May is New Zealand Music Month!


Accessible through Papers Past and the Digital Library early New Zealand newspapers are great for finding advertisements of musical engagements, performance reviews and are an excellent way of tracing the development of a musician's career.


Geraldine May (Ina) Bosworth (1894 -1975), a Chamber Music pioneer of New Zealand. Ina started her musical  training at an early age, initially instructed on violin by her father, a conductor of one of Auckland's first choirs, the Liedertafel. Here is a glimpse into Ina's impressive musical career as captured in the newspapers.

A review of her concert prior to departing overseas as reported in the Auckland Star, Friday 11 April 1913:

Auckland Star, Friday 11 April 1913

Ina spent 14 years in London studying violin and during that time she also "entertained troops on the battlefields of France, playing chamber music just behind the lines, and once, near Verdun, on a stage built of bully beef tins." - New Zealand Herald, 8 February 1975.

Upon returning to New Zealand her personal life was also captured in the newspapers, including her engagement to Arthur William McNeish, it was announced in the "Social Jottings" column.

Auckland Star on 14 November 1924.

After her marriage to Captain A.W. McNeish, she continued  her musical career giving concerts and broadcasts while raising their two children, Jill and James. Ina was also an advocate for establishing a professional orchestra for Auckland. By 1965 she had her own group - the Ina Bosworth Quartet, and had led six orchestras including the Mozart Players. 

Mrs McNeish (on the left) at a rehearsal with the Mozart Players, 1965.

Auckland Star, 21 June 1965.

According to her obituary published in the New Zealand Herald on 8 February 1975 she celebrated her 80th birthday [in 1974] by "driving to Hamilton and performing a Bach unaccompanied sonata."

Ina embodied the spirit of a true musician throughout her life.

Death notice & obituary from the New Zealand Herald, 8 February 1975.

For more about the Bosworth-McNeish family, her son James McNeish has recently published Touchstones:  Memories of People and Place, borrowable copies are available from the library. There is a lovely photograph of his mother in her youth on page 184.

If you would like to listen to live music for free, there is a Thursday Lunchtime Concert Series at the Central Library during autumn. "This year’s concerts will bring together solo instrumentalists and vocalists, chamber ensembles and choirs from around the Auckland region, as well as showcasing the brilliant musical talent from the University of Auckland School of Music and selected secondary schools."

For more information on who is performing, click here.

Karen 

In case you haven't heard the big NEWS, the New Zealand Herald has been digitized up to 31 December 1945 and is now accessible through Papers Past!  The Auckland Libraries homepage currently has a direct link to the database or alternatively, Papers Past can also be found under "P" in the A-Z listing of eResources in the Digital Library.

There has never been a better time to delve into your family history research and see what newsy items about your ancestors were published in the New Zealand Herald. Best of all, the contents can be downloaded, printed or saved in a pdf format for your records. If you would like some user friendly tips on getting the most out of searching on Papers Past, check out our research guides by clicking here.

While browsing through the pages you will also discover quirky, interesting articles and bits of gossip that will undoubtedly provide you with endless hours of distraction.

New Zealand Herald, 4 March 1939

New Zealand Herald, 22 March 1941

New Zealand Herald, 13 January 1927

Papers Past now has 83 titles and over 3 million pages of digitised content available. Besides the Herald and Auckland Star, the following list of historical newspapers on Papers Past also have Auckland content:

Happy searching!

Karen

'Wedding Wednesday' highlights a wedding portrait from the Heritage Images photograph collection and this week we are featuring Mr W Norman Heather and Miss Myrtle Chatfield of Auckland who were married in October of 1899.

This photograph of the bridal party was taken on the front steps of the Chatfield family home located in Bridgewater Road, Parnell.

Heather-Chatfield bridal party, 1899. Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries.

The happy event was reported both in the Auckland Weekly News  27 October 1899 supplement as well as the 20 October 1899 edition of the New Zealand Herald which offers some lovely details about this special day.


Karen

There are certain records such as UK census records that are frequently consulted for doing family history research. Unfortunately, no such records exist for New Zealand so we have to rely on other records to find information about households - two popular alternative sources are the Wise’s Directory and of course, the NZ Electoral Rolls.

One our customer’s who regularly searches Papers Past for historical information about Auckland
came across a news item in the 9 February 1883 edition of the New Zealand Herald reporting on a City Council meeting which offers insight as how these records were introduced into the library's collection.

Check back later this week for a new blog post from Janelle with some tips and tricks on the NZ electoral rolls.

Karen

The name Cyrus Haley won’t be familiar to many today, but back in the late 1800s, Cyrus Haley’s nefarious exploits were well documented in the print media, from his attempts at murder, his fondness for setting fires, right down to his death in 1875 while attempting to escape imprisonment.

So who was the man that caused such speculation in the media of the day?

Cyrus had emigrated from England to New Zealand with his family in 1870 and wasted little time making enemies and enacting his own form of justice. When his wife Emily’s singing performance at the Music Hall was savaged, the hall was mysteriously gutted by fire. More arsons took place and while all these couldn’t be linked to Haley, there was one involving the property of BNZ founder Thomas Russell, also director of a company in which Hailey claimed to have lost ₤3000.

While Thomas Russell himself wasn’t short of enemies, Cyrus’s grudge was so intense, he set about trying to kill him. In December of that year, Haley fired through the windows of the Russell home (the glorious Pah Homestead in Hillsborough Road, Auckland), almost killing one of Russell’s children. Haley also wrote anonymous notes threatening death to Russell.

He was caught and tried, and subsequently convicted of attempted murder, threatening to kill and threatening to destroy property - he had also set fire to hay on the Russell property. His sentence was life imprisonment in the Dunedin gaol.

Ref: Taranaki Herald, 6 October 1875, Papers Past


Haley first attempted to escape the prison in 1873, but in 1875, after receiving disturbing news about his children, he tried to flee a labour gang and was shot by a warder. The inquest following his death concluded it was “justifiable homicide.”


Ref: Taranaki Herald, 9 October 1875, Papers Past


To learn more about this fascinating and disturbed character, you need only check out the Papers Past website where all his activities and accompanying speculation were well documented.

Ref: Daily Southern Cross, 30 January 1872, Papers Past

Indeed, the Daily Southern Cross of January 30 1872 says of the man following his arrest after the Hillsborough house incident, “Various reports respecting Haley are in circulation, one of which is that he is insane, and another that he is feigning insanity. Neither report is correct. Haley's conduct in confinement is perfectly rational, and he is neither apparently nor in reality insane.”

Joanne

Seonaid

The extraordinary marriage case

Newspapers provide much more than the usual births, deaths and marriage notices, and the occasional obituary. They provide an insight into people's lives. Social history, local, national and political history - all of which add shape to the lives of your ancestors.

National Library is in the process of digitising New Zealand's heritage newspapers and has so far digitised more than two million pages, 70 publications across New Zealand, and covers the years between 1839 and 1945.

These digitised newspapers are being added to PapersPast.

People were pretty quick off the mark to discover in May, that the next batch of Auckland Star pages had been added to PapersPast. From 1870 to 1926 of the Auckland Star is now available online - more than 75 years worth, keyword searchable.

The Auckland Star is a joint project with Auckland Libraries and the National Library.

National Libraries say that PapersPast only covers a very small amount of New Zealand newspapers as yet, and that if you cannot find what you need online, you may find what you need in paper or microfilm formats at your library.

Access to heritage newspapers from round the world can be obtained by our Digital Library:-

• 19th Century US Newspapers;

• British Newspapers 1600-1900;
• Illustrated London News  
• Picture Post Historical Archive  
• The Guardian and The Observer (1791-2003) 
• The Irish Times (1859-2008)  
• The New York Times (1851-2007) 
• The Scotsman (1817-1950)  
• Times Digital Archive

And you can read more about our newspapers, both heritage and more recent.

Happy hunting

Seonaid