• The Ballantynes Fire – 18th November 1947

    As smoke silently crept up the cellar stairs of Ballantynes, unaware customers continued to sip their drinks in the tearooms and the businesses’ typewriters kept tapping away in the offices on the top floor. Brothers, Roger and Kenneth Ballantyne, were on site keeping an ever watchful eye over the family legacy, theirs since 1872. Ballantynes …

  • New Zealand’s First Woman Cabinet Minister – 14th May 1947

    On 14th May 1947, Mabel Bowden Howard became not only New Zealand’s first woman Cabinet Minister but the first in the Commonwealth excluding Britain. She was the Minister of Health and Children’s Welfare. Mabel was born on 18th April 1894 in Bowden, Australia. After the death of her mother at the age of nine, the …

  • The C.C.C. Purchased Riccarton House – 1947

    In 1947, after 104 years in residence (since 1843) and then ownership (since 1851), Riccarton House (built 1856, 1874 & 1900) and its estate leaves the ownership of the Deans family. It is purchased by the Christchurch City Council for £16,500! Since the death of Catherine Edith Deans (daughter-in-law of Jane Deans) 10 years earlier, …

  • Christchurch’s First Christmas Parade – 1947

    From the time that New Zealand’s department stores adopted the idea of in-store Santas to help bring in the Christmas shoppers, new and exciting ways were dreamt up for how Saint Nick could arrive into the city. In 1905, Wellington’s children were invited to attend the arrival of Father and Mother Christmas as they made …

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