Camera obscura

Last week we featured four chaps having a chat in 1979. They were standing on the verandah of the Youth Hostel which was then off Grantham Street down near the river.

That building is at the top right in this photo.

Clockwise from there are: Hamilton Club (mostly obscured); Money Order office later to be an art gallery; old Chief Post Office now Artspost on Victoria Street; immediately behind are telephone exchange and engineering buildings; (behind art gallery) two houses.

We don’t know if the houses in the photo were privately owned. All of the buildings around Artspost were demolished some time ago as were the art gallery, the houses and the youth hostel.

The museum building occupies most of that space where the houses and the Youth Hostel were. Victoria Street crosses in the foreground.

Contributed by Perry Rice, Heritage Librarian – Photographs, Hamilton Central Library. If you have any information you would like to pass on or would like to buy an electronic copy of the photo, please e-mail perry.rice@hcc.govt.nz HCL_M00380.17edtd Today the quality of our waterways has become a major ecological and political issue, one that threatens to impact on the general election. In 1912 there was similar unrest. In July of that year farmers were disturbed by a decision by the Chief Justice in a case involving flaxmills. It was feared that a new legal precedent had been set after an injunction was upheld against a mill in Palmerston North which was discharging polluted water directly back into a stream.

As the dairy industry was doing essentially the same thing, fear spread amongst rural communities.

The Government responded quickly. The Water Pollution Bill was introduced into parliament. The Waikato Times sang its praises, reassuring its readership, explaining that ‘‘the bill is designed to give adequate protection to such industries as dairying, flax milling, saw milling, etc’’.

The carte blanche given to polluters was however to stop short of absolute dumping, least ways in those bodies of