Architectural Forensics: establishing a date for the construction of Pavitt Cottage, Robinson's Bay, Bank's Peninsula

Many early New Zealand properties and indeed colonial-made artefacts often lack detailed documentation, provenance and in some cases, any known or relevant history. It is possible to establish new information by analysing the wide range of materials used to build even a modest cottage. Further, it is possible to establish a likely time-frame of construction by looking at improvements in the manufacturing of various imported components. Already known facts can be incorporated with newly-recovered information to provide a broader historic picture. As with archaeology, one object can be used comparatively to determine likely probabilities from other sites.Pavitt Cottage, at Robinson's Bay on Bank's Peninsula was built sometime between 1857 and 1862 with additions in 1865. Local records have been unable to provide a more accurate date. Within the last 15 years it has been "restored" with the potential loss of some useful evidence. This paper will illustrate how it is possible to glean new knowledge from the materials used to try to establish a precise date of construction

Biota Barons, ‘neo-eurasias’ and Indian-new Zealand informal eco-cultural networks, 1830s–1870s

Abstract: This article examines informal (private and commercial) imperial networks and environmental modification by former English East India Company (EIC) employees in New Zealand, as well as the introduction of subcontinental species into that colony. Several very wealthy settlers from India, it argues, single-handedly introduced a cornucopia of Indian plants and animals into different parts of nineteenth-century New Zealand and used money earned in India to engage in large-scale environmental modification. Such was the scale of their enterprise ‘in the business of shifting biota from place to place’ and in remaking environments in parts of New Zealand1 that these individuals can be considered ‘biota barons’. A focus on the informal eco-cultural networks they created helps refine the thesis of ecological imperialism

Habitat requirements of black mudfish (Neochanna diversus) in the Waikato region, North Island, New Zealand.

Black mudfish (Neochanna diversus) were found at 39 of 80 sites in the Waikato region, New Zealand, ranging from large wetlands to small swampy streams. Of the sites with mudfish, 87% were dry at some time during summer. Sites with mudfish also generally had emergent and overhanging vegetation and tree roots, and showed low to moderate human impact. Black mudfish coexisted at some sites with juvenile eels or mosquitofish, but were absent from all sites with common bullies (Gobiomorphus cotidianus) or inanga (Galaxias maculatus). Sites with mudfish had almost exclusively semi-mineralised substrates or peat; only one site had mineralised substrate. Geometric mean catch rate for the 39 sites with mudfish was 0.70 fish per trap per night. Mean summer water depth was only 2.1 cm at sites with mudfish, compared to 22.6 cm at 41 sites without. Winter and maximum water depths were also less at sites with mudfish than at sites without mudfish. Mean turbidity was 11.5 nephelometric turbidity units (NTU) at sites with mudfish, but 21.3 NTU at sites without mudfish. Mudfish catch rates were negatively correlated with summer water depth, winter water depth, disturbance scale rating, and turbidity. A discriminant function model based on these variables successfully predicted 95% of the sites with mudfish. Habitat preference curves are also presented

Imperial landscapes of health: Place, plants and people between India and Australia, 1800s-1900s.

In the nineteenth century, place bore immediately and urgently on questions of imperialism, race, and health. This article considers European strategies to control local environments and improve healthiness through the exchange of people, plants, ideas and garden designs between India and Australia. Migration removed Europeans from unhealthy environments, either permanently (to Australia and elsewhere) or temporarily (to hill stations in India). Trees like the eucalyptus were introduced into India to enhance European health, based on belief they drained sources of disease. I argue a crucial new understanding of the intersection between health and place in the nineteenth-century British Empire can be provided by tracing the networks through which people, plants, and ideas moved to consider the broader imperial frameworks

The landforms of the Christchurch lowland : |b a dissertation submitted in partial requirement for the Diploma of Landscape Architecture in the University of Canterbury [Lincoln College]

Long before European occupation, the main landforms of the Christchurch lowland were coastal sandhills, swamps, river fans and terraces. These landforms were all part of a broad flood plain formed by the Waimakariri as the flow of this river to the sea was blocked by the volcanic island that now forms Banks Peninsula. In this flat swampy lowland the English settlers chose to build their new town. This study is about those landforms and their subsequent modification. When I started looking at the landforms of Christchurch I realised that the lowland in which it lies has a very special foundation. In order to explain many of the present day topographical features, we have to go back to its geological past. Chapter one gives a brief overview of this geological past and how it was responsible for the formation of the plains and the lowland of Christchurch. Chapter two is a description of the specific landforms, their formation and natural state. Most of these landforms are interdependent, both in formation and evolution. However, for ease of study these landforms are discussed in separate sections. Chapter three relates the story of human occupation, the first impressions of these settlers, the problems they encountered and the factors which determined where they settled. Chapter four describes how the landforms were used, managed and what modifications were made. The main sections in this chapter discuss the drainage of swamps, by individual effort and public authorities, the modification and management of rivers, estuary, the Waimakariri, sandhills, and roading. Chapter five discusses the landforms that remain, their present state and possible future

Humanitarian Governance in Colonial New Zealand (1833 - 1872)

“Humanitarian Governance in Colonial New Zealand” focuses on a landmark intervention, Britain’s 1840 annexation of New Zealand, to show how officials, settlers, and indigenous Māori implemented a transnational discourse of humanitarian care within the colony. Invoking favorable impressions of Māori capacity for “civilization,” British proponents of colonization in the 1830s and 1840s advocated planned settlement and an intentional approach to managing indigenous peoples. New Zealand constituted an early experiment in humanitarian governance – defined as the administration of human collectivities in the name of a higher moral principle – as a solution to the grim consequences European settlement entailed for aboriginal populations. Uncertainly surrounding the terms of annexation, competition between a private company and the British government, and the colonial state’s lack of military power relative to Māori slowed early efforts at implementing policies of humanitarian governance. The dissertation examines several areas of government action – land reserved for Māori, the administration of health and education, and programs promoting legal assimilation – to show how colonial officials initially deployed humanitarian governance as the only viable means of assimilating Māori into the colonial state. With the arrival of more colonists in the 1850s and London’s devolution of authority over Māori affairs to New Zealand, humanitarian governance became more assertive. Instead of seeking Māori participation, settlers prioritized the individualization of communal lands and accelerated the legal assimilation of Māori communities. A hardening of racial attitudes toward indigenous peoples throughout the British Empire, and a decade of intermittent warfare in the 1860s, reframed practices of governance. If in the 1840s agents of empire implemented ideas of humanitarian governance as an experiment in colonization and a way of encouraging Māori engagement with the colonial state, by the 1870s the government conceptualized humanitarian governance as a way to limit Māori autonomy and justify interventions in the name of progress.PHDHistoryUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144082/1/mwoodbur_1.pd

On Becoming “Colonially Bitten”. The Reminiscences of John George Cooke and his Sojourn to Aotearoa New Zealand, 1841 – 1850

This article draws on excerpts from the unpublished Reminiscences of John George Cooke (1819–1880) with a focus on the period he lived in Aotearoa New Zealand from 1841 to 1850.The article commences by providing some of Cooke’s background as an upper-class Englishman with a brief career in the navy and army.    It then discusses the reminiscences in the context of archival research and briefly outlines how Cooke came to write his memoir.   The term “colonially bitten” is taken from Cooke’s memoir.  It was the term he used to explain his desire to leave England and spend some time in the British colony of New Zealand. Quotes from Cooke’s observations and insights contextualise the article, historically, socially and culturally. 

The history of the commonwealth and continental church society

This thesis traces the origins and development of the Commonwealth and Continental Church Society throughout the world. It is a product of the Anglican Evangelical missionary enthusiasm of the early nineteenth century. It began as an educational organization but became a general missionary movement among our own people abroad. The nineteenth century saw the settlement and growth of Britain's colonial Empire and the significance of the Society lies in its efforts to send chaplains, lay-readers and teachers to spiritually‘destitute' British people, whether residents or travellers, in the Colonies or on the Continent of Europe - wherever they called for help. The work of the Society is set in its historical and theological background including the influences prior to 1823 (when it was founded) which led to the establishment of the two parent Societies. There follows a survey of the main movements, personalities and problems; and then, in chapter 6, there is a discussion of the key problems, an evaluation of the contribution of the Society to the expansion and life of the Church and a suggestion of its role as an Evangelical Society during the latter part of the twentieth century. Supplementary material, placed in the Appendices, includes a survey of movements from 1951-71; the Home Organization; the Constitutions and subsequent changes; a list of Bishops given to the Church by the Society; the relations of the Society to other Societies and Churches and a list of the Bishops holding the Bishop of London's permanent commission for northern Europe, Footnotes are included at the ends of chapters; references will be found at the back between pages 193-237