Four Waimate councillors posing in their Oldsmobile after completing the first journey by motor car over Burkes Pass, 1904.

Bromide print photograph, 150 x 200 mm, on original board mount, 250 x 300 mm, bearing the blind stamp of ‘Cox / Waimate’ in the lower right margin, and an indistinct manuscript caption in white ink beneath the image; the print is in excellent condition, the mount with minor corner wear and a small mark from an old auction or price sticker at lower left.

Another copy of this photograph is held in the South Canterbury Museum collection (catalogue number 1385), with the following title and description: ‘Tour of Waimate County Councillors. Four Waimate County Councillors pictured in an Oldsmobile motor vehicle, pictured while on a tour over Burkes Pass into the Mackenzie and through the Hakataramea Pass to Waimate in March 1904.’

The councillors have been identified as George St. Andrews, G. E. Bremner, Sam Clarke, and Robert Rhodes.

Waimate is situated roughly midway between Oamaru and Timaru on New Zealand’s South Island.