Waitaki Museum Blog
Featuring thoughts and ideas from the Waitaki Museum.
Bentwood chairs were first made in the early 1850s by the Austrian Michael Thonet. Manufacture of these chairs soon spread to other countries. They were incredibly popular over the next century as they were cheap and easy to import.
This chair was made by Walter John Yardley in Palmerston in 1866. Yardley was born in 1842 and so would have been 24 when he made the chair. Walter worked as a haulage carrier, driving a team of horses around the district, delivering goods and supplies.
The Albion Press is an early cast-iron hand-printing press. It was first designed in 1820 by Richard Whittaker Cope and later manufactured by Hopkinson Cope and other licensees until the 1930s.
The North Otago Museum has a small collection of printers and printing-related objects from the era of movable type. These range from the large and heavy cast iron Albion Press invented in 1820 right through to early typewriters like the Remington 12 invented a century later in 1922.
This is the final blog in a series of four focussed on the history of the North Otago Museum.
This is the third blog in a series of four focussed on the history of the North Otago Museum.
This is the second blog in a series of four focussed on the history of the North Otago Museum.
This is the first blog in a series of four focussed on the history of the North Otago Museum.
Over the last few months we have been sorting out our washing collection. The collection gives a good overview of the technological development that occurred throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
This very basic electric washing machine was donated to the North Otago Museum in 1994. The body is a tin case into which has been inserted a brass interior with a stainless steel rim. At the bottom of the interior is a large element, next to which is a hole for the water to drain.
One hundred years ago New Zealand soldiers were involved in the Battle for Chunuk Bair. This battle is considered New Zealand’s most important action in the Gallipoli Campaign.
Washing boards were a very early way of washing clothes. This washing board was sold by AJ Headland in his shop on Thames St around 1890. The frame is wood, while the grooves used to agitate and remove dirt are metal.
The Swiftsure vacuum washer was patented by a subsidiary of the British Vacuum Company, founded by Hubert Cecil Booth in 1901. The vacuum washer was actually a posser (sometimes known as a dolly), a stick-like implement used to mix the washing when it was in a tub.
This wooden rocker style washing machine consists of a cradle which slots into the circular base, standing on four legs. The interior is ribbed, and when water and washing has been put in, rocking the cradle backwards and forwards agitates the clothes, removing any dirt.
This wooden hand operated washing machine dates from around the early 1900s. It was manufactured by the Canadian firm David Maxwell and Sons, who not only produced household items such as washing machines and churns, but also agricultural and harvesting machinery.
This Speedway washing machine would have been sold in New Zealand around 1930. It is a single tub washer, although there was also a twin-tub Speedway, which was a pre-cursor to the Hoovermatic. Our Speedway is a non-electric agitator style of washer made of galvanised tin with a copper exterior.
Speed Queen washing machines are made by the American company Barlow and Seelig Manufacturing.
Ordinary objects can sometimes turn out to be extraordinary. This can be because of the stories that accompany the object, or perhaps because of the object’s rarity or value. This is certainly the case for many of the North Otago Museum’s everyday objects!
