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Nelson School of Music 1914 - 1945
1915, war is raging in Europe. Julius Bernhardt Lemmer principal of the Nelson School of Music (NSOM), returns from his year away studying in London. At his return he offers his resignation to the NSOM...
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Charles Yates Fell and his Memorial
Charles Yates Fell was born in Nelson in 1844. He was the son of Alfred Fell, merchant and early settler, brother of the English politician Arthur Fell and grandson of Henry Seymour, after whom Seymour...
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Trooper Leonard Tarrant and his Memorial
Trooper Leonard Mathews Tarrant and the Tarrant Memorial, Motueka QuayLeonard Tarrant was born 8 February 1871 to Henry Alexander Tarrant and Katherine, nee Saxon, in Brightwater. He came to Motueka...
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Rifleman John William Brunning
A Long Lost BrunningTucked away at the bottom of a page in a Motueka community newspaper was a small item headlined "Long lost Brunning". It featured the intriguing mystery of a Great War Certificate...
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Sarau
Growing Sarau from the German Roots upThe 12,000 mile voyage of the St. Pauli from Hamburg, Germany to Nelson, New Zealand, in 1843 resulted in the eventual establishment of the village of Sarau in the...
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Newman Brothers
Running a transport service in the days when unformed roads wormed their ways through virgin bush up steep hillsides and across rivers and mountain creeks tested man and beast. Nelson's Newman brothers...
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German settlement in Nelson
Nelson's earliest German settlers faced disappointment and hardship and were driven away from the Moutere Valley by poor soil and constant floods. The close-knit, industrious communities re-established...
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Protest at Kiwi Station 1955
A group of Nelson women made quite a stir when they staged a protest against the closure of the Nelson Railway line at Kiwi Station in 1955. Kiwi Station, now transformed into a museum at TapaweraClick...
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Constance Barnicoat
A Women Ahead of Her TimeConstance Barnicoat Grande (1872 – 1922) was a remarkable woman for her time, and one who crammed a range of activities into her short life. The seventh child of Rebecca...
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Lyell
The highs and lows of goldminingGraveyards have an international reputation for being 'spooky', but when you are standing in the graveyard of a deceased town, 'spooky' takes on a very different...
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Murchison and the Buller
Murchison’s story and the Buller River and its tributaries are inextricably entwined. The mighty Buller begins its 177 km journey to the West Coast from the Nelson Lakes National Park.1 It finds its...
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Maori and Gold
The goldrushesIn 1857 there were 1,300 Pakeha and 600 Māori digging in the Aorere district, New Zealand's first real goldrush. The influx had a profound effect on tangata whenua as tikanga1 obliged...
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La Bella Vita - Italians in Nelson
The first Italians came to the top of the South Island for different reasons, with the majority escaping poverty and a lack of opportunity in their homeland.One of the first recorded Italians was...
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John Ribet of Hope Junction
John Ribet 1835-1890. From France to Kawatiri : Mine Host of the Hope Junction HotelRibet was born in France in 1835, and baptised into the Roman Catholic Church as Jacques-François. He was a man of...
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Glenhope Pioneers
The pioneers of the Hope Valley are commemorated by a memorial at Glenhope.The small rock cairn was originially erected by the Owen Women’s Institute in 1935, close to Korere on the Nelson-Murchison...
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Judge Conolly
Lawyer Edward Tennyson Conolly came to New Zealand from Middlesex, England in 1865, and settled in Picton, becoming one of the town’s leading personages. Edward Tennyson Conolly. Alexander Turnbull...
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Auckland Point School
Auckland Point School Through the Decades 1927 - 2011Auckland Point School was once one of the largest schools in Nelson, opening in 1927 with a roll call of four hundred children. 84 years on, there...
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Madge Wilson of No.52 Russell Street
While researching the history of Russell Street, for use on a historical interpretation panel for the Nelson City Council, I met Madge Wilson on 3 April 2017, at her home. This story is written from...
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Sid Harling
Blenheim mayor and ideas manIn around 1950, the Harling family, Sid, Mary Grace and their daughter Wendy, settled in Blenheim, having migrated from Canada. New Zealand was not entirely new to Sid, as...
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Edward and Ann Cresswell nee Eyles
Seaview Cemetery, Stoke, Block 24: Plot 470 The gravestone of Edward and Ann CresswellEdward, aged 15 a labourer, arrived on the Mary Ann in February 1842 along with Amelia aged 26, the wife of T....
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