Before Official Statistics The early commerce of wallpaper in New Zealand

its wallpaper, was part of the framework of moral and social etiquette which pervaded the Victorian age (1839-1901). The history of wallpaper in New Zealand is hence part of a broader history of Pakeha settlement and the mode and rate of the land's colonisation. This article uses data from newspaper advertisements for wallpaper to attempt to ascertain the amounts and type of wallpaper consumed in New Zealand during these years, as well as to give some insight into the emergence of specialised wallpaper market. This research begins to indicate the ubiquitous nature of wallpaper as a building material, and suggests that the dominant status of Pakeha, as played out in architecture, is apparent from the late 1860s. New Zealand began publishing statistics on the importation of wallpaper in 1867. Prior to this, there is little information available about the early consumption of wallpaper (or paperhangings as they were known). Wallpaper was both a functional and a decorative aspect of nineteenth-century New Zealand dwellings. It aided thermal comfort by reducing drafts in timber houses. It was also a reminder of the new settlers' former homes, an image of civilisation, status and fashion, and a sign of the new cultures which had arrived in New Zealand. If the house reflected the aspirations of its inhabitants, its decoration, including