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Photographic 'treasure trove' shows history of Hastings
Historians and long-time Hastings residents are being encouraged to contribute their knowledge of the district’s history to a new project aimed at documenting hundreds of old photographs donated to the Hastings District Council and its predecessors.
The photographs have been made available free to the public in an online image library on www.hastingsdc.govt.nz, offering fascinating insights into the district’s history from the 19th century through to the past few decades.
Among the photographs are the first glider to fly at Bridge Pa (1903), horse-drawn farm machinery in use, the Queen’s 1953 visit, old Blossom Parades, street scenes of a barely recognisable downtown Hastings, and many assorted shots of Hastings people working, playing and going about their daily lives.
Chris Johnson, the Council’s part-time archivist, said several collections of photographs had been gifted to the Council over the years only to end up stored in boxes.
“There’s no reason to leave such a treasure trove of information locked up when we have the ability to make these images available to everyone through the internet,” Mr Johnson said.
“It costs almost nothing to put these on a website, where they will offer considerable value to anyone interested in the district’s history.”
He said the only thing more historically valuable than the images themselves was the information explaining them.
“Some of the images have been scanned from old photo albums with a bit of a caption written underneath to give us some clues, but the vast majority don’t have any explanation attached. The hope with putting them online is that the public will be able to help us fill in those blanks if they spot a place or a person they know.”
Mr Johnson said visitors could submit information with two mouse clicks if they recognised something in a photograph. Once the information had been reviewed by Council staff it would be made visible to everyone using the site.
“So much information has been lost in the general transition from paper to digital, so it’s important to preserve as much as we can while we still have the originals. I’m not aware of any other council offering a gallery quite like this, and certainly not on this scale,” Mr Johnson said.
For more information:
Jessica Soutar Barron
Communications Officer
(06) 878 0510 ex. 8629
027 275 5205
