Dunedin

Events In History

9 April 1932

Unemployed disturbances in Dunedin

During the 'angry autumn' of 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, unemployed workers in Dunedin reacted angrily when the Hospital Board refused to assist them. Read more...
17 November 1925

New Zealand and South Seas International Exhibition opens

Governor-General Sir Charles Fergusson opened Dunedin’s New Zealand and South Seas International Exhibition in November 1925. Read more...
31 March 1910

Hocken Library opens at Otago Museum

Thomas Hocken’s priceless legacy of historical material is the most important collection outside Crown ownership in New Zealand. Read more...
27 May 1909

Amy Bock sentenced in Dunedin Supreme Court

The Tasmanian-born confidence trickster topped a long career impersonating well-off men for financial gain by claiming to be a sheepfarmer and the nephew of a bishop. Read more...
10 June 1889

First kindergartens

The first New Zealand kindergarten to educate children, in Dunedin, was based on the ideas of the German educationalist Friedrich Froebel. Read more...
21 January 1889

American daredevil parachutes from balloon

‘Professor’ Thomas Baldwin landed safely by parachute from a balloon floating high above South Dunedin. Read more...
7 May 1888

Anti-Chinese hysteria in Dunedin

A meeting in Dunedin presided over by the mayor unanimously called for a ban on further Chinese immigrants. Read more...
6 February 1871

First public girls' secondary school

The first public girls’ secondary school in the southern hemisphere was Otago Girls’ High School, which opened eight years after the local public boys’ high school. Read more...
3 June 1869

University of Otago founded

Governor George Bowen gave his assent to the Otago Provincial Council’s University of Otago Ordinance, enabling the establishment of New Zealand’s first university. Read more...
2 May 1868

First shipment of salmon and trout ova arrives

The clipper Celestial Queen arrived at Port Chalmers carrying the first shipment of live fish ova from England. These fish were intended to provide sport for the settlers, but none survived in New Zealand. Read more...
29 September 1862

New Zealand's first professional opera performance

Dunedin's Royal Princess Theatre was the venue for a performance of Donizetti's Daughter of the regiment by the visiting English Opera Troupe, supplemented by local performers. Read more...
1 March 1862

Charles Thatcher gives first NZ performance

The British-born tenor Charles Thatcher gave his first New Zealand performance at Shadrach Jones's Commercial Hotel in Dunedin. Read more...
15 November 1861

First issue of Otago Daily Times published

Dunedin became the first New Zealand town with a daily newspaper when the first issue of the Otago Daily Times was published. Read more...

Biography

Often seen out in his blue bonnet and tartan plaid in early colonial Dunedin, Captain William Cargill was the first leader of the Free Church of Scotland’s settlement in Dunedin.

Frances Hodgkins

Frances Hodgkins’ 56-year career as an artist earned her a secure place among the English avant-garde of the 1930s and 1940s. She was the first New Zealand-born artist to achieve such stature.

James Allen

As Minister of Defence from 1912 until 1920, James Allen was responsible for the organisation of New Zealand’s military forces during the First World War.

Penny Jamieson

English-born New Zealander Penny Jamieson was the first woman in the world to be ordained a diocesan bishop of the Anglican Church

Articles

The Beatles in New Zealand

When four young Liverpool musicians landed in Wellington on a lazy Sunday afternoon in June 1964, seven days of pandemonium erupted. Young New Zealanders flocked in their thousands to hear or just catch a glimpse of the famous 'Fab Four'.
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Page 5 – South Island
The Beatles' concerts in Dunedin on 26 June were some of the wildest of the New Zealand tour.

The 1913 Great Strike

The Great Strike of 1913 was in fact a series of strikes between mid-October 1913 and mid-January 1914. It was one of New Zealand’s most violent and disruptive industrial confrontations.
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Page 6 - The 1913 strike in the South IslandAlthough the 1913 strike had its biggest impact on Auckland and Wellington, the South Island's cities and mining towns were also

Regional rugby

The passion and parochialism of provincial rugby helped give the game a special place in New Zealand’s social and sporting history. Read brief histories, highlights and quirky facts about each of New Zealand's 26 regional rugby teams.
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Page 28 - Otago rugbyHistory and highlights of rugby in the Otago

Related keywords

Dunedin was established in 1848 by the Lay Association of the Free Church of Scotland. A gold rush in the Otago province during the 1860s caused Dunedin’s population, and wealth, to increase dramatically; it was for several years New Zealand’s largest and most prosperous city. The University of Otago, New Zealand’s oldest, was founded in Dunedin in 1869, and since then students have made a major contribution to the city’s unique character.