Richmond History

Richmond History Group

The Richmond History Group is based at Avebury House. The group maintains a collection of books, photographs and other memorabilia illustrating and recording the history of Avebury House and the development of the surrounding suburb of Richmond. We seek to expand the collection and have begun a project to digitise items from the collection and make them available online. This is a work-in-progress and we will be adding items to this site from now on.

If you have photographs or other material concerning Richmond’s past, we would love to hear from you. Perhaps you would like to donate items to the collection, or allow us to view the material and if suitable, borrow items for recording and adding to our digital archive. We would of course return the items to you in the same condition as we received them.

If you would like to learn more about the group, or become involved, please contact Andrea at 381-6615.

Richmond School Class Photos, 1898—1934

12/4/2019

Recently I visited the Christchurch office of Archives New Zealand to explore their holdings concerning Richmond School. Among the items I found were a number of photographs of school classes, sporting teams, and other groups from Richmond School. Thanks to Archives New Zealand/Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Christchurch Regional Office, for their permission to use these photos on our website. I have gathered twenty-six of the photos together with some background information, in the document below.

The date for the photo above is not certain — around 1920. The Primer 6 class is large — 45; 25 boys and 20 girls. Nobody seems to be very happy about having their photo taken!? Several of the other photos show some elements of the school environment and in some cases show nearby houses and other buildings, offering a glimpse of Richmond about 100 years ago.

Most of the photos were taken when the school was on its original site on Stanmore Rd (now Richmond Green). Four were taken in 1926 or later when the school had moved to the site nearby in Cumberland St (now Pavitt St).

by David Hollander

richmond_school_class_photos.pdf
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Richmond Primary School Centennial

12/6/2018

Recently I came across a real find, while trawling through a second-hand book stall, as yer do…a copy of the Richmond Primary School centennial celebrations booklet – in mint condition!? The booklet was printed following the celebrations in 1975 and is a gold mine of information about and photographs of the school and its many members over the years.

I have scanned the booklet and the PDF file is available for viewing or download below. This publication complements and updates the 1925 booklet we posted recently. 1975 was a big year for the school in many ways, not least because at the end of the school year the 50-year old two-storey brick building was demolished to make way for a new open-plan classroom and administration block. Hundreds of people attended the centennial celebrations; their names are listed on the last six pages (by decade of attendance) and group photos, again in decade groups, are included. Enjoy…

richmond_primary_school-centennial_booklet-1975.pdf
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Richmond Primary School 50th Jubilee booklet -1925

30/5/2018

This is a bit of a find! We do not have a copy of the 1925 Richmond School Jubilee booklet in our collection at Avebury House - nor is one available in the Christchurch City Library, but I have been able to reproduce the booklet from a mixture of material supplied by Beverley Evans: old photocopies of some pages and digicam copies of others. The result is that we can read the 17-page document in full, nearly — we just don't have a copy of the cover!?

And there is some fascinating reading; a detailed description of the original wooden school building on Stanmore Rd (on the site of what is now Richmond Green), along with information about early staff and reproductions of some wonderful old photos.

1925 was the year the school moved from the old Stanmore Rd site to a new purpose-built facility in Cumberland St (now Pavitt St). There is a photo of the brand-new two-storey brick building that would house the school for fifty years, as well as a photo of the school's Roll of Honour in its original form. The Roll of Honour Board is now located at Avebury House — see an earlier post on this page.

Our thanks go to Beverley Evans for sharing archival material with the Richmond History group.

richmond_school_jubilee-1925_booklet.pdf
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100 Years of the RWMC

2/5/2018

Ricky Gilmore, General Manager of the Richmond Working Men’s Club has generously agreed for us to include a copy of the club’s centenary book on our web-page. The book was produced in 1987 by a centennial book committee and was edited by Dion Crooks. The 78-page book outlines the history and development of the club and its many subgroups, and includes many photos as well as anecdotes about members and events over the course of the club’s first hundred years.

The book is hard to find now; most copies were sold, presumably to club members at the time of the centenary. The few that were left at the club were lost in the damage caused by the 2010–11 earthquakes. There is a single copy in the Canterbury Public Library Aotearoa New Zealand Centre (Call #: 367.993831 RIC— reference only), so it is great to have the chance to make the book more available to interested people. Thanks to Ricky who loaned us his personal copy for scanning.

rwmc-100_years.pdf
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Historical References in the RCN

4/4/2018

The Richmond Community News was first published in later 2002. One of the features of the newsletter in the years before the earthquakes was the high number of local history articles, especially a series of items about older houses in the area.

Richmond is unusual amongst older Christchurch suburbs in that very little has been written, and even less published about the history of the area, so these articles represent a treasure trove for people interested in the development of the area.

The back catalogue of the Richmond Community News is now available online (www.aveburyhouse.co.nz/newsletter.html). The link below leads to an index of the history-related articles in the issues between 2003–2011. This 9-page document may help people find a particular article more quickly than reading through all the back issues. The index is simply a chronological list starting with issue #2 (February 2003), giving the title and page number of any history-related articles, up until issue #86 (February 2011).

historical_references_in_richmond_news_2003-11.pdf
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1987 CCC Report: "Richmond Neighbourhood Improvement Area"

10/2/2018

This report was prepared by the Christchurch City Council and published in 1987. The document consists of nine sections and includes descriptions of the Richmond area as it was in the late 1980s, as well as suggestions for improving the appearance, function and traffic flows in and around the area. So, it is an interesting snapshot of Richmond as it was thirty years ago as well as an insight into the thinking at the time, of people seeking to improve the area.

The report was based on discussions with local residents and involved input from several groups within CCC: Town Planning, Parks & Recreation and Traffic Engineering. Thirty years later, it is interesting to see which elements of the report’s recommendations have been implemented, and what changes have been made in the intervening years.

The document comprises 24 A4 pages, typewritten (using an electric typewriter?), including several photo reproductions (poor quality photocopies) and seven pages of maps and graphics. It is interesting to view a report produced using short-run analogue printing technology at a time when computer-based methods were just beginning to change drastically the look and feel of such publications.

ccc-richmond_neighbourhood_document-1987.pdf
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The Richmond Rambler

26/1/2018

The Richmond Rambler was a monthly publication of the Richmond Working Mens’ Club, published between 1976 and late-1980s. Our collection at Avebury house includes the first two issues from September & October 1976. This was before the Richmond Village shopping centre was built(!?); Robert Muldoon had been Prime Minister for two years (seven more to go) and New Zealand was a very different place compared with today.

Ricky Gilmore, General Manager, RWMC, states that the club kept copies of the Rambler issues, but they were all lost in the damage to the buildings from the Canterbury earthquakes. Does anyone have old copies stashed away? We would love to borrow them for scanning so they can join these first two issues. We would, of course, return the originals to you in the same condition.

richmond_rambler-1_1976-09.pdf
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richmond_rambler-2_1976-10.pdf
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Shirley Intermediate School 1940 Project

17/1/2018

This remarkable document came to light during preparations for the Shirley Intermediate School 75th jubilee in 2009. The document had been prepared by pupils at the school in 1940, as part of New Zealand’s centennial celebrations of that year. The entire school took part in a survey of their local district; the document’s 321 pages are divided into four sections: Historical, Geographical, Social and Economic.

The survey was carried out in accordance with official guidelines of the time; all the school pupils were involved and the entire document, apart from four typewritten introductory pages, was produced by the pupils. All the material is handwritten and all the many illustrations were prepared by the pupils, including 26 B&W photographs, which were taken and produced by the school photographic club.

The document offers a fascinating glimpse into our part of Christchurch in the mid-20th century, as seen and recorded by its children.

The entire document has been scanned and reproduced as a PDF file. We have prepared four files of each of the sections:
1. Historical Section: 62 pages, 19 MB.

sis_book-richmond-shirley-1940_historical.pdf
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2. Geographical Section: 32 pages, 11 MB.

sis_book-richmond-shirley-1940_geographical.pdf
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3. Social Section: 186 pages, 51 MB.

sis_book-richmond-shirley-1940_social.pdf
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4. Economic section: 41 pages, 14 MB.

sis_book-richmond-shirley-1940_economic.pdf
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St Saviour’s Orphanage Cookery Book

18/12/2017

St Saviour’s Orphanage was located at 73 Stapleton’s Rd, on the western edge of Dudley Creek, opposite the intersection with Averill St. This site had previously been St. Mary’s Maternity Home from 1897 and became an orphanage in 1910. The orphanage continued until 1954 when St. Saviour’s was closed and the site was converted for use as an old people’s home, which later became Churchill Courts.

This 1939 publication was prepared as a fundraiser for St. Saviour’s, which by this time ran two orphanages: the one in Richmond, for girls and another for boys in Timaru. The cookbook offers a fascinating insight into daily life in Richmond before WW2. As well as many recipes, the book contains general information, such as ‘Hints for the Kitchen’, ‘Home Medical Treatment’ and ‘Household Hints’. Even the many advertisements make fascinating reading!

The book has been scanned and is reproduced below. To prevent the document being too large for convenient viewing, we have split the document into two parts:

st_saviours_cookery_book-1939_pt-1.pdf
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st_saviours_cookery_book-1939_pt-2.pdf
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