Heritage et AL

Celebrating African stories in Tāmaki Makaurau This month we celebrate the rich heritage and influence the African Diaspora has had, and continues to have, in Tāmaki Makaurau. You can learn about it and discover amazing stories with African Voices: The Stories of the Lands , our new oral history collection funded by the Creative Content initiative. Image from left to right: Mahad Yusuf, Tina Bonsu Maro, Boubacar Coulibaly, Dr Love Chile, Lema Shamamba. A community-led oral history project This project had a ground-up and holistic collaboration, genuine commitment and regional relationships. With the assistance of a Cultural Advisor, we discussed the idea and if the project would be beneficial for the community.  After aligning expectations and the project goal it was decided that only people born in Africa would be interviewed for this project. We chose people from different ethnicities and age groups. Trying to reflect the impacts they had in different areas. Stories from the...

Written by Sue Bradford - John Stacpoole Scholar 2025 In February 1983 I was one of the organisers of a public meeting of over a hundred people at the Pitt St Methodist Church Hall in Auckland.  Called in the face of high and rising unemployment and the punitive treatment of beneficiaries, those present agreed to set up a new organisation, the Auckland Unemployed Workers Rights Centre (AUWRC).   Little did I know that I would spend much of the next 16 years of my life working with AUWRC, right up until the group’s decision to dissolve itself in July 1999.   Last year I was grateful to receive the Auckland Library Heritage Trust’s John Stacpoole scholarship.  This gave me the opportunity to sort and inventory a selection of AUWRC materials which I had managed to retrieve and store over the decades since our closure.  The completed archive will be accessioned by the Libraries’ Heritage Collections shortly.   The new archive presents a somewhat ...

The name Winstone Limited (Ltd) may be familiar to those who have grown up or lived in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. But what might not be realised is the extent to which Winstone Ltd fostered the city's development into what we see today. What started as a humble endeavour by two young brothers, attempting to make a living for themselves in the land of opportunity that was early colonial Auckland, created a legacy.   Whether it was in significant ways, such as earning the contract to demolish Point Britomart, reclaiming the land in Auckland’s foreshore, or the quarry outputs which provided the literal foundations for buildings, roads, and bridges across the city. Or in minor ways, such as providing the tile roofing for the University of Auckland Clocktower, Winstone Ltd has been an underlying but meaningful presence in Tāmaki Makaurau. Image: Office of W. Winstone, 1864. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19240327-50-03.  Early years of W & G Winstone William ...

Only a scenic 80-minute ferry ride from the heart of the Auckland CBD is Tiritiri Matangi Island. Sitting in the Hauraki Gulf just off the Whangaparāoa Peninsula, the island today is best known as a native bird sanctuary: a haven of birdsong, guided walks, and carefully restored bush. For many Aucklanders, Tiritiri Matangi represents a conservation success story.  Image: View from Tiritiri Matangi today.  Yet, this is a relatively recent understanding of the island’s story. Long before the island became a sanctuary, it was a lived and used landscape. Tiritiri Matangi has been shaped by human movement, conflict, labour, and law. A bastion of sedimentary rock, the island was fished, occupied, claimed, cleared, and transformed. The histories embedded in its land predate conservation by centuries. Māori occupation and use  As one of the islands in the Hauraki Gulf, Tiritiri Matangi holds deep significance in Māori history. Going so far as back to 1400 A.D., Tiritiri Matangi w...

Image: Kinder House 1978. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 1213P-034-08. Photographer: Susanna Burton. Image: Kinder House 1978. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 1213P-034-11. Photographer: Susanna Burton. Nestled behind a screen of trees, on the corner of Ayr and Parnell streets, lies Kinder House. From the outside, it is imposing. Walls of basalt rise two storeys. Thin slits in this curtain open with elegant white window frames. The building is crowned by a steeply pitching shingle roof. As the name suggests, from its 1857, completion Kinder House was first occupied by the Reverend John Kinder. In 1855, Kinder had been appointed as the Headmaster of the Church of England Grammar School (also known as the Parnell Grammar School). This school was one of the earliest on the Auckland isthmus. It first occupied a site on Karangahape Road, before moving to Parnell, on the opposite corner from Kinder House. The house was occupied by successive Headmasters of the school ...