This week in Christchurch history (28 October – 3 November)

29 October 1830
Te Rauparaha charters the “Elizabeth” (under the unscrupulous Captain Stewart) and sails for Akaroa.

30 October 1985
Writer-in-Residence at Canterbury University, Keri Hulme wins internationally prestigious Booker McConnell prize for her novel The Bone People.

31 October 1912
Opening of Queen’s Theatre, the city’s first purposebuilt picture theatre. The building was latterly the M. W. Arcade.

1 November 1906
New Zealand International Exhibition (the biggest in the country to that time) opens in Hagley Park. Over 1 million people visited the exhibition during the next few months. A branch railway line was built across North Hagley Park to service the exhibition. The attractions included New Zealand’s first professional symphony orchestra [conducted by Alfred Hill], and the first Dominion pipe band contest which was won by the Dunedin Highland Pipe Band.

1 November 1921
Woolston Borough joins City.

2 November 1899
Balloonist Captain Lorraine lost at sea after an ascent from Lancaster Park.

2 November 1914
Riccarton (Deans) Bush presented to the city by the Deans family.

A timeline of Christchurch events in
chronological order from pre-European times to 1989.

More October and November events in our Christchurch chronology.

Looking at Labour Day – Monday 28 October 2013

Labour Day is a New Zealand public holiday that celebrates the eight-hour working day. It is observed on the fourth Monday in October. The eight-hour working day and the 48-hour working week became law in New Zealand in 1899. Later, the working week was further reduced to 40 hours. All our libraries are closed today.

Many girls in mass-production factories work on moving belts between 1940 and 1945.

Striking slaughtermen outside the Supreme Court, Christchurch 1907

For more images of people at work, see our page Christchurch at work.