks for Auckland’s new international airport.

Ref: Enoch S. Pegler, The SS Weka at Waiuku, 16 October 1898, photograph reproduced courtesy of Waiuku Museum Society, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 00912.

This is documentary photography at its most informative. The photographer, location and date are all known; the image is sharp and clear. Everything can be seen: the muddy banks of the tidal Waiuku River; the battered little steamship waiting for the tide; the tiny dolls’ house on stilts that served as the local road board’s office; the rickety bridge; the elegant double-storeyed Kentish Hotel; the late Doctor Topp’s house, flanked by willow trees; the gable end of Flexman Brothers’ general store. The Kentish Hotel can still be seen from much the same vantage point today.

Lynn Diedricks

Ref: Under the umbrellas, Māngere, c1905, photograph reproduced courtesy of Māngere Historical Society, South Auckland research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 01098.

When thinking about our Footprints database I always think of this photograph. I wonder what Beatrix and Muriel’s lives were like, what it would have been like growing up a century ago. 

Ref: Planting pohutukawas, Clover Park, July 1997, photograph reproduced by permission of Fairfax Media, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 03682.

This photograph of Redoubt North Primary School students helping with planting trees at their school is special and unique in different ways. It is unposed and natural. It is also multicultural and shows children doing what all children do when having to wait their turn (in line): sticking out their tongue, putting things into their mouth when in thought, touching their faces, touching or picking their noses, or just watching what is going on around them. This photographer caught the moment perfectly!

Ref: Horse and gig, Māngere, c1905, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 01083.

The reason I am drawn to this photograph is the horse, and particularly the legs of the horse…

Sharon Smith

Ref: Gerard Johnson, Balloons galore, Middlemore, 20 June 1991, photograph reproduced courtesy of Fairfax Media, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 03501.

This is one of my favourite photographs. I love the shape that these balloons make as they float skywards. I also like the way that the photograph is in black and white, the grey and black balloons look like they should be solid and heavy, but despite this they are still able to ascend with ease.

Ref: Waterlea School hui, Māngere Bridge, April 1993, photograph reproduced courtesy of Fairfax Media, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 03582.

The way the girl looks out of the photograph at the viewer is what I like about this image. The lovely big round pots, the stirring stick, the round cabbage. There is a sense of being a part of something bigger, a duty to work for others.

Ref: Blessing St Mark's Anglican Church, Waipipi, 19 November 1914, photograph reproduced courtesy of Pukekohe Library, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 02372.

I like this image because the soft white light lends an ethereal quality, echoing the spiritual nature of the subject. The wind blowing the religious garments makes it seem possible that the priests were able to fly as though they had wings.
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Julia Thorne George's wedding

August 14, 2016, 12:30 pm
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In today’s property market most young couples can only dream of such a wedding gift, but when Julia Thorne George married up-and-coming lawyer Wilfred Colbeck in June 1895 her parents presented her with a house in St Stephens Avenue, Parnell. What’s more, Sir George Grey sent her a generous cheque that enabled her to furnish the dining room in style.

She was nevertheless miffed at Sir George for failing to attend the wedding. Technically, he was her great-uncle, but she regarded him more as a grandfather. She had lived in the same house as him most of her life. Her mother, Annie, was the daughter of Grey’s half-brother Gordon Thomas, who died young. Grey not only took Annie in but continued to provide a home for her and her growing family after she married Selwyn Thorne George in 1872.


Ref: Daniel Mundy, Interior of Mansion House, Kawau Island, c1870, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 7-A3034.


Julia was born at Grey’s residence on Kawau Island (now known as the Mansion House) in 1874. She lived on the island until Sir George sold his holdings there in 1888 and he and the Thorne Georges moved together to Parnell.

Grey seems to have long harboured a desire to spend his last years in London. The Thorne Georges were startled, however, when he sailed abruptly for England in May 1894 without saying goodbye or informing them of his plans. They expected him to return to New Zealand for Julia’s wedding and were disappointed when he did not. He died in a London hotel in September 1898.

Ref: Julia Thorne George, Letter to Sir George Grey, 14 June 1895, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, GLNZ G10.2.

“I expect you are tired of weddings as you have been in the midst of them lately,” Julia says to Sir George –a little caustically – in her letter of 14 June 1895. He had attended the wedding of his kinsman William Grey, 9th Earl of Stamford, to Elizabeth Penelope Theobald on 18 April at St George’s, Hanover Square.

Julia’s affection for Sir George ran too deep, however, for her annoyance to develop into a permanent rift. She named her eldest son Grey Colbeck in tribute to Sir George.


Ref: Group portrait of Sir George Grey with the Thorne George family, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 530-1.

Sir George is easily recognisable as the central figure in the family photograph taken in Parnell in the early 1890s. The other bearded gentleman is Selwyn Thorne George. Grey’s niece, Annie, is seated third from left. Julia is seated at far right. The photograph was donated to the library by Julia’s second son, Dr Stuart Colbeck.

Author: Iain Sharp, Sir George Grey Special Collections
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Dalmatians out west: transport, horticulture, viticulture and sport

August 21, 2016, 12:30 pm
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Now on in the J.T. Diamond Room, Waitakere Central Library is our Dalmatians out west exhibition. The exhibition features images from Auckland’s Dalmatian community and will run until 30 August 2016.

This is the third and final blog post based on the themes in the exhibition.

Transport, Horticulture and Viticulture

A number of Dalmatian families specialised in transport or earthmoving companies. The Lendich family were by far the largest, followed by Vuksich & Borich and then Bogoslav Sokolich. 

Marinovich and Sons also owned a fleet of transport trucks which plied the route between Dargaville and Auckland.

Ref: Marinovich & Sons’ truck for the Auckland-Dargaville Service. West Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries. DGHS Collection.

Ref: Tony and Ivan Yukich standing in front of their new truck, c1998, West Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries. DGHS Collection.

Many of the vineyards and orchards had their own trucks and transport. Joseph Balich established the Golden Sunset Vineyards in Sturges Road, Henderson in 1912 and would travel door-to-door selling his invalid port.

Ref: Joseph Balich with his wife and children, Henderson, 1920s, West Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries. DGHS Collection.

Horticulture and viticulture played a major part in life in Oratia, Henderson Valley, Lincoln Road, Kumeu, Huapai, Taupaki and the surrounding areas. Prior to specialising in orchards and vineyards most had side lines such as market gardens to bring in additional income until they could concentrate on being either an orchard or a vineyard.

With strict licensing laws vineyards were restricted to selling a minimum of 12 bottles (two gallons) to any one person.

Ref: Soljan family picking grapes, Lincoln Road, Henderson, March 1935, West Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries. DGHS Collection.

Ref: Frank Boric standing on the trailer at his orchard in Lincoln Road, Henderson, c1948, West Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries. DGHS Collection.

Ref: George Mazuran in his cellar of aging ports and sherries, Lincoln Road, Henderson, West Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries. DGHS Collection.

Sport

Sport and leisure, in the main, revolved around the two Clubs: The Yugoslav Club, and The Yugoslav Benevolent Society (Croatian Benevolent Society). They organised dances, social gatherings, annual picnics, and sports teams such as Zora Rugby League, Zora Basketball (Ladies) and Jadran Soccer.

Ref: Zora Yugoslav Rugby League Senior Division Team. Back Row:  C. Marinovich, B. Kostanich, R. Posa, M, Simich, M. Devcich, N. Lake, G. Dragicevich. Third row: R. Hardgrave (Senior Coach), L. Sunde, M. Letica, T. Babich, R. Garea, G. Marelich, D. Simich. Second Row:  J. Juricevich, J. Borich, I. Sumich, H. Borich (Capt.), J. Zane, I. Sunde, M. Pivac. Front Row: T. Staub, D. Juricevich (mascot), W. Erceg. West Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries. DGHS Collection.

Waitemata Rugby Club had many players of Dalmatian descent, most of whom lived in the Western districts.

Ref: Country vs City, played at Oratia, 1945, West Auckland Research Centre, AucklandLibraries. DGHS Collection.

Zora Ladies Basketball won many trophies in its day and a large number who lived in the western districts were amongst their top players.

Ref: Zora Basketball Team, winners of the ABA Senior Championships, 1955, L-R: Monica Sullivan (Coach), Alma Raos, Thereza Vujnovich, Frances Vujnovich, Sonia Vodanovich, Sonia Kokich, Pola Kokich, Rose Ravlich, Vera Sunde, Mary Dragicevich, Zita Sunde. West Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries. DGHS Collection.

Lawn bowls was a popular sport in the Dalmatian community. Steve Ozich, the owner of the Falls Hotel in Henderson was a founding member of the Henderson Bowling Club in the 1920s. The Oratia Bowling Club had many local fruit growers among its membership.

Ref: At the Oratia Bowling Club, 1978,  West Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries. DGHS Collection.

Frank Borich was a successful Auckland wrestler in the 1930s and 1940s.

Ref: Notice for a Frank Boric wrestling match, 1944, West Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries. DGHS Collection.

Ref: Frank Boric, mid-1930s, West Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries. DGHS Collection.

Compiler: Raewynn Robertson, West Auckland Research Centre, with assistance from the Dalmatian Genealogical and Historical Society.
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Whites Aviation hand coloured photographs

August 28, 2016, 12:30 pm
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Whites Aviation produced hand coloured photographs of New Zealand for over forty years. When they began in 1945 colour photography wasn’t accessible as it was only in its infancy so the hand coloured photographs they sold were very popular. These now iconic images can be found in cafés like Replete in Taupō or Vudu in Queenstown.

This very large photograph that was recently donated to the library is 1100 x 2520 millimetres and formerly hung in the Auckland Star building.

Ref: Whites Aviation, Auckland, c1965, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1411-1.


Peter Alsop has a forthcoming book on the topic which will be the first published collection of New Zealand hand-coloured photography.

Peter is the co-author of previous books on commercial New Zealand art: Selling the dream on early New Zealand tourism art and Promoting prosperity on advertising art as well as last year’s biography of Marcus King. 

Ref: Fox Glacier, 1953, 380x685mm, Collection of Peter Alsop, Negative: similar to WA-33982-F, Alexander Turnbull Library.

Hand-coloured New Zealand: the photographs of Whites Aviationincludes the story of Leo White, the founder of Whites Aviation; Clyde 'Snow' Stewart, who was in charge of the hand-colouring team and celebrates the team itself, the 'colouring girls', who bought the vision to life… using cotton wool.

This will be available to the public in November but the publisher is offering a pre-order discount of 20%. We’ve already got holds on the copies we’ve got ordered for the library!

Ref: Rangitoto Island from Bastion Pt, 1954, 500x750mm, collection of Peter Alsop, Negative in Alexander Turnbull Library: WA-34549-F.

Peter has generously sent through a few of the beautiful images featured in his book as a preview.

Ref: Opening of Auckland Harbour Bridge, 1959, 500x750mm, collection of Peter Alsop, Negative unknown.

Grace Rawson worked as a hand colourist for Whites Aviation in the 1950s is the subject of a recent short documentary about these photographs. As she points out in the film these were not prints – each was individually hand coloured.



As Peter writes in the book, nothing can change the authenticity and aesthetic of a hand-made craft. That being said it is still quite fun playing with this automatic colourising tool. An interesting exercise is having a go at comparing the hand coloured photographs with the ones coloured by the Algorithmia API.

Ref: Clearwater, 1948, 560x1010mm, collection of Peter Alsop, Negative in Alexander Turnbull Library: WA-13613-F.

In 2007 the Alexander Turnbull Library acquired the collection of over 80 000 negatives produced by Whites Aviation. Over 60 000 of these have been digitised and are available to browse online.

Author: Andrew Henry
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Art for the people

September 4, 2016, 12:30 pm
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Sculptures, murals and statues are dotted around Auckland with information about many of these public artworks available on Auckland Council’s Art and Heritage Database. A display on level 2 at the Central Library showcases some of these items, from Fatu Feu’u’s Aotea Centre mural to Greer Twiss’s Pigeon Park sculpture.

Statues and monuments from the Auckland Domain are featured including the Pukekaroa Pallisade where Princess Te Puea planted a tōtara tree during the city’s 1940 centennial celebrations in order to reaffirm the mana of the Tainui people in the area, and the connection between her family and the Domain. Her great-grandfather Te Wherowhero had lived in two houses on the Domain site between 1847-1858 before returning to the Waikato as the Māori King.

Ref: Pukekaroa Pallisade, 2016.

Another artwork gifted to the city during the centennial was the ‘Tableau of Three Muses’ near the Domain’s duck ponds. The Muses represent Wisdom, Fertility, and Auckland’s growing strength – but Paranormal New Zealand finds they also recall the story of three witches reportedly hung in the 1800s from trees in the swampy land that became the Domain, of whom there have been many reported sightings.

Claudia Pond Eyley and Jan Morrison created the bright Women’s Suffrage mural in Khartoum Place to commemorate the centenary of NZ women gaining the vote in 1893. However, only 12 years later a local businessman described the mural as belonging “in a 1970s craft shop.” Thanks to public support, this mural has survived two sustained attempts to have it removed – including a proposal to resite it next to the White House brothel at the entrance to Myers Park. It is now protected in perpetuity as a national treasure.

Ref: Russell Street, Kaitiaki, 25 January 2010, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Fred Graham is known for many sculptures around the city depicting birds. Three appear on the database including the 11.8 metre high ‘Kaitiaki’ (Guardian) silhouette of a hawk in flight at the Domain, and the ‘Walsh Brothers Memorial’ - a titanium bird suspended six metres above Mission Bay’s Selwyn Reserve.

One of the country’s most highly respected abstract artists, Milan Mrkusich, designed several public artworks in Auckland in the 1950s-60s including the mosaic mural on the B. J. Ball Building overlooking Fanshawe Street. This is made from thousands of glass and ceramic tiles, and in 1997 the Historic Places Trust notified a plan to give the building a category one listing on the historic places register partly because of the mural’s artistic significance.

Ref: Tautai Matagohe.

Fatu Feu’u commemorates people from Samoa, Niue, Tonga and other islands of central Polynesia who migrated to NZ and made their home in Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau in his mural ‘Tautai Matagofie’ (Wonderful Navigator) installed on the fourth floor of the Aotea Centre. The 32-square metre mural begins in the east with the moai, an Easter Island sculpture; moves through central Polynesia with motifs such as siapo (tapa cloth) and Lapita (pre-Polynesian pottery); and concludes at the end of the rainbow where a koru symbolises the Waitematā Harbour.

‘Karangahape Rocks’ on the corner of K Road and Symonds Street was completed in 1968 by Greer Twiss. A city councillor at the time noted the figures were so thin they resembled concentration camp victims – an unhappy description given the sculpture is on the Jewish section of the Symonds Street cemetery. Twiss, however, had found inspiration in the lean physiques of athletes. A New Zealand Herald editorial concerning the sculpture (1 December 1966) noted a growing awareness that “a city needs more than the purely functional if it is to possess character and provide a pleasant place in which to live.”

The Art and Heritage Database documents many of the public artworks that enhance the city’s character, and which also contribute to creating “a pleasant place in which to live.”

Author: Leanne, Central Auckland Research Centre
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In the West, Much News

September 11, 2016, 12:30 pm
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In late January 1929, Erich Maria Remarque’s anti-war novel Im Westen, Nichts Neues (In the west, nothing new) was published by Propyläen Verlag. In England the book was quickly translated by the Australian librarian Arthur Wesley Wheen and republished under the title All Quiet on the Western Front.

Ref: Two original 1929 editions that finally made it into the Library, the one on the left is from the Quaker Collection.

Remarque’s novel soon caused controversy among patriotic ex-servicemen, moralists and right-wing politicians in various parts of Europe and America. However when the book was considered for accession to New Zealand public libraries All Quiet on the Western Front stirred up new controversy of quite another kind.

The librarians of the Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin public libraries decided the novel’s language was coarse and lurid; it was immoral and amoral and that it contained plain and frank descriptions of sexual activity, bodily functions, human depravity and the shocking naked truth of war’s brutality which was likely to be injurious to the morals of women and children. However the Dunedin librarian, Mr W.B. McEwan, did concede that his adult male readers should be able to cope with the book.

Ref: Auckland Weekly News, New Zealanders engaged in filling sandbags in one of their trenches on the Western Front, 25 January 1917, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19170125-39-3.

The librarians’ attitudes were well summed up in Mr McEwan’s statement printed in the New Zealand Herald on 29 June 1929: ‘It is a coarse book, and not a publication for general circulation. I admit it is a strong book on the war, but it is the naked truth, and nothing but the truth. It is not a book for circulation by a public library.’

Auckland Public Library’s decision to ban All Quiet on the Western Front was probably made by an unofficial book-selection committee of academics, senior journalists and businessmen who met with the Chief Librarian, John Barr, to decide on the literary quality of the books which the library would make available to its readers. This committee had been created to select the library’s books in the days before the Auckland Public Library had a qualified librarian in charge. Mr Barr was Auckland’s first qualified librarian.

Ref: John Barr, City Librarian 1913-1952, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 360-10.

In the Evening Post’s aptly titled article, ‘Barred From Shelves’ (22 June 1929), John Barr explained the way this committee of self-appointed literary critics and moral guardians made their judgements. ‘Our first consideration in the selection of books is their literary merit. It occupies much of our time ferreting out reviews from recognised literary journals and reading criticisms. The [library] staff also co-operates in the reading of new books. It is not a capricious system, and very few undesirable books reach our shelves.’

Ref: S P Andrew, Group portrait of the staff of the Auckland Public Library, 1930s?, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 360-17.

‘Mr. Barr said that from 1000 to 1500 books were passed into the lending library each year. A novel need not be offensive to earn exclusion. Trash was rejected simply because it failed to measure up to literary standards. The widely-discussed German novel, Jew Suss, had been passed. It was not altogether free from a certain grossness but it had undoubted literary quality, and a fine historical vein. The novel Simon Called Peter had not reached the library shelves (but eventually made it), and the Tarzan series of stories had been rejected as ‘trash’.

When the decisions of the book-selection committee were put in front of the Council’s Library Committee, it seems as if the councillors simply approved the decisions placed before them by the book selectors. The chairwoman of the Library Committee, Miss Ellen Melville, told the Council meeting that the Library Committee’s policy was to leave the selection of books to the Chief Librarian, and that ‘the Committee desires to reiterate its confidence in the Chief Librarian’s judgement.’

Ref: excerpt from the Otago Daily Times, 2 July 1929, page 10.

It is clear that the chief librarians of the time seemed to regard themselves as moral policemen and the guardians of decency in modern civilisation. An editorial in the Otago Daily Timeson 2 July 1929 notes: ‘It is possible that the demand for All Quiet on the Western Front may not be prompted so much by the fact that the work is calculated to further the cause of peace as by the excitation of curiosity respecting the aspects of the work that lead the public librarians to regard it as unsuited for general circulation. If there is much in Remarque's book that is coarse and objectionable, if it contains expressions, as it does, that are commonly regarded as unprintable, surely that is a sufficient reason why those who have charge of public libraries should be as reluctant to hand it out to anybody in the ordinary way as parents would be to place it in the hands of their boys and girls.’

In other words, the librarians seemed to take a lofty, elitist and basically prudish view about the kinds of people who might be tempted to read All Quiet on the Western Front. While they grudgingly conceded that the book dealt with a serious subject – that of war and the degrading effects of war, they were afraid that another type of casual, sensation-seeking and prurient reader would now seek to read the book solely because of its notoriety. Along with the sensation-seekers went uncritical and impressionable younger readers whom, the librarians feared would be easily corrupted by Remarque’s immorality and amorality.

How sordid and bannable was All Quiet on the Western Front? The article ‘German War Story’ in the Herald of 22 June 1929 mentions two English reviews. The first is from The Publisher’s Circular and Book-sellers’ Record. It concludes: ‘we regret the quite unnecessary use of certain vulgar words which may have been used by the German soldiers, but which are usually considered unfit to appear in print. Certain situations, also, are described in a manner that can only be called objectionable. We think the crudity of the language will disgust the average English reader.’

Ref: Auckland Weekly News, Men of the Auckland Battalion making themselves comfortable in the trenches in Mametz Wood, on the Western Front, 22 February 1917, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19170222-36-2. 

However the Herald article then quotes from the review in the Times entitled ‘A Wonderful Portrait’. It said ‘The English reader must be prepared for what he may dub coarseness or frankness, according to temperament, of a type that he will not find in English novels. We do not mean merely insistence upon the realities of war - for a war novel would not be of much value without that - but a constant preoccupation with bodily functions. There is reiterated complaint of lack of food, of dysentery caused by starvation, of paper bandages for the binding of wounds, of misery caused by an increasing shortage of every necessity for the soldier s comfort and sustenance.’

‘It is a wonderful portrait, built up little by little, without a superlative. There emerges the ideal soldier - brave, steady, crafty, never excited, but never off his guard. We have had grim English war novels in which the wine of victory is represented as tasting bitter enough; but it is doubtful if we shall ever have one with a note so hopeless as that of the concluding chapters. That wine may to many have tasted bitter, but it could not have been so bitter as this vinegar of defeat. 

Ref: Sport and General for the Auckland Weekly News, Still they come, 12 July 1917, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19170712-31-2.

To put the censorship of All Quiet on the Western Front into further perspective, the Auckland Star (2 July 1929) praised the decision of the Christchurch city librarian to allow the book into the Christchurch Public Library, where it would not be displayed on the shelf but would be issued to subscribers (presumably adults only) and only when those subscribers applied to read it. While the Star’s correspondent thought that ‘this decision was strictly correct and ought to commend itself to the general public’, he said that:

‘The library authorities in Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin have decided that their institutions shall not be used to circulate the volume, and they are well within their province in so deciding. They are entitled to the opinion that their shelves should harbour no book that would offend the susceptibilities of the most sensitive, or bring a blush to the cheek of the most innocent. If that is their policy, the coarse language of All Quiet on the Western Front might well have brought that volume under their ban. We do not quarrel with them on that score. Doubts have been expressed whether the book should ever have been written, but written it was, and published it has been, and he would be a very daring censor, or a very foolish one, who denied it circulation. This is quite clearly the view taken by the librarian of the Canterbury Public Library and it should be approved by everyone who gives the subject serious thought.’

And at the far end of the country Mr. H. Greenwood, the librarian at the Dunedin Athenaeum (the mechanic’s institute private lending library), already had two copies of All Quiet on the Western Front in circulation. Furthermore, he reported that demand for the book was so great that the Athenaeum had ordered six more copies!

Author: Chris Paxton
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An account of a voyage in search of La Perouse

September 18, 2016, 12:30 pm
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An account of a voyage in search of La Perouse: undertaken by order of the Constituent Assembly of France, and performed in the years 1791, 1792, and 1793 in the Recherche and Esperance, ships of war, under the command of Rear-Admiral Bruni D'Entrecasteaux.

Ref: An account of a voyage in search of La Perouse, title page, M. Labillardiere, 1800, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1800 LABI Atlas.

This three volume set was published in 1800. The first two volumes were acquired by the Leys Institute Library Ponsonby in 1905 and some decades later transferred to Sir George Grey Special Collections. Volume three, an atlas including many beautiful engraved illustrations, was recently purchased, thus completing the set over a century later.

Pictured are parts of the map inserted into this atlas, showing the world as far as it had been charted. The route indicated is that of the 1785 voyage of Jean François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse (1771-1788?), as retraced in 1791 by two ships commandeered by Rear Admiral Bruni D’Entrecasteaux. Many territories surrounding the Pacific, including the islands of what we now call Micronesia and Melanesia, were still being charted at the time of these expeditions.

Ref: An account of a voyage in search of La Perouse, map 3, M. Labillardiere, 1800, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1800 LABI Atlas.

Jean François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse (1771-1788?), was a naval officer appointed to lead a scientific expedition aiming to extensively explore the North and South Pacific, correcting and completing maps of the area, enriching French science and establishing maritime routes for trade. His ships the Astrolabe and the Boussole travelled to Chile, Hawaii, Alaska, California, East Asia, Russia and the South Pacific. His last recorded landfall was in New South Wales, where his ships stopped for resupply in January 1788. On 10 March 1788 he departed for New Caledonia and the Solomons, but neither he nor his crew were seen again. 

Ref: An account of a voyage in search of La Perouse, map 1, M. Labillardiere, 1800, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1800 LABI Atlas.

A rescue mission headed by Rear Admiral Bruni d'Entrecasteaux brought the ships Recherche and Esperance via La Perouse’s intended the route: around Australia and islands to its Northwest. In the area now known as the Solomon Islands, at Vanikoro, a coral atoll surrounded by coral reefs, D’Entrecasteaux believed he saw smoke signals, but investigation was prevented as he found the waters around the atoll too treacherous to navigate towards them. D'Entrecasteaux later died of scurvy on the trip, and the expedition returned to France. The botanist on the ship, Labillardiere, published this account of the expedition on his return.

Ref: An account of a voyage in search of La Perouse, map 2, M. Labillardiere, 1800, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1800 LABI Atlas.

In 1826, an Irish sea captain made another attempt to piece together the circumstances of the Laperouse expedition’s disappearance. His enquiries resulted in the collection of some evidence of ship wreckage from the coral reefs around Vanikoro. It was not until 1964 that the wreckage of the Boussole was fully recovered, and further expeditions were dispatched by the French government in 2005 and 2008.

The plates contained within this book are stunning engravings of the drawings by one of the illustrators on board. The Auckland Art Gallery has digitised some of these plates.

La Perouse has been memorialised in New Zealand by having a glacier and a mountain named after him. According to the Reed dictionary of New Zealand place names Mt La Perouse was initially called Mt Stokes, but as that had already been claimed in Marlborough the mountain was named after La Perouse like other notable navigators, including Cook, Tasman, Dampier, and Hicks, whose names are commemorated in the Southern Alps.

Author: Angeline Chirnside, Sir George Grey Special Collections
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Lower Queen Street

September 25, 2016, 11:30 am
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As the City Rail Link (CRL) project begins and Lower Queen Street has become predominantly closed to traffic, we take a look back at the varying ways that the space has been used.

Lower Queen Street, between Customs Street and Quay Street, currently sits on reclaimed land that used to be part of Commercial Bay. Reclamation works in the area occurred between 1875 and 1886.

Ref: Auckland Weekly News, Lower Queen Street Auckland near the wharf and Railway station, 7 December 1900, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19001207-7-2.


Ref: Muir and Moodie for the Auckland Weekly News, The main thoroughfare of New Zealand's great trade centre, 3 June 1909, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19090603-7-1.


Ref: Weekly Graphic and New Zealand Mail, Opening of the Central Post Office, Auckland, 20 November 1912, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 7-A15618.

Construction on the Chief Post Office building began in 1909 on this reclaimed land. It was opened on 20 November 1912 by Prime Minister William Massey in front of a big crowd of Aucklanders. The tram terminus in Lower Queen Street, and proximity to the port and rail, had guided the placement of the CPO. Trams were a major part of this area from 1902, until their final trip in 1956.

Ref: Auckland Weekly News, Men from HMS Achilles parading on Queen Street, 1940, 23 February 1940, Sir George Grey Special Collections,Auckland Libraries, A4389.

Ref: Auckland City Council, Looking up Queen Street from Quay Street, 17 Sep 1963, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 580-7806.

Ref: N M Dubois, Lower Queen Street, c1973, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 786-A010-1.

Ref: Auckland City Council,Showing the Chief Post Office and statue of Maori chief, 1960s/1970s,Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 435-A5-38A.

Ref: Auckland Star, 31 May 1973, p. 9.

Queen Elizabeth II Square was opened in February of 1980 by Auckland Mayor Sir Dove Myer Robinson as part of work to create more public spaces. Comprising the entire area of Lower Queen Street this pedestrian only environment was first put forward in 1964. In this year Molly Macalister was also commissioned by Auckland City to create a statue. Completed in 1967 it featured an interpretation of a Māori warrior as a welcoming figure to those arriving from the downtown wharves. This was erected in the wide centre median of Lower Queen Street on a 2m high pedestal. During development of the square the statue was put on a lower pedestal, closer to the Quay Street end of the square. In 1971 Michio Ihara created a stainless steel sculpture, Wind Tree for the Auckland International Sculpture Symposium. This was put into Queen Elizabeth Square in 1977. Queen Elizabeth Square also featured an installation of trio fountains on the southern side which were known as the Coutts Fountain.

Ref: Eric W Young, Looking south along Queen Elisabeth Square, 1980s, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1021-207.

Ref: Eric W Young, Looking south east across Queen Elizabeth Square, 1980s, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1021-503.

The post office closed in 1992 and was purchased by Auckland City Council in 1995. In 1995 the space began to be discussed as being used for a transport hub. Rail was put into the CPO building and an underground walkway created which connected pedestrians to the other side of the Lower Queen Street and to the remaining piece of Queen Elizabeth Square nestled against the Downtown Shopping Centre. Britomart Transport Centre was officially opened in 2006. With the road re-opened to accommodate the bus terminal, the Māori chief statue was relocated to Quay Street in 2000 and then to its current position opposite the Ferry Buildings. Coutts Fountain was removed and the Wind Tree sculpture was put into storage with its new position in Wynyard Quarter first revealed in 2011. The sculpture installed in 2004, ‘Te Ahi Kaa Roa’ by Ngati Whatua ki Tamaki’, occupied the southern part of the smaller Queen Elizabeth Square until the Square’s closure this year.

Ref: Matt Elliott, Downtown Shopping Centre, Auckland, December 2015, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1385-110.

Lower Queen Street has changed significantly over the years, and is now undergoing another transformation as the City Rail Link tunnels are put underneath. The bus terminal will be moved and Lower Queen Street pedestrianised once more. Until the new space is unveiled it currently functions as part-construction site, part-pedestrian zone..

Author: Laura Jamieson
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House and home: entertainment

October 4, 2016, 11:30 am
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Now on in our exhibition space on the second floor of the Central Library is House and home: domestic life in New Zealand. This nostalgic exhibition, which will run until 30 October, explores the domestic side of New Zealand life before the 1980s. It looks at what made a house a home in New Zealand. Today we’re looking at entertainment in the home.

Piano

Ref: James D Richardson, Jean Richardson sitting on cushion on chair, playing the piano, 1915?, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 4-8902.
Prior to gramophones, radio, televisions and computers, pianos were, for many homes, the home entertainment centre. From the 1860s to 1916 they were New Zealand’s biggest luxury import. Sheet music was collected as avidly as records and CDs were later.

“We used to have all the aunties playing together. Sing-songs around the piano. I remember my uncle – he was killed in the First World War – he had a beautiful tenor voice. I can remember him and Aunty Grace, the youngest aunty, sitting at the piano, me between his legs, singing. And I knew Scottish, Irish, English and everything else. I knew all the ballads (Piano in the parlour, John MacGibbon, 2007).” 

Ref: Blue smoke = Kohu-auwahi / composed by Ruru Karaitiana ; piano arrangement by George Winchester, c1947, C. Begg, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 784.062 KAR.

Radio

The first radio broadcast in New Zealand was made in 1921. By 1922 there were 572 listening licences issued, increasing to 71,000 by 1931. In 1932 the government decided to establish the New Zealand Broadcasting Board and as a result radio broadcasting became a state enterprise.

Crystal radio sets were the first widely used type of radio receiver. With very few parts, they needed no batteries or other power source, and could be built out of things found around the house. In early receivers, the detector was a ‘cat’s whisker’ that comprised a fine metal wire on an adjustable arm that touched a semi-conducting mineral (the crystal). The operator dragged the wire across the crystal surface until a radio station or static sounds were heard in the earphones. Sold and homemade by the millions, these inexpensive and reliable sets were a prior driving force in the introduction of radio to the public. 

Ref: Samuel G Firth, Robert Emirali and his teddy listening to a crystal set, 1928, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1043-9712.

“Everyone was terribly excited over our crystal sets. I can see my father at night now. We had only one pair of earphones in the whole family, and he’d sit there – prick, prick, prick – all night, and then he’d lose it and there’d be some swear words and so on – and we’d beg him to let us listen, so he’d lend us half an earphone and he’d have one clasped to his ear (Edna Gyde in Voices in the air, Peter Downes & Peter Harcourt, 1976)."

Ref: The radio record, 27 June 1930, Central Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, A+H SERIAL 791.44 R12.

Pictured above is The New Zealand Radio Recordwhich was superseded by the New Zealand Listener.

Radio serials were at first described as ‘undesirable’ but they soon became some of the most popular radio content. In a 1947 educational research paper W. J. Scott listed the results of a survey of high school pupils’ favourite radio serials. The top ten included Dad and Dave, On His Majesty’s Service, The Phantom Drummer, The House of Peter MacGregor, Strange Experiences, Jimmy Allen, Piccadilly, Easy Aces, Jezebel’s Daughter, and Tradesman’s Entrance.

Television

Ref: Ron Clark, Christmas at Taipakupaku?, 25 December 1966, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1207-1850.

New Zealand's first official television broadcast was made in 1960. No other country bought televisions at the rate New Zealanders did. By 1972, 96 percent of all homes that could receive a television signal had a television set. For its first 14 years, New Zealand television was a black and white world. On the 31 October 1973 colour television was introduced in readiness for the 1974 Christchurch Commonwealth Games. The first Telethon fundraiser was held in 1975, launching a second network channel (TV2). In 1989 TV3 became the first privately owned station, followed a year later by SKY Network Television which became the first pay television network.

Author: Annette, Sir George Grey Special Collections
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Milan Mrkusich’s public art

October 9, 2016, 11:30 am
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One of New Zealand’s most highly respected abstract artists, Milan Mrkusich, designed several largepublic artworks in Auckland in the 1950s-1960s. The most well-known existing ones include the mosaic mural on the B. J. Ball Building overlooking Fanshawe Street, and the stained glass windows at Grey Lynn’s St Joseph’s Catholic Church - the largest abstract work in the country at that time.

Ref: Patrick Clearwater, BJ Ball mural, 31 May 2010.

B. J. Ball (NZ) Ltd was a paper manufacturing company and Mrkusich’s mural for them highlights the paper-making process from the raw material of trees to the end product of stacks of reams. This mural is 7.6m high and 3.9m wide (25ft x13 ft.) and is made from thousands of glass and ceramic tiles. As Julian Dashper recounts in a 1995 article, Mrkusich made full size plan drawings “which he rolled up and posted to Italy, where a master tile maker made a complete mural on the floor, turned it upside down into hundreds of little boxes and sent it back to New Zealand” where it was assembled (“An Artist’s Look at Auckland’s Public Art”, Modern New Zealand, No 1, p 2-9, 1995).

In 1997 the Historic Places Trust notified a plan to give the B. J. Ball Building a category one listing on the historic places register partly because of the mural’s artistic significance (NZ Herald, 4 March 1997, A9).

Mrkusich designed this mural in 1959, the same year that he designed the 14 Stations of the Cross panels for Henderson’s Catholic Church of the Holy Cross. He also designed a mosaic in the church entrance depicting Mary and Jesus, with a background featuring fruit trees and grape vines symbolising the district’s horticultural history. These works, along with others in the church by Louise Henderson, were salvaged in 2008 and reinstalled as part of a $3 million extension of the Church, as they were considered to have exceptional cultural and monetary value.

Ref: Mary mosaic, Holy Cross Parish Henderson.

In 1960 Mrkusich created the mosaic frieze “The Way of the Cross” for the walls of St Joseph’s Catholic Church in Grey Lynn. He also designed 185 square metres of vibrant stained glass windows where Christian symbols such as the Resurrection of Christ and Christ’s crown of thorns are shown in an abstract form. In 2004 Mrkusich told Heritage New Zealand (2004, 94:47) that the designs “were very modern for the time. They are even modern now.” There are eleven main windows including; The Fire Window of reds and oranges symbolising martyrdom; The Water Window’s blues and greens symbolising the washing of sins; and the Window of Sorrows symbolising Christ’s suffering. A Samoan Po Siva (night dance) was held in 2008 when the church began fundraising for maintenance projects that included resealing the windows.

Ref: St Joseph's Catholic Church windows, 30 July 2010, copyright Timepsanner.

Mrkusich created a large mosaic glass mural for the lobby of Fort Street’s Chelsea Sugar Refinery Building in 1960. This was later covered up by an internal façade which has recently been uncovered. The mural will now be celebrated as part of the site’s redevelopment which The Chelsea House website says “will be the feature of the building’s lobby, creating a colourful dynamic, both masculine and refined, referencing the vibrant nature of modern day Fort Street.”

Ref: Mural in Chelsea Sugar Refinery Building, Fort Street, July 2016.

In 1964 Mrkusich designed two stained-glass windows for the Chapel of St Andrew in Quay Street’s Seafarers’ Memorial Centre. These were salvaged before the Chapel was demolished in 1993 and are now permanently installed in the NZ Maritime Museum’s Edmiston Gallery of Maritime Art on the Viaduct.


Mrkusich was born in Dargaville in 1925 to Dalmatian parents who had emigrated from Podgora, two years later the family moved to Auckland. Mrkusich began painting in the 1940s inspired by modernist art he found in the only art-sources available at that time - magazines and books, including a book on the German Bauhaus school of architecture and applied arts held at the Auckland Public Library. In 1946 he painted New Zealand’s first abstract painting, and in 1949 he became a partner in the Bauhaus-influenced architectural and design firm Brenner Associates. Mrkusich has been a full-time painter since 1958. In 1997 he was made an Officer of the NZ Order of Merit (ONZM) for his services to painting, and in 2003 was awarded the status of Icon Artist by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand.

Author: Leanne, Central Auckland Research Centre

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Beauty pageant photographic collection

October 16, 2016, 11:30 am
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The South Auckland Research Centre has recently added 1142 photographs to our image database Footprints. To date this database now includes a selection of over 8000 photographs and other images relating to South Auckland, and adjoining areas.

A sample of thirty-two photographs from the Beauty Pageant Photographic Collection, donated by beauty pageant organiser Val Lott, has been added covering the years 1990 – 2003.

Ref: Val Lott, Beauty pageant, Māngere, 6 May 1990, photograph reproduced courtesy of Val Lott, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 07210.

Ref: Val Lott, Beauty pageant, Māngere, 6 May 1990, photograph reproduced courtesy of Val Lott, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 07209.

Ref: Beauty pageant, Pukekohe, 24 May 1992, photograph reproduced courtesy of Val Lott, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 07223.

There are some wonderful titles given to contestants relating to the sponsors of these events, which include ‘Miss Park in the Bar’ and ‘Miss Stomping Penguin Hairdressers’ (below).

Ref: Beauty pageant, Howick, 1998, photograph reproduced courtesy of Val Lott, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 07229. 

Val coordinated Miss Howick, Miss Counties, Miss Auckland, Miss North Harbour and Miss New Zealand Asia Pacific, and from 2006 – 2012 Miss Universe New Zealand. Under her guidance several contestants have won the Miss New Zealand title, and represented New Zealand in international pageants, where some placed in the top five.

Ref: Val Lott, Carnival Queen float, Howick, December 1991, photograph reproduced courtesy of Val Lott, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 07228. 

Ref: Val Lott, Beauty pageant, Howick, 8 April 1990, photograph reproduced courtesy of Val Lott, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 07205. 

Ref: Beauty pageant, Howick, 7 July 1997, photograph reproduced courtesy of Val Lott, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 07231. 

Ref: Beauty pageant, Panmure, July 2000, photograph reproduced courtesy of Val Lott, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 07237. 

The Beauty Pageant Photographic Collection contains six scrapbooks, thirteen photograph albums, newspaper clippings and items of ephemera relating to fashion parades in Howick 1984 – 1986 and Miss Howick and national and international beauty pageants from 1988 – 2012.

We’re sure this collection will be of great value to fashion and design students as well as those interested in social and local history.

Author: Lynn Diedricks, South Auckland Research Centre
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Obstetric tables: a 19th century flap book

October 24, 2016, 11:30 am
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In 1845 George Spratt published the fourth edition of his highly successful Obstetric tables : comprising graphic illustrations, with descriptions and practical remarks; exhibiting on dissected plates, many important subjects in midwifery. This illustrated anatomical ‘flap book’ is a recent addition to the Sir George Grey Special Collections printed collection. You can view a digitised version of the 1835 edition through the Internet Archive, or come visit us on Level 2 of the Central City Library to turn the pages (and lift the flaps) yourself.

Obstetric tables was published as a training aid at a time when it was becoming difficult for medical students to gain clinical experience. It contains a large number of layered illustrations that can be lifted to provide ‘dissected’ views of the female body in pregnancy. Some of the plates contain as many as four or five layers, showing for example the different stages of pregnancy, the position of a baby during birth, and use of forceps in an assisted delivery.

Ref: George Spratt. Obstetric tables. London,1845. Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 618.2 S76.


These types of ‘pop-up’ anatomical books are commonplace now (and are still produced as children’s books), but the technical skill involved in designing and producing Obstetric tables made it innovative in its time. The use of movable parts in medical texts has a surprisingly long tradition, with earliest examples dating back to the 16th century; however it wasn’t until the 19th century that more complex techniques were used. You can see many stunning examples online in Duke University’s Animated Anatomies online exhibition.

In the 19th century books such as Obstetric tables appealed to a wider audience than just medical practitioners, and were also appreciated as works of graphic art and objects of curiosity. George Spratt himself is likely to have been aware of this general interest potential. Spratt was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons and is described on the title page as a ‘surgeon-accoucheur’, or male midwife. However he was also an artist and entrepreneur who had previously collaborated with lithographer George Madeley on several ventures. As well as the highly successful Obstetric tables, Spratt and Madeley produced the botanical book Flora Medica (1829-1830), and a series of composite caricatures sold individually as prints between 1830 and 1831.

Ref: George Spratt, The Itinerant Apothecary, London, England, 1830, Science Museum,1989-451/2.

Obstetric tables is a wonderful new addition to the Library – in its subject matter, illustrative technique, and as a complement to other pop-up and movable books we have in our Special Collections.

Author: Renee Orr, Sir George Grey Special Collections
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Parihaka

October 30, 2016, 11:30 am
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Background

After the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi – The Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 the European population of Aotearoa New Zealand began to increase rapidly. Settlers wanted land. From early on, the area around Mt Taranaki had been identified as ideal land for British settlement. The New Zealand Company, an organisation which focused on colonisation and land sales, was involved in the settlement of New Plymouth and several extremely dubious land purchases in Taranaki in the late 1830s and early 1840s. New Zealand Company artist Charles Heaphy produced an enticing, idealised painting of Mt Egmont / Mt Taranaki to attract potential migrants. However, there was nothing to indicate that this was the ancestral tribal land of Te Ātiawa and other Taranaki Māori. When the new Colonial government was established, land purchase officers were officially appointed to purchase Māori land for the Crown, as outlined in the Treaty.

Ref: Heaphy, Charles, 1820-1881. Heaphy, Charles, 1820-1881 :Mt Egmont from the southward. [September? 1840]. Ref: C-025-008. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.

A significant factor in early land sales would have been the difference in understanding between Māori and Europeans about the concept of land ownership. In traditional Māori society, land was owned communally by the whole tribal group (hapū) and ownership was established by customary occupation and use. As such, the Māori understanding of land sale is likely to have been more akin to a mutual agreement to share and use the land in this way with other interested parties. A stark contrast to the standard European concept of land ownership as individual and exclusive with outright permanent alienation from the previous owner. This misunderstanding was a significant source of conflict which contributed to the outbreak of war in the 1860s.

By 1858 the non-Māori population outnumbered Māori and was steadily growing. Settlers were demanding more land. In response, the colonial Government’s agenda was firmly set on freeing up more Māori land for European settlers. At the same time, Māori were becoming increasingly wary of government intentions and more reluctant to sell their ancestral tribal lands.

The Land Wars

Against this background of escalating tension, a dispute over a land sale at Waitara in Northern Taranaki led to the outbreak of the New Zealand land wars in 1860. The British Army occupied the disputed land, martial law was declared and war began.

Ref: Taranaki, New Zealand, 1879, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, NZ Map 3671.

Raupatu

During the 1860s land loss was greatly accelerated by the establishment of the Native Land Court and legislation which enabled large scale confiscations of Māori land (raupatu). This action was in complete disregard of Te Tiriti o Waitangi – The Treaty of Waitangi which guaranteed ‘to the Chiefs and Tribes of New Zealand and to the respective families and individuals thereof the full exclusive and undisturbed possession of their Lands…’

Some of this legislation also involved significant breaches of civil rights for Māori: arrest without warrant; detainment without trial; suspension of habeas corpus (the right to be present at trial) and limitations on Māori gatherings and freedom of speech. The combined effect of all these factors was to blur the boundaries between good governance, politics and criminal intent.

Some of the more extreme legislation included the Suppression of Rebellion Act (1863) and the New Zealand Settlements Act (1863). The latter authorised unprecedented large scale confiscation (raupatu) of ancestral tribal land from Māori “deemed by the government to be in rebellion against the British Crown.” With impeccable colonial logic what this meant in practice was that Māori who fought to protect their land would then be conveniently liable to have their land confiscated. In both of these laws the core concept of ‘rebel’ was never clearly defined and the use of the word ‘deemed’ suggested a potentially dangerous level of subjective judgement. By the mid-1860s, Te Ātiawa and other Taranaki Māori had lost most of their ancestral tribal lands through confiscation aimed to fit in with the Governor’s agenda to acquire more land for settlers.

Find out more:
Parihaka

Ref: New Zealand Graphic, Drawings showing Parihaka, Te Whiti and Te Whiti addressing a crowd, 1881, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 7-A11516

In 1866 Taranaki prophets Te Whiti-o-Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi established a settlement at Parihaka on Māori land which had been confiscated by the government. The community quickly became a pacifist centre for Māori opposed to the loss of tribal lands for European settlement and was the largest Māori community in the country. Te Whiti encouraged the members of the Parihaka community to use only non-violent, passive resistance strategies to protest against European settlement on confiscated Māori land. When the government attempted to survey this land in preparation for European settlement, Māori responded by pulling out survey pegs. The non-violent protest included an ‘army’ of ploughmen who incessantly went out each day to plough up confiscated Māori land occupied by settlers. The use of the plough was particularly apt as it symbolised Māori’s spiritual and physical connection to the land. Many of these ploughmen were later arrested and detained without trial in the South Island. Te Whiti’s followers adopted the raukura (the white albatross feather) as a symbol of peace.

Ref: W. A. Collis for New Zealand Graphic, Parihaka as it appeared when surrounded by the volunteers in 1881, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, NZG-18970522-629-1.

Invasion

On the 5th of November 1881 the Native Minister John Bryce led a force of more than 1500 armed militia and volunteers to invade Parihaka. The armed forces were met by children playing in the streets and villagers sitting quietly together on the marae. The militia were offered food and drink. Bryce approached Te Whiti and Tohu and demanded a response to the government’s ultimatum for the resistance activities to cease. When no response was given Bryce ordered the Riot Act to be read to the quietly assembled group of children and villagers who were addressed as ‘persons unlawfully, riotously and tumultuously assembled’. The militia moved in and community leaders Te Whiti and Tohu were arrested and imprisoned.

Ref: James D Richardson, Troops from British regiments at Parihaka, 1880-1, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 4-934.

For the next few days the village remained occupied by armed militia and was surrounded by long-range artillery and a military stockade. Meetings and public speeches were forbidden. Houses were searched and ransacked. Villagers were forced to leave at gunpoint and the peaceful, prosperous and largest Māori community in history was largely destroyed. 

Ref: Samuel Crombie-Brown, Letter to Sir George Grey, 1881, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, GLNZ C41.
  
Above is a letter to Governor Grey with reference to content discussed in the House of Representatives, confirms that: “Te Whiti invariably denied having advised his followers to use guns for guns when used against them…The evidence in support of this is overwhelming” and that “the dangerous weapons Bryce talks about were flax sticks.” 

Te Whiti and Tohu were eventually tried and released in 1883 and returned to Parihaka with a warning against further action. They rebuilt the community at Parihaka and continued their campaigns of passive resistance. Read a contemporary newspaper report from the Taranaki Herald, 7 November 1881.

Parihaka and the legacy of passive resistance

The Whiti-o-Rongomai and Tohu could be thought of as forerunners to pacifist leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. In Aotearoa New Zealand the spirit of Parihaka and passive resistance has lived on through many people including the Māori prophet Rātana, the conscientious objectors of the twentieth century wars and James K Baxter’s community at Jerusalem on the Whanganui River.

Ref: Parihaka : the art of passive resistance / edited by Te Miringa Hohaia, Gregory O'Brien and Lara Strongman, Auckland Libraries, 993.488 PAR.

The Teacher, the Farmer and the Dominican priest

More recently in Aotearoa New Zealand the legacy of Parihaka’s ploughmen has been expressed in the actions of the Anzac Ploughshares, three peace activists who sabotaged the GCSB satellite base at Waihopai in protest against New Zealand’s collaboration with the United States in its war against Iraq. Both groups use the motif of the plough as a unifying symbol of protest. These 21st century ‘ploughmen’ were eventually acquitted.

‘They shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
their spears into pruning hooks,
nation shall not lift sword against nation,
 and there shall be
no more training for war’.
                                                                              - Book of Isaiah (Old Testament)

In Aotearoa New Zealand, the 5th of November is now recognised as Parihaka Day. 

Ref: Ask that mountain : the story of Parihaka / Dick Scott, Auckland Libraries, 995.3 S42.

Sources and further reading:
Author: Beth Ringer, Central Auckland Research Centre
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Medical marijuana in colonial New Zealand

November 6, 2016, 10:30 am
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There was a time when New Zealanders could buy marijuana over the counter for ailments ranging from asthma to corn removal. In the 1880s cannabis or hemp, as it was known then, only cost a shilling an ounce. Mother Aubert used cannabis as a tea for nun’s menstrual cramps at her mission in Jerusalem on the Whanganui River. Brett’s Colonists’ Guide endorsed Indian hemp as a treatment for painful menstruation, too - in a concoction including camphor and opium.

Ref: New Zealand Graphic, In the dispensary, 22 September 1906, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, NZG-19060922-6-2.

The substance was widely advertised as the “latest and most successful local anaesthetic” for painless teeth extractions, and used in creams to relieve chilblains. Asthma cigarettes containing cannabis were available everywhere, and hashish was present in imported tins of Turkish delight.

Ref: Chemist shop, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 534-9462.

The popular Dr J. Collis Browne’s Chlorodyne syrup included cannabis extract, morphine and chloroform, and was prescribed for dysentery, rheumatism and consumption. Chlorodyne cough lozenges were sold in sweetshops for children, and New Zealand’s pharmacy journal Sharland’s recommended cannabis to suppress convulsions caused by chorea in children. Cannabis was an important ingredient in liquid corn cures - a “Health Hints” article in the Auckland Star advised painting a mixture of salicylic acid, collodion and cannabis indica on corns.

Ref: excerpt from the Auckland Star, 17 June 1911, page 15. 

In 1895 the government placed controls on the trade in drugs such as opiates, but cannabis remained exempt from customs duty because it was categorised amongst medicinal barks, leaves, herbs and flowers.

Ref: James F. Neil, The New Zealand family herb doctor, 1891, page 1, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 615.8 N41.

The first time restrictions were placed on the sale of cannabis came with the introduction of the 1927 Dangerous Drugs Act, introduced as a result of pressure from the League of Nations. However, New Zealand created exemptions for Indian hemp corn and bunion plasters, and asthma cigarettes containing cannabis such as Joy’s and Grimault’s. Joy’s cigarettes (Cigares de Joy) were advertised as “perfectly harmless… smoked by ladies, children, and the most delicate patients, as they are pleasant to use, and contain no substance capable of deranging the system.”

Ref: excerpt from the New Zealand Herald, 5 August 1882, page 2.

In a pamphlet from about 1900 in our Ephemera collection Grimault’s stated their “neat little cigarette, composed of Indian hemp (Cannabis Indica) and harmless medicinal herbs” provided prompt relief for many common complaints including asthma, laryngitis, hay fever and insomnia.

Further Reading:


Author: Leanne, Central Auckland Research Centre

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The ‘Devonport Gazette and Greater North Shore Advocate, Who’s Who Directory, Ratepayer’s Chronicle’

November 13, 2016, 10:30 am
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The first issue of this weekly suburban newspaper came out on Thursday 3rd November 1921. 2,500 copies were delivered free of charge to “each house in the Borough of Devonport” and also made available to patrons of the Victoria Picture Theatre in Devonport. It was published and printed by James William Henry Martin and family, who managed the Devonport Printing Works at 56 Victoria Road, Devonport.

Ref: The Devonport Gazette and Greater North Shore Advocate, 19 August 1922. 

On the front page, the middle two columns carried movie advertisements and stills for screenings at the Victoria Theatre, while other parts of the newspaper also included movie news. The ‘Who’s Who’ columns were for advertising local businesses and trades, while the editorial on page two addressed local issues. Pages two and three also included reports from Devonport Borough Council and other local public meetings. Later this was extended to cover reports of the Takapuna Borough Council and other Takapuna area public meetings.

The gossip column was called ‘What we hear on the 8.35 and 5.10p, ferry steamers’ and ‘Picture Pars’ covered small snippets of news. There was also a correspondence column, some profiles or obituaries of locals, a cartoon and often stories and poetry.

From 1924, this was renamed the ‘North Shore Gazette: the official Waitemata paper’ and extended its circulation into Belmont, Bayswater, Takapuna, Milford, Glenfield, Northcote, Birkenhead, Birkdale and Chelsea. It continued to be published until 30 June 1938, and was then followed by the ‘North Shore Chronicle’ to February 1940.

Auckland Libraries has copies, with gaps, for the period to 1934, and currently the North Shore Historical Society is funding the restoration of those early newspapers. So far they have funded to the end of 1923. The National Library in Wellington has copies from 1936 onwards.

Author: David Verran, Central Auckland Research Centre
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The little church that wouldn’t die

November 20, 2016, 10:30 am
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Later this year The church on the corner: a history of Selwyn Church Māngere East, 1863-2012 will be published. Selwyn Church started life 153 years ago in Ōtāhuhu when local Anglicans built a new wooden church in Victoria Street (now Mason Avenue). It was dedicated as the Church of the Holy, Blessed and Undivided Trinity on St John the Evangelist’s Day, 27 December 1863 by Bishops George Augustus Selwyn and John Coleridge Patteson.

Ref: James D Richardson, Old Holy Trinity Church, Ōtāhuhu, c 1900-1919, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 4-8789.

Holy Trinity Church, which Ōtāhuhu residents informally called Selwyn Church, served the town’s Anglicans until the 1920s. But by 1925 the old building’s timbers were starting to decay. The vicar of Ōtāhuhu, Reverend Clarence Bourchier Wilmot Seton, also decided that the wooden church was too small for his growing Anglican congregation. By 1927 planning and fundraising for a new large brick church were well-advanced, and soon building work began on the new Holy Trinity Church which still stands in Ōtāhuhu today.

Ref: James D Richardson, Holy Trinity Church, Ōtāhuhu, 30 November 1928, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 4-8791.

This left Ōtāhuhu Anglicans with the dilemma of dealing with their old church. There weren’t enough funds left after building the new church to move the old one to the back of their Mason Avenue section where it could be used as a hall. Therefore it seemed that the old church would have to be demolished. Understandably, this caused an outcry among old parishioners, some of whom remembered its 1863 dedication.

However a solution appeared when Māngere East Anglicans decided they needed a local church. They requested, and were happily given, Ōtāhuhu’s old Holy Trinity. So in November 1927 the church, roof, tower and vestry were dismantled into separate sections. The sections were loaded onto trailers and towed to Māngere East by traction engine. Getting there was an ordeal because the body of the church was jolted and twisted during its journey. Furthermore when the trailer carrying the tower crossed the railway line at Māngere Crossing another mysterious accident happened, because before the church could be reassembled at Māngere East the tower had to be rebuilt.

Unfortunately only a few photographs of the move and some sketchy newspaper reports about the church’s reassembly can be located today. However the entire exercise was a tribute to the craftsmanship and ingenuity of the builders involved. Sitting in the church and looking up into its exposed rafters one can but imagine the amount of skilful work it must have taken to re-bolt the building and roof trusses back together. And then the church still had to be re-roofed with sheets of roofing iron. Likewise, we don’t know whether a crane was used to help raise the church tower. Perhaps the builders rebuilt the shortened tower by working on top of the entrance porch, and then built the roof trusses from inside the tower. Its cross was certainly new: Holy Trinity’s cross was rotten so a new one was carved by the carpenter Ted Harvey.

Ref: James D Richardson, Selwyn Church Māngere East, 18 August 1928, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 4-3745.

Ref: James D Richardson, Selwyn Church Māngere East, 18 August 1928, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 4-3746.

Ref: Trevor Penman, Aerial view of Māngere East, c1964, photograph reproduced courtesy of Māngere Historical Society, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 05731.

As Māngere East grew in the 1950s, Selwyn Church seemed to be getting too small for its congregation. Selwyn’s parishioners hoped that the Wells fundraising campaign might raise enough money for a new church. However the campaign was unsuccessful, so they reconciled themselves to making do with their old church. In early 1962 a parish working bee renovated, repainted and revarnished the church’s interior walls, fittings and pews. During the later 1960s Selwyn’s parishioners concentrated on making Māngere East a successful, independent parish and any lingering ideas about the need for a new church seemed to be forgotten. Later, in 1969, Selwyn Church and its separate Sunday School Hall were joined together when a new middle hall and linking foyer were built.

Ref: Selwyn Church, Massey Road, Māngere East, June 1986, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1052-N4-12.

The need for regular maintenance soon became a routine fact of life for an ageing church. In 1982 a severe storm caused significant damage to Selwyn Church’s north-eastern wall. John Stacpoole from the Historic Places Trust advised Selwyn’s vestry how to strengthen the historic church’s north-eastern walls and foundations. Fortunately these repairs stabilised Selwyn and the church has not since had any more sudden emergencies.

Ref: Selwyn Church, Māngere East, c1979, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 00979.

However when Selwyn Church’s vestry applied for council funds to landscape the church grounds in 2003, they had to get a conservation plan done for the land and buildings in the entire church precinct. The conservation planners’ survey revealed that the old church had underlying structural problems stemming from its rocky journey to Māngere East in 1927. These would have to be repaired to prolong the building’s life. After a lengthy fundraising process, Selwyn’s vestry raised enough money to reinforce the old wooden building. In early 2011 buttresses were erected to strengthen the corners of the church and its south-western wall facing Hain Avenue.

Ref: Andrew Hall, Selwyn Church, Māngere East, 1980, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 07268.

Since the 1980s, Selwyn Church’s parishioners have had to deal with many financial challenges threatening Māngere East parish’s survival. National economic restructuring created a lot of social problems in Māngere East and Selwyn Church’s ministers and parishioners worked together to create a community-facing ministry in the suburb that still continues to the present day. But Māngere East’s socio-economic decline, coupled with long-term decline in church attendance, meant that Selwyn Church’s congregation also dwindled away. Then in 1995 Auckland Anglican Diocese’s decision to balance its budget meant that diocesan financial support for Māngere East parish ceased. Since that time Selwyn Church has bravely struggled to maintain its heritage as well as its community-facing ministry in a rapidly changing suburb. Through all these challenges, the determination, dedication and devotion of a close-knit core of tolerant and welcoming parishioners has made Selwyn the little church that, in Archdeacon Don Battley’s words, ‘refuses to lie down and die.’

Author: Chris Paxton
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A zoological atlas: Voyage autour du monde, sur la Bonite

November 27, 2016, 10:30 am
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The great exploring expeditions of the 19th century often published accounts of their voyages in a series of large illustrated atlases. This particular atlas is part of the account of a French expedition, published as Voyage autour du monde : exécuté pendant les années 1836 et 1837 sur la Bonite commandée par m. Vaillant. It was acquired recently by Auckland Libraries and is currently on display in the exhibition Old & New: recent additions to Sir George Grey Special Collections together with another recent atlas purchase: An account of a voyage in search of La Perouse.

Ref: Auguste Nicolas Vaillant. Voyage autour du monde : exécuté pendant les années 1836 et 1837 surla Bonite commandée par m. Vaillant. Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, Printed 910 V13.

In 1836 French naval officer Auguste-Nicolas Vaillant was given instructions for a voyage through the Pacific on the former troopship La Bonite. The main aim of the voyage was political – Vaillant was to maintain a French presence in the area while delivering diplomatic and consular representatives to Chile, Peru and Manila, and visiting trade ports and religious missions in South America and Hawaii.

Science was not forgotten however, and Vaillant was also instructed to make hydrographic and geographic observations when possible, and to gather natural history specimens (of which some 3,500 were brought back to the National Museum of Natural History in Paris). Travelling with the expedition were the naturalists Joseph Eydoux and François Souleyet, and watercolour artists Barthélémy Lauvergne and Théodore-Auguste Fisquet. The atlas documents their work, containing 101 illustrated plates of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, insects, crustaceans, and molluscs. Some, like these Girella, Eydoux and Souleyet named after themselves.

Ref: Auguste Nicolas Vaillant. Voyage autour du monde : exécuté pendant les années 1836 et 1837 surla Bonite commandée par m. Vaillant. Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, Printed 910 V13.

The plates in the atlas are stunning examples of 19th century scientific illustration, created from the specimens and sketches brought back from the voyage. They were produced by a number of professional artists and engravers, including Jean Gabriel Prétre and Paul Louis Oudart. After printing the illustrations were then hand-coloured, achieving the incredibly detailed finish that can be seen in this illustration of a Boa de Chevalier, drawn by Oudart.

Ref: Auguste Nicolas Vaillant. Voyage autour du monde : exécuté pendant les années 1836 et 1837 surla Bonite commandée par m. Vaillant. Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, Printed 910 V13.

You can view more of the plates in a digitised version of the atlas in the Internet Archive, or come and see the book itself, on display from now until February 28, in the Exhibition Room, Level 2, Central City Library.

Further reading: Author: Renee Orr, Sir George Grey Special Collections
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Quaker collection

December 4, 2016, 10:30 am
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The Society of Friends or Quaker Collection makes up a part of our rare books collection. It was initially accepted on deposit in 1973 and then gifted to Auckland Libraries in 1995 for safe keeping for posterity. The collection came from the library of the Society of Friends in Auckland, and consists of some 300 books including a copy of the Breeches Bible printed in 1608 and another Bible printed in 1653. Other rare and significant works form part of this collection including 43 books printed before 1801.

As one would expect, most items in the Quaker Collection are concerned either with the history, principles and precepts of the Society of Friends or with the lives of outstanding Quaker personalities.

These include a well-worn copy of George Fox’s Journal printed in London in 1694. George Fox was a founder of the Society of Friends and his journal is a central document in Quakerism.

Ref: George Fox, A journal or historical account of the life, travels, sufferings etc., 1694, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 272.8 F79.

The collection also includes books on Christian life and religious instruction – and a few biographies (such as Dorothy Ripley’s) – written from a general Protestant rather than specifically Quaker perspective. The Society of Friends did not produce their own translation of the Bible; they were content to use the Geneva and King James versions.

The Geneva Bible, which preceded the King James translation by 51 years, is also known as the Breeches Bible. This is because in the Breeches Bible, Genesis Chapter III Verse 7 reads: "Then the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed figge tree leaves together, and made themselves breeches." In the King James Version of 1611, "breeches" was changed to "aprons".

Ref: Bible, English, Geneva version, 1608, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries.

The collection also contains several books by non-Quakers on social issues with which the Society of Friends has long been involved – temperance, pacifism, the anti-slavery movement, a federation of nations. These include a first edition of All quiet on the Western Front and works by prominent anti-slavery campaigner Thomas Clarkson.

Also included is a set of Reports of the General Meeting of the Society of Friends running from 1912 through to 1956.

Ref: Society of Friends, Report of the General Meeting, 1912-1956, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 272.8 F91.

These publications could be of interest to those of you who have ancestors who were in the Society of Friends as these reports contain lists of the members of the Society and attendees at the meetings complete with street addresses, family members and occasionally professions too.

This group portrait is from the 1914 meeting in Auckland.

Ref: Society of Friends, Report of the General Meeting, 1914, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 272.8 F91.

The reports covering the First World War years are of particular interest as they have lists of Friends called up for compulsory service under the Military Service Act and these lists contain details of what transpired to each individual after their appeals were heard.

The 1917 report includes the Society of Friends’ manifesto issued around alternative service for conscientious objectors. This points out and emphasises the fact that as they proceeded through courts and places of detention, the spirit of love brought strength to their own hearts and won the respect of the Authorities.

The Manifesto concludes with a moving coda:

“We yield to none in our admiration for that noble spirit of self-sacrifice which has led so many thousands of our brave lads to offer to their country all that they had to offer, even their life. Our hearts go out to them and to those who have to bear the anxious pain of separation, and in many cases are left to mourn their loss.”

Author: Andrew Henry
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The life and times of the Farmers Santa

December 11, 2016, 10:30 am
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The team who built the giant Farmers Santa in 1960 would be amazed at the icon’s fluctuating fortunes. The statue enjoyed a 30 year run until the store’s Hobson Street site was sold (now the Heritage Hotel). He relocated to the Manukau Shopping Centre and was sacked for being too tatty, then taken apart and left in a rigger’s yard. Santa was later sold for $1; renovated for $40,000; restored again for $100,000; and had his winking eye and beckoning finger removed. He was the world’s largest fibreglass Santa in 1960; and crowned the world’s creepiest Christmas ornament in 2011.
Ref: Coloured postcard of the Farmers Trading Company, 1970s, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 9-1.

The five-tonne, 18-metre Santa was built by the Farmers’ display team. It took five men to lift his hand; and 100 men and two cranes to hoist him into position when he was installed above the entrance. Santa’s beckoning finger was part of the original build. Farmers employee Ted Dickens said the wink was put in later, but “some people objected to it. They thought it was lurid for little children to have a big man waving a finger and winking at them, which I thought was pretty pathetic,” he said (New Zealand Herald, 12 December 2010). One mother told Truth (20 December 2002) that Santa had traumatised her five-year-old daughter, who no longer wanted to celebrate Christmas. “Santa sits up there and looks menacing,” she said.

Ref: Santa Parade, 1983, Auckland Farmers Santa Parade. 

Santa was taken to Manukau City Centre in 1991 after Farmers closed in Hobson Street. This was to be a short engagement. Five years later the centre’s manager, Mark Schiele, said Santa looked old and tired. As the youngest city in the country Manukau needed a fresh image (Central Leader, 4 December 1996). Made redundant for a second time, Santa spent the 1996 festive season in pieces at a crane hire company before being left in a field at the Westhaven tank farm. To save him from being dumped, special events executive Stephen Hanford bought Santa for $1 in 1998. He organised a $40,000 make-over with a team of over 40 workers and returned Santa to the inner-city where he perched on the Whitcoulls building at the corner of Queen and Victoria Streets. Mr Hanford gifted Santa to Whitcoulls when he moved to Australia in 2003, but five years later Whitcoull’s could no longer afford to pay $55,000 a year for Santa’s maintenance, storage and installation. They in turn gifted him to the city, and thus the ratepayers of Auckland.

The Heart of the City lobby group asked Aucklanders if Santa was ready for retirement. His moving finger and dodgy wink were becoming increasingly unpopular and considered “seedy,” according to the group’s head Alex Swney (New Zealand Herald, 11 December 2008). After a spirited debate, the public voted by a ratio of 2:1 for Santa to stay - although Mr Swney agreed it was time to address his seedy look. A popular American website, cracked.com, had voted Santa the world’s creepiest Christmas ornament partly because of his “come-hither” finger.


After a $100,000 restoration Santa returned to the Whitcoull’s building with a jolly new smile, and minus his wink and moving finger. The sculptor who performed the facelift, Damien Kutia, said Santa’s eye took about an hour to remove with an angle grinder. He later sold it on Trade Me for $790 and donated a percentage to the Child Cancer Foundation.

Meanwhile, Santa’s annual costs had soared to $180,000 by 2014 and Heart of the City could no longer afford to foot the bill. Property development company Mansons TCLM pledged three years of support for Santa - thus saving him from retirement, again, and SkyCity pledged $50,000 for storage.

Ref: Farmers Santa, 28 November 2016.

Last year, Santa once more found work at Farmers. The company opened in the refurbished Whitcoulls store on 12 November - just in time for Santa to be erected on the corner of the building that weekend.

Author: Leanne, Central Auckland Research Centre
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