New Zealand History

In this podcast, Professor Richard Shaw whose great-grandfather took part in the 1881 invasion of Parihaka pā and farmed land taken from Taranaki iwi, discusses the entanglement of the small histories of settler families with the large history of the colonisation of Aotearoa New Zealand.

On the morning of 5 November 1881, an Irishman called Andrew Gilhooly formed up alongside other members of the Armed Constabulary at the entrance to Parihaka pā. He was there for the invasion, the occupation and — much later — for the farming of land taken from Taranaki iwi. But those events dropped out of the family stories handed down to Gilhooly’s descendants.

In this presentation, Richard Shaw, one of those descendants, explores the possible reasons for and purposes of this historical amnesia, and discusses the entanglement of the small histories of settler families with the large history of the colonisation of Aotearoa New Zealand. He also discusses his book, The Unsettled: Small Stories of Colonisation (MUP, 2024), which features stories shared by New Zealanders who are trying to figure out how to live well with their own pasts, their presents and their possible futures explores the layered histories embedded in three landscapes in the city.

Richard Shaw is a professor of politics at Massey University, where he teaches New Zealand politics and undertakes research on political advisers in the executive branch of government. His publications include The Edward Elgar Handbook on Ministerial and Political Advisers (2023) and Core Executives in a Comparative Context (with K. Koltveitt, 2022). His work has been published in journals such as Governance, Public Administration, Parliamentary Affairs, and Public Management Review. He is also the author of two books that address matters of memory and forgetting amongst settler families in Aotearoa New Zealand — The Forgotten Coast (2021) and The Unsettled: Small Stories of Colonisation (2024) — both published by Massey University Press.

The talk was recorded live at the National Library of New Zealand on 1 May 2024, as part of the Public History Talks series, a collaboration between the Alexander Turnbull Library and Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage.

Download a transcript of this talk (PDF)

The new book Secret History: State Surveillance in New Zealand, 1900-1956 by Richard S Hill and Steven Loveridge (Auckland University Press, 2023) opens up the ‘secret world’ of security intelligence during a period in which counter-espionage and counter-subversion duties were primarily handled by the New Zealand Police Force.

This is the first of two volumes chronicling the history of state surveillance in New Zealand. It is the story of the surveillers who – in times of war and peace, turmoil and tranquillity – monitored and analysed perceived threats to national interests. It is also the story of the surveilled: those whose association with organisations and movements led to their public and private lives being documented in secret files. Secret History explores a hidden and intriguing dimension of New Zealand history, one which sits uneasily with cherished national notions of an exceptionally fair and open society.

At this session, recorded at the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington in October 2023, the authors discussed the book’s revelations, methodology and implications with Malcolm McKinnon.  This was followed by a Q and A session with the audience.

Speakers:

Richard S. Hill is an Emeritus Professor at the Stout Research Centre. Among his outputs are four books in the History of Policing in New Zealand series, and two on Crown-Māori relations in the twentieth century. His co-authored book, Secret History, is the first of two volumes in a history of security intelligence in twentieth-century New Zealand.

Steven Loveridge is an adjunct Research Associate at the Stout Research Centre. His published work includes some major studies of New Zealand society during the First World War, and work on diplomatic history and security intelligence. He is currently co-authoring the second volume in the history of security intelligence in twentieth-century New Zealand which will cover the 1956-2000 period.

Malcolm McKinnon is an adjunct research associate in the School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington Te Herenga Waka. He is the author of a number of works on the history of both New Zealand's foreign relations and its political economy.

Download a transcript of this talk: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/files/pdfs/secret-history-public-history-talk.pdf

Forced labour haunts the streets we walk today and the spaces we take for granted. From 1814 onwards, the unfree work of prisoners was used to forge roads, ports, buildings, harbour defences and other public works across New Zealand and its Pacific empire. Prisoners planted forests, cleared land and laboured on dairy farms. Their work was crucial to colonisation. Yet convict Australia and the myth of New Zealand exceptionalism has meant the history of prison labour has been largely overlooked.

In this Public History Talk, Jared Davidson discussed his latest book, Blood and Dirt: Prison Labour and the Making of New Zealand (Bridget Williams Books, 2023). He charted the hidden history of prison labour across New Zealand's urban and rural landscapes and into the Pacific, as well the challenges of researching history from the bottom up.

Jared Davidson is an archivist by day and an author by night, based in Lower Hutt. He is currently the Research Librarian Manuscripts at the Alexander Turnbull Library. Blood and Dirt is his fifth book.

These free Public History Talks are a collaboration between the Alexander Turnbull Library and Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage. They are usually held on the first Wednesday of the month March to November.

Download a transcript of this talk: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/files/pdfs/jared-davidson-transcript.pdf

In this month's Public History Talk, the authors of two recently published books discussed the profound impact of closed stranger adoption in New Zealand and the drive for change. Closed stranger adoption under the 1955 Adoption Act, still in force today, has deeply affected thousands of New Zealanders.

In their recent book Adopted: Loss, love, family and reunion (Massey University Press, 2022), Jo Willis and Brigs (Brigitta) Baker shared the complexity of their reunion journeys, the emotional challenges they faced, and the ongoing impacts of their adoptions, with candour and courage. The stories of their birthparents, partners and children and the physical and emotional toll of adoption on them are also heard.  Jo Wills joined us for this Public History Talk. 

Anne Else and Maria Haenga-Collins’ comprehensive new eBook is A Question of Adoption: Closed Stranger Adoption in New Zealand 1944–1974 and Adoption, State Care, Donor Conception and Surrogacy 1975–2022 (Bridget Williams Books, 2023). It combines Anne’s original 1991 post-war adoption history with seven new chapters giving up-to-date accounts of state care, donor conception and surrogacy, alongside the ongoing story of adoption. Anne joined us for this talk.

The conversation was led by Professor Bill Atkin, recently retired from Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington Law School.

It was recorded live at the National Library of New Zealand on 28 August 2023. Some questions were submitted by audience members, and others were submitted online and read out by a staff member.

These free Public History Talks are a collaboration between the Alexander Turnbull Library and Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage.

Download a transcript of this talk: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/files/pdfs/adoption-panel-transcription.pdf

An explanation of the changing legislation which governed closed adoption records in New Zealand was provided by Anne Else, and is available here: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/files/pdfs/anne-else-closed-adoption-records.pdf

If you have questions about closed adoption, these organisations can help:

Adoption NZ is a support organisastion which provides advice for those impacted by adoption, including links to support groups, professional support, and advice about how to find records.

Community Law provides free legal help throughout New Zealand, and provides information about how to find adoption records.

Oranga Tamariki, the Ministry for Children, provides information and support around finding your birth family.

Paul Diamond's book, Downfall: The destruction of Charles Mackay, examines the startling ‘Whanganui Affair’ of 1920, when the mayor Charles Mackay, shot a young gay man, D'Arcy Cresswell. The affair and subsequent events reveal the perilous existence of homosexual men at that time and how society conspired to control and punish them.

In 1920 New Zealanders were shocked by the news that the brilliant, well-connected mayor of Whanganui had shot a young gay poet, D'Arcy Cresswell, who was blackmailing him. They were then riveted by the trial that followed. Mackay was sentenced to hard labour and later left the country, only to be shot by a police sniper during street unrest in Berlin during the rise of the Nazis. Mackay had married into Whanganui high society, and the story has long been the town’s dark secret.

The outcome of years of digging by historian Paul Diamond, Downfall: The destruction of Charles Mackay shines a clear light on the vengeful impulses behind the blackmail and Mackay’s ruination. At its heart, the Mackay affair reveals the perilous existence of homosexual men at that time and how society conspired to control and punish them.

We recommend that you watch this presentation if you can on YouTube, so that you can see the images Paul discussed in his talk.

Downfall: the destruction of Charles Mackay (YouTube)

Since Paul gave this talk in December 2022, Duigan’s Buildings, in Whanganui, where the shooting took place, have been listed by Heritage New Zealand as a Category 1 History Place.

Duigan's Buildings (Heritage New Zealand)

This presentation was made at the National Library in December 2022. 

Paul Diamond (Ngāti Hauā, Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi) has been Curator Māori, at the Alexander Turnbull Library since 2011. A journalist and broadcaster he is also the author of A Fire in Your Belly: Māori Leaders Speak (Huia, 2003), Makereti: taking Māori to the world (Random House, 2007) and Savaged to suit: Māori and cartooning in New Zealand (NZ Cartoon Archive, 2018). His latest book Downfall: The destruction of Charles Mackay was published by Massey University Press in November 2022.

Download a transcript of this talk: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/files/pdfs/paul-diamond-pht-transcript-2022-12-12.pdf

For more than 150 years, five carved panels that once formed the back wall of a pātaka, slept in a small swamp just north of Waitara. The carvings, which uri of Taranaki now call the Motunui Epa, emerged from their long sleep in 1971 setting off an extraordinary chain of events that would take them around the world and back again.

In this talk, Dr Rachel Buchanan will discuss how unearthing the government records has changed the way she works as a historian, taking her much closer to the power of the underground and the sovereignty that exists, undiminished beneath our feet.  This work resulted in her book Te Motunui Epa (BWB Books, 2022).

This talk was recorded on 15 May 2023 at the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa. 

Dr Rachel Buchanan (Taranaki, Te Ātiawa) is the author of three books that explore Taranaki histories, including the invasion of Parihaka. Her new book, Te Motunui Epa (BWB Books, 2022), was shortlisted for the 2023 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards in the illustrated non-fiction category. Along with Hana Buchanan and Debbie Broughton, Rachel is also member of Te Aro Pā poets. A former journalist, Rachel has also documented the collapse of newspapers in the history-memoir, Stop Press: the last days of newspapers.

Download a transcript of this talk: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/files/pdfs/new-lenses-history-talk-rachel-buchanan-transcript.pdf

In seeking to understand the terrorist attacks of March 2019, several commentators observed the similarities with the murder of an elderly Chinese man named Joe Kum Yung by Lionel Terry in 1905. It is tempting to draw a direct causal line between the two attacks, both as a concise way of framing an uncomfortable subject and as an emotional salve against the possibility that New Zealand’s radical right tradition is more than the occasional ‘lone wolf’. But this obscures far more than it explains.

In this talk, historian Matthew Cunningham explores some of the many threads of New Zealand’s diverse radical right tradition between the murder of Joe Kum Yung and the rise of identitarianism and the alt-right. Drawing on his recent co-edited book, Histories of Hate, this talk suggests that the radical right is a diverse mix of ideas, ideologues, organisations, social clubs and political parties animated by different combinations of ideas in different ways and at different times. It also draws out some common themes across this disparate tradition in terms of ideology, structure, and political behaviour.

Matthew Cunningham is an independent historian residing in Wellington, New Zealand. He has a diverse publication history, including books, edited collections, oral histories, peer-reviewed journal articles, Waitangi Tribunal commissioned research reports, Marine and Coastal Area reports, public history articles, and journalistic and general interest pieces. He is also a published children author.

Download a transcript of this talk: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/files/pdfs/transcript-matthew-cunningham-pht.pdf

In this podcast, Dr Lucy Mackintosh discusses aspects of her recently published book, Shifting Grounds: Deep Histories of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland (Bridget Williams Books, 2021), which explores the layered histories embedded in three landscapes in the city. Starting with rocks, lava flows, a grassy paddock, the remains of a garden, the site of a cottage, or a monument, the book examines the histories that unfolded in these places and connects them with the broader historical context of the city, the nation and the world. Lucy’s talk considers how histories told from particular places, at particular moments of time, opens up new stories and perspectives that can change the way we currently tend to think about the past and the present in urban spaces.

Dr Lucy Mackintosh is a Senior Research Fellow, and formerly Curator of History, at Auckland War Memorial Museum. Her debut book Shifting Grounds: Deep Histories of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, drew extensively on the collections of the Alexander Turnbull library and other archives throughout New Zealand. The book was awarded the Ernest Scott Prize for History (co-winner), the ARANZ Ian Wards Prize and the NZSA Heritage Book Award for Non-Fiction in 2022.  

The talk was recorded live at the National Library of New Zealand on 1 March 2023, as part of the Public History Talks series, a collaboration between the Alexander Turnbull Library and Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage. 

Download a transcript of this talk: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/files/pdfs/lucy-mackintosh-talk transcript-2023.pdf

Katherine Mansfield was a New Zealand author of international renown. Her short stories and poetry have been translated into more than 25 languages and her work continues to have an impact one hundred years after her death in France in 1923. 

Mansfield spent most of her adult life in Europe, working as a writer, editor, and critic, and living in various places, moving as fortune and misfortune decreed.

Author Redmer Yska follows these movements in his new book, Katherine Mansfield's Europe: Station to Station. Using Mansfield’s letters and diaries as guides, he travels through Germany, France and Switzerland to the villas, pensions, hotels, spas, railway stations, churches, towns, beaches and cities where Mansfield wrote some of her finest stories.

In this Public History Talk, recorded live in June 2023, Cherie Jacobson, Director of Katherine Mansfield House & Garden, interviewed Redmer about his new book.

These monthly Public History Talks are a collaboration between the Alexander Turnbull Library and Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage.

Download a transcript of this talk: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/files/pdfs/redmer-yska-and-cherie-jacobson-public-history-talk-june-2023.pdf

What can popular music tell us about a country and its culture?

As the 2023 Lilburn Research Fellow, Nick Bollinger is looking at ways in which pop music in Aotearoa New Zealand has reflected, contradicted, and contributed to our national stories. In this talk he will offer a progress report on a few of his discoveries.

These monthly Public History Talks are a collaboration between the Alexander Turnbull Library and Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Recorded live on 3 May 2023.

Download a transcript of this talk: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/files/pdfs/nick-bollinger-transcript-may-2023.pdf