Findmypast which is available on the Digital Library now offers access to some historic Trade Union membership records, especially those for the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS) and the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners (ASCJ).   Unfortunately it doesn’t include the other big craft Union, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE).

Back in the day, I was asked for details on a carpenter who was active in Labour Party and Union politics in the early twentieth century in Auckland.  The family were unsure as to where he had first apprenticed and worked as a carpenter, but I happened to know that the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick in Britain had historical records of the ASCJ.   That Union, and others, acted as an international Union with branches worldwide, including within New Zealand.   The Centre in Warwick had no difficulty in tracing our carpenter and confirmed that he was a member of a Dublin Branch before moving to New Zealand, where he transferred to an Auckland ASCJ Branch. Members readily transferred from one Branch to another as they moved around the world for work.

Image of record from findmypast.

The example shows a page for the Mount Eden, Auckland, Branch of the ASCJ for 1911.   Note the Branch number was 892.



The particular carpenter I was looking for here was Tom (Thomas) Bloodworth who was a long time Labour Party, Trade Union and local body activist.  Note he is here just as ‘T. Bloodworth’, at number 10 on the page.

You can search by name, or drill down using Education & Work and then Record Set: Britain, Trade Union membership registers.  You can then select Image or Transcript.


David Verran

Sir George Grey Special Collections,  Auckland Libraries, 1-W1814

Was your ancestor an engineer in NZ? If so, here are some sources of possible interest for you to explore. 

The Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand (known to its friends as IPENZ) operates an excellent website on NZ's engineering heritage. It includes a small database of biographies of significant engineers.

If you know the engineering field your ancestor was involved in, some of the works in the 'recommended reads' section may also prove of value as background material.

Auckland Libraries has both reference and loan copies available of Early New Zealand engineers by F.W. Furkert; revised and edited by W.L. Newnham. This work is a collection of alphabetically arranged mini-biographies of engineers who were born prior to 1866.

Along with some other sources on engineers, the names from Furkert's book have been indexed into the New Zealand Card Index; for example:



The New Zealand Card Index was closed in 1996 when Index Auckland started. As the name implies, this index has a strong emphasis on Auckland, but also contains references to places and people from further afield; it is worth checking for engineer ancestors even if they are not Aucklanders.

Among the items indexed are obituaries and other biographical mentions of engineers appearing in selected issues of the Proceedings of the Institution of Professional Engineers 1938-1952 and the journal New Zealand Engineering, 1946-1972 (indexing not yet complete).

Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 7-A15208

If your ancestor was already a qualified engineer when they migrated to NZ, or spent part of their working lives in the UK, then they may have joined one of the professional engineering societies in the UK. Some membership records of these are now available as searchable databases on Ancestry.com.

The contents vary, but some have considerable detail, such as the Institution of Civil Engineers’ collection of applications to join the society 1820-1930. Entries often include date of birth, nationality, and summary of education and career, sometimes with supporting correspondence and certificates. Engineers are a highly mobile occupational group, so such information might well include details of service all over the world.

Janelle

A few weeks back here at Kintalk, we posted a blog on the Bomb Girls of England, those women and girls who worked in the munitions factories in the English countryside during World War One.

In New Zealand, as in the UK, the manpower shortage meant there was also a significant shortage of workers to another most important part of the economy – the farms -  and that problem was solved by the introduction of  The Women's Land Service.

An estimated 4000 young women, most often townies, were sent to work on farms with a view to doing the ‘man’s work.’ For many, it was their first time on a farm and there was no getting around the fact they had to become jacks-of-all-trades, and do real, gritty farm work.  They docked lambs tails, learned to shear, harvested, sowed, baled fertiliser planted, drove tractors  – any farm work that needed to be done, they did it.  Despite this massive culture shift, the head of the Women’s Land Service described the young women as “a very fine type, not afraid of work and willing to learn.”

By accounts, many of the girls were good workers. Maybe too good as the article “Is It Jealousy?” in the Auckland Star (2 November 1943) suggested when the North Otago Farmers’ Union moved to employ the girls as domestic workers instead of farm workers. The article suggested the farmers wanted the girls to be taken down a peg, and condemned the move.

Click here to read more.

The Land Service was not a scheme without problems, however. Locals could resent the girls, conditions could be gruelling, wives were often suspicious, and the girls themselves could be subject to sexual harassment.

Sadly, inspite of their labour keeping the country going during the war years, their contribution was largely unacknowledged; they didn't qualify as service people so were unable to be members of the RSA. In fact the only group to openly acknowledge their contribution was Federated Farmers. The Land Girls held reunions for many years after the war, and in recent times were finally given some recognition - Certificates of Appreciation from the New Zealand Government.

For more about the Land Girls, check out Dianne Bardsley’s book “The Land Girls: In a man’s world, 1939-1946.”  There are borrowable copies available in Auckland Libraries.

Joanne

Of all the interesting jobs our forebears may have taken, running a pub would surely be right up there in the interest stakes. There’s something quite romantic about walking down a street and spotting a glorious old pub, wondering what it was like back in the early days of the city, what tales there are to tell about the people who frequented the establishment, and wondering who actually ran the joint. No doubt, the romance would die a very rapid death if we were transported back in time, but it is fun to imagine.

The Occidental (aka the Ox) in Auckland’s Vulcan Lane is such a pub. It was built in 1870 by an American sailor, Edward Perkins. He was said to have married a Maori princess (although the marriage didn't survive) and every fourth of July, he would hoist the Stars and Stripes from the hotel and invite all Americans living in Auckland to dinner. In subsequent years the Ox boasted several female publicans, among them Nora Lynch (who ran the pub from 1912-1927) and Mary Frances Nation (1943-1951).

The Occidental Hotel in Vulcan Lane, Auckland Sir George Grey Special  Collections, Auckland Libraries, 435-B5-157A

Both women had managed pubs with their husbands, although Irish-born Nora came to the Occidental as a widow. Before that, she and her husband William had run the Clarendon on Wakefield Street, and after his death, Nora was granted a license to run the Ox. She died in 1927 on the premises; the Auckland Star of 14th October 1927  reported her death in an obituary and noted she was highly regarded by all who knew her.

One of life's more perilous occupations. Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19290814-37-2

Did your ancestor work on the railways in the UK?

When I give my family history talk on Ancestry.com, I always like to mention the databases of Railway and Postal employee records as most families will have, at a bare minimum, at least one family member who was employed by one of these organisations.

Palmerston North Railway Station, 1899 Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-18990728-3-1

Auckland Libraries has in its collection the Who do you think you are? magazine and the February 2012 issue has a good background article about what some of those working for the railways did and covers the post World War One period as well. The article ends with a round up of depositories and a brief description of the resources held at each of them.

Rural postal near in the Cambridge District Auckland, 1914 Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19140618-48-5

If you have a railway employee in your family you may also find the following books of use and they are all available in our family history collection at the Research Centre:

Was your grandfather a railwayman?: a directory of records ... by Tom Richards (Federation of Family History Societies, Lancashire, 2002)

Railway ancestors: a guide to the staff records of the railway companies of England and Wales,1822-1947 by David Hawking (History Press, Stroud, Gloucestershire, 2008)

Tracing your railway ancestors: a guide for family historians by Diane K. Drummond (Pen and Sword, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, 2010)

Marie Hickey