Early Ahuriri / Napier Māori settled in the Te Matau-a-Māui / Hawke’s Bay area relatively early in Aotearoa New Zealand’s history. They valued the food sources which were plentiful both inland, in the lagoon, Te Whanganui-a-Orutū, and along the coast. Over time, Whatumamoa, Rangitāne, Ngāti Awa and Ngāi Tara became established in the areas of Pētane, Te Whanganui-a-Orotū and Waiohiki. From the 16th century these iwi battled with and strategically intermarried with Ngāti Kahungunu iwi who then became the dominant iwi in Te Matau-a-Māui / Hawke’s Bay. Hukarere / Bluff Hill has both cultural and spiritual significance to them. There was both a whare wānanga (house of learning) in this area and it was also the site of Tūhinapō, a tapu place used by tohunga for ceremonial purposes. In the 1840s and 1850s contact between iwi and Europeans was limited to the whalers, missionaries and itinerant traders who plied their trade along the coast, but in 1851 a key land deal was struck. The Ahuriri Purchase was negotiated by Land Commissioner Donald McLean on behalf of the Crown. It was followed by other smaller land purchases in the area. Europeans settled in the region to grow crops and farm animals and the township of Napier was founded in 1855. Other land in the area changed hands and by 1859, the Crown had purchased an estimated 1,404,700 acres (568,462 hectares) of land from Ngāti Kahungunu in the area. At this time the remaining Māori population of 3,500 retained only between 3,000 and 4,000 acres (1,200-1,600 hectares). This significant loss of land had far-reaching social and economic consequences for Ngāti Kahungunu who still feel a deep-seated sense of injustice about this disconnection to their ancestral land. Napier developed to become a busy port town– servicing the Te Matau-a-Māui / Hawke’s Bay area and exporting meat, wool and dairy from those working the land. The town grew steadily to become the administrative, commercial, and social hub for the area. It formally changed its status from borough to city in 1950 when its population hit 20,000. Developing Communication Technologies Māori communicated over distances with a range of long distance communication methods including ‘gongs, horns, smoke and even ‘human semaphore’’. Pūtātara, shell trumpets fashioned from conch shells or triton shells, were able to convey sound over long distances. Iwi in the Bay of Plenty used smoke from signal fires to warn of the approach of hostile war parties. Later whalers, traders, missionaries and early settlers depended mainly upon ships to transport their missives around New Zealand and overseas. When inventor Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call in 1876 he ushered in the new age of telephone communication. These developments were felt in New Zealand and in 1880 the Electric Telegraph Amendment Act gave the New Zealand Government control of telephone communications in New Zealand. On 1 October 1881 they opened the nation’s first telephone exchange in Christchurch, just two years after the first one in London. In major centres New Zealanders took to this technology, but connections to rural areas were still limited. Its use as a tool for business was identified early – an 1880 Southland Times article observing that ‘a large amount of epistolary correspondence, memorandum writing, running about, waiting for personal interviews, breaking of appointments, loss of time, inconvenience and annoyance generally’ could be avoided by judicious use of the new technology. The technology was very visible because of the multitude of wires and insulators linking customers to the exchange buildings. In March 1878 the Government erected a telephone line connecting Napier and Waipukurau. Local newspaper, the Manawatu Times, reported that the National Anthem had been sung in Napier and heard in Waipukurau. In 1885 the first manual telephone exchange opened in the Chief Post Office in Napier’s Browning Street. It was a manual exchange with 25 subscribers, operating from 8am to 9pm and costing 9 pound per annum per subscriber. This exchange was the Local Battery type, meaning every subscriber had its own battery. Hawke’s Bay farmers soon saw benefits from the new technology – it allowed them to ‘check prices, order goods and contact neighbours’ and also functioned as ‘a social lifeline’ for isolated rural families. The first purpose-built telephone exchange building in Napier was constructed on the Government Offices reserve in Browning Street in 1906. The substantial Edwardian Baroque brick building was two storeys high and was designed by Government Architect John Campbell (1857-1942). He called for tenders for the building in June and July 1906. This was at a time when the trade of local builders was ‘exceptionally brisk’. The new exchange cost a total of £7,500. The first automatic exchange equipment had been in use in New Zealandin 1913 as a supplement to manual exchanges in Auckland and Wellington. The country’s first entirely automatic telephone exchange opened in Masterton in June 1919. In 1928 the Napier exchange moved with the times and also upgraded their manual system to an automatic telephone exchange. Hawke’s Bay Earthquake On 3 February 1931 Hawke’s Bay was struck by an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter Scale. In the townships of Napier and Hastings, and the surrounding district, 256 people died and countless more were injured. The earthquake destroyed many buildings, particularly in the Napier city centre, and the fires and aftershocks that followed the earthquake contributed to further devastation. Napier’s telephone exchange building and its equipment was destroyed. This essential service was temporarily re-established at the nearby Hastings Street School with the telegraph branch at the school reopened by the evening of the 3 February and ‘by 7pm hundreds of people were at the temporary office writing messages on whatever scraps of paper could be obtained’ anxious to contact family and friends with news of their survival. On the 4th February an emergency 100-number emergency switchboard began operation at the school, prioritising the connection by telephone of ‘police, relief organizations, temporary hospitals, and other essential services’. Public Works Department staff demolished what was left of the gutted building and worked to clear debris from the site, assisted by sailors from the HMS Veronica who worked steadily rewiring the damaged circuits. A temporary new exchange building and distributing frame was required and it needed to be close to the main exchange manhole through which all cables converged. A simple, makeshift timber and galvanised-iron shed was constructed in front of the rubble of the old exchange. The equipment it housed was a manual board – a return to technology fast becoming obsolete and described as probably ‘the oldest board of its kind in New Zealand’. It was put to use on 4 March 1931 and described as ‘hopelessly inadequate’ gaining a reputation for providing ‘dogged but indifferent service’ to the town. The shed ‘which glories in the name of a telephone exchange’ was also unsatisfactory as, for its 40 staff, it was ‘an oven in summer and an ice chest in winter’. The old shed with its manual system was given ‘an unregretful farewell’ as staff looked forward to providing a better standard of service with a new, purpose built, automatic telephone exchange. 1938 Automatic Telephone Exchange The new automatic exchange was constructed behind the temporary timber shed. The new building, with understated Art Deco elements, was devised by government architect John Thomas Mair (1876-1959) for the Public Works Department. The design drew upon his extensive experience as an architect, towards the end of his career and before his retirement in 1941. The Government employed Eric F Ferguson of Ferguson Building Contractors to build the new exchange at a cost of £11,000. Ferguson was a carpenter and builder active in Napier during the early 1930s. Construction of the Automatic Telephone Exchange began in 1937. The new exchange was described in the Auckland press at the time as ‘the most modernly [sic] designed installation in the country’. When it opened the following year in 1938 the Napier Automatic Telephone Exchange was one of the most important buildings to the social fabric of the town. It was a conduit which connected residents to each other. There had been little privacy in the early days of sharing ‘party lines’ - in some areas in the early 1900s often up to five households shared a common number. This continued into the early 1980s. Automation of the exchanges heralded the end of manual, labour intensive work by operators on most calls. The exchange also developed as a vital means of organising emergency services, as well as spreading information about floods and other hazards. The building, servicing Napier’s CBD and immediate suburbs, soon lacked the required capacity and discussion about an extension was underway by 1965. Impatient for progress with the project, by September 1966 staff at the Ministry of Works identified the proposed addition as ‘an urgent requirement’. The plans are attributed to both Government Architect Fergus George Frederick Sheppard and District Architect Barry Marshall, but it is likely that Marshall was responsible for designing the extension, which he did in accordance with Modern Movement architectural principals. He decided to incorporate the existing single-level switch room at the rear of the existing building into the new structure. The advantage of this decision ‘improved internal communication and simplified cabling’. This plan gave the building an additional 14,000 square feet and was deemed practical and sensible – it was ‘satisfactory and … not extravagant’. Cabinet approved the extension of the building and the installation of 1,800 additional lines of automatic switching equipment in December 1967 and tenders were called in February the following year. The contract was let by the Ministry of Works to contractor TG Wrightson Ltd at an agreed price of $350,438 in April 1968. TG Wrightson Ltd was a local Hastings-based company. Work continued steadily nine months past the originally proposed deadline, and it was completed in July 1971. The new extension included a test room, engine alternator room, a carrier room, locker room, machine room, switch room as well as a cafeteria and social room. A microwave terminal station at the rear of the extension was devised at the same time. Those working as telephone operators around the country were expected to follow a particular etiquette, and in 1984 Naida Glavish became headline news when she routinely used the phrase ‘Kia ora’ to greet callers. Faced with dismissal for this ‘non-standard expression’, she gained the support of then Prime Minister Robert Muldoon, kept the job, and has continued to be a champion for te reo Māori throughout her life. The technology continued to develop. By the 1960s New Zealand, for the size of its population, had one of the largest telephone networks in the world. A progression of technology steadily ‘improved the reliability, lowered the maintenance and increased the services available to customers’. In 1984 Subscriber Toll Dialling was introduced to the Napier Exchange which enabled subscribers to dial their own national and international calls without going through an operator. The toll switchboard, which was still handling calls that subscribers could not dial themselves, was closed and this service was centralised to Palmerston North. In August 1986 there was a complete equipment replacement when the exchange equipment was replaced by a stored programme control (SPC) computer-controlled exchange, of the NEAX 61E type manufactured by NEC Japan. Telecom New Zealand/Spark New Zealand The NZ Post Office (NZPO) provided service as a post office, telephone exchange and savings bank. It was deregulated in 1987 and split into three state-owned enterprises: Telecom Corporation Limited, New Zealand Post and Postbank Limited. At that time 432 Post Offices closed and 560 employees lost their jobs. This reshuffle caused no immediate effect for the workings of the Automatic Telephone Exchange’s equipment, but the sales and marketing team which had previously been managed by the Post Office staff was likely moved into office space at the Automatic Telephone Exchange. In 1990 Telecom was privatised when it was sold for $4.2 billion. In 2011 Telecom was split into Chorus and Telecom. Chorus became responsible for the operation of the local telephone network and the broadband network and Telecom assumed ownership of the voice network. In 2014 the company rebranded as Spark New Zealand Limited. Today Spark provides a ‘telephone services, a mobile network, an internet service provider, and [are] a major ICT provider to NZ businesses. The Automatic Telephone Exchange building continues to house telecommunications equipment.

Current Description The Automatic Telephone Exchange is located in Napier between the northern side of Browning Street, a quiet road extending from the foot of Napier’s Hukarere / Bluff Hill, and the south side of Shakespeare Road. It is built at the southwest corner of a triangle of land that was originally earmarked as a Reserve for Government Offices. Today (2021) this area is still the Napier government precinct, with the Public Works Department/Ministry of Works Building, and newer government buildings located nearby. Occupying the entirety of its current land parcel, the L-shaped Telephone Exchange building is comprised of two distinct but connected forms. The 1971 section of the Exchange is a particularly striking and distinctive feature in the Shakespeare Road streetscape. The 1938 section of the building faces Browning Street. The two parts of the building form a cohesive pair of government-designed buildings. Situated to the building’s south across Browning Street is the imposing Waiapu Anglican Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist. At the front of the building is a large, paved carpark with access from the street. Mair designed the original 1938 building closest to Browning Street. It is a rectangular volume, two-storey building, which is relatively utilitarian except some Art Deco ornamentation incorporating a Classical Greek key motif, centrally placed on the parapet. It is constructed of reinforced concrete. The architecturally austere, but brightly coloured, salmon and cream exterior has a symmetrical elevation. The entry point to this building is the centrally placed solid timber panel doors. There is a spandrel panel above the doors which features the New Zealand Government’s coat of arms. The windows on the ground level of the south and east elevations are covered in late twentieth century grilles. On the front elevation of the upper level there is an array of six paned windows, each with a top and bottom light. These windows are also spaced along both the western and eastern elevations. There are no ground level windows on the western elevation. Originally writing on the front elevation read ‘Automatic Telephone Exchange’, but at some point this was removed or painted out. The flagpole originally extending from the roof has also been removed. Mair’s design for the interior of this section was typical of automatic telephone exchanges at the time, containing bulky machines and equipment, but with some provision for office space and the comfort of the staff. The subterranean basement contained a boiler room. On the ground floor, the front door opens into a vestibule which led to a battery room, power room, workshop, toilet, cloak room, air-conditioning plant, Senior Technician’s office and the one-storey switch room at the rear on the north side of the building. Stairs lead from the ground floor vestibule to a central landing on the first floor from which several rooms open off: originally the tool room, the toll extension room, the toll board relay and apparatus, carrier equipment, the ladies’ retiring room, kitchen, toilets, locker and cloak-room. The interior was reconfigured in 1970, whilst the extension was being designed and built at the rear. The 1971 extension was designed by Government Architects Sheppard and Marshall, and is markedly different to Mair’s original building. By this time a Modern Movement architectural approach was common for public buildings and with its long horizontals, regular form with little detail, is a development of the International Style which emphasised a streamlined form. The extension is comprised of three levels with rows of windows on the upper two levels of the southern elevation. It was devised to incorporate the rear ground floor switch room of the 1938 building into the new extension. The main entrance to the newer addition is through a breeze-way on the ground floor which allows access from both Browning Street and Shakespeare Road, although the vehicle access and the main entrance is still from Browning Street. It has an expressed structural frame, three storeys high. The array of windows on the upper levels each with a top and bottom light form an unusual and striking feature of the building. There is a central staircase, an internal lift with its extension visible on the roof and an elaborately designed open spiral staircase on the western side of the building wrapped around a decorative flue linking the first floor to the second floor. The two building designs differ in architectural style but are united by the continuity provided by the simplicity of form, absence of eaves and the common salmon and cream colour scheme. Inside the 1971 addition, there is garage space and an engine alternator on the ground level. The ground floor rear, on the Shakespeare Street elevation, has a central lift shaft and enclosed staircase. Internally, there is cycle accommodation and boiler room. On the first floor there is another switch room, a senior technician room, an exchange maintenance room, a loading bay, tea room, locker rooms and toilets and a test room. The second floor plan comprises a carrier room, air-conditioning room, senior technician room, store, tea room, kitchen, toilets and social room. There is an exposed balcony on the second floor on the eastern side of the building. The property includes a gently sloping rear landscaped area bounded by Shakespeare Road. This has grass areas, several asphalt pathways, a number of established trees and an old concrete flight of steps leading up to a raised concrete pad with a lattice tower with cellular equipment enclosed by fencing. This pad was originally the site of a small Health Department building. There is a low masonry wall.