The story of a rugby mad church cleric, his neglected wife and a widowed publican. Read time approximately 26 minutes. He was a widower and father of two children. She was a cleric’s wife, te…
For £55, reports The Press in 1909, an Antipodean may travel to London and back via the Cape, and secure a very pleasant holiday. For boarders and employees at Alfred and May Burn’s ‘Silver Grid’ b…
Cobb & Co, Corner of Cashel and High Streets c. 1880. Source: Christchurch City Libraries Photo Collection 22, Img 00803, Private Collection For as far back as 1856, when the first hansom cab p…
“When the Clerk of the Court, in his quiet, matter-of-fact way, called Arthur Robert Howard, there was a hush of the murmured conversation among the crowd, and everyone looked towards the doo…
As Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee drew near in 1897, plans were being put in place throughout the Dominion for suitable memorials. In Christchurch, a number of funds were set up and subscri…
When Christchurch was Young Written for Ellesmere Guardian by Mr W. A. Taylor, 1944 The Avon river (Otakaro) predates its sister stream the Heathcote (Opawaho) as a navigable course to Christchurch…
“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…
For the first Catholics in Christchurch, the purchasing of land within the city boundaries was met with great difficulty. Their first hurdle was to secure land from the Anglican dominated hierarchy…
From 1919 until 1963, New Zealand audiences were guaranteed ‘snappy scenes, bright singing, excellent dancing and sparkling comedy’ when attending a Stan Lawson Production.
This charming advertisement designed in 1913, was printed onto postcards and distributed at the New Zealand High Commission Office in London to attract young, single women to the colony. Irregardle…
Dominating a once simpler Cathedral Square, are the formidable buildings – Government Life Insurance Building, the Grand Theatre, the Crystal Palace Theatre, the Reuters Telegram Company Buil…
Christchurch has a frontier appearance about it in this photograph taken by Dr. Barker in 1860 from the tower of the Canterbury Provincial Buildings. With little beyond the immediate streets, it c…
The moving of the Post Office from Market Square to its new site in Cathedral Square, was a significant development in Cathedral Square’s importance in Christchurch business and city life. Th…
Imagine you were born 100 years ago… what job would you have done? If you are female, part of the working class and living in England, then there is a one in three chance that you would be pa…
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……
After World War One, there was a growing appetite for the glitzy glamour of the ‘Jazz Age’ and Hollywood. Christchurch residents were hungry to embrace American culture and its new comm…
“To settle what seems to be a somewhat vexed question, a representative of the Lyttelton Times yesterday made inquiries among a number of the Pilgrims with regard to the authenticity, or otherwise,…
Almost a century ago, the story of Mary Poppins and the Match-Man was published for the first time – in Christchurch’s afternoon newspaper, The Sun. But how did the story of the world’s most famous…
Excitement at Lyttelton The ordinary routine of running the express train on the No. 2 wharf at Lyttelton and transferring the passengers to the waiting ferry steamer was disturbed on the evening o…
“Of all the beautiful places in New Zealand – Christchurch is one of the prettiest. As the metropolis of the Canterbury province, the city has been built in the old Elizabethan style, …
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…
In 1877, the world was abuzz with the news of Professor Bell’s invention – the telephone. The Steinway Hall, in New York, was packed to capacity on the 2nd of April, 1877 with the firs…
It was a warm fair day on the 16th December 1919, a light nor’easterly breeze was blowing through the city. Much the same weather was being experienced throughout the whole of the Dominion. T…
The first stone structure built in Cathedral Square was the small Gothic stone Torlesse building. Situated in the south-west corner of the square, the two storey, three gable dormer windowed buildi…
Christchurch was the last of the four cities to introduce electric trams. They had tried to introduce the system in 1902, but it was prior to the amalgamation of the boroughs, so with the advent of…
The New Premises of the D.I.C. Cashel and Lichfield Streets, Christchurch From the ashes of the conflagration which ravaged the business heart of the city a year ago, there has arisen a wonderfully…
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…
Christchurch’s newest and grandest hotel in the first decade of the 1900s was the Clarendon Hotel situated on the corner of Oxford Terrace and Worcester Street. It replaced the former two-sto…
The Royal Exchange’s beautiful tower, dome and decorative facade is taking shape as the building nears completion. Fresh to the shores of New Zealand, the Australian architect brothers …
“Christchurch people of the younger generations and strangers to the city who wander among the ordered prettinesses of the Christchurch Botanical Gardens, and pace along the pleasant winding paths …