Previously only available in an online text form, one of the most useful and readable books about Wellington’s local history is now fully digitised on Wellington City Recollect.

The Streets of my City broke new ground when it was first published in 1948, presenting Wellington’s past through a tour of its streets and how they had been named. It was a radical departure from previous dry and somewhat pedestrian works of local history such as Alan Mulgan’s The City of the Strait (1939) and Louis Ward’s Early Wellington (1929). It was the culmination of years of work by one of Wellington’s most remarkable women from the first half of the 20th Century, F. L. (Fanny Louise) Irvine-Smith.

She was born in Napier on 10 September 1878 but her father died in an accident when she was only six-months old and the family moved to Wellington after her mother remarried. She attended Wellington Girls’ College from 1892 to 1895, then attended teachers’ college which began her life-long professional involvement in education. Her first teaching position was as a young intern at Fitzherbert Terrace School in Thorndon in 1897 (eventually to become Samuel Marsden Collegiate) when she was aged only 19 and she soon accepted a number of placements around the North Island. As she never married, Irvine-Smith was free of the social norms of the period that expected women to give up their careers upon marriage. She completed her teaching qualifications in New Plymouth in 1898, then returned to Wellington and enrolled at Victoria College (now Victoria University) where she studied part-time while continuing to teach, graduating with a B.A. in 1908. While there she also became the founding editor of the university review magazine, Spike which remained in publication for 60 years. She returned to the institution in 1920 where she completed a M.A in history; a rare achievement for women in this period.

Continue reading “‘The Streets of My City’: the Legacy of Fanny Irvine-Smith” →

A century ago, the Wellington City Council was dealing with similar issues to those facing planners today: how to manage shifts to new modes of transport and how to keep traffic moving safely and freely.

The 1920s saw much of Wellington transformed with huge investments in new infrastructure and a shift to new modes of transport. Much of this change was driven by the rise in the popularity of motor vehicles after World War I. Before the war, cars were primarily toys for the very wealthy, but technological advancements and increasing standards of living saw them become aspirational products for the middle class in the post-war period. For much of this early period in our automotive history, most cars were imported as a basic chassis with motors and running gear already installed. It would then be left to local coachbuilders who had adapted their skills in making buggies and carts, to turn this basic building block into a ‘car’. Two examples of the same make and model of car could end up looking very different to each other depending on which coachbuilder had been contracted to complete each vehicle.

Under the Motor Regulation Act 1908, the Wellington City Council took control of all motor vehicle licensing, the issuing of number plates and annual vehicle registration. Concerns were soon raised about the safety of Wellington’s early car drivers. In 1916 fewer than half the drivers of the roughly 1000 vehicles registered in Wellington actually held ‘certificates of competency’ (i.e. a driver’s licence) and accidents were common. On-street parking within the inner-city was actually banned until 1917 when increasing demands from vehicle owners finally saw the council relent and motor vehicles were allowed to be parked for limited periods for the first time (much to the chagrin of the owners and drivers of horse-drawn vehicles). With increasing car importations (especially of complete cars) and large disparities in the manner that different councils were administering vehicle licensing, the passing of the Motor Vehicles Act in 1925 saw the government take full control of the issuing of number plates, recording ownership changes, annual registration and drivers’ licensing; all of which was administered by the Post Office. However, local councils were still able to dictate how motor vehicles could operate and drivers had to be aware of different bylaws which were in place in different parts of greater Wellington.

In 1929, the City Council published The Complete Wellington Guide, in part to promote the capital to tourists but also to educate locals on the somewhat complicated rules around owning and operating a motor vehicle. For example, in Wellington the speed limit was set at 25 mph (40 kph) but this dropped to 15 mph (24 kph) outside schools, hospitals, close to any intersection or when passing a stopped tram travelling in the opposite direction. To further complicate matters, Lower Hutt had a main street speed limit of 20 mph (but 10 mph crossing the Hutt River and Melling bridges) while most of Petone’s streets had a speed limit of only 15 mph. There were several rules regarding cars driving around trams, including no passing of any tram that had stopped in the road and no passing on the ‘off side’ (i.e. to the right) of any tram at any time be it moving or stationary (similar rules remain in Melbourne to this day).

A bylaw introduced by the council in 1928 saw a multitude of different traffic rules for Wellington formalised including setting the traffic flow direction of Kent and Cambridge Terrace and declaring several streets to be one-way only (e.g. Dixon Street from the Taranaki Street intersection). Many of these rules remain current in 2022. A detailed map was printed instructing drivers where they could park in the inner-city and for how long. Parking meters were not introduced until 1954 so it was left to staff of the WCC Traffic Department to enforce parking rules and time limits. Street maps of the entire city were included in the Complete Guide, as well as the Petone, Lower Hutt and Eastbourne boroughs. These give an interesting insight into how our city has grown since the booklet was published. Tourist information included details about Wellington bus tours, rail excursions and day-trip suggestions for those lucky enough to own a car. Special emphasis was placed on the hunting and fishing opportunities available in the wider region, with a provincial map showing what types of game could be found in different areas. Hunting and trout fishing were widely promoted and often used to advertise the region to potential or newly arrived British migrants, many of whom were staggered to discover that pursuits which were largely restricted to the aristocracy and upper-classes in the UK were so available to the ‘common man’ in Wellington.   

The Complete Wellington Guide on Wellington City Recollect

 

 

 

 

Recollect now hosts the complete digitised collection of Scope, the essential guide to Wellington’s alternative scene in the early 1990s.

Scope was an alternative culture magazine published during 1991 and 1992. Often irreverent, occasionally salacious and sporting cutting-edge design, Scope attracted diverse contributors such as the writer Emily Perkins, local dance music pioneer Jason Harding (aka Clinton Smiley) and journalist John Campbell writing under his pseudonym ‘Sparky Plug’. It was founded by Mark Cubey & Michael Lockhart and published by their company Cadre Communications Ltd. Jim Scott joined the team and the trio drove the magazine forward over ten issues. Michael Lockhart was largely responsible for the magazine’s distinctive design, Jim Scott generated most of the ideas and sold advertising while Mark Cubey pulled everything together.

It arose out of Cadre’s earlier production of  RAD, a promotional magazine for Wellington’s then-student radio station Radio Active. Though it was printed on glossy paper with high production values, Scope was given away as a ‘freebie’ with costs largely covered by the local businesses who advertised in it. Cadre had previously shared premises with the Capital Mac Centre, which was then the principal reseller of Apple products in Wellington. Not surprisingly, the Apple Mac desktop went on to have a significant impact on the look of the Scope. As was the case with RAD, the style of the layout designed by Lockhart was influenced by Neville Brody’s work in the 1980s UK magazines, The Face and Arena, and accomplished with the burgeoning typographic capabilities of the then-new ‘Mac’.  The high-impact covers were created using the first version of Adobe Photoshop by Jeremy Jones, an employee of The Bureau, a joint venture also run by Lockhart & Cubey that focused on the production of bromides, film separations, colour laser prints and related image work for advertising agencies and other commercial clients.  The combination of using full colour text and photographs on the covers resulted in digital file sizes that were sometimes so large that they crashed the processing machines.

Fashion was treated in a startlingly contemporary manner by the magazine’s principal fashion photographer, Craig Owen. He used his time at Scope to build up his portfolio and went on to became one of the most sought-after fashion photographers in Australasia until his untimely death in 2012. Jim Scott also took photos, including most of the ‘society’ photos that were a core part of the content, at venues like Clare’s and Sol Bar that were riding the new wave of ‘techno’ dance music.  However, while the magazine managed to keep a regular publication schedule in 1991, advertising was hard to sell for a boutique small-run publication like Scope at a time when the NZ economy was heading into recession . Coupled with this was the time and effort required to follow-up unpaid invoices as printing costs needed to be covered.

In an effort to widen the appeal of the magazine, the March / April 1992 issue expanded to 70 pages with longer-form articles & reviews and a $3 cover price. However, sales were low and the revenue gathered was not able to cover the cost of producing the extended issue. Michael Lockhart decided to leave the enterprise at this point but Cubey & Scott persisted, returning the magazine to being a ‘freebie’ and moving it to a dramatic A3 sized format. Issue 10’s colophon described Scope as being “an occasional magazine keeping an eye on Wellington” but it turned out to be the last edition to be published. The following year, Cubey and Scott both became involved in the start-up and production of the newspaper City Voice (also digitised on Recollect). At the end of the 1990s, Cubey left City Voice and teamed up with Mikee Tucker to begin publication of the full-colour popular culture magazine, LOOP.

Scope magazine on Recollect

Wellington City Libraries wishes to thank and acknowledge the former directors of Cadre Communications for allowing us to digitise Scope on a Creative Commons basis. Special thanks go to Mark Cubey who supplied us with the original copies that were scanned for this collection and for providing information about the history of Scope used in this blog. 

Wellington is full of public works of art that blend seamlessly into our landscape. Sculptures effortlessly populate the waterfront and botanic gardens while many murals and installations take pride of place on retaining walls, the sides of buildings and in the city’s parks. Many of us tend to wander past these works on our way to work with little more than a passing glance. They’ll be there tomorrow, right?

In 1996 Maribeth Coleman, an American who found herself living at the end of the world in Roseneath, began to notice all of this creativity while she commuted between her many volunteering roles in the community. From this seed a project was created; to photograph and record and much of Wellington’s public art as possible. Over the following eight years Maribeth continued with her documentation, compiling her work into 10 hefty volumes which she donated to the Central Library shortly before moving back to the United States.

The entire archive is worth a browse, but here’s some notable works which you might remember if you spent time in Wellington around 20 years ago. They’re now long gone; buildings demolished, murals painted over, old replaced with new.

Manners Mall Fountain, c. 1989
Back when this section of Manners Street was completely pedestrianised, this fountain was despised by local businesses for attracting loiterers and the occasional bottle of bubble bath. It appears the loiterers didn’t like it either; extensive graffiti and damage resulted in the central sculpture to being removed in 1997, followed by the rest of the fountain in 2001.

 

Te Aro Park Women’s Toilets, Bill Mackay
A little further down the street was the Te Aro Park Women’s bathrooms. These were painted by local muralist Bill Mackay in 1983, and remained until the building was demolished in 1998. An updated version of the mural was painted on the replacement toilets the following year by Marz Cummings.

 

Untitled Mural 1972, J.R. Cowan
Despite his significance as a New Zealand artist and potter, Roy Cowan’s Untitled Mural 1972 unfortunately makes the list of forgotten works. This large-scale mosaic was commissioned by the National Mortgage & Agency Co of NZ Ltd and is potentially still in its place in a Featherston Street office building; but renovations since means it is no longer accessible by the public.

 

Spinnable Smith Laundrette, 2001
This laundrette-turned-arts centre once sat right in the path of the proposed Wellington Bypass construction. It was painted by the community during the 2001 Fringe Festival and featured anti-bypass messages. However, this was not enough to save the building however and it was eventually demolished to make way for the new road in 2006.

 

Gateway for Giants, Chris Finlayson
In 1991 muralist Chris Finalyson was commissioned to paint the front of this Taranaki Street building, occupied by the Forest and Bird protection society. It was a significant feature of the building for about 15 years before the site was demolished for the development of an apartment block.

 

(Fake) Moa, Dominion Farmers Institute 
This moa pushes the boundaries of what is and isn’t art. However, Maribeth felt compelled to take a photo of it, so here we are. Much remembered by frequenters of the Dominion Farmers Institute building on Featherston Street, nobody seems to know where it came from or where it is now.

 

There’s over 360 works in this public art archive so be sure to see it in its’ entirety on Wellington City Recollect.