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In 1888, William Salmond, the popular but often controversial Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at the University of Otago produced The Reign of Grace, a small 64 page treatise on salvation which Hocken deemed ‘A brilliant and eloquent argument for the free and full salvation of all, as opposed to narrow Calvinism.’ In 1911, amidst further controversies, Salmond wrote Prohibition. A Blunder, which went through numerous editions and reprints. According to Peter Matheson “although not without an élitist, even misogynistic, flavour, it is a rather fine plea for individual human rights against ‘vicious moral coddling’”. Although part of Chapman’s pamphlet collection, it once belonged to Robert Stout, Premier.
William Salmond, Prohibition. A Blunder. 2nd ed. Dunedin: Jolly & Braik, 1911. Vol. 1, no. 9. Chapman Pamphlet Collection. Hocken Library.
Sir Frederick Revans Chapman (1849-1936) came from good collecting stock, and an energetic student of print culture is needed to fully assess this collecting dynasty. FRS was the fifth son of Henry Samuel Chapman, who, as a Judge of the Supreme Court operating from at a distance from many services, recognised the need for a reference library. In January 1866, H. S. Chapman claimed a library of some 3,000 volumes, to him the best in the colony. FRS, the first New Zealand-born Supreme Court judge, also amassed numerous books and manuscripts. An accomplished linguist, he had interests in ethnography, anthropology, botany, zoology and general history. He was a member of the Otago Institute, and a founding member of the Polynesian Society. His extensive ethnographic collection (Māori, Polynesian, Melanesian, and Neolithic artefacts from Scandinavia and Italy) went to the Otago Museum, his huge collection of pamphlets to the Hocken Library, Dunedin, and other materials to the Dominion Museum (now Te Papa) and the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.
Sir Frederick Revans Chapman. Photograph. Hocken Pictorial Collection.
Samuel Ramsbottom’s Gentle Remonstrance is bound with The Raid of the Russian Cruiser ‘Kakowiski (1894) and Henry Shaw’s A Guide to the Principal Manuscripts Early Printed Books...in the Auckland Free Public Library (1908) in this pamphlet volume headed ‘Auckland’. There are 28 other items, diverse in subject areas and reflecting Chapman’s expansiveness, especially when compared to Hocken’s narrow field of pamphlet collecting. Ramsbottom was an English temperance advocate who lived in Wellsford, north of Auckland. He took exception to the handling of his pamphlets by the editor of Observer. A. G. Bagnall in the New Zealand National Bibliography (NZNB) dismissed Ramsbottom’s rantings with ‘Some minor tit-bits.’
Samuel Ramsbottom, Gentle Remonstrance; or, The Editor of the Auckland ‘Observer’ versus “Old” Ramsbottom. Auckland: John Brame, 1882. Vol. 36, no. 18. Chapman Pamphlet Collection. Hocken Library.