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The Democratic Politician Does Not Trouble Himself with Science’: Class and Professionalisation in the New Zealand Institute, 1867–1903

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The Democratic Politician Does Not Trouble Himself with Science’: Class and Professionalisation in the New Zealand Institute, 1867–1903 Tuhinga 16: 21–31 Copyright © Te Papa Museum of New Zealand (2005) ‘The democratic politician does not trouble himself with science’: class and professionalisation in the New Zealand Institute, 1867–1903 Francis Lucian Reid Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RH, United Kingdom ([email protected]) ABSTRACT: Drawing upon a wide range of printed primary sources and manuscripts held in the archive of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, this paper argues that the New Zealand Institute during the period 1867–1903 should be understood as a class-based and a class-defining institution, and that efforts during the early 1880s to reform the Institute were in part an attempt to replace a social elite with a profession- alised one. Furthermore, this paper argues that this class-based system helped to support scientific institutions by solidifying links between New Zealand’s tiny band of profes- sional men of science and the colonial political elite. KEYWORDS: class, professionalisation, reform, New Zealand Institute, Colonial Museum, James Hector. Introduction made manager of the Institute and became the editor of the TPNZI. This legislative framework gave science in There was no formalised nationwide New Zealand scien- New Zealand a firm colonial, as opposed to a provincial or tific community before the passing of New Zealand inter-colonial/Australasian, focus. Where previously there Institute Act 1867. The New Zealand parliament, with had been isolated provincial philosophical societies meet- this piece of legislation, established a mechanism by which ing irregularly, and a small number of men interested in scientific societies in New Zealand’s provincial centres science communicating with scientific savants in Europe could incorporate with a central body – the New Zealand and Australia, now, for the first time, there was a journal Institute – and publish papers and records of their meet- tying together the diverse intellectual activities of New ings together in one annual volume. The Institute’s annu- Zealand’s colonial elite. al vote of 500 pounds, established through the Act, was A study of the New Zealand Institute and its con- almost exclusively spent on the production, and free distri- stituent parts during the period that Hector was its man- bution to members of incorporated societies, of its journal, ager, from 1867 to 1903, is therefore, arguably, a study of which was called the Transactions and Proceedings of the the emergence of science in New Zealand. Investigating New Zealand Institute (TPNZI). Through the Act, James the workings of the Institute helps to explain how such a Hector, curator of the Colonial Museum in Wellington, vigorous intellectual community developed in New director of the New Zealand Geological Survey, and chief Zealand at a time when no more than a dozen men were man-of-science employed by the colonial government, was employed as professional men of science in New Zealand’s 22 Tuhinga, Number 16 (2005) geological surveys, museums and, later, the university balls to race meetings … But there was little of the forms or colleges. I am currently engaged in research for such a trappings of the English class system’ (Sinclair 2000: 100). study of the New Zealand Institute in order to trace the Class divisions, under this school of historiography, were influence of science in late colonial New Zealand society. something foreign to New Zealand society, and were resis- In this paper I will present some of the initial findings I ted by ordinary New Zealanders. According to Sinclair, it have made from a close reading of the TPNZI, together was only with the economic depression of the 1880s that with archival research undertaken in the Museum of New two nationwide classes began to emerge, and one of the Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa archive in Wellington, where main achievements of the Liberal Party after their 1890 most of the manuscripts relating to the New Zealand election victory was to restore New Zealand to its natural Institute and Hector’s other diverse scientific activities are democratic, and classless, equilibrium (Sinclair 2000: located (Strachan 1984: 74). I shall argue that the impor- 176–199). tance of class in the New Zealand Institute helped to This somewhat utopian view of nineteenth century compensate for the dearth of paid professional scientists in New Zealand society has come under attack from a num- colonial society. Furthermore, class aspirations and expec- ber of historians. Most recently, and most coherently, Jim tations had a significant influence on the functioning of McAloon has argued that rather than being a late and the philosophical societies: on the one hand participation unwelcome arrival, ‘class was central to colonial society, in such societies helped New Zealand’s social elite to and central from the beginning’ (McAloon 2004: 3). In his define itself, while, on the other hand, the socially elite economic and imperialism-focussed study, which empha- make-up of the philosophical societies directly impacted sises ‘class formation and class structure as well as class upon the nature of the science discussed at their meetings. consciousness’, he concedes that class in New Zealand was This paper also argues that the moves to reform the New different to class in Britain or Europe (McAloon 2004: 15). Zealand Institute in the 1880s by men of science based in For example, he argues that the ‘British middle-class ethic Christchurch and Dunedin, such as Frederick Wollaston was one of individual effort and self-improvement’; how- Hutton and George Malcolm Thomson, should be partial- ever in New Zealand this ‘ethic characterized both the New ly understood as an attempt to challenge this class-based Zealand upper class and the New Zealand middle class’ system of science, and to replace it with a system domin- (McAloon 2004: 10). Simply because class groups and ated by professionalised scientists. This paper also helps to relations were different in New Zealand to class formations explain why such early attempts at professionalisation were in Britain, he argues, there is no reason for historians not to ultimately unsuccessful. emphasise their existence or importance. Indeed, I would add, class was given added importance in colonial New Zealand society because social distinctions and protocols Class in New Zealand were more often discussed, considered, and disputed: nine- teenth century settlers battled to adapt their class expecta- historiography tions and social ambitions to the realities of the colonial Until relatively recently class has not featured strongly in economy. The involvement of a cross-section of New mainstream historiography in New Zealand. Historians of Zealand’s colonial elite in the formation and running of the the colonial era have not denied that throughout the nine- New Zealand Institute, therefore, should be read as an act teenth century there were significant inequalities in the of class consciousness and of self-conscious class building. distribution of wealth in New Zealand society. However, Historians of science in New Zealand have not explic- they have stressed that because there was generally a strong itly emphasised the importance of class in colonial scien- demand for labour, forcing wages upwards, there was tific societies, nor have general historians commented on therefore a high level of social mobility in New Zealand the importance of science to New Zealand’s colonial elite. colonial society, and little room for the Old World expec- Indeed general historians almost entirely ignore New tation that one’s servants should be unquestioningly obedi- Zealand’s colonial scientific institutions: Michael King in ent and deferential. As Sinclair puts it, there were ‘of his The Penguin History of New Zealand only mentions the course, classes, in the sense of rich and poor. In each settle- TPNZI in passing, while Belich glosses over James Hector ment small cliques usually ran all public functions from and the colonial scientific establishment in one short Class and professionalisation 23 sentence (King 2003: 257, Belich 2001: 249). One possible sophical societies incorporated with the New Zealand reason why class has not featured as a strong analytical Institute peaked at well over a thousand in the early 1880s. category in the writings of New Zealand’s few professional Sustaining this level of society membership, at a time when historians of science – Ross Galbreath, Ruth Barton, and the entire European population in New Zealand numbered John Stenhouse – could be their general emphasis on less than half a million, required the involvement of biographically focussed history. By studying the careers, lawyers, judges, prelates, politicians, businessmen, and beliefs, and lives of individuals, rather than studying larger other professional men in areas unrelated to science. The groups such as philosophical societies or universities, they different provincial philosophical societies had varying have generally not expanded upon or identified features rules relating to how one could become a member. common to the New Zealand scientific community as a Typically an individual needed to be nominated for mem- whole. None the less, collectively their writings demon- bership by at least two members of a society and pay an strate how science and involvement in the colonial scien- annual fee of around one guinea to maintain that mem- tific community were used to advance the careers of socially bership (see for example: MU000282, Box 1, Item 3: Rules ambitious individuals such as Walter Buller and Julius of the New Zealand Society Reconstituted November, 1867; Haast (Galbreath 1989a, Barton 2000. Also see Dunlap MU000147, Box 3, Folder 3: Kirk 1870). There was no 1999: 33). Furthermore, in his recent biography of the requirement for a member to have any scientific training or father and son George Malcolm and Allan Thomson, any publication record. Galbreath explains that in the 1870s and 1880s there was Membership of the philosophical societies therefore a clear class distinction between practical and classical/ was wide in its coverage of different professional groups.
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