Alice Woodhouse, 1883-1977

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 11, Issue 1, 1 May 1978, Page 4

Alice Woodhouse, 1883-1977

C. R. H. Taylor

When I came to the Turnbull Library in 1933, I joined a devoted little staff of four; Johannes Andersen in charge, Miss Hardie typist in the office, Miss Alice Woodhouse and Miss Davidson in the reference and cataloguing section. Miss Davidson, a most capable woman, retired shortly after I arrived.

For the next thirteen years, less two or three in the army and overseas, I worked with Alice Woodhouse. She was a clever, experienced and very knowledgeable woman of fifty, I a fledgling of twenty-eight with a minimum of library lore, a conventional university education and, I think, some feeling for books. She taught me a great deal, but better, she showed me how to use books. I admired her: we occasionally disagreed, very amicably, but after her death I was rather moved to realize how she cherished our association, for her sister-in-law returned to me the many letters that I had sent her in my several absences. Miss Woodhouse had a whimsical sense of humour, a rather explosive kind of laughter, an abrupt manner of speaking, but always to the point and very direct. She was particularly successful in eliciting from students just what they sought: for so often there is a curious secretiveness in readers coming to the reference room.

Despite her journalistic experience of some ten years on the Otago Witness, she wrote comparatively little; a delightful booklet Very Occasional Verses (1927), some articles in the Turnbull Library Record and other journals, some broadcast scripts, and two most useful booklets, one on British Regiments in Napier, and The Naming of Napier, both in 1970. These last two appeared during the many years of her librarianship of the Hawke’s Bay Museum which she joined not long after leaving the Turnbull in 1946. During my absence in the army in 1943-44 and at other times, she was in charge of the Library, when she showed how well she managed and “got on” with the growing staff and public alike. Scattered in the acknowledgement pages of many books are to be found expressions of appreciation of her competent assistance to the author in his researches.

But Miss Woodhouse was active in spheres other than the Library, for she was a member of the Wellington Committee of the Library Association and of the Hawke’s Bay Regional Committee of the Historic Places Trust. For several years she was on the Dominion Council and vice-president of the New Zealand Founders Society. And finally she was known to a far wider public for her remarkable general knowledge which led her to the distinguished honour of Queen of Quiz. It is good to know that her active mind and rich memory continued unimpaired through her great span of years.