Unless you’ve got a Tardis handy, you’ve only got one week left to hand in your sonic screwdrivers to Central Library Peterborough! Our Create Your Own Sonic Screwdriver Competition ends this Sunday 20th September* at 5.00pm, so get your entries in quick to be in with a chance to win some great prizes.
I’ll be sad to say goodbye to our shiny Dalek (Peterborough’s security guard stand-in kindly loaned by Addington Books) so thank goodness we’re getting some sonic screwdrivers to arm ourselves with in case we get overrun with Cybermen wanting to use our wi-fi.
Photograph Maori Land March demonstrators between Te Hapua and Mangamuka. Heinegg, Christian F, 1940- :Photographs of the Maori Land March. Ref: PA7-15-16. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22729894
Forty years ago a landmark event in New Zealand history began in a small Northland community called Te Hapua, the most northerly settlement in Aotearoa.
This was the beginning point of a protest march that, over the course of a month, would take in the length of the North Island. The greater distance however was yet to be travelled – that towards a bicultural New Zealand.
This was an important moment in New Zealand history. Since the signing of the The Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, Māori had been increasingly alienated from their land. Legislation often disadvantaged Māori in the way it applied to land that was collectively (or tribally) owned.
Time after time, Māori land was transferred to Crown ownership via one piece of legislation or the other. Māori land ownership had dwindled from 67,000,000 acres to just 2,000,000 acres. The petition that accompanied the march, or hīkoi, identified the Town and Country Planning Act, the Public Works Act, the Rating Act, and the Counties Amendment Act as contributing to this problem.
Organised by Te Rōpū o Te Matakite, a pan-tribal group, and led by Dame Whina Cooper the march culminated in a 5000-strong crowd arriving at Parliament with a petition signed by 60,000 people and presented to Prime Minister Bill Rowling. The petition called for “the abolition of monocultural laws pertaining to Maori land” and pressed those in power “to establish communal ownership of land within the tribe as a legitimate title equal in status to the individual title”.
Though it took place in the North Island, as this map of the march route shows, the intention was that Māori from all over the country would be involved, making it a national movement. It was expected that South Island protesters would meet with their northern counterparts in Wellington.
Archives New Zealand has digitised a selection of documents and images that tell the story of the march. View them in their 1975 Māori Land March set on Flickr.
14 September 1976
Inter-island ferry service from Lyttelton ends with the last sailing of the Rangatira.
15 September 1975
Christchurch (Dorset, England), becomes a sister city.
16 September 1864
Opening of second Town Hall, built of stone next to the first hall in High Street.
The old town halls, High Street, Christchurch [between 1864 and 1882], CCL PhotoCD 10, IMG002018 September 1980 Theatre Royal bought by Theatre Royal Charitable Foundation to be renovated and preserved as a theatre.
19 September 1865
South Island Separation Bill defeated in Parliament by 31 votes to 17. Find out more in Papers Past, including report on the Separation Debate, Daily Southern Cross, 21 September 1865.
19 September 1904 Concert by pianist Jan Paderewski. He later became Prime Minister of Poland. Read Bernice’s blog post on President Paderewski.
![The old town halls, High Street, Christchurch [between 1864 and 1882], CCL PhotoCD 10, IMG0020](https://i0.wp.com/christchurchcitylibraries.com/heritage/photos/disc10/IMG0020.jpg)
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