In 2005-2006, starting with a speech before the NZ Pioneers & Descendants, I spoke to about 8 different groups on the "Danish Prin...

Back in 2005, I compiled a history of the Best family varnish works for an article in the Avondale Historical Journal . The embedded documen...

Written as an obituary, for the Spider's Web. On Friday 19th May 2006, Mrs. Vera Florence Rebecca Crawford, née Syers, died aged 98. Wit...

In early 1863, a map was drawn up of a subdivision which was to be auctioned by Samuel Cochrane on behalf of Thomas Russell. Russell, better...

Fourth century Roman grammarian Honoratus Maurus gave examples in his writings of “etymology by opposites”. Putting it simply, his “Lucus a ...

These were originally written in 2005, I think for the Spider's Web newsletter in Avondale. I've done some updating reflecting infor...

Image from a detail from Deed 40, LINZ records.  The Bell and Gemmell tannery remains a mystery at this stage. I know roughly where it was...

Image: one of Moses Exler's ceramic lions, on display at Auckland War Memorial Museum. It is not certain exactly when Moses Exler (1835...

An update from here. The Western Line has been completely shut down this Labour Weekend for track maintenance, and so Ontrack can also get g...

I've been working on this piece of research for a couple of days, all coming via the usual circuitous route of diversion-following which...

The Avondale-Waterview Historical Society submitted the following to Auckland City Council in 2005 in response to proposals put forward to c...

On my way into the city yesterday, I spotted something a little different about what was once a second-hand furniture shop on the corner of...

My reference to the Hetana Hamlet in New Lynn as being one of only two out of six in Auckland from the Workmen's Homes scheme of 1902-1...

Ben Copedo, well-known West Auckland local historian (someone I am truly honoured to say I know), asked me a question when I last visited Mi...

Occasionally, as well as writing pieces for Avondale's Spider's Web (and what crops up now and then in the Rosebank Roundabout ), I...

Below, something I've loaded onto Scribd: concerning a footnote to both Mt Albert's and Avondale's history, Captain Robert David...

(Image from Western Leader, 28 June 1977) I started gathering information of Avondale history back around 1983, when I was 20. That's pr...

On the 17th of August, 1927, an angry Mayor of Avondale denounced the then-Borough as “the dirtiest suburb of all Auckland’s suburbs, the mo...

(Image above: Tram 248, 1938 "Streamliner", at MOTAT 2 tram terminus, Western Springs, 14 July 2007. Notes below.) On the early Sa...

Tracking down information on what lies behind this certificate is difficult -- not a lot has been done with regard to research into this asp...