Cabinet 15
The spine of this volume reads: ‘Hursthouse. Emigrants Guide. Fox’s Nelson. Capper. Wilcocks. Haygarth’s Bush Life’ and thus conveys something of its contents. In 162 pages (much larger than the normal pamphlet) Haygarth gives a reasoned and ‘unexaggerated’ account of life in the outer limits of early Australia. Hocken knew something of Australia, although much less of ‘bush’ life. As ship’s surgeon on the SS Great Britain, he was often laid-over in Melbourne, and he passed through Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart on his trips home to England in 1882 and 1901-04. As New Zealand was inextricably linked with Australia in the early days of settlement, it is fitting that Hocken included this work in his collection.
Henry William Haygarth, Recollections of Bush Life in Australia. London: John Murray, 1848. Vol. 37, no. 6. Hocken Pamphlet Collection.
George Vason (d. 1838), the author of this early narrative, was an English bricklayer turned missionary who went ‘native’ shortly after arriving in Tonga in 1796. Vason dressed and lived like a native, married the daughter of a chief, and covered himself in tattoos. On leaving the islands, he lived his remaining years in his home town of Nottingham, repenting his past adventures. Vason recounted his exploits to the Rev. James Orange, which were then edited by Samuel Piggott. It carries a delightful frontispiece with the spiritual message: ‘This will die, but the life which is within will never die.’ Strangely, this lengthy publication has been classified as a pamphlet, which it is not.
George Vason, An Authentic Narrative of Four Years’ Residence at Tongataboo. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1810. Vol. 116. Hocken Pamphlet Collection.
Robert Drucke Lubecke Duffus, no doubt a member of the Anti-Poverty Society like Honorary President ‘Good Governor’ Grey, compiled four ‘taxation’ pamphlets between 1884 and 1886: The Electors War Cry. Tax the Land and Spare the People (1885?), A State Bank (1885), The Financial Depression (1886), and the earlier Hard Times and Land Monopoly (1884). In his Bibliography (1909), Hocken deemed this last ‘a well-written demand for the nationalisation of land.’ One pamphlet within contains ‘The Landlord’s Prayer’ which begins: ‘Lord, keep us rich, and free from toil,/ For we/ are honoured holders of Thy soil,/Which democrats would now despoil/ With glee.’
[Robert D. L. Duffus], Hard Times and Land Monopoly: An Appeal to the Electors. Auckland: N.G. Lennox, [1884]. Vol. 118, no. 2. Hocken Pamphlet Collection.
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In 1889, when Hocken was working on Abel Tasman’s Journal, preparing for the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition in Dunedin, and compiling his own bibliography, he was in contact with James Backhouse Walker (1841-1899). The Hobart-based solicitor and historian was engaged in his own work on Tasman, and had compiled a ‘bibliography’ on books relating to Tasmania. Any bibliographer worth his salt wants to see books and more books, and failing that, lists of books. Here is Walker’s list (a presentation copy) with an accompanying letter tipped in. Collectors often add such mementos to an item secured by gift or purchase. Hocken was no exception.
James B. Walker, List of Books Relating to Tasmania. Launceston, Tasmania: Aikenhead & Button, 1884. Vol. 63, no. 9. Hocken Pamphlet Collection.