1932 Unemployed disturbances in Dunedin

During the ‘angry autumn’ of 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, unemployed workers in Dunedin reacted with fury to the refusal of the Hospital Board to offer them assistance.

Trouble had first flickered in Dunedin in January, when a crowd of unemployed besieged a grocery store. It flared on 9 April, when protesters stoned the mayor’s relief depot and tried to storm the Hospital Board’s offices. They were dispersed by baton-wielding police.

The Dunedin disturbances were repeated in Christchurch, Wellington and – most dramatically – in Auckland’s Queen Street on 14 April. 

Image: Dunedin Hospital (Genealo)