A Glistening Web: Whakatū / Nelson 11-12 October 2023

By Catherine Field-Dodgson and Michele Leggott   In mid-October, Michele and Catherine travelled to Whakatū / Nelson for a quick research trip, and to deliver the Nelson Historical Society’s 2023 James Jenkins Memorial lecture. Michele was accompanied by her friend Susan Davis. Mary Gavin, president of the Nelson Historical Society, and Yolanda Persico, the society’s secretary, Read More…

Playing Snap with Edwin Harris

By Brianna Vincent I thoroughly enjoyed my part of working on Edwin Harris’s sketchbooks, one of the interesting parts of the experience being how it became an exercise in sustained déjà vu. The déjà vu would leave me carefully leafing through the pages and wondering if I had seen this building, this tree, this beach, Read More…

On the ground at Nile St

We’ve been thinking about 34 Nile St, Nelson for a long time now, consulting street plans, Post Office Directories and electoral rolls in our efforts to trace the movement of Harris family members on the site 1862-1925. We know that the family arrived in Nelson in three instalments. Sarah Harris sailed 11 April 1860 from Read More…

Nile Street again

Last week Michele and I contacted our Nelson correspondents/field researchers Belinda Fletcher and Iain Sharp with a small photo from the Harris family album. The photo is a street view with a row of three houses to the right behind a picket fence, a big tree after the second house, 8 figures on the road Read More…