Heritage et AL

The destruction of kahikatea forests in the Hauraki Plains inspired Tāmaki Makaurau artist Toni Hartill’s exhibition Artful Narratives . She has created sculptural artist’s books and art objects that showcase the history of these mighty trees and the importance of caring for the forest remnants. This exhibition will be open to the public on Saturday 2 April until Thursday 2 June 2022, in the Angela Morton Room at Takapuna Library. Due to the uncertainty caused by the current Omicron outbreak, all public artist talks and workshops will be scheduled nearer to the time and announced online . Toni was captivated by the history of the kahikatea swamps of the Hauraki Plains which she discovered while researching an art project about the importance of forest remnants. The kahikatea were cleared to make way for pasture. “I remember as a child being drawn to the sorrowful huddles of the often bedraggled remnants which we passed on the way to visit family - both south to Tauranga, via Waika...

The Sportsman newspaper was a ‘weekly illustrated review of sports’ published each Friday from August 1912 to March 1914, by the Auckland-based Sport Printing and Publishing Company. Although it was an Auckland paper its contents were national and international in scope. It looks as though the run held at Auckland Libraries is unique and thus a potentially underused resource for Aotearoa sports researchers. The copies here have been well read and are in a very fragile condition.  Image: Fragile copies of The Sportsman . The Sportsman The Sportsman appears an almost forgotten publication. There is no mention of it in Te Ara’s story on New Zealand sports reporting , nor in Guy Scholefield's Newspapers in New Zealand or Ian Grant’s recent Lasting impressions: the story of New Zealand’s newspapers, 1840-1920 .   Even more strange is that there is (almost) no mention of it in the contemporary newspapers. The only trace I found is a paragraph in Dunedin’s Evening Star (8 August ...

In May 1890 Auckland newspaper proprietor and publisher Henry Brett released a new illustrated magazine with the lengthy moniker New Zealand Graphic, Ladies Journal and Youths Companion [sic]. His new journal would be a ’lifestyle magazine’ targeted at the affluent, leisured ladies (plus discerning husbands and literate children) of New Zealand’s middle and upper classes. Brett’s vision for his new production was that it should be a high-class illustrated weekly competing with imported English illustrated journals like the Gentlewoman , Cassell’s Family Magazine and the Spectator . Consequently, the first issue of the New Zealand Graphic included serialised chapters from New Zealand author J.C. Firth’s recent book Nation Making: a story of New Zealand Savageism and Civilization , together with handsomely illustrated chapters from English novelist Wilkie Collins’s last novel, Blind Love . These stories featured alongside pages of social gossip, poetry, news and pictures of the latest...

We are pleased to share for your listening pleasure the Top 10 Tracks of 2021 from across our variety of Podcast series and playlists. This is how the numbers rolled! At number one, with nearly 200 more listens than the next track: Kiribati to Aotearoa with Teri Taukoriri is our best travelled podcast track of 2021!  Our analytics show that this reached an audience across the Pacific with most plays registered from The Federation of Micronesia. Originally recorded as part of a project to document Kiribati migration stories in the Warkworth area, this clip supported our Food for Thought exhibition. In it, Sue Berman with Teri Taukoriri about growing up in Kiribati. Teri recalls everyday meals and shares memories of special celebrations and cooking in Kiribati: “Fish is everyday, chicken every now and then but pigs are for special occasions”. Teri goes on to talk about how important fish is to the family here in Aotearoa New Zealand and her favourite way to cook and prepare fish. Th...

Thomas Wing (1810-1888), master mariner, cartographer, harbour master and pilot, was a notable figure in New Zealand’s colonial history. Auckland Libraries has three of his original maps of the west coast of the North Island. They are some of the earliest maps made in New Zealand by Pākehā and are counted among the unique treasures of the library. Wing came from a seafaring family and acquired his maritime knowledge during his youth at the port of Harwich, in Essex, England. He first went to sea aged fourteen and some four years later in 1829 he made his first trip to Sydney on the Ferguson , chartered to transport convicts from Dublin. Although the Ferguson only stayed long enough in Sydney to revictual, Wing would have likely met other mariners and heard talk of New Zealand, the place that was to figure so largely in his later life.  After his return to England, it is believed that the young Wing then joined the Hydrographic Department of the Admiralty where he developed his mari...

 The Camp Gazette has been digitised and made available through Kura Heritage Collections Online .  Image: Camp Gazette, vol. 1, no. 1, 24 November 1913, p.1, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections CG_19131124 . During the General Strike of 1913 farmers from around the region were recruited as mounted ‘special constables’ and public servants were granted leave to serve as ‘foot specials’. In Auckland the New Zealand Farmers’ Union actively sought out volunteers from rural districts. These men came to be known as Massey’s Cossacks after the then Prime Minister, William Ferguson Massey. 1913 remains the most violent strike in Aotearoa's history, although most of the violence occurred in Wellington.  In Tāmaki Makaurau the Special Constables set up camp, initially in Ōtāhuhu, then moved to the main camp at the Domain. On 27 November the Domain Camp closed, and the mounted specials moved to a new camp at the polo grounds in Remuera (where the Dilworth Junior Campus is locate...