Photographic prints and image files of Arrowtown New Zealand

​This gallery includes images from Arrowtown including Buckingham Street, the Arrow River and the Chinese Settlement. 

​William Rees and Nicholas von Tunzelmann were the first Europeans to establish farms in the Arrowtown area. The Arrow River was described as ‘flowing like silver threads through the blackened matagouri scrub-clothed plains.’  It was not the silver look of the river but the gold it contained that saw Arrowtown evolve. Jack Tewa, a shearer, was the first to discover gold around May 1861, followed by either William (Bill) Fox or the team of Thomas Low and John MacGregor late in 1862. Being a forceful character, Fox took credit for the discovery and for a while the town was called Fox’s. When the West Coast goldfields opened in 1865, many European diggers headed over the Southern Alps as much of the easier gold in Otago had gone. In an attempt to restimulate gold mining the Otago Provincial Government invited Chinese miners to come to the Otago goldfields. The Chinese created a separate settlement in Arrowtown, remaining until 1928.
As a more permanent town emerged, the avenues of trees were planted in 1867, making Arrowtown look more like the European towns the settlers missed. Today Arrowtown has around 70 buildings and features left from the gold rush era. After the gold ran out, Arrowtown became a farm service town with a shrinking population. But during the 1950s, as it became a popular holiday destination, families restored historic cottages and built holiday houses. Sources;  Arrowtown website (edited); web. (edited).

​Buckingham Street, Arrowtown.

Arrowtown Cemetery
A walk through the Arrowtown cemetery reveals a lack of Chinese graves. Gold rush towns in Australia contain many Chinese graves, but not in New Zealand’s Arrowtown. Many Chinese were buried in the local cemetery but they were later exhumed. Old miners longed to be buried in ancestral cemeteries, where their spirits would find rest. Fund-raising among wealthier Chinese enabled hundreds of elderly men to make the final journey home and provided for the dead to be exhumed. The last ship carrying nearly 500 bodies back to China sank off Hokianga in 1902. Source: Web. (Edited).

Arrowtown Chinese Settlement

The Arrowtown Chinese Settlement is a reminder and tribute to the contribution made by the Chinese goldminers and business people to the region’s goldmining, cultural and business history. Often victims of discrimination they lived on the fringes of European settlements and in isolated gullies close to their mining claims. Chinese that died were either buried in graves in a Chinese section or just outside the cemetery. By 1885, the Arrowtown settlement had grown to consist of about ten huts, a large social hall and at least two stores. There was also an extensive garden area. A range of construction techniques was used for the buildings, including mud brick, mortared stone, wood, corrugated iron, and canvas. Some buildings were thatched while others were roofed with corrugated iron. Source; Department of Conservation. 
Read the excellent "Ribbons of Grace", by Maxine Alterio, for a description of life for the Chinese miners in Arrowtown in the 1800's. Published by Penguin NZ in 2007.

Arrowtown at Night.

The Crown Range.

Arrow River. Sawpit Gully.

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