MHA is delighted to be a sponsor of Mr Ward’s Map Victorian Wellington Street by Street. Published by Massey University Press, the book will be launched at Wellington’s Unity Books on 14th November.
The book is based on a remarkably detailed map of Wellington by surveyor Thomas Ward created in 1891, which recorded the footprint of every building, from Thorndon in the north and across the inner-city slums of Te Aro, to Berhampore in the south.
Updated over the next 10 years, it detailed hotels, theatres, oyster saloons, brothels, shops, stables, Parliament, the remnants of Māori kāinga, the Town Belt, the prisons, the ‘lunatic asylum’, the hospital and much more. The book interleaves this extraordinary map and historic images to recount stories about Victorian Wellington, its suburbs and its people.
The author, Elizabeth Cox, is a Wellington historian who specialises in New Zealand social and architectural history. Mike Cronin (MHA’s in-house archivist) assisted Elizabeth’s research with some images of the original DIC building on Lambton Quay from our archives.
Take a preview peek inside the book here
