A Chronology of Turnbull Events 1973-1990

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 24, Issue 1, 1 May 1991, Page 9

A Chronology of Turnbull Events 1973-1990

During the years that Jim guided the destiny and development of the Alexander Turnbull Library many events took place; following are some highlights from ‘The Traue Years’ that are particularly remembered by him. They illustrate well the increasing interaction between the Library and its support groups and the larger roles played by both the Friends of the Turnbull Library and the Endowments in recent years. The Friends were more active in taking the interests of the Library to a wider public and they assumed a new role in providing financial assistance on a regular basis for major purchases. The Endowments became a major source of funds for collection building, developed a wide ranging programme to publish materials from the collections and scholarly research based on the collections, and directly promoted scholarly research and conferences related to the Library’s specialisations.

1973 J. E. Traue appointed Chief Librarian on 16 April to succeed A. G. Bagnall and took up duties full-time on 2 July. Government made special grant of $45,000 to the Endowment Trust to assist with the purchase of three major collections; the Antoine Chazal illustrations from the Duperrey expedition to New Zealand in 1824; the Wilkie Collection of 342 paintings by Sir William Fox; and 5 watercolour portraits of Maori chiefs by G. F. Angas. Audiovisual ‘Alexander Turnbull and his Library’ created by Dobbs-Wiggins-McCann-Erickson for the Library.

1974 Purchase of 12 watercolours of the Southern Alps by John Gully from the Royal Geographical Society by the Endowment Trust. Purchase of collection of 694 volumes of books by or relating to John Milton from G. William Stuart with the assistance of grants from the T. G. Macarthy Trust, the Endowment Trust and the National Library, announced on 3 November. Exhibition to mark tercentenary of John Milton’s death opened on 8 December. Donation of collection of sixteenth century Bibles and prayer books from the estate of Sir Arthur Howard. Purchase of the papers of James Courage, the novelist, by the Hocken Library with the assistance of the Endowment Trust.

Publication of E. H. McCormick’s biography, Alexander Turnbull, His Life His Circle His Collections, commissioned by the Endowment Trust to mark the Library’s jubilee in 1970. Creation of the Archive of New Zealand Music to collect materials relating to the composition and performance of music in New Zealand.

1975 Creation of the War History Documentation Centre to provide a focus for the accelerated collection of diaries, letters, photographs and other original materials relating to New Zealand’s war activities. Creation of the New Zealand Women’s History Research Collection during International Women’s Year to attract more diaries, letters, archives, photographs, paintings, drawings, scrapbooks, and other original materials relating to women’s contribution to New Zealand’s history. Donation of Beverly Randall Collection of New Zealand infant readers to the Library. Donation of papers of Sir John Marshall, Sir Sidney Holland, and Sir Keith Holyoake to the Library. Archival repository programme for the papers of Members of Parliament announced. Exhibition, ‘Electioneering New Zealand Style’, to display the Library’s resources for the study of New Zealand politics.

1976 Policy adopted for the systematic collection of the papers of New Zealand writers, and the archives of literary magazines and publishers. Archives of A. H. & A. W. Reed publishers deposited in the Library. Policy adopted for the collecting of portraits of New Zealand artists and writers, and the first portraits commissioned. Purchase of collection of 131 drawings by William Webb Ellis from James Cook’s third voyage with the assistance of the Lottery Board, the Macarthy Trust, the Endowment Trust, and D. G. Medway. First Donors’ Exhibition mounted to acknowledge the vital role of donors in building the Library’s collections, with financial assistance from the Friends.

1977 Biennial conference of university history departments held in the Library in February. Conference of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand held in the Library in February.

Bible Society in New Zealand deposited its collection of medieval manuscripts and pre-1800 Bibles and related works. Library placed subscription to the microfilm edition of the Thomason Tracts, 22,000 items published between 1640 and 1661. Two staff members sent to Maori language course at the Wellington Polytechnic to improve the Library’s Maori language capabilities. Editorship of Turnbull Library Record passed from A. G. Bagnall to J. E. Traue.

1978 Creation of the Alexander Turnbull Library Research Endowment Fund by the Endowment Trust Board to enable financial assistance to be provided to encourage research based on the Library’s collections and to sponsor conferences, seminars, lectures and meetings on subjects related to the Library’s collection. Establishment grants made by the Todd Foundation, the Sir John Ilott Trust, the Sutherland Self-help Trust, and the Lottery Board. First conference of early modern historians in New Zealand held at the Library, 17-18 June, with the assistance of the Research Endowment Fund, and the British Council for the participation of Professor Geoffrey Elton. National conference on New Zealand social history held at the Library, 12-20 August, with the assistance of grants from the Research Endowment Fund for the conference and for the publication of the proceedings in the New Zealand Journal of History.

Purchase of G. F. Angas’s watercolour of Pepepe mission station, 1844, and Augustus Earle’s Bay of Islands 1828, by the Endowment Trust with assistance from the Lottery Board. Purchase of John Webber’s portrait of Tu (Pomare I of Tahiti) with the assistance of the Endowment Trust.

1979 First annual Fulbright senior research award for study at the Turnbull made to Professor Alfred W. Crosby of the Department of American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Publication of J. C. Beaglehole’s Death of Captain Cook in a limited edition of 50 copies to mark the bicentenary of Cook’s death. Limited edition produced by Alan Loney at the Hawk Press, and a facsimile edition of 1000 copies published by the Endowment Trust.

Publication by Oxford University Press of Katherine Mansfield’s Urewera Notebook edited by lan Gordon from the manuscript in the Library. Purchase of the Guy and Maude Morris Mansfield Collection. Three new staff positions created; Subject Specialist (Maori Manuscripts) to develop the Maori language manuscript collections as a national resource for scholarly research; Curator of Drawings and Prints; and Music Librarian, Archive of New Zealand Music.

1980 Donation of collection of 24 watercolours by Sir Frederick Weld to the Library by the Scrope Family. First research grants made by the Research Endowment Fund, to I. F. G. Milner to write a biography of Frank Milner based on the Milner papers in the Library, and to J. M. Thomson for a history of New Zealand music. First commercial sponsorship of a Library publication: New Zealand Wool Board sponsored special set of reproductions of paintings by A. J. Cooper for the benefit of the Research Endowment Fund. Publication of the first instalment of the National Register of Archives and Manuscripts, compiled by the staff of the Manuscripts Section of the Library. Publication by Oxford University Press for the Library of Kathleen Coleridge’s Descriptive Catalogue of the Milton Collection in the Alexander Turnbull Library. Publication by the Wesley Historical Society of J. E. Traue’s Methodism in New Zealand: Resources for Historical Research in the Alexander Turnbull Library, a Wesley Historical Society lecture. The Chief Librarian travelled overseas for three months to visit libraries in the United States, Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the Federal Republic of Germany, with the assistance of grants from the Endowment Trust, the Trustees of the National Library, the National Library, the Council of Library Resources, the British Council, the Netherlands Government, the International Committee of the Library Associations of the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Swedish Government.

1981 First national conference of musicologists in New Zealand held at the Library with the assistance of grants from the Research Endowment Fund. Subscription placed by the Library for the national set of Banks’ Florilegium with the assistance of grants from the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Endowment Trust, and the National Library. New series of annual Turnbull Winter Lectures inaugurated by the Friends of the Library. Chief Librarian visited the United States to attend the ‘quarter of a millenium’ celebrations of the Library Company of Philadelphia and to negotiate the distribution of the Abbot prints in the United States.

1982 Publication of a new series of photographic prints by the Endowment Trust inugurated with six reproductions of photographs by the Tyree brothers of Nelson. Publication of Frank Sargeson’s Conversation with My Uncle as a keepsake for the Sargeson memorial exhibition. Two hundred copies printed by Alan Loney at the Hawk Press.

Publication of Denis Glover’s Reading Room Rules at the Tumbril Library in a limited edition of 250 copies by Alan Loney at the Hawk Press. Publication of ‘Scores of Sounds’, a piece for wall designed and composed by Jenny McLeod for the exhibition, ‘Facets of New Zealand Composition since 1940’. Remainder of Frank Sargeson’s papers purchased from his estate to complete the Library’s holdings. Anthony Stones commissioned to produce the first of a number of bronze heads of prominent New Zealand writers for the Library.

1983 National conference on the History of Science in New Zealand, sponsored by the Library and the Royal Society of New Zealand, held 12-14 February, with the assistance of grants from the Research Endowment Fund and commercial firms. Publication by the Endowment Trust of the first of five volumes of Early Eyewitness Accounts of Maori Life, Extracts from Journals . . . of the French Ship St Jean Baptiste in December 1769 . . . with transcriptions and translations by Isabel Ollivier and Cheryl Hingley. The series later attracted sponsorship from Indosuez New Zealand Ltd.

Publication by the Auckland University Press in association with the Endowment Trust of George Pritchard’s The Aggressions of the French at Tahiti, edited by Paul De Deckker from the manuscript in the Library. Publication by the Auckland University Press in association with the Endowment Trust of Dear Lady Ginger: an Exchange of Letters between Lady Otto line Morrell and D’Arcy Cresswell, edited by Helen Shaw from the D’Arcy Cresswell papers in the Library. Publication by Canterbury University of Two Maori Stories from Marlborough, recorded by Tuiti Makitanara, edited and translated by Melodie Watson and Margaret Orbell from the manuscript in the Library.

Publication of first Turnbull Calendar by INL Print in association with the Endowment Trust. Publication of the Turnbull Library Record relinquished by the Friends and picked up by the Endowment Trust, with a joint advisory board. Subscription placed for ‘The Eighteenth Century’, a microfilm edition of some 200,000 titles from the Eighteenth Century Short-title Catalogue.

Endowment Trust appointed its first Development Secretary (Mrs Francoise Norrish) to encourage donations and bequests to the Endowments and to seek sponsorships for the activities of the Endowment Trust Board. First issue of the Newsletter of the Friends of the Library. Friends organise programme on Access Radio.

Milton’s birthday celebrated at a function at Homewood at which the Centennial Fund launched to raise SIOO,OOO for major purchases for the Library.

1984 Publication by Scottish Academic Press of James Hogg’s Anecdotes of Sir W. Scott, edited by Douglas S. Mack from the original manuscript in the Library. Publication by the Royal Society of New Zealand of In Search of New Zealand’s Scientific Heritage, the proceedings of the History of Science in New Zealand conference.

Publication by the Endowment Trust with the assistance of the New Zealand Composers’ Foundation of Douglas Lilburn’s A Search for Tradition. Publication by the Endowment Trust with the assistance of the New Zealand Founders’ Society of Victoria’s Furthest Daughters, by Patricia Sargison, of the Reference Section. Publication of the first volume of The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield, edited by Margaret Scott and Vincent O’Sullivan mostly from the original manuscripts in the Library. Kenneth Quinn engaged to produce a collection of black and white photographic portraits of New Zealanders prominent in cultural and intellectual life, later sponsored by State Insurance.

Lilburn Trust established to foster and promote New Zealand music, for the general advancement of music and the preservation of musical archives, and in support of the interests of the Turnbull Library, under the administration of the Endowment Trust Board. Chief Librarian delivered paper on the bibliographical resources for New Zealand studies at the British Library’s colloquium on resources for Australian and New Zealand studies in London in February.

Chief Librarian appointed to the Advisory Board of the Stout Research Centre for the Study of New Zealand Society, History and Culture at Victoria University. Professional colloquium of staff from the Turnbull and the Library of the University of Hawaii held in Wellington in October. Friends of the Library inaugurated the annual commemoration of Alexander Turnbull’s birthday with a social function on 15 September.

1985 Publication by Victoria University Press in association with the Endowment Trust of D. F. McKenzie’s Oral Culture, Literacy & Print in Early New Zealand: the Treaty of Waitangi. Publication by the Endowment Trust in association with the Institute of Pacific Studies and the Solomon Islands National Library of Sally Edridge’s Solomon Islands Bibliography to 1980.

Publication by the Endowment Trust in association with the New Zealand Composers’ Foundation of Douglas Lilburn’s A Search for Language. Publication of volume 2 of Early Eyewitness Accounts.

Publication by Victoria University Press of Ross Harvey’s A Bibliography of Writings about New Zealand Music Published to the end of 1983, research for which was supported by a grant from the Research Endowment Fund. Publication by Victoria University Press in association with the Endowment Trust of J. E. Traue’s New Zealand Studies: A Guide to Bibliographic Resources.

Publication by the Endowment Trust with the assistance of a grant from the Post Office of‘Pictures to Post’, a poster commissioned from Gary Tricker to advertise the Turnbull prints. Purchase of portrait of Sir Joseph Banks with the assistance of a grant from Sir Charles and Lady Fleming.

Bequest of $32,000 to the Endowment Trust from the estate of Jean Lenore Paterson. ‘Strategic Approaches of the Alexander Turnbull Library 1985-1989’ drawn up as part of National Library’s Strategic Management Plan. First survey of the Library’s users conducted by Urban Research Associates.

1986 Publication by Auckland University Press in association with the Endowment Trust of the first volume of the Buck-Ngata letters, Na To Hoa Aroha, edited by Keith Sorrenson from the manuscripts in the Library. Publication by Oxford University Press in association with the Endowment Trust of John Boultbee’s Journal of a Rambler, edited by June Starke from the original manuscript in the Library.

Publication by John Mclndoe of Frederick Page: A Musician’s Journal 1905-1983, edited by J. M. Thomson and Janet Paul from the original in the Library. Publication of volumes 3 and 4 of Early Eyewitness Accounts. Publication of a special women’s studies issue of the Turnbull Library Record. Major bequest to the Endowment Trust from the estate of E. G. Jacoby. Professor Steven Koblik of Pomona College visited New Zealand under the auspices of the Library, with the assistance of the Pharazyn Trust.

Library vacated the Freelance Building, 44 The Terrace, and moved to temporary accommodation until the new National Library building ready for occupation in 1987. Reorganization of Library began with the creation of two major divisions under a Keeper of the Collections and a Reader Services Librarian. First Newspaper Librarian appointed to be responsible for the National Newspaper Collection in the Library. Friends commissioned a banner for the Library.

1987 New National Library building opened to the public on 1 July. First day readers at the Turnbull issued with a numbered certificate admitting them to membership of the Alexandrian Club. New Zealand Oral History Archive accommodated within Turnbull. Friends celebrate the ‘safe-harbouring’ of the Turnbull in the new building with a social function, ‘A Celebration of a Heritage’, on the occasion of Turnbull’s birthday in September.

Turnbull Library’s public catalogues available on microfilm for sale to the public. Publication of revised edition of volume 1 of Early Eyewitness Accounts. Subscription placed for ‘Publishing, the Booktrade and the Diffusion of Knowledge’ from ‘The Nineteenth Century’, a microfilm edition of printed books in English. New Zealand Society of Genealogists launched sesquicentenary biography competition. The essays submitted were to be lodged in the Library as a biographical research collection accessible through a published inventory and index.

Creation of new position of Te Kai-tiaki i nga Korero Maori. Rory Sweetman awarded first National Library Research Fellowship to complete a book on Archbishop Liston’s trial for sedition. Accommodation provided within the Library. Bernard Smith delivered on 15 November inaugural Founder’s Lecture sponsored by the Friends.

1988 Publication of Women’s Words: A Guide to Manuscripts and Archives in the Alexander Turnbull Library Relating to Women in the Nineteenth Century, compiled by Diana Meads, Philip Rainer and Kay Sanderson. Publication of Katherine Mansfield: Manuscripts in the Alexander Turnbull Library. Publication by SeTo Publishing Ltd of a facsimile edition of Ernest Shackleton’s Aurora Australis from the Kinsey copy in the Library.

Publication by the Endowment Trust of a facsimile of the Katherine Mansfield letter as a keepsake to mark the occasion of the centennial Mansfield exhibition based on the Library’s collections. Purchase of a collection of Czech fine printing. Photographic documentary project to record major changes in the Post Office undertaken with the financial assistance of New Zealand Post. Lesbian and Gay Archive of NZ deposited in the Library under special agreement.

New position created of Special Printed Collections Librarian to be responsible for the collections of early printed books and fine printing. Margaret Scott awarded second National Library Research Fellowship to prepare a new edition of Katherine Mansfield’s notebooks from the originals in the Library.

Chief Librarian awarded 30 day International Visitors Award by the United States Government to visit research libraries in the United States and to arrange for the loan of rare books for a sesquicentennial exhibition. Chief Librarian appointed to the Advisory Committee, Historical Branch. Bell Gully Buddie Weir agreed to provide two-year sponsorship for the Library’s public events through the Endowment Trust.

1989 Publication by Auckland University Press in association with the Library of Mrs Hobson’s Album, edited by Elsie Locke and Janet Paul from the original manuscript in the Library. Publication by Allen and Unwin with the assistance of the Endowment Trust of Frances Porter’s Born to New Zealand, based on the Richmond-Atkinson papers in the Library.

Purchase for $106,000 of nineteen portraits of Maori painted around 1843, with assistance of a major grant from the Friends’ Centennial Fund, and grants from the Lottery Board and the National Library. Michael King awarded National Library Research Fellowship to write a biography of Frank Sargeson based on the Sargeson papers in the Library. Jamie Belich, the James Cook Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, accommodated within the Turnbull for the duration of his fellowship. Second survey of the Library’s users conducted by Urban Research Associates.

1990 Publication by the Polynesian Society in association with the Library of Part IV of Sir Apirana Ngata’s Nga Moteatea edited by Dr Tamati Reedy from the manuscript in the Library. Publication of microfiche edition of Turton’s Land Deeds of the North Island. Publication of microfiche edition of Woman To-Day, with an index by Barbara Matthews of the Reference Section.

Publication of a special issue of the Turnbull Library Record on the Maori resources in the Library. Creation of the New Zealand Cartoon Archive in the Library. J. E. Traue took early retirement from the National Library, effective 15 June 1990, and took up a position as Teaching Fellow in the Department of Librarianship at Victoria University on 2 July 1990. He was farewelled by the Friends on 13 September at the annual function commemorating the birthday of Alexander Turnbull.