X-Nico

40 unusual facts about Wellington


2000 Nokia New Zealand Film Awards

The 2000 Nokia New Zealand Film Awards were held on Saturday 1 July 2000 at the St James Theatre in Wellington, New Zealand.

2001 Nokia New Zealand Film Awards

The 2001 Nokia New Zealand Film Awards were held on 10 November 2001 at the St James Theatre in Wellington, New Zealand.

4409 Kissling

It is named after Dr. Warwick Kissling, an amateur astronomer and mathematical modeller from Wellington, New Zealand.

Albrecht Brandi

A few days later, on 12 September, she was attacked near the Moroccan coast by British Wellington aircraft.

Ecology: From Individuals to Ecosystems

The fourth edition cover is an image of a mural on a Wellington street created by Christopher Meech and a group of urban artists to generate thought about the topic of environmental degradation.

Ernie Toshack

In the final match of the tour, Toshack found himself opening the bowling for Australia with fellow debutant Ray Lindwall in a match against New Zealand at Wellington that was retrospectively recognised as a Test two years later.

Eve de Castro-Robinson

A "de Castro-Robinson Portrait" concert was held in her honor at the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts in Wellington in 2004.

Filet-O-Fish

The use of farmed fish in the Filet-O-Fish first came about in 1981, when an owner of a New Zealand fisheries company was dissatisfied with the pollock Filet-O-Fish he purchased at the Courtenay Place, Wellington restaurant.

Frederick de Jersey Clere

An advocate of concrete construction (though he wrote a pamphlet on building wooden churches), his best known design is St Mary of the Angels (Catholic, 1922) of reinforced concrete, in Wellington.

HM Passport Office

In 2007, the 90 British diplomatic missions that issued passports were consolidated into seven Regional Passport Processing Centres (RPPCs) based in Düsseldorf, Hong Kong, Madrid, Paris, Pretoria, Washington, D.C. and Wellington with an additional centre in Dublin.

Holden VK Commodore

The VK was assembled by General Motors New Zealand at their Trentham assembly plant, near Wellington.

Hundred of Taunton Deane

The district was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, by a merger of the Municipal Borough of Taunton, Wellington Urban District, Taunton Rural District, and Wellington Rural District.

James Bragge

Within a short while he had opened a photographic studio in Manners Street, Wellington.

Konstantin Dimopoulos

Born in Port Said, Egypt Dimopoulos spent the first eight years of his life living in Ismailia before moving with his family to Wellington, New Zealand.

Lee Kit

In 2007-2008, Lee was invited to the Bolton Street Cottage Artist-in-residence programme in Wellington, New Zealand.

Limited express

The Night Limited was the premier express train on the North Island Main Trunk Railway between Auckland and Wellington from 1924 until 1971; during peak seasons, it was augmented by the Daylight Limited.

Martyn Sanderson

Sanderson was one of the founders of Downstage Theatre in 1964 in Wellington, with a vision of a small professional company performing challenging works in an intimate venue.

Neil Dawson

Dawson's best-known pieces include The Chalice, a large inverted cone in Cathedral Square, Christchurch, and Ferns, a sphere created from metal fern leaves which hangs above Wellington's Civic Square.

Pahiatua Railway Station

At the time the Wairarapa Line was completed, the Wellington – Longburn line was owned and operated by the private Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company, meaning all government trains from Wellington ran via the Wairarapa, giving a status of some importance to stations like Pahiatua.

Patti Miller

Patti Miller (born 1954), an Australian writer, was born and grew up near Wellington, New South Wales, Australia.

Petrus Van der Velden

Sometime late 1903 or early 1904 he returned to Wellington, bringing with him a young Australian woman, Australia Wahlberg, whom he married at the Wellington Registry office on 4 February 1904.

Pinky Agnew

Pinky Agnew, born in 1955 in Port Chalmers, is an actor, author, social commentator, and wedding celebrant based in Wellington in New Zealand .

Pratt's Bottom

Pratt's Bottom was declared to be the 'sister city' of Wellington, New Zealand in 2009 by then-Mayor, Kerry Prendergast.

Redwood Railway Station

Redwood Railway Station on the suburban rail network of Wellington, New Zealand is on the North Island Main Trunk Railway (NIMT).

Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

In addition, there were also the pipes and drums of the Scots Guards, Irish Guards, Royal Gurkha Rifles, Scottish Officers Training Corps, South African Irish Regiment, the Rats of Tobruk and the City of Wellington pipe band.

Ryan Runciman

He began appearing in commercials at the age of 5 and eventually became involved in film and television work while attending St. Patrick's College.

Sepioloidea pacifica

The type specimen was collected off New Zealand and is deposited at the National Museum of New Zealand in Wellington.

Stout-legged Wren

The specific epithet honours Dr John Yaldwyn, Director of the National Museum of New Zealand in Wellington, in recognition of his contributions to avian palaeontology.

The Clean House

Other international productions include: The Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury (2008); the Espace Libre theatre (Montreal) in French (2008); Circa Theatre, Wellington, New Zealand (2009).

Thorndon Mile

The Thorndon Mile is a Group One (G1) Thoroughbred horse race contested over 1,600 metres (one mile) and is held at Trentham Racecourse, Wellington, New Zealand.

Upton Magna

Upton Magna is situated on the National Cycle Route 81 between Wellington and Shrewsbury.

Wellington, British Columbia railway station

The Wellington railway station is located in the Wellington area of Nanaimo, British Columbia.

Wellington, Nevada

It is in Smith Valley, for which it serves as the source of essential services, and is very close to the town of Smith itself.

Wellington, New South Wales

Ian O'Brien — Olympic gold medallist in the 200m breaststroke at the 1964 Summer Olympics, grew up in Wellington

Wellington, Texas

John Aaron - NASA engineer (born here and reared in Oklahoma) who played an important role in the Apollo 12 mission

The proposed town of Wellington was located on the land owned by Ernest T. O’Neil who was promoting this location, and had been given its proposed name by his wife, Matilda Anna Elisabeth “Lizzie” O’Neil, who greatly admired the Duke of Wellington, hero of the Battle of Waterloo.

Wellington, Western Cape

In 1840 the town of Wellington was proclaimed after the Duke who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo.

Wellington's Victory

Wellington's Victory, or, the Battle of Vitoria, Op. 91 (Wellingtons Sieg oder die Schlacht bei Vittoria) is a minor 15-minute long orchestral work composed by Ludwig van Beethoven to commemorate the Duke of Wellington's victory over Joseph Bonaparte at the Battle of Vitoria in Spain on 21 June 1813.

Willard Hughes Rollings

He held a postdoctoral fellowship at the D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian at the Newberry Library in Chicago and a Fulbright Scholarship to New Zealand, where he studied the culture and history of the Māori and also spent time in Christchurch and Wellington.

Winifred Knights

Amongst her most notable works are The Marriage at Cana produced for the British School at Rome, which is now in the National Art Gallery of New Zealand in Wellington and her winning Rome Scholarship entry The Deluge which is now held by Tate Britain.


Alfoxton House

During World War II it housed evacuees from Wellington House School Westgate on Sea Kent.

Alice Verlet

Other members included contralto Edna Thornton and pianist Mark Hambourg; the accompanist was Cyril Towsey of Wellington, New Zealand, who had carved out a career performing in such ad hoc groups.

An Infamous Army

Seeing this, Colonel Sir John Colborne leads his regiment, the Fighting 52nd, across the battlefield from the right flank and Wellington calls for a general advance of Peregrine Maitland's Grenadier Guards, completing the French rout.

Basil Crockett

Educated at Wellington, he commissioned into the 17th Lancers and attended Staff College in Poona, India, before serving on the Northwest Frontier and with the Gordon Highlanders during the Boer War, where he received the Queen's South Africa Medal bearing the clasps for South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902, Orange Free State, Transvaal, and Cape Colony.

Beardmore 160 hp

A Beardmore 160 hp has been restored to airworthy condition by The Vintage Aviator Ltd, an aircraft restoration company based in Wellington, New Zealand.

Craigmore Christian School

All students in years 3-12 attend camps in various Australian locations such as Wellington, Wirraway Homestead, Port Hughes, Flinders Ranges, Kangaroo Island, Canberra, Victor Harbor and Aldinga Beach.

Daisy Ogle

She is known to have had close links with Honor Oak Christian Fellowship Centre in London and along with her colleague Miss Sinclair, they worked closely with two of their staff in India: Alfred J. Flack and Raymond Golsworthy who were stationed at Wellington.

Donald Wellington

Donald Wellington (born 10 September 1992) is a Sierra Leonean international footballer who plays in Sweden for IFK Värnamo, as a striker.

Double-decker tram

Double-deck trams were once popular in some European cities, like Berlin and London, throughout the British Empire countries in the early half of the 20th century including Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington in New Zealand; Hobart, Tasmania in Australia and in parts of Asia.

Edgar Kain

He went to Croydon School, Wellington and Christ's College, Canterbury later studying under Professor Von Zedlitz in Wellington.

Edwin Henry Mason Smith

Private Edwin Smith embarked on Troop Ship Number 93 from Wellington on 13 October 1917 and disembarked in Liverpool, England on 8 December.

Elwood Veitch

Veitch was born in Monck Township, Ontario, the son of Wellington Veitch and ALice Alma Brott, and was educated in Bracebridge, Ajax and at the University of British Columbia.

Ernest Martin Jehan

He was posted to HMS Duke of Wellington on 2 December HMS Raven on 9 December and back to Duke of Wellington I on 26 March 1901.

Ernie Toshack

In Wellington, he opened the bowling in a match that was retrospectively classed as an official Test match.

Evelyn Hellicar

Around 1889 he entered into a short lived partnership with Sydney Vacher at Wellington Street, Strand, London.

George Forester

He was the only son of Brooke Forester of Dothill in Wellington and Elizabeth daughter and heir of George Weld of Willey Park.

German submarine U-256

On 8 October, the outbound boat was attacked by a Leigh light-equipped British Wellington bomber of No. 612 Squadron RAF in the Bay of Biscay.

Golden Bay Air

The airline currently operates two Piper Aircraft from Takaka to Wellington and Karamea, and also from Nelson to Takaka and Karamea with connecting road shuttle services to the Abel Tasman National Park, the Heaphy Track in the Kahurangi National Park and to and from Takaka township.

Gordon Challis

Challis's work has been linked with Louis Johnson (the most influential), Peter Bland and Charles Doyle, all three immigrant English poets writing in Wellington from the mid-1950s.

Hawke Cup

Teams from New Zealand's 4 "main centres", Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin have not usually competed for the Hawke Cup, although they did participate for the latter half of the 1990s.

History of cricket in New Zealand from 2000–01

2nd Test at Basin Reserve, Wellington – game abandoned: tour cancelled following the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster

Hit Radio X105

In January 2010, Iain Stables spurred on X105 workmate Warwick Slow into gatecrashing a party held for Prince William at Premier House in Wellington.

Iron Duke

HMS Iron Duke named after Wellington, is the name of three ships in the Royal Navy, one of which is still in active service (a frigate)

Ligonier, Pennsylvania

He initially called the town Ramseytown, later changed to Wellington (after the Duke of Wellington), and finally the name was changed to Ligonier.

Malcolm McKinnon

The McKinnon brothers are great-great-grandsons of John Plimmer, known as the father of Wellington.

Neville Hiscock

Neville and his younger brother Dave Hiscock grew up in Stokes Valley, a suburb near Wellington, where they both rode an old BSA Bantam in grass paddocks, and later perfected their skills on the infamous Rimutaka hill climb nearby north of Upper Hutt.

Onslow College

Onslow College is a state co-educational secondary school located in Johnsonville, a suburb of Wellington, New Zealand.

Osadia

Tollwood Festival, Munich / Sydney Mardi Gras, Australia / Trafalgar Square Festival, London, UK / Juste pour rire/Just for laughs, Montreal, Canada / The Esplanade Festival, Singapore / NZ International Festival, Wellington, New Zealand / Kleines Fest im Grossen Garten, Hanover / Daidogei World Cup, Shizuoka, Japan / Hogmanay, Edinburgh, Scotland / Festes de la Mercè, Barcelona

Panharmonicon

Beethoven apparently composed his piece "Wellington's Victory" (Op. 91) to be played on this behemoth mechanical orchestral organ to commemorate Arthur Wellesley's victory over the French at the Battle of Vitoria in 1813.

Patrick Jameson

Jameson was born on 10 November 1912 in Wellington, New Zealand and was educated in Lower Hutt before taking up employment as an assurance clerk with Colonial Mutual Life.

Percy Bernard, 5th Earl of Bandon

In the summer of 1914 he and his twin brother were sent to St. Aubyns Preparatory School at Rottingdean, and four years later both boys entered the Orange dormitory at Wellington College where Percy was continually referred to as Bernard Minor incorrectly throughout his time at Wellington College.

Prince Frederick of the Netherlands

When Napoleon returned from Elba, during the Hundred Days the prince was given command of a detachment of Wellington's army which was posted in a fall back position near Braine should the battle taking place at Waterloo be lost.

Redwood Railway Station

The WMR built the original route of the NIMT between Wellington and Longburn and it was purchased by the New Zealand Railways Department in December 1908.

It is double tracked with staggered side platforms; the up platform (north, towards Paraparaumu) is on the north side of the Tawa Street level crossing, the down platform (towards Wellington) on the south.

Robert Ballard Long

General Lowry Cole sent a dispatch to Wellington to say that a French army of about 35,000 men had forced him from his defensive position and that he was falling back.

Robert W. Mitchell

Robert W. Mitchell (born April 25, 1933 in Wellington, Texas—died March 18, 2010 in San Antonio, Texas) was an American invertebrate zoologist and photographer.

Roderick Wellington

At the beginning of the 2006-07 season, after failing to sort out a contract with the Heat, Wellington signed for English Basketball League (second-tier) team Worthing Thunder where he played for two months, before re-signing with the Heat in November 2006.

Roskilde Royal Mansion

During the English siege of Copenhagen in 1807, the mansion served as headquarters of general Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington.

Rough Opinion

Rough Opinion, formerly known as The Mau, is a Samoan Hip hop group comprising MC’s Kosmo, “Khas the Fieldstyle Orator,” (now known as Tha Feelstyle) and DJ Rockit V. Created in 1990, in Wellington, New Zealand, the group first named themselves The Mau, as they took their name from the Samoan organization that agitated the country’s independence under both German and New Zealand colonial governments.

SS Athenic

On 13 February 1902, she sailed into London on her maiden voyage to Wellington via the Canary Islands, Cape Town and Hobart.

Starcom IP Asia

Starcom IP Asia consists of 17 countries and 29 offices, with locations in Australia (Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Gold Coast, Brisbane) Bangalore, Bangladesh, China (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong), India (New Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai), Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand (Auckland, Wellington), Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Tawa Railway Station

Tawa Railway Station, originally called Tawa Flat, is on the North Island Main Trunk Railway (NIMT) and is part of the suburban rail network of Wellington, New Zealand.

The North Ship

Some of the poems were composed while Larkin was an undergraduate at the University of Oxford, but the bulk were written in the period 1943 to 1944 when he was running the public library in Wellington, Shropshire and writing his second novel A Girl in Winter.

Vincent Wetta

Wetta was born in Wichita, and lived in Wellington, where he worked as a conductor/engineer with the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway Company from 1966 to 2006.

Wellington Cable Car

Initially both contracts were won by Harbour City Cable Car Ltd, a joint venture between the Stagecoach Group, which had purchased the buses, and East by West, a Wellington ferry operator.

Wellington Cantonment

The list of alumni of the DSSC at Wellington reads like a Who's Who of the armed forces and includes Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, former Fijian strongman Sitiveni Rabuka, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, head of German special forces Hans-Christoph Ammon, Naval Commander Dhananjay Joshi and former governor of the Reserve Bank of India R.N.Malhotra.

Wellington, British Columbia railway station

It was the Wellington Colliery Railway and mines which provided Robert Dunsmuir with the wealth, experience and infrastructure he needed to convince the government, under generous terms, to allow him to build an Island Railway.

Whiteshill, Gloucestershire

During the Second World War a Wellington bomber crashed nearby, in the local feature called 'Bomber Lake'; it is understood that all the Canadian crew perished