Heritage et AL

A colleague was recently down in Christchurch at the New Zealand Historical Association conference for 2015 and has bought back news of the most recent winners of the J. M. Sherrard award in New Zealand regional and local history. The J.M. Sherrard Award is the only national award for local and regional history in New Zealand. Ref: Henry Winkelmann,  Showing men breaking down a pile of gum at L C Gillespie and..., August 1904, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1-W1156.

It’s that time of year again, the halls are decked and the streets are decorated. Ref: Eric W Young, Looking south along Queen Street..., 1980s, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1021-52.

Auckland Weekly News photographs for the period August 1914 to December 1915 have now been more fully described so that they can be searched by description and subject. These photos were published in the Auckland Weekly News Supplement . There are 1,117 photos covering the period August to December 1914 and a further 7,684 photos for the period January to December 1915. Ref: Auckland Weekly News, A Christmas greeting from New Zealand to the absent one, 16 December 1915, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19151216-35-1.

The WW100 commemorations have drawn renewed attention to our First World War memorials. This does not mean our Second World War memorials should be forgotten: 13 December 2015 is the 75th anniversary of the unveiling of a unique and spectacular memorial at Achilles Point , overlooking the Waitematā Harbour and Hauraki Gulf. Ref: Bruce Ringer,  HMS Achilles memorial, St Heliers, 2014. 

To get into the spirit of the season we currently have a Christmas related display in the Special Collections reading room on the 2nd floor of the Central Library. On display until the end of December are two pop-up Christmas books by Robert Sabuda. Robert Sabuda has interpreted many classic children’s books including Peter Pan, the Wizard of Oz and the Little Mermaid in his renowned intricate pop-up style. First is his advent calendar-style alphabet, where small objects like a ribbon-decorated gift spring from behind paper ‘doors’. Robert Sabuda.  The Christmas alphabet.  New York : Orchard, 1994.

Carols by Candlelight was first held in Mt Roskill in 1958. Ref:  Aerial photograph of Mt Roskill, 1947,  MRB 029 1h,  Auckland Council Archives . By 1964 it was so popular that more than 16,000 people packed Three Kings Reserve to see a 200 strong choir which came from the Mt Roskill Municipal Youth Choir and local churches. The Herald reported that many in the large audience bought their own candles and most joined in the singing.  (NZ Herald 21 December 1964) Ref: Carols by Candlelight,  13 December 1975 ,  MRB 009 Item 705 Box 2 ,  Auckland Council Archives. The Roskill and Onehunga News interviewed Mr & Mrs C.H. Linden in 1967 about the festival. The couple and their son Don had organised the pageant since its inception in 1958. In this article Mr Linden, who at the time was the chairman of Mt Roskill Borough Council’s public relations committee, talks about the tremendous spirit of the project, “The co-operation and...

The Spencer family negatives that were recently donated to Sir George Grey Special Collections have now been digitised and made available online. This collection consists of around 400 glass plate negatives which arrived in the Library’s collections through a donation from the family of Mr Percy Spencer. Ref: Group of fruit pickers, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1365-139. The images include people and places, Māori portraits, landscapes, and family outings such as picnics and cycle excursions. Ref: Bicycle outing, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1365-387. Ref: Yacht trip, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1365-132.

Soon after the start of the First World War, New Zealand’s Governor Lord Liverpool agreed to send New Zealand troops to capture the German wireless station in Samoa and occupy the German colony . New Zealand troops, supported by three New Zealand cruisers and three other Australian and French warships, took possession of German Samoa on 29th August 1914. Ref: Auckland Weekly News, The British occupation of Samoa, 29 August 1914, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19140917-42-1. Ref: Auckland Weekly News, The unopposed landing of the New Zealanders in Samoa, 7 September 1914, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19140917-43-1.

Those of you who have Scottish ancestry may be interested to know that two more Scottish related databases have been added to the Ancestry.com collection. These are - Scotland, National Probate Index (Calendar of Confirmations and Inventories) 1876-1936 and Perth and Kinross, Scotland, Electoral Registers 1832-1961.  This is the first time that the confirmations and inventories have been made available other than on the Scotlands People website; however, you will need to visit Scotlands People website for wills prior to 1876. So, what can you expect to find on these databases? Calendar of Confirmations and Inventories – this can be browsed by year but if looking for a particular person/family use the search box.  As with other searches you can search using a surname only, Christian (first) name only and the wild cards are also available.  You do not need to enter a date of death, place of death etc but may do so if you want to reduce your number of “hits” (start w...

Creating New Zealand’s abortion law Abortion was illegal in NZ until the 1970s unless required to save the mother’s life. Nevertheless, the procedure was widely practiced and often unsafe. In 1927 a Department of Health official estimated 10,000 abortions took place annually - with NZ having one of the world’s highest death rates from botched abortions. This prompted the government to set up a Committee of Inquiry in 1936. Instead of focusing on the high rate of maternal deaths, the Committee focused on the falling birth rate and recommended an increase in family allowances.  A 1939 British ruling influenced the interpretation of abortion law in NZ to include mental health as grounds for the procedure, but many doctors refused to perform abortions. Ref: Alan Brown, Abortion march, 28 July 1972, Broadsheet Collective Records, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, NZMS 596.

SMS Emden was a German light cruiser and commerce raider in the Indian Ocean during the early months of the First World War. Ref: Auckland Weekly News, Destroyer of five British merchant ships..., 1 October 1914, Sir GeorgeGrey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19141001-48-1. After destroying 25 merchant vessels and 2 Allied warships, Captain Karl von Müller of the Emden decided to sail to Direction Island in the Cocos Island group and destroy the cable station there, with the aim of disrupting Allied communications and making the hunt for his ship even more difficult. Ref: Auckland Weekly News, Captain Karl von Muller, 24 December 1914, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19141224-40-1.

Currently on in the exhibition space on Level 2 of the Waitakere Central Library is ‘Holding the Line’, an exhibition celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the Going West Books and Writers Festival featuring material from the Going West Festival archives . Every year a gathering of people with a passion for the written and spoken word takes place in the verdant setting of West Auckland.   Named after the Maurice Gee novel in which he vividly describes the train journey from Loomis (Henderson) to the city, writers and performers of all ages and backgrounds come together to participate in the Going West Books and Writers Festival. Since the festivals beginnings in 1996, guests and audiences alike have been attracted by the unique character of the location and the diversity of the programme. In 2015, Going West celebrates 20 years as a stalwart of the literary festival scene in New Zealand with ‘Holding the Line’, the theme for this year’s event that is an apt reference to t...

Did you know that this week is Conservation Week ? Ref: Stapley Farmer, Rotorua, 1960s?, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1056-84.

This week Auckland Libraries are celebrating Vaiaho o te Gagana Tokelau, Tokelau Language Week for 2015. So we're featuring a  Tokelauan  album from  our heritage music collections, the 1999 album Ki mua   from the celebrated group Te Vaka. Ref: Te Vaka, Ki mua, 1999, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, CD TEV.

Today, October 25, marks the 600 year anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt, a major English victory in the Hundred Years’ War won by King Henry the Fifth. This gives us a great excuse to have a look at a couple of our editions of Shakespeare’s Henry V. The play Henry the Fifth as we now know it first appeared in 1623 in what is known as the First Folio . Ref: William Shakespeare, First Folio Mr. William Shakespeares comedies, histories & tragedies, pp.68-69, 1623, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1623 SHAK.

This Sunday Auckland Libraries will be down at Viaduct Harbour for A day at the beach . Ref: Stapley Farmer, Apprentices picnic, 1960s?, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1056-32. To celebrate over 100 years of New Zealand’s beach fashion and the exhibition 'At the Beach' , the Maritime Museum will be bringing the beach to the city centre for Labour weekend. The exhibition will be on display across the Maritime Museum, and has been devised and produced in conjunction with the New Zealand Fashion Museum . Ref: Group in car at Takapuna Beach, c1960s, North Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, T6843.

This week is E Faahi Tapu he Vagahau Niue 2015 , Niuean Language Week for 2015. As a result of Sir George Grey’s collecting of Pacific Islands language materials , Auckland Libraries has a collection of Niuean language Bibles. Today we’re going to look at three of our earliest publications in the Niuean language. The following descriptions are taken from the Historical catalogue of the printed editions of holy scripture in the library of theBritish and Foreign Bible Society compiled by T.H. Darlow and H.F. Moule. In the introduction to the catalogue T.H. Darlow writes that The British and Foreign Bible Society specifically exists to promote missionary versions of the scriptures. St Mark’s Gospel, published in 1861. Ref: Ko e evagelia ne tohi e Mareko, p.1, 1861, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 226.3 KOEE.

Colleen Fitzpatrick, forensic genealogist and author On 20 April, 2015, we were extremely fortunate to have Colleen Fitzpatrick PhD, visiting forensic genealogist and author from the US, come and speak for us at Central City Library. Colleen is a nuclear physicist, who is a consultant in some high profile cases that involve using both genetic and forensic genealogy to solve a case. She has a really impressive CV . Colleen is also the author of: Forensic genealogy ,   DNA and genealogy , and   The dead horse investigation: forensic analysis for everyone .  Colleen is a talented researcher and an excellent speaker with a wide choice of subjects to choose from and has a real talent for making the complicated and the technical both easily understood and entertaining. Fortunately, her visit to us coincided with our "pilot" scheme and we were able to video her talks which you can find on the Auckland Libraries YouTube channel. The presentations s...

This week marks Ni vosa Vaka-ITaukei ni vanua o Viti or Fiji Language Week for 2015. This is timely as we can happily share the news about some nineteenth century Fijian language items in Sir George Grey Special Collections that have recently been individually catalogued.  These Fijian language items were part of a larger collection of nineteenth century pamphlets in English, Polynesian and Melanesian languages collected by Sir George Grey . They include grammars, primers, vocabularies, and religious texts. The pamphlet shown below is an arithmetic textbook published in Levuka in 1865. Ref:  A vu ni vika vakaviti, p.1, 1865?, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 372.72 AVUN.

This week marks Vaiaso o te Gana Tuvalu, or Tuvalu Language Week , for 2015. This year’s theme is "Tau gana ko tou iloga/ Language is your identity”. This provides an excellent opportunity to focus on some images relating to Tuvalu in our heritage collections from  Local History Online . Ref: Pacifica Arts Centre, Tuvalu traditional dance performance, 14 November 2013, West Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, PAC-PLAF-2013-D-096. The Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs has compiled a list of events for the week and ask that you follow their Facebook page for updates during the week. Ref: Pacifica Arts Centre, Mama Teuke at the Pacifica Living Arts Festival, 1 November 2005, West Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, PAC-PLAF-2005-D-002.

The Auckland Heritage Festival is about to begin again. The region wide festival starts this Saturday, 26 September, and runs for the subsequent two weeks until 11 October. This year’s theme is “The iwi, people, kōrero, and stories that shaped our region, Tāmaki Makaurau”. Ref: 2 015 Auckland Heritage Festival logo.

Friends of mine moved in to their new house recently, one of those established Ponsonby villas which has been done up with a garage put in. It has the same bones of its early 1900s self but with far less land than it would have originally been on. It is in St Mary's Road and it was an interesting exercise to explore the Auckland Council's Archive to see if the property was on its City of Auckland's 1908 map. A simple Google search of Auckland Council Archives takes you straight to their home page and clicking on Search the Archives takes you to the link to the map . There are two different ways to search the City of Auckland's 1908 map. One is by browsing ; the other is by doing a keyword search . Using the keyword search we typed in St Mary's Road and up came the portion of the map with that particular street in it. Once you have enlarged the map you will notice the blue pins. My friend's house on St Mary's Road has a blue pin, which we cl...

We are used to seeing newspapers with compelling news stories, and photographs, on the front covers. However, this is a fairly recent change for Auckland's daily newspapers. The now-ceased 'Auckland Star' newspaper only started featuring actual news, rather than public notices and the like, on the front page from 22 July 1946. Ref: excerpt from the Auckland Star, Volume LXXVII, No. 171, 22 July 1946, page 1.

The recent arrival of the new elephant Anjalee at Auckland Zoo provides an excuse to take a nostalgic look back at one of the Zoo’s previous much-loved elephants: Jamuna. Ref: Ron Clark, Elephant ride, February 1956, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1207-783. Many locals have fond memories of having had a ride on Jamuna as a child. During her lifetime, Jamuna is estimated to have given rides to three-quarters of a million people. 

This week Auckland Libraries are celebrating Uike 'o e Lea Faka-Tonga, Tongan Language Week with a range of events across our libraries . This year also marks the 50th year commemoration of Queen Sālote's death and Tonga's Coronation of King Tupou VI. As the theme for Tongan Language Week this year is "Fakakoloa Aotearoa 'aki 'a e faiva 'a e Tonga - Enriching Aotearoa New Zealand with Tongan arts" an appropriate way to pay tribute to the 50th anniversary of Queen Sālote’s passing is to highlight some of the music and poetry that she wrote. Ref: Clifton Firth, Queen Salote of Tonga, c1961, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 34-375.

Coffee lounges opened in Auckland in the 1950s and filled a social gap for people who weren’t attracted to other entertainments available at that time such as commercial cabaret and big bands in ballrooms. They sported glamorous European-inspired names like C’est si Bon, El Paso, La Ronde, Picasso and Piccolo and their décor was Bohemian chic. Walls were covered in murals, or posters of bull fights, and ceilings were painted black and draped in fishing nets. Tables were lit by candles stuck in Chianti bottles, and the air was usually thick with cigarette smoke. Ref: John Rykenberg, Auckland restaurant, 1959, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1269-A997-3.

All the recent publicity for Anjalee, Auckland Zoo’s newest elephant , has inspired a series of posts about elephants. Heritage & Research team members here at Auckland Libraries have taken this opportunity to explore some elephant related items in our collections, as well as some other famous Auckland elephants. Today we are featuring elephant images from rare books held in Sir George Grey Special Collections . These first two colour plates are from the most recent publication we’ve selected, The Arabian nights: tales from the Thousand and one nights / illustrated by E.J. Detmold . Both plates illustrate the story of Sinbad the sailor. In this version of the story Sinbad is pictured riding on the back of an elephant during his seventh voyage. Ref: The Arabian nights, p. 80, E.J. Detmold, 1924, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, IL:1924 DETM.

The fine brick-and-tile Ōtāhuhu Methodist Memorial Sunday School is a rare but impressive example of a Methodist war memorial building. It stands behind the Ōtāhuhu Methodist church in Fairburn Road. Ref:  Bruce Ringer, Ōtāhuhu Methodist Memorial Sunday School, 2013. The foundation stone, inset into the footing of the building’s southern wall, reads: “Ōtāhuhu Methodist Memorial / Sunday School / - / This stone was laid / to the glory of God / by Revd. E. Drake, President of Conf. / on Feb. 28 th 1920 / - / Feed my lambs”.

The majority of the F. Douglas Mill Collection contains images which represent some of the first civil aerial photographic surveys in New Zealand, the images range from the late 1920s to the middle of the 1930s and document the country at that time from the Bay of Islands down to Waimate and Dunedin. Details of the collection can be found here in Local History Online . The photographs include an early aerial survey of Auckland containing images such as this one of the Auckland War Memorial Museum under construction: Ref: F. Douglas Mill, Auckland War Memorial Museum under construction, from the air, 1929, West Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, FDM-0544-G.

It is 1964 and the world is your oyster. These young women are enjoying themselves at a friend’s 21 st birthday party in  Ōtāhuhu   in 1964. With the excitement and verve of the 1960s young women stepped out into the world with different expectations and hopes than previous generations. In the years to come the momentum for change increased, many women challenged the norm, dared to be different, and in doing so created a revolution. Ref: Lew's, Birthday Party, 1964, photograph reproduced courtesy of Val Lott, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 06490. “I’m young and I love to be young I’m free and I love to be free To live my life the way that I want To say and do whatever I please”  You don’t own me , Lesley Gore, 1963 .

By 1911 New Zealand women had voting rights for nearly two decades, while their UK sisters still battled for their rights and a voice.  The Women's Freedom League incited members with its Manifesto to " … oppose, hamper, destroy if possible, the power of an unrepresentative Government to govern women, refuse to be taxed, boycott the Census, refuse all official information until women have won that which is their absolute right - the right of a voice and vote." Women and the vote, 1914 Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19140416-48-6 The Women's Freedom League initiated a boycott of census day, Sunday 2 April 1911, to protest their lack of rights to vote. These suffragette evaders refused to have their names added to their own household registers, effectively 'vanishing' from the census while many left their homes for the day. Evaders such as Louisa Burnham defiantly wrote the words " No vote, no census. If I am intell...