The Turnbull tackles 50 years of All Black greats

The photos come from Crown Studios, which was established around 1921 by prominent Wellington photographer, S. P. Andrew and run by the Thompson family until its closure in the late 1970s. For 50 years the studio specialised in sporting and group photos, including official team photos of the All Blacks.

The last owner of the Studios, Frank Thompson, left all the negatives and registers to the Library on his death in 2001 and now many of the more striking images are available for public viewing for the first time on Timeframes.

Rugby images include:

• All Blacks to Australia, 1929
• Geoffrey Alley, All Black 1926-28 and first National Librarian
• All Blacks team vs British Isles, 1950

In addition to the Crown collections, the Alexander Turnbull Library has hundreds of other rugby images available online, including cartoons, postcards and posters. The earliest image is a photo dating to 1875.

They include:

• The Wellington team, 1875
• Unidentified women’s team, 1930
• NZ POW team at Stalag 344, Germany, 1944
• Caricature of Jonah Lomu, 1995
• The Moa and the Lion, 1905 (postcard)

To view all the Turnbull’s online rugby-related images, go to Timeframes and enter rugby in the search field.

The National Library is also running the exhibition HAKA!: Speaking with Every Move at the Auckland Centre of the National Library, featuring more images from the Turnbull collections and film footage from a range of sources. Images from Haka! can also be viewed online.

The TurnbulI’s New Zealand Cartoon Archive has also contributed 29 images to Having a Ball, a rugby cartoon exhibition running at the NZ Rugby Museum, Palmerston North.