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Story: Women and men

Social life

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Social life

For men alone, life in colonial New Zealand was often rough and makeshift. They made the best of it, gathering together to socialise. This group is drinking in a ‘canvas grog shop’ in 1862 at the Kyeburn goldfield in Central Otago. The Otago goldfields had about 700 sly-grog shanties, around one to every 75 inhabitants.

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Toitū Otago Settlers Museum

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How to cite this page

Charlotte Macdonald, Women and men – Colonial beginnings: 1840s–1880s, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/29200/social-life (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Charlotte Macdonald, published 30 March 2011, updated 1 August 2017.