Heritage et AL

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.

As posted earlier on Heritage et AL (see the post on 14th April ), John Barr (Chief Librarian at Auckland Public Library 1913-1952) and his wife Jessie came to live in Auckland in the early 20th century. Like many immigrants they remained attached to their home country, Scotland, while also becoming increasingly engaged with the history, life and culture of their new home in Auckland. They were very active members of the Auckland St Andrews Society. As secretary of the St Andrews Society in 1919, John Barr took care of many of the arrangements for the installation of J.M. Mennie’s gift to Auckland of a Robert Burns statue (ref: Auckland Star , 03 May 1919, p.11 ). The statue was installed and unveiled in Auckland Domain in 1921 (ref: New Zealand Herald , 5 November 1921, p. 8 ). Ref: Frederick George Radcliffe, statue of Burns, Auckland Domain, c. 1921, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 35-R142 Jessie performed in the St Andrews Society production of “Bu...

I became curious about the poll tax when a customer requested a book by Nigel Murphy called ' The Poll Tax in New Zealand ' (1994). The research and writing of this book was commissioned by the New Zealand Chinese Association . The book highlights the NZ government's involvement in discrimination against Chinese settlers and the hardships they suffered as a result of the steep poll tax they had to pay when moving to NZ (see post on 19 March 2013).. The NZ government introduced the poll tax in 1881. Under the Chinese Immigrants Act only Chinese immigrants had to pay the poll tax. The tax was a response to anti-Chinese attitudes in European settler society after an economic slump and increasing competition for jobs. Ref: 31-60218, Mr Going, 1910, Sir George Grey Special Collections