Ōtorohanga Historical Society president Maggie Hughes (left), Ōtorohanga Museum director Liz Cowan (middle) and museum creative co-ordinator Rebecca Ngāpō get ready for the ‘Harrodsville’ exhibition starting at the museum today. Photo: Dan Tasker
It’s a blast from the past today at Ōtorohanga Museum today as the town remembers when it became Harrodsville 40 years ago.
The year was 1986 and world leading luxury department store Harrods was threatening legal action against several small New Zealand businesses trading under the same name, including the Harrods restaurant run by Henry Harrod in Palmerston North.
- The creative coordinator at the Otorohanga museum is Rebecca Ngāpō not Natalie. We apologise and have fixed it online.
Ōtorohanga Museum creative co-ordinator Rebecca Ngāpō (left), museum director Liz Cowan (middle) and Ōtorohanga Historical Society president Maggie Hughes get ready for the ‘Harrodsville’ exhibition starting at the museum today. Photo: Dan Tasker
The story hit national news, where it caught the eye of Ōtorohanga businessman Barry Marx, who was so annoyed with Harrods picking on the little guys, he decided to take action.
Marx went to the Ōtorohanga Business Association, led by Rocky Climo, and signed up 73 businesses to temporarily change their names to Harrods and hang Harrods banners across their shop fronts, while the Ōtorohanga District Council renamed itself the Harrodsville District Council.
Ōtorohanga Museum director Liz Cowan was a young rural mum at the time and she remembers it as a cause the whole town got behind.
“I remember going into town and seeing the sign on Fisher Fabrics’ window, which said, ‘When you’re next in the UK, visit our London branch’, and I thought that was hilarious,” Cowan said.
“It basically gave everyone, rural and town, one hell of a lift because it was so cheeky and so original. Harrods ultimately backed down,” she said.
Earlier this year, Cowan came across some Harrodsville memorabilia and remembered 2026 was the 40th anniversary, so she and creative co-ordinator Natalie Ngāpō put the idea of a museum exhibition to the committee and the rest is history.
“I came across some bits that said Harrodsville and I thought, ‘Hang on a minute’, and then I did my maths – 1986, 2026 – and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s 40 years and gee, it was fun’. I thought maybe we should do an exhibition and I put it to the committee who thought absolutely and it’s grown from there,” Cowan said. “It was mid-winter, economic times were tough and it just gave everyone a real buzz, so we thought we’d have a go recreating it,” she said.
The exhibition features video footage of the original TV One story which broke on June 10, 1986 and was reported on by rock music journalist Dylan Taite, making Ōtorohanga world-famous for sticking it to the big boys.
“Nobody really knows about it yet, but we’ve got the original two-minute TV news segment that was broadcast in 1986, which kind of set the whole thing viral,” Cowan said.
The exhibition also includes a letter written by Henry Harrod’s sister thanking Ōtorohanga for their efforts to help her brother, an original Harrods banner and t-shirts from the campaign, newspaper extracts from across the world and a curious crop of rhubarb.
At the time, car salesman Ian Hardy was presented with a bouquet of rhubarb after he sold a Toyota Cressida for $42,000 to a Wellington man wanting to buy something from Harrods.
Ōtorohanga Historical Society president Maggie Hughes (left), Ōtorohanga Museum director Liz Cowan (middle) and museum creative co-ordinator Rebecca Ngāpō get ready for the ‘Harrodsville’ exhibition starting at the museum today. Photo: Dan Tasker
