A taste of the Norm Hatch Collection


The Norm Hatch Collection of over 1494 black and white photographs includes: U.S. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s visit to New Zealand in 1943 and shows her touring Whakarewarewa with Guide Rangi Dennan. It also shows Māori kapahaka at huge events in Gisborne and Kāpiti.

Other highlights are: rugby games, hospital scenes, dancing in the Cecil Club in Wellington, farm visits and extraordinary footage of the Marines’ beach-landing exercises under fire at Paekākāriki.

Here is a selection of low resolution versions of some of those photographs.


The full collection

The 1494 Stills comprise: 747 Tiffs and 74 7Jpgs, catalogued in 34 themed title records and now available to view online, visit Ngā Taonga Sound & Film Archive.

Each photograph has a low and a high resolution copy. The low-resolution copies show the photographer's hand-written captions. About a third of the photographs were taken by Norm Hatch and the rest by members of his team.