Featured content

Welcome to the Knowledge Bank

Featured content

Mahora School

Mahora School collection contains many class photos from as far back as 1904.

Can you help name some of the people?

Featured content

France House

The Robertson collection of family memorabilia and items relating to children’s homes. France House was situated in the Esk Valley and open from 1924 to 1973 for boys 10-17 years.

The Knowledge Bank is an ever-growing digital record of Hawke’s Bay and its people.

Stories of the events, people, celebrations, tragedies and day-to-day life that helped form the culture and landscape of the Bay we know today are gathered here in an easy-to-access format. Our volunteers collect personal and business stories, photos, memories and magazines, digitising them for everyone to read and enjoy.

Share your history

We are always interested in hearing about family and individual collections which might not have been shared as widely as they could be. If you have a collection of old photographs, film, slides, print articles or other material you think may be of interest to the wider public, please get in touch.

Make a donation

Can you help? We appreciate any and all donations towards preserving our local history. We also have a range of wonderful sponsors who help fund our aim of making that history easily available to all. If you would like to make a donation or join the ranks of our sponsors, please contact us.

Volunteers needed!

We welcome anyone interested in helping us with scanning and digitising, transcribing, cataloguing and many other tasks.

Explore

Film and video

Film and video from across our collections.

Images

Photographs and other still images from our collections.

Collections

Collections of material donated by individuals, families and organisations.

Who’s Who

An index of Hawke’s Bay people.

Oral History

Recordings and transcripts of interviews with Hawke’s Bay personalities.

Hawke’s Bay Photo News

Hawke’s Bay Photo News, a local magazine published November 1958 – June 1967

Bibliography

An index of printed publications relating to Hawke’s Bay and its history.

Tags

Tags are informal subjects or topics used to group related material.

Supporters and sponsors

We sincerely thank the following businesses and organisations for their support.

Sign up to our newsletter