The influenza pandemic

A new form of influenza appeared in early 1918. It was unusually prevalent among young, healthy adults, but most people who caught this mild first wave recovered, and it became prevalent in New Zealand in September. A far more severe second wave emerged among British and French troops on the Western Front in early July. The first New Zealanders to suffer from it were soldiers of the 40th Reinforcement on the troopship Tahiti: after local workers came aboard to load coal at Freetown, Sierra Leone, on 22 August, more than half of those on board fell ill and over 80 died. Spread by sea and rail, the second wave was at its worst in October in countries as far apart as South Africa, Japan and Peru. The worldwide death toll may have been as high as 50 million.

The liner Niagara docked in Auckland on 12 October 1918 with influenza cases on board. Among its passengers were the prime minister, William Massey, and his deputy, Sir Joseph Ward, and rumours spread that the ship had been cleared only because they refused to be quarantined. Many people believed it brought 'a deadly new virus'. The Health Department's 1919 report, compiled by Dr Robert Makgill, found that the ship carried only 'ordinary influenza' and that health authorities cleared the ship on the doctors' evidence, not under pressure from politicians. From individual death certificates, the historian Geoffrey Rice calculated that New Zealand's peak day for deaths was 23 November, later than a new virus from the Niagara would have produced. Te Ara says the ship was later conclusively ruled out as the source; NZHistory leaves open the possibility that an overseas variant, on the Niagara or another ship, combined with local influenza.

Influenza reached epidemic proportions in late October, peaked in late November and was nearly over by early December. In less than two months about 9000 New Zealanders died, about half as many as the First World War killed in four years. The real killer was pneumonia, a secondary infection, and the skin of some victims turned dark. Deaths were uneven. The death rate for Europeans was 5.8 per thousand, but the Māori rate was nearly 50 per thousand, more than eight times higher, and about 2500 Māori died. At Mangatāwhiri in Waikato about 50 of 200 people died. Whina Cooper remembered the dead being dragged to the cemetery on sledges at Panguru, Hokianga: 'No time for tangis' (funerals). Rice suggests Māori had lower immunity because, living mostly in rural areas, they had been isolated from minor respiratory illnesses, and that poorer housing, clothing and food added to the risk. Te Ara notes that even in 1918 hundreds of Māori deaths from influenza were not registered. Among Pākehā, 135 children lost both parents and 6415 lost one.

A telegram from the health minister, George Russell, gave borough councils and town boards a scheme of relief: a central committee to coordinate relief, with areas divided into blocks or districts, each with its own depot. Many towns closed public halls and places of entertainment and postponed public events. Relief relied heavily on volunteers; some women, freed from work when schools or shops closed, became lay nurses. Though 'medically useless', inhalation sprayers of zinc sulfate solution were the only preventive the Public Health Department approved, and many towns set them up in public buildings. In Te Kuiti a temporary hospital for Māori was set up at Te Tokanganui-a-noho marae, with Mereana Hattaway, probably the first qualified Māori nurse, in charge of nursing; 48 people were nursed there and nine died.

After heavy criticism of the Department of Public Health, the government set up a royal commission, and its recommendations led to the Health Act 1920, which Rice calls 'the most useful legacy' of the pandemic. In Western Samoa, then administered by New Zealand, the ship Talune arrived at Apia from Auckland on 7 November 1918 and sick passengers were allowed to disembark; about 8500 people, 22% of the population, died. In June 2002 Prime Minister Helen Clark formally apologised to Samoa for allowing the Talune to dock. Rice suggests the pandemic might have left a deeper mark on memory had it not struck in wartime. Among its few public monuments are statues of two doctors who died, Dr Little at Waikari and Dr Margaret Cruickshank at Waimate, and carved memorials by Tene Waitere at the Ngāti Maniapoto marae Te Ihingarangi and Te Koura. On 6 November 2019 a memorial plaque was unveiled at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park.