This week in Christchurch history (25 – 31 August)

25 August 1920
First flight over Cook Strait (Christchurch to Trentham) by Captain Euan Dickson in a Canterbury Aviation Company plane.

26 August 1939
Official opening of City Council’s pensioner housing project in Barnett Avenue, Sydenham; the first local body pensioner housing in New Zealand.

28 August 1890
“Great maritime strike” (the first of New Zealand’s 3 major waterfront strikes) spreads to Lyttelton.

31 August 1959
Princess Margaret Hospital opens.

Cashmere (later Princess Margaret) Hospital, shown under construction
[1956] CCL PhotoCD 17, IMG0099, Christchurch City Libraries
The land for the hospital had been bought from the Cracroft Wilson estate by the North Canterbury Hospital Board in the 1930s. Construction began in May 1952 and the hospital was opened 31 Aug. 1959 by the Governor-General, the Viscount Cobham (1909-1977) and officially named The Princess Margaret Hospital. At one stage it was assumed that it would become Christchurch’s main hospital but it was too far from the town centre.

31 August 1974
Death of Prime Minister Norman Kirk, M.P. for Sydenham. He had earlier been M.P. for Lyttelton, and Mayor of Kaiapoi.
Search our catalogue for Norman Kirk.
View the DigitalNZ set The life and death of Norman Kirk.

Alongside the coffin of the late Prime Minister Norman Kirk at Parliament House, Wellington. Negatives of the Evening Post newspaper. Ref: 1/4-021782-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22870322

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

More August events in the Chronology.