Heritage et AL

Future soldiers The photograph below was taken on the opening day of Manurewa School, 3 September 1906. This group includes a number of boys who a few years later would see active service during the First World War. Those in the back row are Walter Burton (fourth from left), Bert Ralls (sixth), Ted Mills (eighth), George Coxhead (tenth), Walter Costar (eleventh), Henry Lupton (thirteenth) and Bert McAnnally (furthest right). In the second row are Sam Craig (third from left), Douglas Wood (fourth), Horace Slight (seventh), Jack Freshney (ninth), Laurie Mills (tenth) and Fred Lupton (eleventh). Bert Mills is in the front row (tenth from left). Ref: Opening day, Manurewa School, 3 September 1906, photograph reproduced courtesy of Manurewa Historical Society, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 03723. Walter Costar, Bert McAnnally, Cecil Slight and Douglas Wood would all be killed or die of wounds. Walter’s younger brother, Reginald, absent...

100 years ago this Sunday, 24 January, the Featherston Military Training Camp officially opened its doors to men from around the country. Ref: Auckland Weekly News, New Zealand's latest training centre for recruits, 10 February 1916, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19160210-43-1. As part of our ongoing commitment to the New Zealand’s First World War centenary commemorations Auckland Libraries have recently a digitised a small but important resource for understanding life in New Zealand during the First World War, specifically life in the Featherston Camp. In and around Featherston Camp  by Sir Alfred Hamish Reed is a small volume written in a calligraphic hand with medieval-style ornate initials and illustrated with photos pasted on. Ref: AH Reed, In and around Featherston Camp, title page, c1917, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, NZMS 1827.

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.

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.

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”.

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, ...

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...

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...

Eli and Selina Warburton of Lancashire, England, had 2 children, James Hartley and Edna, while living in England. The Warburton family immigrated to New Zealand in the early 20 th Century. The Warburton family: from Lancashire to New Lynn The 1901 UK census shows that at 3 years old James Hartley Warburton was living with his father Eli Warburton (31 years old), cotton weaver, his mother Selina Warburton (26 years), and his sister Edna (2 years old) at 18 Merton Street, Lancashire. The NZ Electoral Rolls show that the Warburtons were living in New Lynn by 1911.  If you would like to search the 1841-1911 UK Census records they are easy to access for free at any of the Auckland Libraries through the   Ancestry and FindMyPast databases  in the Digital Library. The New Zealand electoral rolls are available on microfiche at Auckland Libraries’ Research Centres as well as online at Ancestry. Opening Day at New Lynn School Ref: Opening day at New Ly...

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...

Today, November the eleventh, is the anniversary of Armistice Day, which commemorates the signing of the armistice between Germany and the Allies to end fighting on the Western Front of World War One. The Auckland Weekly News Photographic Supplement contains many images relating to Armistice Day beginning with the singing of the armistice in 1918. The selection of photographs below show how Armistice Day was remembered by earlier generations around New Zealand and the Pacific: Ref: Auckland Weekly News, parade of school cadets in Queen St., 17 November 1921, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19211117-34-1