Blackball Museum of Working Class History

Blackball Museum of Working Class History is the home of the Historical Society which has right and reason to promote this old Coal town's landmark status upon the timeline of New Zealand Social History.

Blackball is a coal town, even the name of the town is thanks to the Blackball Shipping company of London which owned one of the first mines. The railway and the town are only here thanks to coal, which was discovered in great seams here in the 1860s, after the lure of gold and quartz in the valley had already flashed in the pan in the 1860s. An archaeological reporton the Blackball Coal Mine as it was in 1890 has been published by DoC, and the chimneys that remain from the mine are Heritage Listed.

This was where Coal Miners went on strike in 1908, giving air and power to further worker unrest that led to the 'Black Tuesday' Waihi strike in 1912, then in turn to the great strike of 1913, and the formation of the New Zealand Labour Party. Political Cartoonists had a field day with these events.

The Blackball Miners initial argument was about lunch breaks, and with the fairness of the arbitration system introduced in by the Liberal Government in 1894 to smooth relations between employers and unions. Beginning with Miners, unions that opted to leave this system behind joined together in what was called the Federation of Miners, then the New Zealand Federation of Labour.

Fear of communism at that time saw them dubbed the Red Feds. So challenged, in fact, were the ruling capitalist class that they formed their own association, the Employers’ Federation and funded it ‘to combat socialism, syndicalism and anarchy’. The political arm of the Red Feds, the "Political Labour League" won it's first seat in 1908, and following the 1913 strike combined with the new Social Democratic Party and some former Liberals to become the Labour Party.

Blackball Coal itself was also institutionalised, becoming a State Mine in 1941, but the high sulphur content (you can still smell it here upon occasion) meant it was hard to sell, and operations ceased in 1964. Blackball (population 291) is now the start/finish of the Croesus Track and a few mountain bike trails on old mining roads. Hope is held that the new Paparoa Track may increase tourist traffic. Famed Nelson Artist Toss Woollaston made a few sketches and paintings here.

The people of the Blackball Museum of Working Class History have been known to perform a re-enactment of the 1908 strike.

NZPlaces would love to see your historical photos of this historic town.