Posted 3 years ago
BHIFOS
(392 items)
I quite like souvenir or exhibition glass pieces. These are all from the NZ Centennial Exhibition of 1940. All are engraved with the exhibition name and some have an extra message like the small stemmed sherry glass "Mabel". There was glass and pottery from all over the world, cups and saucers from the UK, the Stolz ware from Europe and a lot of the other glass probably from the US.
Below I cut and pasted from a GOVT site.
"The New Zealand Centennial Exhibition ran from 8 November 1939 to 4 May 1940. During this time 2,641,043 people went through the main gates with a daily average attendance of 17,149. The exhibition covered 55 acres (22.2 hectares) of land just to the west of Wellington's airport.
The success of the Exhibition, and the country's support of it under wartime conditions was also seen as representing the very pioneering spirit and ideals that the Exhibition itself was illustrating. When, following the outbreak of war in Europe in September 1939 the question of postponing the Exhibition arose, it was greeted by heated confrontation on the public front and in Parliament. In the end many decided that the most important thing was to keep up the morale of the 'nation'. To fold in the face of such a challenge was against the very 'national characteristics' that the Exhibition and Centennial were celebrating."
The numbers that visited probably mean a lot went more than once. NZs population was only approx 1,600,000 back then :)
