Heritage et AL

Inspired by a recent post on the New York Public Library's blog the team at the South Auckland Research Centre have chosen a selection of their favourite photographs from the collections there. Their choices span a century, from the 1890s through to the 1990s, and show a variety of places around South Auckland and the Counties Manukau area. Bruce Ringer The Auckland Libraries Footprints d atabase includes a wide range of captivating and illuminating photographs. It’s difficult to make a choice of favourites, but here are three that stand out in my memory. Ref: Racing boy, Pakuranga, c1905, photograph reproduced courtesy of Howick Historical Society, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 39. This photograph looks straightforward but has an element of mystery. It’s a rare example from the time of a shot that captures a person in motion. But it leaves a few questions hanging in the air. Who is this boy? Why is he running? The obvious assumption i...

On Sunday afternoon 26 April five armed and mounted men clattered down the main street of Waiuku. Ref: Bruce Ringer, Outside the Kentish Hotel, Waiuku, 2015. The occasion was not a bank robbery nor a gymkhana but a reenactment, 101 years after the event, of a locally famous photograph taken of the first volunteers to leave Waiuku for active service during the First World War. Ref: Volunteers, Waiuku, August 1914, photograph reproduced courtesy of Waiuku Museum Society, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 04686. These five men posed on their horses outside the Kentish Hotel on 17 August 1914. Captain John Henry Herrold of the Waikato Mounted Rifles is on the far left. He is accompanied by, from left to right, Troopers Frank Knight , Robert William ('Bob') Hammond , Alexander Glass and Henry Eisenhut . If you would like to add to the records of these first five men, you can do so at the Online Cenotaph website or keep an eye out for ...

The Auckland Literary Trail has been updated and is available for download.The guide from Auckland Libraries and Auckland Council covers a selection of Auckland landmarks that have inspired many great writers and featured in their literary creations. The Auckland Literary Trail guide This includes Waiuku in the South, which was the setting for one of Elsie Locke’s well known children’s novels, 'The End of the Harbour'. The novel features locations such as the Kentish Hotel, which is still standing today. Copies of this novel along with reference notes are held in the heritage collections at Auckland Libraries. Ref: Footprints 04734, Kentish Hotel, 1911, photograph reproduced by courtesy of Waiuku Museum Society, 2621, South Auckland Research Centre