Mayor Mark Blumsky juggling; a 1996 photograph by City Council photographer Neil Price
Alfred Brandon, soon to be Mayor of Wellington, c.1890

This project page records Wikimedia initiatives carried out by the Wellington City Archives (herein Archives). Projects were initiated by New Zealand Wikipedian at Large Giantflightlessbirds in December 2018. The Archives have a large collection of undigitised photos; many of these are historic photos in the public domain, and there are several decades of photos by City Council photographers. Under NZ law, copyright of photos by Council staff rests with the Council, and the Archives are authorised to release these under a Creative Commons license.

  • Neil Price • current Team Leader Photography and Video, official Wellington City Council photographer for some years
  • Alister K Bristow • History Librarian at the Wellington Public Library • between 1951 and 1963 took some 3000 images at the request of Council departments
  • Mark Graham, Mark Tantrum • Some photography

Mayors of Wellington edit

To Do Done

  • Check Wikipedia's Mayor of Wellington City listing for accuracy
  • Check Commons Category:Mayors_of_Wellington for info and completeness – Mark Blumsky missing a photo?
  • Upload photos taken by City Photographer Neil Price
  • Upload other photos as needed from public domain sources, or scanned from City Yearbooks
  • Create categories for any mayors lacking them.
  • Link each Mayor in Wikidata to their Commons category so infoboxes work.
  • Have some publicity photos of the current mayor authorised by the comms team for release under a CC license
# Name Term of Office Commons cat? Pics Added Notes
- George Hunter 1842 1843 No Yes 1
- William Guyton 1843 No Yes 1 1 Uploaded better scan
1 Joseph Dransfield 1870 1873 No Yes 1
2 Charles Borlase 1874 1875 No Yes 1
3 William Sefton Moorhouse 1875 Yes 4
4 William Hutchison 1875 1877 No Yes 1
(1) Joseph Dransfield 1878 1879
5 George Allen 1879 No Yes 1 1
(4) William Hutchison 1879 1881
6 George Fisher 1881 1885 Yes 6
7 Arthur Winton Brown 1885 1887 No Yes 1
8 Samuel Brown 1887 1888 No Yes 1
9 John Duthie 1888 1890 Yes 2
10 Charles Johnston 1890 1891 Yes 1 Portrait with Blavatsky? Fixed
(7) Arthur Winton Brown 1891 1892
11 Francis Bell 1892 1893 Yes 6
12 Alfred Brandon 1893 1894 No Yes 1 1
13 Charles Luke 1894 1895 No Yes 1
(6) George Fisher 1895 1896
(11) Francis Bell 1896 1897 Yes 6
14 John Blair 1897 1899 No Yes 1
15 John Aitken 1899 1905 Yes 7 1
16 Thomas William Hislop 1905 1909 Yes 4 1
17 Alfred Newman 1909 1910 Yes 2
18 Thomas Wilford 1910 1912 Yes 6
19 David McLaren 1912 1913 Yes 3
20 John Luke 1913 1921 Yes 3
21 Robert Alexander Wright 1921 1925 Yes 1
22 Charles Norwood 1925 1927 No Yes 1
23 George Troup 1927 1931 Yes 0 2
24 Thomas Hislop 1931 1944 Yes 3 1 Bad scan
25 Will Appleton 1944 1950 Yes 6
26 Robert Macalister 1950 1956 Yes 1 4 Need more
27 Frank Kitts 1956 1974 Yes 6 12
28 Michael Fowler 1974 1983 Yes 3 1 Just 1 portrait
29 Ian Lawrence 1983 1986 Yes 2 Cropped version of group shot
30 Jim Belich 1986 1992 Yes 2 Cropped version of group shot
31 Fran Wilde 1992 1995 Yes 3
32 Mark Blumsky 1995 2001 Yes 0 4
33 Kerry Prendergast 2001 2010 Yes 5 Two cropped
34 Celia Wade-Brown 2010 2016 Yes 15 Three good
35 Justin Lester 2016 present Yes 8 3 Most terrible


Botanic Garden edit

Preparing to significantly improve the Wellington Botanic Garden's Wikimedia presence in preparation for its 150th anniversary in 2019, and a BioBlitz in April 2019.

To Do

  • Create To Do list on Talk page
  • Add info from Heritage NZ listing
  • Use Winsome Shepherd's book to generate rough article outline
  • Have Ayla add no-known-copyright Botanic Gardens photos to the Flickr gallery under CC BY 4.0
  • Locate Gardens photos by Neil Price
  • Organise bulk upload of historic photos to Commons, categorise appropriately

Wellington City Archives article edit

To Do Done

  • Establish notability of archives from clippings file of media coverage
  • Take Commons photos
  • Sort Commons categories to distinguish categories for photos OF the Archives and IN the Archives
  • Create Wikidata item
  • Create Commons institution template
  • Create Start-class article
  • If more sources are available, upgrade to C-class article Requested reassessment

Misc edit

  • Check Suzanne Aubert article: possibility of expanding Wellington section with Archives images
  • Ask WCC comms to post images from the 2000 unveiling of the Kupe statue and ask for IDs for people
  • Possible use of Wikidata for public database of Wellington architects and buildings, such as the town hall