NOTE ON MANUSCRIPT ACCESSIONS

Turnbull Library Record, Volume I, Issue 2, 1 November 1967, Page 32

NOTE ON MANUSCRIPT ACCESSIONS

M. S.

It is proposed that henceforth the more important additions to the Library’s holdings of manuscript should be noted regularly in the Record. Individual pieces are being acquired continuously by donation or purchase and it is practicable to list selectively only groups or collections of some size or on which staff have been working for some time in the compilation of the necessary inventories. It is hoped that next year a loose-leaf edition of the Library’s holdings will be available. This will be a preliminary to a fuller printed catalogue to be published as part of the Library’s 1970 jubilee programme. The following items are a selection made without prejudice to the many smaller individual pieces of equal significance in their own fields which it has been necessary to omit. ASHWORTH Edward, 1814-1896

Journals, 1841-1845 3V. illustrated. Various sizes. Part Diary, part reminiscence concerning Ashworth’s voyage to New Zealand, fifteen months stay in Auckland, three months sojourn in Sydney, voyage to and residence in Hong Kong. Ashworth was an architect and surveyor; one notebook is illustrated with his paintings of scenes in Australia, New Zealand and at sea.

BARRIF Sir James Matthew, 1860-1937 The boy David; a play in 3 acts. 150 1.26 cm. Typescript, bearing earlier title: The two farmers. Author’s own copy, extensively annotated by him. Includes 2p. MS, and MS letter from Peter Davies, publisher (Barrie’s executor) to Mrs C. L. Murray whose late husband was Barrie’s nephew.

BENNETT George, Lieut., 1808-1845 Journal, 1838-1845.176 1, ca. 22 blank 1. 21 cm. Describes Bennett’s experiences travelling and surveying in Ireland 1838-40; voyage to Sydney, 1841, on the Lady Clarke; brief stay in Sydney; voyage to New Zealand in 1842; impressions of Kororareka and Russell; residence in Auckland and Wellington. BULLER Walter Lawry, 1838-1906 Letter books and account books, 1877-1892.15 V. 37cm. iov. of letter books, 1877-92, and SV. of account books, 1878-85, all from period when Buller, as senior partner in firm of Buller, (Lewis) & Gully, barristers & solicitors, was engaged largely in Maori Land Court work. CARNEGIE Andrew, 1835-1919

New Zealand library applications. Photocopies. 2v. Applications ca. 1900-25 from New Zealand Local Authorities to Andrew Carnegie for grants to erect library buildings.

Includes typed inventory. Original on 16mm microfilm supplied, 1966, by Carnegie Corporation of New York.

GIFFORD Algernon Charles, 1862-1948 Gifford-Bickerton papers, 1877-1946. 9ft. Papers of A. C. Gifford and A. W. Bickerton, whose common interest was Astronomy. Gifford’s other interests include Shakespeare authorship, Social Credit, tramping in Tc Anau-Milford area, Christ’s College, and Wellington College. Professor Bickerton’s papers, which, after his death, were sent to A. C. Gifford, include 29 vols. of journal, 1911-28, concerned with astronomical matters, problems of advancing age, and daily activities. Large mass of articles and notes relates mainly to astronomy, but refers, too, to his dismissal from the academic staff of Canterbury University College by the College Board of Governors, 1895. RANSTEAD William, 1860-1944

Additional papers, ca. 18 ins. Correspondence, newspaper cuttings, photographs, concerned with the history of the Clarion newpaper and those associated with it; the Socialist Soup Van; the Toynbee Hall Lectures; the Clarion settlers who emigrated to New Zealand in 1900; Keir Hardie’s visit to New Zealand Labour Churches in England and New Zealand. RED CROSS. New Zealand Red Cross Society Correspondence, ca. 1941-1945. sft. Mainly files of correspondence of the Prisoners of War Enquiry Office of the Society which are concerned with the tracing of New Zealand prisoners of war and of civilian internees. Included is correspondence with the Australian Red Cross, International Red Cross, Geneva, New Zealand Base Records, Wellington, New Zealand Red Cross branches and subcentres, the offices of the New Zealand Prime Minister and High Commissioner (London), and with relatives making enquiries. REEVES family Commonplace and birthday book, 1865-, ca. 800 pages, 21 cm. Many of the birthday entries are autograph signatures. Contains five photographs, including one of Risingholme. PETCH Robert, 1852-?

Papers. 1876-1882. 41 items. Outward correspondence to his family in England from Kakaramea in the Taranaki Province where Petch initially bought land but was ultimately forced to sell at a loss. The letters, scattered with anecdotes of local interest, give a very full impression of early Colonial life in a fast growing settlement, still under the influence of uncertain Maori-Pakeha relations, with emphasis on domestic, agricultural and economic establishment.

SELWYN George Augustus, Bishop, 1809-1878 Letter book of Bishop Selwyn, 1841-1845; copies in various hands, iv. unpaged. 26 cm. illustrated. Mainly copies of letters written by Bishop Selwyn to his family in England, including one to the Reverend E. S. Coleridge. Describes his voyage to New Zealand on the Tomatin, and his ecclesiastical visitations throughout New Zealand, including commentary on landscape and native habitat, with emphasis on preaching and teaching carried out amongst the natives, the establishing of mission stations, especially the Waimate, and on the attack made on Heke’s pa and the sacking of Kororareka. Includes letters from the Archbishop of Canterbury, short extracts from the letters of H. and W. Williams and copies of newspaper reports on Bishop Selwyn’s activities in Australia and New Zealand. There are illustrations, possibly by Caroline Abraham. TURNER Henry J. fl. 1869-1872

Papers, 1869-1872. 8 items. Outward correspondence from Cambridge, Waikato where Turner worked as a stockrider and on a flax mill, written to his mother and brother in England. The letters include references to economic and agricultural conditions and to the shortage of Anglican Clergy in New Zealand, with some emphasis on troubled relations existing between Maori and Pakeha, and on the system of unofficial land sale. TURNBULL Walter, 1823-1897 Original journal and notes of Mr and Mrs Walter Turnbull, 1857-1880. Account books of John Turnbull, 1825-1853. 2 vols. ports. 22 cm. Contains: diaries of Turnbull’s voyage to New Zealand, 1857, on the John McVicar, a letter written by his wife to a friend, journal kept on a voyage from Wellington to London, 1870, on the Halcione, a brief biographical sketch, 1872, and a family history, two journals kept on board the Nemesis on a voyage from London, 1876, four letters written to his wife on a voyage from London to Wellington, 1880, and account books, with personal notes, of John Turnbull (father of Walter), 18251853. Includes photos of John, Walter and Alexandria Turnbull. WORSLEY Frank Arthur, 1872-1943 Diary and logs relating to the British Arctic Expedition 1925, under the leadership of Captain F. A. Worsley and Grettir Algarsson. 3 vols. 37 cm.

Diary and logs kept on the Brig Island, during the last Polar expedition in a sailing ship. Includes: rough log kept by Worsley, containing historical notes on the Franz Josef Archipelago and records of the ship’s day-to-day position: Worsley’s personal dairy, with notes on preparations for the voyage, humorous anecdotes, detailed descriptions of Arctic regions, particularly of Franz Josef Land, with some emphasis on marine and wildlife and on passages made through pack ice. These

diaries have been the basis of Worsley: Under sail in the frozen North, London 1927: official log kept by F. W. Dunn-Taylor. WRIGHT Sydney Evelyn, 1825-1897 Journals, 1839-1894. 12 v. various sizes. First six volumes concerned mainly with life at sea, but include (Vol. 3) 1841-1844, a period of nine months in New Plymouth. The daily round in Lyttelton, Christchurch and Wellington in later volumes. Vol. n is a journal of a period in Burma in 1848. Vol. 12 is miscellaneous papers, logs etc.

Of the papers listed, the Ashworth Collection is being typed and editorial work towards publication has been undertaken by Mrs I. M. Winchester. The Endowment Trust has also decided that the Bennett Journal should be published. This will be put in hand as soon as essential editorial work has been completed. In amplification of the formal entry for the GifFord-Bickerton papers, it may be mentioned that Mr Gifford, who was a master at Wellington College for 32 years and an astronomer with a reputation far beyond New Zealand, preserved a life-time’s inward correspondence personal as well as that concerning his work and interests (the College, astronomy, the authorship of Shakespeare, tramping). He received the papers of Professor Bickerton after the latter’s death, and these came to us also. Apart from a great deal of astronomical material, Professor Bickerton’s 29 large volumes of diary-journal, will be a goldmine for a biographer, and still rich for students of a wide range of scientific and historical subjects both in England and in New Zealand. The Ramsden papers, referred to in the Turnbull Library Record XV: p. 13, have arrived at the Library in separate lots, over a fairly long period. They have now been provisionally sorted, and are relatively accessible. Mr Ramsden’s drafts of his uncompleted biographies of Sir Peter Buck, Sir Apirana Ngata and Princess Te Puea are naturally subject to copyright limitations but the associated background material is a rich collection of papers indeed, containing much personal and biographical matter, and - the outstanding feature - both sides of a long, full, and regular correspondence between Buck and Ngata. As a record of the thoughts, activities and personal interaction of two great Maoris, this surviving correspondence is as yet unique.