Exploring Eliza Hobson’s Album from 1843

Press, 18 November 1989, Page 27

Exploring Eliza Hobson’s Album from 1843

Elsie Locke, of Christchurch, describes the detective work required to edit one of the first books produced in New Zealand.

When Eliza Hobson sailed for England in 1843, a widow with five young children, her friends in Auckland presented her with a handsome Album to remind her of her time in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Among other things it contained 50 drawings and watercolours, two manuscript poems, notes on Maori life, songs and proverbs, a poroporoaki (farewell message) in Maori, and the original of a much-quoted letter from Te Wherowhero asking the Queen to send as Governor a good man, like the one who had died.

the Alexander Turnbull Library. It will retail .at $54.

Everything in the original Album is there, in faithful colour and quality paper and binding, designed and given its new cover by Janet Paul.,As both practising artist and art historian who has compiled catalogues for several exhibitions, Janet Paul was well qualified to be art editor. Her essay on the contributors and copious notes on the contributions are a valuable supplement to the originals. The two of us worked happily as a team, with the addition of Christine Tremewan, of the Maori Studies Department at Canterbury University, to provide notes and new translations for the Maori texts and the commentaries in the “Album” by Edward Shortland. My primary task was to write about the Hobsons’ life in New Zealand. Initially I knew nothing whatever about Mrs Hobson. I discovered a charming woman, a loving marriage, and five young children, of whom the youngest was born in Auckland. I also gained considerable respect for Captain William Hobson, who laboured faithfully to perform his duties under very difficult circumstances. His instructions included being fair to the Maori, but this did not come into the perspectives of the New Zealand Company colonists who gave him a hard time. Until fairly recently our historians tended to see the Wakefields and the

In 1940 the Hobson descendants responded to appeals in Britain for the return of historical treasures to this country. For half a century the book, has rested in the Alexander Turnbull Library, known only to a few people and becoming increasingly fragile. And now, at last, it has become a gift to all of us. In its new form, “Mrs Hobson’s Album” was launched on October 20 by our present GovernorGeneral at Old Government House in Auckland, which stands on the site of the first Government House where the Hobsons lived.

Six years ago, Janet Paul and I were engaged as joint'editors by the Government Printing Office to prepare a fascimile edition, plus historical background and notes. This project was later set aside as being far too expensive for publishers and prospective buyers alike. Then a solution was found, and a more modest but still beautiful book has been produced by the Auckland University Press, in association with

Company as our noble founders and Hobson as a rather fumbling failure. The whole process of colonisation is being looked at afresh in these days when the Maori people have come forward boldly to tell of their experience.

That is by the way. Our primary task was to throw light on the contents of the “Album.” Few of the pictures had any identification as to the artist or the scene. As joint editors we did a prodigious amount of historical detection, and shared our findings. Janet Paul looked at work by artists of the time in Auckland, Wellington, Sydney and London, and included comparative pictures in her commentary and catalogue. Together we pored over early maps and sketches until we could mentally place the Waitemata waterfront as it used to be and see landscape features without their modem intrusions. Frequently we went

personally to stand on the spot where we deduced that the artist would have been.

To learn more about the artists we used both documentary sources and family information. This was particularly exciting in the case of the prolific Joseph Jenner Merrett, whose Maori wife Rangitetaea was portrayed in the “Album.” Merrett ranks as an early anthropologist with his pictorial recording of Maori life and ceremony, and proved to be a fascinating character himself. I wrote many letters and made personal visits to locate his descendants, who were eager to help.

For me, all this exploration has been a rich experience, and the book launching in Auckland a happy occasion. Janet Paul was represented by her daughter Mary, son-in-law Murray Edmond and granddaughter Harriet. At present overseas, she herself will be attending another book launching in London to whom the Rendel family will be invited. It is to the Rendels, descendants of the Hobsons, that we owe the generous donation of the original “Album.” ,