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Dunedin

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For other uses, see Dunedin (disambiguation).
Dunedin
File:Dunedin.PNG
Urban Area Population 119,600
Extent Mosgiel to Port Chalmers
Territorial
Authority		 Name Dunedin City
Population 122,100
Land area 3314.8km²
Extent urban area, and out as
far as Middlemarch,
Waikouaiti and the
Taieri River
Regional
Council		 Name Otago

Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, located in coastal Otago. It is New Zealand's fifth largest city after Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Hamilton. It is known in Māori as Ōtepoti. The city stands on the hills and valleys surrounding the head of Otago Harbour. The harbour and hills are the remnants of an extinct volcano. Dunedin is the home of the University of Otago.

History

Dunedin Railway Station


Modern Archaeology favours a date round 1100 AD for the first human (Maori) occupation of New Zealand with population concentrated along the south east coast. A camp site at Kaikai's Beach, near Otago Heads, has been dated about that time. From this Moa Hunter (Archaic) phase of Maori culture there are numerous sites in the Dunedin area, including ones interpreted as permanent villages at Little Papanui and Harwood Township in the 1300s. With reduced moa numbers the population slumped but grew again with the evolution of a new Classic culture producing fortified villages (pa), the one at Pukekura (Taiaroa Head) being established about 1650.

In this period there were Maori settlements in what is now central Dunedin (Otepoti), above Anderson's Bay (Puketai), on Te Rauone Beach (Te Ruatitiko and Tahakopa), around Otago Harbour. There were also settlements at Whareakeake (Murdering Beach), Purakaunui, Mapoutahi (Goat Island Peninsula) and Huriawa (Karitane Peninsula) to the north, and at Taieri Mouth and Otokia (Henley) to the south, all inside the present boundaries of Dunedin.

Central Dunedin was still occupied about 1785 but was abandoned before 1826. Purakaunui and Mapoutahi were abandoned late in the 1700s and Whareakeake about 1825.

Maori tradition speaks of Rakaihautu excavating Kaikorai Valley in ancient time, of Kahui Tipua and Te Rapuwai, ancient peoples of shadowy memory, and then Waitaha, followed by Kati Mamoe, the latter arriving late in the 1500s, and then Kai Tahu ('Ngai Tahu' in modern standard Maori) from about the middle of the 1600s. Personalities from this time and later, such as Taoka and Te Wera, Tarewai and Te Rakiihia are identified with events at Huriawa, Mapoutahi, Pukekura and Otepoti and have descendants known in the historical period. Te Rakiihia died and was buried somewhere in what is now central Dunedin about 1785.

The sealer John Boultbee recorded in the 1820s that the 'Kaika Otargo' (settlements around and near Otago Harbour) were the oldest and largest in the south.

Captain Cook stood off what is now the coast of Dunedin between February 25 and March 5 1770 and named Cape Saunders on the Otago Peninsula and Saddle Hill. He charted the area and reported penguins and seals in the vicinity which led sealers to visit, their first recorded landings being late in the first decade of the 19th century. A feud between sealers and Maori, sparked by an incident on a ship in Otago Harbour in 1810, continued until 1823. With peace re-established Otago Harbour went from being a secret sealers' haven to an international whaling port.

Before the Scottish settlement William Tucker settled at Whareakeake (Murdering Beach) near Otago Heads in 1815. The Weller Brothers, Joseph, George and Edward, established their whaling station at Wellers Rock, at what is now called Otakou on the Otago Harbour, in 1831. Long, Wright & Richards started a whaling station at Karitane in 1837 and Johnny Jones sent pioneers to settle land at Waikouaiti in 1840, all inside the territory of the modern City of Dunedin. The settlements at Wellers Rock, Karitane and Waikouaiti have endured making modern Dunedin one of the longest European settled territories in New Zealand.

The Lay Association of the Free Church of Scotland founded Dunedin at the head of Otago Harbour in 1848 as the principal town of its Scottish settlement. The name comes from Dùn Èideann, the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the Scottish capital. Charles Kettle the city's surveyor, instructed to emulate the characteristics of Edinburgh, produced a striking, 'Romantic' design. The result was both grand and quirky streets as the builders struggled and sometimes failed to construct his bold vision across the challenging landscape. Captain William Cargill, a veteran of the war against Napoleon, was the secular leader. The Reverend Thomas Burns, a nephew of the poet Robbie Burns, was the spiritual guide.

In 1852 when the provinces were created Dunedin became the capital of the Otago Province, the whole of New Zealand from the Waitaki south. It was the only one of New Zealand's original six provinces to have a Maori name a reflection of the area's European settlement in pre-colonial times. There were squabbles between the Scottish, Presbyterian, majority 'the Old Identity', and the English, Anglican, minority, 'the Little Enemy'. Dunedin developed a reputation for furious public debate which continues to the present in the letters columns of the local newspapers.

In 1861 the discovery of gold at Gabriel's Gully led to a rapid influx of population and saw Dunedin become New Zealand's first city by growth of population in 1865. The new arrivals included many Irish, but also Italians, French, Germans, Jews and Chinese, all lumped together by the earlier settlers as 'the New Iniquity'. Some people made fortunes and built grand houses. Slums developed in the inner city. Dunedin and the region industrialised. The South Island trunk railway from Bluff to Lyttelton was completed in 1879. By contrast the North Island trunk line was not finished until 1909. After ten years of gold rushes the economy slowed but Julius Vogel's immigration and development scheme brought thousands more especially to Dunedin and Otago before recession set in in the 1880s.

In this first time of prosperity many institutions and businesses were established in Dunedin, New Zealand's first daily newspaper, its first university, art school and medical school among them. A combination of money, good building stones and the then Scottish international pre-eminence in architecture saw a remarkable flowering of substantial and ornamental buildings, unusual for such a young and distant colony. R.A. Lawson's First Church of Otago and Knox Church are notable examples. Maxwell Bury's clock tower complex for the University and F. W. Petre's St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Cathedral are others started in this time.

Difficult economic conditions led to the 'anti-sweating' movement led by a Presbyterian Minister, Rutherford Waddell. From it came the establishment of New Zealand's Labour Party. Early in the 1880s the inauguration of the frozen meat industry, with the first shipment leaving from Port Chalmers, saw the beginning of a later great national industry. In the mid 1890s the gold dredging boom began and by the turn of the century Dunedin was experiencing another time of prosperity.

This was a fertile period in the visual arts. William Mathew Hodgkins the 'father of art in New Zealand' - according to his daughter - certainly presided over a vital scene. From the interlocking circles of Turneresque Romantic landscape painters and younger impressionistic practitioners, G.P. Nerli helped to launch Frances Hodgkins on her career as New Zealand's most distinguished expatriate artist.

From the 1890s the 'Assyrians', religious refugees from what is now Lebanon, started to arrive, packing into the inner city slums largely occupied by Chinese. It was in this milieu John A. Lee grew up, the later Labour firebrand whose novels exposing these conditions would shock the country. But merchants like Edward Theomin built his grand town house Olveston and the Dunedin Railway Station was an opulent building, both completed in 1906. More companies and institutions were founded in these years, the Dunedin Public Art Gallery in 1884, the Otago Settlers Museum in 1898 and the Hocken Collections in 1910, all first of their types in New Zealand. But Dunedin was no longer the biggest city.

Determined to defeat demographic gravity Otago and Dunedin sent proportionately more personnel to the First World War than the other New Zealand districts and the losses were proportionately greater. The Anglican Cathedral, St. Paul's started in 1915 and consecrated in 1919 was the last great Gothic Revival building, and remains uncompleted. In another act of demographic self-promotion the New Zealand and South Seas International Exhibition was staged at Logan Park in 1925 to 26 to co-incide with the five yearly census. 3.3 million people visited, more than attended any New Zealand exhibition before or since. The tramways' profits paid for a new town hall, still New Zealand's largest. But population growth continued to slow. With the 1930s the international depression set in. In early 1932 there were urban riots later repeated in the northern centres.

Despite the city's slow growth the university continued to expand boosted by its monopoly in health sciences. The developing Colleges and Halls saw the establishment of a student quarter. In this time too people started to notice Dunedin's mellowing, the ageing of its grand old buildings, with writers like E.H. McCormick pointing out its atmospheric charm. R.N. Field at the art school inspired young students to break from tradition with M.T. (Toss) Woollaston, Doris Lusk, Anne Hamblett, Colin McCahon and Patrick Hayman forming the first cell of indigenous Modernism. The Second World War saw the dispersal of these painters, but not before McCahon had met a very youthful poet, James K. Baxter, in a central city studio.

After the war prosperity and population growth revived, although Dunedin trailed as the fourth 'main centre'. A generation reacting against Victorianism started demolishing its buildings for redevelopment, which in Dunedin often meant open air car parks. Many buildings were lost, notably the Stock Exchange in 1969. The university expanded, the rest of the city did not. Between 1976 and 81 it went into absolute decline. This lent support to the proposal to establish an aluminium smelter at Aramoana as one of Sir Robert Muldoon's 'think big' projects.Its economics were doubtful and once exposed by Otago Professor, Paul Van Moeseke, the government backed off. But the city became bitterly divided.

This was a culturally vibrant time with the university's new privately endowed fellowships for writers, composers and visual artists, bringing such luminaries as James K Baxter, Ralph Hotere, Janet Frame, Hone Tuwhare, back to the city, or to Dunedin for the first time, where some stayed and many lingered. Good Modernist buildings appeared, such as the Dental School and Ted McCoy's Otago Boys' High School and Richardson building, evidence that this born-in-Dunedin designer could find a way of marrying Modernism to the revivalist inheritance.

Population decline steadied. By 1990 Dunedin had re-invented itself as the 'heritage city' with its main streets refurbished in Victorian style and R.A Lawson's Municipal Chambers in the Octagon handsomely restored. The university's growth accelerated. North Dunedin became New Zealand's largest and most exuberant residential campus. Local body reform saw the creation of the present huge territorial Dunedin, the country's largest city, in 1989, a distinction many found dubious.

The city has continued to refurbish itself, rehousing the Dunedin Public Art Gallery in the Octagon in 1996 and buying and restoring the Railway Station and now embarking on a large development of the Otago Settlers Museum. Dunedin continues to be preoccupied with its population and economic future but people have lived here for nine centuries through radically changing fortunes. Unlike other New Zealand cities something of that is reflected in its atmosphere with its constant recall of the past and promise of future surprises.

Some historical notes

The University of Otago, the oldest university in New Zealand, was founded in Dunedin in 1869. Otago Girls High School (1871) is said to be the oldest state secondary school for girls in the Southern Hemisphere. Dunedin became wealthy during the Central Otago goldrush which began at Gabriel's Gully near Lawrence in 1861. Between 1881 and 1957, Dunedin was home to the Dunedin cable trams, being both one of the first and last such systems operated anywhere in the world. During the 20th century, influence and activity moved north to the other centres ("the drift north"), but by the end of the century Dunedin had re-established its identity as a centre of excellence in tertiary education and research.

Modern Dunedin

Dunedin has flourishing niche industries including engineering, software engineering, bio-technology and fashion. Port Chalmers on Otago Harbour provides Dunedin with deep-water port facilities. The port is served by the Port Chalmers Branch, a branch line railway that diverges from the Main South Line that runs from Christchurch via Dunedin to Invercargill.

The cityscape glitters with gems of Victorian and Edwardian architecture - the legacy of the city's gold-rush affluence - many including First Church and Larnach Castle designed by one of New Zealand's most eminent architects R A Lawson. Other prominent buildings include Olveston and the magnificent Dunedin Railway Station. Other not-to-be missed attractions include the world's steepest street (Baldwin Street), the famous Captain Cook Tavern, and the local Speight's brewery. Tourists and students alike appreciate tours of the Cadbury chocolate factory.

The Dunedin Botanic Garden

Dunedin is also notable now as centre for ecotourism. Uniquely, the world's only mainland royal albatross colony and several penguin and seal colonies lie within the city boundaries on Otago Peninsula. To the south of Dunedin, located on the western side of Lake Waihola, lie the Sinclair Wetlands.

The thriving tertiary student population has led to Dunedin having a vibrant youth culture, which came to prominence with the "Dunedin Sound" bands of the 1980s (such as The Chills, The Clean, Straitjacket Fits, and The Verlaines), and more recently a burgeoning boutique fashion industry. A very strong visual arts community lives in Dunedin and its environs.

St Clair Beach, Dunedin

Sport is catered for in Dunedin by the floodlit rugby and cricket venue of Carisbrook, a soccer and athletics stadium (the New Caledonian Ground) at Logan Park, close to the University, and numerous golf courses and parks. There is also a horseracing circuit in the south of the city (Forbury Park). Saint Clair Beach, on the city's Pacific shore, is a well-known surfing venue.

The climate is moderate. Winter can be frosty, but significant snowfall is uncommon (perhaps every two or three years), except in the inland hill suburbs such as Halfway Bush and Wakari. Spring can feature "four seasons in a day" weather, but from November to April it is generally settled and mild.

Dunedin features the world's most southern motorway: this 10 kilometre divided highway section of State Highway One (SH1) runs from the centre of the city to the southern suburb of Mosgiel.

Although Dunedin's railway station, once the nation's busiest, is no longer served by regular commercial passenger trains, it is used by tourist services. The most prominent of these is the Taieri Gorge Limited, a popular and famous train operated daily by the Taieri Gorge Railway along a preserved portion of the former Otago Central Railway through the scenic Taieri Gorge. The station is also sometimes visited by excursions organised by other heritage railway societies, as well as trains chartered by cruise ships docking in Port Chalmers.

Local media in Dunedin include the daily newspaper The Otago Daily Times, several local weekly and bi-weekly community newspapers, local radio stations (including the University's station, Radio One), and Channel 9 a local television station.

Geography

Dunedin (grey area to lower left) sits close to the isthmus of the Otago Peninsula, at the end of Otago Harbour.

Dunedin City has a land area of 3314.8 km2, about 10% larger than Cambridgeshire, England, and a little smaller than Cornwall. It is the largest city in land area in New Zealand. The Dunedin City Council boundaries since 1989 have extended to Middlemarch in the west, Waikouaiti in the north, the Pacific Ocean in the east and south-east, and Henley and Taieri Mouth in the south-west.

Dunedin is also home to Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world according to the Guinness Book of Records, with a slope of 1:2.9 (i.e. for every 2.9 m horizontally the street rises 1 m). The long-since abandoned Maryhill Cablecar route had a similar gradient close to its Mornington depot. The Dunedin skyline is dominated by a ring of hills which form the remnants of a volcanic crater. Notable among these hills are Mount Cargill (700 m), Flagstaff (680 m), Saddle Hill (480 m), and Harbour Cone (320 m).

The heart of the city lies on the relatively flat land to the west of the head of the Otago Harbour. Here is located The Octagon - once a swamp, it was drained in the late 19th century to create a city centre. The initial settlement of the city took place to the north of this swamp and further south on the other side of Bell Hill, a large outcrop which had to be excavated in order to provide easy access between the two parts of the settlement. Today, the central city stretches away from this point in a largely northeast-southwest direction, with the main streets of George Street and Princes Street meeting at The Octagon. Here they are joined by Stuart Street, which runs orthogonal to them, from the Dunedin Railway Station in the southeast, and steeply up to the suburb of Roslyn in the northwest. Many of the older, more established buildings in the city are located towards the northern end of this central area on the floodplains of the Water of Leith, and on the inner ring of lower hills which surround the central city (most of these hills, such as Māori Hill, Pine Hill, and Maryhill, rise to some 200 metres above the plain).

List of Dunedin suburbs

For information on individual suburbs, see Suburbs of Dunedin, New Zealand

Inner suburbs

(clockwise from the city centre, starting at due north)

Woodhaugh; Dalmore; Pine Hill; Dunedin North; North East Valley; Opoho; Ravensbourne; Highcliff; Vauxhall; Waverley; Shiel Hill; Anderson's Bay; Ocean Grove (Tomahawk); Tainui; Musselburgh; South Dunedin; St. Kilda; St. Clair; Corstorphine; Kew; Forbury; Caversham; Concord; Maryhill; Mornington; Belleknowes; Brockville; Halfway Bush; Roslyn; Kaikorai; Wakari; Māori Hill; Glenleith.

Outer suburbs

(clockwise from the city centre, starting at due north)

St. Leonards; Broad Bay; Macandrew Bay; Waldronville; Green Island; Abbotsford; Concord; Fairfield.

Towns within Dunedin City limits

(clockwise from the city centre, starting at due north)

Waitati; Warrington; Waikouaiti; Karitane; Purakanui, Port Chalmers; Sawyers Bay, Otakou;Portobello; Brighton; Taieri Mouth; Henley; Allanton; East Taieri; Momona, Mosgiel; Outram; Middlemarch.

Technically, since council reorganisation in the late 1980s these are suburbs, but all are known throughout Dunedin as towns or townships, and none has the usual qualities associated with suburbs. All are separated by a considerable distance of open countryside from the central Dunedin urban area. Anyone describing these places as "suburbs" to a Dunedinite will be met with a puzzled expression.

Panoramas

File:Pandunedin large.jpg
180° view of Dunedin shot from the hills on the west. Mount Cargill is at the extreme left of picture, and the Otago Peninsula is beyond the harbour to the centre.
This is a panorama of the view from just east of the summit of Mount Cargill. Dunedin harbour runs from its entrance near the centre to the city centre on the right, the peninsula can be seen beyond. The base of a television mast can be seen at the extreme left and right edges.
This is a panorama of the view from the summit of Mount Cargill. The base of a television mast can be seen on the left, with the Dunedin harbour and the peninsula beyond. Dunedin city centre can be seen in the middle.
This is a panorama of the view from the summit of Flagstaff Hill. Dunedin City Centre can be seen on the right, and Mosgiel on the left. Mount Cargill is slightly right of centre.

Noted inhabitants

The arts

Politics and business

  • A large proportion of the country's leading companies in and beyond the 20th century originated in Dunedin. A selection of relevant company or brand names includes Arthur Barnett, Donaghy, Fletcher, Fulton Hogan, Hallenstein, Methven, Mosgiel, NZI, Ravensdown, Wests, Whitcoulls, and Wrightson.
  • The Bell Tea Company was founded here in 1898 and still has one of its factories in Hope Street.
  • Deputy Prime Minister (since 1999) Michael Cullen was Member of Parliament for the Dunedin electorate of Saint Kilda from 1981 until 1999.

Science

Sport

Military

Events

Annual events

Past events

Prominent Dunedin buildings and landmarks

Churches

Places of education

Tertiary

Secondary

Intermediate

Primary

Dunedin International Airport

Dunedin International Airport is located southwest of the city on the Taieri Plains at Momona. It is primarily a domestic terminal, with regular flights to and from Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington, Rotorua, Palmerston North, and seasonal flights to and from Queenstown, Wanaka, and Fiordland, but it also has regular international flights arriving from and departing to Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Coolangatta.

Twinning

Dunedin maintains cultural, economic and educational ties with Edinburgh, Scotland. It is also twinned with Otaru, Japan, and Shanghai, People's Republic of China.

More information

  • The city was possibly the origin of the first Anzac biscuits.
  • Dunedin was the city in which Speights beer was first brewed.
  • Dunedin is the most remote city in the world from London (19100 km, 90 km more than Invercargill, and 100 km more than Christchurch) and from Berlin (18200 km). So if a European person wants to visit a remote place, this is the city to visit.

Further reading

  • Bishop, G. & Hamel, A. (1993). From sea to silver peaks. Dunedin: John McIndoe. ISBN 0-86868-149-0.
  • Dann, C. & Peat, N. (1989). Dunedin, North and South Otago. Wellington, NZ: GP Books. ISBN 0-477-01438-0.
  • Herd, J. & Griffiths, G. J. (1980). Discovering Dunedin. Dunedin: John McIndoe. ISBN 0-86868-030-3.
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