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

Queen Elizabeth II opens New Zealand's 1974 session of Parliament

Today Te Ara commemorates the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, the queen of New Zealand and the nation’s head of state, with two new entries, one on the Royal family and a second on Governors and governors general. Our sister site NZHistory also joins the party with an essay specifically focused on Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee.

For those of us under the gold card age of 65, which of course includes a large majority of New Zealanders, Elizabeth II is the only sovereign we have known. She came to the throne in 1952 as a young married woman of 25, with two pre-schoolers. The following year she was crowned in a ceremony which many New Zealanders listened to on their crackling radios. And at the end of 1953 she stepped onto New Zealand soil, the first reigning monarch to do so. As the NZHistory feature on that tour shows, 1953 marked the highpoint of popular adoration for the royal family in New Zealand. About three quarters of the nation stood on apple boxes beside the road to see her and the duke of Edinburgh drive past. As a six year old, I confess to seeing her no fewer than 10 times, and if you look very closely at the clip of her rail journey through Hawke’s Bay you might even see a young boy on the Waipukurau station waving a Union Jack. I remember thinking that she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

As our entry explains, sentiments about New Zealand’s relations with the royal family have undergone rockier fortunes since then. Royal tours do not quite attract the enthusiasm of 1953–54; and the royal family has had some knocks to its role as the ideal family. Two of our prime ministers have even declared themselves republicans; and as the entry on governors and governors general explains, we have repatriated that office. The governor general remains the queen’s representative, but those occupying the office are now locals, who are also representative of the New Zealand community with all its ethnic and social diversity.

Yet, just as in the last years of the 19th century Queen Victoria’s stock rose remarkably as she came to commemorate her diamond jubilee (statues of her began to appear around the empire), a similar upsurge seems to be happening to Queen Elizabeth II. Her calm dignity has won huge admiration and another spectacularly successful royal wedding has garnered another generation of adoring fans for the royals.

It is one of the strange accidents of history that Queen Elizabeth’s ascension to the throne came on Waitangi Day, 6 February 1952. This has a remarkable pertinence because the Treaty of Waitangi was signed by Lieutenant Governor Hobson on behalf of Queen Victoria, and there has always been a powerful relationship between the monarch and the Māori community. When Māori believed that the local Pākehā community was not honoring the treaty, they sent petitions or attempted to visit the sovereign. The film in the Te Ara entry of the young queen’s visit to Turangawaewae in 1953 is a testament to how important that relationship was.

So we hope that the entries launched today on both our sites help encourage reflection on a range of important issues – our relationship with the monarch, the role of the governor general, and the continuing meaning of the Treaty of Waitangi. Look and enjoy.

While Wellingtonians were enjoying the delights of ‘summer’ weather over new year, my partner Janis and I winged our way to the UK for one of our regular visits to her family in the north-east of England. They live in South Shields, a town on the southern bank of the mouth of the River Tyne, just down river from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and just north of the city of Sunderland. South Shields used to be a major centre for ship building and coal mining, as well as a fishing port and a northern seaside resort. Now the ship yards and mines are all closed. Fishing continues but on a smaller scale and, while the town still gets summer visitors, the British holidaymaker is more inclined to head for Benidorm or Grand Canary. Much of the employment in Shields now comes from caring for the town’s high proportion of elderly, while many of the townsfolk commute to jobs in nearby Newcastle and Sunderland.

One of the highlights of South Sheilds – a traditional English pub

South Shields is a place that greatly appeals to me. The Geordies are rightly renowned for their down-to-earth friendliness and sense of humour. (The local people, the ‘folk o’ Shields’ are known as ‘sand dancers’). Shields has a vibrant open-air market, its Ocean Road is famed as one of best ‘curry miles’ in the north-east, there is a spectacular coastline with massed seabirds to attract the twitcher, while in summer brass bands can still be heard playing by the seaside. The archaeological remains of the Roman fort of Arbeia can be seen in the centre of town, Bede’s church of St Paul’s at Jarrow is just down the road, and the medieval priory at Tynemouth is a ferry ride away on the north bank of the Tyne.

There is one historical site in the South Shields suburb of Westoe that provides a direct link with my own home town of Nelson. The William Fox Hotel in Westoe is so named as it is the birth place of William Fox. The William Fox in question was from 1843 to 1847 the New Zealand Company agent in Nelson and went on to become premier of New Zealand on four different occasions!

The birthplace of William Fox in Westoe – now the William Fox Hotel

Fox was born at Westoe around 1812, at a time when it was still a leafy rural village. Born into a reasonably well-off middle-class family, Fox trained and qualified as a lawyer. In 1842 he and his wife Sarah set out for New Zealand, just six weeks after they had married. In New Zealand Fox did some legal work but spent more time as a journalist and editor, and as a New Zealand Company agent. He also went on exploring expeditions with Heaphy, Brunner and Kehu, and built up a reputation as a landscape artist.

Note the fox knocker on the door of the William Fox Hotel

Fox became involved in provincial and colonial politics – with a penchant for making enemies and keeping them. Governor George Grey, Attorney General Martin and the entire Richmond-Atkinson political clan were among those on Fox’s enemies list. Despite the fact that he was premier four times, Fox seemed happiest in opposition. He opposed the Waitara war of 1860, but this appears to have been due to his enmity towards the government of the time rather than due to support for Māori. He was later premier in the mid-1860s when large areas of Māori land were confiscated. Fox continued in politics until 1881; in his later years campaigning for prohibition, state education and votes for women.

In 1849 the Foxes purchased a property in Rangitikei, which they named Westoe after William’s South Shields birthplace. They lived there on and off from 1854 to 1887. His wife Sarah died in 1892, and William died exactly one year later. Fox is commemorated in New Zealand by Foxton and Fox Glacier. In South Shields he is mentioned on the historical information panel at Westoe and with the William Fox Hotel.

Canadians have a strange obsession with dirt and worms, a lot of people received smartphones for Christmas and, on average, people spent 6 milliseconds longer on each page of Te Ara in 2011 than in 2010.

A typical retrospective would look at everything that Te Ara accomplished in 2011, such as publishing 121 new stories. Instead I thought I’d look at our site statistics and see what our millions of users looked at in 2011.

New Zealand

New Zealanders’ three favourite stories were Historic earthquakes, Earthquakes and Active faults, all obviously influenced by the earthquakes in Christchurch, and probably the Japanese earthquake as well. Similarly, two of the top three images were also related to earthquakes:a map of fault lines and a photo of the extinct volcanoes that formed Banks Peninsula. Possibly a sign of the recession: the third most viewed image was a job advertisement used as an example of rural language.

If New Zealanders were looking at those stories and images, what about the rest of the world? (Or at least the five countries that view Te Ara the most.) I’ll leave it to you to consider why these particular stories and images were of interest to visitors from those countries.

United States of America

Favourite stories: Estuaries, Deep-sea creatures and Geothermal energy

Favourite images:

The blobfish

Photosynthesis and chemosynthesis

Estuary food web

Australia

Favourite stories: Historic earthquakes, Tsunamis and Farm dogs

Favourite images:

Active faults

The blobfish

A day at the races

United Kingdom

Favourite stories: Earthquakes, Coastal fish and Sandflies and mosquitoes

Favourite images:

Active faults

Plate boundary

Comparative sizes of whales

Canada

Favourite stories: Papatūānuku – the land, Soils and Earthworms

Favourite images:

Earthworm life cycle

Comparative sizes of whales

Arrow, giant and colossal squid

India

Favourite stories: Earthquakes, Dairying and dairy products, and Conservation – a history.

Favourite images:

The brain drain

Earthworm life cycle

Earthquake-resistant building

Other traffic

It’s always interesting looking at Te Ara’s traffic for the year. You can clearly see events such as the Christchurch earthquake in February, school holidays and the redesign in October.

Overall traffic

Despite our overall traffic going down over December (see above) due largely to school holidays, traffic from mobile devices (smart-phones and tablets) increased (see below).

Traffic from mobile devices

Mobile traffic started increasing dramatically after Christmas. Were a lot of mobile gadgets under the Christmas tree? In 2010 mobile devices only accounted for 1% of Te Ara’s traffic, in 2011 it raised to 3% but since Christmas it’s grown to 8.6%.

Coming up in 2012

Hopefully in 2012 we’ll see fewer natural disasters, so New Zealanders can read less dramatic stories such as Pets, Childhood and our story on our favourite not-that-creepy crawly the Peripatus. Perhaps some of this year’s most popular stories will come from the new stories being added to the Government and Nation theme. Stories on the Second World War, money, the royal family, Kingitanga and New Zealand’s identity will surely spark people’s interest.

Ben Hana/Blanket Man

All cities (and some towns) have their share of people who live their lives, day and night, out on the streets, whether by circumstance or choice. Most remain nameless to those who pass them by, but some become well known enough to gain unofficial names, often based on their appearance. One of those people was Wellington’s Ben Hana – aka Blanket Man – who passed away on Sunday.

It’s probably fair to say that Hana surpassed the fame of those who came before him, such as Robert Jones (Bucket Man) who traversed the streets of Wellington with a bucket in hand for 20 years and was the inspiration for a character in Maurice Gee’s novel Blindsight. Hana is the subject of a Wikipedia entry, a Facebook page, a documentary (which can be viewed online) and an academic conference paper. He featured in Pip Desmond’s 2009 book Trust: a true story of women & gangs. One year a group of people dressed as Blanket Man for the Sevens rugby tournament in Wellington. There will be many more lesser-known instances of Hana’s cultural influence.

While not all supported Hana’s lifestyle, street presence and behaviour, there is little doubt that he was a true and striking character, recognised and known throughout Wellington and beyond. Aside from the periods in which he was carted off to prison or hospital, he was a fixture on the streets – someone we expected to see, either huddled in his blanket or sunbathing on top of it, sometimes abusive but usually smiling and swaying to music. He literally left his mark on the places he inhabited – his dreadlocks left a black smudge on the wall of the Courtenay Place building he sat in front of most recently. A shrine has been erected at this spot.

I didn’t ever really know Hana, but I did come to understand that there was more to him than a printed blanket and a loin cloth when he turned up to a community garden working bee in Te Aro in 2001. The ground was stony and difficult to work, but he wielded his pick-axe with strength and dexterity, blanket flying, throughout the day. The garden was an act of protest against the inner-city bypass road, and Hana also attended marches and meetings about this – I remember seeing a large blanket hanging off the gallery at the town hall during one such meeting, which signalled that he and his comrades were in attendance. You can learn more about his political beliefs and ideas by checking out that documentary mentioned above.

In those days I used to wear a red coat and he always called me Red Riding Hood. Over time the red coat went by the wayside, but we continued to exchange nods. I passed the legend of Blanket Man down to my son, who dressed up as him one day without prompting.

Amos as Blanket Man

Farewell Ben Hana/Blanket Man. You earned your place as a true man of the streets and a Wellington icon. I wonder how the city will recognise your life and contribution to its street culture?

The first arrivals in the New Zealand Company settlements at Wellington, Whanganui, New Plymouth and Nelson in the early 1840s were soon aware of earthquakes. They found them alarming, and started to describe their new home as the Shaky Isles. There were complaints that the New Zealand Company had ignored this distinctive feature of New Zealand life in their glowing publicity about life in a new colony. To start with the earthquakes were simply an odd phenomenon, but on 16 October 1848 a large earthquake shook central New Zealand, causing widespread damage in the town of Wellington.

Cover of The visitation

A recently published book, The visitation: the earthquakes of 1848 and the destruction of Wellington by Rodney Grapes (Victoria University Press, 2011), gives a detailed account of the earthquake and its human impact, based largely on diaries and contemporary accounts.

The 1848 earthquake was the first demonstration to British settlers of the damaging power of earthquakes. Wellington had a population of only about 3,500, but already there were a number of public buildings – churches, a hospital and a gaol. Most of those constructed of brick and mud were damaged, and three people were killed. However, most wooden buildings survived with little damage. The lesson was not lost on the settlers, and is the reason why much of 19th-century Wellington was built of wood.

Not surprisingly, some of the settlers wanted to escape. A week later the sailing ship Subraon set off for Sydney with 60 passengers. But the Subraon didn’t make it out of the harbour, being one of the first wrecks on Barrett Reef. No lives were lost, but over the next few days the passengers struggled back to Wellington. Prominent citizens such as William Fitzherbert (who later became provincial superintendent) were taunted for cowardice in deserting the damaged town.

But Wellington recovered from the earthquake quite rapidly. The British immigrants were not going to be deterred after travelling halfway round the world – and for most there was little to go home to.

The Awatere Fault

Although Wellington was badly damaged, the earthquake was actually centred in the Awatere valley in Marlborough, where few people lived. The visitation explains how the relationship between faults and earthquakes was worked out by geologist Alexander McKay in the 1880s. Although the 1848 rupture along the Awatere Fault is one of the most obvious fault lines in New Zealand, it was not until a century later that there was general acceptance that this was the source of the 1848 earthquake through detailed historical and geological analysis by Grapes, the author of The visitation, and his colleagues.