Signposts - a blog about Te Ara the Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Canterbury Provincial Buildings, begun in 1858 (click for image credit)

Every December Victoria University of Wellington’s Centre of Building Performance Research holds a one-day symposium that examines New Zealand’s built environment during a particular decade. This year it was the 1850s.

Each year I look forward to this symposium because most historians I meet are more interested in events that take place in built environments rather than the environments themselves. The symposium is therefore a chance to discuss ‘bricks and mortar’ – sometimes literally!

As a number of the speakers pointed out, the 1850s was important for the arrival of photography. For the first time we can see what buildings and places actually looked like, free from the modifying pencil or paintbrush of the artist: the rounded hills of Wellington, painted by the likes of Charles Heaphy in the 1840s, are now revealed as mountainous and rugged. Most speakers made liberal use of photos in their presentations, although due to the basic technology of the 1850s many of these lacked clarity. I can only give a brief account of some of the talks.

Sarah Caylor talked about shit in Wellington. She noted how in 17th-century London human excrement was collected at Dung Wharf on the Thames and then used as a fertiliser for market gardens on the city’s periphery. The same happened in 1850s Wellington, before being discontinued for public health reasons. She suggested it was time we returned to the sustainable practice.

Christine McCarthy examined the ‘V-hut’ as a temporary housing type, described by early settler Charlotte Godley as ‘all roof and no walls’. The building was closely (but not exclusively) associated with the Canterbury settlement, so it’s perhaps no surprise that the ‘Cardboard Cathedral’ currently arising in Christchurch is a V-hut writ large.

Peter Wood spoke about Tāmihana Te Rauparaha’s (long-demolished) house at Ōtaki. It was built beside its more famous neighbour, the Rangiātea Church. Like the church, it was a culturally hybrid building, containing both Pākehā and Māori elements. The verandah posts had figurative carvings and a carved beam. Wood suggested the verandah represented the threshold between a noa (profane) exterior and a tapu (sacred) interior.

In my session, I looked at the way the main towns moved past their frontier origins and became more city-like. I argued that Canterbury Provincial Buildings was the first New Zealand structure to go past the utilitarian architecture of the first settlers and introduce a style that was more intricate and sophisticated. It was our first ‘city building’. Ian Lochhead also examined the Provincial Council Buildings, or rather what remains of them following the 2011 earthquake. The magnificent council chamber collapsed in the quake, but he said there were high hopes it would be rebuilt. He showed us a poignant photograph of recovered blocks of stone laid out in numbered piles on the street. He then showed us a photograph taken 150 years before with some of the same stones sitting in the same place waiting to be shaped and put into place. We all got the Phoenix metaphor.

Other topics included: a history of Ahuriri in Napier, the historical archaeology of post-earthquake Christchurch and Wellington architects in the 1850s.

It was interesting to see how the digital age was changing research practice. The plethora of historical images online meant at least one speaker, whose whole presentation was based on an analysis of photographs, admitted he had never entered the doors of an archive. Most speakers had filled their PowerPoint presentations with jpeg images from digital archives. The online newspaper archive Papers Past was a pivotal source for many. The experience of tramping to a particular archive to work through mountains of files appears to be on the wane.

The event ended with the traditional stroll around the corner to Havana Bar, comprising two 19th-century workers’ cottages that could have been (but weren’t) erected in the 1850s. After a few ales and a lively discussion we agreed next year’s symposium will be on the 1880s.

I’m a part-time creator of content for Te Ara, but outside this time I’m a regular consumer of it. Recently I’ve been struck how technology like the zoomify tool (which allows you to zoom into images) continues to reshape and improve Te Ara.

I’ve been researching the founding of Auckland and Wellington for another project and wanted to know the extent of Ngāti Whātua land ownership in early Auckland. So I went to their iwi entry in the Māori New Zealanders theme and came across this map showing their 1850 land holdings. But it was hard to read and lacked the detail I was after. I wanted to be able to zoom into the Auckland isthmus and get a better idea of the ownership boundaries. As it is included in one of the first themes to be completed, I concluded the map was put up on the site before Te Ara adopted the zoomify tool.

Alexander Turnbull Library, Reference: MapColl 832.4799/1840/Acc.317

It was a completely different experience when I began analysing William Mein Smith’s 1840 plan for Wellington (shown above). Though I’d seen it many times before in books, the full-screen zoomify allowed me to focus in on the detail and make many new discoveries. One thing I hadn’t noticed before was the position of the public wharf – at the end of Taranaki Street. In trading towns like Wellington, wharfside land was the most prized because it rapidly increased in value. So when the time came for the first settlers and investors to choose their sections this land was picked first – if you look closely you can see the numbers 1 and 2 on the sections either side of the wharf.

Of course, Te Aro pā also occupied this land. Its inhabitants refused to budge so its new ‘owners’ could move in, leading to one of the first conflicts between settlers and Māori in Wellington. I’d sometimes wondered why the New Zealand Company had simply not accommodated Te Aro pā in their planning, as they did Kumutoto (Woodward Street) and Pipitea pā (Pipitea Street). After identifying the high value of the Te Aro pā land (through the zoomify), I’ve decided the Company probably figured it was easier to raze Te Aro pā than upset its powerful investors. It didn’t quite go to plan: the pā remained a Wellington landmark long after the New Zealand Company perished.

So, I think it’s brilliant how Te Ara’s continuing adoption of new technology is allowing people like me to discover new things that can help advance knowledge and understanding of where we live.

Aramoana station homestead, Hawke’s Bay

I’ve recently begun researching a Te Ara entry on housing, and was pondering on the different names we have for houses and how they each evoke a different sense of place. A cottage could be located in town or country; flats and apartments bring to mind the bustle of inner-city living; villas and bungalows suggest leafy suburban streets, cribs and baches smack of sun and surf, and farmhouses and homesteads conjure up images of sheep, paddocks and the smell of mud.

I’ve been fascinated how strongly these dwelling types are associated with country living and how this reinforces New Zealanders’ affinity with the land. Most of our housing types have rural origins. Aside from flats and apartments, urban housing types – lofts, terraces, tenements, townhouses and studios – have not been (until recently) part of our vocabulary. As I’ll argue in the housing entry, this is because New Zealand towns and cities were ‘born suburban’. The plentiful supply of land meant there was no need to construct medium-density housing, which was part of the attraction for people coming to live here – and still is.

Equally fascinating is how the meaning of terms for different dwelling types have changed over time. For example, I’d been struck by the word ‘homestead’ ever since I stayed at the one at Totaranui decades ago. The word interested me because, from watching multiple westerns, the word seemed more American than British. I’d never thought to investigate its meaning until starting this entry. Consulting Harry Orsman’s Dictionary of New Zealand English, I found the word was used in New Zealand from the 1840s, which was contemporaneous with United States usage. In the US it referred to a small rural land-holding and farmhouse for working people. In New Zealand, it also had that meaning, but had a further meaning as well: the house of a station owner as opposed to the men’s quarters and other buildings. Yet there was a fine distinction to this definition. A homestead had to be some distance from the men’s quarters (presumably to reinforce social distinctions) otherwise it was called the ‘Big House’. The first meaning evoked the principle of egalitarianism and common access to land; the second meaning spoke of the strictures of the English class system and privilege.

This second meaning has endured while the first has fallen away. In recent times resorts have adopted the word homestead to describe up-market accommodation. For example, the new Wanaka Homestead offers ‘informal luxury in a friendly five bedroom boutique bed and breakfast’. The resort also offered ‘charming cottages’ with ‘apartment style’ serviced facilities for families and the less well off. Is this the beginning of a new dwelling type: the ‘cottage apartment’?

Homestead is not the only housing type whose meaning has changed. In the 1920s a flat referred to a flash apartment; it now more often describes low-end multi-unit dwellings.

Are there others whose meaning has changed? How do you refer to your dwelling: a house, castle, villa, flat, pad, dive? Are particular housing types still a signal of social status, or is where you live more important?

Watches on the wrists of Te Ara old fogies

I was sitting at our staff meeting yesterday and looked at my watch to see the time. I then looked around the room and noticed that quite a number of my colleagues were not wearing wristwatches. There appeared to be a generational divide to this pattern, with those in their 30s and under more likely to have naked wrists than their elders. Was I witnessing the end of the wristwatch?

If so, it paralleled the pattern at home. When my son Fred turned 11 we said he could get a watch for his birthday and that we’d go into town and he could choose it. The expedition mirrored one I’d taken with my parents in the 1970s when I was his age. Getting a watch was big deal then – almost a rite of passage. I can still recall the event vividly. It was late shopping night in the middle of winter. It was cold and raining, but the bleakness was punctured by the blaze of street lights, flashing neon signs, and animated shoppers, including us. We ventured into a Lambton Quay jeweller (long gone) which had cases of childrens’ watches beneath the spotless glass counters. My parents made small talk with the jeweller while I scanned the dazzling collection. The first Japanese digital watches were just coming out and I thought about getting one of those, but the jeweller pointed me in the direction of the Swiss watches. ‘You can’t beat Swiss precision,’ he said to my parents. My eye finally rested on a piece with a gleaming stainless-steel casing, luminous hands and numbers, and a date function. That night I wore the watch to bed, diving under the covers to see its luminous face come to life: awesome! (I found the watch a few weeks back in a battered tin of other childhood mementos. I turned the winding knob, but the timepiece failed to tick, or tock - so much for Swiss precision.)

Fred’s trip to Pascoe’s jeweller lacked the same romance. The children’s watches were confined to a single case. Almost all were digital and featured a multitude of “modern” functions: a stopwatch, calendar, two alarms, and other things I failed to fathom. The one he wanted was larger than his wrist, but he eventually settled for a smaller one. Fred seemed less taken with his first watch than I had been with mine. He regularly forgot to wear it, so our hope that he’d become more punctual never happened.  Within a few months he lost it ‘somewhere’. We eventually got him another one, but that was ‘lost’ too. By this time he had a cellphone and was using it as his timepiece. None of his friends wore wristwatches and he did not see the need for one either. As he explained, if he forgets his phone he can get the time off his iPod. For his generation the wristwatch had lost the social status it had claimed a century before.

So like the roadmap - whose demise I’ve previously blogged about - it seems the wristwatch is fast becoming obsolete. However, I won’t be flaunting a naked right-hand wrist (I’m left-handed) any time soon. I like my watch and take pleasure in its simple design. Sometimes I watch its second hand move around the dial for the sheer pleasure watching the passage of time - it can get quite existential. At other times, I’ve glanced at it and been amazed at how quickly time has passed, or vice versa. I’d feel naked without it. What about you?

This post is part of a series remembering the 1981 Springbok Tour.

I watched Tom Scott’s drama Rage about the 1981 Springbok Tour on the tele last Sunday night. Though I didn’t think much of the femme fatale storyline – it centred on a Māori police graduate who infiltrated an anti-tour protest group, hopped into bed with a Pākehā protest leader and then fed the pillow talk back to her bosses – the premise that the tour was profoundly personal rang true.

The tour divided families, friends and fraternities. In my case, the tour strained the closest relationship I had at the time: with my twin brother Tom. As kids we were best friends. We shared the same room, played the same games and were in the same classes at school. By the 6th form (year 11) we had begun to find our own identities. He started wearing rugby jerseys and threw himself into the first-15 culture; I bought a Clash T-shirt and drifted towards the art-room gang of politicos and punks.

In the lead up Tom and I had a few talks about the forthcoming tour. He spouted the rugby boofhead line that the sports and politics should not be mixed and all he was interested in was the rugby. I retorted that such an ideal was absurd and had been since Hitler staged the 1936 Olympics – but he hadn’t done 5th form history so didn’t get the allusion. We decided we wouldn’t change each other’s view, so we formed a kind of détente where we agreed we would try and get along for the length of the tour. At that stage I was still hoping Muldoon would come to his senses and pull the plug before the Springboks arrived. But of course he didn’t and the team arrived on 19 July – which was also Tom’s and my 17th birthday.

The pitch invasion at the Hamilton game

After the pitch invasion that stopped the Hamilton game I shouted in triumph and Tom got surly. Following the batoning of anti-tour protesters in Molesworth Street, he bluntly told me they got what they deserved. The détente was cracking. When the Wellington test came I joined a protest march trying to invade Athletic Park; he went to a friend’s place to drink beer and watch the game on the tele. In the following weeks the curtain that hung down the middle of our room to prevent disturbance from reading lamps became permanently drawn: our ‘iron curtain’. And the conversations that we used to have about our days before going to sleep ceased. Sneers replaced smiles.

In retrospect, Tom had it harder than I did. We were a family of woolly liberals. Dad had been involved in the 1960 ‘No Maoris, No Tour’ campaign and had recounted tales of joining a moving picket around the Square in Palmerston North and being pelted with abuse. Tom no doubt felt isolated from the rest of us and clammed up. But I think we did all watch the final Eden Park (flour bomb) test together and cheered when Allan Hewson kicked the series-winning penalty. For Tom I imagine it a great All Black rugby moment; for me it was relief that it wasn’t a propaganda victory for the apartheid regime. Not long after the tour our older brother left home and Tom moved into the vacated room. We were soon speaking again but, since then, have never mentioned our ‘cold war’. Perhaps, like many other battle-weary New Zealanders, we just wanted to forget that the tour’s 56 surreal days had ever happened and get on with living.

It seems to me that the only winner out of the fiasco was Muldoon. The pro-tour rural vote saw him narrowly win the 1981 election. One of the things Rage depicted was the extent (unknown to me) to which his officials tried to get him to call off the tour even as it was proceeding. That he ignored this advice and was prepared to let his country rip its own guts out for political gain highlights the deep cynicism of the man. So this Monday – 12 September and the 30th anniversary of the end of the tour – I’ll celebrate that we’ve never had another leader like him. I’ll also give Tom a ring.