Cabinet 11
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In 1845, Robert Graham (1820-1885), land-owner, entrepreneur and Minister of the Crown, bought 20 acres of land, which included the hot springs at Waiwera (‘Hot Water’), north of Auckland. Waiwera became a fashionable tourist and ‘healing’ resort, made more commodious to visitors by the hotel Graham built there in 1875. In 1871, Hocken took the first of many trips north and although he may not have met Graham on that occasion, he did meet him later. This ‘Waiwera’ pamphlet is a presentation copy from Graham to Hocken. Hot springs obviously fascinated Hocken; he visited the Hot Springs near Rotorua and later wrote about them. The map displayed is from Thomas Bracken’s The New Zealand Tourist (1879).
[Robert Graham], Waiwera (Hot Springs) Sanitarium, Near Auckland, N.Z. Auckland: Herald Office, [c. 1875]. Vol. 10, no. 5. Hocken Pamphlet Collection.
In 1854, Hocken was living in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where, as an apothecary apprentice to Dr Septimus William Rayne, he attended lectures at the Newcastle-upon-Tyne College of Practical Science. Botany was one subject he learnt and obviously enjoyed. Indeed, during 1855-56, Hocken achieved distinction by winning a silver medal in the subject. Although this pamphlet collection is classified as ‘Botany’, and includes William Colenso’s article on newly-discovered New Zealand ferns (1845) and Alan Cunningham’s Florae Insularum Novae Zealandiae Precursor, it does include - rather incongruously - H. S. Chapman’s Specimens of Fossilized Words (1876). Hand-picked by Sir Joseph Banks to collect specimen samples for Kew Gardens, Cunningham visited Russell in August 1826 and botanised in nearby Kawakawa and Kerikeri.
Allan Cunningham, ‘Florae Insularum Novae Zealandae Precursor; Or A Specimen of the Botany of the Islands of New Zealand’, in W.J. Hooker, Companion to the Botanical Magazine. Vol. II. London: Samuel Curtis, 1835. Vol. 14, no. 1. Hocken Pamphlet Collection.
Hocken was very good at clumping like-pamphlets together, often centred on themes such as ‘Old New Zealand’, ‘Botany’, or ‘Travel’. Later volumes are arranged more randomly and were not bound under his direction. Volume 91 contains 16 items ranging from A Treatise on the Coco-nut Tree (1831) and John Dunmore Lang’s Juvenile-Pauper Emigration (1849), to the Annual Report of the Horticultural Society of Otago (1864), and The Province of Otago in New Zealand (1868), which is on display. To assist future readers, Hocken identified the names of streets in early Dunedin. The contents page of this volume is in the hand of William Heywood Trimble, the first Hocken Librarian. It was he who had it bound.
The Province of Otago, in New Zealand: Its Progress, Present Condition, Resources and Prospects. Dunedin: W. J. Henningham, 1868. Vol. 91, no. 15. Hocken Pamphlet Collection.