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Kia ora, Welcome to Wellington City Archives, Te Kano Kohinga Kupu o Pōneke.

We are the custodians of the weird and wonderful, and the primary information resource for the history of Wellington. Established in 1994, Wellington City Archives holds physical and digitised records dating back to 1840. Our collections are a rich resource for anyone researching Wellington’s social history and show changes in the community and urban development over the past 150 years

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The collection consists of 

This is made up of a range of item types including: 

  • Documents 

  • Photographs

  • Maps

  • Plans

  • Physical objects

 

Winning entry for the Wellington Town Hall competition by Joshua Charlesworth 

(Wellington City Council Archives, 00252-6) 

 

Highlights of the collection 

Accessing the collection

The best place to start with your research is Archives Online. This lets you search across the Wellington City Archives collections to see if you can find anything helpful. Information about all 800,000 records (metadata) is progressively being added making records easier to find.    

 

Archives Online enables you to view and download items. You can create collections and share them with people. You can also request to have items digitised, or to view them at the Archives. Check out the Archives Online User Guide for help getting started.

 

Services and Fees 

Hopefully Archives Online will meet all your research needs. However, if you have specific digitisation requirements or would like to hire a staff member to undertake your research, our fees and services can be found here

Wellington Heritage Week Poster

(Wellington City Council Archives, 00088-1)

 

Contacting Us

If you would like to get in contact, please phone us on 04 801-2096 or email us at archives@wcc.govt.nz.

Visiting is by appointment only to ensure we are prepared for your visit.

We are located at 28 Barker Street. Our opening hours are Monday - Friday 9 - 4 and we are closed public holidays. 

Keep up to date

Wellington City Archives are full of the weird and wonderful. If you would like to learn more about the collection, please follow us on twitter and facebook.

 

If you would like to keep up to date with what's happening here at the City Archives please look through the back issues of our quarterly newsletter. By registering as a user you can receive these updates straight to your inbox. 

 

Summer City, Sun Festival, Parading Characters 1991 

(Wellington City Council Archives, 00557-319-12)