Old Invercargill

In this illustrated history of Old Invercargill, John Hall-Jones considers himself extremely fortunate to have inherited his father’s extensive collection of photographs of early Invercargill. But buildings need people in them to bring them to life and here again he has been fortunate to have inherited his father’s records of the early descriptions of the town by the pioneers of Invercargill.

Here is Bishop Harper’s account of a most disturbing night in the first hotel in Invercargill and Sherwood Roberts’ delightful story of the house warming parties at Invercargill’s first two hotels. Later comes the tale of a famous character in the early town, the ‘Black Doctor’, who was neither black nor a doctor. Then there are the stories of how the fire brigade suffered the embarrassment of burning its own fire station to the ground; the collection of over 1,000 ‘Birds, Beasts, Insects etc’, in Andrew McKenzie’s pie shop, which was the very beginnings of the Southland Museum; Todd’s auction market, where for many years town and country have met to auction and recycle their second-hand goods; the crisis that hit Invercargill when it voted to be ‘dry’.

John Hall-Jones

Soft Cover 200x210mm

132 Pages

ISBN 978-0-908629-79-4