At Least Fifty Ways to Use a Bandage

I find it interesting to explore the many ways in which an object can be viewed and interpreted. What captures my imagination may not be the same for you, and as a curator it’s important to think about what you might like to know.

Triangular first aid bandage. Image courtesy of Tauranga Heritage Collection, 2692/84

Take this triangular bandage for example, one of three slightly different models we have in the Tauranga Heritage Collection https://view.taurangaheritagecollection.co.nz/objects?query=triangular+bandage. Would you be interested to know its age, where it comes from or how it was used? [i] Would you expect an account of the history of triangular bandages or perhaps the graphic illustrations have caught your eye? They show the many ways a bandage can be applied in an emergency and guarantee that the instructions are never lost. Maybe you want to understand when instructions were first printed on bandages and who came up with the idea. [ii]

A close-up of graphics printed on the bandage. Image courtesy of Tauranga Heritage Collection, 2692/84

For my part, I wonder how this bandage might be exhibited? Would the focus of the exhibition be sport, health or a terrible disaster and perhaps, most importantly, what local story can it tell?

George Vesey Stewart, first Mayor of Tauranga in 1882. Image courtesy of Tauranga City Council

Through the writing of George Vesey Stewart, the town’s first Mayor, we learn that Tauranga has the distinction of having proposed the earliest establishment of a St John Ambulance Corps in New Zealand. On a business trip to England in 1885 Stewart wrote a column in the Bay of Plenty Times in which he not only promoted the association but spoke of triangular bandages being sent to Tauranga [iii]:

“My sister-in-law, Mrs Gulson, who is a District Honorary Secretary to the above charitable institution, is sending you out some useful publications issued by the Society, with diagrams on linen showing the various modes of bandage or extempore mode of relief to be applied to patients who may meet with accidents till medical assistance can be obtained. I would suggest that you leave this parcel at the Mechanics’ Institute … Mrs Gulson will ascertain whether a branch could not be started in Tauranga, with assistance from the parent society in London.”

A view of Harington Street showing the one-story timber Public Library building, formerly the Mechanics Institute, 1926
Image courtesy of Tauranga Heritage Collection, 0606/08

The Mechanics Institute, located in Harington Street, was the centre of knowledge and learning in Tauranga and, in the absence of a public hospital, was viewed as a suitable place to house a bandage like this one, amongst the books and museum objects. So, in a way, this bandage has come full circle.

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[i] Dr. Mathias Mayor is credited with ‘inventing’ the triangular bandage in 1831.

[ii] Printing instructions on a bandage was the idea of German Friedrich Esmarch who popularized its usage and is often mistaken as its inventor. He is credited as being the founder of modern first aid.

[iii] Tauranga 1882-1982