The How YOU can support the Kumara Times Kumara Times Project Project A joint project with National Make a donation into the Library to make the Kumara Times available online following account: The Kumara Times Project ANZ 06 0849 0075116 01 For more information contact David Verrall Email: [email protected] Phone: 03) 755 8550 Contact David if you require a receipt.

Digitising the Kumara Times — an essential tool for research The Kumara Times Project is fully supported by Hokitika Museum as endorsed by Museum Director, Julia Bradshaw: “I’ve spent years researching goldfields’ stories Uncovering a hidden gem and have always found the Kumara Times a Bernard Preston, chairman of local heritage group, valuable source that provides great insights into Heritage Hokitikasees this as an exciting the every-day life of a goldfield town and its opportunity for our community. people. Digitising the surviving copies of the newspaper would allow searches to be “With ancestors who gold-mined in Kumara, I undertaken from anywhere in the world and have always yearned for the history gaps to be digitisation means filled via theKumara keyword searches – Times. I commend this every researcher’s project to heritage and dream! “ history researchers". Historic New Zealand Newspapers Online Main street of Kumara c.1877 Photo #1556, Hokitika Museum

About the Kumara Times The Kumara Times Project The Kumara Times began publication as an afternoon aims to digitise one of New Zealand's daily in 1876, and continued for a further 40 years. goldfields newspapers and make it freely It was published six days a week, and covered the available on the Papers Past website. minutiae of daily life in Kumara. Court, hospital, mining and Benevolent Society reports provide fascinating glimpses into a past community, along with items What is Papers Past? detailing Richard Seddon’s political Kumara in 1876 Papers Past is a website containing digitised 19th career from Mayor of Kumara to The Kumara Times newspaper was published in the and 20th century New Zealand newspapers, all of Premier of New Zealand. settlement of the same name, upon the southern which can be searched by keyword. You can read banks of the mighty Taramakau river in the province over a hundred and fifty years of newspapers and Where is it held? of Westland. Situated halfway between Greymouth periodicals from all regions of New Zealand. Hokitika Museum holds the only and Hokitika, and a short distance inland, it straddles Papers Past contains more than three million pages known original copies of the the main highway to the east. of digitised newspapers. The collection covers the Kumara Times, all of which have years 1839 to 1945 and currently includes 92 been copied to microfilm . Two One of the last great gold rushes began on the banks publications. copies of the microfilm exist , one in of the Taramakau late in 1876, and within a couple of Hokitika Museum and one in National years the population exceeded 6,000 and the Bor- What the users say: Library. Digital copies will be made R J Seddon, ough of Kumara was created. Richard John Seddon c.1880 “Congratulations to all involved—this site is a directly from the microfilm. #2472 was the first mayor of the town, lived there for 20 national treasure!” years, and most of his 11 children were born there. “Could happily spend 24 hours a day on it.” Missing copies: Only the first 20 years of the Kumara Times are known to What are the costs? exist (1876 –1896) however many issues are missing. 'The gloriously named Kumara Times, A further aim of this project is to appeal to the public to There are 13,722 pages of the Kumara Times to Pounamu and Goldsborough Advertiser fill in the missing gaps of this rarely seen newspaper. digitise at $1.60 per page. This comes to a sum of gives us a window straight into the life and If you know of any copies of the Kumara Times $21,000 of which National Library will pay half. times of these great goldfields. It is rare please contact the Hokitika Museum. (03-755 6898) For this project to go ahead, and currently hard to access even locally, we have to fundraise $10,500 but for researchers lucky enough to 'mine' its pages it is rich pickings indeed!' to cover half the costs. Historic New Zealand Newspapers Online Paul Madgwick, Editor, Greymouth Star, Please DONATE—see details over. paperspast.natlib.govt.nz Hokitika Guardian & West Coast Messenger