Wellington
Wellington is the capital city and second most populous urban area of New Zealand, with 418,500 residents. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the major population centre of the southern North Island, is the administrative centre of the Wellington Region, which includes the Kapiti Coast and Wairarapa, its latitude is 41°17′S, making it the world's southernmost capital of a sovereign state. Wellington features a temperate maritime climate, is the world's windiest city by average wind speed; the Wellington urban area comprises four local authorities: Wellington City, on the peninsula between Cook Strait and Wellington Harbour, contains the central business district and about half the population. As the nation's capital since 1865, the New Zealand Government and Parliament, Supreme Court and most of the public service are based in the city. Architectural sights include the Government Building—one of the largest wooden buildings in the world—as well as the iconic Beehive.
Wellington is home to several of the largest and oldest cultural institutions in the nation such the National Archives, the National Library, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, numerous theatres. It plays host to many artistic and cultural organisations, including the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Royal New Zealand Ballet. One of the world's most liveable cities, the 2016 Mercer Quality of Living Survey ranked Wellington 12th in the world. Wellington's economy is service-based, with an emphasis on finance, business services, government, it is the centre of New Zealand's film and special effects industries, a hub for information technology and innovation, with two public research universities. Wellington is one of New Zealand's chief seaports and serves both domestic and international shipping; the city is served by the third busiest airport in the country. Wellington's transport network includes train and bus lines which reach as far as the Kapiti Coast and Wairarapa, ferries connect the city to the South Island.
Wellington takes its name from Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington and victor of the Battle of Waterloo: his title comes from the town of Wellington in the English county of Somerset. It was named in November 1840 by the original settlers of the New Zealand Company on the suggestion of the directors of the same, in recognition of the Duke's strong support for the company's principles of colonisation and his "strenuous and successful defence against its enemies of the measure for colonising South Australia". One of the founders of the settlement, Edward Jerningham Wakefield, reported that the settlers "took up the views of the directors with great cordiality and the new name was at once adopted". In the Māori language, Wellington has three names. Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara refers to Wellington Harbour and means "the great harbour of Tara". In New Zealand Sign Language, the name is signed by raising the index and ring fingers of one hand, palm forward, to form a "W", shaking it from side to side twice.
The city's location close to the mouth of the narrow Cook Strait leads to its vulnerability to strong gales, leading to the city's nickname of "Windy Wellington". Legends recount that Kupe explored the district in about the 10th century; the earliest date with hard evidence for Maori living in New Zealand is about 1280. Situated near the geographic centre of the country, Wellington was well placed for trade. In 1839 it was chosen as the first major planned settlement for British immigrants coming to New Zealand; the settlement was named in honour of Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington and victor of the Battle of Waterloo. European settlement began with the arrival of an advance party of the New Zealand Company on the ship Tory on 20 September 1839, followed by 150 settlers on the Aurora on 22 January 1840. Food processing plants, engineering industries, vehicle assembly and oil refineries were located in the NE which caused the main industrial growth in Hutt valley; the settlers constructed their first homes at Petone on the flat area at the mouth of the Hutt River.
When that proved swampy and flood-prone they transplanted the plans, drawn without regard for the hilly terrain. In 1865, Wellington became the capital city in place of Auckland, which William Hobson had made the capital in 1841; the New Zealand Parliament had first met in Wellington on 7 July 1862, on a temporary basis. There had been some concerns that the more populous South Island would choose to form a separate colony in the British Empire. Several Commissioners invited from Australia, chosen for their neutral status, declared that Wellington was a suitable location because of
National Bank of New Zealand
The National Bank of New Zealand Limited referred to as The National Bank, was one of New Zealand's largest banks. Throughout much of its history, the National Bank provided commercial banking services to major industrial and rural as well as some personal customers. UK based Lloyds Bank became the sole owner of the bank in 1966 and National Bank adopted the Lloyds Bank black horse as its logo. Lloyds TSB, as it was, sold the bank to Australian ANZ Bank in 2003, at which time it became part of ANZ National Bank Limited, the New Zealand subsidiary of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group but for customers retained a separate corporate identity until rebranding as ANZ began in September 2012. ANZ announced they would adopt the majority of its products. There is no longer a corporate identity named National Bank of New Zealand, its business has been subsumed within ANZ Bank. The National Bank of New Zealand was founded in 1872 in London as a New Zealand bank and shared many directors with Lloyds Bank.
From the first New Zealand operations were managed from Dunedin. Adam Burnes was general manager; the first branch opened with Alexander Kerr as the first manager. Branches were opened in 1873 in Auckland and Christchurch, it acquired 13 branches from ailing Bank of Otago, see William Larnach; the National Bank of New Zealand Act gave it the right to issue banknotes redeemable. Though the bank was technically domiciled in London the major portion of its shareholders were New Zealand resident or associated. In 1894 its headquarters were moved from Dunedin to Wellington. Lloyds Bank acquired a small interest in The National Bank in 1919. There was a steady substantial drain of New Zealand shareholdings to the National Bank of New Zealand overseas share register throughout the 1950s and early 1960sThis situation continued until 1966, when Lloyds Bank purchased The National Bank outright. In 1967 National Bank and the Bank of New Zealand established joint data processing services operated by Databank Systems Limited.
The other trading banks joined the now proven computer system and ownership of Databank the following year. The bank tentatively dipped a toe into foreign waters in 1969 when it established a branch in Rarotonga, Cook Islands; this foray ended in 1986 when it sold its banking license in Rarotonga to European Pacific Banking Co. The head office was moved from London to Wellington in 1978 and the Black Horse became its emblem; the Black Horse logo dates back to 1677 London when Humphrey Stockes adopted it as the sign for his shop. Stokes was ` keeper of the running cashes', a banker; when Lloyds Bank took over his site in 1884 it kept the horse as its symbol. The National Bank acquired Southpac Investment Management Limited in 1983. Five years it bought The Rural Bank Limited, the former New Zealand Government owned bank, from Fletcher Challenge, it continued consolidating banking in NZ by purchasing Countrywide Banking Corporation from Bank of Scotland in 1998. In 2003 ANZ bought The National Bank from Lloyds TSB.
ANZ bought the right to continue to use the Black Horse logo for seven years. In 2005, Chief Executive Sir John Anderson retired, he had been Chief Executive of The National Bank since its acquisition of the Rural Bank and was head of the ANZ-National Bank's New Zealand operations. Graham Hodges became the new Chief Executive Officer. In September 2012, ANZ National Bank CEO David Hisco announced that it would drop The National Bank brand in favour of the ANZ brand over the next two years; the National Bank was the sponsor of New Zealand Cricket and sponsors all the home tournaments of the country and the Black Caps, the national men's cricket team. ANZ, as its successor, has continued this since 2012; the National Bank sponsored the National Bank of New Zealand Netball Cup. Their television advertisements used the music of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. ANZ Bank New Zealand Limited ANZ Media Release September 2012
Penny
A penny is a coin or a unit of currency in various countries. Borrowed from the Carolingian denarius, it is the smallest denomination within a currency system. Presently, it is the formal name of the British penny and the informal name of one American cent as well as the informal Irish designation of 1 cent euro coin, it is the informal name of the cent unit of account in Canada, although one cent coins are no longer minted there. The name is used in reference to various historical currencies derived from the Carolingian system, such as the French denier and the German pfennig, it may be informally used to refer to any similar smallest-denomination coin, such as the euro cent or Chinese fen. The Carolingian penny was a.940-fine silver coin weighing 1/240 pound. It was adopted by Offa of Mercia and other English kings and remained the principal currency in Europe over the next few centuries until repeated debasements necessitated the development of more valuable coins; the British penny remained a silver coin until the expense of the Napoleonic Wars prompted the use of base metals in 1797.
Despite the decimalization of currencies in the United States and throughout the British Commonwealth, the name remains in informal use. No penny is formally subdivided, although farthings and half cents have been minted and the mill remains in use as a unit of account in some contexts. Penny is first attested in a 1394 Scots text, a variant of Old English peni, a development of numerous variations including pennig and pending; the etymology of the term "penny" is uncertain, although cognates are common across all Germanic languages and suggest a base *pan-, *pann-, or *pand- with the individualizing suffix -ing. Common suggestions include that it was *panding as a Low Franconian form of Old High German pfant "pawn", it has been proposed that it may represent an early borrowing of Punic pn, as the face of Carthaginian goddess Tanit was represented on nearly all Carthaginian currency. Following decimalization, the British and Irish coins were marked "new penny" until 1982 and 1985, respectively.
The regular plural pennies fell out of use in England from the 16th century, except in reference to coins considered individually. It remains common in Scottish English and is standard for all senses in American English, however, the informal "penny" is only used of the coins in any case, values being expressed in "cents"; the informal name for the American cent seems to have spread from New York State. In British English, prior to decimalization, values from two to eleven pence and of twenty pence are written and spoken as a single word, as twopence or tuppence, threepence or thruppence, &c. Where a single coin represented a number of pence, it was treated as a single noun, as a sixpence or two eightpences. Thus, "a threepence" would be single coin of that value whereas "three pence" would be its value and "three pennies" would be three penny coins. In British English, divisions of a penny were added to such combinations without a conjunction, as sixpence-farthing, such constructions were treated as single nouns.
Adjectival use of such coins used the ending -penny, as sixpenny. The British abbreviation d. derived from the Latin denarius. It followed the amount after a space, it has been replaced since decimalization by p written without a space or period. From this abbreviation, it is common to speak of pennies and values in pence as "p". In North America, it is common to abbreviate cents with the currency symbol ¢. Elsewhere, it is written with a simple c; the medieval silver penny was modeled on similar coins in antiquity, such as the Greek drachma, the Carthaginian shekel, the Roman denarius. Forms of these seem to have reached as far as Sweden; the use of Roman currency in Britain seems to have fallen off after the Roman withdrawal and subsequent Saxon invasions. Charlemagne's father Pepin the Short instituted a major currency reform around AD 755, aiming to reorganise Francia's previous silver standard with a standardized.940-fine denier weighing 1⁄240 pound. Around 790, Charlemagne introduced a new.950 or.960-fine penny with a smaller diameter.
Surviving specimens have an average weight of 1.70 grams, although some estimate the original ideal mass at 1.76 grams. Despite the purity and quality of these pennies, they were rejected by traders throughout the Carolingian period in favor of the gold coins used elsewhere, a situation that led to repeated legislation against such refusal to accept the king's currency; some of the Anglo-Saxons kingdoms copied the solidus, the late Roman gold coin. Around AD 641–670, there seems to have been a movement to use coins with a lower gold content; this decreased their value and may have increased the number that could be minted, but these paler coins do not seem to have solved the problem of the value and scarcity of the currency
Tukutuku
For the monotypic genus of gecko called Tukutuku, see Harlequin geckoTukutuku panelling is a distinctive art form of the Māori people of New Zealand, a traditional latticework used to decorate meeting houses. A wide range of named patterns have developed, these now are used in a wide variety of modern contexts and act as a form of inspiration to New Zealand creative artists. Http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/te-ao-marama-the-natural-world/2/2/1 http://christchurchcitylibraries.com/Heritage/Photos/Libraries/Central/TukutukuPanels/panel-04.asp
Patu
A patu is a generic term for a club or pounder used by the Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. The word patu in the Māori language means to strike, beat, or subdue; these types of short-handled clubs were used as a striking weapon. The blow administered with this weapon was a horizontal thrust straight from the shoulder at the enemy’s temple. If the foe could be grasped by the hair the patu would be driven up under the ribs or jaw. Patu were made from whale bone, or stone; the most prestigious material for the patu was pounamu. Patu made from pounamu were called "mere". Maori decorated the patu by carving into the bone or stone. Types of patu include: patu pounamu or mere: made from pounamu. Patu onewa: made of stone; these resemble the mere in outline but thicker, because the stone used was more broken than the resilient pounamu. Patu paraoa: made of whale bone patu tawaka and patuki: made from wood. Other styles of short handled wooden clubs include the wahaika. Less traditional is the rare patu pora, made from iron and the hatchet.
Types of nonweapon patu include: patu muka: a pounder used to soften flax fibre in preparation for weaving. Patu aruhe: a pounder used to break up edible fern roots for food. Mere pounamu in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Patu onewa in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Patu paraoa in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Patu muka in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Patu aruhe in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
Kiwi
Kiwi or kiwis are flightless birds native to New Zealand, in the genus Apteryx and family Apterygidae. The size of a domestic chicken, kiwi are by far the smallest living ratites. DNA sequence comparisons have yielded the surprising conclusion that kiwi are much more related to the extinct Malagasy elephant birds than to the moa with which they shared New Zealand. There are five recognised species, four of which are listed as vulnerable, one of, near-threatened. All species have been negatively affected by historic deforestation but the remaining large areas of their forest habitat are well protected in reserves and national parks. At present, the greatest threat to their survival is predation by invasive mammalian predators; the kiwi's egg is one of the largest in proportion to body size of any species of bird in the world. Other unique adaptations of kiwi, such as their hairlike feathers and stout legs, using their nostrils at the end of their long beak to detect prey before they see it, have helped the bird to become internationally well-known.
The kiwi is recognised as an icon of New Zealand, the association is so strong that the term Kiwi is used internationally as the colloquial demonym for New Zealanders. The Māori language word kiwi is accepted to be "of imitative origin" from the call. However, some linguists derive the word from Proto-Nuclear Polynesian *kiwi, which refers to Numenius tahitiensis, the bristle-thighed curlew, a migratory bird that winters in the tropical Pacific islands. With its long decurved bill and brown body, the curlew resembles the kiwi. So when the first Polynesian settlers arrived, they may have applied the word kiwi to the new-found bird; the genus name Apteryx is derived from Ancient Greek "without wing": a-, "without" or "not". The name is uncapitalised, with the plural either the anglicised "kiwis" or, consistent with the Māori language, appearing as "kiwi" without an "-s". Although it was long presumed that the kiwi was related to the other New Zealand ratites, the moa, recent DNA studies have identified its closest relative as the extinct elephant bird of Madagascar, among extant ratites, the kiwi is more related to the emu and the cassowaries than to the moa.
Research published in 2013 on an extinct genus, known from the Miocene deposits of the Saint Bathans Fauna, found that it was smaller and capable of flight, supporting the hypothesis that the ancestor of the kiwi reached New Zealand independently from moas, which were large and flightless by the time kiwi appeared. There are five known species of kiwi, as well as a number of subspecies. Relationships in the genus Apteryx Their adaptation to a terrestrial life is extensive: like all the other ratites, they have no keel on the sternum to anchor wing muscles; the vestigial wings are so small that they are invisible under the bristly, hair-like, two-branched feathers. While most adult birds have bones with hollow insides to minimise weight and make flight practicable, kiwi have marrow, like mammals and the young of other birds. With no constraints on weight due to flight requirements, brown kiwi females carry and lay a single egg that may weigh as much as 450 g. Like most other ratites, they have no uropygial gland.
Their bill is long and sensitive to touch, their eyes have a reduced pecten. Their feathers lack barbules and aftershafts, they have large vibrissae around the gape, they have no tail and a small pygostyle. Their gizzard is weak and their caecum is long and narrow; the eye of the kiwi is the smallest relative to body mass in all avian species resulting in the smallest visual field as well. The eye has small specialisations for a nocturnal lifestyle, but kiwi rely more on their other senses; the sight of the kiwi is so underdeveloped that blind specimens have been observed in nature, showing how little they rely on sight for survival and foraging. In an experiment, it was observed that one-third of a population of A. rowi in New Zealand under no environmental stress had ocular lesions in one or both eyes. The same experiment examined three specific specimens that showed complete blindness and found them to be in good physical standing outside of ocular abnormalities. A 2018 study revealed that the kiwi's closest relatives, the extinct elephant birds shared this trait despite their massive size.
Unlike every other palaeognath, which are small-brained by bird standards, kiwi have proportionally large encephalisation quotients. Hemisphere proportions are similar to those of parrots and songbirds, though there is no evidence of complex behaviour. Before the arrival of humans in the 13th century or earlier, New Zealand's only endemic mammals were three species of bat, the ecological niches that in other parts of the world were filled by creatures as diverse as horses and mice were taken up by birds; the kiwi's nocturnal habits may be a result of habitat intrusion by predators, including humans. In areas of New Zealand where introduced predators have been removed, such as sanctuaries, kiwi are seen in daylight, they prefer subtropical and temperate podocarp and beech forests, but they are being forced to adapt to different habitat, such as sub-alpine scrub, tussock grassland, the mountains. Kiwi have a developed sense of smell, unusual in a bird, are the only birds with nostrils at the end of their long beaks.
Kiwi eat small invertebrates, seeds
George VI
George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death on 6 February 1952. He was the first Head of the Commonwealth. Known publicly as Albert until his accession, "Bertie" among his family and close friends, George VI was born in the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria, was named after his great-grandfather Albert, Prince Consort; as the second son of King George V, he was not expected to inherit the throne and spent his early life in the shadow of his elder brother, Edward. He attended naval college as a teenager, served in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force during the First World War. In 1920, he was made Duke of York, he married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923 and they had two daughters and Margaret. In the mid-1920s, he had speech therapy for a stammer, which he never overcame. George's elder brother ascended the throne as Edward VIII upon the death of their father in 1936; however that year Edward revealed his desire to marry divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson.
British prime minister Stanley Baldwin advised Edward that for political and religious reasons he could not marry a divorced woman and remain king. Edward abdicated to marry Simpson, George ascended the throne as the third monarch of the House of Windsor. During George's reign, the break-up of the British Empire and its transition into the Commonwealth of Nations accelerated; the parliament of the Irish Free State removed direct mention of the monarch from the country's constitution on the day of his accession. The following year, a new Irish constitution changed the name of the state to Ireland and established the office of President. From 1939, the Empire and Commonwealth – except Ireland – was at war with Nazi Germany. War with Italy and Japan followed in 1941, respectively. Though Britain and its allies were victorious in 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union rose as pre-eminent world powers and the British Empire declined. After the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, George remained king of both countries, but relinquished the title of Emperor of India in June 1948.
Ireland formally declared itself a republic and left the Commonwealth in 1949, India became a republic within the Commonwealth the following year. George adopted the new title of Head of the Commonwealth, he was beset by smoking-related health problems in the years of his reign. He was succeeded by his elder daughter, Elizabeth II. George was born at York Cottage, on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, during the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria, his father was Prince George, Duke of York, the second and eldest-surviving son of the Prince and Princess of Wales. His mother was the Duchess of York, the eldest child and only daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Teck, his birthday, 14 December 1895, was the 34th anniversary of the death of his great-grandfather, Prince Consort. Uncertain of how the Prince Consort's widow, Queen Victoria, would take the news of the birth, the Prince of Wales wrote to the Duke of York that the Queen had been "rather distressed". Two days he wrote again: "I think it would gratify her if you yourself proposed the name Albert to her".
Queen Victoria was mollified by the proposal to name the new baby Albert, wrote to the Duchess of York: "I am all impatience to see the new one, born on such a sad day but rather more dear to me as he will be called by that dear name, a byword for all, great and good". He was baptised "Albert Frederick Arthur George" at St. Mary Magdalene's Church near Sandringham three months later. Within the family, he was known informally as "Bertie", his maternal grandmother, the Duchess of Teck, did not like the first name the baby had been given, she wrote prophetically that she hoped the last name "may supplant the less favoured one". Albert was fourth in line to the throne at birth, after his grandfather and elder brother, Edward, he suffered from ill health and was described as "easily frightened and somewhat prone to tears". His parents were removed from their children's day-to-day upbringing, as was the norm in aristocratic families of that era, he had a stammer. Although left-handed, he was forced to write with his right hand, as was common practice at the time.
He suffered from chronic stomach problems as well as knock knees, for which he was forced to wear painful corrective splints. Queen Victoria died on 22 January 1901, the Prince of Wales succeeded her as King Edward VII. Prince Albert moved up to third in line after his father and elder brother. From 1909, Albert attended Osborne, as a naval cadet. In 1911 he came bottom of the class in the final examination, but despite this he progressed to the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth; when his grandfather, Edward VII, died in 1910, Albert's father became King George V. Edward became Prince of Wales, with Albert second in line to the throne. Albert spent the first six months of 1913 on the training ship HMS Cumberland in the West Indies and on the east coast of Canada, he was rated as a midshipman aboard HMS Collingwood on 15 September 1913, spent three months in the Mediterranean. His fellow officers gave him the nickname "Mr. Johnson"; the First World War broke out a year after his commission. Three weeks after the outbreak of war he was medically evacuated from the ship to Aberdeen where his appendix was removed by Sir John Marnoch.
He was mentioned in despatches for his action as a turret officer aboard Collingwood i
