Cabinet 07
In this volume titled ‘New Zealand Historical’, Hocken has 14 publications bound in, ranging from Bishop Selwyn’s Thanksgiving Sermon (1842) to Judge F. E. Maning’s Hinemoa; A Maori Love Story (1881). Another item is the much larger Narrative of Missionary Enterprises, a 184 page account by John Williams (1796-1839) of his experiences while visiting the Society Islands, Tahiti and Samoa from 1817 onwards. In 1839, Williams was killed by cannibals on the island of Erromango. This work first appeared in 1836 and was a popular read. Hocken’s copy is the ‘sixty-ninth thousand’, dated by him ‘1867?’
John Williams, A Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Seas Islands. London: John Stow, [1867]. Vol. 5, no. 7. Hocken Pamphlet Collection.
To most, harbour regulation reports, and treatises on harbour improvement and developments are dull reads. Council and library collections aside, these publications are usually consigned to the rubbish tin, unless in the hands of an engineer or specialist collector. Because Dr Hocken was interested in any documentation that depicted the development of New Zealand, he salvaged these works. Many carry maps and charts, which make them doubly interesting to the historian. This particular pamphlet on wharfage accommodation at Lyttleton has a lithograph frontispiece depicting Madras Pier on screw-piles. It was reproduced in the London Illustrated News, 1863.
Province of Canterbury, Report of the Commission…to Enquire into the Wharfage Accommodation Necessary for the Port of Lyttelton. Christchurch: Ward and Reeves, 1863. Vol. 46, no. 13. Hocken Pamphlet Collection.
Dr Hocken was not a snobbish collector, and although he liked well-presented books, he was not overly concerned with fancy ornate bindings or works in original boards uncut. When it came to pamphlets, he had no hesitation in employing binders to bind them into volumes that were sturdy and uniform. He used three which have been identified: Smith & Wildey at Crawford Street; R. Thompson, and George Campbell at 298 Moray Place. Campbell tended to do Hocken’s ‘Variae’ Collection; Thompson his books, and Smith & Wildey the pamphlets. The plain dumpy half-bound Almanacks volume contains 15 scarce New Zealand almanacs. Unfortunately, there is no indication of who did the binding.
New Zealand. Almanacks. Vol. 11, 1844-1859. Hocken Pamphlet Collection.
The Rev. Samuel Marsden (1764-1838), the first missionary to introduce Christianity into New Zealand, was a ‘hero’ to Dr Hocken, who openly admitted this in a lecture in 1880: ‘I have seized every opportunity through many years and from many sources of forming as intimate a knowledge of his [Marsden’s] character as seems possible, with the result that it impresses me with profound reverence and admiration...’. Hocken collected books and manuscripts on Marsden and planned to write a biography on him. One work collected was Marsden’s An Answer to Certain Calumnies, published in 1826 as a defence of his conduct in Australia. This item is bound with three others, including H. G. Bennett’s Letter to Lord Sidmouth on the Transportation Laws (1819).
Samuel Marsden, An Answer to Certain Calumnies in the Late Governor Macquarie’s Pamphlet and the Third Edition of Mr Wentworth’s Account of Australasia. London: J. Hatchard & Son, 1826. Vol. 80, no. 2. Hocken Pamphlet Collection.