Nightcaps and the influenza pandemic

Nightcaps and Wairio in Western Southland suffered one of the highest death rates in the country during the 1918 influenza pandemic – 45.9 per 1000 people. Down the road at Riverton the rate was 16.2, and Nightcaps' death rate was about five times that of Southland as a whole.

Influenza historian Geoffrey Rice suggests that the high death rate at Nightcaps may be explained by the combination of high morbidity, perhaps as high as 90%, and lack of effective relief organisation. As in many Maori communities, so many people fell ill with influenza, or were nursing people in their own household, that there was no one available to organise relief efforts.