Bethlehem (New Zealand)

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Bethlehem
Geographical location
Bethlehem (New Zealand)
Bethlehem
Coordinates 37 ° 42 ′  S , 176 ° 7 ′  E Coordinates: 37 ° 42 ′  S , 176 ° 7 ′  E
Region ISO NZ-BOP
Country New ZealandNew Zealand New Zealand
region Bay of Plenty
District Tauranga City
Ward Otumoetai-Pyes Pa Ward
Local foundation Early 1840s
Residents 7th 269 (2013)
height 25 m
Post Code 3172
Telephone code +64 (0) 7

Bethlehem , in the Bay of Plenty region on the North Island of New Zealand , is a suburb of the city of Tauranga . Formerly a place in its own right, Bethlehem is now the preferred residential area for the Taurangan population with middle to high incomes.

The place has become known all over the world for the return of Christmas mail with the postmark of "Bethlehem" at the annual Christmas time .

geography

The suburb is about 3 miles west of the city of Tauranga and is directly connected to the New Zealand State Highway 2 , which separates the residential area from a large shopping center.

history

Naming

The history of the former place Bethlehem goes back to the early 1840s. Roman Catholic missionaries came to the area around Tauranga and successfully proselytized the local Māori tribes. The Māori became very devout and, under the influence of the missionaries , individual Iwi (tribes) renamed their Pā (villages) and gave them biblical names. Thus came Bethlehem, Canaan, Ephraim and Judea. The latter still exists today and is a district of Tauranga .

The place Bethlehem was evidently mentioned in writing in 1846 in the records of Bishop Viard , who visited Tauranga that year and noted the following on February 21, 1846: " I go to bless the chapel at Bethlehem " ( German : I go to the Blessing Chapel in Bethlehem. ). He did this after Māori secured a wrecked boat and brought the Pākehā back. The Māori advanced in his ceremony . He therefore further noted: “ Excellent tribe, who are willing to support the priest who took care of their souls ” (German: Excellent tribe who are ready to support the priest who takes care of their souls . ).

His records show the influence of the church on the Māori in this region at that time and that they had become very Christian. The place Bethlehem was called Peterehema by the Māori in their translation .

Bethlehem School

The first school in the Bethlehem area was the Te Wairoa School , founded in 1883 , which was later renamed the Paeroa Nativ School and was only named Bethlehem School in 1940 . The school was located between the villages of Wairoa and Bethlehem on the Wairoa River and was in an old, disused sawmill. Born in Liverpool , New South Wales in 1842 , John William Duffus , who was interested in the care and education of the Māori , became their first teacher. The school, which the Māori bosses of the Ngāti Kahu and Ngāti Hangarau Hapu had been calling for for a long time, developed into a showcase for education for Māori .

The founding of the school was made possible by the 1867 Native School Act , which introduced a national state-controlled school system for primary schools for Māori . Despite the lack of compulsory schooling, 57 native schools had been founded in 1879 , mostly in the north and east of the North Island.

Bethlehem post mark

Every year in the run-up to Christmas, a small paper and office supplies store in the Bethlehem Shopping Center becomes the official Bethlehem Christmas Post Office , gets some official stamps from the New Zealand Post Office , hires some volunteers and gives thousands of postcards and letters that have been sent to Bethlehem in New Zealand to a Bethlehem Postmark and send it back. The postcards and letters come from all over the world, including Germany . Even from New Zealand people come specially to get the coveted stamp for Christmas. Sometimes people come with up to a hundred cards and letters to have them stamped. And there is no postage meter that can do this job. All cards and letters are still hand stamped. In 2008 it is said to have been around 15,000 shipments that were processed, and the trend is rising, since the same amount was already reached on December 17th in 2009.

In 1987 Ilma Shergold was still standing in the local post office and applied the special stamp. She had performed this special service for the twentieth time that year. But with increasing popularity, the post office no longer wanted to take on this complex service and today only provides its stamps and transports the postcards and letters at no additional cost once in both directions, once in New Zealand and back.

population

Bethlehem is administratively divided into Bethlehem and Bethlehem East . The two censuses of 2001 and 2006 show the extreme growth of the community from 1996 onwards. In 1996, 1428 and 474 inhabitants respectively lived in the two districts, in 2001 in Bethlehem 1773 inhabitants and with an increase of 371.5% in Bethlehem East already 2235 inhabitants. The population increased again by 41.5% and 38.3% to 2517 and 3090 inhabitants respectively.

In 2001, 94.9% Europeans lived in Bethlehem East , 4.2% Māori and 4.1% Asians . In just five years, the proportion of Europeans shifted to 78.6% in favor of other ethnic groups, the a share of 16.6% (0.3% in 2001 ) were able to register for themselves. The proportions of Māori and Asians in the period remained approximately the same. The significant increase in residents of other ethnicities can be

a) through the economic boom in Tauranga ,
b) through the New Zealand government's immigration policy, preferring to attract highly qualified people and entrepreneurs as investors ,
c) by the attractiveness of Tauranga , Mount Maunganui and the Bay of Plenty and region
d) explain by the exclusive and quiet location of the suburb of Bethlehem.

For the 2013 census, the statisticians counted 7,269 inhabitants in Bethlehem and Bethlehem East combined, with the population in the Bethlehem district increasing by 45.8% compared to 2006 and in Bethlehem East by only 9.8%.

Infrastructure

Local development

The development towards a place according to Western ideas seems to have started quite late. It is said that the first shop was only opened in the village in the 1930s, which suggests that the settlement was dominated by Māori for a long time . A community hall was not built until 1956. The place itself was characterized by farming. Exotic crops , tobacco and later kiwis were grown.

Bethlehem Town Center

On October 20, 2007, the first section of Bethlehem's outdoor shopping center opened. Since Bethlehem no longer had an old, grown center and could not match the strong population growth of the last decades with a corresponding shopping infrastructure, the planners began to combine the two, the community center and the shopping mile. The name Bethlehem Town Center of the open shopping center was not taken into account. Not much is to be seen of a community center or city center. The city of Tauranga doesn't seem to care much about giving Bethlehem its own face. Finally, under pressure from the city, the “Bethlehem Information Center ” information board for tourists was dismantled by the local Lions Club on October 19, 2007.

Educational institutions

There is a campus of Christian educational institutions in Bethlehem , all of which are run by the Christian Education Trust . The Trust was founded in 1986 to provide quality education with a Christian background to high school and college students of all ages. School operations began with Bethlehem College in 1988. The Bethlehem College Kindergarten followed in 1989 , the Bethlehem International School in 1992 , the Bethlehem Tertiary Institute in 1993 and the First Class Education and Care facility in 2004 .

literature

  • Public Library of Tauranga (ed.): Bethlehem Information Collection . Tauranga (English, information collection viewed and evaluated on January 18, 2010).
  • Public Library of Tauranga (Ed.): Information collection Konahe Maori Schools - Bethlehem School . Tauranga (English, information collection viewed and evaluated on January 18, 2010).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b 2013 Census QuickStats about a place: Bethlehem . Statistics New Zealand , accessed May 23, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b 2013 Census QuickStats about a place: Bethlehem East . Statistics New Zealand , accessed May 23, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Audrey Gordon : At Christmas the Bethlehem postmark is in demand . Ed .: NZWW . Auckland December 15, 1980 (English).
  4. ^ Allen Concannon : The right Mails on Christmas . Ed .: Australia Post . 1981 (English).
  5. ^ Rev. P. Beaton : A trip to Tauranga by an Army Chaplain, Part III . In: Boys Own Magazine . Volume VII, No. 38 , 1865 (English, found in: Historical Review Volume 50 No. 1, May 2002 , p. 35.).
  6. ^ FA Harper : School at milestone - Historic and family links . In: Bay of Plenty Times . Tauranga 1983 (English).
  7. ↑ Kai Kaha Bethlehem School (Ed.): Bethlehem School, Celebrates 125 Years , 1883-2008 . Bethlehem 2008 (English).
  8. ↑ John Cousins : Bethlehem's a postal star . In: Bay of Plenty Times . Tauranga December 12, 2008 (English).
  9. ↑ Postmark popularity grows . Sun Live , accessed January 19, 2010 (original website thesun42.id.co.nz/11308a1.page no longer available).
  10. ^ Waikato Times . December 8, 1987 (English).
  11. ^ History . Bethlehem.net, archived from the original on July 14, 2013 ; accessed on January 20, 2016 (English, original website no longer available).
  12. ^ Development for the Community . In: The Weekend Sun . Tauranga October 12, 2007 (English).
  13. ↑ Sad day for Lions . In: Te Puna News . Bethlehem October 2007 (English).
  14. ^ About the Christian Education Trust . Christian Education Trust , archived from the original on February 7, 2013 ; accessed on August 13, 2012 (English, original website no longer available).