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.

Today, 8 August, marks the 100 year anniversary of the Battle for Chunuk Bair . The battle, which took place from 6-10 August 1915, was New Zealand’s most significant action in the Gallipoli Campaign . To help commemorate the anniversary of the battle we are taking the opportunity to look back on the premier performance of Maurice Shadbolt's only published play,  Once on Chunuk Bair.  The first performance of  Once on Chunuk Bair  was given at Mercury Theatre , Auckland, on 23 April 1982. The play was directed by  Ian Mune  and designed by Richard Jeziorny. Two manuscript collections held in Sir George Grey Special Collections are useful in looking back to this initial staging of the play. The first is the Roy Billing papers , who was the lead actor in the 1982 performance. This collection includes draft scripts of the play as it was performed at the Mercury Theatre, complete with Billing's annotations as well as an extract from his unpublished memoir, ...

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. 

What must be one of New Zealand’s finest and most elaborate First World War rolls of honour is found upstairs at the Onehunga RSA , 57 Princes Street, Onehunga. Sir F.W. Lang MP unveiled the Onehunga soldiers’ roll of honour in the town’s Carnegie Library on 25 April 1919.  Ref: James D Richardson, Carnegie Library, Onehunga, 1915, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 4-1476.

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...

Sir George Grey Special Collections hold a number of First World War maps of Gallipoli and surrounding regions. Seven of these maps have been digitised and are accessible via the Heritage Images database. In April 1915, New Zealand soldiers, alongside those from Australia, Britain and France, invaded the Gallipoli Peninsula. This was to ensure an Allied naval force could break through the Dardanelles Strait and seize or threaten the Ottoman capital of Constantinople, and hopefully the Ottoman Empire might be forced out of the war. The British landed at Cape Helles on the southern tip of the peninsula, while the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs) landed half way up the peninsula, in order to cut off the Ottomans’ supply route to the south. Neither force managed to achieve their primary objectives and the conflict soon turned into a stalemate of trench warfare. Ref:  The Daily Telegraph picture map of the Dardanelles... , 1915, Sir George Grey Special C...

First marked in 1916, Anzac Day commemorates all the New Zealanders killed in war and it also honours returned servicemen and women. The commemoration date, 25th April, remembers the date that the New Zealand and Australian soldiers or the Anzacs landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915. To commemorate and reflect upon this important day, here are a selection of Auckland Libraries' heritage images relating to Anzac Day, which are drawn from around the region and across the decades. West: Ref: JTD-11K-01640-2, unveiling of New Lynn War Memorial on Anzac Day, 25 April 1958, West Auckland Research Centre Ref: JTD-05J-03183, trampers at remains of wartime road block, Karekare, 1945, West Auckland Research Centre Ref: JTD-04K-03812, unveiling of War Memorial on Lion Rock, 1920, West Auckland Research Centre North: Ref: N0111016, Anzac Day gathering, Northcote, 1920s, North Auckland Research Centre Ref: T1172, barbed wire defences on Takapuna Beach during World...