ARCHIFACT S Bulletin of the Archives and Records Association of New Zealand 1988/1 ARAN Z March 1988 LQJ Crew of the "Grafton" attempting to make a fire. From F Ε Raynal, Wrecked on a reef. article in this issue by Ken Scadden on the Auckland Islands CONTENTS EDITORIAL: CCAC: Help or humbug? 1 THE AUCKLAND ISLANDS, 1806-1910 : RESEARCH IN PROGRESS Ken Scadden 2 VICTORINE ROGERS : AN ESSAY FOR THE DICTIONARY OF NEW ZEALAND BIOGRAPHY Mary Reid 15 ARCHIVAL SOURCES FOR NEW ZEALAND'S MEDICAL HISTORY Frank Rogers 19 RESOURCES, INSTITUTIONS AND ECONOMIC CHANGE : CENTRAL OTAGO, 1861-1921 Terry Hearn 25 THE SAUNDERS REPORT Brad Patterson 34 1988 ANNUAL CONFERENCE 37 ANALECTA WELLINGTON BRANCH REPORT Mark H.S. Stevens 38 New Archivist of the USA; the President and the President's men; Certification debate, USA; The enemy is us; Drake's expenses claimed; Privacy action on the horizon; Archives' rat- infested home; Archives battle to save irreplaceable film history; Increased funding to NZ Film Archive; Deeds fees jump; National Archives news; Conservation at BNZ Archives; Index to G.R. Macdonald Dictionary. 38 DICTIONARY OF NEW ZEALAND BIOGRAPHY, 1870-C.1920: MORE WOMEN NEEDED 42 BOOK REVIEW Ann Pederson (ed. in chief) Keeping archives (David Colquhoun) 43 MASSEY UNIVERSITY LIBRARY'S DAIRY RECORDS COLLECTION : ACCESSIONS, 1983-88 4 5 ACCESSIONS 4 6 A Architects is the official bulletin of the Archives and Records Association of New Zealand Incorporated. It continues the bulletin of the same title, previously published by the Archives Committee of the New Zealand Library Association, 9 issues of which appeared between April 1974 and October 1976. The successor "new series" contained 24 issues (nos. 4 S 5, 7 S 8 were combined) with consecutive pagination from February 1977 to December 1982. From March 1983, issues of the bulletin are numbered sequentially within the year of publication, with the pagination commencing afresh with each issue. Currently, ArchifactS is published quarterly, at the end of March, June, September and December. Subscriptions to ArchifactS are through membership of the Association at the current rates. Copies of individual issues are available at NZ $6-00 per copy, plus postage. Reprints of issues 1974-76 are available at $7-50 per copy. The membership year begins with the June issue and ends with the March issue. Enquiries concerning the content of ArchifactS (including advertising), non-receipt of an issue (or receipt of an imperfect copy), and requests for back or single issues, should be addressed to the Editor. All members (and others) are welcome to submit articles, short notices, letters, etc. to the Editor. Copy deadline is the 15th of the month preceding publication (i.e., 15 May for the June issue, etc.). Book reviews should be sent directly to the Reviews Editor; details of accessions directly to the Accessions Co-ordinator. EDITOR FOR THIS ISSUE: Michael Hodder Copy typed by Brownings Secretarial Services, Wellington and printed by The Printing Press, cnr Wakefield S Allen Streets, Wellington. Copyright for articles Sc. in ArchifactS rests with authors and the Association. Permission to reproduce should be sought, in writing, from the Editor. ISSN 0303-7940 19S8/1 March 1988 ARCfflFACTS Bulletin of the Archives and Records Association of New Zealand CCAC HELP OR HUMBUG9 The Cultural Conservation Advisory Council (CCAC) recently issued a "Draft policy and implementation of policy", calling for submissions by 10 June 1988 It is a matter in which individual members - as well as the Association as a whole - have a strong interest The Council defines its terms of reference as - to advise the Minister of Internal Affairs on future developments of cultural conservation requirements, - to identify, promote and set national priorities for the conservation of our material cultural property, - to decide allocations of funding made available for conservation purposes, - to identify and arrange employment and training opportunities for people to carry out conservation work, - to promote the future establishment of a New Zealand Council for the Conservation of Cultural Property These are wide-ranging terms of reference and they suggest a wide range of questions But, to narrow our focus a bit, what is there - stated or implied - on archives7 The policy document goes on, after a brief Statement of Purpose/Kaupapa, to identify eight objectives These imply inclusion of archives, for example 1 To understand the current state of the nation's material cultural property by identifying its extent and assessing its condition and assessing available resources and those required, 3 To make recommendations on new and existing legislation affecting conservation of material cultural property After the objectives comes a Statement of Policy The Council declares its intention to give funding priority to preventive rather than remedial conservation and to adopt "as its basic funding principle" the idea that primary responsibility for payment of necessary preventive (or remedial) conservation "rests with the owners or guardians of cultural property, and that a normal pre-requisite for funding will be a demonstration of an appropriate level of commitment" And inculcating this sense of commitment is-part of the Council's brief it sees an effective public information programme as essential to secure widespread public support and commitment, but "although such information needs to reach all New Zealanders, particular attention must be given to those charged with the care of our material cultural property" These words, plus the commitment to appropriate statutory provisions, look helpful to archives The final three section of the Statement of Policy give a different impression They address the themes of Training, Provision of Conservation Services and Research The Council wants an increasing number of well-informed practitioners and associated workers, but in listing those whose training it will support and promote archivists get no specific 2 mention Similarly, the question of 'conservation services' seems to pass archives by, although the Council intends to "subsidise the cost of approved conservation projects undertaken or supervised by properly qualified conservators" It will support research into the conservation of New Zealand materials, and recognises the need for ready access to conservation literature This latter will be achieved by encouraging the National Library to establish an information service available "for all conservators and others concerned with the conservation of cultural property" Nothing here about archives, and no recognition (it seems) of the damage that can be done by well-meaning people wanting to sift, sort, and arrange even before they consider questions of the safe-housing of archives and of their repair Nothing here of a role for National Archives, even though it has the largest body of trained archivists in the country and the largest collection of information relating to the management/conservation of archives The draft policy makes a determined effort to reach into a bicultural dimension, but this breadth of vision is lost when considering the full implications of "conservation" and "cultural materials" The risk that archives will be always relegated to a lower priority is real the proceedings of the Council's rather differently constituted predecessor are a warning of this There are two things we can do Individually, we should read and comment on the Council's draft statements they are important Secondly, we should encourage as many archives- -holding institutions as possible to participate in the 'Survey Subsidy Scheme' This (detailed in the Implementation of Policy statement) is designed to offer financial assis- tance for a survey of collections in order to prepare a five-year plan identifying priorities for conservation Subsidies will be made on a 2 1 basis Such surveys are useful to the institutions holding archives as well as extending the archives profile to the Council Copies of the draft statements and details of the Survey Subsidy Scheme are available from David Butts, Advisory Officer (Conservation of Cultural Property), Department of Internal Affairs, Ρ 0 Box 805, Wellington (phone [04] 738-699 extn 8820) THE AUCKLAND ISLANDS 1806-1900 RESEARCH IN PROGRESS [This article is a revised text of part of a paper delivered to the Wellington Branch of ARANZ on 12 April 1988 It represents a brief summary of parts of my research which I have been undertaking for the last three years The pro- ject as envisaged is to write a definitive history of the Auckland Islands over a ten year period ] INTRODUCTION To date there is no definitive history of the Auckland Islands An Australian diplomat, John Cumpston, inspired by the work of Robert McNab, began to research a history of the sub-antarctic islands The wealth of material, however, forced him to confine his work to the history of Macquarie Island To some extent, this research was inspired by Cumpston's work, to return to the documentary sources and do a definitive history as I found some of the early works were inadequate and in some cases inaccurate This article will attempt to encompass a potted history, the-historiography to date and my own research Because the research is at an early stage this article will be of neces- sity heavy on narrative and light on analysis Since the Auckland Islands can still only be visited by ship, the foundation of any comprehensive history is to document the visits of every vessel known to have visited the islands