Articles in ‘History’

Situated on the picturesque Otago Peninsula perched atop a rising ridge stands the imposing and lasting monument to one man’s insistent desire to announce to the world that he had arrived, that he was someone and that he had ‘done good’. William Larnach had grown up on the rural estate of Rosemount, in the Patrick Plains of the Hunter Valley near Singleton in New South Wales,…

A few months ago elocal brought you the little-known story of Port Waikato's 1891 earthquake. Now a local woman has done a bit of moving and shaking of her own with her history of the sleepy seaside town. Actually it's the author herself, Glennis Paton, who's been shaken up the most. The success of her newly published book, The Way We Were - Port Waikato, has taken her completely…

New Zealand was first settled in the 13th century, by Maori, right? Think again. The first people living in New Zealand weren’t masons or horticulturalists, right? Think again. For every library, government department, trust and iwi that tells you their version of New Zealand history, there are just as many alternative historians asking challenging questions, not to mention…

In 1963, somebody dug up evidence that man may have been in the Hawkes Bay area 4500 years ago, and instantaneously his revelation was buried. Surely not, I hear you say to yourself, if somebody unearthed indisputable evidence, wouldn’t that be enough? Surely the entire history of this country would be rewritten, wouldn’t it? It wouldn’t. Let’s learn about some scientists who…