Anniversary of Christchurch’s greatest exhibition marked

Press, 30 October 1981, Page 13

Anniversary of Christchurch’s greatest exhibition marked

By

JOHN WILSON

Just 75 years ago this week-end. on► November 1, 1906. a crowd of several tens of thousands gathered in North Hagley Park to see the Governor, Lord Plunket, open one of the great events in Christchurch’s history — the International Exhibition of 1906-1907. For five months and a half, from the day of the opening until April 15, 1907, crowds thronged across the temporary bridge over the Avon at the Park Terrace end of Kilmore Street to enter the vast exhibition buildings and wander round the acres of sideshows and outdoor exhibits.

•The idea of mounting a major international exhibition in New Zealand came from the Prime Minister of the day, Richard Seddon. He suggested in 1903 that New Zealand should show to the people of the world what the colony was doing. An exhibition would mark, he proposed in his Budget speech of that year, a milestone on the way, pointing out the colony’s prosperity and providing an outward sign of half a century of progress. The idea was slow to catch on, but it eventually did. By the end of 1904, Christchurch had been chosen as the site for the proposed exhibition, partly because Hagley Park, with the Avon and Lake Victoria, was such an admir-

able site and partly because the city’s new electric trams promised visitors swift, reliable transport round the exhibiton city. A local committee was seet up after Seddon had met local dignitaries in November, 1904. but the government agreed to finance the whole undertaking. The superintendent of the tourist department was in St Louis at the time, attending that city's great exhibition, and he was able to drum up international support for the New Zealand exhibition. -

On December 18.1905, Seddon came to Christchurch — six months from his death — to lay the foundation stone for the exhibition buildings. ‘‘The grey-haired Premier" it was observed, "grown old in the country's service, spoke with exceptional warmth and hope for the future of the Colony he loved.” He was not to see the project he had initiated brought to completion for in June, 1906, between this ceremony and the opening-of the exhibition, Seddon died, leaving to his successor the task of asking the Governor to declare the exhibition open. Enormous temporary buildings were erected in the park, covering an area of 14 acres and with a frontage of a quarter of a mile along Park Terrace. The main

building was designed by J. C. Maddison in a French Renaissance style, with a main entrance facing down Kilmore Street. Two towers, each 160 ft high, rose on each side of the main entrance, and an electric lift carried visitors to the viewing balcony on the southern tower. Within the main building was a grand hall 71ft square, with a domed ceiling 90ft from the floor. The main corridor was 300 ft long, 52ft wide, and 30ft floor to ceiling. The building was of wood, with a glass and iron roof and cornices, parapets and pediments of . shaped steel. Maddison also designed the separate concert hall, seating between 1500 and 1600 people and housing the exhibition organ, and the fernery, included to capitalise on New Zealand’s reputation as “The Land of Ferns.”

North of the main building on the Park Terrace frontage was a separate Machinery Hall, designed by F. J. Barlow, with a semi-circular arched entrance flanked by two more towers. Barlow also designed an art gallery of brick and asbestos. The total floor space of all the buildings was 476,500 square feet and the cost approaching £90,000. One third of this

cost was recouped from rentals for exhibition space. Within these buildings, visitors found a maze of avenues, side avenues, courts, and stalls. There were miles of walking to be done, it was remarked, before a good working idea of the whereabouts and character of each important court could be obtained. Each of the provinces and some other major districts had their own courts. So did the Australian states. Great Britain and Ireland. Canada, and Fiji. Countries of the Americas. Europe. Asia, and Africa all took part in the exhibition.

Many visitors were drawn to the exhibition, it is clear, less by the opportunity to be educated and informed by what was within the exhibition buildings than by the opportunity for fun and enjoyment outside. Crowds thronged “Wonderland” or “shot the chute” into the waters of Lake Victoria. In the cyclorama the “tremendr ous three-day battle of Gettysburg was fought again between blue coat and grey.” There were crazy mirrors, a maze, an automatic vaudeville, and hundreds of other penny-parting attractions. One of the principal out-

door attractions was an inhabited, full-scale Maori pa (a combination of pa and kainga the catalogue correctly observed). It occupied several acres on the banks of Lake Victoria and was complete with palisade and carved houses; an 80-foot canoe from the Waikato plied the waters of the lake. The Maoris were joined while the exhibition was in progress by Fijian firewalkers. who built their own Fijian house and enthralled the European "natives” of' Christchurch ~with . their, exploits on the 'fire pit.

Close on two million attendances were recorded during the five months and a half the. exhibition was open. The average daily attendance was 14,000; the largest number attending on a single day was 46,852 on the last day. (New Zealand's population at the time was fewer than one million — just over 900,000 Europeans and just under 50,000 Maoris.) After the turnstiles had clicked for the last time and the exhibits all been removed, the exhibition buildings, a spectacular if temporary addition to the city’s architecture, especially at night when the towers and entrance were brilliantly illuminated, were torn down. There is nothing on the site today to serve as a reminder of those bright, busy days of

1906-1907. But this seventy-fifth anniversary of the opening of the exhibition is being marked in Christchurch. The Philatelic Foundation — its interest stemming from the special issue of stamps which was put out at the time of the exhibition itself — has arranged a display of souvenirs, mementoes, and other material from the exhibition itself which will be on show at the Philatelic Centre, 27 Worcester Street, tomorrow from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. and on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. The material on display will include postcards, commemorative china, exhibition seals, some original design material for the issue of postage stamps, and possibly even the very foundation stone which Seddon tapped into place in December, 1905. The exhibition was one of the earliest occasions on which the newly invented moving pictures were shown in Christchurch and the commemorative exhibition at the Philatelic Centre is to incclude continuous screening of the 6%-minute film of the opening ceremony and of the funfair which was shown at the exhibition itself. A print has been specially made for this week-end and it may be the first time since 1907 that the film has been seen on a screen in Christchurch.