Heritage et AL

The Great War is over! Now 24,463 Auckland Weekly News Supplement photos for the period August 1914 to December 1918 have been more fully described so that they can be searched by description and subject. This means they will be more searchable and useful for librarians, social and family historians and genealogists. The photos cover that period’s social, political and military history from a New Zealand perspective. While there is obviously a national emphasis, many photos reflect this country’s involvement with international events in an important period of New Zealand’s history. This can be seen in the following Trevor Lloyd cartoon from October 1914 demonstrates New Zealand’s loyal support for Britain as they face Germany’s massive armies of mangy curs invading Belgium. Ref: Trevor Lloyd for the Auckland Weekly News, "His master's voice", 22 October 1914, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19141022-47-2.

Recently a customer called into the Central Auckland Research Centre looking for a photograph of his uncle published in the Auckland Weekly News in 1943.  He said the photograph was the first indication to his family that his uncle was no longer a prisoner of war. A search of the Heritage Images database produced no results, which is not uncommon as many of the images from the Auckland Weekly News have a caption but few of the people are named. There is, however, ongoing work to rectify this.  When the Italian Armistice was announced on 8 September 1943, Colin Tayler was a prisoner of war at Campo PG 107, about 9 kilometres north of Schio in Northern Italy.  Over the next three weeks he and his travelling companions, Privates D R Muir, R Kendrick, I Penhall and E Barnett, travelled approximately 566 kilometres south: by train to Pescara on the Adriatic coast, before walking some distance and catching another train as far as they could go.  They met allied s...

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.

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.

During August 1901 Aucklanders were being terrorised by a ghost. It haunted the central Auckland areas of Grafton, Eden Terrace, Newton and Western Park. The apparent apparition was heavily reported on in the newspapers and the cartoonists of the day all had a take on it as well. Even an advertising copywriter got in on the fun. Ref: New Zealand Graphic,  The white-sheeted ghost has again made its appearance in Auckland, 24 August 1901, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, NZG-19010824-367-2.

This photograph from the Auckland Weekly News Supplement (AWNS) depicts first aid being applied to an ANZAC soldier on the sloping terrain of Gaba Tepe on the Gallipoli Peninsula on 25 April , 1915. Published on 24 June 1 915, one hundred years ago today, it is considered the first newspaper image of the Gallipoli campaign and is attributed to Private Robert Blackwood Steele  of the Auckland Infantry Battalion . Ref: R.B. Steele for the Auckland Weekly News, New Zealanders in action, 24 June 1915, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19150624-35-1. 

To mark Samoan Language week, we are featuring a great Samoan resource in our heritage collections whose existence was alerted to me by a sleuth-like colleague. We have a carbon copy typescript of the Samoa guardian from 26 May 1927 to 6 June 1929. Though this transcript finishes in June it provides a particularly valuable historical record of the two years leading up to the disastrous events of Black Saturday .  Image: Reinforcement for the Administration Police At Samoa ; The Departure From Auckland Last Saturday Morning.  Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19280426-38-03 The Samoa guardian came into Auckland Libraries collection through a donation from the estate of the Rev. Albert Bygrave Chappell on 25 January 1951 along with some of his other papers which are now part of our Manuscripts collection. The mystery in the provenance is how this ended up in the possession of Rev. Chappell in the first place and why did he have a carbon copy ...

By 1915 the Auckland Weekly News Supplement was becoming a sophisticated propaganda organ. Editorial policies determined what readers would see and how they would interpret photographs, in a campaign to make them accept the need to win this ‘Great War for civilisation’ against a barbaric enemy. They were led to believe this was so even if it must be fought at the great human cost shown each week in the Weekly News Roll of Honour. As casualties on the Gallipoli Peninsula began to mount, photo editors inserted reminders in the magazine showing readers just why we were fighting this war. They often did this by repeating photos and drawings about the Horrible Hun’s new and ungentlemanly ‘total war’ against civilians (especially women and children) through the evil menace of submarines lurking underwater to wreak death and destruction on the high seas. In February 1915 the Germans declared the waters around the British Isles a war zone where all Allied and neutral vessels risked being sun...

On 29 April 1915 Prime Minister Massey announced in Wellington that four days earlier New Zealand troops had participated in the landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula in the Dardanelles. However actual photographs of military activities and living conditions at Gallipoli were sparse in the Auckland Weekly News Supplement until late July 1915. There were photographs of the naval warships trying to force a passage through the Dardanelles and bombarding the Turkish forts there. There was also the Roll of Honour; and its seemingly never-ending portraits of casualties must have alerted readers that something BIG was happening. But either distance, censorship, early lack of official photographers or the simple fact that the troops  couldn't  easily get their films developed meant the  Auckland Weekly News could only gradually reveal the campaign to its readers as events unfolded. This little piece might shed some light on how Auckland Weekly News readers learned about life an...

The first of April marks April Fool's Day. There is a long history of practical jokes being played on April 1 in New Zealand. George Reed reported in 1883 that Noah's Ark had been discovered and the story was reprinted in papers around the world, and in 1949 the radio host Phil Shone convinced the people of Auckland that a swarm of wasps were descending . The BBC got into the fun in 1957 with a news item about spaghetti trees . More recently NZ On Screen published a hoax biography of fictional film maker Colin McKenzie . A list of other New Zealand April Fool's hoaxes can be found here . Whilst not a prank or practical joke I thought Aprils Fool's Day provided an appropriate opportunity to present some of the more humorous images in our photograph collections relating to various races staged in New Zealand through the years, plus a photo of a roller skater in a chicken suit. Ref: Halftones Ltd. for the Auckland Weekly News, The chantecler craze, 14 April ...

Trevor Lloyd was a New Zealand artist, illustrator and cartoonist who lived from 1863 to 1937.  He was largely self-taught although he might have had some lessons from the artist Louis John Steele.  He started doing sketches and caricatures but soon moved on to oil paintings based on his sketches. Lloyd first exhibited his work at the Auckland Society of Arts in 1883.  He re-exhibited at the society in 1896, 1898 and 1899.  By the 1900s he had moved to Auckland and was making a living from his art.  He began illustrating stories and articles in the New Zealand Illustrated Magazine and the New Zealand Graphic .  In 1903 he joined the Auckland Weekly News as an illustrator, graphic artist and cartoonist.  From 1904 his cartoons also appeared in Wilson and Horton’s other publication, the New Zealand Herald .  He retired from the Herald and Weekly News in November 1936. The Angela Morton collection , housed at Takapuna Library, holds a coll...

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....

This year Auckland Libraries remembers it is 100 years since New Zealand’s first major baptism of fire during the First World War when our troops landed at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. To commemorate that event Sir George Grey Special Collections staff are working to make the Auckland Weekly News Supplement photographs from 1915 more searchable for researchers, librarians and readers who look at the Heritage Images in our Digital Library . These photographs feature events and people from all major war fronts but also include New Zealand personalities and scenes. How our attitudes to the people who were then our enemies have changed during the past 100 years! But back then Auckland Weekly News caption-writers jingoistically stirred up public hatred for the Germans, contempt of the Turks and mockery of the Austrians. The depths of German depravity were unfathomable as this propaganda cartoon of German troops massacring Belgian citizens in Louvain shows. Ref: M Matthews f...

The exhibition  ‘Aotearoa Houses: settlers to hippies’ is currently running in the atrium outside the Central Auckland Research Centre on the  second  floor of the  Auckland  Central Library. On this blog we've previously featured posts on Hippie A rchitecture  and  State  Houses .  Ref: Pegler for Auckland Weekly News, Showing a settler's house at Poro-o-Tarao, with people posed outside, 19 May 1899, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-18990519-6-1.

To see off the old year and help usher in the new we thought it would be appropriate to see how the New Year has been celebrated down the years: Ref: P.P. De Loree, Premiers of N.Z. Happy New Year, 1894, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 661-67. Ref: Motor car invasion, Cockle Bay, 1939, 1 January 1939, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 15.

It is becoming a bit of a tradition at this time of the year on Heritage et AL for us to highlight some of the Christmassy items and images we have in our heritage collections at Auckland Libraries. Ref: W. Reid for the Auckland Weekly News, A merry Christmas, 15 December 1904, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19041215-1-1.

For the past few months, the heritage floor, on the second floor of the Central City Library, has hosted a display titled Our Girls -- a tribute to the role of women in the First World War. The content covers the following topics: prohibition and making-do, cartoon depictions of women, the anti-militarists, the fundraising effort, working girls, nurses abroad, and the absence of men. It has been an interesting exercise to find images to cover such a variety of topics. Women were not always portrayed favourably, especially in the political cartoons of the day. Publications like Freelance and Truth condemned the ‘wowser’ prohibitionists as out to spoil a boy’s fun (men did not escape the condemnation, either) or they depicted women as vain and ignorant.  Ref: Cartoon from the New Zealand Freelance , 6 March 1915, p.11.  The caption for the cartoon above reads:  Shopman: “Yes, Miss, all face powders have gone up in price on account of the war.” Y...

Kia orana, happy Cook Islands Māori Language Week! Running from 4 to 10 August 2013, the aim of the language week is to celebrate the Cook Islands language and culture and to promote the teaching, learning and use of the language in every environment.  Enjoy the selection of  heritage photos below, which are drawn from the heritage collections of Auckland Weekly News at Auckland Libraries and learn a few words at the same time. Tangata / People: Image: The princess of Mauke: A good type of a Cook Island beauty. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19011212-08-02 . Image: People at Mauke 1901. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19011212-08-03 . Image: The Administrator and Staff, Rarotonga. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19050810-13-04 Ngai nooanga / Key locations: Image: Post and other Government offices at Avarua. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19001005-03-02. Image: Rarotaonga harbour, 1901. ...

Ref: AWNS19120725-15-1, a river scene in the island of Savaii, 1912, Sir George Grey Special Collections Talofa lava, Samoan Language Week is being celebrated each year to acknowledge Samoan Independence Day. It is a time to recognise, support and help maintain the Samoan language and its use in New Zealand.   Ref: AWNS-18980909-2-1, Apia, 1898, Sir George Grey Special Collections

Auckland Libraries is fast approaching the end of a project to digitise all the Auckland Weekly News photographic supplements published between 1898 and 1943. You can already see all of the photographs up to 1927 on the Heritage Images database. The project has turned up some fascinating and intriguing images, such as an 1886 design by John Crook of Ponsonby for an airship (see below), imaginatively seen flying over central Auckland.  Ref: AWNS-19020710-1-2, Sir George Grey Special Collections From the outset it was decided to digitise all the published photographs, not just those obviously relating to New Zealand. One of these images from around the world, is a rather dramatic photograph of Victor Grayson, addressing a crowd of unemployed workers at Tower Hill in London in 1908 (see below).  Ref: AWNS-19081210-7-3, Sir George Grey Special Collections Inspired by this image, research has revealed that Grayson was an intriguing character. Du...