A bunch of New Zealand music books: Picturing Canterbury

           

• Music photos
• More local pictures on the blog
• Browse our image collection

 

Templeton Hotel “studies the comfort of her guests”: 1902

Templeton Hotel (R. T. Day, proprietor), Templeton. This commodious hotel stands immediately opposite the Templeton railway station. The building is of two stories and the bedrooms are lofty and well furnished. A first-class table is kept, and every attention is paid to visitors. The tariff is exceedingly moderate, and there is ample stable accommodation. Situated on the main south road, nine miles west from Christchurch, in the centre of an agricultural village, the Templeton Hotel is a favourite place of call for travellers and visitors. The road from Christchurch is good, and a pleasant drive, or bicycle ride, through Riccarton, Sockburn, and Hornby, brings the visitor to Templton, whence the return journey may be made, either via Prebbleton and Halswell, or through Yaldhurst and Fendalton. Mr. Day is ably assisted in his duties by Mrs Day, who studies the comfort of her guests.

Templeton and Templeton Hotel, The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Canterbury Provincial District], 1903

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We have digitised a rather splendid 1902 publication Tourists’ guide to Canterbury.

 

Picture books: picks from our latest newsletter

Some picks from our April Picture Books newsletter:

    

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Have you read any of these books? If so, we’d love your feedback!

 

Happy Mother’s Day

Kia ora and Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mums. Here are some Mums of days gone by:

Mothers and babies gathered outside St. Helen’s Hospital, Sydenham
The hospital, a wooden building in Durham Street, Sydenham, had been opened about two years earlier. It was a birthing place for the wives of working men. The hospital was, like other hospitals, named St. Helen’s to commemorate the birthplace of the recently deceased Premier, Richard John Seddon (1845-1906).

Proud mothers and their chubby children
Prize-winners in the baby competition, which was a feature of the picnic held at Kowhai [Kowai] Bush, by the combined staffs of the Christchurch City Council.

And some mother photos from our Flickr site:

For more Mother pictures, have a look at the Digital NZ set Mums.

 

“Licensed dealers in game” and the Parker-Hulme connection: Dennis Bros: 1902

Dennis Bros has an interesting Parker-Hulme murder connection:

By 1936, Honora Parker and Herbert Rieper had moved to Christchurch, NZ, living as husband and wife on Mathesons Road in the Phillipstown area of the city, described as “industrial” by Glamuzina and Laurie, but in many respects it seems to have become Honora and Herbert’s ‘neighbourhood’. Mathesons Road lies outside the eastern border of the old town, a couple of blocks north of Lancaster Park and the railway tracks. Hereford St, where Herbert Rieper managed Dennis Brothers’ Fish Supply, was two blocks to the north. (Heavenly Creatures)

Honora was murdered by Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme on 22 June 1954.

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We have digitised a rather splendid 1902 publication Tourists’ guide to Canterbury.

 

Balloon D’Essai and the Haemogoblins at the Gladstone, 1983: Picturing Canterbury

• 1980s Christchurch rock posters
• Music photos
• More local pictures on the blog
• Browse our image collection

 

Christchurch – this week in history (29 April – 5 May)

29 April 1925
Rev J.K. Archer becomes Mayor of Christchurch, New Zealand’s first Labour mayor.

29 April 1934
Visit by George Bernard Shaw. He gave a nationwide radio broadcast from his civic reception in Christchurch.

29 April 1974
Cr. David Caygill, aged 25, becomes the city’s youngest ever acting Mayor (for 5 days).

30 April 1875
New library building completed on the corner of Cambridge Terrace and Hereford Street. Designed by W.B. Armson.

30 April 1971
6000 protesters march against the war in Vietnam.

3 May 1985
6,000 Christchurch citizens rally against the All Black tour of South Africa.
View our collection of protest posters.

4 May 1932
Christchurch Tramway strike. One of the bitterest in the city’s history, it lasted 16 days. There were many injuries and arrests among the strikers. The tram sheds were barricaded with barbed wire, and trams were fitted with wire mesh screens over their windows to ward off attacks.

• More April events in our Christchurch chronology.
• More May events in our Christchurch chronology.

 

Canterbury heroes: Picturing Canterbury

Angus Tait, Margaret Mahy and Elsie Locke: Canterbury Heroes.

• Thinking images
• More local pictures on the blog
• Browse our image collection

 

“We are in the trenches again …

… this time for a longer term, but it is a very easy life. In my present shelter there is actually a four-poster spring bed, and picture prints of distractingly pretty girls round the walls. What do you think of that, within two hundred yards of the Huns? … Of course we are only in the front line part of the time, but it really is the best place …

Letter to Hazel from Cecil Malthus, 11 June 1916

Timaru-born Cecil Malthus wrote two books about his war-time experiences. Born in 1890, he spent three years in service in the 1st Canterbury Battalion from 1914. The Canterbury College modern languages professor first published ANZAC: A retrospect in 1965. In the foreword of the book he wrote:

I offer nothing but the truth for those who want to know what the war was like for the average man. Readers can believe that whatever I relate of my own experience is very nearly the same as what happened to their own uncle or grandfather.

A collection of Malthus’ letters has been digitised and made available online by Christchurch City Libraries. The letters are penned to his future wife, Hazel Watters. Malthus died on 25 July 1976.

This collection of letters and documents dates from April 1914 to his discharge in April 1917. The collection is not complete, and portions of some letters are missing. The letters follow Malthus’ progress from training in New Zealand to his experiences throughout the war, including time in Egypt preparing for Gallipoli, and his time in France. Malthus was injured in September 1916 and returned to New Zealand in March 1917.

 

Advanced women and their corsets: 1902

An advertisement for corsets sold by J. Ballantyne & Co., Christchurch and Timaru
[1902]

Corsets in the DigitalNZ collection.

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We have digitised a rather splendid 1902 publication Tourists’ guide to Canterbury.

I will share some of the interesting ads and pictures from it in a series of posts - there’s lots of information about local businesses and places in 1902.