Wellington's class prison: Holloway Road, 1919-1939: steps towards an analysis of the material basis of working class daily life

Abstract

The period between the First and Second World Wars is one of the most talked about and least studied times in New Zealand history. The Depression of the 1930s has provided this country with some of its greatest historiographical myths and many of the most searing images that fill the national psyche. Much is known about the political and economic changes of the 1930s, but much less attention has been paid to the 1920s. Much less, however, is known about the nature of daily life and the realities of lived existence for the mass of New Zealand's population during the two decades between the two World Wars. This thesis provides an analysis of the quality of daily life in a small working class neighbourhood in central Wellington. Mitchelltown was a locality populated by members of the reserve army of labour whose marginal existence in the City's various labour markets produced a time of precarious existence. The thesis is an analysis of the basis of daily existence and the quality of working class daily life based on the analysis of the social and economic situation of a community of around 500 people. In doing so, the thesis is explicitly methodological showing how large scale economic data may be applied to a more localized area and a much smaller population. It shows how it is possible to build an understanding of local labour and housing markets, how that may be tied to known wages and prices data eventually leading to an understanding of household income and expenditure and the effect of this on health and the quality of daily life. It is not, however, an exercise in economic history but shows how the material provided by economic history may be used by social historians to inform our understandings of the nature of daily life. There are four stages. Firstly, there is an outline of the development of Mitchelltown as a neighbourhood at the City's edge. Secondly, it provides a social profile of the community through a discussion of population, transience, class structure and housing in the area. Thirdly, this social profile is then used to show how national and regional economic data may be read to apply a neighbourhood and to inform an analysis of household and family economies. Finally, this analysis is then applied to working class dietary patterns to assess the quality of life and nutritional standards likely to have been found in the area. The strands are then drawn together in a conclusion that proposes a series of areas for further research.