Sandwiched between the White Hart Hotel and the Universal Boot Depot at 223 and 225 High Street, was the business founded by Mr James Freeman, pastry cook and caterer. After browsing through Messrs…
It is the start of the second week of June 1919 and New Zealand’s Prime Minister, William Massey and the Minister of Finance, Sir Joseph Ward, are in Paris awaiting the signing of the Peace Treaty …
To the inhabitants of colonial Nelson, Léontine, Countess de la Pasture was the epitome of Victorian refinement and manners. To her husband – Gerard Gustavus Ducarel, the fourth Marquis de la…
In early October 1889, my 2 x great aunt, Clara Wright leaves her family home in Thames and travels on the steamer, ‘Tarawera’ to start a new life with her estranged father in Christchu…
Bathing machines are at last to be established at Sumner, and they will supply a want which has long been felt. There is one already at New Brighton in connection with the Hotel, but I should imagi…
A Tale of Convicts, Ship Wrecks, Strange Family Relations, and a £500 Bequest. Before the Canterbury Settlement was inaugurated, a young Australian lad landed at Port Cooper in the company of his f…
‘Ice Cream Charlie’ operated a well-known ice cream cart in Cathedral Square for much of the first half of the twentieth century. He was reknowned for his friendly nature and delicious …
On this summer’s day in 1906, the ten o’clock morning tram to Sumner is about to depart from outside the Royal Exchange in Cathedral Square. An excursion to Sumner was a popular outing …
“William Wilson was formerly a cabbage dealer in Canterbury; but fourteen years ago he was poor, whereas now he is rich, a circumstance attributable to a lucky speculation in a piece of land …
Conan Doyle’s fascination with the supernatural brought him to New Zealand in 1920 – where he met a special terrier named ‘Darkie’ who he believed had mystical powers. In th…
“The tale of a shipwreck has for most readers a fascination unequalled by any other of the many forms of tragedy which from time to time sweep some unlucky band or section of humanity into et…
The health benefits, cleanliness and exoticism of the Turkish Bath so appealed to Canterbury settlers that it became the height of fashion in the 1880s. Today we enjoy city operated spa facilities …
Retired Aircraft Engineer, Corporal Colin Creighton, No. 41 Squadron, RNZAF recounts his experiences serving during the American Vietnam war.
Charismatic, athletic and intelligent, Jonathan Roberts came from a respectable family. A native of Cornwall, he immigrated to New Zealand with his family as a small child in 1862. After leaving sc…
Dressed in a black cutaway coat, dark trousers and a white silk neckcloth, and sporting a Billy-Cock hat over short hair, Henry Jame Muir stood before a London magistrate in 1889 dressed in the clo…
From 1919 until 1963, New Zealand audiences were guaranteed ‘snappy scenes, bright singing, excellent dancing and sparkling comedy’ when attending a Stan Lawson Production.
Sandwiched between the iconic White Hart Hotel and the Universal Boot Depot at 223-225 High Street, was the business founded by Mr James Freeman, a pastry cook and caterer. Opened in 1891, the buil…
“Perambulators are one of the necessities of the nineteenth century. The children of savages may roll in the dust or be carried in a shawl, or strapped to a piece of board, but the children of civi…
John Jauncey Buchanan and his Valuable Allotment Before arrival in Christchurch, the family of Scotsman John Jauncey Buchanan purchased land on what would become the centre of Christchurch. It was …
After the September, 1888 earthquake centred in Hanmer caused extensive damage to the Christchurch cathedral, the government geologist, Alexander McKay was sent out to review the land damage. This …
Shortly after 4 o’clock this morning the whole of the South and a portion of the North Island was shaken by a violent shock of earthquake, the most severe experienced for more than 20 years……
This photographically produced postcard of Christchurch’s Provincial Government buildings, appearing twisted and warped, was a semi-humorous card sent out at Christmas after the Murchison ear…
The Anglican church of St. Michael and All the Angels, at 84 Oxford Terrace, stands on the site of the first church the Canterbury Association’s settlers built in 1851. Perhaps there a…
Earthquakes in Christchurch are not unusual events, we’ve been beset with them since European settlement began – and no doubt long before. What is most disturbing of all is that our Eur…
The town of Lyttelton on Saturday morning (15 August) was thrown into a state of great excitement owing to a most extraordinary rise and fall of the water in the harbour…
“William Wilson was formerly a cabbage dealer in Canterbury; but fourteen years ago he was poor, whereas now he is rich, a circumstance attributable to a lucky speculation in a piece of land …
The first part of the twentieth century was the heyday for the department store in New Zealand. The iconic department store, Hays, was a ‘household name’ in Christchurch from its incept…
“Jog on, jog on, the footpath way. And cheerily hent the stile, A merry heart goes all the way, Your sad tires in a mile.” — “A Winter’s Tale,” Sheakespeare. Such is t…
One of the most famous literary figures of the nineteenth century to visit Christchurch, was author, raconteur, journalist and social critic, Mark Twain. Tired and elderly, yet a force to be recko…
German born colonist, Sir Julius von Haast, was an explorer specialising in geology. Amongst his many achievements was the founding of the Canterbury Museum. Born Johann Franz von Haast in 1822, in…