 | LOCAL HISTORY |
YEAR: 1939
The Centennial Exhibition opens in Wellington.
Millers opens in Tuam Street with the South Island's first escalator. The building now house the Christchurch City Council offices.
The Council inaugurates NZ's first local-body pensioner housing.
YEAR: 1938
Exports and Imports are allowed only with special licences.
February 26 - Summit Road opens
September 14 - Social Security Act passed. The cornerstone of the first Labour government's 'cradle to the grave' welfare policies, this act introduced revised pensions and extended benefits for families, invalids and the unemployed.
Credit: Ch-Ch City Libraries
YEAR: 1937
June 9 - Citizens War Memorial unveiled in Cathedral Square.
Free milk was made available in schools.
Credit: Ch-Ch City Libraries
YEAR: 1936
The National Broadcasting Service is established
Aviator Jean Batten lands at Mangere to become the first person to fly solo from England to NZ, setting a trans-Tasman record for the last leg from Sydney.
January 16 - Inauguration of inter-island air service by Union Airways.
May 13 - NZ National Party founded. Established at a conference in Wellington on 13-14 May 1936, the National Party was to dominate the New Zealand political scene in the second half of the 20th century.
August 6 - Jack Lovelock won New Zealand's first Olympic track gold medal before Adolf Hitler and a crowd of 110,000 at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He led the 1500-metres field home in a world record time of 3:47.8.
Urlwins manufactures NZ's first plastic products.
Diesel buses are introduced in Ch-Ch.
Credit: Ch-Ch City Libraries
YEAR: 1935
The Labour Party wins a landslide election victory and over the following few years inaugurates reforms, including a free health service. The defeated Reform and United parties merge to form the Nationa Party.
January 19-21 - Visit by the Duke of Gloucester.
July 1 - Evening papers "Star" & "Sun" merge to become the "Star Sun", ending a 6 year newspaper war, the longest and most bitter in NZ's history. The "peace" agreement between the 3 companies concerned also saw the demise of the "Christchurch Times" (once the "Lyttelton Times"), the oldest daily paper in the country.
December 17 - City Council decides to buy 230 acres of land at Harewood for a city airport. The purchase was strongly criticised in many quarters as excessively large.
Credit: Ch-Ch City Libraries
YEAR: 1934
Reserve Bank and Mortgage Corporation established.
First trans-Tasman airmail.
YEAR: 1933
November 9 - Mrs E R McCombs (Lyttelton) becomes the first woman MP in NZ.
Beginning of daffodil plantings in Hagley Park. Nearly all the hundreds of thousands of bulbs were donated by the people of Christchurch.
The last full-blooded Moriori, Tame Horomona (Tommy Sullivan), dies in the Chatham Islands.
Credit: Ch-Ch CityLibraries
YEAR: 1932
January 1 - Radio Broadcasting Company of NZ (owner of the YA stations) taken over by Government to form the nucleus of a State broadcasting system.
April 1 - New Regent Street was opened.
April 4 - Death of Phar Lap. Two weeks after winning one of America's richest races, the Agua Caliente Handicap, the Australasian champ died of a mystery illness in California.
NZ's worst depression riots occur in Auckland with violent clashes between protestors and police.
May 4 - A strike started at Christchurch Tramway. One of the most bitter in the city's history, it lasted 16 days. There were many injuries and arrests among the strikers. The tram sheds were barricaded with barbed wire, and trams were fitted with wire mesh screens over their windows to ward off attacks.
The Robert Dougall Art Gallery opens
Credit: Ch-Ch City Libraries
YEAR: 1931
February 3 - The Hawkes Bay earthquake hits, killing 256 people in Napier (161), Hastings (93) and Wairoa (2) and thrusts up 3600 hectares of land adjacent to Napier from under water
YEAR: 1930
After several years of recession, the deepest economic depression of the 20th century descends and lasts five years, with unemployment reaching 80,000.
November 6 - Weekly air service (New Zealand's first regular service) begins to Dunedin.
December - South Island's first traffic lights installed at the intersection of Cashel and Colombo Streets.
Credit: Ch-ChCity Libraries
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