Devonport in Focus Exhibition
Current displays in the Museum
Devonport Borough Council Scrapbooks 1886 - 1989
Collection Policy
Photograph Collection
Research at Devonport Museum

Devonport in Focus Exhibition

Snapshots of Devonport, Yesterday and Today

This external display is upstairs in the old Area Office Council building in Victoria Rd (see Locations and hours) and features photographs, film footage and a model of the Astrolabe ship.

We gratefully acknowledge the North Shore City Council and The Rotary Club of Devonport for their assistance with this display.

Current displays in the Museum

Devonport Schools
Devonport Transport
Some early Devonport settlers and families
Brickmaking in Devonport
Military exhibits
and many more

Some highlights:

Butcher's block

One of three butcher's blocks of the AMC (Auckland Meat Company) Butcher's store of Devonport.
Made of kauri from a tree trunk purchased from the Whangaroa Timber Company in Northland.

The 3 stores were 

• Vauxhall Rd near the old Post Office - opened to supply Fort Cautley
• Victoria Rd on the corner of Rattray St - opened to supply the general population of Devonport
• Calliope Rd - opened to supply the Navy

This butcher's block delivered to Calliope Rd AMC in 1921. Moved to Victoria Rd shop when Calliope Rd shop closed  and remained there until the shop closed in 1984.

By counting the number of rings in the wood, there are about 500, we can reliably estimate that this tree seeded around 1400.

For more information and to see the block come and pay us a visit.

Villa

This model villa is typical of the 1890's era. This model is all hand made from Kauri. There is a central hallway, a parlour, three bedrooms, and a kitchen. Out the back there is a pantry, and a scullery (both off the kitchen), bathroom, washhouse and WC.

The villa took 10 months to build. Always a favourite!

Devonport Borough Council Scrapbooks 1886 - 1989

These invaluable scrapbooks contain:

collated newspaper cuttings relating to Devonport Borough Council business and happenings, local events and local and regional issues during the 103 years of the Council's existence

The museum paid to have the scrapbooks indexed under the supervision of the North Shore Libraries. Three complete photocopy sets of 115 volumes have been produced and they are held at:

• Devonport Library
• North Shore City Council Archives
• Devonport Museum

The main sources of these cuttings were:

The New Zealand Herald
Auckland Star
North Shore Times Advertiser
other miscellaneous printed news media
the Council's own correspondence and material

The original scrapbooks are stored in the North Shore City Council Archives.

North Shore Libraries has indexed these scrapbooks and this can be found as the Devonport Heritage Index on the North Shore Libraries catalogue (in the "Advanced" search option, tick Devonport Heritage Index - Devonport Borough Council Scrapbooks index).

Photograph Collection

The Museum has a large photograph collection that we are currently digitising. This will then be searchable through the in-house database.

The Museum can now provide photographs from the collection at the costs below. These are computer generated and the best quality is equal to that of a normal photograph.

Photo Reproduction Costs

• All A4 size
• Costs include the paper stock used to print the image - the photo-quality paper is the most expensive.
• If two photos can be fitted on the same page, the second photo is half price.

See also Research at Devonport Museum