Chinese NZ Gold: Perseverance and versatility – lessons from a 19th century commodity-boom-bust transition

References and websites used for this article are listed at the end.

Contents

A study in boom and bust but without the bust – boom and build;        Come on in;       Come on in, but…;       Not ghettoes, but more go-gettums;          The people and what they built;       Skilled and Savvy;       Family life;       Ah Lum’s Arrowtown;       The realities of leaving home;        Man on a mission;       What can we learn?;       From Kaiping 1870 to Beijing 2020?;       Websites used for research;       Other key data sources referred to.

A study in boom and bust but without the bust – boom and build

Commodity boom and bust is a story as old as commodities. In all the same-old, same-old discussions surrounding oil & gas boom & busts and peak oil etc, and also in ongoing discussions about investment – I was drawn to reflect on what I knew of early Chinese immigrants to New Zealand. It encouraged me to dig a little deeper and discover what we can learn from that intrepid group of explorers and investors.  I’ve lost count of how many times I quote the phrase “nothing new under the sun” in articles, but it always rings true. The details of technologies may differ from generation to generation, but little about the behaviour of people, does. 

The Chinese, like many, were drawn to New Zealand with the allure of gold - but the interesting story is not that some of them struck rich (some did), but more in their attitude to the task and what they did when they didn’t strike rich.  

Their approach, despite initial resentments, stood the tests of time and left a legacy of lasting strength and respect within the New Zealand nation. As recently as 2002, the then prime minister of New Zealand Helen Clark formally apologised for the early discriminations that took place, recognising the enduring nation-building foundations that were laid, despite the obstacles that were put in place.

In examining their enduring recipe for success and how it can help us today – I explore the detail of how early Chinese visitors and settlers lived. What drove them is not just helpful to our objectives, but full of compelling human-interest. 

Come on in

The first Chinese immigrants to New Zealand came in 1865. They came at the invitation of the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce to Chinese in the Victorian goldfields of Australia. This was at a time when a new gold rush was taking place on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island, further north from the Otago province of which Dunedin is the administrative capital.  The province was concerned about the stalling of Otago’s own goldfields and associated economy, as all the miners rushed to the seemingly richer goldfields further north.

Why the Chinese in Australia? They were invited because of a reputation there for being hardworking, law-abiding and because most of the time they were eager to return home on reaching certain thresholds of success. Hence it was felt they represented no “threat” to local communities. To be precise on 15 September in 1865 a Mr Tolmie told the Otago Chamber of Commerce that the Chinese in Australia were “valuable colonists; were a well behaved class and produced large quantities of gold - and were large consumers”. A motion to protect the lives and property of any Chinese coming to New Zealand was promptly carried.

Come they did, mostly between 1865 and 1900 and initially from Australia, but by 1869 they were also arriving directly from China. The workers were almost all Cantonese men and hence almost entirely from the Guangdong province not very far from Hong Kong - especially the districts of Kaiping, Xinhui, Taishan, and Enping. 

Today Kaiping has 680000 inhabitants, though a local museum suggests a further 750000 of Kaiping origins live overseas, including 1710 in New Zealand. This “Pearl River” region was densely populated, and many were poor. The opium trading rampant in the area was also having a negative effect on life and many were looking for alternatives. The rural poor sometimes therefore decided to send sons and brothers to work overseas and return the moneys earnt home. California and Australia were the most typical destinations, but some made it to New Zealand. 

By modern standards the numbers were not huge, but for a thinly populated & rapidly expanding economy in New Zealand, they were significant. It would be wrong to claim it was an infant mining economy, since the Maori had been mining the west coast of New Zealand for jade (greenstone) since their arrival about a thousand years ago. Nevertheless, the scale of this newfound European and Asian interest in New Zealand gold represented a new and unprecedented scale of activity. Otago’s Chinese population peaked at 4200 in 1871 before they too became involved in the West Coast gold fields, peaking there at 1600. The largest total for both areas reached 5004 in 1881.  In 2018 just under quarter of a million New Zealanders also identified as Chinese, but due to more modern immigration, those able to claim descent from these early settlers would now represent a minority of Chinese in New Zealand. 

Come on in, but…

Although invited in, there were clearly strings and limits attached to the generosity of the New Zealand invitation. Like many other miners, the living conditions were tough, but on top of that the new immigrants didn’t speak a lot of English and so stuck together, which along with the distinct culture and appearance, soon led to a degree of separateness and resentment. However, one of the leading causes for resentment (much like some root causes behind the New Zealand wars between English troops and the indigenous Maori), was the competitive success of these minorities compared to that of the settlers newly uprooted from Europe. The Chinese worked hard and achieved much, not just in mining gold, but in related service industries – more on that shortly.

For this mix of reasons, they were effectively excluded in those early days from full participation in the society of the time. Main towns or graveyards were off-limits and so they built their own communities. Perceptions of a “yellow peril” were aired from the early 1880’s and restrictions on further immigration were passed through a parliamentary act in 1881. This included a tax of ￡10 on entry, later raised to ￡100 in 1896, which remained on the statue books until 1944, though collection ceased in the thirties. Only the Chinese were subjected to this tax. 

Their arrival in New Zealand would sometimes be an intimidating affair. In 1867 we read in the Grey River Argus: “the first instalment of Chinese, fourteen in number, arrived in Hokitika on Friday from Sydney and their presence caused quite an excitement, the wharf being lined by a large crowd of persons, who shouted and yelled vociferously, and so frightened the unfortunate celestials that they dived under the hatches and postponed their landing until an opportunity to do so unobserved presented itself”.

While eventually such intimidations would usually settle down, occasionally the abuse was more severe, including jostling, abuse, and instances of stones being thrown. From the same newspaper “..although no great violence was used toward them beyond pulling and pushing them along the road, some forty to fifty people joined in the crowd and the Chinese were sufficiently alarmed to run for their lives”. The initial suspicion amongst Europeans was widespread. Not a nice introduction to a new country where they were economically bound for the foreseeable future. 

This persecution was mostly endured, but occasionally the more literate Chinese were to make their feelings known, proclaiming their rights. In 1876 a Long Wah wrote to the West Coast Times saying “I claim for my countrymen the right of being, here as elsewhere, a harmless, inoffensive, hardworking and persevering section of the community, conforming with your laws and contributing to the revenue of the Colony.” Indeed. It is the demeanour of the Chinese themselves which worked to alleviate suspicion – a gold field warden noting in 1874 “the good feeling to which I referred in my last report as existing between the Europeans and the Chinese still continues”. This was not least because the mining and water-coursing practices of the Chinese often had benefits for all who worked the land in their vicinity.

Not ghettoes, but more go-gettums

Forced as they were not to mingle, the Chinese immigrants created their own small communities, typically just outside towns. About 25 of these communities were established in the South Island by the late 1870’s. The largest was Lawrence in Otago with about 120 residents. Being located out of main towns, these often formed a locus for some of the less salubrious elements of New Zealand society of the time, including opium and gambling houses. As well as that however, these communities had a very healthy spread of doctors, shops and hotels.  

Early 19th century New Zealand had a very relaxed attitude to drugs, but doctors and chemists increasingly became concerned about the effects of addiction. In 1866 opium was first required to be labelled as a poison and from 1871 vendors were first required to register, but it was the Chinese community itself that launched a campaign to eradicate it in 1888. Though initial attempts failed a young Chinese law clerk called Young Hee reignited the campaign in 1899 leading to the opium prohibition act of 1901 banning its smoking and import of the drug in a smokable form.

This illustrates some of the resourcefulness and community spirit of the NZ-Chinese populace of the time. They were the largest non-Polynesian and non-European immigrant population, and like other gold rush immigrants the initial arrivals would have wanted to find gold quickly, cash-in and return home. Yet through realistic ambitions and expectations they were also able to quickly diversify into other small businesses including market-gardening and laundry services, both during and after the gold rush. Some did prosper and return home on gold mining, and one of the most notable innovations to come out of the New Zealand gold-rush was the steam-powered New Zealand Gold Dredge, the prototype of which was invented by Choie Sew Hoy of the Chinese community in Dunedin, and the concept was eventually exported overseas.

The people and what they built

Although regarded as “Chinese” by other New Zealanders, the immigrants identified more closely with family and village-based groups than with China as a nation and so apart from small groups didn’t spontaneously form a wider coherent group amongst themselves. Most who came had an eye firmly on simply making enough – typically about 100 pounds within five years, to return home and buy land. Cash was needed to do so. Many of the buildings in Guangdong province that were built on the proceeds of NZ gold money are still standing there, and the families who were involved maintain detailed family trees of the ancestors who took such a bold risk.

One of the very first men documented was the deputy of a leading Chinese merchant in Melbourne. Lowe Kong Meng sent his number two Ho Mee on a reconnaissance mission, arriving in Dunedin in December 1865 on the vessel South Australian. He promptly reported back and soon after five Chinese passengers arrived at Port Chalmers aboard the vessel Otago. By October the following year it was reported “upwards of a hundred Chinese have settled in the gold districts and are working harmoniously with the European population…and they are satisfied with the prospects offered by this province".

The economics made sense – by 1871 a diligent Chinese Gold Miner was making about ￡77 a year and saving two thirds of it, compared to the ￡12-14 a labourer might make in Guangdong. They appeared to have an eye for mining – Queenstown’s Lake Wakitipu Mail reported in 1870 that “It seems astonishing how these industrious people manage to get gold when everyone else has concluded there is none”. Their ability to work in small collectives seems to have enhanced their efficiency as miners, enabling them to extract the commodity from areas which Europeans looking for a faster track to success, had given up on.

To give an indication of the scale of their contribution to the economy of the time, it is estimated that by 1880 Chinese immigrants in Otago-Southland were 17% of the population but made up 40% of all miners and produced 30% of the gold. In Westland they represented about 5% of the population. Not only did they strengthen the economy, but they seem to have brought good cheer to the goldfields as well: Sam Hayden wrote “one very small short Chinese, named Little Kai, was quite a character, within an infectious grin”. This ability to enjoy life with good cheer throughout the hardships seems to have been a common trait, and was well liked amongst those who did make the effort to know them.

 Skilled and Savvy

While many of the miners were uneducated men, there were amongst them some skilled, and their ingenuity and diligence was noted.  In 1875 the Otago Times went into some length to describe the gold mining techniques the Chinese were adopting - noting “admirable manner of constructing dams and river walls” and “ingeniously-contrived dummy sluice entrances” amongst other things. The article concluded the “heathen Chinee” to be “anything but an individual whose stock of knowledge we should make light of”.  Goldfield wardens considered the Chinese praiseworthy, routinely calling them industrious, peaceful and well behaved. 

In 1874 one such warden Caleb Whiteford wrote “I believe the introduction of the Chinese here has been productive of much benefit, as they have re-opened long tail-races since abandoned and blocked up (and which ordinary miners would not have gone to the expense and trouble of repairing), and by doing so have drained and rendered available for mining progress a large tract of ground besides that which is taken up by themselves. They have also erected large wing dams in the creek, and by means of these, and water wheels, are working very wet ground that the other miners would not take up”. Clearly, although many of the men were not educated, they were not stupid, and if there was one thing rural men from subtropical, river-dominated Guangdong province did know how to do, it was managing water.

This familiarity with rural China and irrigation also translated into useful alternative skills when gold was not all it was cracked up to be.  The West Coast Times noted in 1868 “On the south side of the Hokitika River gardening operations are being pushed forward with great vigour, not alone by Europeans, but also by those most industrious and successful horticulturalists the Chinese…four acres of land have been leased by five Celestials under the leadership of Mr James Ah Che…They have already cleared the greatest part of the section, and placed nearly an acre under crop”. 

John McNee also wrote “as they were such small men it was surprising the weight they would carry in their baskets, one on each end of their poles…”.  It is little wonder then that the Chinese eventually warmed some locals in European communities to their presence. They worked hard, found gold, increased productivity of goldfields beyond their own claims, spent money, and grew food. 

Family life

Almost all the men arrived in New Zealand alone, and any sense of a family life was very absent. Some of the more successful miners though, married local women and chose to stay. Very few Chinese women were involved in the migration. Of those that were, it was mainly the successful merchants rather than miners who could afford transit for brides from China. One such instance was Ah Long, a shopkeeper from Ahaura who married Annie Tang. Their son however, returned to China, becoming a senior engineer at a Hong Kong Ferry Company. 

In the late 1890’s at least six Chinese women were resident in Greymouth – of which four were wives of merchants, one the wife of a law clerk and one the wife of a Chinese Presbyterian Missionary. The women of early New Zealand are legendary for their endurance at the best of times, but for Chinese women who made the trek from the rich cultural and fashion heritage of their homeland, it must have been at times an unsettling and meagre adventure.

In contrast, one example of a Chinese man marrying locally was Chew Chong from Kaiping. After arriving in 1876, he made it rich not from gold, but from discovering a type of edible fungus in the New Zealand Bush (auriculara cornea) and exporting it to China as a delicacy, then diversifying into dairy farming and butter production. He and his wife had six children. Such mixed marriages were often the talk of the town when they occurred. In 1888 the Kumara Times from the West Coast noted the marriage of Chat Sing to a seventeen year old Charlotte Grey, commenting “The unusual event excited great curiosity, which was increased by the newly married couple driving in state down Revell street in the afternoon, attended by European friends”.   

Most men however lived without families, in small huts. These were spartan with a sleeping platform, food storage, and a wash bucket – but welcome inscriptions for visitors were common. After the manner of the local Maori, the small huts were sometimes termed “whare”. George McNee wrote “I never saw a dirty whare – they were crude, with no lining on the walls, earth floors, and so on, but their tables, cooking utensils etc. were spotless…I was pleased to arrive at the Chinese place… and have a clean cup of green tea and some fried chop suey placed before me with the utmost cleanliness and hospitality”.

Ah Lum’s Arrowtown

The most significant surviving records of Chinese gold field immigration in modern New Zealand include those located at Arrowtown and Shantytown, though museums in Dunedin (Toitū Otago Settlers Museum) and Christchurch (Canterbury Museum) amongst others, also record details. Arrowtown was re-excavated in the 1980’s in part because another old Chinese community near Cromwell was to be flooded by the newly constructed Clyde Dam. About twenty huts have been restored in Arrowtown and though the camp only ever had about 16-20 permanent residents, the town grew and shrank seasonally with a floating population driven by Otago’s harsh winters - winters that prevented mining. 

A notably intact and typical building is the store of Ah Lum. Such stores were modest but offered a variety of staple goods, and also letter writing services in both English and Chinese, since many of the miners were not particularly literate. It also doubled as a bank, offering credit, and a social centre, and a loft offered accommodation for those passing through. Ah Lum died in 1925 and the last Chinese Arrowtown resident Ah Gum died in 1932. Shantytown Heritage Park on the West Coast is in contrast not a genuine community location as for Arrowtown but does offer a reconstruction of Chinese huts.  

The realities of leaving home

The manner of migration was so-called “chain migration” whereby those already in the country arranged for relatives to come. The hope was to earn that target of between ￡100 and ￡200 of savings and then return. They typically achieved this within the five years, before returning to China to buy a small farmstead on modest returns, or more if they chanced on more gold. Striking though, is the modesty of the ambition compared to many of their European counterparts.

The migrants were rarely very well educated and had little English. They were widely perceived as hard working, but over time some growing European resentments made the environment a harsher one, especially as the gold deposits started to decline further in the 1880's and 1890's. It was at this time that many returned to China to cash in the gains, while others moved into other industries, most commonly groceries, market gardening, and laundry. Still side-lined and prevented from living in central areas of New Zealand's growing towns, this still led to ongoing proximity with other less savoury elements of early NZ life (also exiled from the centres). This unfairly perpetuated some negative perceptions.

Accounts of the time from Dunedin of these early non-mining professions suggested nine-hour days in winter and twelve-hour days in summer for the migrants, seven days a week. They worked hard, and increasingly it is recognised the Chinese community played a “major role in the economic and cultural development of the province”.

Most Chinese immigrants managed to achieve their ambition of making enough money to return home, but gambling and opium addiction took their toll on a few, and combined with the hard life and rudimentary access to medical facilities, about one in seven died in the goldfields. Those still left there in the waning of the goldfields in the 1920’s were often too old to work and since they were denied a pension by the New Zealand state, relied on charity.

The community obviously tried to hold onto many of its traditions in a land far from home, but it didn’t always go down well. In 1885 the Tuapeka Times reacted to firework displays at celebrations of the Lunar New year with “For the past week Arrowtown has been the centre of attraction for about 200 Chinese who have made the night hideous with their exploding crackers”.  

The migrants also brought their own religions, and “joss” houses were a feature of some of the communities. These were places for worship of indigenous Chinese folk religions and patron Gods. Part of their creed was a strong link to clan deities, ancestry, and a desire to be buried in the land of their birth, hence an almost universal desire to return to China. These “joss houses” were essentially small temples but the word joss comes from the type of incense sticks that were burned there. The word itself is a corruption of the Portuguese for God “deus” –the Portuguese being early colonialists in the Guangdong area. In Chinese these were called Mioa or Ci. 

Man on a mission

Otago was a stronghold of Scottish immigration and hence the Presbyterian Church. A Presbyterian mission to the Chinese was instigated as early as 1867. A Chinese evangelist Paul Ah Chin was appointed in 1871 and in the few years that followed a small Christian Chinese community emerged. In 1879 the Reverend Alexander Don was appointed specifically as a Presbyterian Christian missionary to the NZ Chinese. 

It is worthy of mention because much of the early photographic record of the Chinese men in New Zealand stems from the Reverend’s travels and efforts to befriend the community. These were only undertaken after an 18 month visit by the Reverend to Canton, where he studied the language and acquired a language assistant to help. He began his efforts first at Round Hill in Southland, where the local Chinese contributed ￡80 to a dedicated mission house in 1883, and then later in Lawrence.

This was followed by his efforts to make an annual tour around the Chinese communities in Otago and Southland. Whatever our views, he made a particular effort to record these tours in detail, including the names of migrants in each community, deaths, and returns to China. They are an invaluable record of the early history of the community, supplemented by the photographs. In 1911 he translated a telling couplet written by Chinese miners, revealing much about their simple purposes: “From the south we wish the streams of wealth appear. To our village we return quite certainly this year”.

There was briefly between 1897 and 1913 a small dedicated Chinese Church in Dunedin, but despite having a clear concern for the community, the Reverend’s efforts did not yield huge numbers of converts and very close friendships were rare. The respect was however two-way, and he returned to Guangdong himself several times right up to 1923, including making visits to now elderly goldmining friends with mutually attested pleasure. 

What can we learn?

The thing I like to take from this 19th century commodity boom, bust and build story, is not that the Chinese immigrants came with some noble altruistic intention of nation building – they in truth came to make a quick buck just like everyone else. However, the manner of their expectations, their diligence and their versatility to adapt when booms faded was inspired. It inherently led to nation-building by default, such that today we look back on it with an admiration that was, by-and-large, absent at the time. They did not do it for admiration. It was almost instinctive. 

As a generalisation too, there seems to have been a lack of outright greed. There was of course the hope for wealth along with everyone else, but also a willingness to set the expectation levels more modestly – enough to buy land back home. Perhaps there is something to being born into a high population density society as opposed to a thinly populated one, that engenders that “expectation management”. A sober realisation borne of long-running clan experience, that while opportunities are to run for, not everyone will “strike-it-rich”. Furthermore, an attitude was evident that if that initial goal is missed and we happen to find ourselves momentarily wrong-footed - there remain a number of solid options to explore.  

It is that determined stoicism to look around, reduce expectations as required, and muck in, which shouts loudly across the decades. They had this resilience in part due to a long history of working land and river back in China, scraping the absolute best out of the meagre land-ownings they had. This stood the Chinese NZ communities in good stead in a new land-rich nation, even when they were left to work with what others had rejected. It enriched the early NZ economy, and its community. It is sad that only recently has this been fully recognised.

So, as we come arguably to the end of a long running century-scale boom in oil, what can we take away? I believe key takeaways include that sense that there has been a boom, but it was never destined to last forever. The early Chinese in New Zealand carried that understanding with them, and while they were quite happy to make the most of the golden hay while the sun shined, they also always had their eyes firmly on the alternatives for when it didn’t.   Laundry. Market Gardening. Village stores. These were not get-rich-quick schemes but with diligence and perseverance they served their objectives just as well. 

The business models crafted around those long running opportunities served many for a long time, and indeed, many became prosperous. Some few lost their shirts too, and the risks to life and limb were not small. For one in seven there was never a return home. However, as the boom comes to an end, then and now, a clear message is that the future lies with those who can accept this is the case and lower expectations of their profit margins and adapt. They came with one boom-driven business model in mind. They adeptly recognised a need to change it as the need arose.

The post-boom decades, be it 1890 or 2020, seem to belong to those who look around and reshape their designs into ambitions that are more modest. In doing so, dreams of mansions in the home provinces may dissipate, but the opportunity to partake in enduring economy construction awaits.  We can choose to be satisfied with that, or we can choose to wait for the next rush. We can take warning though, that it is never assured there will be another one, and in the interim, the bills will keep coming in. Sometimes the goldfields run out – or more accurately - the ability to harvest them economically does. The bills in contrast always keep coming.  There will however, always be a need for laundry. Always a need for fresh produce. Small as their community was, they got that, they grasped it, and they helped an entire nation weather the end of gold.

From Kaiping 1870 to Beijing 2020?

While it is easy to overplay the analogy, it is hard to avoid comparisons with modern China too. Frequently viewed with suspicion, modern China nevertheless claims to have its eye firmly on a transitional energy future and is getting on with it as it sees fit - often in ways that other countries have barely started thinking about. This with a level of investment that is both relentless and tsunami-esque. High speed electrified rail networks. Nuclear power station fleets. Vast solar farms. Critical mineral extraction to feed renewable industries globally. Mega-hydroelectric. High voltage long distance power transmission.

Whatever the relative merits of these things in our own eyes, the word industrious still emphatically stands. We all know the history of a totalitarian Chinese State and the dangers of speaking one’s mind too freely there even today – The Chinese themselves bear witness to it in Hong Kong and elsewhere. Yet on the seriousness of China’s stated resolve to maintain a course through the other side of a fossil fuel dominated era – perhaps history gives us due cause for taking that assertion more seriously than we do. 

Yes, coal, oil, and gas still figure hugely in the Chinese economy, but China has vocalised intentions to move away from this, not least because of huge domestic pollution problems. Even the highest echelons of the Chinese Communist Party must endure Beijing smogs with their families. Although the details of plans and timescales are often hazy, the money being invested in new projects, talks. A meaningful energy transition for modern China is an epic of global importance. By this scale-of-investment measure, reviewing their stated ambitions to change, there are clear signs they mean it.

Just like the 19th century gold miners before them, China is likely willing to play the tail-end of the hydrocarbon commodity boom for all it is worth, maybe extracting value where others have left. Yet we should not misinterpret this as a lack of resolve to tackle what comes next. They are cleverer than that. If we look to early New Zealand, they have admirable form. 

Websites used for research

Anderson, Lydia; 2017, RNZ News: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/top/323266/the-remarkable-journeys-of-nz%27s-chinese-goldminers

Andrews, Mark 2017, South China Morning Post: https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/2102620/how-chinese-gold-miners-helped-build-new-zealand-and-how-discrimination

Beacon: https://www.bhb.nz/back-in-the-day/early-chinese-settlers-in-new-zealand

Choie Sew Hoy Family Ancestry website: https://pdf4pro.com/cdn/choie-sew-hoy-family-tree-website-http-www-choiesewhoy-40317d.pdf

Hocken Blog, University of Otago: https://blogs.otago.ac.nz/thehockenblog/2019/01/21/a-brief-glimpse-at-chinese-immigration-to-otago/

Huang, Helena et al 2009: https://researcharchive.lincoln.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10182/4030/Chinese_gold_mining_Presentation_Notes.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

Huang, Yue; 2011, Master’s Degree Lincoln University (Christchurch): https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/35464904.pdf

Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand: https://www.presbyterian.org.nz/archives/missions/nzchinesehistory.htm

Teara Encyclopedia of New Zealand: https://teara.govt.nz/en

Other key data sources referred to:

Akaroa Museum: https://www.akaroamuseum.org.nz/ 

Alexander Turnbull Library: https://natlib.govt.nz/collections/a-z/alexander-turnbull-library-collections

Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections: https://www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/Pages/heritage-collections.aspx

Canterbury Museum: https://www.canterburymuseum.com/

History House Greymouth: https://westcoast.co.nz/plan-your-trip/history-house-museum-greymouth/

Museum Queenstown: https://www.museumqueenstown.com/  

Toitū Otago Settlers Museum: https://www.toituosm.com/

Shantytown Heritage Park: https://shantytown.co.nz/

West Coast Historical Museum (Hokitika Museum): https://www.westlanddc.govt.nz/hokitika-museum