On this day 1939, Wellington's beloved Paddy the Wanderer passed away. Paddy was an Airedale Terrier believed to have been once called ‘Dash’ and was given as a gift to a young girl named Elsie, daughter of a seaman.

Elsie, her mother and Dash, would often go to the wharves in Wellington, New Zealand to greet her father's ship. In 1928, three-year-old Elsie died of pneumonia and in his grief Dash ran away from home and, being familiar with the Wellington docks, settled in.

He befriended cabbies and seamen, who began referring to him as Paddy. He was quite a traveller – he visited many other New Zealand ports, and is thought to have crossed the Tasman on more than one occasion – some say he even went as far as San Francisco!

But he always found his way back to Wellington.

Just as Paddy adopted the waterfront, the community adopted him. Taxi drivers and dockyard employees raised money for a collar and registration.

This went on for years until the Wellington Harbour Board took responsibility for Paddy and bestowed on him the title of ‘Assistant Night Watchman In Charge of Pirates, Rodents and Smugglers’.

Against one wall of the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts
Wellington, is a special memorial for Paddy the Wanderer, which was unveiled in 1945. Consisting of a brass plaque mounted above a drinking fountain, with two drinking bowls for dogs at ground level.

Which was paid for by Paddy's many friends. Also, a life-sized statue of Paddy is proudly on display here at Wellington Museum.

Pictured is Paddy the Wanderer in Wellington, 1935 via the Alexander Turnbull Library.