New Zealand History

The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography was originally published in five print volumes between 1990 and 2000. It comprised 3000 biographical essays about a wide range of deceased New Zealanders who had come to prominence by 1960. The Dictionary went online in 2001. In 2010 it was merged with Te Ara: the Encyclopedia of New Zealand to form the single largest reference work on New Zealand's history...

Douglas Lilburn Research Fellow, Dr Aleisha Ward explores some of the many facets of ‘jazz’ in New Zealand’s Jazz Age. The image of 1920s New Zealand is frequently one of a quiet, staid society that ‘closed at 5’. Contrary to belief however, New Zealand had a flourishing, vibrant, urban landscape and a burgeoning jazz scene. Dr Aleisha Ward is the 2017 Douglas Lilburn Research Fellow and a recipie...

Redmer Yska is a Wellington based writer and historian, and is author to many New Zealand history works. Redmer presents his latest work 'A Strange Beautiful Excitement, Katherine Mansfield’s Wellington, 1888-1903’, and discusses a new connection between Mansfield's family and Women's Suffrage. He tried, as he put it, to ‘catch a glimpse of her in the open air: striding through the gale, long hair...

Dr Angela Wanhalla teaches in the Department of History and Art History at the University of Otago, Dunedin. This presentation draws upon her most recent book, He Reo Wāhine: Māori Women’s Voices from the Nineteenth Century, co-authored with Māori-language scholar and historian, Lachy Paterson. Collective petitions have helped force significant political and social reform in New Zealand. This talk...

The Great War for New Zealand tells the story of the defining conflict in New Zealand history. War in the Waikato in 1863-64 shaped the nation in all kinds of ways, setting back Māori and Pākehā relations by several generations, marking an end to any hopes of meaningful partnership and allowing the government to begin to assert the kind of real control over the country that had eluded it since 184...

In this episode, Charlotte Macdonald and Rebecca Lenihan will discuss the development of a database of men serving in the imperial regiments in New Zealand, the nature of the ‘big data’ generated by the War Office, issues, limitations and possibilities to date, and goals for the database’s continuing development, along with some preliminary analysis. An initial release of the database is planned a...

In this presentation, Malcolm McKinnon considers the significance of the year 1932 in New Zealand’s history. Keith Sinclair famously described the disturbances of that year and the government’s harsh response as marking New Zealand’s nadir. But the disturbances also prompted the government to abandon its austerity policy, although this was hard to pick at the time, and a political impasse about th...

How do we write a history of caring? This became a central question for Barbara Brookes, Professor of History at the University of Otago in writing 'A History of New Zealand Women'. There have been major transitions in the locus of care over time. In the early twentieth century, for example, unmarried daughters might be expected to care for their parents in old age. In the mid-twentieth century, m...

 How do we capture the flurry of activity, the frenetic movement of people and goods, the routines and ruptures that shape individuals’ everyday experiences and the spaces in which they live? How do we write a history of domestic space, and what are the benefits of such an endeavour for the social or cultural historian? In this talk, Dr Katie Cooper will address these questions offering a peek thr...

One hundred years ago in June 1917, the New Zealand Pioneer Battalion was toiling in the war torn environment around Messines in Belgium. The Pioneers had over a year’s experience as a mixed-race battalion (i.e. Maori, Pakeha and Pacific Islanders) and before that as the Maori Contingent and Otago Mounted Rifles Regiment at Gallipoli. In this talk - Historian Monty Soutar, (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Awa,...

The government recently announced a proposal to make more of our rivers ‘swimmable' by 2040 – it has attracted significant controversy, demonstrating the level of concern about the state of our rivers among ordinary New Zealanders. In this talk, Catherine Knight, author of New Zealand’s Rivers: An environmental history, will provide important context to this debate by exploring some of our complex...

In this presentation Ben Schrader offers some reflections on the writing of his recent book The Big Smoke: New Zealand Cities, 1840-1920 (Bridget Williams Books, Wellington, 2016). Why did he write the book and how did he go about it?  What were the challenges and rewards of writing a broad story in a narrowly researched field?  He then reveals some of the most important findings from the project...

The Treaty of Waitangi struck a bargain between two parties - the Crown and Māori. Its promises of security however, were followed from 1845 to 1872 by a series of volatile and bloody conflicts commonly known as the New Zealand Wars. Many people believe that these wars were fought solely between the Crown and Maori, when the reality is Maori aligned with both sides, resulting in three participants...

Tom Brooking is Professor of History at the University of Otago. He specialises in New Zealand rural and environmental history, political history and historical links between New Zealand and Scotland. He is an author, co author and biographer of numerous books and publications, including the 2014 biography: Richard Seddon King of God's Own. Although he was no saint Seddon was a far more complex an...

Steven Loveridge holds a PhD in history from Victoria University of Wellington and has researched, taught and written on various aspects of the First World War. This talk explores the dynamics of the mobilisation process and considers what it might add to our comprehension of wartime New Zealand. Introduction by Senior Historian Gavin McLean, and recorded at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage,...

Dr Grant Morris is a Senior Lecturer in Law at Victoria University of Wellington. In this podcast he explores James Prendergast, the most infamous figure in New Zealand’s legal history. Known mainly for his condemnation of the Treaty of Waitangi as “a simple nullity” in 1877, Prendergast was a highly respected lawyer and judge and his good reputation remained intact until the 1980s, when the Treat...

This presentation by Andrew Francis discusses a still under-researched aspect of New Zealand’s war on the home front. It assesses the government, press and public’s conduct interwoven with Germans settlers’ wartime experiences. It considers the government’s task in attempting to safeguard the dominion’s security while remaining fair and just to New Zealand’s German communities; it analyses the rol...

Imelda Bargas and Tim Shoebridge are Senior Historians in the Ministry for Culture and Heritage's History Group. In this talk Imelda and Tim will explain how they came to work on their book, New Zealand's First World War Heritage and some of the challenges they faced putting it together. They'll also explore the themes covered in the book, using some of their favourite stories and sites. Recorded...

Dame Margaret Sparrow has had a long career in general and reproductive health. She was awarded an MBE in 1987, the New Zealand Suffrage Centennial Medal in 1993, and the DCNZM for services to medicine and the community in 2002, which in 2009 became a DNZM. The women who had abortions in 19th century New Zealand are all long dead and little is known of their shortened lives. Most of what we know a...

Historian Margaret Pointer discusses why 150 Niueans were accepted for service in the Māori Contingent, their experiences in Auckland, Egypt France and England and what life was lie for the men returning home. Recorded at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 6 August 2014.

Lecturer in History at the University of Auckland, Aroha Harris (Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi) talks about new perspectives on Māori history. Her latest book 'Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History' is a collaboration between Harris, Judith Binney and Atholl Anderson and is published by Bridget Williams Books. Recorded at Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 4 March 2015. Introduction by Ripeka Evans.

Recorded on 5 November 2014. Historian Matthew Wright discusses his recent publication on the chequered history of coal.

Kate Hunter and Kirstie Ross discuss their recent publication Holding On To Home: New Zealand Stories and Objects of the First World War. Recorded at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 1 October 2014.

Recorded on 3 September 2014. Language expert Dianne Bardsley discusses geographic and social conditions that have produced the distinctive form of New Zealand English.

In this recording from 2 July 2014 Jim McAloon, Associate Professor of History, Victoria University, sheds light on the perceptions, ideas, and competing interests which shaped the views and actions of ministers and officials in managing a small externally dependent economy in the decades following the Second World War.