The Local - Mt VictoriaAs we approach the festive time of year, Joanna Newman from the Mt Victoria Historical Society looks at how Christmas was celebrated in the past in Wellington.
These historic Christmas scenes have a particular connection with Mount Victoria. The house at number 145 Brougham Street (which is still there) was built in 1899 for Harry Kersley, of George & Kersley drapers. Their Wellington department store on Lambton Quay, ‘The Economic’, which opened in 1894, is believed to be the first in New Zealand to ‘parade’ a Father Christmas.
Despite the poor reproduction, we get some idea of the novelty from a photograph titled “Father Christmas arrives at ‘The Economic’” in a 1903 newspaper.
[Freelance, 26.12.1903]
The accompanying story tells how Father Christmas “was buzzing around in a motor-car . . . The old gentleman ‘arrived’ every day at the Economic, where he is staying until he hits out in his car for the South Pole once again. He recently drove in state to the Hospital and shed presents on the children in the ward, brightening their lives and helping Messrs. George and Kersley along. . . It is the first time in Wellington that the gay old gentleman has come in his motor-car. No child has ever yet seen him without his team of reindeer.”
Maybe they were also the first to have a Mother Christmas, too, as a drawing two years later shows?
The arrival of Father and Mother Christmas at The Economic Fancy Fair, 1905.
[Free Lance, 9.12. 1905]
The arrival of Father and Mother Christmas at The Economic Fancy Fair, 1905.
Merry Christmas from Mount Victoria Historical Society!
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