Wellington Working Men's Club, 1977

Wellington Working Men's Club, 1977

Patrons of the Wellington Working Men's Club and Literary Institute enjoy a drink in July 1977, when the Club celebrated the centenary of its founding on 10 July 1877.

The Working Men's Clubs (WMCs) established on the West Coast during the 1947 beer boycott were modelled on 19th-century institutions like Wellington's. Both the Wellington and Petone WMCs were called 'Working Men’s Club and Literary Institute'. All of the West Coast WMCs have a similar official title: ‘______ Workingmen’s Club and Mutual School of Arts’. The latter part of the title was presumably a legal device to meet charter requirements – perhaps to demonstrate that the clubs had a higher purpose than simply drinking.  The significance of these titles have long been forgotten. As West Coaster Ray Scorgie commented: ‘We always felt that the “art” lay in the drinking’.

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2 comments have been posted about Wellington Working Men's Club, 1977

What do you know?

Stuart Park

Posted: 25 May 2019

Do you know who was the first woman to be admitted to membership of the Wellington Working Men's Club, and when this was? And it was Life Membership, no less.

betsy joy green

Posted: 01 Apr 2010

To whom it may concern. I have a conducters stick. Black with sterling silver. It is beautiful with inscribed Wellington Men's Club 1897 presented to E L King, esq. It is in the orginal box with a note from Kings wife leaving it to her son. There was a newspaper artical also that with time has mostly discendagrated Is this wort anything to anyone? Betsy