NZHistory, New Zealand history online - children

Film: children meet the Queen at Athletic Park, 1954

Film clip: children gathering to meet the Queen

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The royal couple are standing in the back of a specially converted jeep as it drives past thousands of children gathered in Athletic Park. As their car passes the children, they all swarm en masse to the other side of the field to get another look as the jeep turns a corner.

Commentary:

‘Wellington, a great moment for the 133-year-old capital city, as never before it celebrates. And the greatest, most tumultuous welcome of all is from its children. The organisers have arranged that every child shall have a good view as the Queen and the Duke drive past - but the children find a way to ensure at least two good views! Fifteen thousand individual wills, they build but a single pattern.

These are the future men and women of one far corner of a commonwealth of many governments, but of one allegiance.’

Archives New Zealand
The royal tour of New Zealand, 1953–54 (National Film Unit)

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Royal Visit of 1953-54

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Home of Compassion Crèche

Home of Compassion Crèche (1914)

Charity for the urban poor

Sweated pay rates and dirty, dangerous workplaces were not the only problems faced by female Victorian- and Edwardian-era shop and factory workers. Prevailing mores stigmatised those mainly widowed or deserted women whose work took them away from their children during the day. Childcare - where it could be found - was expensive, as Mother Mary Joseph Aubert knew. We remember her best for founding the Daughters of Our Lady of Compassion and for working among Whanganui Māori, but in 1899 she and three of her sisters moved to the capital, where they would devote the rest of their lives to caring for the urban poor.

Legend has it that they arrived with just 2s 6d between them. ‘Mother Orbit’, as some called her, settled in a cottage in Buckle Street and began begging to feed the poor, pushing prams laden with donated food through working class Te Aro. ‘I am always begging,’ she buttered up the mayor, ‘but it is for the poor in who[m] you take such a kind interest.’ In 1900-01 Aubert opened a home for incurables (against bureaucratic opposition) and St Anthony’s soup kitchen in Buckle Street for ‘Wellington's Workless, Wet and Weary Wandering Willies’, its unemployed and casual workers. In 1903 she added a crèche (day nursery) in Buckle Street. During the day the sisters and volunteers cared for the children and patched their clothes, all for a contribution towards the milk.

John Swan designed this building, the first purpose-built crèche in the country. It opened at the end of September 1914, replacing earlier wooden cottages used for this purpose. Of brick and concrete ‘with “compo” dressings of simple Tudor-Gothic design’, the crèche’s walls were thick enough to support a second storey should one be required. A wide glazed-in veranda at the rear offered children a safe play area.

You can still see the Sisters’ crest in the clumsy crenellated parapet above the Buckle Street porch. Inside it was basically a simple domestic structure. A large playroom and sleeping room ran off one side of the central passageway; two smaller amenity rooms, pantry, bathroom and toilet off the other. Later the building became a classroom and library for the (now demolished) St Patrick’s College, and in more recent times it has been an arts studio and a car parts shop, marooned by the one-way street system. At present (2013) it sits forlornly, its windows boarded up in preparation to be moved to make way for services supporting the construction of the controversial Basin Reserve flyover.

The Sisters, like the poor, are still with us, at a modern centre nearby.

Further information

This site is item number 82 on the History of New Zealand in 100 Places list.

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Credit:

Text: Gavin McLean, 2013

Images: Andy Palmer (2012) & Gavin McLean (2001)

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1914

Childhood memories of the First World War

George Davies came from a low-income Wellington family of five children. In this Spectrum radio documentary from 1981 he remembers his childhood during the First World War.

Transcript

I can remember war being declared very well and you know all these young fellas, there must have been a procession a mile long and they were four abreast – and they were all marching down to Parliament Buildings to offer their services. And you know, I was astounded, in the very front row was my old teacher from the primary school – he really had the war fever.

You know I had four uncles, they all volunteered to go away. And that was one Christmas that I’ll always remember, because my four uncles came round, they’re all in uniform and they’re going to have Christmas dinner with us, and what was more important, they were going to provide it, and that was really something. Well you know we had a fantastic time. And old Uncle Bert he of course he was the life and soul of the party. Uncle Bert had a black bottle and he’d tell a few stories and he’d take a sip out of the black bottle. And the more sips he took out of that bottle, the worse the stories got. Anyhow, poor old Uncle Bert you know, that was the last time I ever saw him.

Now about this time, or a little while after when the news of Uncle Bert had come through, there was a carrier arrived and he had a kennel and an old dog, and it was Uncle Bert’s old dog and he apparently asked if I could look after it. Well look I’d have looked after that dog, I swore that every butcher in the district would have to find meat for that dog somehow or other. It had always been my ambition to have a dog and although by standards now as I can remember him he was a pretty old haggard old boy, he was my dog and that meant a terrible lot to me.

Radio New Zealand. Any re-use of this audio is a breach of copyright. To request a copy of the recording, contact Radio New Zealand. Reference: 'Two Wellington Childhoods', Spectrum, SJ 1981.

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A teenage girl's First World War experience

In this Spectrum radio documentary from 1981 Marjorie Lees remembers falling in love with a soldier during the First World War.

Transcript

They had a big clubhouse and all the soldiers used to go there and my aunt used to go down to give them suppers and things. She said, could I go too, and I thought that was absolutely thrilling so I went and danced with the soldiers. And again I fell violently in love with one of them, I think he was a man of about 40 but I thought he was absolutely marvellous.

He used to walk over from camp, because we had a place in Stokes Valley then, and see me on Sundays and things – this was in the school holidays. And I remember, the last day before I was going back to school I was sitting talking to him and my aunt came up in a great state and took me aside. She said, ‘Marjorie, you’ve been sitting with that man all evening – everybody’s talking about you.’ And I was frightfully upset and I went home and I was in floods of tears because I thought I’d never see him again. I never did either, because he was killed.

I got married six months after I left school. I really didn’t want to get married very much because my heart was in the grave because of this other man, you see. And my father, I can remember him stamping up and down on the balcony saying, ‘Marjorie, you know you’re not very good looking. You’ve got thick ankles and one thing and another and all the men are being killed off and probably if you don’t take this chance and marry you’ll be left to be an old maid like your maiden aunts’. And so I, actually I was so weak-willed, I just simply acquiesced.

Radio New Zealand. Any re-use of this audio is a breach of copyright. To request a copy of the recording, contact Radio New Zealand. Reference: 'Two Wellington Childhoods', Spectrum, SJ 1981.

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Letters to Dot

Letters written to the children’s column ‘Dot’s Little Folk’ in the Otago Witness reveal the personal ways in which young people responded to the war. Boys and girls wrote about their frustration at being too young to fight, and their anxiousness and fear for those heading overseas. Others expressed pride in contributions made to the war effort, and horror and sorrow at the casualties caused by the war.

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Paperspast

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Gallipoli feature in the School Journal

New Zealand children learned about the reality of war as news of the terrible casualties from Gallipoli reached home. In September 1915, the School Journal included a detailed if not entirely accurate account of the New Zealand landings, which emphasised the ferocity, sacrifice, and danger faced by the men. The Journal did not attempt to disguise the costly nature of the landings:

The New Zealanders began to land about eight o’clock. Every boat-load was under shrapnel fire, and there were many casualties before the boats reached the shore. All day long the boats went to and fro between the ships and the shore under this hail. The New Zealanders charged up the hills in the face of heavy fire. One machine gun can fire five hundred bullets a minute; and the broken nature of the country and its vegetation enabled the Turks to conceal these weapons and their riflemen. Snipers, hid in the bushes, not only killed men as they advanced towards them, but waited until the line had swept past, and shot the attackers from behind.

School Journal, Part III, September 1915, p. 230

The feature concluded with General Sir Ian Hamilton’s praise of the Anzac soldiers at Gallipoli:

May I, speaking out of a still heart, be permitted to say how gloriously the Australian and New Zealand contingents have upheld the finest traditions of our race during this struggle still in progress, at first with audacity and dash, since then with sleepless valor and untiring resource. They have already created for their country an imperishable record of military virtue.

School Journal, Part III, September 1915, p. 233

Read the School Journal account of the Gallipoli landings (pdf)

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School Journal, Part III, September 1915

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Collecting bottles for the war effort

Boys from Wharekāhika Native School on the East Coast with some of the 1489 bottles they helped collect for the Belgian Fund, July 1916. The most successful individual collectors hold boards displaying their names and tallies.

Cartoon from NZ Observer, 1917

By 1916 the war had caused a shortage of glass bottles. Empty bottles were sought after by brewers, chemists and the general public for a range of purposes. The government introduced bottle collecting as part of the patriotic effort to raise funds and schoolchildren eagerly foraged for them. Newspapers reported on what became a competition as each school attempted to outdo the others. One newspaper reported that a school had raised an amazing 10,000 bottles in its bottle drive. Children brought their contribution to school in schoolbags, trolleys, sacks and doll’s prams. The bottles were auctioned to raise money for war funds.

In October 1916 the Ashburton Guardian reported that Dunedin’s schoolchildren had collected more than 300,000 bottles. The auction raised over £1500 (around $193,000 in 2012) for the Belgian Fund. Impressive individual tallies were mentioned to spur other children and schools into action. Everyone wanted to show that they were doing their patriotic best.

Credit:

Main image: Auckland Libraries
Reference: Sir George Grey Special Collections, AWNS-19160824-44-7
Permission of Auckland Libraries Ngā Whare Mātauranga o Tāmaki Makaurau must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

Other image: PapersPast

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Schools fundraising concert

‘Help the heroes who are helping you at the Dardanelles’: cover of programme for Combined Schools’ Concerts at the Wellington Town Hall, 1 and 2 July 1915. The concert was organised by the New Zealand Patriotic Society as part of a ‘Queen’ carnival fundraiser.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference: Eph-A-WAR-WI-1915-01-cover
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa must be obtained before any reuse of this image.

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Knitting for the troops

Auckland schoolchildren making clothing for the British and Belgian Relief Fund and New Zealand troops serving overseas, July 1915.

Making comforts for the soldiers was one of the ways children were encouraged to help the war effort. They knitted and sewed socks and scarves to keep soldiers warm at the front, wrote letters, and sent care packages to ‘lonely’ soldiers, ex-pupils of their school and other local men serving overseas.

We are busy sewing for the soldiers in our spare time and have also learnt to knit, so we are knitting scarves. Of course we are not very quick at it yet, so perhaps the war will be over by the time we get them finished.

I have done a little knitting for the soldiers, and must get some more wool. My first sock was not very elegant, but my third was lovely. I can keep even now. It’s such fun knitting one’s first sock. ‘Do you think it’s long enough mum?’ ‘Is that heel alright?’ ‘How do you taper off a toe?’ Until I’m sure mother must have been tired of her daughter’s industry.

Letters to ‘Dot's Little Folk’ column, Otago Witness, 1914

Undoubtedly, these small comforts would have been welcomed by men in the trenches, if only as a reminder that people back home were thinking of them.

Credit:

Auckland Libraries
Reference: Sir George Grey Special Collections, AWNS-19150715-37-1
Permission of Auckland Libraries Ngā Whare Mātauranga o Tāmaki Makaurau must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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Further information - schools in the First World War

This web feature was written by Linda Jeffrey and produced by the NZHistory team.

Books

Deborah A. Challinor, ‘Children and war: a study of the impact of the First World War on New Zealand children’, MA thesis, University of Waikato, 1993
Ian and Alan Cumming, History of state education in New Zealand, Pitman Publishing, Petone, 1975
Rosemary Goodyear, ‘Black boots and pinafores: childhood in Otago, 1900–1920’, MA thesis, University of Otago, 1992
New Zealand School Journal, 1910–1919
Gregory O’Brien, A nest of singing birds: 100 years of the New Zealand School Journal, Learning Media, Wellington, 2007
Keith Scott, Dear Dot I must tell you: a personal history of Young New Zealanders, Activity Press, Auckland, 2011
Keith Sinclair, A destiny apart: New Zealand’s search for national identity, Allen & Unwin, Wellington, 1986, pp. 223–35

NZHistory, New Zealand history online - children

Film: children meet the Queen at Athletic Park, 1954

Film clip: children gathering to meet the Queen

Still shots and description

Commentary:

Home of Compassion Crèche

Home of Compassion Crèche (1914)

Charity for the urban poor

Further information

Websites

Childhood memories of the First World War

Transcript

A teenage girl's First World War experience

Transcript

Letters to Dot

Gallipoli feature in the School Journal

Collecting bottles for the war effort

Schools fundraising concert

Knitting for the troops

Further information - schools in the First World War

Links

Books