is situated on the north bank of the Hokitika River mouth, on Westland Plain. The town occupies river terraces and is separated from the ocean beach by a narrow belt of sandhills. The surrounding country consists mainly of alluvial flats and terraces, but some 10–12 miles eastward it rises steeply to the bush-clad foothills of the Southern Alps. The main South Westland highway and the Greymouth-Ross section of railway pass through the town. By road Hokitika is 25 miles south-west of Greymouth (24 miles by rail) and 19 miles north-east of Ross (15 miles by rail). Christchurch is 169 miles south-east by rail via the Otira Tunnel.

The main farming activities of the district are sheep and cattle raising on the less productive land and dairying on the alluvial flats. The timber industry is the most important primary activity and there are many sawmills cutting native trees in the district. Afforestation with exotics, chiefly Pinus radiata, is undertaken by the New Zealand Forest Service in the wake of felling. Lime is quarried and processed at Kowhitirangi (14 miles south). Hokitika is the administrative and commercial centre for that part of Westland extending from the Taramakau River to Jackson Bay, and is also an important junction for visitors to the major resorts of South Westland. Town industrial activities include the manufacture of joinery, coal gas, clothing, butter, beer and stout; sawmilling; and general engineering.

Ancient Maori overland routes to the greenstone country converged on Hokitika from the south via Haast Pass and from the east via Browning and Whitcombe Passes. There is evidence of former Maori occupation at Kokatahi (about 12 miles south-east). The ships of Tasman, Cook, and d'Urville sailed northwards off the coast in 1642, 1770, and 1826 respectively. None of these navigators considered the country worthy of investigation. Thomas Brunner, who travelled through the district in 1847, was the first European overland visitor. In March 1857 the Oakes brothers in the schooner Emerald Isle visited the mouth of the Hokitika River and, later in the same year, Leonard Harper and Maoris visited the district via Harper Pass and Mawhera (now Greymouth). In 1860 J. Mackay passed through the district prior to concluding the purchase of the West Coast at Mawhera on 21 May. In 1863 gold was discovered in the Taramakau district and extensive surveys of Westland began. In 1864 W. H. Revell, convinced of the presence of payable gold, informed the Provincial Government, who were considering abandoning the West Coast.

During the last six months of 1864 a straggling mining camp came into existence at Hokitika. On 1 October Hudson and Price arrived and set up a calico store on the north bank. By November several tents and four more stores had been set up on the south bank opposite. The s.s. Nelson crossed the bar early in 1865. Rochfort had surveyed the town site and when the passengers landed Revell marked off the town sections. Many of these were taken up immediately and the construction of the buildings commenced. In March 1865 Westland was proclaimed a goldfield and, subsequently, G. S. Sale became Commissioner at Hokitika. During this month the rush accelerated and some 4,000 miners arrived by sea from the Otago diggings and probably half as many again came overland. Early in April the first of the influx of Victorian diggers, known as the “Australian Invasion”, landed. The route via Harper Pass was improved and, by 1866, the permanent highway from Christchurch via Arthur's Pass had reached the existing Greymouth-Hokitika route near Arahura River crossing. Gold mining remained a major industry for many years. The last gold dredge on the Hokitika River, dismantled in 1952–53, is at present (1962) working along the north bank of the Taramakau River. In the later 1860s timber milling began to assume importance and has continued to be a major industry. Farming dates from about 1867 when land in the Kokatahi district was occupied.

Railway construction commenced in the early 1880s and the Greymouth-Hokitika line was opened on 18 December 1893. The extension to Ross, commenced in August 1902, was opened throughout on 1 April 1904. Through rail traffic between Hokitika and Christchurch was achieved with the opening of the Otira Tunnel on 4 August 1923. On 5 June 1866 Hokitika was a municipal district of Canterbury Province, but from 1868 was designated a borough. In 1868, under the County of Westland Act, Hokitika became a county seat, Westland County became a new province on 1 December 1873 and, until 1876, Hokitika was the provincial capital. The origin of the name is uncertain. It is said that Kaiapoi Maoris attempted to capture a pa here, but their chiefs were drowned while crossing the river. The leaderless attackers thereupon retired. Literally, the name means “to return directly” or “to turn back again”.

POPULATION: 1951 census, 2,986; 1956 census, 3,032; 1961 census, 3,005.

by Brian Newton Davis, M.A., Vicar, St. Philips, Karori West, Wellington and Edward Stewart Dollimore, Research Officer, Department of Lands and Survey, Wellington.

Hokitika: Goldfields Capital, May, P. R. (1965).

Hokianga Harbour is a fiord-like inlet in the western coast of the North Auckland Peninsula. Its full name “Hokianga-nui-o-Kupe”, meaning “the final departing place of Kupe”, refers to the place of embarkation on the occasion of his return to Hawaiki after exploring part of the New Zealand coast. Like other west coast harbours, it represents a drowned-river system and has a dangerous bar 1½ miles from the entrance, the scene of several wrecks. Coastal shipping formerly used the harbour as far inland as Horeke. The harbour extends as far as Kohukohu, where it branches into the Waihou and Mangamuka Rivers. The bold-cliffed south head, surmounted by the old Signal Station, consists of well-cemented conglomerates. The north head consists of moving sand dunes up to 570 ft in height. For the rest, the rocks consist of soft alternating sandstones and shales, with some limestone on both shores near Opononi. To the south the sedimentary rocks are backed by the rugged bush-clad Waima Range of submarine lavas and, to the north, by the Warawara of the same rock.

In early European times Hokianga was the home of Patuone and Nene. The first Europeans in the Hokianga district arrived about 1800. These were mainly runaway sailors, sawyers, and convicts, of whom John Marmon, better known as “Cannibal Jack”, was the most notorious. When Marsden visited the district in 1819 he called it the Gambier River, but the ancient Maori name has survived. Among the early mariners was Captain J. R. Kent, of the schooner Prince Regent, who crossed the bar for a load of spars in 1820, and Captain Herd, of the Providence, in 1822. Four years later Captain Herd was back in charge of the expedition of the First New Zealand Company. None of the intending settlers was prepared to stay, but a few subsequently returned from Sydney. The brig Vision later made several voyages transporting settlers from Sydney.

About 1819 Messrs Raine, Ramsay, and Browne, a Sydney firm, established a sawmill and shipyard. In a comparatively short time this became a thriving settlement and by the 1830s was popularly known as “the Deptford of the South”. Meanwhile traders in flax, squared timber, and spars were slowly appearing on the scene and setting up shore bases. Of these newcomers the most well known were G. F. Russell, F. E. Maning, whose home still stands at Onoke Point, and Thomas McDonnell, who had a shipyard at Horeke. Clendon, later American consul at the Bay of Islands, was another early settler. Baron de Thierry, the self-styled “King of New Zealand”, settled in 1837 at Mount Isabel (called after his daughter), near Rangiahua. In February 1840 Captain Hobson addressed a large gathering of Maoris at the mission when he induced a number of chiefs to add their signatures to the Treaty of Waitangi.

Meanwhile the missionaries had been active throughout the district. Early in 1828 John Hobbs established a Methodist mission at Mangungu, a few miles from Raine's settlement. Later, the Roman Catholics came to Totara Point on the Mangamuka River. Today these sites are marked by a Celtic cross and a plinth. The Wesleyans extended their activities to Waima (site marked by an oak) and Pakanae (site marked by Norfolk pines), and the Roman Catholics to Purakau on the north side.

Hokianga's prosperity was built on kauri timber and kauri gum. Mills were established in the 1870s and milling operations were conducted at Kohukohu, Rangiora, Koutu, Waima, Rawene, Horeke, and Waimamaku. The chief gum areas were near Taheke, at Koutu, and around Rangi Point. Today the mainstay of the area is farming, though some building sand and agricultural limestone are produced. As a tourist resort Omapere and Opononi are becoming increasingly well known. It was at Opononi that “Opo”, the tame dolphin, made her appearance.

In May 1898 Hokianga was the scene of the famous “Dog Tax Rebellion”. This arose when the Mahurehure hapu of Ngapuhi tribe refused to pay a dog tax recently instituted by the local county council. On 5 May 120 men of the Permanent Force under Colonel Newall marched from Rawene to Waima, the seat of the “rebellion”, only to find that Hone Heke, M.H.R., had already interceded to preserve the peace.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington and Robert Findlay Hay, M.A., B.E.(MINING), Scientific Officer, New Zealand Geological Survey, Otahuhu.

• Old New Zealand, Maning, F. E. (1956)
• Tides of Hokianga, Manson, C. and C. (1956)
• Check to Your King, Hyde, R. (1960).

(1864–1941).

Labour leader and journalist.

A new biography of Hogg, Robert appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Robert Hogg was born in Blochairn, Lanarkshire, in 1864. After working for 14 years as an engineer in the Post Office, he became owner-editor of a newspaper in Musselburgh, near Edinburgh. He played an active part in the Scottish Labour movement and was elected to the Musselburgh Council. In 1900 Hogg came to New Zealand. He took up land near Shannon, but gave up farming after a year and went to live in Wellington where he quickly assumed the leadership of the newly formed Socialist Party. While employed as a reader and, later, subeditor on the New Zealand Times he also edited the Socialists' Commonweal. In 1908 he unsuccessfully contested the Wellington South seat.

Due largely to Hogg's intransigence, the Wellington branch of the Socialist Party refused to join the new Social Democratic Party in 1913. Hogg was appointed editor of New Zealand Truth in that year, a position he kept until 1922. He soon severed all connection with the organised Labour movement, but he made full use of the columns of Truth to expose political and commercial scandals until he ran foul of the journal's Australian owners.

Hogg, who was related to James Hogg, the “Ettrick Shepherd”, wrote several volumes of poetry under the pseudonym of Robin Blochairn. He assembled a notable collection of books on Scottish literature which passed, after his death in Wellington in 1941, to the Alexander Turnbull Library.

by Herbert Otto Roth, B.A., DIP.N.Z.L.S., Deputy Librarian, University of Auckland.

• Evening Post, 9 May 1941 (Obit).

C.M.G. (1853–1920).

Educationalist.

A new biography of Hogben, George appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

George Hogben was born in London on 14 July 1853. His father, the Rev. George Hogben, was a Congregational minister, descended from a Kentish family whose origin went back to the Netherlands. Hogben was educated at a school for the sons of ministers at Lewisham, and at the University School, Nottingham. In 1873, after working for 18 months as a junior auditor in the Government service, he entered St. Catherine's College at Cambridge where he graduated among the wranglers. For two years Hogben taught at Aldenham School, Elstree, until in 1881 he obtained the appointment of second master at the Christchurch Boys' High School. With the headmaster, Thomas Miller, he arrived in New Zealand in March 1881. The two men helped to establish the new school where Hogben taught mathematics, science, English, and French. From the time of his arrival, Hogben played a prominent part in the intellectual life of Christchurch as a member of the Dialectical Society, Philosophical Institute, and Educational Institute. In 1885 he married Emily Frances, the youngest daughter of Edward Dobson.

In January 1887 Hogben left the high school to become inspector of schools under the North Canterbury Education Board. He held this position until May 1889, when he was appointed rector of the Timaru Boys' High School. Here, at last, Hogben had an opportunity to put his advanced ideas on education into practice. He introduced what he called the “natural” method of teaching, putting the emphasis on experiments, models, and practical measurements in the study of mathematics and science, and on actual speaking rather than on grammar in the teaching of languages. Education, he insisted, must be related to the pupils' environment. He also increased the attendance at the high school by the generous provision of free places. In Timaru, Hogben's mathematical interests led him to take up the study of seismology. He delivered papers on earthquakes at the congresses of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science and quickly became the leading New Zealand authority in this field.

Hogben's educational methods were favourably commented on by the Government's inspectors. When the head of the Education Department, the Rev. W. J. Habens died in 1899, Hogben seemed a very suitable choice to succeed him in his twin offices of Inspector-General of Schools and Secretary for Education.

The reforming zeal of the Liberal Government had not so far touched the Education Department. The times were ripe for major changes in this field, and as the Government was willing to provide the necessary money, Hogben lost no time in setting the stage for the many reforms he had in mind. Late in 1899 he issued regulations for the Inspection and Examination of Schools which gave more freedom to headmasters in the classification of pupils. The following year a Manual and Technical Instruction Act was passed which offered grants for the establishment of technical classes. Uniformity of teachers' salaries was achieved in 1901 following the report of a Royal Commission on the subject. A superannuation scheme for teachers was added soon afterwards. In 1902 Hogben issued regulations offering grants for free places in secondary schools. There was much resistance on the part of the more exclusive schools, but eventually free secondary schooling became an accepted feature of the New Zealand education system. District high schools brought post-primary schooling within reach of country children while bursaries and scholarships facilitated access to the university. In 1904 Hogben crowned his achievements by issuing a new primary school syllabus written almost exclusively by himself. It revolutionised the primary school system, and ranks as the most important measure of his administration.

Not only were these reforms in line with progressive educational thought overseas, but the manner of their introduction also showed Hogben's exceptional skill as an administrator. He worked through a special Parliamentary Committee on Education (first set up in 1903); he submitted his proposals to conferences of inspectors and education boards, and discussed them with representatives of the Educational Institute which spoke for the teachers. By these means he was generally able to gain a very wide measure of approval for even his most advanced ideas. With the death of Seddon in 1906, the spectacular period in New Zealand education came to an end. The remaining years of Hogben's tenure were devoted mainly to the consolidation of his achievements. In 1907, following a serious breakdown in his health, he spent 10 months travelling overseas, through Britain, Western Europe, the United States, and Canada. On his return he submitted a detailed report on his experiences.

University reform, the establishment of technical high schools, and medical inspection of school children were some of the problems which attracted Hogben's attention during the next years. His main concern had always been the content of teaching, but the rapid growth of the education system called for some measure of administrative consolidation. It was Hogben's misfortune that, by the time he tackled this problem, the outbreak of the First World War and the slender majority of the new Reform Government made fundamental changes impossible to achieve. For these reasons the Education Act of 1914 fell short of Hogben's expectations. On 1 January 1915 Hogben was appointed New Zealand's first Director of Education. In the New Year Honours he was created C.M.G. A month later he retired from the Government service.

From the time of his arrival in Wellington, Hogben had acted as honorary Government Seismologist and, after his retirement, he devoted himself mainly to his scientific and mathematical hobbies. He acted as assistant returning officer in April 1917, when the Christchurch City Council for the first time conducted the municipal elections by a system of proportional representation. His report on this election was submitted to Parliament, as was a report on the Organisation of Scientific and Industrial Research which foreshadowed the later establishment of that Department. In November 1919 Hogben was chosen as one of the 20 original fellows of the New Zealand Institute, now the Royal Society of New Zealand. Six months later, on 26 April 1920, he died at his home in Khandallah, Wellington. He was survived by his wife and two of his six sons. Two sons died in childhood and two lost their lives in the war.

Fully aware of the social implications of his work, Hogben was at all times interested less in routines than in initiating changes and reforms. A deeply religious man, he was a firm believer in progress. Almost single handed he prodded teachers, inspectors, and education boards to reconsider the part which school and child were to play in the modern State. Admittedly some of his reforms were ill conceived or premature. He had his failures and he made mistakes. But slowly and surely he was able to bring New Zealand's education system into line with the most advanced educational theory and practice of his time.

by Herbert Otto Roth, B.A., DIP.N.Z.L.S., Deputy Librarian, University of Auckland.

• George Hogben, Roth, H. (1952).

(1817–1914).

Settler and politician.

A new biography of Hodgkinson, Samuel appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Samuel Hodgkinson was born in 1817 at Morton Grange, Babworth, Nottinghamshire, the son of Richard Hodgkinson, a gentleman farmer, and of Mary, née Fisher. He was educated at the Collegiate Grammar School, Southwell, and apprenticed to Dr Valentine Williams of Nottingham. In 1838 he came to London, where he studied at the Apothecaries' Hall and at the Royal College of Surgeons, gaining honorary membership of the latter in 1842. While in London he became interested in the affairs of the New Zealand Company. He signed up as Surgeon-Superintendent in the Bombay, arriving in Nelson on 14 December 1842. After a short stay in Nelson and Wellington he continued in the Bombay to Valparaiso where he joined the General Scott, an American whaler, bound for New Bedford. He spent several months touring the Great Lakes areas of the United States and Canada and returned to England on 30 October 1843. Four years later the Colonisation Commissioners appointed him Surgeon-Superintendent on the David Malcolm which was under charter to carry emigrants to Adelaide, South Australia. Hodgkinson remained in Australia until 1851 when, encouraged by Tuckett and Sir William Martin, he decided to become a runholder in Canterbury. In partnership with Hunter-Brown he took up the Deans Peaks and Doctors Hills Stations. Towards the end of 1852 Hodgkinson's health failed and he was obliged to return to England where, in 1855, he sold his run to G. H. Moore. While in England Hodgkinson did much to encourage prospective emigrants. In 1856 he published a pamphlet, A Description of the Province of Canterbury, New Zealand; and, about the same time, he persuaded William Rolleston to emigrate to Canterbury. Hodgkinson returned to New Zealand in 1857, settling in Parnell, Auckland. Two years later he visited Southland where in 1860 he acquired the Mount Fairfax Station near Riverton. From 1864 until 1870 he was a member of the Southland Provincial Council and served on Stuart's and Taylor's Executives (1865–66). As a convinced provincialist, Hodgkinson opposed Southland's reunion with Otago. In 1868 he published Provincialism versus Centralism, a pamphlet upholding the provincial system. On 7 January 1876 he was elected member of the House of Representatives for Riverton. In Parliament he supported Sir George Grey on the provincial question, because he considered that abolition would deprive people of their opportunities to participate in local government. Hodgkinson did not seek re-election in 1879; but on 29 September 1887 he was returned by the Wallace constituency. Between 1887 and 1890 he supported the Atkinson Ministry, being especially interested in local government and constitutional reform. In 1888 he published Some Suggestions on Reform of Local Government and Decentralisation of Parliament, and advocated introducing the Canadian federal system. He favoured an elective executive and, on one occasion, failed to carry the proposal in the House by the narrow margin of two votes.

In addition to his parliamentary activities, Hodgkinson served on the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board, the Southland Education Board, and acted as coroner. Although not a supporter of the liquor party, he was interested in the licensing question; however, he opposed current prohibition ideas on the grounds that these involved an infringement of personal liberty.

In 1854, at Cheshire, England, Hodgkinson married Mary Eliza Atchison (died 1902), a granddaughter of the Earl of Gosforth. Hodgkinson died at Richmond Grove, Southland, on 10 January 1914, leaving two sons and two daughters.

For many years Hodgkinson maintained a voluminous correspondence with several well-known scientists. He kept a Journal and, in his latter years, wrote his memoirs.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

• Voyage of the Bombay to Nelson – Extract from the Memoirs of S. Hodgkinson (typescript), Turnbull Library
• Southland Times, 12 Jan 1914 (Obit).

(1869–1947).

Artist.

A new biography of Hodgkins, Frances Mary appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Frances Hodgkins was the third child and second daughter of William Mathew Hodgkins, barrister and solicitor, and Rachel Owen, daughter of J. S. Parker, of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Frances Hodgkins' father emigrated from Liverpool in 1858 and settled in Dunedin in 1860. He was an amateur watercolour painter of talent and the leader of local art circles, a founder member in 1875 of the Otago Art Society and its president for 18 years. Frances was born at Royal Terrace, Dunedin, on 28 April 1869.

Under her father's guidance and encouragement she exhibited for the first time at Dunedin and Christchurch in 1890, and in the same year was elected a working member of the Otago Art Society. In 1893 she attended classes held by G. P. Nerli, an Italian painter then resident in Dunedin, and in 1895 she attended Dunedin School of Art, subsequently gaining first-class passes in South Kensington examinations. In 1899, the year after her father's death, she was elected to the council of the Otago Art Society. During the period 1890–1900 Frances Hodgkins devoted most of her time to painting, going on several sketching trips, taking pupils, and exhibiting regularly at Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, and once at Auckland, as well as doing illustrations for the Otago Daily Times and Witness and the New Zealand Illustrated Magazine. Her early work included figure studies, portraits, and a few landscapes.

In February 1901 she left Dunedin for England, intending to round off her art study by a short stay. She attended classes, first at the London Polytechnic, and then joined Norman Garstin's sketching class at Caudebec and, later, at Dinan and Bruges. During this first European period, labouring under considerable financial difficulties, she sketched and travelled through France and Italy to reach Morocco. She exhibited her paintings in New Zealand as well as at several private galleries in London, and her work was hung in the Royal Academy for the first time in 1903, and again in 1905 and 1916.

Returning to Wellington in December 1903, where her mother now resided, Frances Hodgkins took pupils and continued to exhibit, but found it difficult to settle. Drawn irresistibly back to Europe, she returned there in January 1906. During the period 1906–13 she moved restlessly between England and the Continent, visiting Italy, France, and Holland, and exhibiting in Paris, London, and New Zealand. In 1908 she was elected Associate of the Society of Women Artists, and in the same year she won the first prize (with Thea Proctor) in the Australian section of Women's Art at the Franco-British Exhibition. In 1909 she exhibited in the Paris Salon and in 1910, for a few months, she held a class for watercolour at Academie Colarossi, Paris, and a year later took pupils at 21 Avenue du Maine, Paris.

On 3 October, Frances Hodgkins sailed for Australia and held successful exhibitions at Melbourne and Sydney before arriving in Wellington in January 1913, but this time only as a visitor, for she returned to Australia in April the same year to hold exhibitions at Sydney and Adelaide. A short return visit to Dunedin and Wellington, where she also held exhibitions, preceded her return to Europe, landing at Naples in November 1913. Travelling slowly through Italy and France she reached England in September 1914 and spent most of the war years at St. Ives, Cornwall. Ambitious for recognition, she exhibited her works as widely as possible and occasionally held sketching classes to augment her meagre income.

After the war she spent her time partly in London and partly in Cornwall. About 1919 she did her first painting in oils, and the twenties are marked as the most experimental period in her art. During this period she travelled around a good deal to London, Great Barrington, Burford, Bridgnorth, and abroad to St. Paul, Montreuil-sur-Mer, Nice, and Tréboul, sometimes holding sketching classes. From 1922 to 1927 she made her headquarters at Manchester, where she conducted classes and worked as a textile designer for the Calico Printers' Association. In 1926 her mother died, and her last ties with New Zealand were broken.

From the end of 1927 Frances Hodgkins spent most of her time in London and Cornwall. In 1929 she became a member of the Seven and Five Society and remained a member until 1934. In 1930 she concluded an agreement with Arthur R. Howell, of St. George's Gallery, London, which later led, in 1932, to a contract with Alex Reid and Lefevre. This lasted, with one renewal, to 1939, and so she enjoyed a small regular income for the first time in her life. In 1932 she had visited the Balearic Islands, and at the end of 1934 she went to Dorset. Apart from visits to Europe, including Spain, 1935–36, and to various parts of Britain including Wales, Dorset was to be her headquarters for the remaining years of her life, first at Worth Matravers and then at Corfe Castle. During this period her style matured and her work was increasingly recognised by one-man shows in London: Claridge Gallery (1928); St. George's Gallery (1930); Lefevre Galleries (1933, 37, 40, 43); and Leicester Galleries (1935, 41). Her work was shown in the United Kingdom Pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair in New York and at the 22nd Biennale di Venezia. At the end of 1939 she was elected a member of the London Group. In 1942 she was granted a Civil List Pension. Her work was included in the Exhibition of Contemporary British Art in Paris in 1945 and in the following year her retrospective exhibition was held at Lefevre Galleries. Frances Hodgkins died at Herrison House, Dorchester, on 13 May 1947.

Since her death, her work has been exhibited at Manchester (1947); a touring exhibition in Britain (1948); St. George's Gallery (1949); Tate Gallery (1952); Leicester Galleries (1956); and Wellington (1953). The first comprehensive exhibition of her work was organised in New Zealand by the Auckland City Art Gallery in 1954. She is represented best at the Auckland City Art Gallery and also at the galleries in Wellington, Dunedin, Christchurch, and Nelson, as well as in many private collections in New Zealand.

• Frances Hodgkins in New Zealand, McCormick, E. H. (1954)
• The Expatriate, McCormick, E. H. (1954)
• Frances Hodgkins, Four Vital Years, Howell, Arthur R. (1951)
• Frances Hodgkins, Evans, Myfanwy, (1948).

(1903–58).

Medical practitioner, playwright, and actor.

Horace Emerton Hodge, better known as Merton Hodge, author of The Wind and the Rain, and the only New Zealand dramatist, with the possible exception of Miss Ngaio Marsh to achieve international stature as a playwright, was born at Taruheru, Poverty Bay, on 28 March 1903. He was the son of Alfred Hodge, a Cook County farmer, and, after completing his secondary education in Gisborne, he entered the Medical School at the Otago University, graduating M.B., Ch.B. in 1928. As an undergraduate he was passionately interested in the amateur stage and became an enthusiastic active member of the University Dramatic Society. He produced a variety of student sketches and eventually wrote a play for presentation by the Dramatic Society, which later in 1933, under the title of The Wind and the Rain, met with a resounding success in London. After several hospital appointments in New Zealand, Hodge went to Edinburgh University for postgraduate study, and it was at this time that he refashioned and expanded his student effort into the play that ran to 1,000 performances at the St. Martin's, Queen's, and Savoy Theatres in London, and was later produced in America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. One of his early problems had been the claims of the stage versus medicine. He completed his medical course, but the issue re-emerged in London when as a member of the staff of St. George's Hospital he was faced with the phenomenal success of The Wind and the Rain. He went to New York with his play, but when war broke out in 1939 he returned to London and joined the staff of the Camberwell Hospital for Nervous Diseases. Hodge by this time had done a good deal of acting on stage and screen, and now he went on tour with E.N.S.A. (the British services entertainment unit), playing in his own play. He also contributed dramatic criticism to several London publications. He resumed the practice of medicine in 1948, and in 1952 returned to New Zealand and set up practice in Dunedin. His death by drowning occurred in Dunedin on 9 October 1958. He was a victim of his own success.

Hodge as a dramatist was very much a product of his generation. Many of his images, and particularly his comparisons in simile and metaphor, sprang from his native background, but others derived with equal spontaneity from the world in which he moved during his post-graduate period. This combination, and the fact that he appears to have written with deliberate restraint to match the simplicity of his theme, formed the basis of the peculiar quality London audiences and critics found in The Wind and the Rain. Unhappily he never quite achieved the same deft touch of the realist-cum-anti-romantic in his subsequent work. His genius, if such it was, came in and went out with his first success. Grief Goes Over, in which Dame Sybil Thorndike appeared in the London West End, was a graceful play, soundly constructed and in some respects in strong contrast to the light touch of The Wind and the Rain, but it enjoyed only a moderate success. Orchard Walls, The Island (written in collaboration with Godfrey Tearle), and a dramatic adaptation of Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm followed, but they added little to the laurels he had already won. R.J.

• Otago Daily Times, 10 Oct 1958 (Obit).

As 1960 was a jubilee year for women's hockey in Australia, New Zealand was asked to take part in the inter-State tournament. Before the tournament began, the team played matches in Victoria and New South Wales, winning them all. This record was maintained in the tournament till Western Australia held the visitors to a 2–2 draw. The only test was drawn.

Winners of national tournaments since 1908 are:

The New Zealand Women's Hockey Association became affiliated to the International Federation of Women's Hockey Associations in 1939. In that year the third conference and tournament for member countries was to have been held in England, but the war intervened. For the next five years women's hockey was just kept alive in this country. In 1945 the national tournament was reinstated and in 1948 an Australian team arrived to take part in the tournament and win the only test by two goals to one. In 1953 the International Federation's tournament was held in England and the New Zealand team returned with 20 games played, 16 won and four lost. A Fijian team came to New Zealand in 1955 and played against local associations, mainly the minor associations, but did not play a test.

The next International Federation tournament was held in Australia in 1956, and the reputation of New Zealand women's hockey was further enhanced when, in 22 matches, the goals were 185 for and 14 against. At the end of the tournament teams from Holland, Scotland, and the United States came to this country and played local associations. The 1959 tournament was in Amsterdam. Before taking part the New Zealand team toured Scotland and Ireland and played South Wales at Newport and Belgium at Brussels. In 14 games they had nine wins, one draw, and four losses. During September 1963 the New Zealand representative team attended the International Tournament in Baltimore at which they were the only unbeaten team. This is not a championship tournament, but the New Zealand team defeated England, which is considered the premier country for women's hockey.

The first visit to New Zealand by an overseas team was in 1914 when an All England side toured the country, losing only one match – against Poverty Bay after the visitors had had a rough sea trip from Napier to Gisborne. The first overseas trip by a New Zealand team was to Australia in 1935. New Zealand won 13 out of 14 games, including the only test. A Fijian team toured New Zealand in 1936, but the visit resulted in a heavy financial loss both to the national and to local associations. In spite of these losses, the association was not disheartened and in 1938 was host to another English women's team. The visitors were not defeated throughout their tour, which included three tests.