Gold Strike

An exhibition about the Waihi gold strike of 1912.

This exhibition will be opening at Waihi Arts Centre and Museum on Sunday November the 11^th and running until to the 25^th of November. It will then show at The Rotorua Museum from 13 April – 30 June 2013, and then at Whitespace Gallery, 12 Crummer Rd. Ponsonby, Auckland during July 2013.

Gold Strike is an imaginative reconstruction of the 1912 Strike - The people, places and the locations of this vivid, violent and ultimately tragic event. The exhibition will be opened exactly 100 years to the day that the striker Fred Evans was killed as he fled from the miners Union Hall on the 11^th of November 1912.

The Pukewa workings

122 x 60

The first prospectors to explore the Waihi workings, McCombie and Lee, bored into Pukewa’s harsh, glinting interior.

The open cut

180 x 60

There in Waihi, with its toil and its treasure,

Men’s lives are squandered while earning a crust.

The Talisman Battery


122 x 90

Several deafening batteries of stampers began crushing the quartz rock down to powder.

The Orua flax swamp

63 x 25

Tim Armstrong left school at the age of 11 and worked in the flax-milling industry in the great Orua flax swamp between Bulls and Shannon.

The fun of the world


63 x 25

At 19 Tim Armstrong was working on the railway in Raetihi when he heard of work available the Waihi goldfields. " I thought it would be the place for me, so along with a few mates we made up our minds to roll up our swags and walk to the gold fields… it was the fun of the world at times.”

The Golden Cross mine


63 x 25

At Waihi, Tim Armstrong found work at the Golden Cross mine.  “There they had a union and it was the very thing I wanted.” In no time at all Tim was president of the large Waihi Miners Union.

Bill Parry

180 x 45

The Waihi Miners Union managed to retain a president by paying his salary themselves, and Bill Parry proved his worth during fierce negotiations with the mining company over competitive contracting.

The Rebel

40 x 60

Charles Smith was a “Niagara of Energy”. He was a miner, the president of the local branch of the Socialist Party, the author of frequent articles on Waihi, under the pen-name ‘The Rebel”, and the organiser of Pat Hickey’s 1911 campaign for the parliamentary seat of Ohinemuri.

Pat Hickey

Private collection


By 1911 this ‘roaring boy’ from the Federation of Labour was one of the country’s most powerful political orators. The Waihi socialists selected him as their candidate for the 1911 general election.

Bob Semple

Private Collection


Known as ‘Bob the Ranter, a former tunneller and one of the country’s prominent apostles of socialism, Semple helped to campaign for Hickey in Waihi.

Paddy Webb

Private collection

While Hickey ran for parliament in Waihi, Paddy Webb was the miners’ choice in Runanga on the west coast. Neither man won in 1911, but in 1913 Webb won a by-election to become the first coalminer to enter parliament.

Harry Holland


55 x 40

Harry was a silver-tongued Australian radical who was invited to New Zealand by the Waihi socialists to give a speaking tour. He stayed here for the rest of his life and became leader of the Labour Party.

Marjorie Noakes


55 x 40

A schoolgirl and miner’s daughter who, like Zena Norton, was passionate about the principles of her father’s union. “Why should men who work the hardest get the smallest pay, and those who do not work at all get millions of money?”

The mine manager’s dream

122 x 90

With the water level rising in the mineshafts and returns falling for the first time in a decade, industrial conflict threatens to overwhelm the diggings and the embattled mine manager sleeps uneasily.

Two on the beats and one in the watchhouse

Three panels, each panel

17 x 26

“Since the Strike commenced, there have been three Constables on night duty, two on the Beats and one in the Watchhouse.” 

The police inspector’s report


55 x 40

“I beg to report that ever since the Strike commenced… not one act of lawlessness of any kind has been committed”

The Cornish Pumphouse

120 x 90

This concrete castle housed the massive pumps that kept the mines free of water. During the strike they fell silent, and several strikers slipped underground to check how high the water levels had risen.” 

Rev. Robert Cleary

55 x 40

The local Anglican minister was one of several Waihi notables who signed a letter calling for the government to intervene in the strike. He was later made an honorary member of the scab union.

Commissioner Cullen

90 x 90

An iron-willed Irishman who rose from constable to Commissioner of Police, Cullen was prepared to break his own laws to defeat Waihi strikers and other ‘enemies of society’.

Bully boys and ex-cons

55 x 40

“the peace of Cullen the Police Commissioner and Herdman the voice of Justice, who sent in extra cops, scabs, bully boys and ex-cons”

The Snakecharmer

55 x 40

If there was trouble in Seddon Street, Waihi’s main thoroughfare, the sinister bowler-hatted strikebreaker known as the Snakecharmer was always there.

Harvey the Pug


55 x 40

The vicious ex-criminal recruited to help break the strike, he rode into town firing a pistol in each hand.

Hatpin Delaney

55 x 40

The blustering strikebreaker who gained his nickname after he was chased by 18-year-old Jessie Beames, armed only with the nine-inch hatpin she pulled from her cascade of chestnut hair.

The brakes


120  x 90

Strikebreakers were transported to and from the mine in open horse-drawn carriages, known as brakes. Sometimes a uniformed policeman held the reins. On every shift they faced a barrage of abuse from strikers and their families.

The Death of Fred Evans

32 x 23

Evans then fled in terror through a back door and into a vacant property behind the hall. “My father always said that he survived,” says Don Boswell, “because he could run faster than Fred Evans.”

Michael Rudd


55 x 40

The turncoat from the strikers’ ranks who compiled a list of his former colleagues. The strikebreakers worked through the list, giving each man and his family a day’s notice to be on the train out of town.

Georgina Parry

13 x 15

Georgina Parry, wife of the imprisoned union president, was threatened by a mob. “I said if they were men enough to attack me, I was woman enough to fight them.” 

Peter Fraser
55 x 40

The earnest Scot from the Federation of Labour who got Bill Parry released from Mt. Eden gaol. Like others prominent in the strike, Fraser entered parliament 20 years later.


The Scarlet Runners

120 x 40

Private Collection

The strikers’ sweethearts, wives and sisters who ran messages through police lines and later slipped into the besieged town to distribute relief supplies. 

The Taniwha

112 x 20

The river steamer that sailed between Paeroa and Auckland, carrying strikers, strikebreakers and gold. In November 1912 it transported the terrorised strikers’ families to safety.

The quotations with each painting are from “Waiheathens – Voices from a mining town,” by Mark Derby and Bob Kerr. A book that accompanies this exhibition. This book can be bought from the Waihi Gallery or from the publisher, Atuanui Press. atuanuipress.co.nz

The paintings are all oil on board. Their dimensions are in cm, width before height. If you are interested in purchasing any of these paintings please contact:

The Waihi Arts Center and Museum

54 Kenny St Waihi 

Box 149 Waihi 3641

Phone 07 863 8386
Email: wacma@waihimuseum.co.nz

When they are showing in Rotorua and Auckland please contact:

Whitespace Contemporary Art

12 Crummer Rd. Ponsonby

Auckland, New Zealand

Email: dwhite@whitespace.co.nz 

Phone : +64 9 361 6331
Mobile: +64 21 639 789.

The show will travel in its complete state and works purchased from Waihi or Rotorua will be delivered at the conclusion of the showing at Whitespace in July.