Peter Rabbit’s cemetery residence council-approved
The only coney-garth or rabbit hamlet in Southland is under a tree in the Garston cemetery.
After 23 years Peter Rabbit’s house now has enough neighbours to put the locality on the tourist map and it has a building permit issued by Mayor Gary Tong.
Garston School used the rabbit settlement to learn about town planning, maths and construction.
Southland’s original (unpermitted) rabbit communes were massive warrens which developed following the rabbit invasion in the 1870s.
These proved vulnerable to poison gas, dynamite and ferrets, and rabbits soon adapted to a solitary existence with isolated individual burrows.
Some rabbits now shun burrows and breed under dense cover.
Our first PM
Southland’s first locally raised prime minister was Sir Joseph Ward, who was PM from 1906 – 1912 and from 1928 – 1930. He was born in Melbourne but his parents moved to Bluff when he was four.
There is a statue of Ward at the entrance to Bluff and his grave is in Bluff Cemetery.
Education milestone
Education in Southland became free, secular and compulsory in 1877.
Children aged between 5 and 15, regardless of race, attended school free and attendance was compulsory between ages 7 and 13 for at least half the time the school was open.
In reality, compulsory attendance was not achievable for many reasons.
Exemptions were granted if adequate alternative schooling was provided, if the child lived more than two miles from the school, for sickness and if the roads were impassable.
The Education Act of 1877 provided for a Minister and a Ministry of Education, education boards, inspectors and local school committees and the expenditure of £3.15s per child yearly.
There was no state provision to schools maintained by the churches.
Catholics felt that as they were unable to avail themselves of the education offered by a state school, they should get part of that funding for their own schools – a question not fully resolved until the integration act of 1975.
Protestant clergy were unhappy as they felt that nonsectarian religious instruction should be a part of the curriculum as the best vehicle for instilling good values but even a provision in the bill for Bible reading and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer was struck out.
Peter Rabbit’s house now has enough neighbours to put the locality on the tourist map.