WOMEN'S SECTION

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 90, 13 October 1939, Page 9

WOMEN'S SECTION

THE PIONEER HUT

The part women have played in the 100 years' development of New Zealand is being well shown in the large hall in the assembly block. In the glass cases which stand on the floor, and on the walls, are evidences of the influence of women on art in all its phases. Valuable loan exhibits, which go back to 1840, are an outstanding feature. At the far end as. one enters the hall is the Fine Arts display, including decorative needlework, bookbinding, and leather work, metal work In copper and brass, jewellery and enamels, lacquer, carving, and wood inlay, illuminating, pottery, china painting, stained glass, designs for fabrics, textiles, and wall papers, weaving and spinning, and toys. . Country women's work during the century, under the control of the Women's Division of the Farmers' Union, shows what the women of New Zealand have done as a contribution to the country's progress. The collection from the earliest days of paintings done by women in New Zealand is a remarkable one. Reconstructed with care after considerable research, the pioneer hut, typical of those in which the earliest families in New Zealand lived, is one of the most striking exhibits. With slab walls, a tea-tree picket fence, and a raupo roof, and windows at the back showing glimpses of the shipping of the time in Wellington Harbour, it strikes a great contrast with the beautiful lace work and embroideries from the Embroiders' Guifd of London, and with the dainty beautifully painted china in other parts of the hall. The hut shows the primitive conditions of household life in 1840. The vertical slabs of trees, split and adzed, vary from a foot to eighteen inches in width. There is a beautifully squared beam' running along the front of the hut, which never was touched by a saw, the adze leaving an astonishingly smooth surface. These are actually over 100 years old, taken from just such a hut.' One of the windows at the back is the first cast-iron window brought to New Zealand. The furnishings are brought from many parts of the North Island. There is a cradle 250 years old, brought out by a pioneer Wanganui family and used by them since. New Plymouth has also sent down some very interesting articles of great age. Napier is represented by a high-backed chair belonging to the Colenso family. The South Island early pioneers' room, which flanks the North Island pioneer hut, presents a great contrast, as it represents the home of a fairly well-to-do family, which has become more or less established. It contains the first piano to come to New Zealand, a harp, and furnishings of the MidVictorian era. ,