Best Dressed Doll 1930 at the 4th Annual Winter Show and Exhibition at the King Edward Barracks, Christchurch

My Mum has a tiny doll in a tiny antique pram which weighs not much more than a feather. Even as a child it felt fragile to me. A not to be played with toy.

There were other dolls from Mum’s childhood that became part of the doll family I had as a child. Darrell (who I renamed Carol) and Josephine, who had been her younger sister’s doll. These two were composition dolls manufactured by a mixture of glue with sawdust which was heavier and denser than papier mâché and easily molded. They had hollow bodies and moveable limbs and head thanks to some contraption inside the body which seemed like rubber or elastic bands and hooks. Their facial features and hair were painted, and they both had eyes that opened and closed if you laid them down to sleep. Josephine was a taller doll and could stand up – if you balanced her feet correctly. Being wood based they were susceptible to damage from moisture though.

This other even smaller and more fragile doll was made of celluloid and first belonged to Auntie Hilda, the youngest sister of Mum’s father.

Celluloid was first created in 1863 and is one of the first synthetic plastics created from wood products that included camphor and cellulose nitrate. Doll makers began experimenting as early as the 1870s. By the early 1900s celluloid dolls were plentiful. Earlier dolls were breakable and fragile made from china and bisque. Celluloid although inexpensive is flammable, so not perfect, and one would imagine there could have been tears with open fires and coal range stoves. Dolls continued to be molded with celluloid as late as the 1950s though the majority were made between 1900-1940.

Hilda, my great aunt, was born in Christchurch, New Zealand in the summer of 1914. She was the youngest child with four older siblings. They lived in Middleton Road on a 3 acre block which was part of the original Wharenui settlement. Her father worked for the railways and her mother, most likely assisted by the children, tended the land and home. They had an orchard with fruit trees and rows upon rows of raspberries as well as other vegetables and a cow which supplied milk and butter. I am sure they probably had chooks too.

In my quest to build knowledge of the lives of our forebears, to keep their memories alive, I often search digitised newspapers for snippets about them and clues about their day-to-day life. Recently, while searching to see what I might be able to glean about school life and other social activities of my grandfather and his siblings I came across a couple of pieces of information that seemed connected to the little doll as well.

I had not ever really thought about her doll and the history attached to it, other than that it had belonged to her in a bygone era. I don’t know if it had a name and it is so fragile, I can’t imagine it was ever played with as we, or our children play with dolls in more recent times. Hilda like most young girls in her generation and earlier generations was a knitter and a seamstress. Like her contemporaries she will have learned these skills from her mother from a very young age. 

Prize List, Needlework, Winter Show and Exhibition 1930 from Press, Monday 11 August 1930, page 17.

Hilda would have been about 16 at this time, was the doll bought just to be a model for her handiwork? Or was it a treasured childhood toy? I knew that when given to Mum the doll was dressed in clothes which may have been made by Hilda or perhaps her sister or mother. But I hadn’t given it much more thought than that. Now though? Was she wearing those items that had won Hilda the prize? Is that why she had been kept all these years?

Two entries from secondary school students for Hand-knitted baby's jacket; first prize to Hilda (perhaps made for her nephew). Three entries for Most useful article; Very Highly Commended to Hilda (I wonder what it was) and three entries for Best dressed doll; first prize to Hilda.

Can you imagine sewing or knitting these tiny items in a room unlit by electricity? The detail is incredible, smocking, stitched lace, embroidery. The knitting (feather and fan on the cape) must have been at least 2 ply on needles the size of toothpicks!

These days, although she still wears her original undergarments and booties, she has a new cape and bonnet knitted by Mum and a dress knitted in feather and fan found at a craft market or fair. Her original dress, cape and bonnet are showing a little wear and have been carefully packed away to save further damage. Some of the ribbon ties have not survived the close to 100 years. Recently she made a trip back to her hometown of Christchurch and spent a few days being tenderly restored so that her limbs were no longer loose. Maybe with a little luck she will be cherished for another hundred or so years perhaps within the family, perhaps in a museum collection.