Tag: Local History Week

David Warnock Medical Museum Display

// Heritage
Image depicts two glass display cabinets with historical medical equipment on display within. Two anatomical charts hang behind them showing human muscle structure, including optical nerve structure.

Has this display on the first floor of the City Library caught your eye?  The vintage medical equipment is on loan from the David Warnock Medical Museum.  Its collection features medical and dental equipment spanning more than 100 years, including items dating back to the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s.  To modern viewers, some items appear like bizarre torture devices, but when first produced this medical technology was cutting edge – quite literally, in the case of amputations and surgery.

The museum was established by ophthalmologist and dedicated collector, Dr. David Warnock, and is administered by a charitable Trust.  From June 2023, the collection will have to vacate its building at the Palmerston North Hospital.  You can read more about the efforts to save the museum and its nationally significant collection here – https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/131394602/palmerston-north-hospital-tells-medical-museum-to-pack-up-and-find-new-home

As part of Palmerston North’s Heritage month, the David Warnock Medical Museum will be holding an open day on Friday 17 March.  Seize the opportunity to view this fascinating and important medical history collection in its Palmerston North Hospital venue.

David Warnock Medical Museum Open Day
Palmerston North Hospital, Heretaunga Street, Gate 5
Friday 17 March, 1-4.30pm, entry by gold coin donation.

Chief Post Office and its exciting future

// Heritage

Mayor Grant Smith, a self-titled ‘history-buff,’ has been a member of Heritage New Zealand for over 40 years. On Thursday 2 March for Local History Week, he presents on a topic dear to his heart, Palmerston North’s Chief Post Office. Not only did Mayor Smith open his first bank account at the Post Office Savings Bank – his future wife, Michelle, worked upstairs in the Telephone Services Department.

The Chief Post Office was one of the nation’s grandest when built in 1905. It was proudly opened in June 1906 by Prime Minister and Postmaster General, Sir Joseph Ward. The Chief Post Office served the city and wider region well over the decades, until New Zealand Post finally vacated the building in 1988. Subsequently, the grand old place housed various bars and night clubs, restaurants and function centres, before falling into disrepair.

Mayor Smith will highlight the past glory of this city landmark and its future as a soon-to-be central city hotel. He was instrumental in connecting with the new owners, the Safari Group, a New Zealand building and development company. They will restore the original Post Office structure, combining and constructing a new 86 room Wyndham Hotel at the rear of the site.

2nd Floor Central Library at 12:30pm-1:30pm.

Bus trip to Woolshed Café, Sanson

// Heritage

Experience a unique audio guided heritage walk (approximately 90 minutes in duration). Comprises of seven authentically restored New Zealand houses, inside and out, 1860s-1960s.

Saturday 4 March, 9.00am-12.30pm. Cost $10 (bus fare and tour)

Starting in 2012, Woolshed Café owner Alan Parker has spent a lot of time collecting and restoring period homes. The homes were unwanted and to be demolished. Alan has meticulously researched the history of each period and learnt building skills to restore the houses to their former glory. The first was an art deco house and the project grew from there. The earliest example is an 1860s colonial cottage. Each house is authentically furnished with memorabilia, down to the wallpaper of the appropriate era.

Alan hopes to add to the collection, although finding affordable houses has become more challenging.

There will be time to have morning tea at the Woolshed Café after touring the seven houses.

Wire Happy: the Shannon objectors’ camps 1942-1946

// Heritage

Lesley Courtney is the former City Archivist and Heritage Team Leader. Still passionate about our local history, on Wednesday 1 March for Local History Week she will present a talk written by Margaret Tate, on the objector camps that were created near Shannon during WWII.

When conscription was introduced for men aged 18 to 40 during WWII, an appeals board was also created to deal with those who objected. Overall about 40% of the men who appealed became ‘military defaulters’ and were detained in camps for the duration of the war. The Shannon camps, former flax milling sites with buildings and the possibility of useful work, were opened in 1942 and eventually housed almost half of all the men in detention in New Zealand.

This talk will focus on the people, camp life and the impact of the detention on the local population and the men and families involved.

2nd Floor Central Library at 12:30pm-1:30pm

Family Tree: DNA basics, getting started, and more resources

// Heritage

Central Library, 2nd Floor
1 March – 6.30 -8.00pm
15 March – 6.00-7.30pm
29 March – 6.00-7.30pm
Cost: Free

Discover your family history with expert help from members of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists, Palmerston North. Suitable for people who are new to genealogy. The sessions will provide hands-on activities, tips and tricks for beginning explorers and also for those who would like to learn more in-depth research skills.

The library has free resources available to help with getting started. Learn how to get the best out of online resources like Ancestry and FamilySearch! All welcome, registration essential.