Early history
The history of Coastal Otago (Te Tai o Araiteuru) relates to the tradition of the waka Arai Te Uru. These traditions and histories provide the basis for tribal identity. Muaupoko (Otago Peninsula) in particular provided a sheltered place for settlement, and Waitaha, Ngāti Mamoe and Ngāi Tahu, who remain associated with the area, all visited and lived in the vicinity. At one time up to 12 kainga existed in the lower Otago harbour. The coastline was a major trade route. Tauranga waka and associated nohoanga occurred up and down the coast, linking sea and land based resources. The mahinga kai and the varieties of plant resources were important to iwi, and with the Pakeha settlement and land sales starting in the late 1840s (particularly the sale of the 400,000 acre Otago Block) there was a significant loss access to land based food sources.
Confectionery manufacturing in Dunedin
Once the necessities of survival were met – food, water, shelter – local manufacturers turned to the luxuries of life. One of the earliest companies was R.K. Murray’s New Zealand Confectionary Works founded in the 1870s. The business had its origins in Murray’s ‘sugar-boiling’ on Maclaggan street in 1858, which he relocated to Rattray Street in 1859. He sold the manufacturing part of the business to his sons in 1882, and they built a new factory for ‘R.K. Murray and Son.’ The Otago Daily Times described the special place of confectionery ‘the products of this art, so toothsome, so various, and so pretty withal, constitute in truth one of the triumphs of our modern civilisation’ – boiled sugar formed to rock, sticks, drops, barley sugar and the rest. Murray made close to a ton a day. The factory also made comfits, lozenges, jujubes and chocolate creams. Such delicacies ‘we have all been more or less familiar from our childhood, and for which many of the “children of a larger growth” never use their relish.’
Richard Hudson founded his biscuit and confectionery works in 1877. R.Hudson & Co. advertised as ‘Manufacturing Confectioners and Biscuit Bakers’ and boasted the ‘First Steam Confectionery Works’ in New Zealand. Hudson imported chocolate manufacturing machinery and was the first large scale manufacturer of tablet chocolate in New Zealand. Other confectioners included Christensen’s works on Cumberland Street. William Stewart had the Otago Confectionary Works on Maclaggan Street. By 1900, there were six manufacturing confectioners in Dunedin.
Romison’s Confectionery Works
Julius Romison was a Jewish refugee from Russia. At age 14, he escaped Russia, making his way across Europe, working in Austria, Germany, France and England, before immigrating to New Zealand. Romison set up his confectionery business in Christchurch before moving to Dunedin. He wanted to bring his family out of Russia, and succeeded in resettling his immediate family in America. He and wife Miriam raised their family in Dunedin. He was an ardent supporter of the Jewish congregation in Dunedin. He died in 1935, building up a substantial estate.
Julius Romison first advertised his ‘Celebrated Confections’ for sale in August, 1886. He was trading from premises at 153 George Street. He later established a factory on Hanover Street, premises he was to outgrow. Romison specialised in fancy confectionery, chocolate, and children’s lines. By 1928, he employed 40 hands.
In 1910 architect Edmund Anscombe invited tenders for the erection of ‘CONFECTIONARY WORKS (Brick) in King street for J. Romison and Co.’ Only four years later, Anscombe invited tenders for ‘extensive additions’ to the Romison’s Confectionary Works. In 1937, Romison sold his business. In the 1940s, further alterations were made to the factory. In 1946, the business became known as Regina Confections Limited, and in 1949, the firm relocated to Oamaru.
The property was sold to Oxhead Suet Company Ltd. In 1962, the building began its new life as the home of the University Book Shop.
Booksellers
Books are a key in many people’s lives: for readers, writers, students, academics, they are an entrance to a world where there’s always more to know. Being able to have access to books (through lending libraries) and being able to buy books (from retailers) was a key to expanding knowledge. In the nineteenth century book retailing was usually but one facet in a retailer’s activity. The ‘commercial manifestation of print culture’ was also found in the development of religious bookshops. As New Zealand’s population grew, and access to education broadened, so the publishing and selling of educational books also expanded. By 1900 larger bookselling firms were emerging, including Whitcombe and Tombs, G.H. Bennett and Co. (Palmerston North, 1891). Whitcombe and Tombs grew into a national chain.
In the 1940s, following a wider left wing enthusiasm for cooperative societies, cooperative book societies were formed. The cooperative book societies were concerted to ‘exert some control over a literary market in which serious and progressive literature was a scare commodity.’ Cultural historian Rachel Barrowman writes that although New Zealanders were known to be enthusiastic book buyers, the book trade was ‘dominated by newsagents and stationers, who had only a secondary interest in light fiction, and a small number of general but conservative bookshops.’ In the early 1940s Dunedin’s principal bookshops were Newbolds and Hyndmann’s, both in George Street, and the ‘violently reactionary’ (as the manager of Dunedin Modern Books described them) Whitcombe and Tombs.
University students bought their textbooks mainly from Whitcombe and Tombs, but it was impossible to order progressive literature (such as left wing or communist material, or serious fiction or poetry) and this had to be distributed separately. The cooperative book society movement sought to keep prices low. Such societies represented a balance of ideals ‘a left-wing, working class cultural movement, or more broadly based progressive bookshop which would cater to all those interested in serious literature of whatever kind.’ The Dunedin Co-operative Book Society and its shop Modern Books, was the shortest lived of the movement, operating in the 1940s – with Charles Brasch involved as head of the book selection committee from 1948, and chair from 1949.
The University Book Shop
The University Book Shop began life as the idea of Presbyterian minister and member of the University Council Harold Turner who arranged for a specialist shop to be set up with funding from the Presbyterian Bookroom in Christchurch. The Presbyterian Bookrooms were religious bookshops that had begun in Christchurch in the 1920s and spread to main centres. Denominational bookshops declined after 1960 and the Presbyterian Bookrooms closed down completely in 1975. In 1956 John Griffin purchased the bookshop from the Presbyterian Bookroom. The first manager of the University Book Shop was Eileen Norrie.
In 1962 the University Book Shop was sold to publishers Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd as the first step in what the ‘parties hoped would be a national chain of similar, specialist shops.’ Whitcombe and Tombs (established in Christchurch in 1882) was a dominant force in New Zealand publishing until their decline as a publisher after 1963. They were involved in readers and text books. Although this vision never fully materialised, several shops were set up, including the UBS (Auckland) Ltd, which was a 50/50 joint enterprise of the Auckland University Students Association and The UBS Ltd. John Griffin, who managed the shop for Whitcombe and Tombs, writes ‘[t]his exact division was hoped to be some sort of safeguard against the rapacity of one partner and the notorious whimsicality of the other.’ This pattern was followed at UBS shops in Canterbury and Otago.
Elizabeth Whitcombe, herself an Otago student and a Whitcombe family member recalled that everyone went to the shop to buy books. The shop, she says, was mostly staffed by wives of university staff members, and that they were there out of love (of books) not for the money.
Landfall
Landfall was a quarterly literary magazine founded in 1947 that soon became the country’s foremost. Dunedin poet Charles Brasch was the magazine's first editor. Landfall’s exacting standards reflected Brasch’s desire to ‘stimulate a vigorous and critical cultural life in New Zealand.’ Landfall had a close association with the University Bookshop.
In 1962, the Landfall offices moved from Charles Brasch’s living room to a room on the first floor of the newly-relocated University Book Shop. There Brasch worked with assistant (and poet) Ruth Dallas. Dallas recalled that writers called into the new offices ‘Raymond Ward came every week, Janet [Frame] called in with her shopping bag filled with a ream of curly-edged typewritten sheets. Dennis McEldowney came, Ernie Grenfell, Maurice Gee, and a new writer who carried a wounded pigeon in his bag, and so on. All very welcome visitors.’
In 1966, Brasch retired from his twenty years as editor of the journal. The office at UBS closed, with Janet Frame being offered the desk, which after a peripatetic existence, which has included a period at the Alexander Turnbull Library, ended up at the Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University.
In 1975, the Otago University Students Association bought half of the University Book Shop. Three years later, long-serving manager Bill Noble joined the staff. Various tenants occupied some of the generous upstairs space including Oberon Books and Milford House limited. In 2004, the Otago University Students Association bought the remaining half of the bookshop, becoming full owners. Bill Noble retired in 2012.
In 2014, Dunedin was declared a UNESCO City of Literature, recognising its literary history and culture – of which, the University Book Shop remains a key and much-loved element. UBS and its staff are, in the words of Nicky Page, Director City of Literature, ‘tireless contributors to and supporters of the local literary and arts community.’ UBS offers offers the community ‘a literary opportunity well beyond the traditional parameters of a bookstore’ through support of other programmes, including the University Book Shop Robert Lord Writers’ Cottage Trust Emerging Writer in Residence.
In 2017, the University Book Shop – owned by the Otago University Students Association Inc., remains a literature-oriented place to visit and a supporter of writers, book awards and festivals and launches in Dunedin.
