The Correspondence of Julius Haast and Joseph Dalton Hooker, 1861-1886

The Correspondence of Julius Haast and Joseph Dalton Hooker, 1861-1886 Sascha Nolden, Simon Nathan & Esme Mildenhall Geoscience Society of New Zealand miscellaneous publication 133H November 2013 Published by the Geoscience Society of New Zealand Inc, 2013 Information on the Society and its publications is given at www.gsnz.org.nz © Copyright Simon Nathan & Sascha Nolden, 2013 Geoscience Society of New Zealand miscellaneous publication 133H ISBN 978-1-877480-29-4 ISSN 2230-4495 (Online) ISSN 2230-4487 (Print) We gratefully acknowledge financial assistance from the Brian Mason Scientific and Technical Trust which has provided financial support for this project. This document is available as a PDF file that can be downloaded from the Geoscience Society website at: http://www.gsnz.org.nz/information/misc-series-i-49.html Bibliographic Reference Nolden, S.; Nathan, S.; Mildenhall, E. 2013: The Correspondence of Julius Haast and Joseph Dalton Hooker, 1861-1886. Geoscience Society of New Zealand miscellaneous publication 133H. 219 pages. The Correspondence of Julius Haast and Joseph Dalton Hooker, 1861-1886 CONTENTS Introduction 3 The Sumner Cave controversy Sources of the Haast-Hooker correspondence Transcription and presentation of the letters Acknowledgements References Calendar of Letters 8 Transcriptions of the Haast-Hooker letters 12 Appendix 1: Undated letter (fragment), ca 1867 208 Appendix 2: Obituary for Sir Julius von Haast 209 Appendix 3: Biographical register of names mentioned in the correspondence 213 Figures Figure 1: Photographs of Joseph Hooker and Julius & Mary Haast 2 Figure 2: Location map, showing South Island localities 4 Figure 3: Map of the central part of the Southern Alps sent by Haast to Hooker on 11 September 1863 44 Correspondence of Julius Haast & Joseph Dalton Hooker GSNZ Miscellaneous Publication 133H 1 Joseph Dalton Hooker Mary and Julius Haast Photographer: Ernest Edwards, London Photographer unknown Date: 1864 Date: circa 1863 ATL reference: PA2-0664 ATL reference: ½-031387-F Figure 1: Photographs of Joseph Dalton Hooker (left) and Mary and Julius Haast (right) Reproduced by permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington Correspondence of Julius Haast & Joseph Dalton Hooker GSNZ Miscellaneous Publication 133H 2 Introduction Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911) was one of the first botanists concerned with biogeography – the distribution of plants in different parts of the world. Although he travelled extensively early in his career including a visit to New Zealand in 1841, much of his working life was spent at Kew Gardens near London. Hooker maintained a worldwide network of correspondents whom he encouraged to send him plants. His three main correspondents in New Zealand were William Colenso, Julius Haast1 and James Hector. Colenso’s letters to Hooker have already been published (St George 2009) as has the correspondence between Hooker and Hector (Yaldwyn & Hobbs 1998; Nolden, Burns and Nathan 2012). This volume presents transcriptions of all the surviving letters between Hooker and Haast from 1861 until Haast’s death in 1887. On a personal level the correspondence was gratifying to Haast as it allowed him contact with the highest levels of British science. Hooker was an influential figure – a close friend of Charles Darwin and a Fellow of the Royal Society of London (of which he was president from 1873-78). Haast took full advantage of his acquaintance with Hooker to seek his assistance in gaining membership (Fellowship) of societies and awards, starting with the Geological and Linnaean Societies, the Royal Society, a CMG, and culminating in a knighthood (KCMG) in 1886. Hooker also supplied seeds and plants from Kew for Haast’s growing museum in Christchurch. The correspondence was not one-sided as Hooker was keen to obtain alpine plants from the Southern Alps and Haast was his best collector, always keen to oblige. In later letters there are regular requests to provide large specimens of vegetable sheep (Raoulia) which Hooker wanted to put on display, but were not easy for Haast to obtain and transport. Information on the careers of Hooker and Haast is given in the online Dictionary of New Zealand Biography: Haast: http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1h1/1 Hooker: http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1h33/2 A locality map for the South Island, showing the main towns and places mentioned by Haast is given in Figure 1. Sources of the Haast-Hooker correspondence We are fortunate that both Hooker and Haast carefully filed their incoming letters, and that almost all of their correspondence has apparently been preserved. The letters from Haast to Hooker are held in the Archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, mostly as part of the Director’s Correspondence (DC) series. These letters were copied as part of the Australian Joint Copying Project (AJCP) in the 1950s, and a copy of the microfilm is held in the Alexander Turnbull Library (Micro-MS-Coll-10). From previous experience we knew that there are problems using the microfilm, so we obtained a completely new set of scans from the Archives at Kew which proved straightforward to read and transcribe. 1 Julius Haast was awarded a hereditary knighthood by the Austrian Emperor in 1875 which entitled him to use the prefix ‘von’ before his surname. As these letters largely predate his knighthood, he is referred to as Haast throughout this collection. Correspondence of Julius Haast & Joseph Dalton Hooker GSNZ Miscellaneous Publication 133H 3 Figure 2: Location map, showing the main geographic features mentioned in the text. Provincial boundaries are shown as they were in 1862-68 when Haast was working for the Canterbury Provincial Council. In 1868 the area of Canterbury west of the Southern Alps was split off as Westland County (later Westland Province). Correspondence of Julius Haast & Joseph Dalton Hooker GSNZ Miscellaneous Publication 133H 4 Letters from Hooker to Haast were saved by Haast, either at his home or at the Canterbury Museum. On his death in 1887 all his papers were packed up by his son, Heinrich von Haast, and later used as source material for his book, The life and times of Sir Julius von Haast, published in 1948. The Haast family papers were presented to the Alexander Turnbull Library (MS-Papers-0037), and the letters from Hooker are held in folders 96 to 105 and later microfilmed (MS-Copy-Micro-0717-08). We photographed the original letters, and made transcriptions from these copies. As the project progressed it became clear that a few of the pages were out of order. We have re-ordered the pages wherever possible, and this is noted in the heading for each letter. Transcription and presentation of the letters Sascha Nolden transcribed the letters written by Haast, compiled the calendar of letters, amended the draft transcriptions of letters by Hooker and put together the first draft of the manuscript by interleaving the letters, adding the footnote annotations and biographical register of names mentioned in the correspondence. The letters from Hooker were transcribed by Esme Mildenhall and Simon Nathan. Simon Nathan was the initiator and primary motivator for this project, writing the original draft introduction, ensuring that things were able to run smoothly from the initial point of contact with the archives and collaborators, personally visiting the archive at Kew in search of Haast’s manuscript maps, and right on through to the final completion of the publication. Additional assistance was sought from colleagues to clarify the identification and spelling of botanical names. The letters have been interleaved in chronological order, with individual letters serially numbered, starting with Haast’s letter dated 29 March 1861 when he introduced himself to Hooker, telling of the death of their mutual friend Andrew Sinclair. Reading the letters in chronological order helps clarify the conversation between Hooker and Haast, but the reader should be aware that there was sometimes six months or longer before questions were answered. We have generally followed the style and conventions adopted by Yaldwyn and Hobbs (1998, p.9) and other volumes of GSNZ miscellaneous publication 133. For the Hooker letters the original spelling, punctuation, abbreviations and capitalisation has been retained as in the original letters, although a few stops have been added where they were obviously intended. For the Haast letters some very minor editorial adjustments have been made to some of the punctuation and orthography, largely to reflect what might be accepted as authorial intentions. Original underlining has generally been retained except for biological names and for ships, both of which are given in italics. Words that cannot be read, but for which a reasonable interpretation is suggested by the context are indicated by a question mark in square brackets [?]. Words that cannot be read at all are indicated by dashes [---]. The Sumner Cave controversy and its aftermath A crisis interrupted the correspondence in late 1874. Haast was furious to find that his former employee Alexander McKay, had been employed as an assistant by Hector and had presented a paper on archaeological excavations in a cave at Sumner. This was a project initiated and supervised by Haast, but he had not yet written up the results. Correspondence of Julius Haast & Joseph Dalton Hooker GSNZ Miscellaneous Publication 133H 5 Haast was outspoken in his condemnation of McKay, Hector and the governors of the New Zealand Institute who authorised the publication of McKay’s paper. It was a controversy that split the small New Zealand scientific community, and there were letters and articles in the newspapers and questions asked in parliament. The issue has been exhaustively analysed (for example, von Haast 1948, pp. 722-758; Reid 2009; Yaldwyn, Dawson & Davidson 2006; Nolden, Burns & Nathan 2012, pp. 5, 266-267 and Appendix 1). The president of the Canterbury Philosophical Society, founded by Haast, wrote to Hooker (who was then president of the Royal Society) asking for his views on the ethics of the case.

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