During WWI, monthly conscription ballots were drawn between November 1916 and October 1918 to make up for a shortfall in numbers volunteering for the army. History curator Kirstie Ross shares the stories of two Wellingtonians whose names were selected in the fourth ballot. On 13 February 1917, 100 years ago, marblesRead more
History curator Kirstie Ross explores the stories of four ‘Berry Boys’ who were conscripted in the first and second conscription ballots 100 years ago. In 1916, after two years of fighting, it was clear that New Zealanders’ loyalty to ‘King and Country’ was competing with other concerns – and fewerRead more
With the World of Wearable Art Show (WOW) in town, and fantastic costume art in Te Papa’s store windows, we were inspired see what creative costumes we have in our photography collection.Read more
Guest blogger and long-serving, recently retired Te Papa history curator Michael Fitzgerald introduces the Battle of the Somme, and one man who survived the ferocious fighting that occurred there 100 years ago and another – one of Te Papa’s ‘Berry Boys’ – who lost his life. As visitors leave Gallipoli:Read more
Gerald Gower (left) and Alfred Featherston Gower (right) are the two brothers who grace rather strikingly the cover of Berry Boys: Portraits of First World War Soldiers and Families by Michael Fitzgerald and Claire Regnault. The studio paraphernalia you see in the image above would have been cropped out inRead more
Today, The Berry Boys: Naming the Kiwi faces of World War I opened at Te Papa on level 4. Part of this intimate exhibition explains how we have used uniform badges to help us identify some of the soldiers photographed by Berry & Co. But some of the portraits in theRead more
The Berry Boys soldier identification project has progressed leaps and bounds since 2008, when a group of portraits of unidentified World War I soldiers first featured on Te Papa’s website to mark the 90th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice. Getting the ball rolling We were able to inaugurateRead more
Thanks to an article in the Dominion Post and also a piece on TV One news in response to our blog, we have had a flurry of correspondence regarding our Berry Girl mystery. While we have received a number of possible identifications for ‘O’Brien’, and will soon be able to reveal her identity,Read more
The ‘Berry Boys’ began as an internal nickname for the men depicted in Te Papa’s collection of soldier portraits by the Wellington photography studio Berry & Co. Amongst the soldiers, however, are some anomalies. Flicking through the collection on mass, something about a couple of soldier portraits demanded a closer inspection. The bodyRead more
To mark Anzac Day tomorrow, here is an update on our ‘Kiwi Faces of World War I’ soldier identficiation project. We now identified more than 60 men out of the 110 World War One soldiers who were photographed by the Wellington photography studio Berry & Co. Most of these identificationsRead more
For me the new year is an opportunity to stop for a moment and reflect on the achievements of the past year. Today my focus has been on Te Papa’s Kiwi Faces of World War I project where we have been identifying soldiers in a collection of negatives taken atRead more
One of the fascinating aspects of the Berry & Co photographs of World War I soldiers is that they were often photographed with family and friends. These family photographs bring to the fore the fact that women and children were affected by the war. Life on the home front wasRead more
One of the amazing things about researching the Berry and Co portraits is that with each identification comes new insight into World War 1. The stories behind the people and their experiences make what happened during the war more real and personal. One image in particular pulled at my heart-stringsRead more
The public interest following last month’s blog post was immense and extremely heart-warming. The reaction was helped along by an article in The Dominion Post on the 5 June entitled ‘Positive search via war negatives’ and an interview with Jim Mora on Radio New Zealand National. The emails, phone callsRead more
Te Papa has a wonderful collection of 172 portraits on glass plate negatives featuring World War One soldiers. These images were taken at the Berry & Co. photography studio in Wellington between about 1914 and 1919. The men in these images were about to enter into a life-changing event. Some wouldRead more
