NOTES AND COMMENTS

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 7, Issue 1, 1 May 1974, Page 36

NOTES AND COMMENTS

Wilkie Collection of Sir William Fox Watercolours

In 1964 Mr and Mrs J. C. Wilkie placed a collection of 342 watercolours by Sir William Fox in the Alexander Turnbull Library on loan. An exhibition of all the New Zealand paintings held at the Library in 1965 helped to make Fox known as an artist of some note rather than as a temperance reformer and politician. In the Wilkie Collection are one hundred New Zealand subjects, a hundred of the United States, the balance being views in Australia, England, Europe and the Near East. They cover the eighteen-forties to eighties and virtually constitute a visual diary of Fox’s life at this time.

Among the most prized items in the Turnbull collections are twenty watercolours by Fox which were included in the hundred paintings by New Zealand Company artists (Heaphy, Fox, Mein Smith and Kettle) purchased in London by Mr Turnbull in 1915. Another hundred were selected by the artist for Dr Hocken. The Wilkie Collection, bequeathed by Fox to his god-daughter, Mr J. C. Wilkie’s mother, represents the bulk of what remains of the artist’s work. This is confirmed by the catalogue of a special exhibit by Fox in the art section of the Dunedin Exhibition of 1889.

The three 1965 Turnbull Prints included one Wilkie picture and two Turnbull Fox paintings; the 1966 Fox portfolio was made up of three paintings from each of the Turnbull and Wilkie holdings. It had been intended to mount a major touring exhibition comprising Fox watercolours selected from the Turnbull, Wilkie and Hocken collections, but staffing and other difficulties prevented this, although it had been announced as an early eventuality. In 1972 an exhibition of Fox watercolours from the Wilkie Loan Collection, together with a small number of paintings from the Library’s own collection was held at the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts gallery in Wellington. A catalogue “Around the World with William Fox” was prepared and published to mark the occasion.

In 1973 the Wilkie family indicated a willingness to sell the collection to the Library, and in December, after an independent valuation by Messrs J. H. Bethune and Go., and a series of family conferences, the Alexander Turnbull Library Endowment Trust purchased the entire collection. A considerable part of the purchase price was met from the special grant made to the Endowment Trust earlier in 1973 to enable it to acquire not only this corpus but also the Duperrey watercolours by Antoine Chazal (. . . Record 6 no. 2 October 1973, p. 35) and the G. F. Angas watercolour portraits of Maori chiefs. The collection is to be known as the Wilkie Collection to mark the

public spirit of the Wilkie family in allowing the paintings to be kept together as a collection available to the public in the Alexander Turnbull Library.

Business archives

Late in 1973 several groups of business records were deposited in the Library and if inquiries and promises made in the first quarter of 1974 are a true indication, business archives are likely to be one of the fastest growing sectors of acquisitions. The bulk of most business archive collections places considerable pressures on manuscripts staff for sorting, arranging, and the preparation of inventories, and creates accommodation difficulties, but the Library has a clear responsibility as the holder of the national collection of the literature relating to New Zealand to seek out and preserve such records.

On 8 November 1973 at a social function in the Wellington Chamber of Commerce’s rooms, the President, Colonel H. J. G. Low, presented the non-current records of the Chamber, dating from 1856 to the period of the Second World War, to the Library. The donation consists of over 20 feet of documents, the most significant of which are a complete run of the Minute Books of the Council and the Annual Reports from 1856, the year of the foundation of the Chamber. The Chief Librarian, in thanking Colonel Low and the Council of the Chamber for their generosity, spoke of the importance of preserving as wide a range of documentary evidence as possible so that future historians would have access to a reasonably representative corpus of records. To encourage the preservation of business records the Chamber was urged to support the establishment of a New Zealand Business Archives Council.

For many years the Library has held a run of New Zealand Shipping Company passenger lists. Early in December last year a small function was held in which the Company’s Deed of Incorporation (January 1873) and two oil paintings of early vessels (Waimate and Ruapehu ) were handed over to the Library. Along with these were given a run of reports and balance sheets up to 1914 and a collection of photographs. Non-current records of the Company are to be added from time to time. The Wellington Junior Chamber of Commerce have also deposited their non-current records with the Turnbull. They include minutes (1938-50) of its various boards, newsletters, clippings, and correspondence, 1960-70. Much of this material is concerned with the Jaycees community projects.

Diary of William Jowett

On October 30, 1973, the Library purchased a diary kept by William Jowett from Sotheby & Company, London. Jowett, a member of the

84th Regiment, accompanied convicts to Tasmania and New South Wales on H.M.S. Dromedary, 1816-21. After disembarking convicts at Port Jackson, the Dromedary continued on to the Bay of Islands to obtain a cargo of kauri spars. Samuel Marsden and James Shepherd, a new missionary recruit, accompanied the ship with supplies for the mission station at Kerikeri. At the beginning of the diary Jowett gives a short description of his military service but the bulk of the text details the voyage and the time spent in Australia and New Zealand. The Dromedary spent nine months (February-December, 1820) in New Zealand and Jowett describes the Maoris and their customs, his activities exploring and charting rivers and harbours, and attempts to obtain kauri timber.

Thomas Arnold Papers

A further gift of letters by Thomas Arnold the Younger and related materials arrived at the Library during March, 1974 from Mrs M. C. Moorman, Ripon, Yorkshire, England. The collection contains seventyfour items, 1848-1896, of which sixty-five are letters by Arnold. A majority of the letters were written from Tasmania and cover family matters, local gossip and his activities as Inspector of Schools, but some deal with the period when he resided in Dublin, Ireland. There are seven letters written to Arnold by his sister Mary while he was in New Zealand and Tasmania. This addition greatly broadens the scope of this important collection.

Stutchbury and others

The Library’s collections of nineteenth century geological records created by Julius von Haast, W. B. D. Mantell, and Samuel Stutchbury (see Turnbull Library Record, vol. 6 no. 2, October 1973) have, during the last three months, been consulted by Doctors D. F. Branigan and T. G. Vallance of the University of Sydney as part of their research into early geological observations made in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific, and into the life of Stutchbury for the Australian Dictionary of Biography. Interest in the Stutchbury items was also expressed by Bengt Danielsson, anthropologist and member of Heyerdahl’s Kon Tiki expedition.

St Peter’s Church, Wellington

St Peter’s Anglican Church recently deposited some of their church records. These include: Vestry Minute Books 1872-1961; Annual Reports, 1858-1947; Marriage Registers, 1856-1971; Baptismal Registers, 18571949; Burial Register, 1910-1958 and other miscellaneous records. This

collection provides further primary research material about religion and the church in Wellington and its registers will prove useful to genealogists.

Audio-Visual on Alexander Turnbull and his Library

Alexander Turnbull’s Library, the robust ghost of Bowen Street which has seen its predecessor and contemporary on the Turnbull family’s acre fall to the wrecking crew and now overlooks car pasturage, was reopened for one evening on 1 November 1973. The setting was chosen to match the occasion, the preview of an audio-visual presentation, Alexander Turnbull and his Library, produced by Dobbs-Wiggins McCann-Erickson Ltd., a Wellington advertising agency. With the familiar pictures restored to the walls of the entrance hall and the main staircase, the floral decorations at springtime strength, the hum of conversation and the clink of glasses, Alexander Turnbull’s Library was returned, if only briefly, to its pre-lapsarian glories.

The audio-visual, a sequence of slides with a linked commentary and background music, was produced free of charge for the Library as a public service by the agency. The preview audience, limited to about eighty because of accommodation and safety problems, included government and civic leaders, together with clients of Dobbs-Wiggins. The Hon. W. W. Freer, M.P. represented the Prime Minister, and was accompanied by the Hon. Henry May, M.P. and the Hon. Michael Connelly, M.P. The Hon. J. R. Marshall, M.P. and his deputy, the Hon. R. D. Muldoon, M.P. represented the Opposition. Other Members of Parliament present included Mr K. M. Comber and Mr W. L. Young. The Mayor, Sir Francis Kitts, and a number of city councillors were present. The Friends of the Turnbull Library were represented by the President, Professor D. F. McKenzie, and the Trustees of the National Library by Sir Alister Mclntosh.

Before the presentation, brief speeches were made by Mr Fred Dobbs, a director of the agency, and the Chief Librarian. The audio-visual is designed to play a major part in public relations activities with groups both inside and outside the Library. The first public showing was to the meeting of the Friends of the Turnbull Library on 29 November where it served, to quote the Chief Librarian, as a “souffle before the meat” of Nicolas Barker’s address.

Photograph Section move to Dixon Street

The Library’s Photograph Section has been operating from premises on the first floor of Gateway House on the comer of Dixon and Herbert Streets from the beginning of November 1973. The Section has for many years been housed outside the main building, first in Bowen House just around the corner from Alexander Turnbull’s library building and

latterly, after a brief, constricted return to the Turnbull Building, in the Local Government Building on The Terrace. The distance of the new premises from the main building at 44 The Terrace has caused considerable difficulties. The Photograph Section is not an independent unit capable of functioning in isolation from the other collections but an integral part of the Library’s topographical reference services, closely linked to the Art and Map collections and the Reference Section, and photographic staff draw constantly on the collections in the main building and the expertise of other staff. In order to maintain a reasonable level of staffing at Gateway House the staff of Photograph Section are concentrating work at the main building between 8.30 to 9.30 and 4.30 to 5.00, and the Section’s hours of opening to the public have had to be reduced to 10.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m.

The shift, an exercise of considerable magnitude (some quarter of a million photographs with associated negatives and their steel cabinet housing) was made over the weekend of 27-28 October, 1973. Detailed planning by staff members reduced the disruption to a minimum and public services were suspended for a little over two weeks. Well in advance of the move letters were sent to all the major users of the collection informing them of the change of address, the temporary suspension of services and the new hours of opening. Because of the short period of notice before the evacuation of the Local Government Building the Ministry of Works had little time to refurnish the new premises. They accomplished a minor miracle in cleaning and painting, but supply difficulties delayed the laying of carpet and the hanging of curtains. With luck the Gateway accommodation should be brought up to acceptable Turnbull Library standards by the middle of the year. As well as housing the Turnbull Library Photograph Section and manuscript and other materials to be transferred from the basement of the Bowen State Building the first floor at Gateway House is occupied by the National Library’s microfilm unit.

New Conservation Laboratory

Renovations on the ground and first floors in Mayfair Chambers (East Block) are complete and “conservation” in the Turnbull Library is expected to take on its larger meaning to include restoration. Most of the equipment was purchased some time ago so the laboratory is ready for use. Some of the equipment has been designed especially for this laboratory and this, along with certain imported machinery, is undergoing trials. Till now actual restoration work has been restricted to the repair of newspapers in preparation for microfilming. Part of the laboratory’s function is to determine the lasting properties of the materials

in the collection and using information thus gained, in conjunction with the librarians’ knowledge of the intrinsic value of these items, priorities for restoration will be assessed. A small photographic studio will document restoration work and commence systematic recording of the library’s art collection to provide quick access to pictorial material and as a safeguard, an important project previously hindered by the lack of photographic facilities on the premises.

Letters from Katherine Mansfield, John Middleton Murry, S. S. Koteliansky, Mark Gertler, and J. W. N. Sullivan to Sir Sydney Waterlow

Sydney Waterlow was cousin-once-removed to Sir Harold Beauchamp, being a grandson of Henry Herron Beauchamp, one of the brothers of Sir Harold’s father who settled in Australia. (One of Henry Herron Beauchamp’s daughters was ‘Elizabeth’ of Elizabeth and Her German Garden .) Sydney Waterlow was born in 1878 and educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated with honours. He published scholarly works on the Greek classics and on Shelley. He entered the diplomatic service where he had a distinguished career and in 1935 was created a K.C.M.G. Presumably it was through the Beauchamp connection that he came to know Katherine Mansfield and this group of her friends who formed the ‘Thursday Club’ for regular Thursday meetings. Katherine, in her letters to Murry, suggests several times that he try to get Sydney to pull strings when the Murrys were being frustrated by various authorities. These letters, which the Turnbull Library has just purchased from Professor John Waterlow, Sydney Waterlow’s son, are written between 1921 and 1928. Of the seven from Katherine Mansfield, six were written in 1921 and the other in 1922. All of the letters are interesting, reflecting Sydney Waterlow’s special qualities of sympathy, intellect and sensitivity; and the ones from Murry and Koteliansky throw fresh light on their famous breach. References to D. H. Lawrence abound in all the letters. And, because they were a ‘group’ all the correspondents comment on each other and each other’s lives. Altogether, this is a notable acquisition.

New Angas Watercolours

Five important paintings were purchased at auction by the Endowment Trust at Sotheby’s, London, on 1 November 1973 from part of the collection of the late T. E. Donne. Nine watercolours by Angas were offered but in view of the prices anticipated the Library decided not to bid for the two studies of Maori women, but to concentrate on the chiefs. One of the latter was lost to an Auckland collector at £3,000; he also bought another painting, of a New Guinea native. The Trust secured

the pictures most desired, two being unpublished portraits of ‘Civilized and christianized New Zealand Chief, Tamihana Te Rauparaha’, in European dress —a full-length portrait brought £2,000 and a head and shoulders portrait was secured for £1,600. Also purchased were ‘Mungakahu, Chief of Motupoi and his wife Ko Mari’—of particular interest to the Library since the original watercolour of ‘Motupoi’ Pa had been acquired by the Trust at Sotheby’s in March last year and has been published as one of the 1973 Turnbull Prints, along with the preliminary pencil drawing for it owned by Mr Turnbull. This chief went for £3,000. ‘Te Waru—principal chief of the Nga Te Apakura Tribe’ with ‘Te Pakaia principal chief of the Nga Te Manipoto Tribe’ cost the Trust £2,300, while £I,BOO was paid for ‘Ko Nga Waka Te Karaka or (Clark) Christian Chief of the Nga Te Waoroa Tribe, Waikato, and Wakauenuku his attendant boy’. Loose lithographs of the subjects accompanied two of the watercolours. Although the three paintings are of subjects in The New Zealanders Illustrated (1846-47) they are not the originals of these plates (27, 44 and 47 respectively). Much larger, they are on paper watermarked 1851, and may have been painted by Angas on commission after the success of his book. Of the total cost of $17,120, $15,000 was provided from the special Government grant of $45,000, the balance being met by the Trust. Contributions by the Endowment Trust to purchases for the Turnbull collections totalled $7,251 in 1970; $9,846 in 1971; $16,246 in 1972; and over $20,000 in 1973.

November meeting of Friends

On Thursday, 29 November, Nicolas Barker, editor of The Book Collector and author of the official biography of Stanley Morison, spoke to the Friends of the Turnbull Library on “Printing and publishing, past and present”. His informative and witty talk was warmly appreciated by an audience of about 50.

Angas Prints 1973

The Turnbull Library Prints for 1973, by George French Angas, were released at a reception held at the Library on 11 December. The guest speaker was the Hon. Henry May, M.P., Minister of Internal Affairs, and the newly purchased Angas watercolours were on exhibition. Details of the prints were given in the October 1973 Record and are on the back cover of this issue. The Angas set brings to 31 the number of Turnbull Prints published to date. Eight are sold out and stocks of several others are now limited. Returns from print sales bring a steady income to the Endowment Trust.

Postcards and Greetings Card The Friends propose to publish, later this year, two Postcards. In colour, these will be of Heaphy’s 1841 views of Thorndon and Te Aro. There will also be a black and white Greetings card, reproducing a pencil sketch of the Taita Gorge by William Swainson. Friends will be advised when these cards become available, and at what price they will sell.