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From raspberry cordial to the ‘green flash’
Ref: Happy staff at Hurley Bendon, Papatoetoe, 1964, photograph reproduced courtesy of Fairfax Media, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 00071. I was looking through the new...
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Photo selection: early 20th century surveying in New Zealand
To acknowledge International Map Year we’ve selected some of our heritage photos of surveyors at work in New Zealand in the 1920s. Surveying is the process of measuring three-dimensional position of...
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Researcher in residence 2016/2017
Calling all researchers! April marks the opening of applications for the fourth year of our Researcher in Residence scholarship. Ref: John A Lee, Scrapbook, 1960s/70s, Sir George Grey Special...
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The Shakespeare Beadle bust: origin and history
The current exhibition, ‘Shakespeare in his time’, on now until June 19th, showcases rare Shakespearian treasures alongside specially selected items from our Sir George Grey Special Collections which...
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Whau flicks: New Lynn’s Delta Theatre 1926-1986
When the Delta Theatre opened in July 1926 the grand opening was advertised in the Saturday edition of New Zealand Herald:Ref: excerpt from the New Zealand Herald, 31 July 1926, page 18. In The...
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New Zealand Prisoners of War in Italy during the Second World War
Recently a customer called into the Central Auckland Research Centre looking for a photograph of his uncle published in the Auckland Weekly Newsin 1943. He said the photograph was the first indication...
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Telling tales: The Arabian Nights
The theme for school holidays events this April is storytelling – the perfect excuse to look at one of the all-time greatest hits of children’s literature, the Arabian Nights, known in Arabic as Alf...
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The Stinking City: Auckland’s cesspits and privies
Auckland was the smelliest city in New Zealand according to a visiting reporter in 1871. Raw sewage ran into Queen Street’s main drain, the Ligar Canal, “an open, evil-smelling sewer in the very heart...
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A sense of place: the relationship between people, their landscape, and the...
Landscapes are important. You are born into a landscape, you walk through the landscape every day of your life, as a child and as an adult. It belongs to you, and you belong to it.Ref: Ephemera - Arts...
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Bring back the trams
There's a bit of a movement around at the moment to #Bringbackthetrams. It's timely, given we've included trams in our latest heritage display on the second floor of the Central Library, 'Auckland's...
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Poly-Olbion by Michael Drayton
Shakespeare’s prolific contemporary Michael Drayton (1563-1631) was a poet who habitually thought on a grand scale, his taste running to epics and long, linked sequences rather than individual lyrics....
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Jacking up the Jack
The outcome of the flag referendum on 30 March 2016 shows that many New Zealanders, by choosing to keep the current flag, are still happy to have the Union Jack on it. The voter turnout of 67.8 % may...
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Shakespeare in his time: curator talks
‘Shakespeare in his time’, the current exhibition on at Sir George Grey Special Collections to mark 400 years since Shakespeare’s death, has seen many people come through to get a glimpse of the world...
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The Builder
While checking some of our earlier magazines in our basement I came across a London magazine called 'The Builder; an illustrated weekly magazine for the architect, engineer, archaeologist, constructor...
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In the swim: Auckland's salt water baths
One of the first fenced swimming baths in Auckland was around an area of shoreline at Smales Point. In the 1860s men paid a small fee to swim there – naked, as was customary at the time. Women were not...
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Dalmatians out west: early Dalmatian settlers
Now on in the J.T. Diamond Room, Waitakere Central Library is our Dalmatians out west exhibition. The exhibition features images from Auckland’s Dalmatian community and will run until 30 August...
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Maps to the stars
Many of us will be star-gazing this month as we celebrate the rising of the constellation Matariki (also known as Pleiades) which signifies New Year in the Māori calendar. Looking up at the sky from...
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Bernard & Picart's Ceremonies: the book that changed Europe
The ceremonies and religious customs of the various nations of the known world was the first book to compare the world’s religions in a way that encouraged tolerance and has recently been called 'The...
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Women’s Suffrage Centenary Memorial
The Women’s Suffrage mural in Khartoum Place celebrates suffragettes who fought for women’s franchise in New Zealand – which they won in 1893, and women in this country became the first in the world to...
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Dalmatians out west: music, dance, social occasions and weddings
Now on in the J.T. Diamond Room, Waitakere Central Library is our Dalmatians out west exhibition. The exhibition features images from Auckland’s Dalmatian community and will run until 30 August...
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