Edward Wakefield's Annotated Copy of Dieffenbach's Travels in New Zealand

The Dunedin City Library is fortunate to hold three first edition copies of Ernst Dieffenbach's two-volume Travels in New Zealand (London, 1843), possibly the most reliable early book on New Zealand's natural environment and Māori culture written not long after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi (Wattie 140). One copy belonged to the Stamford Institution, Stamford, Lincolnshire. The second copy was owned by Robert McNab (1864–1917), who, in late 1913, donated his collection of 4,200 books to the Dunedin Public Library. The third copy was purchased by another of the Library's major benefactors, Sir Alfred Hamish Reed (1875–1975), whose bookplate is affixed to the front pastedown.

'Presented to Mr E. Wakefield'
The Reed copy provenance, which has remained unknown for decades and gone unrecorded until now, links the book to one of the most important and controversial families active during the early years of New Zealand's colonial period: the Wakefields.

Inscription on front free endpaper

'Presented to Mr E. Wakefield by the Director of the New Zealand Company. April 1843'.

Originally established in London in 1837 as the New Zealand Association, the New Zealand Company's expressed aim was the systematic colonising of Aotearoa. A founder, and the Director of the Company in April 1843, was the politician and colonial promoter (not to mention convicted abductor), Edward Gibbon Wakefield (1796–1862), a principal figure behind much of the early colonisation of South Australia and New Zealand.

E. G. Wakefield's father, Edward Wakefield (1774–1854), was a philanthropist and land agent. During the 1830s and 1840s, Wakefield, Sr. became what the ODNB describes as 'a warm advocate of Edward Gibbon Wakefield's colonization schemes, writing many letters to newspapers and lobbying the cabinet'. He became in some way an agent, which no doubt accounts for Dieffenbach's Travels having been presented to him by the Company rather than by his son personally.

'The Opinion He Has Given ... Seems Extraordinary'
In addition to being owned by Edward Wakefield, there are no fewer than 216 pages with some form of annotation or marginalia by him.

The sections most heavily marked up are Dieffenbach's general remarks (with attention paid mainly to New Zealand's natural resources), and his chapters on whales and whalers, geological features, Māori customs and language, and the nature and impact of disease on Māori. Nearly all of Wakefield's annotations do not comment on the text or record his thoughts about it, but serve rather as handy reference points to paragraphs or sentences of particular interest.

Wakefield's lone comment related to Dieffenbach's thoughts on the alteration of Polynesian dialects due to the influence of foreign countries, which he believed caused local traditions to be forgotten, and the impact of English (specifically through the Bible in translation) upon Pacific languages. 'New conceptions, new ideas, are pouring in upon these simple and interesting islanders, which importantly affect their language. Every day diminishes ... the chance of recording the different dialects in their purity' (2:304). Dieffenbach's astute (if somewhat condescending) observations struck Wakefield, who wrote on the opposite page:

'The opinion he has given at p. 304 seems extraordinary[.] If the dialects are now so altered then the traditions are forgotten . as a proof none but the old can give an account on the meaning of songs &c'[.]

There is one annotation of particular immediacy (in relation to the date of the gift) and poignancy. On page 94 of the first volume, Wakefield underlined, 'Up to the present time, nearly three years since the purchase, there has not been a single serious misunderstanding between the natives and the European settlers'. In the margin he wrote: 'Natives and European settlers on friendly terms'.


Two months after being given the book, one of Edward's sons, Captain Arthur Wakefield, was killed on 17 June 1843 in the first serious engagement between Māori and the British settlers after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Known as the Wairau Affray, the clash centred around the attempted arrest of the Māori chief Te Rauparaha (ca. 1760s–1849), and left four Māori and twenty-two British dead.

We cannot know for certain when Wakefield read and annotated the text, whether it was before or after Arthur's death. News of the event would not have reached him for months afterwards. The evidence, however, does suggest Wakefield had a specific interest in Te Rauparaha. The first appearance of his name is underlined and is so elsewhere. The names of the Māori chiefs Te Hiko Piata Tama-i-hikoia and Te Werowero are simply noted in the margins, but we find written next to the corresponding printed text in volume one, pages 98 and 99, 'extermination of a tribe by Rauparaha' and 'an account of Rauparaha'.

Te Rauparaha could of course be singled out because he was a well known Māori figure at the time, or perhaps Wakefield wished to learn more about the man he held responsible for the death of Arthur. Either way, these and the other annotations are evidence of careful reading of one of the important early New Zealand books by the father whose sons and grandson are so intertwined with the country's early colonial history.

The Author & Text

Born in Giessen, Germany, Johann Karl Ernst Dieffenbach (1811–1855), was the first trained scientist to live and work in New Zealand. Earning a medical degree in Zurich before being expelled from Switzerland for political agitation and duelling, Dieffenbach sailed for England in 1837 where he changed his name to 'Ernest'. There he befriended such eminent scientists as Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell and Richard Owen. In 1839 Dieffenbach, along with E. G. Wakefield's brother William (1801‒1848), and son, Edward Jerningham (1820‒1879), set sail for New Zealand as naturalist to the New Zealand Company.

Working in a time before science was split into narrow specialisations, Dieffenbach recorded natural features, wrote of the Māori people, their language, customs and beliefs, with insightful understanding. For example, though Dieffenbach found the act of cannibalism and certain other customs detestable, he suggested that 'If one were to reckon up the crimes and gratuitous cruelties ... which civilized men have committed against the savage, the balance of humanity, and of other virtues too, would probably be found on the side of the latter' (2:131)  

Dieffenbach was not embroiled in land purchases from the Māori, and regretted as a theorist and as a man the possible extinction of a native people. Because of his non-alignment with the Company (his contract expired in 1841), missionaries or Government, Dieffenbach was able to suggest ways to protect the Māori from colonisation in his chapter 'How to Legislate for the Natives of New Zealand' (v.2 chap. 9). With remarkable foresight he also realised what the impact could be of introducing alien flora and fauna to the colony: 'what a chain of alterations ... takes place from the introduction of a single animal into a country where it was before unknown' (2:416). An environmental issue New Zealand struggles with to this very day.

In 1845, Edward Jerningham Wakefield, who became an MP in the first New Zealand Parliament, published his own account of New Zealand as Adventures in New Zealand From 1839 to 1844. The historian E. H. McCormick compared the reporting styles of Dieffenbach with that of the young Wakefield in his Letters and Art in New Zealand (Wellington, 1940). He described Wakefield's work as 'all animation and colour and youthful prejudice', which could not have been more different from Dieffenbach who was 'sober, rather heavy-handed in narrative, judicial in his views and statements and possessed of that stability and depth of character which Jerningham so entirely lacked' (McCormick 24).

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Nelson Wattie. 'Dieffenbach, Ernst or Ernest (1811‒55)' in The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature edited by Roger Robinson (Melbourne; Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1998).


For a full account of the Wakefield family, see Philip Temple's A Sort of Conscience: The Wakefields (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2002).

The text of Dieffenbach's Travels in New Zealand and E. J. Wakefield's Adventures in New Zealand are available on-line through the University of Auckland's Early New Zealand Books project:

Dieffenbach: Volume 1 | Volume 2

Wakefield: Volume 1 | Volume 2

Recent Acquisitions III: Boswell to the South Pole

[With Christmas just around the corner, my final post of 2012 highlights some of the year's notable purchases made by the Heritage Collections, Dunedin City Library. I'll be back in 2013 with more Antipodean bibliographic news.]

James Boswell. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Dublin: Printed by John Chambers for R. Cross, W. Wilson, [et al], 1792; three volumes.
The first Dublin and second overall edition of James Boswell's classic biography of Samuel Johnson. The text was produced quickly by having a separate printer print each volume in an effort to undersell the genuine edition, which appeared in London the previous year. The second London edition published in 1793 followed the Dublin three-volume octavo format.

According to Frederick Pottle, while a number of typographical errors found in the 1791 first London edition were here corrected, others were introduced (Pottle 80).

Purchased from Blackwell's, Oxford, December 2012.

F. A. Pottle. The Literary Career of James Boswell Esq.: Being the Bibliographical Materials for a Life of Boswell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967 reprint).

Breviary leaf, Latin. Bohemia, ca. 1420 to 1450.
This single, illuminated leaf with a five-line initial 'D' containing a bearded figure dressed in a green tunic, is the first example of Bohemian manuscript production to be added to the Reed manuscripts collection.

The design was influenced by manuscripts illuminated for the court of King Wenceslas IV (1361–1419), with its use of silver to heighten the border decorations, and acanthus leaves extending into the margins with angles marked in gold.

Fitting for this time of year, the text is from the first Sunday in Advent.

Purchased from Maggs, January 2012.

Alan Loney. RISE: Governors Bay Sept / Nov 2000. Newark, VT: Janus Press, 2003.
The Library has been collecting private press books since the 1980s. Today new acquisitions focus mainly on New Zealand private presses, and books produced overseas with New Zealand content.

This poem by the New Zealand poet-printer Alan Loney may be read as paginated, but it is also intended for random browsing – and so was bound with two spines and three panels, so the alternating pages can be accessed from either direction.

In the centre of the book is a colour photographic illustration of Governors Bay, Canterbury, New Zealand, taken by Claire Van Vliet, founder of the Janus Press. According to Ruth Fine's catalogue raisonné The Janus Press, Fifty Years (2006), Van Vliet made the translucent tan paper fly-leaves 'from abaca pulp prepared with seawater by Bernie Vinzani', a master paper maker based in Maine. The binding was inspired by New Zealand bookbinder Elizabeth Steiner's Gioia II (2002) and executed by Audrey Holden.

An unnumbered copy out of 150 printed, this particular copy is from the library of Andrew Hedden, notable collector of press books and livres d'artiste.

Purchased from Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts, November 2012.

Robert McNab. Murihiku and the Southern Islands. [Invercargill: William Smith, Printer, 1906].
Described by T. M. Hocken as 'a mass of old history', Robert McNab's Murihiku tells the early history of New Zealand's South Island and the adjacent islands.

Murihiku was continually reworked by McNab. It initially appeared in 1904 as Murihiku: Some Old Time Events, a collection of twelve articles originally published in the Southern Standard. These were reprinted along with an additional thirteen articles the following year. In 1906 McNab was ready to publish a new edition. Mcnab, however, had gathered so much new material from a research trip to America that he decided to scrap the edition. Ending on page 144, all but six of the 600 copies in mid production were destroyed (Bagnall M568). A replacement edition of 1,000 copies covering the years 1770 to 1829 was produced in 1907, followed in 1909 by an expanded edition covering 1642 to 1835 produced in a smaller run of 515 copies (fifteen on hand made paper).

Not listed in Bagnall, the 210-page Murihiku recently bought by the Library is described in the National Library of New Zealand catalogue as a 'printer's advance copy', presumably for the 1907 edition. The National Library of New Zealand and Dunedin City Library copies are the only copies presently known. The Dunedin copy is inscribed by the author to Thomas Mackenzie, an explorer and politician who served briefly as the 18th Prime Minister of New Zealand in 1912.

Purchased from Art+Object auction, Auckland, 6 December 2012 (item 35).

A. S. Bagnall. New Zealand National Bibliography to the Year 1960, 4 vols. in 5 (Wellington: A. R. Shearer, Government Printer, 1970–1980; supplement and index 1985).

Robert Maunsell. Grammar of the New Zealand Language. Auckland: J. Moore, 1842-1843; four parts.
Maunsell's Grammar was described in my 25 July post for Maori Language Week. Its entry reads:

This grammar was written by Robert Maunsell in 1841–1842, encouraged by the support of prominent figures including the Governor’s private secretary (James Coates), Sir William Martin, the first Chief Justice of New Zealand, and George Augustus Selwyn, first Anglican Bishop of New Zealand. This support resulted in the work being printed in Auckland by the printer contracted to the government, rather than by the Church Mission Press at Paihia.

Freed from the influence of the Northern District, which controlled mission printing and translating, Maunsell took tentative steps at reforming Maori orthography and adopting (in preference to the northern Ngapuhi dialect) the conventions of the Waikato dialect, which was widely understood and had retained its purity.

3,000 copies were printed at Maunsell’s expense and issued in four parts. At the time of my July post the Library held only two of the four parts, and we are delighted to now have a full set in the collection.

Purchased from Art+Object auction, Auckland, 6 December 2012 (item 271).

South Polar Times. Facsimile edition produced by the Folio Society, 2012; thirteen volumes.
The South Polar Times is a remarkable publication that was produced aboard the Discovery when it wintered over in the Antarctic 1902–1903, and on the Terra Nova in 1910–1913. It was produced as a monthly journal, partly to relieve the boredom and monotony, and presumably also to aid in keeping the men disciplined. Contributions, which were made anonymously or under noms de plume, included poetry, puzzles, scientific articles, observations, mock interviews, reports on events, satires and song parodies. Some contributors, most notably Edward Wilson, provided their own illustrations.

A bound, three-volume reproduction was published in 1907–1914 after the expeditions returned to England, and was intended for the expedition members and their families as a record of and an insight into life in the Antarctic. The recent Folio Society facsimile was produced in the monthly journal format from the original issues held by the Royal Geographical Society, British Library and Scott Polar Research Institute, and include material not found in the 1907–1914 reproduction.

Purchased from the Folio Society, June 2012.

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Wishing you all the very best for the Christmas season and a joyous New Year.