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Colonial Life in New Zealand

Colonial New Zealand covers the years 1769-1914. The resources include European discovery of New Zealand, contact with Māori, New Zealand wars, Pākehā colonisation, social life, economy, politics and major events of the time. SCIS no: 1838439

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Pakeha and Maori couple

Pakeha and Maori couple

Portrait photography was very popular in the late 19th Century. Studio portraits like this one tended to use the same props and poses for each customer, although this Whanganui photographer William...

English architecture

English architecture

Canterbury Provincial Council Chamber designed by colonial architect Benjamin Mountford.

Kawhia school pupils

Kawhia school pupils

Pupils displaying their work outside the Kawhia native school.

The sailing ship ‘Maori’

The sailing ship ‘Maori’

A broadside view of a fully-rigged ship flying the Red Ensign, shown in the English Channel with Dover Castle and the cliffs of Dover in the background. The Maori made a number of visits to New Ze...

Label from the St George Preserving & Canning Company Ltd

Label from the St George Preserving & Canning Company Ltd

Shows for each side of tin, the two larger panels incorporating insets of a circular motif showing St George on horseback fighting a dragon. One panel shows a background of a lake surrounded by hil...

Unidentified colonial family

Unidentified colonial family

Photograph taken by the studio of William James Harding, Whanganui. Source of descriptive information - Negative register and inscriptions on negative Quantity: 1 b&w original negative(s). Physi...

Woman from Hawkes Bay district

Woman from Hawkes Bay district

Carte de visite portrait of Maraea Morete (Maria Morris), from Hawkes Bay, taken, probably in the 1870s, by Samuel Carnell of Napier. Dated Carnell's use of the wet collodion process early in his...

Sir George Grey

Sir George Grey

Seated portrait of Sir George Grey, dressed in uniform, in front of a painted backdrop of a marble balustrade, mountains and foliage. He sits cross-legged and rests is left elbow on his sword. The...

Dunedin and its buildings from Logan's Point

Dunedin and its buildings from Logan's Point

Shows a view of Dunedin from Logan's Point in the centre. Surrounding it from top left (clockwise) are: James Macfie & Co City Coal Depot; James Duthie & Co's Colonial Carrying Company of New Zeal...

Railways: building the rail network

The story of New Zealand’s railway network system.

Foxton State School

Foxton State School report on the last day of school for 1896.

Technology- Colonial New Zealand

Technology- Colonial New Zealand

Images of various technology used in colonial New Zealand

Creating pastures

Clearing bush by fire to create pastures for farming was a practise adopted by settlers and Polynesians.

Burning the bush in Taranaki

Burning the bush in Taranaki

William Strutt’s 1856 painting portrays the drama of burning New Zealand’s native bush. Men with torches are setting alight the felled understorey, while the fire is already leaping into the crowns...

This settlement became a centre for peaceful Māori resistance against European confiscation of native land.

The quality of immigrants

An extract from the book The Farthest Promised Landabout immigrants of the 1870s.

Letter from an English immigrant

Letter from an English immigrant

Many English immigrants came to New Zealand through a process of ‘chain migration’, whereby settlers wrote home to their friends and relatives encouraging them to also make the long journey out. Th...

Chinese gold miners

Chinese gold miners

By 1869 there were about 2,000 Chinese people in New Zealand. Almost all were men who came to work the goldfields of Otago and the West Coast. Most of them probably intended to make their fortunes ...

Boys of the Southern Cross

Popular song sung by New Zealand soldiers sent to fight the Boer War or South African War.

Acclimatisation

Acclimatisation is the adaptation of animals or plants to an environment or climate where they are not naturally found.

It was the first sheep breed brought to New Zealand in large numbers.

Family life in the colonies

Article on the need for refinement and good breeding in the British colonies.

The New Zealand Company

Edward Gibbon Wakefield started The New Zealand Company.

Part one of a three part series on a modern family going back in time to live in 1900.

Settler's dwelling

Settler's dwelling

A settler's dwelling, 20 miles from any town. Taken by an unidentified photographer at an unknown location. Inscriptions: Verso - Settler's House `This house was 20 miles from any town.' Quantit...

Howick historical village

Howick historical village

From the mid-1960s a growing public interest in colonial history led to the creation of heritage theme parks. These comprised collections of historic buildings that were usually moved from other si...

Game of our lives

Game of our lives

Social history of New Zealand as seen through rugby.

Colonial leisure activities

It wasn’t all work in colonial New Zealand.

Colonial naming

The big tide of European naming came during the colonising era from the 1840s to the 1910s.

The Mackenzie affair

The Mackenzie affair

The story about colonial outlaw James Mackenzie accused of rustling 1,000 sheep.

Letters from settlers and labouring emigrants

Many people wrote letters about the work they were doing. Here are a few examples from a surveyor and some settlers.

Hunter’s gold

This classic kids’ adventure series follows a boy trying to find his missing father, amidst the 1860s Otago gold rush.

One Hundred Crowded Years

One Hundred Crowded Years

A panorama of New Zealand's history and scenery, its social and economic development from 1840 to 1940.

Showing three gumdiggers (two adults and a boy) at Riverhead....

Showing three gumdiggers (two adults and a boy) at Riverhead....

Showing three gumdiggers (two adults and a boy) at Riverhead posing in front of a tent with shovels and other tools in the gum digging industry. One of the gumdiggers is also displaying a large pic...

The colonial cooking experience

The colonial cooking experience

Cooking and cookbooks from the early colonial days.

A series of landscape paintings, drawings and old photos of Auckland city

A series of landscape paintings, drawings and photographs of Dunedin city

Health of colonial youth

Early to bed and early to rise and exercise was promoted for colonial youth.

Pictorial map of the Middle Island of New Zealand

Pictorial map of the Middle Island of New Zealand

By 1898 New Zealand was both a destination for travellers from overseas and a place to explore for locals. Pictorial maps were a popular way of informing people of the natural wonders of the countr...

Caledonian gold mine and settlement, Moanataiari Valley

Caledonian gold mine and settlement, Moanataiari Valley

The Caledonian was one of nearly 700 productive mines in Thames during its gold rush years, and in 1871 it had one of its richest strikes. For a short while Thames had the largest population of any...

Exploring party in the Wairarapa

Exploring party in the Wairarapa

In 1841 the New Zealand company’s chief surveyor, William Mein Smith, sent a party of five (including two Māori guides) headed by surveyor Robert Stokes, into the Wairarapa to determine if the coun...

Robert Wilkin & Co.'s New Zealand farmers' almanac

Robert Wilkin & Co.'s New Zealand farmers' almanac

Robert Wilkin was a Canterbury farmer who became a businessman. His Christchurch warehouse dealt in grains and seeds as well as wool and skins. The 1880s were a boom time for growing wheat on the C...

In the shearing shed

In the shearing shed

Wool was big business in late 19th century New Zealand. Sheep stations were huge, running flocks as large as 50,000 sheep. Their owners were very wealthy men with impressive homes and political inf...

Scene in the bush showing a thatched hut

Scene in the bush showing a thatched hut

This early colonial scene is on Auckland's Great South Road, a road constructed by the military to aid the invasion of troops and equipment into the Waikato during the New Zealand Wars. Built in th...

New Zealand frozen meat trade

New Zealand frozen meat trade

The central image for this article is the frozen meat exporting ship the R.M.S. Rimutaka with passengers and frozen mutton, leaving Port Lyttelton for London. The image was taken five years after t...

New Plymouth, Taranaki.

New Plymouth, Taranaki.

This is an early depiction of New Plymouth from 1860 looking from Marsland Hill with St Mary's Church in the foreground. The settlement of New Plymouth was established in 1841 under the New Zealand...

Three canned food labels

Three canned food labels

Although tin cans were first developed for packaging food in 1810, it took until the 1890s for small family companies to begin using this process to preserve and can food in New Zealand. Note the l...

Frances Hodgkins has used watercolours to create a rather idyllic scene of a homestead in the bush. A pioneering couple are seated in front of a slab hut, a baby on the woman's knee. A dog drinks o...

Coach and Club Hotel Eketahuna

Coach and Club Hotel Eketahuna

As townships grew large, hotels such as that pictured here became important resting places for people travelling through the country. Hotels provided meals, sleeping accommodation and large banquet...

Te Aro and Wellington Harbour

Te Aro and Wellington Harbour

This watercolour painting looking across Te Aro to Wellington Harbour looks picturesque with fields, trees and church spires. However, Te Aro was Wellington’s industrial zone in the 1880s. The pain...

Group portrait of a Wanganui brass band

Group portrait of a Wanganui brass band

In our age of music at the press of a button, it is hard to imagine how precious the sound of music was to colonial ears. The first gramophone did not arrive until 1891, and radio broadcasting only...

This image of a ten and a twelve bullock team, photographed by James McAllister portrays the harsh reality of conditions for the animals and workers. Transport was slow and arduous. Many roads, whi...

A threshing machine at Temuka

A threshing machine at Temuka

Threshing machines separate wheat grain from the stalk – their introduction had a profound impact on farming in the 1800s. In England their use provoked riots, as labourers who previously beat the ...

Views of Eltham and Stratford

Views of Eltham and Stratford

This printed sheet of illustrations advertises the various businesses in two Taranaki towns. Eltham township was barely established at this time, but Stratford had been settled since 1877-78. As we...

The year 1900 was an interesting one for Prime Minister Richard Seddon. He had made himself Minister of Defence and advocated strongly for New Zealand to increase its powers in the Pacific. As our ...

Railway, postal and telegraph map of the North Island

Railway, postal and telegraph map of the North Island

This map of the North Island shows postal routes, post offices, telegraph offices, railways and other means of communication, with an index of place names.

Palmerston North

Palmerston North

Each region has its own settlement story. The Manawatu had a pattern of planned settlement schemes, which laid out towns in advance. Most settlers began their time in these towns before moving out ...

Tomoana Freezing Works

Tomoana Freezing Works

This illustration is of the first freezing works erected in Hawkes Bay. The development of a large scale freezing works and the new possibility of shipping frozen meat to offshore markets encourage...

This introduced English grass was sown after native forests were cleared for pastures.

Vital clues on early days of settlement

Excavation of the 190 year old Hokianga Harbour settlement.

New Zealand’s first weather diaries

Discovery of the oldest surviving instrumental diaries records made in New Zealand.

Find more information on colonial New Zealand using EPIC. Databases recommended: Australia New Zealand Reference Centre, Gale Biography, Bridget Williams Books, NZ History Collection. Login maybe r...

The Garden Party

Adapted from one of Katherine Mansfield's best known short stories.

‘King Dick’ Seddon

Richard John Seddon and his premiership in New Zealand.

Did this change the course of history?

The engagement between Maori and colonial troops in 1868 at Ruakituri ridge.

Clothing and footwear manufacturing: Māori and colonial clothing

Māori clothes-making When the Polynesian ancestors of Māori arrived in New Zealand they found that the paper mulberry tree (aute), from which they would have made tapa cloth, was difficult to grow ...

Te Papa brings colonial masterpiece home to New Zealand

A rare and historically significant painting set in Taranaki during New Zealand’s land wars.

Around the world in 121 days

Migration and settler stories to New Zealand.

Enormous volcanic eruption at Tarawera

Colonial newspaper report on the Tarawera eruption in 1886.

Dunedin heritage buildings

Heritage rich Dunedin ponders cost of protecting old buildings.

Puhoi's 150 years

Puhoi celebrates 150 years since the arrival of the first group of settlers from Bohemia in 1863.

Sailing ship Wild Deer

Sailing ship Wild Deer

The immigration schemes devised by Sir Julius Vogel brought over 100,000 settlers to New Zealand between 1870 and 1880. Many of these immigrants were given financial help by the government who want...

Celebration of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee

Celebration of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee

Tuesday 21st June, 1887 was proclaimed a public holiday so that Nelson’s community could celebrate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. One of the many activities during the celebrations included this ...

Princes Street, Dunedin

Princes Street, Dunedin

This early scene is looking down Princes Street, Dunedin, showing part of the harbour, the flats and the sand hills in the distance. St Clair Hill is in the right background. There is a bullock tea...

Dairy Factory, Whangamomona

Dairy Factory, Whangamomona

Early farmers with cows made butter and cheese for themselves, and sold any extra locally. It was not always of very good quality. When dairy factories began to be set up, they were able to produce...

Queen Street Wharf, Auckland

Queen Street Wharf, Auckland

This is an early view of Queen Street Wharf in 1864. At the extreme right you can just make out the soldiers barracks of Fort Britomart above the cliff. The photograph was taken on Friday 29th of F...

Panoramic views of Epsom and Remuera, Auckland

Panoramic views of Epsom and Remuera, Auckland

This was good, fertile farmland because of the volcanic soil – but also very desirable land for housing. The villages of Epsom and Remuera both had strong links to agriculture. Epsom still has its ...

Ormondville railway viaduct

Ormondville railway viaduct

The public works programme initiated by Colonial Treasurer, Julius Vogel in 1870, was designed to speed up the settlement of New Zealand. Roads, bridges and railways would start to connect towns an...

Proclamation for civil evacuation

Proclamation for civil evacuation

War between Māori and Pākehā began in Taranaki over land, specifically Chief Wiremu Kingi Te Rangitake’s objection to the Pekapeka block of land (at Waitara) being sold to by another chief. As host...

Grand inter-provincial bicycle races poster

Grand inter-provincial bicycle races poster

High wheelers or penny-farthing bikers called themselves ‘the fastest men on earth.’ Bike races were popular events and special trains carried the participants from Dunedin and as far afield as Gor...

Mauku – Church and military camp

Mauku – Church and military camp

The spread of settlement inevitably also meant the building of churches for worship This church close to Pukekohe is The Church of St Bride's at Mauku. The Church was constructed under the supervis...

Horse drawn bus, leaving Karori for Wellington

Horse drawn bus, leaving Karori for Wellington

This is the 4pm bus (horse-drawn), driven by Jack Kinsella, setting out from Mr Joe Spiers' headquarters at the foot of Karori’s Makara Hill for Wellington City, circa 1890s. Nineteenth century tra...

Activities to learn about the family life of colonial businessman Alfred Buckland.

Nelson Anniversary Day

‘Fifeshire’ sails into Nelson in 1842.

Brydone & Davidson

The story of how the frozen meat export industry began.

New Zealand's Governor-General

Historical perspective on the Governor General from 1840 to today.

The impact of new settlers

Conflict over land was one of the reasons for the land wars.

Interactive timeline

A timeline from 1840s covering major events in New Zealand’s history.

Commencement of colonisation, 1839 to 1842

Chapter V, taken from the book, A story of New Zealandby A.S. Thomson.

Surrender of the Ngaiterangi at Te Papa

Surrender of the Ngaiterangi at Te Papa

This scene at Tauranga, shows the Ngati Rangi bringing in their arms and the arms of British soldiers captured in the battle of Gate Pa. A large group of Māori is seated, with their leader, Hori Ng...

A fresh war in New Zealand

A fresh war in New Zealand

War broke out again in Taranaki in 1868, led by Ngati Ruahine chief Titokowaru in response to land confiscations. This is his pa, Te Ngutu o te manu, being attacked by settler troops. Although Tito...

A settler's home

A settler's home

This bucolic painting shows a romanticised view of a dairy farm at the turn of last century. Instead of burnt forest, slips, muddy roads and dead trees there is a sizable homestead, green pastures,...

Construction of a road to Waikato, Pokeno Hill

Construction of a road to Waikato, Pokeno Hill

This road (the Great South Road), which these soldiers are working on, was being constructed as part of Governor George Grey’s plan to invade the Waikato. Waikato Māori remained determined not to s...

Mt Egmont from the southward painted by Charles Heaphy in 1840.

Slice of life from colonial New Zealand

Slice of life from colonial New Zealand

Images of children, students, adults and life in general from colonial New Zealand ( 1769 to 1914).

Picnic near Ratanui

Picnic near Ratanui

War between Māori and Pākehā began in Taranaki over land, specifically Chief Wiremu Kingi Te Rangitake’s objection to the Pekapeka block of land (at Waitara) being sold to by another chief. As host...

Burning the bush, Taranaki

Burning the bush, Taranaki

Bush picnics and excursions were popular forms of social entertainment for settlers two centuries ago. This picnic description from 1896 almost matches the image, “Amongst the trees a table which l...

Archives New Zealand has an extensive collection of images relating to New Zealand’s colonial history.

Foxton state school

Roll call of students present and absent on 3 April 1896, at the Foxton State School.

Early settlers (New Zealand)

Many Answers has pages to guide you to reviewed websites and databases on early settlers of colonial New Zealand.

Rural settler clothing

For settlers fresh off the boat in the 1840s there was little variation in clothing.

Sir George Grey

A biography of Sir George Grey, the governor of New Zealand.

Maori land loss

These maps illustrate the gradual alienation of Māori land in the North Island.

History of Te Papa from 1865

Discover how Te Papa came to be, from the opening of the Colonial Museum in 1865 till today.

The Reserve Bank and New Zealand’s economic history.

This booklet outlines the broad history of New Zealand’s economy since 1840.

Colonial Chiefs, 1840-1889

Speech by The Hon Dame Catherine Tizard on 'Early vice-regal representation in New Zealand between 1840 and 1889, from Sir George Gipps to Colonel T. Gore Browne, from Governor Grey to Sir William ...

The definition of a woman in 1893

What did it mean for women to be included in the category of ‘person’ according to the 1893 Electoral Act.

New Zealand dairy farming – timeline

Dairy farming has come a long way from 1814 when Samuel Marsden first brought a bull and two heifers to New Zealand.

First NZ recorded marriage between a Croatian and Māori

In 1892, Croatian Andrija Kleskovic married his Maori Princess Erina Kaaka at St Saviour’s Church in Kaitaia.

Interior of settler's house

This painting – the inside of an early pioneer house – reveals a lot about domestic life in those early days. The walls are made of thatched raupo, while personal storage consisted of chests situ...

The story of Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Edward Gibbon Wakefield believed Aotearoa was the perfect place to put his theories of "Systematic Colonisation" into practise.

Ten reasons why women should vote

Text of a suffrage leaflet published by the Women's Christian Temperance Union in May 1888.

Transportation was an important part of colonial life.

Colonisation, hauora and whenua in Aotearoa

Article from Journal of Royal Society of New Zealand.

Adventure in New Zealand

Looking at E. J. Wakefield, 19 year old nephew of Colonel William Wakefield and his observations of family life in colonial New Zealand.

The new National Anthem

Papers Past article about the national anthem and finding music to match the words.

Many Answers page with a variety of resources.

John Logan Campbell

Biography of John Logan Campbell who was considered the “Father of Auckland.”

Political and constitutional timeline

Timeline shows key political events.

Parliament’s first sitting in Auckland 24 May 1854

Shows how NZ’s capital city went to Auckland in 1854.

Dominion status

Looks at how New Zealand became a Dominion after being a Colony and the difference was.

New Zealand childhoods

This article explores aspects of family life and childhood starting from Colonial times.

Dear Dot children’s letters

Article looks at Children’s Pages in regional newspapers in early 2oth century

A map of New Zealand, showing the main geological features

Māori and colonial clothing

Clothing was hard to get in early colonial New Zealand. Colonists were advised to bring plentiful supplies.

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