Referee's whistle
William Atack
In 1884, William Harrington Atack was refereeing a game of rugby in Canterbury, New Zealand, using the accepted mode of the time, namely, yelling at…
From the book
Category · 10 inventions
Social & Cultural
Women’s suffrage, the eight-hour day and the referee’s whistle — ideas that reshaped society.
Agriculture & Farming
Sport & Recreation
Medicine & Health
Engineering & Technology
Food & Household
Science & Mathematics
Social & Cultural
Maritime & Transport
Willie Away
Sir Wilson Whineray
The move Whineray came up with involves peeling men off from the back of the lineout, who then drive up midfield, creating a blindside.
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Democracy
Kate Sheppard
In New Zealand the suffragist movement was, for better or worse, entangled with the issue of temperance. Many feared the establishment of voting…
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Godward Economiser
Ernest Godward
Godward had been born in England, but at the age of 12 he ran away to sea, reaching East Asia before someone noticed how young he was and sent him…
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Edlin Stewart engine
George Edlin & H.H. ("Steam") Stewart
In the early 1920s George Edlin (b. ?, d. ?) and Hector Halhead ('Steam') Stewart (b. 1888, d. ?) developed a new kind of engine.
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Marching Girls
This first record of Marching Girls is in the official history of the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York in 1901. During the Dunedin…
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Trench warfare & Maori Pa
Hone Heke and Kawiti won (or at least tied) the Northland War in the mid-1840s by building, successfully defending, then annoyingly abandoning…
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8 hour work day
Samuel Parnell
Carpenters, or 'chippies', have always been a stroppy lot. They've been trouble since that incident in the Middle East in about 30AD where a…
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Jandals
Morris Yock or John Cowie
Firstly let's acknowledge that we are the only country in the world to call the rubberised sandal-like footwear so common on NZ beaches over summer…
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Daylight Saving Time
George Hudson
To have the audacity to play with the very idea of time itself is surely an exercise of extreme hubris. Yet that’s what George Vernon Hudson (b…
From the book
10 of 202 stories
The whole No.8 wire story is in the book.
Every invention here — and 192 more — told in full, with the people and the laughs, in No.8 Re-Wired by David Downs & Jon Bridges.