The lucrative profession of photography in 19th century New Zealand

Alfred Burton's [1885 photo montage] The Maori at Home will always remain a remarkable and unique record. A few years earlier the journey would have been impossible or at least suicidal. A few years later the Maori had become sophisticated in front of the camera. This work deservedly gained him the Fellowship of the Royal Geographical Society. And it undoubtedly brought the firm kudos that was reflected in all the branches of their photographic work. Burton Brothers became a national New Zealand concern and known widely abroad.

Just how much Alfred gained financially from these important additions to the catalogue of topographical and ethnographical photographs it is not possible to say, because no account books of the period have survived, and, as has been emphasised before, many photographers in Dunedin who specialised in portraiture during the formative years appear also to have done well.

The record of freeholders in New Zealand which was published in 1882 gives some idea of relative prosperity in the profession. Robert Clifford, apart from his dwelling in Fleet Street, had freehold property in Mornington, the North East Valley, and West Harbour, to a total value of £1,710; Frederick Henry Irwin, of the London Portrait Rooms, held freehold property to the value of £3,500; Alexander Peyman, no longer in partnership with Irwin and living in England, owned 1,273 acres at Wanganui valued at £12,730, and properties to the value of £7,870 in Oamaru and £2,500 in Dunedin, and Caroline Peyman at Wanganui had freehold property to the value of £1,737; William Meluish, living in England, had in 1882 freehold property in Dunedin to the value of £8,820, and Alfred Burton held freehold an acre and dwelling at Sunnyside, Roslyn valued at £780 and property in Dunedin giving a total of £1,180. These figures, at that date and viewed relatively, may not signify great wealth, but they do suggest that the top photographers were men of social standing and some substance.

- Hardwicke Knight, Burton Brothers: Photographers, Dunedin, 1980, p.34-5. 

Lambert Wickes' contribution to the cause of American independence

US naval officer Lambert Wickes took the war to England's back door in 1777:

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Reprisal left St Nazaire to cruise in the [English] Channel in January 1777 - a miserable time of year in those waters, and consequently an excellent time for raiding. Wickes quickly took five prizes (three brigs, a snow, and a ship), which for him made it "a tolerable successful cruise." The snow, Swallow, was a mail packet from Falmouth bound for Lisbon, and fought for an hour before striking her flag. Men on both sides were wounded, but none killed. In Reprisal, the first lieutenant's left arm was shot off above the elbow, "and the Lieut. of Marines had a musket ball lodged in his wrist." [...] Benedict Arnold may have found the marines to be "the refuse of every regiment"; to others, they were an essential adjunct to operations, and Wickes's crew included a detachment of two of their officers and thirty men.

After selling his prizes in France to pay his crew and maintain his ship, Wickes was joined in April by the Continental brig Lexington (a name that would grace many American warships) and the cutter Dolphin. (She, incidentally, was an English boat, secretly sold to the American service from her home port of Dover.). In May the three vessels set off to try their luck, standing out across the Channel for the Irish Sea. In essence such raiding was identical to privateering; the only difference was that it was done by naval ships under official orders. But to a young naval officer, that probably made it close to ideal. It was daring, exciting, novel, and, when successful, profitable too. Few captains would ask for more in wartime.

Before they left the Bay of Biscay, the squadron encountered a British ship of the line, too powerful for them to challenge. Escaping, they were blown west of Ireland by a gale and took no prizes until three weeks after leaving port. By then they were back in the north side of the Channel; and in a single week they captured eighteen vessels. Satisfied with that, they headed for base and again met a British ship. Reprisal had eighteen guns; her opponent had seventy-four. In the chase that followed, Wickes scattered his squadron, and to lighten Reprisal threw all her guns over, until finally, believing it would increase her flexibility and speed, he sawed through some of her beams. It was a common idea at the time; but it was probably that which brought about his death. Though he escaped from the British once more, he was never able to tell his adventures to his grandchildren. Returning home in September, Reprisal foundered in a gale and was lost with her captain.

Wickes had been a brave man, and his death was a blow to the Continental Navy. Had he lived, he might well have outshone his more celebrated colleague John Paul Jones; and of the two, it could well be argued that Wickes was the more courageous, for when he conducted his pioneering raids, he (unlike Jones) had no guaranteed safe port in France. Wickes paved the way for Jones.

Today Jones is far more widely remembered, and in the context of the U.S. Navy's whole history, that is right [...] But at the time, Wickes's contribution to the immediate cause of American independence was far greater. This is not simply because he captured more prizes; they paid for his voyage, but little more. Instead, the true value of his voyage lay in its political consequences [...]

By helping to heat up Anglo-French antagonism, simmering since France's defeat in the Seven Years' War, Wickes brought vital French support for America that much closer. This was exactly what the American commissioners in Paris wanted, and the French were indeed growing visibly keener. During the summer of 1777, in the French port of Brest, an American privateer (General Mifflin, flying the "Grand Union flag") was saluted with nine guns by Admiral du Chauffault - the traditional signal of the navy of one sovereign state to another.

- Stephen Howarth, To Shining Sea: A History of the United States Navy 1775-1991, London, 1991, p.30-31.

Prince Eugene's Belvedere

The Upper Belvedere in Vienna, 28 May 2026

The high reputation of Prince Eugene [of Savoy] has endured over the centuries, as has his personal stamp on Vienna with his summer and winter residences being two baroque jewels of the city. His city palais on the Himmelpfortgasse was built by both Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and Johann Lukas von Hildebrand. The building, which has a twelve-bay baroque façade, also has an exquisite interior, including an extraordinary staircase, stone sculptures and frescoes. The building currently hosts the Austrian Finance Ministry.

Eugene's most famous residence was the Belvedere, a historic complex of two palaces and beautiful baroque gardens, just outside the city walls. Johann Lukas von Hildebrand designed and built the Lower and Upper Belvedere between 1712 and 1723. One of Europe's standout baroque landmarks, it is listed together with the rest of Vienna city centre as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Lower Belvedere, with its beautiful Hall of Mirrors, was the day. to-day summer home of Prince Eugene, while the Upper Belvedere was conceived with prestige and display in mind, positioned on a rise overlooking the middle of the capital with copper roofs. They were designed to resemble Turkish tents, an allusion to Eugene's victories over the Ottomans. The sumptuous grandeur of the interior includes Herculean figures supporting the vaulted ceiling of the Sala Terrena and the two-storey-high Marble Hall with its ornately painted ceiling.

The gardens between the Lower and Upper Belvedere are a baroque masterpiece in their own right and look down towards Fischer von Erlach's baroque Karlskirche, with its oversized flanking columns. Eugene had an intense interest in horticulture and nature, seeking out rarities and abnormalities. His menagerie was the second largest in Europe after that of King Louis XIV, numbering 43 species of mammals and 67 species of birds, including 'unheard of' species of the time. Eugene was also an avid collector of books and developed friendships with the leading international authors and thinkers of the age, including Gottfried Leibnitz, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Charles-Louis Montesquieu. More than 15,000 books formed part of a world-class collection together with hundreds of manuscripts and prints, described as follows by Rousseau: 'The Prince's library is very extensive and consists of exceptionally fine books beautifully bound. But what is more remarkable is that there is scarcely a book in it that the Prince has not read or at least looked through. It is difficult to believe that a man who almost alone carries such a public burden for all Europe, who is Field-Marshall and the Emperor's Prime Minister, can find the time to read almost as much as someone who has nothing else to do'

- Angus Robertson, The Crossroads of Civilisation: A History of Vienna, New York, 2022, p.37-8.

Karori pioneers

The first hardy settlers who came into the Karori Valley by way of the Maori path faced difficulties in identifying the sections of their title and initially many camped in the bush together whilst they made their way around the valley.

The first settler into the valley is given to be a Mr J[ohn] Yule who had arrived in Port Nicholson with his family in March of 1840 aboard the Bengal Merchant. Later, Yule was reported by Heaphy in his writings regarding settlement to be clearing about 20 acres of heavily timbered forest in the Karori Valley and to have built a house there within 6 months. He mentions further that Yule was unaided in his occupation except for a Maori assistant and Yule's brother, Alexander. The Yules were referred to as being "two young Scotsmen".

The Chief Justice at the time, H. S. Chapman had also taken up land in the area and by 1846 had erected the first Homewood residence.

By the late 1840s a building had been erected to serve both as a chapel and school, and a shop had been opened. In 1852 church services were being held at Mr S. Lancaster's residence and a small hall had been built on land given by a Mr Haire. This hall apparently stood on the site of the old Council Chambers. Church services were held in the hall and according to a Mr J. Eagle, an early resident in the district, some three people named Collins, Brodie and Kelt were interred on the site. (When excavations were carried out in the 1930s it appears some 6-8 people had been buried there.)

Karori and Makara have always had a close association and it is interesting to recall a selection of early pioneers who came to the district in those first years of settlement, who built homes from out of the bush and thus prepared the way for further development. Names such as Yule, Chapman, Lancaster, Shotter, Haire, Campbell, Lewer, Cook, McKelvie, Kilmister, Spiers, Barnes, Cole, Richmond, Eagle, Monk, Donald and Monaghan can all be put down as early pioneers to the district.

- Joseph & Betty Kenneally, Karori Then, Wellington, 1980, p.5

See also:
Blog: What's on at the Regal, 27 August 2023
Blog: Karori Lunatic Asylum, 15 February 2022

Blog: The old route to Karori, 16 August 2020

If the Huns Came to Melbourne

Now another unlisted Australian film makes an appearance. An ironic touch to this entry is that although If the Huns Came to Melbourne was made in that city, it was premiered at the Wondergraph, Adelaide [in May 1916]. When released in Melbourne it did not obtain a city theatre release, but was shown at the Port Theatre, Port Melbourne.

'Imagine, if you can,' directed the advertisement, 'the nameless horror perpetrated on the helpless Belgians in the name of German Kultur. Think for a moment, of a repetition of the dreadful nightmare in Melbourne. Picture those nearest and dearest to you, at the mercy of the Huns.'

Produced by Arthur Coates, it was left to photographer Arthur Higgins to supply details of this dramatic production. Interiors were filmed in an open air theatre in Albert Park. Enlarged photographic miniatures of important buildings were mutilated, to convey the impression of destruction by shell fire, and tobacco smoke was blown across the ruins to create the illusion of a smouldering aftermath. Then portions of old newsreels were superimposed, showing German soldiers marching, and Red Cross workers rescuing the wounded.

During the actual screening in Melbourne, the destruction of Young and Jackson's Hotel [opposite Flinders St Station] caused a bigger stir than the burning of the Federal Parliament House.

- Eric Reade, Australian Silent Films, Melbourne, 1970, p.92

See also:
Blog: Remnants of the band that didn't play on, 31 January 2025
Blog: Fed Square multicultural festival, 25 March 2017
Blog: The heart of Melbourne, 3 November 2016

How gorillas got their name from a Carthaginian explorer

It is a shame that [Greek explorer Euthymenes'] work was ridiculed by later writers - Herodotus does not name Euthymenes, but he most vehemently attacks the idea that the Nile was fed by Oceanus and it is not a theory that is given much credence in the subsequent discourse. Yet perhaps he has been unfairly treated. His expedition and the information he gathered must have made its way to other navigators and explorers in the Mediterranean. In the fifth century BCE a Carthaginian by the name of Hanno undertook a similar voyage, possibly going as far south as modern Cameroon. Along the way, Hanno described meeting indigenous peoples, wild animals, and one particular oddity for which he is most well known:

[T]here was another island, full of savage men. But there were a lot more women, with their bodies covered in hair: our interpreters called these people Gorillai. When we pursued them in the chase, we were unable to capture any of the men; for they all fled to the high ground and kept us at bay by throwing stones. However, we took three of the women, who bit and clawed at their captors and did not want to follow. So we killed and flayed them, and brought their skins back to Carthage.

This story of a wild tribe of hairy people, with strong, powerful men who were outnumbered by women, living in West Africa stuck in the European imagination. In 1847 CE, when Thomas S. Savage sent a partial skeleton of a large, powerful, hairy ape from West Africa to Jeffries Wyman at Harvard, the story of Hanno immediately came to mind as he wrote up the first scientific assessment of a new great ape. We do not know whether Hanno was actually describing a troop of gorillas, but one thing is certain - it is because of his account that gorillas have acquired their name.

- Owen Rees, The Far Edges of the Known World: A New History of the Ancient Past, London, 2025, p.142-3.

The Marvellous Melotone

"The Marvellous Melotone" gramophone ad, Evening Post, 14 December 1925

"20 Beautiful Models to select from, priced from 8 to 100 Guineas"

The Wild West character of Hawke's Bay settler towns

Although harking to British urban ideals, Hawke's Bay's settler-age towns looked distinctly frontier American, in part a function of available building materials. Where stone was available - such as Oamaru - New Zealand's settlers emulated Britain. Where it was not, meaning virtually every other frontier town in New Zealand, the style of the age was usually Wild West. Common build materials lent force to common social values: Napier, Hastings, Wairoa, Waipukurau or Waipawa could have done double duty as Dodge City. All shared the same rows of clap-board buildings, limed, dusty roads, the sense of newness with untamed verges and a landscape where trees had yet to grow, and the piles of detritus dumped higgledy-piggledy in empty sections. Even the hitching-posts outside the saloons were much the same; and inside them, men on both sides of the Pacific did 'full justice' - as the period term usually put it - to whiskey, cards and billiards.

Provincial life swirled around these towns, a complex, sophisticated whirl of events suffused with the values of the time, particularly self-betterment - financially, socially and intellectually. This was pushed along in Napier with the help of the Athenaeum and Mechanics Institute, a library opened in 1863. As McLean remarked, the 'want of such a place' had been felt for 'a very long time'. By 1877 the Athenaeum, solidly housed in in Browning Street premises, owned some 1500 books. Education sometimes doubled as entertainment; one Napier visitor in the 1880s attended a 'free lecture on spiritualism in the Hoadley salerooms' and thought the 'larrikins were so noisy that I almost thought there would be ructions'.

Much evolved around local hotels. Despite the hopes for town halls and athenaeums, social life in New Zealand's rugged colonial frontier inevitably focused on hotels and their public bars. These were the public centres of their towns in practise, offering not just accommodation but spaces for townsfolk to gather and socialise. Business deals were often made in them - and in Havelock North, hotels even provided a public space for inquests. They were, in short, gathering places for their communities, the 'hub of the countryside', as one settler put it. Dozens flourished across Hawke's Bay. In Napier, there were four in Shakespeare Road alone. Others around the district included Wairoa's Clyde Hotel, the Duke of Edinburgh in Porangahau, Waipawa's Empire Hotel, the London Hotel on Napier's spit, the Tavistock in Waipukurau, the Sawyer's Arms in Hampden (Tikokino), and the Patangata Hotel.

- Matthew Wright, The History of Hawke's Bay, Wellington, 2017, p.108.

The NZ Rowing team's trip to the 1975 World Rowing Champs in Nottingham

This is a special guest post from former senior Beehive official, 1976 Montreal Olympics rowing eights bronze medallist (and my former landlord) Alec McLean, on the 1975 World Rowing Championships in Nottingham. Reposted here, lightly edited, from Facebook with Alec's permission:   

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Fifty years ago yesterday! The 1975 World Rowing Champs, Nottingham. It was a funny old trip. From memory, Rowing NZ had very ambitious plans for that tour. In preparation for the Montreal Olympic Games, a lengthy North American tour was planned, even some talk of the team getting jobs while away (all amateurs in those days). The squad assembled in Christchurch quite early, anticipating a departure for North America before going on to the UK.

As it turned out NZ Rowing had absolutely no funds - the North American plans fell by the wayside, we would continue training in Christchurch, and fly straight to UK for a very short build up to the World Champs at Nottingham.

So began a very long training period through a Christchurch winter (NZ Rowing didn't move to Karapiro until 1976). We would occasionally turn up for training at 3pm, frost still on the ground, and very occasionally you would see snow building up on the ears of the guy in front of you as we plied the river at Kerrs Reach.

We also had some health issues with the guys, one having to pull out, plus some crew changes, making it hard to get some consistency going. After flying to the UK we settled in, accommodated at Pangbourne Nautical College in Berkshire.

 
We again had some crew changes through illness. The stretch of water on the Thames by the Pangbourne College sheds was not long enough for eights training, so the eight moved up the river to Hobb's boat-yard. It proved to be a great venue, and I have since been back to Hobb's boat-yard twice on visits to England. Despite all our setbacks, we had an amazing black Empacher carbon fibre boat, extremely fast, and great looking. It also hummed! Some sort of harmonic resonating in the aluminium riggers maybe. It was a bit surreal rowing up the Thames on a beautiful English summers day, just the sound of the oars going kachunk, kachunk, then at a certain speed the boat would start humming - unique. But we were running out of time. Rusty had said a couple of times, 'I think there is a better way of rowing this boat', but time was against us, and we were into the Champs at Nottingham in no time. 

We had a perfect row in winning the heat, going straight through to the final. I don't really recall the final - I see from the clippings that stroke Grant McCauley says we got a slightly shaky start, but we ended up with a bronze behind East Germany and Russia. Second bronze for me! I should emphasise that our three crews had travelled from NZ just four weeks before the finals, with three weeks training in the UK, and having had not a single race until the heats.

I must mention our (unofficial) training shirts. A colleague of mine in Customs had done a bit of a cartoon for me (pinched from one those old Ozzie weekly magazines - it was a cricketer). So I had some t-shirts made up for the guys. Well, what a hit - as soon as the boys saw them I had to get another big batch made up. They were also a hit when it came to swapping shirts at the end of the Champs (an age-old custom). Some crafty bargainers were even getting a three for one swap, or a track suit for a scrappy NZ t-shirt. I managed to trade mine for an East German racing singlet (the East Germans were forbidden from trading their rowing gear). I offered him my racing singlet, but he said 'No, I want the one with the club'. So that was 1975!

 
Final crew - David Simmons cox, Grant McCauley, me, Dave Rodger, Athol Earl, Lindsay Wilson, Ross Collinge, Trevor Coker (dec), Pete Dignan (dec).

AM: 'Departing Pangbourne College for training. No money that year - a clapped out Ford Transit with two wooden benches along each side in the back. Lindsay Wilson, me, Pete Dignan (sadly passed away from cancer and few years ago)'

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The NZ rowing eights came third at Nottingham (time 5:43.61) behind East Germany (5:39.01) and the Soviet Union (5:41.34). Wikipedia notes that 'Beginning in 1974, doping became a blanket policy imposed by the GDR [East German] sports federation' (source).

Cinematic amusements in Wellington 100 years ago today

The Amusements section of Wellington's Dominion morning newspaper for Monday 31 August 1925 carries the usual detailed advertisements for cinema and theatre offerings, illustrating the busy entertainment scene in the capital a hundred years ago. Four cinemas advertised their wares, plus one theatre with a jam-packed vaudeville programme.

The DeLuxe Theatre ('The Finest Theatre under the Southern Cross') 

The Thundering Herd was directed by William K. Howard and featured Jack Holt, Lois Wilson, Noah Beery Sr. and Raymond Hatton. The Paramount film was a lightning-fast page-to-screen journey for a Zane Grey western novel released in the same year. It features the entire bison population of Yellowstone in a climactic stampede scene. 

Howard was a busy director in the 1920s and '30s, and his 1933 Spencer Tracy film The Power & the Glory is now recognised as an early influence on Citizen Kane. 

Jack Holt was at this point a 37-year-old actor best known for his roles in Westerns. His son Tim Holt would also become a Hollywood Western star for RKO in the 1940s. Father and son would both appear in John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, with Holt Sr. in a minor, uncredited role.  

One of the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1922, Lois Wilson was 31 in 1925. The following year she would appear as Daisy Buchanan in the first film adaptation of The Great Gatsby. 

The Thundering Herd, like many silent films of the era, has not survived. The De Luxe was built the previous year and since 1945 it has been known as the Embassy, Wellington's premier cinema.

King's Theatre ('Wellington's Popular Picture House')

Locked Doors was a romantic drama directed by William C. de Mille, elder brother of the more famous Cecil. In melodramatic circumstances a married woman Mary (Betty Compson) becomes infatuated with another man, John (Theodore von Eltz), who is then invited to move in by the married woman's husband, Norman (Theodore Roberts) to forget about another failed love affair. High drama ensues when a house fire traps Mary and John together in her bedroom, and they are discovered by Norman. Like The Thundering Herd, Locked Doors is a lost silent film.

Utah-born Betty Compson was 28 in 1925 and had been a film actor since 1915. Her success in the early 1920s enabled her to start her own film production company. In 1928, the year of the second Oscar ceremony, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in The Barker, but lost out to Mary Pickford in Coquette.  

The King's was New Zealand's first purpose-built movie theatre, and opened on Dixon St in 1910. It was demolished in 1986. 

Queen's Theatre ('The Cosiest House in Town') 

Still enjoyed today, the 1924 silent comedy Sherlock Jr. is directed by and stars silent era comedy legend Buster Keaton. A 45-minute classic featuring a cinema projectionist (Keaton) who, unlucky in love, falls into a dream that he is the World's Greatest Detective. In this dream he solves a great crime to clear his name and win the heart of The Girl (Kathryn McGuire) from a dastardly villain. The Girl's father is played by Joe Keaton, Buster's father.  

One of Keaton's dozen or so silent comedy classics of the mid-1920s, Sherlock Jr. was constructed around Keaton's desire for a regular Joe character to walk into a movie-screen and become the hero. In 2005 Time magazine named it as one of the 100 greatest films of all time. It entered the public domain on 1 January 2020.

The Queen's opened in Cuba St in 1916 and operated as a cinema until 1955, when it was converted into a billiard hall. It is now occupied by Loretta Cafe in the building next door to Slow Boat Records.

Paramount Theatre

The Great White Way was a boxing flick directed by E. Mason Hopper and released in January 1924. Made in cooperation with the New York City Fire Department, the ten-reeler features Anita Stewart as Follies dancer Mabel, who falls in love with prize-fighter Joe (Oscar Shaw). In it, Joe has to win a big bout to secure the funds to secure Mabel's show from an unscrupulous promoter. The film was produced by William Randolph Hearst for Goldwyn Pictures. It is also a lost picture.

Hopper was a prolific silent film director from 1917 until the end of the 1920s. He also appeared in an uncredited role as a doctor in the 1950 classic Sunset Boulevard. Stewart's real first name was Anna but Vitagraph accidentally publicised her as Anita, which she later adopted. For four years until 1922 she had operated her own production company, and shortly after The Great White Way she left the major studios and took roles in 'Poverty Row' studios to stay working; her final film was in 1928. She also wrote a murder mystery novel, The Devil's Toy, in 1935. Shaw was mainly a stage actor, and is now best known for appearing in the Marx Brothers' first film, The Cocoanuts (1929).

The Paramount operated as a cinema from 1917 to 2017. The last Wellington Film Society screening there was Wim Wenders' 1974 road movie, Wrong Move.

His Majesty's Theatre 

Offering a 'brand new bill that for entertainment value has never been approached in the history of N.Z. Vaudeville', His Majesty's presented Australian "Prince of Comedians" Jim Gerald and his titular Revue Company in their production 'Not Likely', which was billed as "A 100 per cent laughing show with Jimmy as a bonus Chemist's Assistant". Also on the bill was the New York comedy novelty act Three White Kuhns, and comedians George Edwards and Molly Hughes. His Majesty's opened in 1912, and since 1930 has been known as the St James.

See also:
Blog: 100th anniversary of the Embassy Theatre, 31 October 2024

Blog: What's on at the Regal Cinema Karori (1943), 27 August 2023

Blog: What's on at the Regal Cinema Karori (1929-30), 10 February 2020

The world's first photographic portrait studio

How rapidly a combination of inventiveness and business sense can lead to success can be seen in the collaboration of [Alexander] Wolcott and [John] Johnson, partners in a New York manufactory which produced and distributed optical instruments and other equipment involving precision engineering. After their initial successes in early October 1839, the two continued to work on improving their mirror camera. This not only had the advantage of repгoducing the view the right way round but also avoided the loss of light which occurred with the usual lenses. In addition, the concave mirror focused the light, so that far more light reached the plate. With the exposure time thus reduced, the making of portraits became a practical proposition, although the construction of the camera permitted only a small format of, at most, five square centimeters.

Early in March 1840 Wolcott, with Johnson as a partner, opened a portrait studio in New York, the first anywhere in the world. On March 15 they moved to other premises and installed a lighting system by which two mirrors reflected light from outside onto the subject. On May 8 Wolcott patented the camera, which was to have a major influence on the early spread of the daguerreotype in the United States and Britain. The idea of using a mirror instead of a lens, which tended to swallow up light had. in fact, first been put forward in Scotland in April 1839, but had not been followed up. The deficiencies of Daguerre's process were thus being addressed very early on, indicating a desire to make it suitable for use by a larger number of people as quickly as possible.

It frequently happened that identical or similar ideas cropped up in towns that were far apart, and were developed further without the inventors knowing of each other's work. This simultaneity shows that the invention of the daguerreotype was in line with the current state of scientific thinking and that its further development was determined by the requirements of its potential users whether behind or in front of the camera. Almost all the significant inventions relating to the daguerreotype between 1839 and 1841 were arrived at independently by several different people. Which one of them first became publicly known was often a matter of pure chance.

- Timm Starl, 'A New World of Pictures: The use and spread of the daguerreotype process', in Michel Friztot, A New History of Photography. Cologne, 1998, p.39

See also:

Blog: A suitable hobby for ladies, 11 March 2025

Blog: Ans Westra Wellington 1976, 30 June 2013

Blog: Wildlife Photographer of the Year, 20 January 2013

Three reasons the Great Depression lasted so long

A large part of what made the Great Depression so painful was that it was not only deep but also long. There were many reasons for this. Let me pick out three:

A first reason it stretched on for so long was workers' unwillingness to take risks. With so much instability, most were content to settle for what manner of living they could find that was most secure. The experience of long and high unemployment casts a large and deep shadow on the labor market. Risky but profitable enterprises had a difficult time attracting the workers they needed, and so investment remained depressed.

A second reason it was long was the memory of the gold standard and the belief that economies needed to get back to it. This belief dissuaded governments in the 1930s from taking many of the steps to boost production and employment that they otherwise might have pursued: the gold standard was dead by 1931, but its ghost continued to haunt the world economy. Few of these much-needed measures were undertaken. The only one that governments did take up was currency depreciation: stimulating net exports by switching demand to domestic-made goods and away from foreign-made goods. Commentators disparaged currency depreciation as "beggar-thy-neighbor." It was. But it was the only thing generally undertaken that was effective.

A third reason was that the lack of a hegemon to guide coordinated action in international monetary affairs not only pre vented anticipatory reforms but also blocked coordinated global policy responses. The major monetary powers of the world passed up their chances to do anything constructive together. Recovery, where it came, was national only, not global.

In general, the sooner countries went off the gold standard, and the less constrained they were thereafter by the orthodoxy of gold-standard habits, the better they fared. Thus, the Scandinavian countries that bailed first from the gold standard did best. Japan was second. Britain also abandoned the gold standard, in 1931, but Japan embraced expansionary policies more thoroughly. The United States and Germany abandoned the gold standard in 1933, but Hitler had a clearer view that success required putting people to work than FDR did with the try-everything-expediency of his New Deal.

- J Bradford DeLong, Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century, New York, 2022, p.219-220.

How the telegraph knitted the world together

The electric telegraph allowed a conversation. It connected points on the globe as messages sped through copper at nearly the speed of light.

Not everyone was welcoming. Henry David Thoreau [...] groused: "We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas, but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate."

While Texas may not have had much important to learn from Maine, in the summer of 1860 Texas had a great deal to learn from Chicago: the Republican Party National Convention meeting at the Wigwam nominated Abraham Lincoln as its candidate for president. So started a chain of events that would kill twenty-five thousand white adult Texans and maim twenty-five thousand more, and that would free all two hundred thousand enslaved Black Texans within five years. Maine may not have had much to learn from Texas, but telegraphs reporting relative prices of Grand Bank codfish in Boston, Providence, New York, and Philadelphia were of great importance to Maine fishermen slipping their moorings.

Knowing the price of codfish is valuable, the freeing of hundreds of thousands of Americans is profound, and both only hint at the shift that came with telegraphed intelligence. Ever since the development of language, one of humanity's great powers has been that our drive to talk and gossip truly turns us into an anthology intelligence. What one of us in the group knows, if it is useful, pretty quickly everyone in the group knows, and often those well beyond the group, too. The telegraph enlarged the relevant group from the village or township or guild to, potentially, the entire world.

- J Bradford DeLong, Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century, New York, 2022, p.52-3.

Hobson's many challenges

[New Zealand's first Governor, Captain William] Hobson was experienced neither as a politician nor a diplomat when he arrived in New Zealand in January 1840 to take up his appointment as Lieutenant Governor. A successful but unremarkable naval career had done little to prepare him for this posting and in retrospect, the Colonial Office's selection of Hobson as New Zealand's first Governor was ill-advised, and perhaps even careless.

Had New Zealand been a colony with a negligible European settlement, Hobson may well have been equal to the task, but by 1840 the country had already witnessed two decades of increasing European intervention, with the accompanying emergence of factionalism between the various interest groups that had by then established themselves. Hobson's arrival stirred the ambitions of the missionaries, obstructed the designs of the land speculators, and unsettled the expectations of many of the British immigrants. Moreover, the whole colony was couched in intrigue, which Hobson initially approached as a naive outsider.

To complicate matters even further, Hobson had to contend with the instructions from his political masters in London. The policy he was expected to follow was sometimes vague and frequently impractical in its implementation. The delay of several months for communications between New Zealand and London often left the Governor marooned in an island of opposition and hostility.

- Paul Moon, Hobson: Governor of New Zealand 1840-1842, Auckland, 1998, p.306

See also:

History: Precolonial maritime NZ, 22 February 2025

History: In memory of Captain Williams, 22 September 2019

History: Pre-1840 European visitors to Wellington, 21 February 2016

Precolonial maritime New Zealand

That record, since December 1642 when Abel Tasman first sighted 'Clyppygen Hoeck', to December 1840, when colonisation began, had the records of 1758 vessels arriving on the [New Zealand] coast.

They came, first to explore, then to exploit, little schooners and brigs out of the infant seaport of Port Jackson, the whaling barques out of the ancient port of London, the full-riggers from the whaling ports of Maine and Massachusetts, from Lisbon, Copenhagen, Le Havre, Bremen and Hobart Town. Sealers and whalers, spar ships and flax traders, sandalwood schooners on their way home from Fiji, ships laden with tortoise shell and coconut oil from Tahiti, and ships of war from Trincomalee and Toulon.

New Zealand, and many of its precolonial seaports, enjoyed a trade by sea that was truly international, and today, as one sails up the harbours of Akaroa, Port Underwood, Hokianga or the Bay of Islands, with only an occasional fisherman or pleasure boat in sight, it is difficult to imagine those waters thronged with barques, brigs and schooners flying the flags of many nations, of whaleboats, in countless numbers, trafficking between ships and from ship to shore.

They came in their hundreds, seeking grog and girls, pork and potatoes, and the natural products the coast had to offer: oil to light the lamps of Europe and America; whalebone to corset their women; sealskins to robe the Manchus of China or to appear on the streets of London as 'beaver hats'; flax to provide canvas, rope and cordage for their ships; and solid kauri spars for masts and yards. Whatever they sought, they came by sea, stayed a while and went on, about their seafaring business. A few were left behind, seamen from America, France, Australia, England, Scotland and Ireland, ship deserters of many nations, living with their Maori wives and laying the foundations of what was to become a multiracial society.

To some perhaps, the most significant maritime activity of these years will be seen as that occurring in 1840, the arrival in Port Nicholson of the chartered ships of the New Zealand Company, carrying between them close on 2000 intending settlers, to be landed haphazardly on the beach at Petone in the rude collection of tents, shacks and whares they proudly called 'Britannia'.

- Rear-Admiral John O'Connell Ross,* New Zealand Maritime History to 1840: People, Ships, Trade & Settlement, Wellington, 2024, p.146-7.

(* Ross was Royal New Zealand Navy Chief of Naval Staff, 1965-69)

See also:
History: The itinerant life of a tramp steamer, 11 December 2021

History: The lifeblood of a young colony, 12 June 2009

History: Tales to tell back on shore, 21 January 2009

The measure of Pope John Paul II

[Pope John Paul II] was a hard man to measure. Sternly authoritarian he nevertheless abandoned the use of the Royal plural in his encyclicals and allocutions: he was the first pope to write not as 'we' but in his own persona, as Karol Wojtyla. He was also a passionate believer in religious liberty, and at Vatican II played a key role in the transformation of Catholic teaching in that area. Often seen as dismissive of other faiths, he had an intense interest in Judaism, born out of a lifelong friendship with a Jewish boy from Krakow: he was the first Pope to visit the Roman Synagogue, and in 1993 he established formal diplomatic relations with the State of Israel. His openness to other religions extended to the non-Abrahamic traditions. In October 1986 at Assisi he initiated acts of worship involving not only Muslims, but Hindus, the Dali Lama and assorted Shamans. When praying by the Ganges at the scene of Gandhi's cremation he became so absorbed that his entourage lost patience and literally shook him back into his schedule. The uncompromising defender of profoundly unpopular teaching on matters such as birth-control, he was nevertheless the most populist pope in history, an unstoppable tarmac-kisser, hand-shaker, granny-blesser, baby-embracer. Convinced of his own immediate authority over and responsibility for every Catholic in the world, he went to the people, showing himself, asserting his authority, coaxing, scolding, joking, weeping, and trailing exhausted local hierarchies in his wake [...]

John Paul II's pontificate, the longest since Pius IX and the second longest in history, will also be judged one of the most momentous, in which a pope not only once more reasserted papal control of the Church, and thereby sought to call a halt to the decentralising initiated as a result of the Second Vatican Council, but in which the Pope, long since a marginal figure in the world of realpolitik, once more played a major role in world history, and the downfall of Soviet Communism. John Paul's own contradictions defied easy categorisations. Passionately committed to the freedom and integrity of the human person, he was the twentieth century's most effective ambassador for such freedoms, setting his own country on a path to liberation and thereby helping trigger the collapse of the Soviet empire. Two of his major encyclicals, Veritatis Splendor and Fides et Ratio, celebrate the ability of the free human mind to grasp fundamental truth and to discern the will of God which is also the fulfilment of human nature. Yet under his rule, the last quarter of the twentieth century saw a revived authoritarianism in the Catholic Church, in which, in the judgement of many, theological exploration was needlessly outlawed or prematurely constrained. Passionately committed to reconciliation with the Orthodox, his pontificate saw an expansion of Catholicism within the former Soviet Union which outraged Orthodox leaders and hardened the ancient suspicions he so painfully and sincerely laboured to dispel. This Polish pope did more than any single individual in the whole history of Christianity to reconcile Jews and Christians and to remove the ancient stain of anti-Semitism from the Christian imagination: his visits to the Roman synagogue and above all to the Holy Land in 2000, and his repeated expressions of penitence for Christian anti-Semitism, were imaginative gestures whose full implications and consequences have yet to appear. Yet he canonised Maximillian Kolbe, the Polish Franciscan who voluntarily took the place of a married man in a Nazi concentration camp death cell, but who had edited an anti-Semitic paper between the Wars. Wojtyla also canonized Edith Stein, the Jewish convert to Catholicism who became a Carmelite nun and died because she was a Jew in Auschwitz in 1942. The Pope saw Stein as a reconciling figure. Jews saw her as an emblem of proselytisation and, as in the case of Kolbe, an attempt to annex the Shoah for Catholicism. Wojtyla was not deflected from his purpose, and despite protests both canonizations went ahead.

- Eamon Duffy, Saints & Sinners: A History of the Popes, Yale, 2006, pp.377 & 382-3.

What East Germans wanted in the 1950s

Given that most of the men and women who were involved in the governmental and party structures of the newly established GDR had suffered horrendous political persecution during the Hitler years, one might have expected more resistance to the lack of democratic process within the new constitution. Here was a chance to build the better Germany many had dreamt of, why was there not more anger at the corruption of this ideal? Paradoxically, the answer lies precisely in the experiences of fascism and war, which had led many Germans to value stability and unity over pluralistic discussion. This was true East and West. Germans were exhausted and the majority wanted little to do with politics. Since 1914, there had been little respite from ideology, war, economic turmoil and rapid political change. A middle-aged German in 1949 had seen the whole spectrum of political systems in their lifetime, but none of the offerings had shown a functioning democracy. Where was a love for voting, citizens' rights and a pluralistic society meant to come from? What the German public wanted was not an array of parties on a voting slip every four years but food on the table, a restored roof over their heads and a future without war and economic disaster.

The difference between East and West was that the West delivered these things immediately while the East did not. Konrad Adenauer, the first Chancellor of the FRG, was re-elected with results that modern politicians can only dream of: in 1953 and again in 1957, when his party received an astonishing 50.2 per cent of the vote despite a system of proportional representation which usually leads to coalition governments. This enabled him to run the country without forming a coalition for the only time in its history since 1949. All of this under Adenauer's famous slogan: 'Keine Experimente' - No Experiments.

East Germans too wanted no experiments in the 1950s. They wanted peace, secure jobs, food and an opportunity to rebuild their disrupted lives...

- Katja Hoyer, Beyond the Wall: East Germany 1949-1990, 2023, p.109-110.

Leibniz, polymath

[German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm] Leibniz collected fossils and conducted geological research, which eventually resulted in an innovative essay on the history of the earth. He had also begun another project, one that proved a bigger boon than any amount of efficiently extracted silver. The Hanoverian dukes were an offshoot of a junior branch of the Welf dynasty, whose long history Leibniz was commissioned to write. He never finished this compendious work—there was always a fascinating new morsel to add—but his relentless archival digging helped the duchy make its case for promotion to an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire.

Medieval history, metaphysics, and geology were not nearly enough to keep Leibniz busy in early 1686. In January, he wrote an article exposing what he took to be a notable blunder in Descartes’s physics. Descartes regarded force as the product of mass and velocity, whereas Leibniz argued that it was better seen as mass times the square of velocity. This move brought Leibniz close to the modern notion of kinetic energy. In April, he began writing a hundred-page “Examination of the Christian Religion,” and not long afterward he composed his most substantial treatise on logic. It contained a pioneering algebra of propositions, similar to the logical calculus invented in the mid-nineteenth century by the English mathematician George Boole. Boole’s creation is a large part of the basis for computer languages. When he learned of Leibniz’s precursor to his handiwork, Boole said that he felt as if Leibniz had shaken hands with him across the centuries.

- Anthony Gottlieb, ‘He Was a Genius for the Ages. Can We Give Him a Break?’, New Yorker, 6 January 2025

The performances were apt to give rise to overcrowding and tumults

Control of dramatic performances in 16th century England

In the 16th century companies of players were attached to the court and to households of the nobility. Some of these companies travelled about the country giving performances at private houses and to the public. In addition, there were wandering troupes of miscellaneous players under no patronage. In the larger towns the guilds continued to present Corpus Christi plays, and similar performances were given sporadically in smaller places, but the performers of these probably remained amateurs. Some measure of control over stage performances was exercised in the interests of public order from about the middle of the century. The licensing of individual plays, in one form or another, began in 1549 if not earlier; and the subjection of players, unless 'protected', to the laws relating to vagabonds dates at least from 1554, and was probably enforced in practice even earlier. These measures were re-enacted in the reign of Elizabeth. By the Injunctions of 1559 [...] she directed that no interlude should be played unless previously licensed by the mayor of the town, or in the country by the lord lieutenant or two justices of the peace; and no plays were to be so licensed which treated of matters of religion or of the governance of the country. By an Act of 1572 all players were to be deemed rogues and vagabonds unless they belonged to a baron of the realm or person of higher degree, or were licensed by two justices. The mayor and corporation of London, who under the Injunctions of 1559 had jurisdiction over stage plays in the city of London, the chief centre of theatrical activity, were in general hostile to dramatic performances, partly from Puritan sentiment, partly because the performances were apt to give rise to overcrowding and tumults, and moreover tended to spread infection in the frequently recurring periods of plague. The court on the other hand, and Elizabeth herself, favoured the players, and the grant in 1574 of a patent to the Earl of Leicester's company, authorising them to play in all towns without hindrance by the local authorities, conflicted with the powers previously conferred on the corporation. The latter retorted with an act of Common Council requiring all players to be licensed by the corporation and all plays allowed by it. The conflict between court and city was keen and prolonged, and during certain periods the corporation prohibited all performances within the city boundaries. In consequence, the first permanent playhouse in London was erected in Finsbury fields, outside the Lord Mayor's jurisdiction.

- Margaret Drabble, 'Censorship & the law of the press', The Oxford Companion to English Literature, Oxford, 1985, p.1105-6.

The central role of drugs in the history of international trade

The popularisation of drug foods by Europeans often transformed their meanings, uses, and location of production. Tea and coffee gained initial favour in China and the Middle East because their caffeine contributed to the wakefulness necessary for religious rites. Muslim Sufi holy men and Buddhist priests popularised the drinks, which long were closely associated with religious observances. Cacao drinking was restricted to the Aztec theocracy and aristocracy in Mexico. In Europe all three beverages became tied to secular uses. Over time their class appeal changed: they began as aristocratic privilege, diffused to bourgeois pleasures, and eventually became mass delights and finally common necessities. The drugs that began as nourishment for spiritual contemplation became the sustenance of industrial workers. Along that path, the way they were consumed also changed. They were originally hot drinks with no sweeteners (the Aztecs added chili to cacao, the Arabs sometimes nutmeg or cardamom to coffee); later, so many additives were included that the original beverage was hardly discernible.

Once they gained acceptance and began creating fortunes for merchants and state treasuries, most of the drugs became respectable. In areas marginal to world trade, they sometimes served as money. Cacao beans in Central America, tobacco in West Africa, opium in southwest China, and tea bricks in Siberian Russia were currency. But usually the goal was to transmute them into gold or silver. At first they were foundations of mercantilist empires. The Spanish doted on chocolate because of their dominion over most of Latin America, which had a natural monopoly on cacao until traders later moved it to Africa. The British, who were the first Europeans to become coffee crazed, found tea more to the advantage of their trade plans in China and India. The French and Americans, oriented to Latin America, became coffee addicts.

These exotic drugs emerged from the outlaw underground to become central parts of the nascent bourgeois lifestyle in Europe. They went from the stuff of community, such as the tobacco smoked by Native Americans in council meetings or by West Africans in religious ceremonies, to the fuel of entrepreneurs and agitators for individual rights. Coffeehouses (which served other drinks as well) served as centres for trade and politicking in Europe. The first newspapers, men's clubs, and political parties were organised, and revolutions plotted, around tables serving coffee and tea. Smoking brought together men who created civil society amid the acrid clouds of tobacco. (Indeed, the coffeehouse was the world economy in miniature, an international emporium joining coffee from Java, Yemen, or the Americas, tea from China, sugar and rum from Africa's Atlantic islands or the Caribbean, and tobacco from North America or Brazil.)

The nineteenth century would popularise these goods so much that they lost their revolutionary appeal and their sense of social distinction. Tobacco descended from elegant snuff and fine cigars to vulgar chewing tobacco. Aristocratic Parisian dandies at Versailles who delicately took snuff would not have recognised that this was the same substance that US baseball players later called chaw and spit out on the sidelines or teenagers smoked furtively in school restrooms. Indeed, making it easier to consume tobacco while also working—as when cigarettes replaced the elaborate, heavy pipes that elites in the Middle East had favoured for nicotine delivery—could be crucial to expanding the market, while also changing the social image of smoking. Sugar was debased from extravagant culinary dessert masterpieces to a huge source of working-class calories in beverages to an industrial additive in something so prosaic as, say, ketchup; coffee and tea descended from the elegant salons to become popularised with instant coffee and iced tea in military rations and in cafeterias.

- Kenneth Pomeranz, The World That Trade Created, 2006 (via DelanceyPlace)w