Heritage et AL

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 points and the distances and angles between them. As well as being the basis of many maps, it also is used to establish boundaries of land ownership. Renowned Auckland photographer  Clifton Firth  documented surveyors from the Department of Lands and Survey in the field, the office, as well as the equipment they used. Ref: Clifton Firth,  Showing a man using a Lands and Survey Department theodolite, 1920s, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 34-LAN-1. Ref: Clifton Firth,  Showing hands running a survey line to a survey peg, 1920s, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 34-LAN-2. Ref: Clifton Firth,  Showing a Lands and Survey Department theodolite, 1920s, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libr...

Local M ā ori were in charge of fishing in the early days of Auckland, but as more immigrants arrived fishermen from other countries entered the trade. They were unused to the Waitemat ā and Manukau Harbours’ estuaries and tidal flow, and from the 1860s a vessel suitable for these conditions began to evolve - the “mullety”. Ref: Fishing mullet boat off North Head, 1900s, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 37-173.

Auckland’s entertainment sensation of the 1920s was going to the movies – first silent movies, and then “talkies”. Every Saturday night, one-sixth of the city’s residents went to watch stars like Greta Garbo, Gary Cooper or Gloria Swanson in romance and adventure stories. The most-attended movie – Charlton Heston’s Ben Hur - sold 76,000 tickets during its Queen Street run, and Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid drew 21,000 people in a week. Ref: NZ Ephemera - 'The N.Z. Picturegoer', Volume 1, Number 7, 20 January 1928, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries. However, not everyone was pleased with cinema’s popularity. One of Auckland’s main exhibitor’s, Henry Hayward, had to answer a complaint from the Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society that movies normalised crime for children by encouraging them to play make-believe games such as bush-ranging. Ref: James D Richardson, Looking north down the west side of Queen Street, 22 January 1928, Sir George Grey Speci...

You all are living under a cloud if you didn't hear that most amazing sporting news of the past month. Forget the Breakers, Team New Zealand and the Cricket World Cup… the real news was that The Bushwhackers , that great wrestling tag team of the 70s and 80s, were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame . This is huge. Mike Hosking even mentioned it on the telly during Seven Sharp. Here at the Central Library as part of our 1920s entertainment display, we've naturally included pro-wrestling because back in the day, like its boxing cousin , wrestling just exploded in popularity. By the thirties it had become a huge deal. Bouts filled halls all over the country – such as in the image below, taken in Masterton. Both promoters and wrestlers were out to make big money and the Dominion Wrestling Union was formed to promote the sport. Wrestlers – known as ‘matmen’ – came from all over the world looking for a match, and Monday nights at the Auckland Town Hall saw fans queuing early ...