NEW ZEALAND RECORDS

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 105, 28 January 1929, Page 10

NEW ZEALAND RECORDS

VALUABLE DOCUMENTS OF HISTORY EARLY DAYS OF THE COLONY Dominion Special Service. • Auckland, January 26. An interesting statement was made at the Science Congress this morning by Dr. Scholefield, Controller of Dominion Archives, regarding books and records of the New , Zealand Company which established the settlements of Wellington, New Plymouth, Nelson, and Otago, in the early forties of the last century. Dr. Scholefield stated that when the company stopped colonising in' 1850 as a prelude to its dissolution in 1858, its records were carefully sorted, and eventually handed over to the Colonial Office. They included not only minute books and account books of the company, and of each of the settlements, but also the whole of the correspondence, including even original dispatches sent out to each of the resident agents in New Zealand. Such details as the attendance books of the directors’ meetings, calculations of fees due to directors, even spent cheques and petty cash vouchers, for the whole period of the company’s existence were preserved, and very methodically arranged. It is actually possible to trace by receipts the 2Jd. a day allowed to the office messenger in London for snuff, and each cab fare paid between Adam Street and Downing Street in the days when the company loomed large in the eye of the House of Commons. The system of keeping accounts and records was a tribute to the memory of Thomas Cudbert Harington, the secretary.

Records of the company duly found their way into the cellars of the public record office in London, where Dr. Scholefield had access to them twenty years ago for purposes of research. Following on a report by the late Dr. Hocken, a certain quantity was presented to New Zealand, and had been in the Dominion for twenty or thirty years. With the exception of some attention paid to them by the late Dr. Allan Thomson, Director of the Dominion Museum, they remained untouched until the appointment of the archivist two or three years ago. He naturally made it his duty to examine and organise at the earliest possible moment the papers which had been sent to New Zealand, and the work was now practically finished.- As a result, something like 150 volumes would be available as archive material. A list that Dr. Scholefield had just received from the public record office showed that they had retained more than 300 volunes in England.