1834: Busby’s Shingle

January 6, 2019

By AHNZ

Mr Zam has made another exciting discovery on the Online Free Market Museum known as Trade Me’s Antiques & Collectables section.

Genuine hand split kauri shingle from the roof of original treaty house ( 1834 ) Waitangi Bay of Islands New Zealand.

It may date from 1934 when the Treaty House got a much needed renovation. The place was falling down from neglect when Lord Bledisloe purchased the Grounds, including the house, and put 500 pounds toward appeal for the restoration.

Flogging off the old tiles might have been a clever way to raise some more money for the big fix up. Thanks to Bledisloe setting up a trust this special area of national significance was gifted to  the people of New Zealand forever more The State, who took over the trust and started charging everyone an arm and a leg to visit what belongs to them. Us. You!

Could be wrong. Just spit-ballin’. But it does look fairly 1930s doesn’t it?

Update 2022: At some point in our history the old wooden shingles of James Busby’s 1830s house at Waitangi found new life as souvenirs. Perhaps from the 1930s when the house was renovated by Governor General Bledisloe.

A Welsh reader of AHNZ found my post and matched the photo from a Trade Me specimen to the one they inherited from their family. It’s even more clear now that it has been made into a keyboard (of the pre-computer sort.) Here it is.

“Yep. It’s solid brass, not hollow. So could be 1930s like you think. If it was a tourist trinket from the 1990s I’d expect it to be stamped thin plate.” – Anneke Thomas-Evers, Wales

I’d say someone had a little production line going making the plates with a hammer and stamping set. The Welsh version has the same wording but the typographic alignment is different.

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Image ref. Anneke Thomas-Evers (2022)

Ref. http://ahnz.anarkiwi.co.nz/1834-busbys-shingle/

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