During the 'angry autumn' of 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, unemployed workers in Dunedin reacted angrily when the Hospital Board refused to assist them.
Dunedin
Events In History
17 November 1925
Governor-General Sir Charles Fergusson opened Dunedin’s New Zealand and South Seas International Exhibition in November 1925.
31 March 1910
Thomas Hocken’s priceless legacy of historical material is the most important collection outside Crown ownership in New Zealand.
27 May 1909
The Tasmanian-born confidence trickster topped a long career impersonating well-off men for financial gain by claiming to be a sheepfarmer and the nephew of a bishop.
10 June 1889
The first New Zealand kindergarten to educate children, in Dunedin, was based on the ideas of the German educationalist Friedrich Froebel.
21 January 1889
‘Professor’ Thomas Baldwin landed safely by parachute from a balloon floating high above South Dunedin.
7 May 1888
A meeting in Dunedin presided over by the mayor unanimously called for a ban on further Chinese immigrants.
6 February 1871
The first public girls’ secondary school in the southern hemisphere was Otago Girls’ High School, which opened eight years after the local public boys’ high school.
3 June 1869
Governor George Bowen gave his assent to the Otago Provincial Council’s University of Otago Ordinance, enabling the establishment of New Zealand’s first university.
2 May 1868
The clipper Celestial Queen arrived at Port Chalmers carrying the first shipment of live fish ova from England. These fish were intended to provide sport for the settlers, but none survived in New Zealand.
29 September 1862
Dunedin's Royal Princess Theatre was the venue for a performance of Donizetti's Daughter of the regiment by the visiting English Opera Troupe, supplemented by local performers.
1 March 1862
The British-born tenor Charles Thatcher gave his first New Zealand performance at Shadrach Jones's Commercial Hotel in Dunedin.
15 November 1861
Dunedin became the first New Zealand town with a daily newspaper when the first issue of the Otago Daily Times was published.
Articles
The Beatles in New Zealand
When four young Liverpool musicians landed in Wellington on a lazy Sunday afternoon in June 1964, seven days of pandemonium erupted. Young New Zealanders flocked in their thousands to hear or just catch a glimpse of the famous 'Fab Four'. Read the full article
Page 1 - The Beatles in New Zealand
When four young Liverpool musicians landed in Wellington on a lazy Sunday afternoon in June 1964, seven days of pandemonium erupted. Young New Zealanders flocked in their
Page 5 - South Island
The Beatles' concerts in Dunedin on 26 June were some of the wildest of the New Zealand
Regional rugby
The passion and parochialism of provincial rugby helped give the game a special place in New Zealand’s social and sporting history. Read brief histories, highlights and quirky facts about each of New Zealand's 26 regional rugby teams. Read the full article
Page 28 - Otago rugby
History and highlights of rugby in the Otago
The 1913 Great Strike
The Great Strike of 1913 was in fact a series of strikes between mid-October 1913 and mid-January 1914. It was one of New Zealand’s most violent and disruptive industrial confrontations. Read the full article
Page 6 - The 1913 strike in the South Island
Although the 1913 strike had its biggest impact on Auckland and Wellington, the South Island's cities and mining towns were also
Biographies
English-born New Zealander Penny Jamieson was the first woman in the world to be ordained a diocesan bishop of the Anglican Church
Often seen out in his blue bonnet and tartan plaid in early colonial Dunedin, Captain William Cargill was the first leader of the Free Church of Scotland’s settlement in Dunedin.
Frances Hodgkins’ 56-year career as an artist earned her a secure place among the English avant-garde of the 1930s and 1940s. She was the first New Zealand-born artist to achieve such stature.
As Minister of Defence from 1912 until 1920, James Allen was responsible for the organisation of New Zealand’s military forces during the First World War.
Dunedin was established in 1848 by the Lay Association of the Free Church of Scotland. A gold rush in the Otago province during the 1860s caused Dunedin’s population, and wealth, to increase dramatically; it was for several years New Zealand’s largest and most prosperous city. The University of Otago, New Zealand’s oldest, was founded in Dunedin in 1869, and since then students have made a major contribution to the city’s unique character.
Meaning of place name
The city was originally to be called New Edinburgh, but instead Dunedin - the old Celtic form of the name of the capital of Scotland - was chosen.
