'The Habits and Institutions of Englishmen': Using the Pamphlet and Small Book Collections of Two New Zealand Research Libraries

Abstract

Two quite substantial New Zealand library collections were gifted or bequeathed to the nation in the early years of the twentieth century. These were the private library of Dr Thomas Hocken of Dunedin and the 'gentleman's' library of Alexander Turnbull of Wellington. Both collections contain the artefacts of the country's pre-colonization history and documents that relate to the forging of a nation-state. Each reflects the collection practices of their original owners, both of whom were acutely interested in material regarding New Zealand. This article picks out from each collection specific examples of the material associated with nineteenth-century emigration from Britain to New Zealand. Its focus is not a listing of the descriptive passages in these texts for prospective middle-class colonists on the soil, climate, and economic advantages. It searches instead for the rhetorical strategies in order to extract a sense of the underlying emotional dimensions of the emigration decision. The texts give the twenty-first century researcher a way of retrieving contemporary discourses of nineteenth-century life.