Year of the Ram

To celebrate the Lunar New Year and the beginning of the Year of the Ram Auckland Libraries are running a series of events across the region. If you are in the central library do pop into the Newspaper Reading Room on the second floor and have a look at the beautiful display Heritage & Research staff created featuring a traditional tea set. If you can't make it into the library have a look online at Auckland Libraries newly launched Chinese Facebook page. 

   

To celebrate the Year of the Snake, two years ago, we wrote about our Historypin collection documenting Chinese communities in Auckland and also more broadly about Chinese resources available at Auckland Libraries.

The image below shows Rewi Alley’s son Allen Alley at the opening of a specialist Chinese collection, named ‘The Rewi Alley Collection’ at the Manurewa library in 1989. This was an appropriately named collection as Rewi’s brother Geoffrey was New Zealand’s first National Librarian. 

Ref: Allen Alley at Manurewa library, 16 March 1989, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 01575.

This year to help celebrate Heritage et AL is featuring some images from one of our newer documentary heritage collections related to the Lunar New Year and as it is the Year of Ram we thought we would show off some of the award winning rams in our photograph collections.

The following images are from the Auckland Lantern Festival Collection from 2014 in Local History Online. The images below are a small sample, to view the full collection go into the West Auckland Research Centre.

Ref: Lanterns display, January 2014, West Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, ALF-2014-D-001.

Ref: Lanterns display, January 2014, West Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, ALF-2014-D-015.

Ref: Auckland Council, Lanterns display, January 2014, West Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, ALF-2014-D-027.

Below are a selection of award winning rams taken from the Auckland Weekly News and New Zealand Graphic publications from early last century.

Ref: Auckland Weekly News, Mr. J. Stevenson’s champion strong-combing Merino ram, 21 November 1907, Sir George Grey Special Collections, AWNS-19071121-5-2.

Ref: New Zealand Graphic, H.S. Hawkins’ Romney ram, 17 November 1900, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, NZG-19001117-932-4.

Ref: Auckland Weekly News, Mr. E. Perry’s first and champion Lincoln ram, 12 November 1908, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19081112-5-3.

This ram was purchased from the King by Mr. G.P. Donnelly in 1904.

Ref: New Zealand Graphic, Champion Southdown shearling ram, 10 September 1904, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, NZG-19040910-36-1.

As this coming year is also known as the Year of the Goat and the Year of the Sheep it seems appropriate to finish with these images and to remind you to have a look at our previous post on sheep. Happy Lunar New Year! 

Ref: Ron Clark, Feeding a goat, 1960s, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1207-1767.

Ref: Pet parade, 24 October 1979, photograph reproduced courtesy of Fairfax Media, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 00220.

Author: Andrew Henry