Heritage et AL

The Māori Community Centre, set up in 1947, was an important component in the reestablishment of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei’s community identity. During a period of significant upheaval and devastation for Ngāti Whātua, the Centre provided space for a temporary Marae and supported the process of rebuilding within the hapū. In understanding the role the Māori Community Centre played for Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, it is necessary to outline the trials faced by the hapū in the early-to-mid twentieth century. In particular, the encroachment of urban sprawl onto Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei’s land set in motion a series of devastating events, cumulating in the destruction of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei’s marae.

Image: Sewer under construction, Ōkahu Bay, 1910. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 7-A362.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, there were two key events that negatively impacted Ngāti Whātua. In the first instance, the increasing urban population of Auckland required extensive public works to be carried out in order to install and update urban utilities. While objected to by Ngāti Whātua in 1905, the Government nonetheless passed an Act of Parliament to confiscate the land at Ōkahu Bay so a sewer pipe could be installed across the beachfront, in front of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei’s ancestral village (shown in the image above). The 1987 Waitangi Tribunal report on the Ōrākei Claim explains that this sewer pipe, completed in 1910, began a series of devastating events that impacted Ngāti Whātua. Not only did Auckland’s effluent discharge into Ōkahu Bay, contaminating Ngāti Whātua seafood beds, but the pipeline also prevented surface run-off into the ocean.

As a result, not only was Ngāti Whātua deprived of their kaimoana, but their ancestral village was swamped. Secondly, as the Waitangi Tribunal has found, the Crown desired to acquire the land for European settlement even though Ōrākei land was considered ‘not for sale’. Consequently, by 1914, the Crown had obtained 460 acres of Ngāti Whātua’s land. While many owners believed they could keep the sections their homes stood on, this was not the case. Eventually, any Ōrākei tenants who resisted had their land seized under the Public Works Act 1882.

Image: Ōkahu Bay, 1910. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 7-A2929.

In 1952, another devastating and traumatic act by the Crown was inflicted on Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei. In 1951, the Crown seized the last 12 ½ acres belonging to Ngāti Whātua, leaving them with just the Ōkahu cemetery, according to the 1968 publication The Maori people in the nineteen-sixties: A symposium. While the site on which the old village stood was desired by the Crown for a park, it was also on the route the Queen would take during her official visit in the summer of 1952-1953. As such, on the pretext of the village being an eyesore and potential centre for disease, an image the New Zealand Government did not want to portray to Queen Elizabeth II, combined with the Crown’s want of a park, the remaining occupants of the village were evicted – some having to be physically carried out. Upon eviction, Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei’s village and marae were demolished and burnt (image below) and in July 1952, a playground was established on the site, as detailed in the Waitangi Tribunal report on the matter.

Image: New Zealand Herald, Māori Shacks Go Up in Smoke, 19 December 1951. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 7-A14286A

From its establishment in 1947, through to its peak in the mid-1960s, the Māori Community Centre became a central space for the regeneration of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei. During its lifetime, the Centre was administered by various Trusts. Most notably, the Community Centre was headed by a Trust Board of fifteen members composed of members nominated by the Waitematā Tribal Executive, Department of Māori Affairs, the Māori Women’s Welfare League and Rotary Clubs until 1951. By 1951, the management of the Centre was handed over to the Tribal Executive, and by 1953, this Executive took over the running of the Centre. However, under this Executive, the Māori Community Centre slowly declined in use. By the late-sixties, it was decided that the Centre was to be placed under the custodianship of the all-male Tribal Committee, the Ōrākei Marae Trust Board, who ran the Centre until 1974.

Once full control of the Community Centre was transferred to the Ōrākei Marae Trust Board, the Centre became an important component in the re-establishment of Ngāti Whātua’s marae. As the 1960s brought with it widespread interest in developing a Ngāti Whātua ‘urban marae’, this Tribal Committee instigated valuable work within the Māori Community Centre. As author of The History of Ngāti Whātua (1997) Ani Pihema explained, it was at the Māori Community Centre that the carvings that came to adorn the marae were created, being a place where “We could begin our carving project until the shell of the meeting house was completed and then we could return”. Moreover, it was under the Ōrākei Marae Trust Board that the Centre functioned as a surrogate Māori space in lieu of a marae which was still being constructed. As Ani Pihema elaborated, “the Māori Community Centre for six years provided a temporary marae for Auckland Māori needs until Ōrākei Marae was built.”

Image: The Auckland Māori Community Centre from Fanshawe Street. From: Kelly, “The Auckland Māori Community Centre In The Context Of Continuity And Change In Maori Society”. p.51 (original source and date of photograph unknown)

While this narrative has been one of destruction, it is also one that shows the unwavering resilience of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei. After experiencing the devastation of their ancestral village and marae at the hands of the crown, Ngāti Whātua were resolute to rebuild their marae. Instrumental in the rebuilding of not only their marae, but also community networks ravaged by the eviction process, was the Māori Community Centre. In addition to the fact that the Centre become a space that supported Ngāti Whātua’s continued resilience, under the Ōrākei Marae Trust Board, it also became a temporary cultural home in which Ngāti Whātua was able to rebuild, strengthen, and reassert their identity.

Author: Nicholas Jones

Nicholas Jones attended Trident High School in Whakatane. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Auckland with a major in History and a minor in Art History, graduating in 2018. Nicolas went on to complete Honours in History, graduating with first class honours. He is now beginning Masters in Asian Studies at the University of Auckland.

During his summer scholarship in 2019, Nicolas was fortunate enough to partake in the Mana Whenua project, supervised by Professor Linda Bryder. His project was focused upon fleshing out the social history of Auckland’s Maori Community Centre.

This research benefited greatly from the guidance and help from the Auckland Libraries staff. Nicolas would like to extend special thanks to Rob Eruera, Jane Wild, and the staff from the Sir George Grey Special Collections.

Find out more about the Auckland History Initiative.

Bibliography:

Kelly, C.M., “The Auckland Maori Community Centre In The Context Of Continuity And Change In Maori Society”. Bachelor of Architecture Thesis, University of Auckland, 1983.

Ministry of Justice. ‘The loss of the Orakei block', 19th September 2016. Available at https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/publications-and-resources/school-resources/orakei/the-loss-of-the-orakei-block/.

Pihema, Ani., “The History of Ngāti Whātua”. Auckland, 1997.

Schwimmer, Erik, ed. The Maori people in the nineteen sixties: A symposium. London: C. Hurst; New York: Humanities P., 1968.

Waitangi Tribunal, Report of The Waitangi Tribunal on The Orakei Claim (Wai-9), Retrieved fifth of February 2019. Available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/WT/wt_DOC_68494556/ReportonOrakeiW.pdf

For those who draw with words
And write in images

- Inscription from The Visionary

The Albrecht to Zusters Aotearoa artists’ books exhibition displays stunning works of visual and written arts, and explores different materials, bindings and forms – from the traditional Codex form to fold-outs, to an array of items in a box. These factors combine to generate fresh ways to make books, and to experience reading them. The exhibition opens on Saturday 2 November 2019 in the Angela Morton Room art library, Level 1, Takapuna Library and runs till Thursday 30 January 2020.

The exhibition shares a selection of the Angela Morton Collection’s rare books normally only seen by request in order to preserve them. They range from exquisite examples of fine press publishing to more low-tech aesthetics such as a photocopied and stapled pamphlet.

Image: Black, poem Riemke Ensing, design Elizabeth Serjeant. Green Bay Press, 2010.

The Wai-te-ata companion to poetry is a cardboard box containing poems translated into objects whose design has been inspired by the written content. There’s a map, a concertina and a tube. “The Soldier” by Rupert Brooke is printed on red card shot through with bullet holes. Elizabeth Smither’s funeral-themed “Cortage of Daughters” is printed on black-edged paper and tied with black ribbon – reminiscent of a Victorian-era memorial card. One of the project’s creators, Paul Thompson, explains: “If there are now digital objects of zero dimension these poems could be said to be poetic objects of three dimensions – or more?”

Image: The Wai-te-ata companion to poetry. Wai-Te-Ata Press, 2017.

Image: Potsherds and geraniums, Judy Haswell. Donek Press, 1988.

Most artist books are collaborations, but some are solo productions. Judy Haswell wrote, designed, printed and bound her 1988 poetry collection Potsherds and geraniums. In a letter to Takapuna Library’s acquisitions librarian, Letty Dudding, she describes how she “cut each page from, or rather into, a 38mm x 78mm Staedtler eraser, with small chisel-type tools made from razor blade slithers, jammed into the ends of broken wooden chopsticks. Such an eraser takes about 8 hours to cut. I then treat it like a lino cut. Although the rollers I use are steel, not rubber. The fleurets I paint by hand.” After printing the copies she had to sew, trim, paint the endpapers, and print the covers.

A beautiful example of collaborative work is The Visionary created by Elizabeth Serjeant. With the assistance of Riemke Ensing, Serjeant invited ten poets to write on the idea of The Visionary, then made lithographs in response to each poem. These were printed from stones by Joan Taylor in a limited edition of 50 copies. The Visionary won the 1989 BNZ Art Award at the NZ Academy of Fine Arts.

Video: The Visionary, Elizabeth Serjeant and Joan Taylor. Puriri Press, 1988.

The Silences Between: (Moeraki conversations) combines Keri Hulme’s poetry with Claire Van Vliet’s images. It incorporates alternative book structures: some pages are split horizontally, like a flip book, with text below and images above; some have a die-cut moon; and some can be popped forward for a three-dimensional wagon-wheel display. The Silences Between was published by Janus Books, founded by Claire van Vliet, who said: “I want the physicality of the book to create a physical message through the hands and the eyes that makes the reader more susceptible to the text.”

Michele Leggott wrote the poems in Journey to Portugal which was designed by Gretchen Albrecht. Albrecht wrote: “The technique employed in realising my images is a form of collage – Chine Colle, where thin Japanese hand-made art papers are torn into shapes and then glued and pressed in a ‘nipping’ press to the page. Each image was hand-done, in collaboration with Elizabeth Steiner who is a very experienced book-maker. Over the 100 books in the edition it was a rather labour-intensive task.” As a result each of her images is unique. This book also contains images and text letterpress printed by Tara McLeod.

Image: Pine, Ralph Hotere, Bill Manhire. Otakou Press, 2005.

Pine is a collaboration between Bill Manhire, Ralph Hotere and printer Brendan O’Brien. O’Brien wrote that “Bill Manhire’s poems first existed as postcards sent from London to Ralph Hotere in Dunedin in the 1970s. About that time Ralph was using the large hand-press in the Bibliography Room at Otago University and combining printing with wooden type with hand-painted texts, so the first ‘sheets’ of "Pine" existed from around then... [This] project unearthed two poems from the series that Ralph had not previously worked with; while discussions with Ralph about the curious effects he achieved ‘inking’ the type unearthed some unorthodox techniques (numerous cleaning brushes, clothes and sponges all featured in the mix). The 'Pine' project served to recover the missing Manhire poems, the ‘lost’ Hotere printing techniques and to produce a book that somehow escaped publication 30 years earlier.”

Video: Searchings, selections from the artist's journal, Max Gimblett. Holloway Press, 2005.

A slightly different combination of players created Searchings: selections from the artist’s journals chosen & arranged by Alan Loney. This book - edited, designed and typeset by Loney - is printed by Tara McLeod. Loney spent three years researching the full collection of Max Gimblett’s journals, begun in 1968. Searchings is a limited edition of 80 books. Bound into each volume are two original ink drawings by Gimblett, each drawing being different.

Image: Current special edition. Rohan Wealleans, 2010. Gow Landsford Gallery, 2017.

This exhibition demonstrates some of the ways artists, poets, printers and makers have extended the boundaries of the traditional white rectangle with intriguing results. Colin McCahon’s 15 drawings Dec ’51 to May ‘52 is bound with cord and includes hand-written text and brush and ink drawings. Hone Tuwhare’s Twelve: poems is letterpress printed, looseleaf and kept in a folder within a clamshell box. The silences between has a maple and tamarack wood tray case, Potsherds and geranuiums comes in a simple muslin bag, while Jane Zusters’s Singing in the lifeboat comes in a hand-sewn, painted canvas satchel.

At the other end of the spectrum, Rohan Wealleans’s Current special edition is one of ten editions where he has applied highly-textured layers of acrylic paint directly onto the slipcase of an artbook - whilst the book is still inside.

Author: Leanne, Research North

Albrecht to Zusters: Aotearoa artists’ books exhibition (2 November 2019 - 30 January 2020) in the Angela Morton Room art library, Level 1, Takapuna Library. Open daily.

You can follow the Angela Morton Room on Instagram.

References:

Components of a special collection: a collaboration with the University of Auckland Fine Arts Library Curated by Taarati Taiaroa and Tracey Williams.

Janus Press: The New Zealand Connection

November 19 is officially the United Nations World Toilet Day, a day about ‘inspiring action to tackle the global sanitation crisis’. 4.6 billion people worldwide live without access to a safe toilet which has been proven to ‘impact upon public health, living and working conditions, nutrition, education and economic productivity across the world.’

In Auckland today, it can sometimes be a bit of a nuisance to find a public loo, but for the most part we rest easy knowing that if nature made her call, we would be able to find suitable facilities. However, this hasn’t always been the case.

Auckland has been New Zealand’s largest city since 1891. Before this it had seen a steady increase in population since the 1840s and soon became a bustling hub of trade, debate and development. Reports detailing the unsanitary conditions rife in the city streets demonstrated a clear need for the implementation of drainage and sewage systems both by property owners and government to, quite literally, clean up the streets. This quote from the New Zealander about the City Board of Commissioners offers a glimpse into the discussions at the time:
“The City Board, we perceive, are about to adopt the suggestions made some time since in our columns that public urinals and latrines should be erected in different parts of the city. The want of any such conveniences have long been felt in Auckland, the more so during the last few years that the streets have assumed much the appearance of those of an old-world city” (New Zealander, 21 August 1863)

Image: James D. Richardson. Showing Queen St Wharf, 1869, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 4-519.

On 18 August 1863, it was passed by the City Board of Commissioners “that the work be forthwith proceeded with” to build the first men’s public toilet in Auckland. Initially the urinal and water closet was located at the beginning of the early Queen Street Wharf on Custom House Street (now Customs Street) and was constructed to serve the busy wharf and surrounding areas. It was a rudimentary structure that cost about £21. Of course, one public toilet serving a busy port of a city with over 6000 inhabitants would not have met the high demand, but it was certainly the beginning of journey toward improving public sanitation and it set the tone for Auckland’s public toilet history.

Accounts by the public of the sanitary conditions in Auckland streets paint a grim picture. A complaint from ‘Ratepayer’ in the Auckland Star on 12 May 1897 complains of the inadequacy of the public conveniences in Auckland. He says: “The inconvenience and hardship occasioned by the want of such common conveniences are so serious that the Council should give the matter their very early consideration, selecting such positions as visitors and strangers should have no difficulty in discovering; besides which such places should be regularly and systematically cleaned”. By the year 1912, there were 11 public conveniences in Auckland city. As different parts of Auckland developed, so did the need for public toilets.

The establishment of public toilets and the changing ways in which they have been needed and used tell interesting, somewhat indecorous stories about aspects of our social history. For something as seemingly mundane as a toilet, we really can infer a lot about what was going on in our city, who was here and what their needs were. One group that had been not been catered for prior to 1910 were women.

This changed in when a men’s and women’s toilet was built in 1910 on the corner of Symonds Street and Grafton Bridge. The junction of Karangahape Road and Symonds Street had always been an arterial route, servicing commuters coming in and out of the city. The first evidence of a public convenience in the area is found in the New Zealand Herald, 3 June 1891 and refers to a men’s urinal that was located “nearly opposite the Caledonian Hotel Symonds Street, just on the boundary of the general cemetery”.

The original Grafton Bridge was closed in 1904 due to safety concerns over the structural integrity of the bridge and was replaced by a small, temporary bridge at the bottom of the gully. Construction started in 1908 on a new, reinforced concrete bridge that was to offer both pedestrian and vehicle access to and from the city. The decision was made to construct a men's and women’s public convenience that also featured a tram stop to service the busy intersection at the cost of approximately £600 (Auckland Star, 27 August 1909). Original floor plans dated September 1909 show the following facilities in the men’s convenience: six urinals, four water closets, two basins and a cupboard. The women's section contained four water closets, 2 basins and a cupboard. The new bridge opened on April 28th, 1910 with much fanfare (Auckland Star, 25 April 1910).

Image: City Engineer’s plan. Symonds Street public conveniences and shelter near Grafton Bridge, 4 August 1909. ACC 015/2841-1, Auckland Council Archives

The building of the public conveniences at Grafton Bridge was significant for a couple of reasons. Not only were they the first conveniences that doubled as a tram stop, but they were the first public toilets that catered to women as well. Prior to this, if women wished to use the toilet in public, they were required to visit the public library (now the Auckland Art Gallery), the train station or the Smith and Caughey department store on Queen Street. The Grafton Bridge conveniences offered the first chance for women to move freely through the city without the restriction of having such limited options for going to the toilet. Although there was still only a grand total of four toilets within the city that were accessible to women, the Grafton Bridge location offered a city-fringe option and began the process of for the construction of more women's toilets.

Image: Showing cars, trucks, trams, motorcycles on Symonds Street at Grafton Bridge corner. 1926/27. Note the toilets top-centre. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 7-A11030.

An early example of a facility that was well ahead of its time was the Women’s Rest Room in Pigeon Park in the Symonds Street Cemetery at the corner of Karangahape Road and Symonds Street. According to the New Zealand Herald, on 29 August, 1923 the National Council of Women held a meeting in which they agreed to send a deputation to the City Council to advocate for a women’s rest room in Auckland city. The deputation was led by none other than Ellen Melville. Progress was slow, with issues around choosing a suitable site that pleased both Council and interested parties (Auckland Star, 19 April 1924). Although it took some years, in July 1926 “The setting a part of an area in the south-western corner of the reserve adjoining the Jewish cemetery on Karangahape Road as a site for a women’s rest room was approved by the City Council last” (New Zealand Herald, 9 July 1926). A tender for 1577 pounds was accepted on November 26th and construction began in the New Year of 1926 (New Zealand Herald 26 November 1926).

Image: City Engineer’s plan. Proposed women’s rest room – Karangahape Road, 14 July 1926. ACC 015/6541-3A, Auckland Council Archives

Opening in April 1927, it featured 6 toilets, a lounge room, a change room, a mother’s room, an attendant’s room and a pram storage room. This was the most extensive facility that catered for women and children and it is obvious as to why patrons favoured this over the basic services offered at the Grafton Bridge convenience. In June of the same year, it is reported that the rest room was visited on average 157 times since its opening (Auckland Star, 24 June 1927). In 1950 there were plans made for a new building which would include a baby change room, a feeding room with access to boiling water, seven toilets including a children’s sized toilet, a pram store, an attendants room, a lounge room, a coat room and even an outdoor terrace. There was also ramp access onto the terrace for ease of accessibility, presumably for women with pushchairs and young children. The original building was then demolished in 1953 as it was in a bad state of disrepair. This was also done to make way for further additions to the 1950 building.

Image: City Engineer’s plan. Karangahape Road (conveniences) – new women’s rest room, 19 June 1952. ACC 015/10244-12A, Auckland Council Archives

The reasoning behind providing restrooms for women as opposed to simply proving toilets was in response to how society viewed women and their needs. A report of services offered in 1953 at the Women’s Rest Room offers a snapshot of what happened within these facilities and the value placed on each activity. Patrons could heat a baby’s bottle for three pennies or leave a parcel with the attendant for the same. If a woman needed to purchase a sanitary towel or use a hand towel then the cost was 5 and 6 pennies respectively. The emphasis was then put on women as creatures who needed to tend to children, to rest and to socialise as opposed to merely being creatures who needed to use a toilet. In essence, it all came down to how women were perceived and gendered by public space. Rest rooms offered a curtain for women to hide behind to conduct private business in public.

Image: Showing the Ladies Restroom in the park on the corner of Karangahape Road and Symonds Street. 1954. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 580-153.

Suburban malls such as St Lukes, Glenfield and Pakuranga popped up in the 1960s and 1970s which meant that shoppers no longer relied solely on Auckland CBD for their shopping. This had a knock-on effect for the number of visitors making use of public facilities such as restrooms and public toilets. The decision was made in 2000 to demolish the Women’s Rest Room at Karangahape Road.

It is astounding to consider that once upon a time, women had to justify and fight for basic amenities such as toilets. This is an example of the hard work done by women with an emphasis on social justice, opportunity and freedom that has benefited us in more ways than they could have imagined. World Toilet Day is a reminder that while access to sanitation and toilets is a historic issue for us in New Zealand, that is not the case for literally billions of people around the world.

Author

Samantha Waru is the part of the Auckland Council Graduate Programme. Her role is with the Heritage, Research and Central team of Auckland Libraries and is based at Auckland Central Library. She is spending two years rotating around the various teams experiencing all that heritage and research has to offer within Auckland Libraries.

Her first rotation was with the Auckland Council Archives team where she undertook a research project on the colourful history of Auckland's public toilets. This blog offers just a snippet of some of the information she uncovered. Check out the Auckland Council Archives digital exhibition Flushed Out, for more on public toilets from the archives.

Sources

Annabel Cooper, Robin Law, Jane Malthus, and Pamela Wood, ‘Rooms of Their Own: Public toilets and gendered citizens in a New Zealand city, 1860-1940’, Gender, Place and Culture, 7:4, pp 417-433

Auckland Council Archives. Files: CBC 001, 18/08/63, ACC 219/16-138, ACC 217/41-260

"Westfield workers turned a place which was often physically strenuous, monotonous, hot, cold, bloody and smelly work, into a workplace of whānau, camaraderie and whanaungatanga."

- Ross Webb, “Your Livelihood is on the Line” Freezing workers in Aotearoa New Zealand, 1973-1994. University of Auckland, 2015.

For many workers in the meatworks industry one of the main things they enjoyed is the sense of working as part of a large family. This was very much the case at the four large meatworks in the Westfield area of Auckland, R. & W. Hellaby, AFFCO (Southdown), Auckland City Abattoirs and Westfield Freezing Company. Eunice Te Rangiuaia refers to this in her interview about her time working in the cannery at Westfield Freezing Company.

Eunice Te Rangiuaia – Games and the cannery

The ‘Stepping back into the shed’ exhibition celebrates the people, place and community of Westfield. It acknowledges the closure of the Westfield Freezing Company 30 years ago in 1989 and the closure of the Westfield train station two years ago.

Whites Aviation. Aerial photograph of Westfield Freezing Works, including the factory of Fletcher Building Ltd. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZMS-1803-00824.

With the concurrent closures of the other meatworks and local manufacturing industries during the late 1970s and 1980s the landscape now gives no clues to the industry which employed over 5000 workers at the peak of the season. With the exception of the Auckland Meat Processors, which still operates on the former Auckland City Abattoir site, most other evidence of this huge industry has disappeared.

One remaining, is this sculpture with two plaques on the corner of Vestry Drive and Great South Road, Ōtāhuhu.

Image courtesy of Sharon Smith, 13 Nov 2019.

The sculpture takes the form of a ‘meathook’and contains the original foundation stone laid by The Right Hon. W.F. Massey PC in 1916, and the foundation stone for the Westfield Park Business Estate, officially opened by the Prime Minister The Right Hon. James B. Bolger, 10 March 1995.

Another reminder of this industry is the Westfield Freezing Company archive donated by Michael Sanders in 2014. Michael Sanders, former General Manager at Westfield Freezing Company – rescued their business archive from site just before demolition. He donated the archive to Auckland Libraries in 2014. It contains business registers, ephemera, and objects such as advertising signs, with photographic material making up the bulk. As such, it lent itself to being displayed as a photographic exhibition, with the voices of the community providing context and heart.

Malcolm (Rae) Rankin - Four meatworks

The description of the area by Rae Rankin helps us to envisage what the area used to look like in the 1940s.

Max Beesley - Stock trains at Ōtāhuhu railyards

Former Southdown work Max Beesley describes the all important Ōtāhuhu Railway yards, where the stock arrived from farms, and were taken into the respective works.

David Lange - Workers in 'Otahu'

Former Labour Prime Minister and Ōtāhuhu local, David Lange paints a picture of the neighbourhood where he grew up. He worked at the Westfield Freezing Company as a student.

Aneta Jean Hart - Moving to Auckland for work

The meatworks formed the backbone of employment for workers from neighbouring suburbs. It also was a key employer of Māori who moved to Auckland for work during the ‘urban drift’ in the 1930s, 1950s and 1960s.

Sammy Saluni - First shift and the uniforms at Hellabys

People from Britain, Europe and throughout the Pacific migrated to Aotearoa and many settled in Auckland and took up employment in the industry.

Bill Daniels - The beef chain and the fellmongery

Lots of people worked at Westfield Freezing Works as students during the summer holidays. Bill Daniels has some tales to tell.

Bill Daniels - Unions and Lord Vestey

And we cannot finish without the mention of the important role that the unions played in the industry.

This is the last week the exhibition is on display, and we warmly invite you to come along to take look. While you are there, please do:

consider recording your memories in the Worker's Register,
contribute to the identification of people and places featured in the displayed photographs by writing in the Westfield Scrapbook,
consider adding copies of your pictures to the Community Photograph Album.

The exhibition acknowledges the placemaking legacy of Westfield in Auckland through social and industrial histories. Thanks to the Māngere Ōtāhuhu Local Board and the staff at the Māngere Arts Centre - Ngā Tohu o Uenuku, the exhibition is held in the south, where this history was made.

Author: Sharon Smith, Heritage Collections

John Barningham was a successful producer-director in the formative years of New Zealand’s television and stage industries. Highly motivated, with enormous creative energy and a touch of irreverence, talented young New Zealanders, like Barningham, embraced the explosion of 1960s youth culture, giving it a local accent.

Image: Unknown photographer. From left: two unidentified people, John Barningham and
an unidentified woman, early 1970s. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 1620-2.

Born in Te Kuiti in 1943, Barningham grew up and went to school in Avondale where he was active in amateur stage productions. He sang in local boy scout Gang Shows and started the Avondale Theatre, which soon merged with the Mt Eden Community Players.

The first public television broadcast in New Zealand was limited to Auckland in 1960, with broadcasts to Christchurch and Wellington beginning in 1961. In 1962, Barningham began working as floor manager for Auckland’s AKTV2 channel. This was part of the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation (NZBC). Known to many as “Barney” he rose quickly through the television ranks to produce and direct many successful light entertainment shows.

In the early days, Auckland television shows were broadcast live from a small studio in Shortland Street with limited resources. This required a certain amount of ingenuity, excellent planning, and a willingness to take risks.

Image: Photographer unknown. Television studios, 74 Shortland Street, Auckland, 1986.
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 1052-G2-15

Auckland Libraries oral history collection includes interviews with people who worked in television in Auckland during the 1960s-80s, including Barry Pinkney’s memories of working with John Barningham. These oral histories can be listened to by appointment at Research North, Takapuna Library.

Young New Zealanders could now see local pop stars on their televisions and feel a direct connection to the excitement of the international explosion of youth culture. Barningham regularly produced and directed many musical television shows. He often worked with Max Cryer and popular teen music idols such as Ray Columbus, The Chicks, the Keil Isles, and Lee Grant.

Image: Rykenberg Photography. Singer Eliza Keil, 1968. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 1269-Y782-3

Watch the memorable segment from 'Girls to Watch Music By' in 1969, with Ray Columbus performing as a ventiloquist's dummy sitting on Max Cryer’s knee. Many of the entertainers that Barningham worked with can be seen in '50 Years of New Zealand Television: 3 - Let Us Entertain You'.

Producer-director, Kevan Moore was the innovative pioneer of New Zealand entertainment television with shows like 'C’Mon', 'Let’s Go', and 'Happen Inn'. Barningham learnt from Moore and from 1972-73 Barningham was director and associate producer for 'Happen Inn'.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Barningham produced and directed several amateur stage dramas, musicals and comedies.

Many of the dramas represented the cultural upheavals of that time. Barningham produced a local version of 'The Knack'. Inspired by London’s swinging sixties, it is the story of a young man who tries to learn the knack of sexual seduction. Barningham designed the set and produced Mt Eden Community Players’ 1967 performance of 'Entertaining Mr. Sloane': a dark comedy that shocked many when it was first staged in London. It is the story of a bisexual, amoral young man who manipulates his landlady and her brother.

Image: The Knack programme, cast and crew, produced by John Barningham, Community Players, 1966. Ephemera Collection. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections.

Barningham’s theatre work influenced his television productions. He compiled, produced and directed 'Masterpieces' a tribute to Noel Coward, first on stage and then for television. By the time he left to work in Australia in 1974, Barningham had directed some one-off plays and ballet performances for the New Zealand Ballet Company. He was producer-director for the company’s performance of 'The Broome and I' and drama 'The Bach'.

In 1974, Barningham moved to Australia and joined the independent television company Crawford Productions. He was a key producer, and occasional director for the popular Australian World War II drama series 'The Sullivans' (1976-83), was producer for the television mini-series 'The Far Country' (1985), and directed episodes of Australian crime dramas such as 'Division 4' (1974-5) and 'Matlock Police' (1975-76).

In 1975, Barningham came back from Australia for a short time. He was contracted by TVNZ as co-producer for the Blerta television series, directed by Geoff Murphy, with studio directing by Barningham. Written by Geoff Murphy, Ian Watkin, Martyn Sanderson and Bruno Lawrence, the series was based on the Blerta stage show (Bruno Lawrence’s Electric Revelation and Travelling Apparition). Many of the talented people involved in creating this TVNZ series are founders of the New Zealand’s screen industry. In 1976, the Blerta television series won a Feltex Award.

Image: Promotion pamphlet for Blerta (1976 TV series), Blerta-TV One co-production.
Barningham Family private collection.

Barningham was producer of two television drama series that won Australian Logie Awards: 'Carson’s Law' won most popular show in 1984 and 'The Sullivans' won most popular television drama programme each year from 1978-1980.

Barningham left Australia in 1986 to take up the position of controller of TVNZ’s TV Two.

Image: Photographer unknown. Possibly the last photograph taken of John Barningham, 1980s.
Barningham family collection.

In April 1987 at the age of 43 years, Barningham was poised to make a major contribution to the maturing New Zealand television industry when he died from complications arising from AIDS.

Hear about the responses to the AIDS crisis in New Zealand in the 1980s in an oral history interview with Kate Leslie (MNZM, founding chair of the New Zealand AIDS Foundation). This recording can be listened to by appointment at Research North, Takapuna Library.

The 'John Barningham: Local stories on stage and screen 1960s - 1980s' is on display at the level 2 atrium space at Tāmaki Pātaka Kōrero | Central City Library till Sunday 8 December 2019.

Author: Carolyn Skelton, Research North

2019 marks 300 years since the publication of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, or, to use the full title: The life and strange surprizing adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, mariner: who lived eight and twenty years all alone in an un-inhabited island on the coast of America, near the mouth of the great river of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With an Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates. Written by himself.

Title page from: Daniel Defoe. The life and strange surprizing adventures of Robinson Crusoe. 1719. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections.

Robinson Crusoe was a great commercial success for its publisher William Taylor, who published three subsequent editions of the book by hitherto political journalist and pamphleteer Defoe, as well as The farther adventures, a sequel, in the same year of 1719. Michael Schmidt, in The Novel : a biography (2014), outlines Robinson Crusoe’s success: “released on April 25, it was reprinted seventeen days later, again after twenty-five more days, then again on August 8.” Claiming to be autobiography, the book did not name Defoe.

The 32 Robinson Crusoe items held by Sir George Grey Special Collections are indicative of the multitude of adaptations and re-imaginings of the story, and its enduring legacies.

The third edition of the book, and the sequel, both published in 1719, entered Sir George Grey Special Collections in 1980, when Georgia Prince, now Principal Curator Printed Collections, purchased them at rare books store Caravaggio’s in High Street. We don’t know how these came to be in Tāmaki Makaurau.

The preface to the third edition affirms the following:

From: Daniel Defoe. The life and strange surprizing adventures of Robinson Crusoe. 1719. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections.

The fakeness of Robinson Crusoe seems to have become a target of parody in another influential early English novel of travel and adventure published seven years later in 1726: Travels into several remote nations of the world : in four parts : to which are prefix'd, several copies of verses explanatory and commendatory, never before printed. Leo Damrosch quotes the declaration of “the publisher” at the beginning of Jonathan Swift’s novel, best known as Gulliver’s Travels,

There is an air of truth apparent through the whole; and indeed the author was so distinguished for his veracity that it became a sort of proverb among his neighbours at Redriff, when any one affirmed a thing, to say it was as true as if Mr. Gulliver had spoke it (2013: 362)

In The life of Daniel Defoe (2015), John Richetti suggests that Defoe’s inspiration for Robinson Crusoe was the story of Alexander Selkirk. After being marooned, Selkirk spent four years alone on Más a Tierra (now Isla Robinson Crusoe), off the coast of Chile. Sir George Grey Special Collections holds one account of Selkirk’s experience—Edward Cook’s A Voyage to the South Sea, and round the world (1712).

As fictional as Crusoe may be, he has nonetheless significantly shaped what European readers have believed to be true. “In Robinson Crusoe”, Richetti writes, “Defoe conceives a character of archetypical significance, with deep and abiding resonances for modern European self-consciousness” (2015: 185). For Richetti, Crusoe

is, although reluctantly, the ultimate individualist, the man alone, surviving by his wits and relying very quickly as a slave in Morocco on his own resourcefulness, and as such he is a type of modern man, the self-constructed individual who exists (somehow) outside of the social or communal world. With a few other characters such as Don Quixote, Hamlet, and Faust, Crusoe has thus passed into the collective understanding of western humanity (2015: 185).

One of seven plates from the 16th edition, 1784, loosely inserted in: Daniel Defoe. The life and strange surprizing adventures of Robinson Crusoe. 1719. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections.

Plate from: Daniel Defoe. The life and adventures of Robinson Crusoe / written by Himself. 1804. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections.

This survival by wits is written through one of the innovations of Defoe’s novel: its detailed descriptions of the unfolding circumstances in which the narrator finds himself. On Defoe’s method, the contemporary South African-Australian novelist and critic J.M. Coetzee writes admiringly,

For page after page—for the first time in the history of fiction—we see a minute, ordered description of how things are done. It is a matter of pure writerly attentiveness, pure submission to the exigencies of a world which, by being submitted to in a state so close to spiritual absorption, becomes transfigured, real” (Stranger shores, 2001: 24).

Richetti discusses the significance of such detailed description of circumstances,

Defoe’s hero marks the ultimate proposition, basic to the new species of narrative called the novel, that personality is developed by and within circumstances… the idea that identity is developed in experience rather than chosen by an act of moral will or somehow imposed by social status and destiny is a revolutionary idea, an Enlightenment notion that the novel as a genre helps to promulgate as a fundamental assumption about human nature (2015: 196)

Through the very particular circumstances of life on the island, Crusoe undergoes—or actively undertakes—a religious transformation. Several commentators, including Schmidt, note a “scriptural” pattern in the book, “temptation, counsel, wrong action, recognition, acceptance of punishment, repentance, and restitution expressed in worldly terms” (2014: 75). Richetti identifies “two parallel narrative tracks” (2015: 188)—secular and religious, that compete as Crusoe attempts to make meaning out of his situation. In relation to this Richetti discusses how, in his introspection, Crusoe thinks through debates of Defoe’s day. These include the relation between God’s “Providence” (a concept that evolves through the story) and what today we might call human or individual agency. The book’s treatment of this and other questions, Richetti suggests, led to the development of the novel as that form “located at the intersection of popular or demotic journalism… and the serious periodic essay” (2015: 203).

Crusoe is an archetypical colonist. Furthermore, when he was shipwrecked on the island, Crusoe was part of a crew bound for West Africa to enslave people for his and others’ plantations in Brazil. Of the relation between Crusoe and his slave and companion Friday, who he eventually meets on the island, Schmidt writes of the book’s ideological effects, “For two centuries and more this picture of subordination in one of the most popular novels ever written seemed to reflect a natural order”, and that the “matter-of-fact” first-person narration “establishes stereotypes through which whole cultures and peoples were viewed” (2014: 74). Such a destructive picture was embedded particularly through the popularity of Robinson Crusoe as a children’s book: “The stereotypes were imprinted on the Anglophone reader from childhood” (2014: 74).

A long time ago : favourite stories, retold by Mrs Oscar Wilde & others. 1891. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections.

Thus, among the legacies of Robinson Crusoe are those feeding into three linked strands; the development of the novel as a literary form, the emergence of the modern European (male) subject or individual, and the grievous histories of slavery and colonialism. This suggests that this character and story are deeply woven or knotted into our contemporary world. If so, any engagement with the novel today must consider the historical contexts of its production, as well as alter or displace the story in a deeply critical mode.

Among the many critical re-imaginings of Robinson Crusoe is French novelist Michel Tournier’s Vendredi, ou les limbes du Pacifique (1967), the English translation of which, Friday or the Other Island (1974), is held in Auckland Libraries’ general collection. Gerald Bruns writes in On ceasing to be human that in Defoe’s story, Crusoe’s “construction of a human economy from degree zero (his ‘civilizing’ of the island) is a parable of self-justification, an assertion of rational autonomy” (2011: 23). In Tournier’s story, by contrast, in the absence of other people, Crusoe ceases to be human, a change indicated by the fact that the ship’s dog no longer acknowledges him. “The question [Tournier’s] novel raises”, writes Bruns, “is whether this cessation is altogether a bad thing” (2011: 24).

St Lucian poet and playwright Derek Walcott’s play ‘Pantomime’ (1980) humorously dramatises a nuanced sequence of reversals and displacements of the relation between Crusoe and Friday. Crusoe and Friday also feature in Walcott’s poems in his collection The Castaway (1965).

J.M. Coetzee’s novel Foe (1986) is narrated by an additional castaway on the island—Susan Barton. Barton, Friday and Cruso (spelt without the “e”) are rescued from the island, but only Barton and a mute Friday (his tongue having been cut out) survive the journey back to London. There, Barton relays her story in letters to the great (but elusive and financially troubled) writer, Daniel Foe, so that he can tell the story of the castaways. The version of Barton’s story that Foe would like to tell differs from her own, and Friday’s story is marked as absent.

The short story He and His Man, which is included in Coetzee’s book Three Stories (2014), entails a complex interplay of narrator and narrated, between a Defoe travelling widely through Britain, an elderly Crusoe living alone in Bristol, and, by implication, Coetzee himself. He and His Man also draws on Defoe’s A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, of which Sir George Grey Special Collections holds a copy from 1769, and A Journal of the Plague Year.

Author: Brent Harris, Auckland Libraries

Visit the Heritage Collections reading room during December to view the 1719 third edition of The life and strange surprizing adventures of Robinson Crusoe, on display in the Real Gold case with its sequel, The farther adventures and Edward Cook's A voyage to the South Sea (1712).

You can also listen to rare book specialist Georgia Prince discuss the book and the story behind its publication on our Real Gold podcast, and view more plates on Kura Heritage Collections Online.

Listen to the track here

References

Gerald Bruns. On Ceasing to be Human. Stanford University Press, 2011.

J.M. Coetzee. Stranger Shores: essays, 1986-1999. London: Secker and Warburg, 2001.

J.M. Coetzee. Three Stories. Melbourne: The Text Publishing Company, 2014.

J.M. Coetzee. Foe. London: Secker & Warburg, 1986.

Leo Damrosch. Jonathan Swift: his life and world. New Haven, Conneticut: Yale University Press, 2013.

Daniel Defoe. The life and strange surprizing adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, mariner: who lived eight and twenty years all alone in an un-inhabited island on the coast of America, near the mouth of the great river of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With an Account how he was at last as strangely deliver’d by Pyrates. Written by himself., 1719.

John Richetti. The Life of Daniel Defoe. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015.

Michael Schmidt. The Novel: a biography. Harvard University Press, 2014.

Michel Tournier. Friday or the Other Island, 1974.

Derek Walcott. Remembrance: And, Pantomime. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980.

Derek Walcott. The Castaway. 1980.

During the late nineteenth century, uncontrolled urban development in Auckland resulted in cramped inner-city houses built along narrow streets and lanes. These small houses were usually serviced by cesspits or insanitary drains and sewers, and often had backyard middens. Even in the early twentieth century, large blocks of such substandard housing remained in the central city not far from Queen Street.

However, since the 1870s, city officials had been urging that modern cities needed to be planned and developed in a more orderly, tidy, sanitary and visually attractive way. Responding to current town planning ideas, in 1911, the New Zealand Graphic began a new social crusade. It informed its shocked middle-class readers that working-class housing fit only for demolition festered as close at hand as mid-city Federal and Cook Streets, and in upper-city Alexandra Street. And there were other poor housing areas at the western ends of Victoria and Wellesley Streets too. Below are some of the Graphic’s ‘slum’ photographs.

Image: New Zealand Graphic. The crusade against dirt and disease…, 19 July 1911,
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZG-19110719-25-1.

Image: New Zealand Graphic. How infectious diseases are spread - Auckland's urgent need for a clean up,
12 April 1911, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZG-19110412-23-1.

However, the Graphic soon realised that slum clearance, or even just the creation of new suburbs, often led to another urban problem; the unregulated or largely uncontrolled construction of cheap, substandard and overcrowded subdivisions by unscrupulous and profit-driven developers. In October 1911, the paper investigated the development of new industrial suburbs at Onepuhi Estate, Miramar and Kilbirnie on the Kilbirnie Flat in Wellington.

Image: New Zealand Graphic. Kilbirnie Flat, showing how commercial land speculation is parcelling out land…,
25 October 1911, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZG-19111025-29-4.

The Graphic’s judgements on the problems of unregulated town planning is shown by the photographs it published. They show overcrowded subdivisions where developers had maximised the number of small houses they could build by squeezing them onto small sections with tiny boundaries and yards.

Image: New Zealand Graphic. 20 and 22ft frontages—houses are only five years old, 25 October 1911,
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZG-19111025-29-1.

Image: New Zealand Graphic. Suburb-making on Kilbirnie Flat, 8 November 1911,
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZG-19111108-29-1.

In Kilbirnie, the Graphic’s photographer took the following amazing photograph, where a brick shed had been built right up to the boundary of the house behind it. The house (which was there first) had also been built up to the edge of its section boundary. Perhaps it was too large for its tiny section.

Image: New Zealand Graphic. House spoiling. Fine new house blocked up by back of brick shop, 25 October 1911, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZG-19111025-29-2.

But this did not only happen in Wellington. In Auckland another Graphic photographer took the following photograph of houses being built too close to existing boundaries in Ponsonby’s new Jervois Estate.

Image: New Zealand Graphic. Speculative building in Auckland..., 1 November 1911,
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZG-19111101-28-2.

Since about 1903, developers had been creating the Jervois Estate along Jervois Road in Ponsonby. The Graphic’s judgement was that here, too, unscrupulous developers largely uncontrolled by lax town planning by-laws had increased their profits by jamming as many houses on small sections as they could into the subdivison. This had resulted in the creation of a visually unattractive, featureless suburb of uniformly monotonous houses crammed together along endless roads with few intersecting thoroughfares and no developer-provided public parks or reserves.

Image: New Zealand Graphic, What commercial land speculation provides in New Zealand, 1 November 1911,
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZG-19111101-29-2.

Furthermore, the Graphic observed that the same thing was happening along the endless roads in the Ponsonby Park Estate, also recently developed nearby.

Image: New Zealand Graphic. The march of roof iron and chimney pots, 1 November 1911,
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZG-19111101-30-1.

Inevitably, the Graphic compared Auckland’s uncontrolled town planning shambles with orderly and attractive suburbs in new towns like Port Sunlight and Bournville in England. The following photographs compare New Zealand laissez-faire with orderly English town planning.

Image: New Zealand Graphic. Port Sunlight and the Jervois Estate, 1 November 1911,
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZG-19111101-29-1.

Image: New Zealand Graphic. What town planning provides in England, 1 November 1911,
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZG-19111101-29-3.

The photograph below shows what the Jervois Estate looked like seven years after it was created.

Image: New Zealand Graphic. Five to seven years' growth—what the Jervois estate cost the public, 1 November 1911, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZG-19111101-28-1.

The Graphic complained that Auckland ratepayers had been left to pay for adequate roads and footpaths in the Jervois Estate, because when the subdivision was completed there were no effective planning by-laws regulating the standards of the shoddy thoroughfares developers usually provided. Therefore unscrupulous developers could expand their returns even further; saving space (and money) by jamming in houses while scrimping on roads and footpaths.

On 1 November 1911 the Graphic published the following photograph of unfinished roads and footpaths in a new suburb (probably the Ponsonby Park Estate), which had not been completed by developers who were up to their usual unscrupulous tricks.

Image: New Zealand Graphic. New roads and footpaths in a new suburb, 1 November 1911,
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZG-19111101-30-2.

And it seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. Fifty-five years later in 1966 an unknown photographer took the following photograph of Mrs Dorothy Laker and her young son, Gavin, walking down an unsealed section of Flat Bush Road in Otara because there was no footpath.

Image: Unknown photographer. Woman with a pram, Otara, July 1966. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections Footprints 0006. Photograph reproduced by courtesy of Stuff Limited.

In other new suburbs like Manurewa, Mangere and East Tamaki the roads and footpaths were pretty basic.

Image: Unknown photographer. Neglected street, Manurewa, April 1970, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections Footprints 08395. Photograph reproduced courtesy of Stuff Ltd.

In most cases, developers built houses and moved on. Consider this photo from East Tamaki in 1961 where no footpaths have been laid out, and the houses came complete with gorse in their backyard paddocks! There is nothing new under the sun, and uncontrolled developers seldom change their spots…

Image: Elizabeth Andrews. Group Housing Project, East Tamaki, May 1961,
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections Footprints 05122.

Author: Christopher Paxton, Heritage Collections

Further reading:

Ben Schrader. City planning, retrieved from Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, published 11 Mar 2010, updated 26 Mar 2015.

Fun & games is a free exhibition of games, books, photos, manuscripts, and more drawn from Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections around the region. It opens on 11 December and runs to 1 March 2020 at Tāmaki Pātaka Kōrero | Central City Library.

Image: Dennis Beytagh. School journal, number 2 part 2, 1959. School Publications Branch, Education Dept. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections.

What games did your great-great-grandparents play? What are your favourite games to play today? Children of every time, place, and culture have loved to play. Some games endure across the generations and are handed down through families, while others emerge and transform, or are forgotten as technology, society, and childhood change. They in turn help shape our culture and communities and the stories of Tāmaki Makaurau.

Image: Unknown photographer. From: Auckland Kindergarten Association. Photograph album, 1931-1936. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZMS 1275.

Image: G B Scott Publications Limited. A group of Māori children playing tī rākau (stick game) at Rotorua, 1960s-1970s. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 996-429.

Image: Rykenberg Photography. Unidentified girl playing with a hula hoop, 1959. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 1269-K169-6.

Come into the gallery on Level 2, remember some old games and learn about some new ones. Use the blackboard to leave us a note about games you like. Read the colourful quotes on the walls and an instruction book for board games from 1786, see some 19th century knights on horseback with a royal connection, learn about the hula hoop craze of the 1950s, compare Māori and Pākeha versions of mū tōrere (draughts), and try your hand at putting on a sock puppet show. Listen to playground rhymes and play retro PacMan.

Fun for anyone who loves to play games, young or old. Stay, play and dress up!

Be sure to check out our free events so that you don’t miss out. You can have a go at sock puppet and kite making, learn with Lego bricks, join the Kōrero bike at Silo Park and score points on the pinball and arcade machines in the library. Tākarokaro mai, and in the words of Maurice Sendak, “Let the wild rumpus start!”

Image: Ron Clark. Carolyn and Pamela Clark playing with dolls on the sand, 1958. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 1207_1194.

Image: Auckland Weekly News. Making The Most Of The School Holidays, 1937. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS_19370915-45-1 to AWNS_19370915-45-7.

Image: Unknown photographer. Apples on a string, Papatoetoe, 1964. Courtesy of Stuff Limited. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, Footprints 06670.

Image: Unknown photographer. Playing spacies, Ōtāhuhu, 1981. Courtesy of Stuff Limited. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, Footprints 00411.

Author: Dr Natasha Barrett | Senior Curator Archives & Manuscripts

About the author

Fun & Games is a free exhibition of games, books, photographs, archives and more drawn from Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections around the region. It opened on 11 December 2019 and runs to 1 March 2020 at Tāmaki Pātaka Kōrero | Central City Library.

The exhibition features several items showing young children playing at Auckland kindergartens. Kindergartens were started in 1837 by German educationalist Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852). Since their establishment in Aotearoa New Zealand during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they have become a central part of daily life for many families and important cornerstones of the communities they serve. As well as a commitment to free play in Aotearoa, kindergartens and other types of childcare services for pre-school children reflect a tradition of organised play. By the 1920s for example, the Auckland Star noted that organised play took place daily at kindergartens in Myers Park and Victoria Park. Action songs and stories were listed as being amongst the most popular forms of education.

Image: Photographer unknown. Showing Myers Park with the paddling pool in the foreground, the kindergarten in the background, and Pitt Street Methodist Church visible through the trees to the left. 1916. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 236-7519.

In Aotearoa, the range of childcare providers includes the Auckland Kindergarten Association, Playcentre and Kōhanga Reo, as well as many private early childhood centres. Established in 1908 by a group of enthusiasts, the Auckland Kindergarten Association has become Aotearoa’s largest kindergarten association. Its original focus was philanthropic and centred on providing childcare for the children of the poor and needy. Playcentre, now Playcentre Aotearoa, opened later in 1941. It was set up by a group of mothers and staffed by parents who had attended childcare courses. Branches of Playcentre, which is unique to Aotearoa, remain cooperatively managed by parents and are supported nationally by Playcentre Aotearoa staff. Auckland Libraries holds the records of both the Auckland Kindergarten Association (NZMS 1275) and the Auckland Playcentre Association (NZMS 2164), which can be viewed in the Level 2 Reading Room at the Central City Library.

Image: National Publicity Studios. Mothers and children outside at Ōrākei Playcentre. 1970. Copyright: Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 895-A93894.

Image: Photographer unknown. Kōhanga Reo kids,Ōtāhuhu , 1991. Courtesy of Stuff Limited. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, Footprints 03343.

As views on children’s welfare and education, perspectives about women in the workforce, biculturalism and multiculturalism have changed, so too has childcare evolved over time. Significantly, the establishment of Kōhanga Reo since the 1980s reflects the start of a movement to preserve the language through an immersive Māori cultural framework with te reo speaking staff. The focus of this national approach is not solely on the social and cultural development of the child though, but the entire whānau. There are now over 460 Kōhanga Reo established throughout the country, including in Auckland, as well as overseas. This model has also been used at childcare centres where Pacific languages are spoken.

Despite societal, cultural and educational transformations, kindergartens have always had a strong focus on giving young children opportunities to learn as they play. The rationale being that learning through play is a fundamental part of a child’s holistic mental, physical and spiritual development. In line with this, the Auckland Kindergarten Association has always adhered to the progressive philosophy that young children are empowered through directed play. This was seen to provide a firm foundation for creating well balanced and confident individuals. The Auckland Star (23 September 1916) describes this approach stating:

To the grown-up mind, unacquainted with the principles underlying kindergarten work, it may appear the babies are playing; but the babies know better. They know that it is the little things of the present life which form the future.

The Auckland Kindergarten Association opened the Myers Kindergarten in Myers Park on 15 November 1916. Over a century later, the kindergarten is still running. It was however renamed KINZ Myers Park Early Learning Centre in 2002 and is no longer free, since this proved economically nonviable. The total cost of building the kindergarten and playground, as well as the land for the park, was £20,000. This was donated by businessman, philanthropist and Liberal MP, Hon Arthur M Myers, who was Minister for Customs and Munitions at the time.

The completed kindergarten, the fourth the association had opened, was claimed to be the “most up-to-date in Australasia” (Auckland Star, 4 September 1916). Equally cutting edge was its central location off Queen Street and within park grounds. This gave (and continues to give) urban children “an innovative safe place to learn and play” in a natural outdoor setting (Kerry Bethell. 2016. 100 Years Young: Celebrating A Century At The Myers Kindergarten. Epublication, p7). As reported when the kindergarten first opened, “children may be seen there [in the park] every afternoon enjoying to the full the novelty of games on smooth green grass instead of hot asphalt pavement” (New Zealand Herald, 18 October 1916)

Image: Auckland Weekly News. The handsome kindergarten building in Myers Park which the Hon. A. M. Myers, Minister for Munitions, has presented to Auckland, 9 November 1916. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19161109-38-6.

The range of locally manufactured playground equipment must have also made playtime particularly exciting for the children and included “a giant-stride, see-saw, rock-a-bye, swing … and long slide” (New Zealand Herald, 25 January 1916). The arrangement of park equipment in relation to the kindergarten was discussed at the highest level, with the Hon Arthur Myers, and Mayor, Mr J H Gunson, visiting the site a few months before its opening.

Image: W.T. Wilson. Myers Park playground and Kindergarten, 1910-1919. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 589-350.

The colourful glass and ceramic marbles on display in the exhibition at the Central City Library come from Myers Park and may be connected to the kindergarten. They are on loan from the Auckland Council Heritage Unit and were discovered by archaeologists five years ago during park upgrade works near the kindergarten and playground. Marbles is a centuries old game and whilst the marbles on display are not that old, some of them may date back to when the kindergarten first opened. They were perhaps lost during a particularly vigorous game of shooting, rolling and flicking marbles in the playground.

From when it first opened, Myers Park Kindergarten also served as teacher training centre with hands on experience. This was an important part of the Auckland Kindergarten Association’s mission and helped provide a respected career path for women at a time when options were limited. This changing attitude is reflected in newspaper articles and adverts for student teachers during this period. The New Zealand Herald (27 January 1915) for example, observed that:

The day when young ladies with plenty of time but not quite enough pocket-money undertook kindergarten work because they happened to be fond of children is now past. The formation of the Auckland [Kindergarten] Association placed this most important work on a very different basis from the old system, where the main object of the school was to simply keep the child out of a busy mother’s way. To qualify as a teacher now means a thorough education, theoretical and practical, upon the lines laid down by the great teacher Froebal, upon whose system all modern kindergarten work is based.

The article goes on to stress the rigorous nature of this career, outlining the requirement of two years practical training and theoretical study before qualifications and endorsement could be granted by the association. The Government’s incorporation of kindergarten work into the educational scheme further elevated the status of this career, along with the establishment of an examination and granting of diplomas through the Education Board.

Image: Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 294, 12 December 1925, p.12. Advert by the Auckland Kindergarten Association for enrolment of teachers.

By the 1920s, kindergartens had spread to different parts of the city and region. This included the Campbell Free Kindergarten in Victoria Park (opened in 1910 and relocated to Tahuna Street in 1960), St James’ in Grey Lynn (opened in 1913, now the Grey Lynn Kindergarten) and Newmarket (opened in 1912, closed in 1953). Numbers of children attending these four kindergartens were recorded as being up to 250 pupils by 1923. Other branches that opened during this time included locations in Ponsonby (opened in 1926), Onehunga (opened in 1925 and known as Onehunga Cuthbert Kindergarten) and Otahuhu (opened in 1928). Photographs from a 1930s Auckland Kindergarten Association album show a number of these formative and more established kindergartens with their pupils and teachers. As well as documenting daily routines and life at kindergartens, the photographs show that despite the old-fashioned clothing, many of the games remain familiar, as are the big smiles from the enjoyment of play.

Image: Photographer unknown. Page Myers Park Kindergarten from an Auckland Kindergarten Association photograph album, 1931. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZMS_1275_02.

Image: Photographer unknown. Page showing Campbell and St James’ Kindergartens (1931) from an Auckland Kindergarten Association photograph album, 1931-1936. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZMS_1275_03.

Image: Photographer unknown. Page showing Ōtāhuhu Kindergarten from an Auckland Kindergarten Association photograph album, 1931. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZMS_1275_04.

Author: Dr Natasha Barrett, Senior Curator Archives and Manuscripts

References

Nursing has a long and varied history around the world. Nurses offer essential skills and experience that help to supplement the work of doctors and physicians when it comes to the care for the sick or injured. The profession that we recognise today is not the way it has always been - there have been great changes in the practices, qualifications and expectations associated with nursing. As healthcare in general improved in the 19th and 20th centuries, the demands on nurses grew. This blog post will explore some of the changes in nursing throughout these time periods and will include early forms of nursing, state-registered nurses, the impact of WWI and WWII. Using images from the Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, we can get a sense of the expectations these nurses had to live up to, where they worked and even what they wore.

In mid-19th century New Zealand, the sick or injured were nursed by family members or members of their community. There was no formal training available, or required, to care for the sick or injured. In 1847, the first public hospital in Auckland opened. The 50-bed building was located on the site of the current Auckland city hospital, presumably so it was slightly removed from the squalid conditions of Auckland city. The staff consisted of a medical officer, a dispenser, one male nurse, a male cook, a servant and a messenger. By 1865, the capacity of the hospital had been extended to 78 beds and the annual admissions were 695 patients. In the same year, the hospital employed a provincial surgeon, a house surgeon, four male nurses, a matron and a cook.

Image: James D Richardson, Auckland Public Hospital, 1850s?, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 4-305

1877 saw the opening of a new Auckland hospital to replace the original, which was considered inadequate by that stage. The new hospital operated for some years in a reportedly dreadful state. There were vermin infestations, poor cleanliness, the bad layout resulted in the inability to isolate fever patients and a general lack of care. Most nursing duties were carried out by convalescing patients, under supervision of one matron at best. According to W.E. Henley, after a tumultuous few years, an 1883 report from the new board of management stated that a “preponderance of evidence established fully the fact that trained female nurses were the most efficient”. Miss Crisp, a trained nurse from Southampton, was appointed lady superintendent and the first trained nurse at Auckland Hospital. Once Miss Crisp was on staff, she began a nurse training programme to raise the standards of care. By 1888, nurses were required to pass an examination after 12 months of practical hospital training.

Image: Frederick George Radcliffe, The Hospital Auckland, 1915?, Auckland Library Heritage Collections, 35-R74.

Perhaps the most significant change in nursing in New Zealand came in 1901 with the Nurses Registration Act which was passed on September 12 1901. It came into effect in January 1902 and meant that nurses had to “hold a certificate of three consecutive years' training as a nurse registered in a hospital, and proves to the satisfaction of the Registrar that during her training she received systematic instruction in theoretical and practical nursing from the medical officer and matron”. This Act was advocated for by Grace Neill who was Assistant Inspector in the Department of Asylums and Hospitals from 1895 to 1906. Grace was instrumental in the campaigning and drafting of this bill. As a result, the world’s first state-registered nurse was made official on January 10 1902. That nurse was Palmerston North resident Ellen Dougherty.

Image: Auckland Weekly News, Dr Alice Woodward and the two nurses who volunteered for duty in the supposed plague case at Auckland Hospital, 11 May 1900, Auckland Library Heritage Collections, AWNS-19000511-10-1.

Image: Herman John Schmidt, Gallagher Group of Nurses 1910, 1910, Auckland Library Heritage Collections, 31-59029.

The First World War had a large impact on nursing in New Zealand. After the South African conflict, the need for trained nurses in wartime became apparent. In 1908 the New Zealand Medical Corps Nursing Reserve was formed with the goal of consisting of “qualified nurses willing to undertake the nursing of the sick in time of war in hospitals under the control of medical officers of the New Zealand Medical Corps”, as Anna Rogers has written. The Corps failed to gain interest from trained nurses and faced political challenges and in 1910 the matron Janet Gillies was forced to step down. A few months later, Hester McLean was appointed matron-in-chief of what would become the New Zealand Army Nursing Service (NZANS). In April 1915, the first contingent of 50 nurses were selected to serve overseas. By the end of the war, some 550 New Zealand nurses had served in a range of countries and faced overwhelming challenges throughout. Some of those challenges included the heat, poor sanitary conditions, resistance from others regarding their rank, long work hours, illness and restrictive uniforms.

Image: Herman John Schmidt, Nurse Nobbs soldiers group, 5 October 1916, Auckland Library Heritage Collections 31-WP8025.

Image: Herman John Schmidt, Nurse Gumbley and an unidentified nurse, 1911, Auckland Library Heritage Collections 31-63859.

Upon their return to New Zealand, many army nurses continued to work in military hospitals around the country or in greatly understaffed civilian hospitals. Little did they know, one of the greatest threats to well-being was not the war they had just returned from. The influenza pandemic struck New Zealand between October and December 1918 and claimed a staggering 9000 lives. Patients were being admitted to hospital at rates that rivaled those during wartime, which stretched resources and skills. The outbreak of the Second World War saw another surge in wartime nursing services. By May 1940, 1200 suitable trained nurses had volunteered to serve overseas. Between 1939 and 1945, 602 nurses belonging to the NZANS served outside of New Zealand. They faced many of the same challenges faced by New Zealand nurses serving overseas in WWI. Trying weather conditions, lack of resources, poor pay and long hours were once again rife.

Image: Clifton Firth. 1/2 Portrait of Nurse, Miss Nona Rice, 29 August 1941, Auckland Library Heritage Collections 34-R54.

Image: Auckland Weekly News, The Nurse Herself, 1 May 1940, Auckland Library Heritage Collections AWNS-19400501-36-4.

Nursing in New Zealand was constantly evolving. The World Wars helped identify gaps in nurses’ training, and general global trends helped influence the future of nursing. By the 1960s, nursing was still predominantly hospital-based training, supplemented by lectures and demonstrations on site. The 1970s saw a move toward university and other tertiary-based training. By the 1990s, nurses were required to undertake a three-year nursing degree which was the early form of the current Bachelor of Nursing that is offered today. Improvements in science and healthcare practices in general have changed the way we think about nursing. Nurses make up an essential component of our healthcare system and while their uniforms and qualifications have changed, there are still challenges relating to workload, pay and working conditions that are yet to be fully remedied.

Image: Clifton Firth. Staff Nurse Stephanie Andrae, 1969, Auckland Library Heritage Collections 34-6.

Image: Murray Freer. New Nurses, Mangere, 1969, Auckland Library Heritage Collections Footprints 07852.

The National Library has digitised copies of Kai Tiaki - the Journal of the Nurses of New Zealand and it is available here.

For other nursing related blog posts, see this great post by Sharon Smith about nurses in the First World War and Jane Tolerton's post about Dr Grace Russell and the Dobie Sisters.

Author: Samantha Waru, Auckland Libraries Graduate.

Sources

'New Zealand Army Nursing Service in the First World War', URL: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/first-world-war-nurses, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 5-Jun-2018.

'Nurses Registration Act 1901', URL: http://www.nzlii.org/nz/legis/hist_act/nra19011ev1901n12347/, (New Zealand Legal Information Institute).

The early history of the Auckland Hospital, W.E. Henley, 1970.

'The world's first state-registered nurse', URL: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/worlds-first-state-registered-nurse, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 11-Jun-2018.

While you’re away: New Zealand nurses at war 1899–1948, Anna Rogers, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 2003.

In 1924, Auckland City Council began publishing the Municipal Record, to promote the progress of the “Queen City.” Inspired by publications abroad, and encouraged by central government to publish details of civic work, the magazine was launched. There were plans to publish quarterly, and it was distributed free of charge, with the hope that Aucklanders would take more of an interest in civic matters, and accord “a fuller measure of sympathy and understanding” to Council staff.

Ref: Front cover of the Municipal Record, Vol. 1, No. 1, 15 March 1924.
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections.

The Record promoted Auckland as a pioneer town growing into a modern city. Editor Robert Hill wrote that people new to Auckland, whether from New Zealand or abroad, should make an effort to learn about their new city. “These people know little or nothing of the city and until they do, they cannot become imbued with that intense civic enthusiasm that is a characteristic of so many older residents of Auckland.” Hill also hoped to promote Auckland to readers internationally “who have in all probability never heard of our city.” Ten thousand copies of the first issue were printed to distribute at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley.

“The city must either move forward or backward – there is no standing still. And it is not in keeping with the spirit of Auckland to make a retrograde step.” (April 1925)

While council issues such as traffic congestion, the housing crisis, and street works were reported, promoting the city’s attractions was at the heart of the Record. Prince’s Wharf, the largest wharf in the Southern Hemisphere and described as “one of the world’s notable structures in reinforced concrete,” was touted as an example of vision and foresight characterising Auckland’s growth. Articles were published on the wonders of the water supply, reminding readers that in the recent past, water came from public wells. “From 5am queues were formed at the public wells, each person taking it in turns to fill his or her bucket. There are men and women still resident in Auckland who, as boys and girls, took their places in the water queues and struggled home labouring under the heavy and awkward load day after day.”

A recurring topic was the hoped-for new civic centre. It would be not just an administration building, but a complex that incorporated a new art gallery.

“We owe a duty to our children – and our children’s children. It is within our power – the power of the ratepayers of Auckland City – to present the Auckland of generations ahead with a public asset of great character and of incalculable worth.” (April 1925)

The land earmarked for this was the Old Market land between Wellesley and Cook Street. The city’s first markets had been held there until 1917, and the land cleared of derelict buildings in the early 1920s. It was hoped the new civic centre would “uplift and ennoble the character of the city and have an elevating influence on its citizenry.” Inspiration came from grand overseas buildings, particularly those with outdoor spaces, pictures of which the Record included for Aucklanders to dream about.

Ref: Henry Winkelmann. The Civic Square land at the junction of Queen and Wellesley Streets, prior to clearance,
March 1925. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1-W314.

Ref: Henry Winkelmann. The Civic Square land, looking down towards corner of Queen and Wellesley Streets,
March 1925. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1-W674.

The phases of the grand plan were documented in subsequent issues. Designs were invited from architects and the winning design was that submitted by Gummer and Ford. The project was taken to a poll for approval, but in spite of the Record championing the cause, Auckland ratepayers voted not to go ahead with raising the loan of £340,000 for its construction.

Ref: Front cover of the Municipal Record, Vol. 2, No. 1. April 1925, showing the accepted design
for the new Municipal Building. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections.

With the failure of the Civic Centre proposal, a new plan was hatched. This time the civic centre would be built on Princes Street overlooking Albert Square. The Record extolled the value of the site. “Any person who wishes to conceive the vista of commanding buildings on such a site need only consider that the buildings would be conspicuous from the waterfront, and they would be visible from all vantage points around Auckland, even as far away as the Waitakere Ranges.” Again, the plan was ambitious. Buildings, including private houses, would be removed from Princes Street, but there would be no impingement on Albert Square itself. The Art Gallery and Municipal buildings would be built on the Albert Park side, while a Town Hall would grace the university side of Princes Street.

Ref: Drawing of the new proposal for a Civic Centre in Auckland. New Zealand Herald, 22 April 1926.
Retrieved from the Papers Past website, January 2020.

But the proposal was lost, again at the citizens’ vote. This left the conundrum of the old Market land. In 1929, it was announced that the land, now colloquially known as the Civic Centre, had been subdivided and the lots sold. “The class and design of building to be erected will make the block one of the most handsome in the city.” One of those buidings was the Civic Theatre.

Another significant issue the Record covered with gusto, was the rivalry between trams and buses. Ratepayers were asked to vote on whether to approve additional funding of £500,000 to the Tramways which would extend the tracks and overhaul the plant. The August 1927 issue explored the rivalry in the lead-up to the vote. The work included improving the Tramways Workshops at Mount Roskill. “Every possible device for the treatment of a sick tram or the birth of new ones is here,” the Record proclaimed. “A hive of industry where all the bees seem happy and most certainly busy.”

Ref: Photographer unknown. The Mt Roskill workshops. From: Municipal Record, Vol 3. No 2, August 1927.
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections.

Such was the interest, that on the day of the poll, August 17th, turnout exceeded that of any previous loan poll. The residents of Pt Chevalier, notably, voted in favour of the loan; tramway extensions had been promised them if it went ahead. But they were the only suburb to vote as such. Despite the aspirations of the Record to influence readers to approve the loan, Auckland ratepayers rejected the proposal decisively.

There were other projects that never came to be. A 1.5-mile-long underground tunnel was proposed, that would run from the planned new station at Beach Road, to link up with the line at Morningside. The tunnel would pass beneath Albert Park and Queen Street at Myers Park, and come to the surface after Newton Road. An underground station would be built beneath, giving the city a Town Hall stop.

Ref: Plan showing 'Route of Proposed Railway Tunnel, Auckland NZ'. From: Municipal Record, Vol. 1, No. 4., January 1925. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections.

In 1929 the final issue of the Municipal Record was printed. There was nothing to indicate it was the last, although there had been concerns that the Record was a waste of time and money. A few years earlier, a councillor put forward a proposal to reduce it from four issues a year, to two. Other councillors disagreed, as it was seen to be putting Auckland on the map internationally, and the proposal was rejected. The final issue, when it appeared at the end of January, was a special Scientific issue. Devoted to topics including birds, plant life, shore life and Māori life, the issue was timed to celebrate the New Zealand Institute Science Congress being held in Auckland.

Auckland Libraries holds copies of the Municipal Record in the Central City Library.

Author: Joanne Graves, Research Central.

To celebrate Auckland Pride 2020 (1–16 February) and support the library’s events for this festival, I have selected three Archives & Manuscripts collections from Auckland Libraries’ Heritage Collections to highlight. This includes the archival records of gay groups, as well as those with components that touch on matters relevant to rainbow communities.

The first of these three collections is the Auckland Lesbian Archives (NZMS 1184). It comprises individual collections of lesbian archives, papers relating to the formation of the Lesbe-Friends of the Archives Trust, publications and posters, and spans the period from 1985-1995. If you are interested in finding out more, this archive has an inventory or listing you can browse online.

In order to give a bit of a background to this collection, we need to go back to the 1990s. In 1992-1993, a collective was formed from various women’s groups, including Lesbian Support Groups. These groups had been operating from the Auckland Women's Centre in Ponsonby since 1978/1979. Recognising the historic importance of the women’s movement, the collective applied for a Lotteries Commission heritage grant to preserve the documentary heritage of the women’s groups located at the Auckland Women's Centre. The application was successful, and work began on the records in 1995. This in turn led to the formation of a lesbian community-archiving group, the Lesbe-Friends of the Archives Trust. The trust focused on collecting and conserving material on lesbian life in Auckland through a formal arrangement with Auckland Public Library. However, it was only operational for a few years and the lesbian archives were transferred to Auckland Public Library when the Women’s Centre moved to new premises.

Ref: Cover of Lesbian Lip, May-June 1982 from the Auckland Lesbian Archive Records.
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZMS 1184

Collection highlights include the Sue Fitchett papers, which relate to the Lesbian Coalition, a political action group based in Auckland and Wellington. The group was involved in advocating and petitioning for the Homosexual Law Reform Bill 1985, which came into effect in August 1986 and decriminalised sexual relations between men aged 16 and over. Sue Fitchett was also involved with the Auckland Women’s Health Collective based at the Auckland Women's Centre and wrote for Broadsheet magazine between 1978 to 1993. A clinical psychologist by trade, Fitchett has focused on writing poetry since the late 1990s and early 2000s, and co-edited 'Eat These Sweet Words: The New Zealand Anthology of Lesbian and Gay Poetry' (1999).

Other notable items in the Auckland Lesbian Archives are the New Zealand Lesbian & Gay Community newsletters and magazines, such as Lesbian Lip (Wellington) and LIP: Lesbians in Print (Auckland). The latter ran from 1985-1992 and was mainly produced at the Auckland Women’s Health Centre. Gay and Lesbian Community fliers from the 1980s are also represented in the collection and reflect the increased visibility of local community-based events at this time, such as the ‘Summer Out-ing’ at Grey Lynn Park. This event was organised by the Gay/Lesbian Community and fliers from 1986 and 1987 show activities involved music, a dog show and tug o’peace, as well as information and stalls.

The second archive featured in this post is the Fifth Season Garden Group (NZMS 2097). The group is a network of LGBT gardeners who have gardening or horticultural interests and arrange social events, including visits to gardens around Auckland. The archive contains committee and AGM minutes, the group’s constitution, events, correspondence, newsletters and financial records. The group’s objectives are to promote the enjoyment of plants and gardens amongst people of similar interest; and develop a supportive environment and foster an interest in learning about plants and appreciating their value. This has resulted in garden tours, television documentaries, book publications and the Heroic Garden Festival, which was run by Geoffrey Marshall and his partner John Hayward.

The Heroic Garden Festival was initiated to raise funds for Auckland City Mission’s Herne Bay House (1990s-2000s), a respite and treatment centre for people living with HIV and AIDS, and subsequently for Mercy Hospice Auckland. From 1997 when the festival first started, up until 2019 when it ceased, around $1.2 million was raised. The 2019 programme gives a flavour of the calibre of the gardens around Auckland the public could visit and the events on offer; whilst the inclusion of the garden festival in past Auckland Pride Festivals indicates the importance of this charitable horticultural initiative to LGBT communities.

In their book, 'Space, Place, and Sex: Geographies of Sexualities' (p71), Johnston and Longhurst relate the Fifth Season Garden Group to a comment made by renowned writer and filmmaker Peter Wells about being gay and the power of gardening. Specifically, after visiting Geoffrey Marshall and John Hayward’s Auckland garden, Wells noted:

Gay men have often been leading proponents of style, be it in gardening or in other imaginative spheres. It seemed to me, as I close the garden gate and left behind this magical world, that part of the reason could be that gay people have historically had little control over wider aspects of society, and indeed small control over laws which affected our lives so directly. To create a small kingdom – an area of sovereignty – has been an essential survival strategy. More than this, it is, in some sense, a triumph. Creating – as in this case, gardening – is how we stay sane.

Ref: Cover for Johnston, Lynda and Longhurst, Robyn. c.2010. Space, Place, and Sex:
Geographies of Sexualities. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

The final collection is the Broadsheet Collective (NZMS 596). This large collection, for which an inventory is available (see link above), covers 1971 to 1999 and consists of administrative records, posters, magazines, newspaper clippings, photographs and correspondence. The latter includes a letter from Lisa Sabbage on lesbians and AIDS (1989), as well as correspondence from Auckland Lesbian and Gay Youth (1990s), and newspaper clippings featuring Gays against the Springbok Tour of 1981. A major part of the collection is the Broadsheet magazine and photographs (some of which were used in the magazine). Broadsheet was New Zealand’s first feminist magazine focusing on debating women’s issues at depth and information sharing on a national and international level.

The Auckland Women’s Liberation group was one of New Zealand’s second-wave feminist groups who petitioned for women’s issues, such as realising pay equity, and women’s legal and medical rights. The group distributed its first newsletter in February 1971 from their office on Karangahape Road. They then drew up a development, organisation and progress document in July 1971, which identified a “demand for “home-grown” literature – articles, opinions, and facts relevant to New Zealand” (NZMS 596, Series 2.1 Broadsheet 1971-1972). This subsequently led group members (who included Sandra Coney, Anne Else, Rosemary Ronald, Sharon Alston and Kitty Wishart), to form the Broadsheet Collective and produce Broadsheet magazine (July 1972, issue 1 – Winter 1997, issue 214). It only took a relatively short time for the magazine’s readership/membership and written contributions to grow beyond a solely Auckland reach, as well as an increase in sales and distribution on a national scale. In 1987, the magazine was redesigned and received a glossy cover as part of a push to gain more advertising and appeal to a wider audience. However, despite this revamp and Broadsheet’s role as a powerful mouthpiece for feminist issues, it was never particularly profitable. From 1991, the numbers of issues were reduced to four per year and the glossy cover was replaced by the original colourful card cover and simpler format. These changes were not enough to make the magazine sustainable though and the final issue, which marked Broadsheet’s 25th birthday, came out in Winter 1997.

Up until 1978, the editorial team was made up of twelve women representing both heterosexual and lesbian interests. After a difference in opinion, some of the lesbian members left the team but the magazine continued with some lesbian support. Issue 10, produced in June 1973 prior to these changes, featured the first lesbian front cover. Titled ‘Gay Women Are Sisters ….’, this issue prominently featured lesbian content, such as the ‘Gay Liberation (University) Manifesto’, an advert for Gay Pride Week 24-20 June 1973, and articles about gay liberation and feminism in Aotearoa New Zealand, including sexual discrimination. The manifesto was a petition for societal change and acceptance, which were positioned as basic human rights. Action was proposed through education, pickets and marches, campaigns against discrimination and fundraising. The manifesto ends with “Gay is Proud”, echoing the ethos of the present-day Auckland Pride Festival. The issue also includes a powerful editorial, a regular feature of Broadsheet, which relays the personal experiences of lesbian feminist Sharon Alston (1948-1995). In this short piece, Alston, also the artist responsible for this issue’s cover, recounts how she battled societal prejudices during her youth and early twenties but became empowered through her involvement with Gay Liberation, Auckland.

Ref: Cover of Broadsheet by Sharon Alston, issue no 10, June 1973.
Courtesy of the University of Auckland Libraries and Learning Services / Te Tumu Herenga.

As I hope I have illustrated in this blog post, Auckland Libraries’ Heritage Collections include rich archives that chart the history of rainbow communities in Auckland and reflect their struggles for equality and acceptance.

Author: Dr Natasha Barrett, Senior Curator Archives and Manuscripts, Sir George Grey Special Collections

Bibliography

Auckland Lesbian Archives. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZMS 1184.

Fifth Season Garden Group. Records. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZMS 2097.

Broadsheet Collective. Records. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZMS 596.

Digitised issues of Broadsheet (1972-1997), University of Auckland Libraries and Learning Services / Te Tumu Herenga.

Cahill, Maud and Dann, Christine (eds). 1991. Changing our lives: women working in the women’s liberation movement 1970 – 1990. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books.

Fitchett, Sue et al. 1999. Eat These Sweet Words: The New Zealand Anthology of Lesbian and Gay Poetry. Christchurch: Giant Press.

Johnston, Lynda and Longhurst, Robyn. c.2010. Space, Place, and Sex: Geographies of Sexualities. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

Rosier, Pat. 1992. Broadsheet: Twenty years of Broadsheet Magazine. Auckland: New Women’s Press.

Parallax, Vol. 1 No. 2, Summer 1983. Cover: Richard Killeen, 1982. Antic, Issue One, June 1986. Cover: Jenny Doležel.

Arts journals have been published in Aotearoa since 1928 - two began as humble newsletters that have grown into mainstays of today’s arts world (Art News New Zealand and Art New Zealand), but most lasted for just a few issues. A selection of these journals, drawn from the Angela Morton Room’s rich archival material, will be on display in Te Pātaka Toi | Art Library, Level 1, Takapuna Library, until 1 May.

Whilst artists are central in the arts community, these journals form an important part of the network that nurtures and celebrates them. The editors of our first arts journal, Art in New Zealand, aimed “to set new standards and spur practitioners to sturdier effort to attain those standards” (Vol. 1 No. 1, 1928). “In this country, newspaper art notices are… more kindly than constructively critical. They spread praise lavishly, and dispraise is a rarety… such notices impart no stimulus to an art that needs stimulating…. They may merely narcoticise the artist into the belief that he has ‘arrived,’ or at least is ‘arriving’.” This first issue included plates from around 20 artists, as well as articles concerning Van der Velden’s influence on New Zealand art and ‘The Art of Young Countries.’

Art in New Zealand, Vol. 1 No. 1, September 1928. Art in New Zealand, Vol. 16 No. 4, June 1944. Cover: S.B. Maclennan, Design for a Christmas Card.

The journal remained in print until 1946 when its publisher, Harry H. Tombs, started the Year Book of the Arts in New Zealand. Editor Howard Wadham dedicated the Year Book to everyone “who is trying to say something in the exciting, difficult, tantalizing language of the Arts.” A thousand copies were printed. The issue included reproductions of work by 90 artists such as Rita Cook (Angus), Louise Henderson, Colin McCahon and E. Mervyn Taylor. The Year Book’s final issue, number 7, came out in 1951. It had grown to include 150 reproductions plus a centrefold of Juliet Peter’s cover design for ‘Tusitala Mo A’oga Samoa’ - the first Samoan School Journal.

Arts Year Book 6, 1950. Cover: Motif from a Māori rock drawing photographed by Theo Schoon, cover design by Eric Lee-Johnson. Centrefold of Arts Year Book 7, 1951. Cover: ‘Tusitala Mo A’oga Samoa’ the first Samoan School Journal, by Juliet Peter, after a Samoan tapa cloth pattern of the 1880s in the Dominion Museum, Wellington.

In 1967, eighteen years after the Year Book folded, another visual arts journal started – Ascent, published by The Caxton Press and edited by Leo Bensemann and Barbara Brooke. Pat Hanly, Greer Twiss and Patricia Perrin were some of the featured artists. Good reviews of this first issue led the editors to say they were on the slippery path to that happy state – success. They hoped “a growing awareness of the importance of the New Zealand image in art will be stimulated and developed” by Ascent. However, the journal ended in 1969 after a special fifth issue marking the centenary of the 1869 birth of Frances Hodgkins.

Ascent, Vol. 1 No. 1, November 1967. Cover: M.T. Woollaston, Left of the Mountain, 1967. Ascent, Vol. 1 No. 4, November 1969. Cover: Gordon Walters design for Ascent, 1969.

Seven years later, in 1976, Art New Zealand launched. This grew out of a newsletter published by the Peter Webb Galleries, and Peter Webb was the managing editor. The first issue featured Philip Clairmont, as well as expatriate and immigrant artists of the 1920s and 1930s. The editorial stated that “The daily papers seem to share a delusion that just about anyone is qualified to turn in a few lines on an art exhibition… Often, important exhibitions are not reviewed at all… while patently amateur showings are treated with the same respect as those of established artists.” Instead, Art New Zealand supported the need for quality criticism, quoting Harold Rosenberg’s view that the critic’s job was to enrich the environment of ideas in which artists work.

Art New Zealand continues to this day, along with Art News New Zealandwhose beginnings reach back to 1979 with the Auckland Society of Arts hand-produced newsletter Art News. This was mainly a round-up of member’s exhibition listings and prizes and a gallery calendar. Issue two had a Roy Dalgarno drawing on the cover, and a report on a Don Binney talk to members. Always a labour of love, the June 1986 issue states: “Despatch of this newsletter occupies if not an army then at least a fat platoon of voluntary helpers inserting, folding and sticking on the Friday before you get your copy in the mail.” The last issue of this newsletter was Christmas 1990.

Art New Zealand, Issue 1, August/September 1976. Cover: Raymond McIntyre, Portrait of a Young Girl, 1915. Art New Zealand, Issue 46, January 1988. Cover: Louise Henderson photographed by Robin Morrison, January 1988.

In 1992 Art News Auckland launched. This was free for Auckland Society of Art members and also available by subscription. In the first issue editor Elizabeth Grierson interviewed NZ Herald art critic Terry McNamara. Featured artists included Nyree Cockle, Fatu Feu’u and Pam Blok. Four years later this periodical became Art News New Zealand. Editor Vicki Earl said, “While Art News has always been very much an Auckland magazine – hence its title – there has been an increasing awareness at the magazine that there is life and art elsewhere, including south of the Bombay hills.” The journal broadened its geographic coverage and also moved into other branches of the arts - critiquing the Montana Book Awards and providing an article about investing in fine arts.

Art News, No. 4 Vol. 7, June 1986. Art News Auckland, Spring 1996. Cover: Sue Syme, Tossing the Boyfriend.

Auckland in the 1980s saw the creation of further publications: Parallax, and Antic. Parallax: a journal of postmodern literature and art began in 1982 and was edited by Alan Loney. The first issue was primarily text-based with poetry, reviews and a Wystan Curnow essay ‘Post-Modernism in Poetry and the Visual Arts.’ The third and last issue featured 13 pages of love letter cartoons drawn by Judi Stout – Billet Doux. Stout’s delightful bio read “artist-writer, 24, 5’11”, rusty linguist, retired librarian, wasp-waist, weight-trained.” The work of Cilla McQueen, another artist-writer, also featured.

As one periodical closed, another opened - 1986 saw the launch of Antic, published by editors Susan Davis, Elizabeth Eastmond and Priscilla Pitts. The editorial said: “Antic hopes to foreground aspects of a growing body of work dealing with recent directions in feminist and other theoretical practices often ignored by existing arts publications in New Zealand.” Lita Barrie’s essay ‘Remissions: Toward a Deconstruction of Phallic Univocality’ was in the first issue, along with Francis Pound’s discussion of the hierarchical oppositions implicit in NZ art criticism from the thirties. Ngahuia te Awekotuku was interviewed. She had attended the opening of Te Māori in New York - and found not one item of work by a Māori women artist had been included. Antic ceased in 1990 after 8 issues.

Three more arts journals started in Auckland in the 1990s: monica, The Panderand Loose. monica published five issues during 1996/7. The editors - Tessa Laird, Anna Sanderson and Anna Miles - were all recent Elam graduates. Anna Miles said they had wanted to create a review-based publication that really connected with practitioners and was relevant to their generation. “We were against publications like Art New Zealand as it didn’t have enough point of view, it didn’t have a sense of currency for our generation,” she said. The first editorial stated: “monica reviews art. And regularly. Well, we had to… all that coffee and nothing to read! … monica is intoxicated with ideas… our next issue will be a star-making spectacular with a fashion focus. monica suggest you subscribe now and enter the centre of informed dialogue indispensable to contemporary art and culture. Get a head, get friendly with monica.” Fresh and opinionated, monica posed questions such as: “What makes Peter Robinson’s nod to the community noticeboard of bargain basement advertisement any more trashy than McCahon’s reference to the road side sign?”

Loose, Issue One, Spring 1999. Cover girl: Reneé Mundy. Monica, June/July 1996. Cover: Kate Small, The Pamela Chronicle. Pander, Issue 9. Cover: Mark Smith.

The Pander began in 1997 and published nine issues over two years. Editors were Andrew Forsberg, Robert Hutchinson and Vanessa York. A statement on the cover of the first issue said “By denying or refusing to engage with the established paradigms that constitute discussion in our society The Pander creates a space where thought can be developed and encouraged without having to endure the tyranny of commonsense and outrage.” It included a feature on American musicians the Carter Family and a review of photographic exhibitions by John Collie and Arthur Tress. Marilyn Sainty of Scotties supported monica and The Pander purchasing advertising space on the back covers of both periodicals - and providing beautiful photographs by Deborah Smith.

Back page advertisements for Scotties from monica, August/September 1996, and Pander, Issue 8 July 1999.

Loose: Words, Art and Comix for new New Zealand, was devoted to critical thought/visual pleasure. Features editor Gemma Gracewood said “I got a call from a guy named Chris… asking if I’d like to come and hang on Sunday afternoons with a bunch of Grey Lynn lefties, drink red wine and home-brew, and hopefully produce a magazine out of it. How could I resist?” Comix editor Chris Knox published around 15 comix in the first issue and asked “all you other cartoonists out there, especially you women (who are woefully under-represented here) send me your best stuff. We can’t make you rich or famous but we can print! The next issue’s theme is ‘Colour’. Regardless of that, it’ll still be black and white.” Loose ceased publication after three issues – Fear, Colour and Noise. And yes, all issues were black and white, and jammed full of art, comix and articles.

New arts periodicals continue to be created and are also available to browse in the Angela Morton Room – including ATE Journal of Māori Art, Femisphere, Artzone magazine and many more. But if you’d like to pause and return to some of the country’s earlier publications, then do please visit the Angela Morton Room Te Pātaka Toi | Art Library, Level 1, Takapuna Library, where a selection are on display until 1 May. Open daily. Follow us on Instagram @angelamorton.room for more.

Author: Leanne, Research North

Every day, there are around 168 new babies born in New Zealand. 2020 is the International Year of the Midwife and to acknowledge the hard work and dedication that midwives demonstrate in their work, I thought it would be nice to delve into and share a snippet of the history of midwifery in New Zealand.

Image: Staff Photographer, Auckland Weekly News. At A New Zealand State Maternity Hospital, 23 August 1928, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19280823-50-1.

Nineteenth Century

In the nineteenth century, Māori birthing practices differed greatly from those of the newly arriving Europeans. Alison Clarke explores these differences in her book “Born to a Changing World: Childbirth in Nineteenth Century New Zealand”. She writes that many Māori women would give birth outside, with the assistance of another person if it was her first child, but often alone if it was not her first birth. If the woman was from a chiefly family, her labour and birth would take place in a whare kōhanga, or nest house, which was a specifically built, temporary shelter. Births took place outdoors and away from the kāinga because the process of childbirth was a highly tapu experience and being away from everyday activities kept the tapu separate. The book discusses how childbirth did vary from iwi to iwi and that the information we now have largely draws on European sources such as doctors and anthropologists. There are also accounts of Māori seeking help from tohunga and also European doctors or midwives for more difficult births.

After the 1907 Tohunga Suppression Act, Māori had to rely more heavily on European assistance for difficult childbirths. Relying on European assistance posed a risk to the strict cultural elements associated with Māori birthing practices such as being required by doctors to deliver babies indoors, not being able to follow through with tapu-removing bathing rituals and also the loss of agency around decisions made during the process.

European experiences of birth in the nineteenth century were often arduous and vastly different to those of Māori. In the early years, the female European population in New Zealand was still quite low and women would often travel great lengths to assist their fellow European sisters. One such woman was Catherine Leigh who had arrived from Britain in 1822 with her husband who was a Methodist missionary. Alison Clarke proposes that Catherine may have been the first formally trained midwife in New Zealand because the “Matron of the London Lying-in Hospital, had kindly admitted Mrs. Leigh to attend at the Hospital, to receive instructions in Midwifery during several weeks”. In 1823 Marianne Williams arrived in New Zealand, bringing with her formal Midwifery training and experience from Britain. Despite both Catherine and Marianne undertaking specific Midwifery training to prepare for missionary work, this was uncommon, as most midwives learned their skills on the job and from other women. Given the geographic isolation that most European settlers faced in New Zealand, births were often attended by family members and neighbours throughout the nineteenth century.

Image: Unknown, Hannah and Ann Grigg of Whitford, 1897, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections Footprints 00896.

Home to hospital, and back again

In 1904, the Midwives Act was passed. Advocated for by Grace Neill (the same woman who advocated for the Nurses Registration Act of 1901 as discussed in this blog post), the Act intended “to provide for the Better Training of Midwives, and to regulate the Practice of Midwifery.” This meant that women had to complete a twelve-month course (or 6 months if they were already a registered nurse), deliver a certain number of babies, pay a fee and pass an examination in order to become registered. The Act also set a precedent for state run maternity hospitals, restricted un-registered nurses from practicing and allowed women with sufficient on-the-job experience to be entitled to register.

The first half of the twentieth century saw private and state maternity hospitals flourish. The likes of Mrs Pee’s nursing home ‘Waimarino’ which was open from 1905 to 1921 was an option for women who lived rurally and who were unable to travel.

Image: S. Collins & Son, 'Mrs Pee's Nursing Home', Otahuhu, ca 1910, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections Footprints 03786

At the same time, the government ramped up its contribution to maternity care by opening the first St Helens Hospital. Named after the birthplace of Premier Richard Seddon, St Helens Hospitals were established to provide subsidized healthcare to low income women in an attempt to rectify the falling birth rate and high infant mortality rates. They were also set up as a direct response to the 1904 Act.

Image: F.W. Young, State Babies: A good batch at the St Helens Maternity Home, Auckland, NZ, July 1909, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19090729-4-5.

Image: Herman John Schmidt, Nurses From St Helens Hospitals, c1918, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 31-WP820

The St Helens Hospital on Rintoul Street in Newtown, Wellington opened on May 29th 1905 and was, in fact, the first state-run maternity hospital in the world. On June 14th 1906, the Auckland St Helens Maternity Hospital opened in Pitt Street. The Auckland star had this to say about the hospital:

“Another important work to be undertaken at these hospitals is the training of nurses for maternity cases. At present no such certificates can be got in the colony, and nurses have had to go to Australia to qualify. Pupil nurses will pay a fee of £10 for six months' training, and £20 for 12 months. These maternity hospitals will be the first in New Zealand to issue certificates for that special branch of nursing. Another function of the hospital is to teach mothers how to properly feed and look after a young child... Another maternity hospital is to be established in Christchurch. It may be mentioned also that only married patients were admitted.”

Image: Auckland Star, June 6 1906

These hospitals were primarily run by midwives, with very little involvement from doctors unless they were called upon. The government operated a total of seven St Helens Hospitals, with the Auckland St Helens operating until 1990. In 1925 the Nurses and Midwives Registration Act created some major changes. The act separated the two professions and created maternity nurses, who worked with doctors while midwives worked alone.

Image: Auckland Weekly News, Unveiling the first memorial erected to the memory of the late Mr. Seddon: Sir Joseph ward unveiling the memorial lamp presented by the employees of the Auckland railway workshops to the St Helens maternity hospital, July 30, 1906, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19060809-4-1.

Image: Henry Winkelmann, Showing the exterior of St Helens Hopital, Pitt Street, Sep 1922, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1-W450.

Midwifery as a practice continued to evolve and refine. Well-known medical historian Linda Bryder discusses a major change that took place in the 1930s when the role of doctors involvement in birthing practices was raised. A 1937 Committee of Enquiry into Maternity Services reported did not favour the British midwife-led services and instead “endorsed doctor attendance for all births in hospital”. Bryder’s book The Rise and Fall of National Women’s Hospital: A History is a detailed resource that tracks the journey of midwifery from its beginnings through to the closure of the hospital. The discussions that took place in the 1930s set the tone for the development of a new maternity hospital. Dr Doris Gordon was instrumental in establishing the hospital. She was one of the first two women to graduate in medicine in New Zealand. Dr Gordon successfully fought for publicly funded maternity care for all women and in 1938 New Zealand became the first country in the Commonwealth to fund a 14-day hospital stay for women following a birth, as well as medical and midwifery costs.

Image: Francis Alton, Checking blood pressure, Auckland, ca 1946, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections Footprints 02484.

From 1946, an iteration of the ‘National Women’s Hospital’ has operated at the site near Cornwall Park in Greenlane West. Until 1955, it was known as The Obstetrical and Gynecological Unit at Cornwall Hospital. Construction of the new hospital began in 1958 and was opened on February 14 1964. It was 11 floors high and purpose built to provide a world-class facility for maternity care for the women of New Zealand. From 1957, midwives had to be registered nurses and were not able to deliver babies without a doctor present.

Image: New Zealand Heral, Auckland NW Hospital, 28 November 1961, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1370-29-25-2.

Midwifery in New Zealand has faced a long, often challenging journey pioneered mostly by the women working in the field. In 1978 the Homebirth Association was started in Auckland to challenge the medicalisation of childbirth. They operated under the slogan 'Women need midwives need women'- meaning that the attitudes toward birth needed to be centered around women and their experiences. The 1990s saw an official shift away from doctor-led birthing practices with the 1990 Nurses Amendment Act. This reintroduced autonomous midwifery which meant that midwives could once again be responsible for managing births without a doctor. Nowadays, there are countless options for how/where/when your birth may take place. As medicine and technology have advanced, midwives and midwifery training has been reevaluated and adjusted to remain as current as possible. Women have taken control of their birthing experience and can draw on the strength and knowledge of midwives that has been accumulated over centuries.

Image: Unknown, 'Home birth support', Manukau City Centre, 1983, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections Footprints 02799

Sources:

Alison Clarke, 'Born to a changing world: Childbirth in nineteenth-century New Zealand', 2012.

Allison Kirkman, 'Health practitioners - Nurses and midwives', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, URL: http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/health-practitioners/page-3 (accessed 11 February 2020).

Auckland District Health Board, 'History of National Women's Hospital', URL: https://nationalwomenshealth.adhb.govt.nz/assets/Womens-health/Documents/Referrals-and-info/History-of-National-Women.pdf (accessed 11 February 2020).

Linda Bryder, 'The Rise and Fall of National Women's Hospital: A History', Auckland University Press, 2014.

Midwifery Council, '2020 International Year of the Midwife', URL: https://www.midwiferycouncil.health.nz/about-us/publications/2020-international-year-midwife (accessed 11 February 2020).

Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 'The world’s first state-run maternity hospital opens', URL: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/world%E2%80%99s-first-state-run-maternity-hospital-opens, updated 29-May-2018.

Sarah Marianne Williams, 'Williams, Marianne', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1990. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, URL: https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1w24/williams-marianne (accessed 5 February 2020).

Author: Samantha Waru- Graduate Heritage, Research and Archives.

This list of Auckland Libraries family history resources will help you progress your research during lockdown. Our expert family history librarian Seonaid has provided great tips for getting the best results for your records from home.

Auckland Libraries family history research guides

Our family history research guide can help you get started if you are a beginner, or assist you with questions like:

What resources are available to help with finding records of births, deaths, and marriages?
What research resources are available for New Zealand specific research?
When ordering an electronic printout of a birth, death and marriage, what information can I expect to receive for a birth that happened after 1875?

Our guides also cover further New Zealand resources, immigration records, international resources and more.

Historic births, deaths and marriages

The Department of Internal Affairs' Historic Births, Deaths and Marriages are usually one of the first ports of call when researching New Zealand relatives and ancestors. Top tips for finding records of births, deaths and marriages

When entering names, they must be spelled exactly as they are in the database. This can be frustrating if the names are spelled differently or mis-transcribed.
If you don't find the results you are expecting in this database, check other sources that include NZ births, deaths and marriages, such as Ancestry (currently fully available from home), FindmyPast (limited access from home) and FamilySearch (fully available from home). These databases do fuzzy searching which can help in the case of alternate spellings or mis-transcriptions. Often you might have to try all three, as their search engines all have different algorithms and name thesauruses.

Still struggling? Once libraries re-open you can double-check our microfiche index. This is the source of records that have been transcribed into Ancestry.

Once you've found the entry you want, use this information on the Department of Internal Affairs' Historic Births, deaths and marriages site to order the printout you require.
We recommend that family historians order the electronic printout rather than the certificate, as the electronic printout will be a copy of the original register with a greater amount of useful information.

Ancestry Library Edition

Auckland Libraries subscribes to Ancestry Library Edition, which has all the indexes and records available to individual Ancestry World Deluxe subscribers. The only limitation is that you cannot create a family tree or communicate with others who have family trees on Ancestry.

Normally this valuable asset is only available when you are inside an Auckland Libraries location via our public computers or accessing the portal on our website using library WiFi on your own device.

During the lockdown, Auckland Libraries has organised free access from home to those with an Auckland Libraries membership!

If you don’t currently have an Auckland Libraries membership, sign up for an eMembership now to gain immediate access.

Ancestry Library Edition holds records from all over the world and covers civil registrations, parish records, censuses, directories, military records, and so much more.

Digitised newspapers

Newspapers are a rich resource for a lot more than just family notices. You can find news reports of historical crimes – information on victims, criminals and law enforcement, local gossip, coroners reports and inquests, passenger lists and more.

Auckland Libraries subscribes to a wealth of databases which archive digitised newspapers from around the world. Browse and read many of them from home with your Auckland Libraries membership.

Gems such as 19th century U.S. newspapers, Gale NewsVault - which includes newspapers from the 17th century, The Irish Times (1859 - 2015), The Scotsman (1817 - 1950), and the Times of India (1838 - 2007) are just a few of our newspaper databases.

Papers Past

The National Library of New Zealand is gradually digitising New Zealand's heritage newspapers, often with the help of community support and sponsorship from other organisations.

Papers Past includes newspapers from all around New Zealand from 1839 to 1950. As well as heritage New Zealand newspapers you will also find magazines and journals, letters and diaries, and Parliamentary papers.

Seonaid's favourite publication is the New Zealand Police Gazette 1877-1945, which you will find in magazines and journals. It’s a real gem, and an enthralling read on its own.

For Australian heritage publications, Australia’s equivalent of Papers Past is Trove, a wonderful resource for Australia, as well as New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.

Kura Heritage Collections Online

Your local library, or the library local to your ancestors is your greatest treasure!

Kura Heritage Collections Online is the result of consolidating and collating data and images from the legacy databases created by the various Councils and Libraries prior to Auckland Council's formation. Our digitisation team are always adding more legacy documents, manuscripts and images and digitising and indexing new content.

Kura gives you access to cemetery records, including the C. Little and Sons Funeral Cards; photograph collections, and indexes that lead to great genealogical information such as Passenger and Vessels lists, the Old Colonists Association Register, Address to Sir George Grey and more.

Old Colonists Association Register

Seonaid's favourite Kura Heritage Collections Online resource is the Old Colonists Association Register. Genealogy gold!

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Find out more about our family history and whakapapa resources and services on the Auckland Libraries website.

Transcription tales – long and short. While we are working from home the Heritage Collections team are transcribing many of the nineteenth century letters in the collections. This makes them much more accessible for keyword searching. Transcription is also a great way for the team to learn more about the collections. We hope to share some of our discoveries while the library is closed due to the extraordinary Level 4 response to the global pandemic, COVID19.

Today’s topic is the ostrich industry, inspired by a letter to Sir George Grey from Hollings William Ogilvie, 18 September 1881.

Image: Ostrich farm, Whitford, about 1900. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, Footprints 00883.

The ostrich industry was a thriving international trade in the nineteenth century when hats required feathers. Ostrich feathers featured on the fashionable millinery (hat making) for the well-dressed gentlewoman as well as the proper dress uniform for the military. This fashion started in the French Court in the 1860s and by the time this letter was written – in 1881 – the demand for ostrich feathers was at its peak.

In transcribing the letter to Sir George Grey from Hollings William Ogilvie, 18 September 1881 it is interesting to note that Sir George Grey is credited for starting the lucrative farming of domesticated ostriches at the Cape in the 1860s with just two lame birds:

“From my experience, I think the North Island, and many of the Islands on the Coast well suited for Birds, most particularly the Chatham Isles, the latter quite as good as the Cape itself. I think that you may lay claim indirectly, to being the introducer of the domesticated ostrich, into Africa, if you remember some 21 years ago, you had two lame ones in the grounds of Parliament House Cape Town.”

Image: Hollings William Ogilvie. Letter to Sir George Grey, page 1. 18 September 1881. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, GLNZ O2.

Images: Hollings William Ogilvie. Letter to Sir George Grey, page 2. 18 September 1881. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, GLNZ O2.

In the next page Mr Ogilvie goes on to give some data on the lucrative business opportunity for ostrich farming for the feather market in South Africa:

“A Mr Atherton near Grahams Town made £600 [pounds] yearly from one pair of Breeding Birds, this of course is an exception but I may state, that if ostrich feathers decreased in value, 40%, they would pay better, than any other industry at the Cape, the average sales in Port Elizabeth alone are $50,000 [pounds] monthly.”

Images: Hollings William Ogilvie. Letter to Sir George Grey, page 3. 18 September 1881. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, GLNZ O2.

Images: Hollings William Ogilvie. Letter to Sir George Grey, page 4. 18 September 1881. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, GLNZ O2.

Mr Ogilvie makes a strong case. It is not clear whether he was able to convince Grey in this letter, dated 1881, but South Auckland was the site of ostrich farming thanks, in part, to Lawrence Nathan.

Whitford Park was in south east Auckland. The Nathans' 3000 acre estate “Whitford Park” provided feathers from its ostriches for use in the fashion trade from 1887 until the 1920s. The Nathan family were entrepreneurial businessmen in New Zealand, with David Nathan, Lawrence’s father, opening his first shop in Auckland 1841. LD Nathan remains a major firm in New Zealand. The record on Kura Heritage Collections Online notes that the flock was moved to Helvetia, near Paerata, in 1903. There is still an Ostrich Farm Road in this area – you can see the green farmland on Google maps:

Image: Ostrich Farm Road, sourced from Google Maps.

For more on Helvetia and the Auckland ostrich industry, see Timespanner's blogs Ostriches and Politics and Ostriches Again.

The fashion for ostrich feathers in hats reached its peak in the London in the 1880s with feathers being imported mostly from South Africa, as Mr Ogilivie’s letter reports. The industry collapsed by 1914 with an over supply of feathers, the arrival of the motor car (which didn’t accommodate big hats easily) and the start of the First World War. Ostrich farming didn’t become a major New Zealand industry alongside wool and butter, but we played our part in trimming our hats with the fabulous feathers as you can see in the examples below, selected from our Heritage Collections. See if you can identify some of the classes of feathers used in fashionable hats and dress uniform.

Feather classes included:

Prime Whites — the largest most valuable feathers from the wings of male birds
Feminas — wing feathers from female birds with soft flowing hairs extending from the central quill
Spadones — lower grade wing feathers, less full in look.
Blacks — body feathers from male ostriches
Drabs — shorter body feathers used for feather dusters and such like

Image: Herman John Schmidt. Miss Crowne, 1909. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 31-56297.

Image: Herman John Schmidt. Portrait of Mr and Mrs Farrell in wedding clothes. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 31-56553.

Image: Herman John Schmidt. Miss Wallace, 1910. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 31-62653.

Image: Herman John Schmidt. Unidentified man in pre-World War One military uniform, 1910. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, ID 31-59901.

And for the most ostrich feathers per square inch: The Royal Funeral Procession, published in the Auckland Weekly News Supplement, 29 March 1901.

Image: Auckland Weekly News. The Royal Princes in Queen Victoria's funeral procession, London. 1901. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19010329-2-2.

Author: Jane Wild, Manager Heritage Collections

Author: Sara Wild

While I am originally from Auckland, I have been living in Tokyo on and off for the last 17 years. It has become the home that I am always drawn back to. What I love most about Japan (other than the affordability of apartments, and access to public transport) is the amazing range of local foods and crafts available wherever you go. I am also a massive fan of the Tokyo Yakult Swallows baseball team.

References

Hashizume, S, et al. Ukiyo-e Work Scenes: Dai Nippon Bussan Zue - Products of Greater Japan. Seigensha Art Publishing Inc. 2019.

The influenza pandemic which struck New Zealand at the end of 1918 was the most fatal disease outbreak of our country’s history. Between October and December of that year around 9000 people died, out of a total population just over one million, and smaller outbreaks reoccurred over the following years.

Browsing the pages of heritage newspapers gives an insight into how New Zealanders at that time were thinking and feeling: the advice they were given, the remedies they tried, and how they kept themselves entertained in a period of emergency comparable in some ways to our own.

Plenty of advice was published for readers on to keep themselves healthy. The Mataura Ensign published a helpful list of “’flu don’ts” for avoiding influenza, number one being “don’t kiss.”

“How to dodge the ‘flu,” Mataura Ensign, 2 November 1918, Page 5.

The writer also recommended wearing a “gas mask,” or at least “some protection over the nose and mouth.” A photo in the Auckland Weekly News from a few months later shows an ANZAC solider being welcomed home by masked women in Sydney, where mask-wearing was compulsory.

“The influenza epidemic in Australia: an Anzac at Sydney welcomed by his masked relatives,” Auckland Weekly News, 27 February 1919. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19190227-35-2.

Free Lance reported that Australian women wore their masks in the most “fashionable” way, hidden beneath long veils drawn across their faces, which could have been emulated by some New Zealand readers!

“The fashionable way in which Sydney ladies are wearing the compulsory mask,” Free Lance, Volume XVIII, Issue 981, 29 April 1919, Page 12.

As well as wearing masks, people were also advised to pay close attention to their personal hygiene, and to gargle frequently. “Don't be careless about your mouth and teeth,” one article in the Colonistreminded readers, “If you must breathe directly over the tonsils, keep them clean, and see that you breathe past clean teeth.”

Advertisements and recipes for preventatives and cures proliferated: tonics and pills to swallow, mixtures to gargle, and vapours to breathe were touted in every paper – some of which sound particularly unappetising and even alarming. One suggestion for a homemade cure instructed readers to mix lime (purchased at a brickyard) with boiling water and milk, and drink half a glass three or four times a day.

There was speculation that bee stings might prevent influenza, recommendations to use tobacco, and a letter to the editor advocating a simple remedy which was likely to prove very popular: “let the patient go to bed and keep warm, avoid antipyrine and all other reducing medicines […] but let him drink a small (or large) glass of beer every few hours.” According to the writer, “there is something in the malt or hops which seems to act as a direct antidote to the influenza germ.”

“Wawn’s Wonder Wool” medicated jacket was advertised throughout the period, to be worn for the “permanent eradication of Influenza”.

“Page 4 Advertisements Column 2,” Sun, 12 June 1920, page 4.

Other commercially produced remedies included “Bates’ Influenza Cure,” sold in Hastings, which apparently contained “Quinine, Squills, Senegal-, Aconite, Tolu, etc.”, “Zenol Inhalant,” a fumigating vapour to breathe in once an hour, and “Hycol,” advertised as “the strongest known disinfectant,” which customers were recommended to gargle, bathe in, and also pour down their drains.

Advertisement for Zenol, Taranaki Herald, 14 November 1918, page 4.

Shops selling these cures were careful to assure customers that the stores were disinfected twice a day “so that the danger of mixing with crowds should be minimised.”

Many different disinfectants were advertised for homes, businesses, schools, and other buildings. An ad for “Spraolite” claimed that “during the fearful epidemic of last year, two rooms in one of Wellington's largest hotels were freely sprayed with Spraolite, and it is a significant fact that the occupants of those rooms were the only two who escaped influenza.”

Advertisement for Spraolite, New Zealand Times, 20 February 1920, Page 9.

It was generally believed that it was healthier to stay in the open air as much as possible, rather than inside warm, crowded rooms. People should be careful not to eat or drink from any “unsterilised (unboiled) and therefore possibly infected vessel […] or implement”.

In some cities, inhalation chambers were set up and free for members of the public to use as a “prophylactic measure”, but only for those not already sick.

“Precautions against influenza infection: the public waiting their turn at the inhalation chamber, Health Department's buildings, Auckland,” Auckland Weekly News, 14 November 1918, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19181114-36-3.

Though never in total lockdown as we are now, people in 1918 were warned to avoid mixing in crowds and to stay at home where possible. The Mayor of Waimate advised readers of the Waimate Daily Advertiser that “country residents should only come into town when necessary,” “social visits should be avoided,” and that “business houses are requested to see that such employees as have suffered from the disease do not return to work until a certificate of health is given” – reassuring them that there would be “no charge for such medical certificate.”

The Otago District Health Officer instructed clearly: “DO NOT TRAVEL BEYOND YOUR OWN LOCALITY UNLESS ABSOLUTELY UNAVOIDABLE.” People who were found to be out and about while sick could even be prosecuted.

Cartoon. Observer, 16 November 1918, Page 16.

Public buildings were closed in many parts of the country. The official closure notices were published in the newspapers, such as that authorised by the District Health Officer of Canterbury-Westland closing the following:

Public notices. Star, 20 November 1918, page 1.

Advice and injunctions to stay home were tested during the celebrations of Armistice Day at the end of the First World War. A cartoon from the New Zealand Observer shows Aucklanders gagged by the “anti-influenza precautions” and unable to voice their patriotism:

Blomfield, J. C. “Gagged enthusiasm.” New Zealand Observer, 23 November 1918. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 7-A14592.

However, photographs of joyful crowds on Queen Street tell a different story:

“Peace celebrations in Auckland: the crowd outside the Herald office cheering the announcement of the signing of the Armistice,” Auckland Weekly News, 21 November 1918, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19181121-44-1.

“The crowd in Queen Street, Auckland, celebrating the announcement of the signing of the Armistice conditions by Germany,” Auckland Weekly News, 21 November 1918, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19181121-43-3.

Reading contemporary newspapers also offers a glimpse of how people kept themselves entertained while confined to home. Knitting was suggested as a “pleasant occupation for invalids” by Armstrong’s in Lyttleton, who also took the opportunity to advertise their wide range of household linens, pyjamas, and dressing gowns suitable for those convalescing (or perhaps just lounging) at home:

Advertisement for Armstrongs Ltd., Lyttleton Times, 28 November 1918, Page 7.

One advertisement suggested that “to fill in the time pleasantly and profitably we recommend everyone to lay in a stock of Magazines, Books and Papers, which can be procured at lowest prices at Alf Robinson's, Booksellers”, while another promoted a gramophone as a sure way to keep your family at home rather than risking the dangers of going out: “’The boys stay home at nights now!’ Every mother might say that – if suitable home enjoyment was provided – entertainment that would counter the attraction of outside amusement.”

Perhaps the wisest advice – equally applicable to our own time as when it was written a hundred years ago – came from Dr Joseph Frazer-Hurst, medical superintendent of Whangarei Hospital. His recommendation was to “let all the light and air you can into your houses and do not let your mind become depressed,” and suggested that the best thing to do for the time being was to simply “stay at home and grow vegetables.”

Author: Harriet Rogers, Heritage Collections

For more on the 1918 influenza pandemic, listen to our series of talks recorded at Tāmaki Pātaka Kōrero - Central City Library in October 2018.

Influenza 100: Geoffrey Rice - Why do we still need to know? Part One

Influenza 100: Geoffrey Rice - Why do we still need to know? Part Two

Influenza 100: Sue Berman - The lived experience; remembering 1918-1920

Influenza 100: Jason Reeve - NZ Victims

Among the traditions toffee-nosed English emigrants brought with them to New Zealand was the ancient upper-class custom of hunting with horses and hounds. The ‘sport’ of hunting was popular in most rural districts of the North and South Islands during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and, despite its opponents, continues among a dwindling circle of wealthy devotees even to this day.

Men, women and even children on horseback followed the scarlet-jacketed masters, huntsmen and whippers-in as they thundered over the countryside on the trail of their prey. In England, hunts actually had the wily fox to chase. However in New Zealand, their antipodean counterparts had to make do with terrorising the humble hare.

The first hares to reach New Zealand apparently jumped ship from the Eagle and swam ashore at Lyttelton, Canterbury in 1851. Between 1867 and 1872 the Canterbury and North Canterbury acclimatisation societies imported more English hares from Victoria in Australia. Acclimatisation societies were formed in many New Zealand regions during the 1860s to introduce familiar English animals and make the local countryside seem more like Home. But New Zealand’s warmer climate meant that many acclimatised animals bred prolifically and became pests. This was the case with hares. Eventually they spread into the North Island; probably after being introduced there too for hunting and sport but possibly also as stowaways on trading vessels.

Hares damage native vegetation and pasture and compete with stock animals for grass on pastoral farms. Apparently two or three hares can eat as much grass as a sheep. Hares can also damage vegetables and seedlings in nurseries, young trees and shelter belts. A pair of hares can destroy up to 100 trees in a single night.

So hares became pests, which were hunted throughout New Zealand. At a Poverty Bay hunt in Whatatuta in May 1939 an Auckland Weekly News photographer covering the event unexpectedly came across the hunt’s quarry, which is pictured here:

Auckland Weekly News. The Quarry, 1939. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19390524-40-5.

Apparently, the animal was so ‘petrified by fear’ it allowed the photographer to stroke it before taking its picture. What happened next isn’t told, but hopefully the hunt had already galloped off into the distance and the hare lived to lead it a merry dance.

No doubt the hunting fraternity cherished nostalgic and romantic images of hunters, horses and hounds galloping across the field or ambling home after a hard day’s hunt:

Auckland Weekly News. Opening of the hunting season in Auckland, 1931. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19310506-44-2.

Auckland Weekly News. Riding to the hounds at a country meet, 1939. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19390607-51-1.

Auckland Weekly News. Over the hill to the hunt, 1939. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19390830-52-5.

To be a successful hunt rider, both rider and horse had to be confident and competent jumpers who could cope with solid walls as well as the usual antipodean post and wire fences. Here are some photos of some proficient jumpers:

Auckland Weekly News. Mr Buchanan taking a stonewall on Ben, 1907. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19070704-11-1.

Auckland Weekly News. Mr Rawson jumping a post and rail fence, 1902. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19020904-3-2.

Auckland Weekly News. Mr Herrold of Waiuku taking a wire fence, 1902. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19020904-3-3.

But on occasion, accidents did happen. These riders were unexpectedly separated from their mounts:

Auckland Weekly News. Ormonde blunders in the Palace hunting contest, 1926. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19260422-40-4.

Auckland Weekly News. Spectacular spill in Sydney,1932. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19320406-30-3.

Some riders who arguably should have known better seemed unable to take a hint about the unnecessary hazards attached to this dangerous pastime; although perhaps this is expecting a bit much of hare-brained, entitled aristocrats. The Prince of Wales fell off his horse at least twice while out hunting; and not long before this photo was taken had sustained a broken collarbone on the hunting field. Edward always thought he was rather good at chasing foxes. Even here he seems to be having a bumpy ride towards a precarious landing ...

Auckland Weekly News. The Prince of Wales goes hunting again, 1926. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19260422-54-2.

Occasionally, hunting spills were serious accidents. In the following photo, an injured horsewoman is being carried away by ambulancemen after a fall during a hunt.

Auckland Weekly News. Lady rider injured on the hunting field, 1931. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19310923-46-3.

And hunting could sometimes be deadly. A well-known Auckland horsewoman, Mrs Wynn Brown, was killed when she fell from her horse, Hawker, during a Waikato Hunt meet at Cambridge. As with the terrified hare mentioned above, the Auckland Weekly News did not tell its readers what happened to Hawker. But one can imagine that hunts would be just as hard on failed horses as the other animals they abuse.

Auckland Weekly News. Hunting fatality at Cambridge, 1923. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19230531-46-5.

But for those who survived hunting’s perils, there was always the thrill (and kill) at the end of the pursuit. Sometimes a desperate hare would try to escape into a cave or underground hole. In this case, ‘sporting’ hunt followers would help the huntsman dig the hare out, before throwing the poor creature to the baying hounds who would tear it apart.

Auckland Weekly News. Unearthing a hare from a cave on Mr Massey’s property, West Tamaki, 1902. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19020904-3-4.

The following photo is of the Christchurch Hunt’s hound pack after they caught and killed the hare in an open field at Aylesbury in Canterbury.

Auckland Weekly News. ‘In at the Kill.’ 1929. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19290501-39-1.

When the hounds caught the hare above ground there was often time for the huntsman to wade in and beat the hounds off so that, in the words of Delabere P. Blaine’s Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports (1840) he could ‘save the remains of poor puss [so] that she may yet have the honour of gracing the table of the hunter.’ In the top photo in the following sequence the hounds have caught the hare in the ditch, while on the lower left the huntsman seems to be giving the hounds their reward after retrieving the hare’s carcass from their midst.

Auckland Weekly News. The hunting season under way at Auckland, 1939. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19390517-50-3.

But some animals did get away. 1939 : a people's history : 'The war nobody wanted' (2019), Frederick Taylor recounts the following anecdote. Once the English Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain was pruning trees at his country house, Chequers. Suddenly a terrified stag burst onto the lawn, with the horns of the local stag hunt audible in the distance. Chamberlain instructed his chauffeur, James Joseph Read, to open the doors to the coal cellar, and the stag obligingly rushed in. Chamberlain told Read to close the doors, just before the hunt arrived. As instructed, Read denied all knowledge of the animal’s whereabouts. After the hunters rode off Chamberlain told Read to release the stag which raced off, hopefully to enjoy peace in its time.

Author: Nicholas Jones

Bibliography:

Author

Sources

Eunice Te Rangiuaia – Games and the cannery

Malcolm (Rae) Rankin - Four meatworks

Max Beesley - Stock trains at Ōtāhuhu railyards

David Lange - Workers in 'Otahu'

Aneta Jean Hart - Moving to Auckland for work

Sammy Saluni - First shift and the uniforms at Hellabys

Bill Daniels - The beef chain and the fellmongery

Bill Daniels - Unions and Lord Vestey

Author: Sharon Smith, Heritage Collections

Author: Brent Harris, Auckland Libraries

References

Author: Dr Natasha Barrett | Senior Curator Archives & Manuscripts

Further reading

About the author

Author: Dr Natasha Barrett, Senior Curator Archives and Manuscripts

References

Author: Samantha Waru, Auckland Libraries Graduate.

Sources

Author: Leanne, Research North

Nineteenth Century

Home to hospital, and back again

Sources:

Author: Samantha Waru- Graduate Heritage, Research and Archives.

Author: Jane Wild, Manager Heritage Collections

Further reading

Author: Sara Wild

References

Author: Harriet Rogers, Heritage Collections

Author: Christopher Paxton, Heritage Collections.