Above: Christ’s College Grammar School Form List August 1878
the immigration barracks? What was planned that we have yet to uncover? As well as adding to the descriptive part of A&D, College students have been aided in their NCEA work and many families have found out more about their ancestors. Much of this is possible because of College’s record keeping. The Form Lists in manuscript and published form until the 1950s provide details about class placings and, when combined with the incredible detail in past issues of Register , many an ancestor’s sporting and academic achievements have been uncovered. The College Archives works closely with the Old Boys’ Association. Over the years, departing CCOBA Secretary Justine Nicholl’s connection with College’s past encouraged Old Boys to add to the Archives collection, and she also aided in the untangling of the odd mystery or two. Items of interest to Houses have been added to the Archives collection. This means making sure items that come under the general heading of
Above: Scanned board minutes page
ephemera are collected. Sports and drama programmes, prize lists and House booklets are regularly added. The responsibility for preserving the past for the future has also seen the portrait of Campbell West-Watson, College’s fourth Warden, returned to the Dining Hall following conservation work by Edward Sakowski. Thanks to the skills of New Zealand Micrographic Services, the second part of the 1878–1910 Board Minute Book has been digitised. An enormous volume, created by binding two volumes together, it was important that the images were captured by an overhead camera. Not only was it impossible to lie it
flat on a photocopier screen due to the damage to the spine that would have occurred, but also each fragile 100 (plus) year old page would have been subjected to the adverse effects of heat and light. The resulting .tiff and .jpg images can now be enlarged to enable the handwriting to be untangled and maybe further mysteries to be solved.
Jane Teal Archivist
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Register 2019 Culture
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