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

Kelburn 7.20am

 

Fern inspector

 

Pigeon conclave in Courtenay Place

 

Thistle Hall, Karo Drive

 

Tinakori Rd

 

Dixon St

 

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"

Down by the lagoon after work

 

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

Two Wellington sunrises

 

Wellington, 9 July 2025

Wellington, 8 July 2025

Comedy Festival 2025

Nish Kumar (Hannah Playhouse, 2 May) 

A compellingly bracing and impressively coherent ramble through progressive polemic rant with discursions into the power of lousy South Asian role models, how the world is beset with psychotic billionaires, his mum's feud with Camilla Parker-Bowles, how not to interview Boris Johnson, his comedic feud with Ricky Gervais, and how to manage one's mental health whilst actively discussing unprocessed rage on stage in front of complete strangers when one's friends have become millionaires by doing a podcast about how sandwiches are nice. Also the evening was triply impressive because Kumar responded to weather disruptions by performing not one, not two, but three shows in a single night.

Abby Howells (BATS, 9 May) 

An expertly-constructed and charmingly delivered set illustrating the thorough unsuitability of Tiny Tim as gig warmup music, the psychological traumas of Michael Jackson impersonators, Willy Wonka & the housing ladder, the perils of becoming Insta-famous, an update on the (presumably) lifelong feud with Wanaka Puzzleworld (sic.), the pitfalls of improv group vendettas and discount group therapy, not looking like a pervert on the bus, and breaking up with her ex- and finding the love of her life. (See also: Conan O'Brien, who met her for his NZ episode of his Conan O'Brien Must Go series, described Howells as 'without a doubt one of the funniest people I've met').

Ray O'Leary (Te Auaha, 22 May) 

Slow-talkin', tan-suited purveyor of droll observational comedy, touching on the potentially accurate effrontery of a woman who approached him on the street to thank him for being a good role model for autistic people despite him never having being diagnosed as having autism, being insufficiently unhealthy to qualify for Ozempic, the lack of security at New Zealand rest homes, how to use Borat impressions to lighten up bleak standup material, and coaxing audience members to work on their comedic timing in a ramshackle three-person, one-act sitcom reading.

Zealandia tui

 

Iona Tower

 

Samba ao Vento, CubaDupa

 

Steely-eyed surveillance

Pacific reef heron, Evans Bay

 

From Makara Peak

 

Wind turbines & Marlborough coast

Karori from Makara Peak

West Wind (northern half)

Makara hills

From Mt Kaukau

 

Iona Tower

 

Nga Manu Nature Reserve