West Coast
Te Tai Poutini
Pounamu country, then a gold rush that briefly made it the most populous part of the South Island, and then coal — along with the mining disasters that came with it.
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5 events in West Coast between 1803 and 1997
The southern sealing rush
Gangs of sealers worked the far south so intensively that fur seal colonies collapsed within a generation — one of the earliest European industries in New Zealand.
Dusky SoundWest Coast gold rush
About 30,000 people poured onto the West Coast between 1864 and 1867, and Hokitika became the busy main town and port of the rush.
HokitikaThe Great Strike
Watersiders and miners struck around the country; the government enrolled mounted special constables — farmers and farm workers on horseback — who took back the wharves for strike-breakers.
Wellington waterfrontThe Ōtira tunnel pierces the Southern Alps
An 8.5 km tunnel under Arthur’s Pass completed the transalpine railway between Christchurch and Greymouth, and was then the longest tunnel outside the Alps.
ŌtiraThe Ngāi Tahu settlement
A grievance first formally stated in 1849 was finally settled: $170 million, an apology, and Aoraki/Mount Cook, vested in the iwi and gifted back to the nation, over land covering most of the South Island.
Ōnuku Marae, AkaroaMeanwhile, nationally
4 events that reached West Coast along with most of the country. They still shade the map and sit on the timeline above, but they are not West Coast’s own history.
The provinces are abolished
The nine provincial governments were abolished, leaving central government as the single legislative authority, with new counties in rural areas while towns carried on unchanged.
The first Labour government
Michael Joseph Savage led Labour to a landslide in 1935 and built the welfare state: state houses, guaranteed dairy prices, a 40-hour week and free hospital care under the Social Security Act.
WellingtonThe 1951 waterfront dispute
Lockout and strike ran for 151 days. Emergency regulations made it a crime even to give food to a watersider’s children.
Wellington waterfrontRogernomics — the economy is deregulated
A Labour government floated the dollar, removed farm subsidies and tariffs, and sold state assets in a radical programme of market liberalisation.