(1836–1910).

Bibliographer and collector.

A new biography of Hocken, Thomas Morland appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Thomas Morland Hocken was born on 14 January 1836 at Stamford, Yorkshire. His father, John, was a Wesleyan minister, and his grandfather had been vicar of Oakhampton, rector of Lydford, and chaplain to George, Lord Lyttelton, Baron of Frankley, in his native Cornwall, where the family had been small landholders for generations. The Rev. John Hocken of Oakhampton had received a crest and coat of arms from the College of Heralds to commemorate the bravery of his grandfather, an earlier Thomas, in repulsing a French privateer off the Cornish coast in the reign of Queen Anne.

T. M. Hocken was educated at Woodhouse Grove School, near Bath, for the sons of Wesleyan clergy, and at the College of Practical Research in Newcastle where he won a silver medal for botany, an interest he retained throughout his life. He studied medicine at Durham and Dublin Universities, completing his training as junior to a distinguished physician, Dr Septimus Raine of Newcastle. In 1859 he was admitted to membership of the Royal College of Surgeons and the London Society of Apothecaries. In 1860 he was advised to escape the English winters and took employment as a ship's surgeon with a company trading between England and Australia. In 1862, by agreement with his employers, he quitted their service at Melbourne and sailed in the ship Chariot of Fame for Dunedin where he began to practise his profession. The following year he was appointed coroner, a position he held for 22 years until 1884 when practising medical men were excluded from holding that office. A leading member of his profession, he was appointed honorary surgeon to the Benevolent Institute and also to the Dunedin Hospital, and he was several times president of the Otago Branch of the New Zealand Medical Association, and the first lecturer in clinical surgery in the Otago Medical School.

During his time as ship's surgeon, Hocken's strong intellectual curiosity was stimulated by the story of Pacific exploration, and he found the history of the Otago settlement romantic. He feared that the rapid changes since the discovery of gold would destroy the knowledge of the past, and he began to collect books and other records of the pioneering era as well as copious notes of his talks with early settlers. By 1864 he was extending his researches to the broader fields of New Zealand history and ethnology, and showed a collection of moa bones and one of South Sea costumes at the Dunedin Exhibition of 1865. He joined the Otago Institute in 1869 and was an office bearer for 30 years, contributing papers on ethnology, history, and bibliography. Other learned societies to which he belonged included the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Historical Society, and the Linnean Society of which he was made a fellow in 1884.

He was chairman of the Early History, Maori, and South Seas Section of the 1889 Exhibition, contributing an introductory historical essay to that part of the “Official Catalogue”, as well as exhibiting historical and ethnographic material. In 1898 he was a commissioner of the Otago Settlement Jubilee Exhibition and his Contributions to the Early History of New Zealand: Settlement of Otago was published in the same year to commemorate the occasion. For many years he spent his holidays in visiting the sites of early settlement, collecting records and information. A true collector, he was untiring in his zeal and possessed an instinctive appreciation of the historical importance of apparently trivial items, many such being gleaned from a voluminous correspondence with early settlers and their descendants, and other collectors.

In 1903 he sailed with his wife and daughter for an overseas tour, visiting Japan, Egypt, and Greece for ethnological and archaeological studies, and Great Britain for historical research. In Britain he visited former New Zealand colonists and their families, always eager to collect information and material. He worked at the Public Records Office for some months, sorting and listing the papers of the New Zealand Company which he tried to acquire for New Zealand, believing that they would be better appreciated there. He was unsuccessful in this attempt but he did secure the transfer of all documents regarded by him as of secondary importance, including duplicates of dispatches from the company's agents in New Zealand and many drafts and notes written by E. G. Wakefield. At the Church Missionary Society he worked through the papers relating to the New Zealand Mission and persuaded the society to give him these. After three years abroad he returned to New Zealand where he began work on his Bibliography of the Literature Relating to New Zealand which was published in 1909 and remains the classic work on the subject. Projected works included an edition of the letters and journals of Samuel Marsden and a new edition of Robley's “Moko”.

Hocken offered his historical collection of books, pamphlets, newspapers, maps, paintings, and manuscripts to the citizens of Dunedin in 1897, on condition that it be suitably housed. In 1906 subscription lists for a building were opened, to which the Government added a pound for pound subsidy. After lengthy negotiations about the site and administration of the library, Hocken agreed that the building should be erected as a wing of the Otago Museum and administered by the Council of the University of Otago as trustees for the nation. On 23 March 1910 the building was formally opened by the Governor, Lord Plunkett, though Hocken, who had been in failing health, was too ill to attend the ceremony. Before the library was open for use, he presented his magnificent collection of Maori ethnographic material to the Otago Museum where it forms the foundation of the ethnological collections.

Barely 5 ft in height, Hocken was a neat, dapper little man with a short-clipped beard and dark, lively eyes. Bustling, energetic, intensely industrious, he had a winning personality and infectious enthusiasm. A devout Anglican, he was a synodsman and churchwarden of St. Paul's Church, Dunedin. Kindly and sympathetic to all in trouble he did an immense amount of unobtrusive social and philanthropic work and left bequests to the Anglican and Methodist churches and the Salvation Army for welfare purposes. A member of the Council of the University of Otago from 1883, he was appointed vice-chancellor a few months before his death.

Hocken married, first, Julia Annia Daykne Simpson of Waikouaiti in 1867 and, second, Elizabeth Mary Buckland in 1884. His second wife was a well-educated and gifted woman who helped him greatly with his literary researches and the organisation of his collections. He died on 17 May 1910.

by Gloria Margaret Strathern, B.A., DIP.N.Z.L.S. formerly Librarian, Hocken Library, Dunedin.

• T. M. Hocken – Personal Letters and Papers, 1859–1910 (MSS), Hocken Library
• Medical Practice in Otago and Southland in the Early Days, Fulton, R. V. (1922)
• The Fascinating Folly – Dr Hocken and His Fellow Collectors, McCormick, E. H. (1961).

(1829–84).

Geologist and explorer.

A new biography of Hochstetter, Christian Gottlieb Ferdinand von appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Ferdinand Ritter von Hochstetter was born at Esslingen, Württemberg, on 30 April 1829, son of Professor Christian Ferdinand Hochstetter, clergyman and naturalist. He attended Esslingen Grammar School, studied theology at Maulbronn, then took up geology (Ph.D., 1852), and was appointed in 1854 to the Austrian Geological Survey as assistant geologist, becoming chief geologist of the Bohemian Section in 1856. In 1857 he was appointed geologist to the Novara Expedition, a voyage of scientific exploration round the world, sponsored by the Austrian Government (1857–59).

Urged by Sir George Grey in Cape Town and later by the New Zealand Government's plea for a geologist to examine Drury Coalfield, Auckland, the Novara visited Auckland from 22 December 1858 until 8 February 1859. Hochstetter's report so impressed the Auckland Government that, when the Novara sailed, he was persuaded to remain, to make extended surveys in Auckland and Nelson. Hochstetter, now 30 years old, was accompanied by Captain George Drummond Hay, by Julius Haast, whom he met in Auckland, and by assistants and porters. He travelled up the Waikato and Waipa Rivers, deviated to Raglan, Aotea, and Kawhia Harbours, crossed to the upper Mokau and to Taupo by way of Ongarue Valley and the west Taupo ranges. From Taupo he journeyed north to Orakeikorako, Rotomahana, and Rotorua, thence to Maketu and Tauranga, came back to the Waikato above Karapiro and returned to Auckland via Kirikiriroa (Hamilton). He called briefly at New Plymouth, and visited Dun Mountain, Croisilles, Lake Rotoiti, and Cape Farewell from Nelson.

Hochstetter's chief publications on New Zealand geology are: Neu-Seeland (1863), a book of description and travel later translated as New Zealand (1867); and Geologie von Neu-Seeland (1864) published in the Novara reports. The companion volume, PaläUontologie von Neu-Seeland, includes descriptions of Hochstetter's fossil collections by specialists. The Geologisch-topographischer Atlas von Neu-Seeland (Hochstetter and Petermann, 1863), republished in English in Auckland (1864) and the explanatory essays and lectures published as The Geology of New Zealand (Hochstetter and Petermann, Auckland, 1864) should also be mentioned. Many other papers on New Zealand were published in Europe.

Hochstetter's later life was full of distinction. He was made a Knight of the Imperial Austrian Order of the Iron Crown, and of the Royal Württemberg Order of the Crown, and was chosen by the Emperor as scientific tutor to Crown Prince Rudolf. He was one of the original honorary members of the New Zealand Institute. He was the first director of the K. K. Naturhistorisch Hofmuseum, Vienna.

On 2 April 1861 Hochstetter married Georgiana Elisa Bengough. He died on 18 July 1884 in Vienna.

Hochstetter was the first to describe and interpret many features of New Zealand geology. In the North Island he depicted the graben-like structure of what he called the Taupo Zone and related the distribution of hot springs to fault lines. He recognised active fault traces near Waimangu and the faulted structure of the Paeroa Range. He left the best description of Rotomahana and the Terraces as they were before the Tarawera eruption. He recognised Taupo as the source of the pumice in North Island rivers and attributed the lake basins to the collapse of parts of the volcanic plateau. He described the volcanic cones of Auckland Isthmus. His fossil collections formed the basis for later advances. Hochstetter also described the Maitai beds of Nelson, and the huge serpentine mass between French Pass and Tophouse (“Mineral Belt”). His name “dunite” for the olivine rock of Dun Mountain is firmly established. He discovered Triassic fossils near Richmond and boldly interpreted the structure of north-west Nelson. His greatest contribution was to establish a tradition of systematic geological mapping that persisted in later geological exploration.

Though primarily a geologist, Hochstetter took a keen interest in botany, zoology, and ethnology. He took to Europe the type specimens of the New Zealand frog and added a number of invertebrates to the New Zealand fauna. In the century that followed, his achievement was commemorated by many names given to southern organisms (e.g., the takahe, Notornis hochstetteri Meyer).

by Charles Alexander Fleming, O.B.E., B.A., D.SC., F.R.S.N.Z., Chief Paleontologist, New Zealand Geological Survey, Lower Hutt.

• The Geology of New Zealand, Hochstetter, F. (Fleming, C. A. transl.) (1959)
• The Life and Times of Sir Julius von Haast, von Haast, H. F. (1948)
• New Zealand Journal of Science, Vol. 2, 1884.

(1793–1842).

Second Governor of New Zealand.

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

William Hobson was born at Waterford, Ireland, on 26 September 1793, the son of Samuel Hobson (B.A., Dublin, 1772), assistant barrister for the County of Cork, and Martha, née Jones. They had five sons and three daughters, William being the third son. He evidently had a strict upbringing, for in later life he described his mother as “a harsh, proud woman, and very severe on her children”, though his father was “a pattern of benevolence”. He had little home life, however, and before he had reached the age of 10, was sent to sea in the frigate La Virginie, which he joined on 25 August 1803 with the rank of volunteer, second class. Hobson was on the North Sea station until August 1804; then, after a short period ashore, was in the West Indies in the frigate Dart. He passed as midshipman in April 1806 and had another period of service in the North Sea and Channel, gaining the rank of master's mate in November 1811. He was back on the West Indies and North America station until November 1813, and took part in varied actions and operations, mainly with small craft. In April 1812 when he was promoted to acting lieutenant, he had completed an arduous term at sea of 13 years without leave.

In November 1813 Hobson was appointed lieutenant to the sloop Peruvian, and for the next 10 years served in the America, Channel, Mediterranean, and West Indies stations. His reputation was such that, when Commodore Sir E. Owen handed over the Jamaica command to Sir Laurence Halsted in late 1823, he paid tribute to Hobson “as an officer who to the most persevering zeal unites discretion and sound judgment”. Hobson was promoted to commander on 18 March 1824, and in the following January was commissioned to the sloop Ferret. He again saw service in the West Indies, where he had several small vessels under his command in the arduous work of crushing piracy in Cuban waters. Yellow fever was an added hazard and Hobson himself suffered from three serious attacks during his many years on the station. At the beginning of 1826 he transferred to the Scylla, a large sloop, and was paid off in July 1828.

During this period Hobson made frequent visits to Nassau, where he met Eliza, only daughter of a Scottish West Indian merchant, Robert Wear Elliott. They were married at Nassau on 17 December 1827 and, following Hobson's temporary retirement, set up home at Plymouth. Eliza, their first daughter, was born there in March 1830.

It was not until 1834 that through the influence of Lord Auckland, First Lord of the Admiralty, Hobson was posted to the frigate Rattlesnake, under orders to join the flag of Admiral Sir T. Bladen Capel in the East Indies. Two years later he was detached from the command in order to serve under Sir Richard Bourke, Governor of New South Wales. The Rattlesnake arrived at Port Jackson on 23 August 1836 and a month later was at Port Phillip, Victoria, where a new colony was being established. Hobson and his officers carried out a survey of the harbour “in the most thorough manner” and they also assisted in laying out the town of Melbourne. The work at Port Phillip had scarcely been completed when Bourke received word from James Busby, the British Resident in New Zealand, that tribal warfare at the Bay of Islands was threatening the lives and possessions of British subjects living there. Bourke sent Hobson in the Rattlesnake to the scene under orders to protect British settlers and shipping. He was also to report on Maori-Pakeha relations. Hobson recommended the setting up of trading factories on the East India Company's model, with limited spheres of British jurisdiction. Bourke thought well of the suggestions and referred them to the Colonial Office, which was becoming involved, though reluctantly, in New Zealand affairs.

By late 1837 Hobson was back on the East Indies station and cruising in the Bay of Bengal. He was then ordered home and paid off, with few prospects ahead of him. But the trend of events in New Zealand forced the British Government to take positive action, with the result that in December 1838 it was decided to appoint an officer to that country “invested with the character and powers of British Consul”. The choice fell on Hobson who, however, was not anxious to commit himself and, until mid-February 1839, was hoping to obtain command of a flagship. Following his acceptance he was told that he would go to New Zealand as consul, with power to negotiate with the chiefs for a cession of sovereignty over part, or all, of their territory. Within such limits he would have the rank of Lieutenant-Governor, subject to the over-ruling authority of the Governor of New South Wales. He was solemnly warned that the Maori title to the soil and sovereignty of the country was indisputable and that, where cession had been granted, the Crown's right of pre-emption must be upheld. He would not be provided with a military force or be permitted to raise a militia. Essentially he would have to be guided by his own judgment, supported by what advice he might receive from Sir George Gipps, the Governor of New South Wales.

On 25 August 1839 Hobson sailed from England with his wife and family in HMS Druid. He reached Sydney on 24 December and at once began discussions with Gipps on the wisest course to follow. On 10 January 1840 Hobson was interviewed by a number of Sydney merchants and land speculators who were anxious to find out what policy the Government favoured. Although Hobson was cautious in reply, the impression grew that British sovereignty would be established over the whole of New Zealand. Five days later a congratulatory address was presented to “His Excellency Captain Hobson R.N., Lieutenant-Governor of the British Colony about to be established in New Zealand”. His talks with Gipps concluded, Hobson sailed in HMS Herald (Captain Joseph Nias) for the Bay of Islands. He arrived there on 29 January and, on the following afternoon, landed at Kororareka, where he read the Queen's commissions extending the boundaries of New South Wales and appointing him Lieutenant-Governor “in and over any territory which is or may be acquired in sovereignty”. With the assistance of Busby, Henry Williams, and other leading members of the Church Missionary Society, he summoned the northern chiefs to meet him at Waitangi for the purpose of negotiating a treaty. The discussions began on 5 February when Hobson explained the terms of the treaty and its necessity; next day, after further argument and explanation, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed.

Following this success Hobson intended to arrange similar meetings throughout the country, but on 1 March 1840 he collapsed from a paralytic stroke. As soon as Gipps learnt of this he ordered Major Thomas Bunbury to New Zealand with a detachment of 80 troops. Bunbury arrived on 16 April to find Hobson greatly improved in health. Bunbury therefore went south in the Herald as far as Stewart Island collecting signatures for the Treaty and formally proclaiming sovereignty over the country.

Meanwhile Hobson was grappling with administrative problems. Gipps had provided him with a number of officials who, though probably the best available, were not impressive by any standard. On their advice he bought from James R. Clendon some property at Okiato, Russell, as a temporary seat of Government. Though Hobson erred only in judgment, there was more than a hint of jobbery about the transaction and he was later sharply reprimanded by the Colonial Office for his part in the proceedings. He also erred in his handling of an unusual situation which had developed at the New Zealand Company's settlement at Port Nicholson (Wellington) where a “Council” had been established as a mode of government. When news of this experiment in self-government reached the Bay of Islands, Hobson acted impulsively and sent off a detachment of troops to suppress the “republic”, under the command of Willoughby Shorthand who proved to be a tactless deputy. To add to Hobson's unpopularity in the south he refused to move the seat of government to Cook Strait, where there was a rapidly growing European population, but chose rather to be guided by Henry Williams, who urged the claims of the Waitemata. In September 1840 the land was purchased and, in the following February, the Government moved its headquarters to the new capital, Auckland. A further source of irritation was the land question. The company was pressing for a new settlement, but when Nelson was at length selected, there was not enough agricultural land available. Even in the north there was trouble, for Gipps's Land Regulations had set a stringent limit on holdings, much to the disgust of a powerful group of pre-Waitangi settlers. Nor did the situation improve in May 1841, when Hobson was sworn in as Governor of New Zealand and head of his own Legislative Council. Although his shaky administration received valuable support in September when William Swainson and William Martin arrived on the scene as Attorney-General and Chief Justice respectively, the hostility of the southern settlements persisted, especially after the failure of the Municipal Corporations Ordinance.

As if Hobson, in his uncertain state of health, had not enough to worry about, the native problem was causing great concern. Many of the tribes had not accepted the Treaty of Waitangi and, of those that had, few appreciated what sovereignty meant. As Hobson had no military force to support his authority, his relationship with the Maori people rested on a basis of mutual good will. In 1842, for instance, when a Ngati Maru chief, Taraia, had killed and eaten the victims of his raid on Tauranga, Hobson, when he tried to interfere, was bluntly snubbed. “With the Governor is the settling of pakeha affairs”, he was told; “It is with us to adjust Maori matters”. Worse still, there was confusion in Hobson's own council on this issue, for Swainson and Martin held that, unless the Queen's authority were voluntarily acknowledged by the tribes, the Government had no right to attempt to impose upon them its legal code.

For the moment, however, finance was the stumbling block of the administration. Although Hobson had been strictly warned by the Colonial Office to keep a tight control over official expenditure, recurring bouts of illness compelled him to rely more and more upon his advisers who, in many instances, were broken reeds – or worse. Little was done to curb extravagance, the cost of “improvements” to Government House at Auckland being a case in point. The expenses of his civil establishment were also high, aggravated by injudicious land purchases. Meanwhile the revenue, which was derived mainly from customs duties and the sale of Crown lands, fell sharply away, the consequence being that from March 1842, and contrary to his instructions, Hobson drew unauthorised bills on Treasury in order to meet the current expenses of Government. It was a situation which would have taxed to the utmost a talented administrator. It was beyond Hobson's capacity and experience and he was now a spent force. The New Zealand Company seized the opportunity to attack the administration and, aided by its allies within and without the colony, pressed for Hobson's recall. Even at the Colonial Office there was a growing uneasiness which “the tone of anxiety and alarm” of Hobson's somewhat scrappy dispatches could not dispel, with the result that on 28 February 1843 it was decided that he be recalled. Hobson, however, was spared this ignominy, for he died at Auckland on 10 September 1842, survived by his wife (died 1876), one son, and four daughters.

As a Governor, Hobson never emerged from the shadows. His greatest moment was at the Treaty signing when the immediate future seemed full of promise for both races – and also for himself. Yet Hobson had many excellent qualities. Until illness gained the ascendancy, he was a man of sociable habits and a good host, with a faculty for making friends. He was deeply religious, had a high sense of duty and of justice, was honest in his dealings, and anxious to advance the interests of the Maori people. But the tragedy of his administration lies in the fact that New Zealand never saw the intrepid officer of the Napoleonic era. It seems strange that, after the first paralytic stroke which completed the work of destruction begun by yellow fever, Hobson should cling tenaciously to office, though it would appear he was encouraged in this course by some of his advisers who welcomed the opportunity to advance their own schemes. Hobson, in short, was not in command of the situation. For all that, he was jealous of his authority and resentful of opposition. He had spent the best years of his life at sea under a stern code of discipline; as a civil Governor he looked for an unquestioning obedience, even from members of his Legislative Council. And his nervous irritability was aggravated by the unfair attacks made on him by the New Zealand Company and by intemperate articles in the colonial press, all of which he ought properly to have ignored; instead, such criticism “kept him in perpetual fever”. Nevertheless, even if he had enjoyed good health it is doubtful whether his administration would have been successful. The policy evolved by the Colonial Office was impracticable and over-idealistic, and presupposed a state of affairs in New Zealand quite contrary to fact. It was Hobson's misfortune that the weakness of his administration obscured that of the Colonial Office. It was therefore left to his successor, the equally unfortunate Captain Robert FitzRoy, to demonstrate the folly of an unrealistic approach to the New Zealand problem.

by Alexander Hare McLintock, C.B.E., M.A., DIP.ED. (N.Z.), PH.D.(LOND.), Parliamentary Historian, Wellington.

• Captain William Hobson, R.N., Scholefield, G. H. (1934)
• Crown Colony Government in New Zealand, McLintock, A. H. (1958).

(1800–83).

Wesleyan missionary.

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

John Hobbs was born in 1800 at St. Peter's in the Isle of Thanet, Kent, the son of Richard Hobbs, a coachbuilder and Wesleyan lay preacher, and Elizabeth, née Palmer. Hobbs learned his father's trade and, in 1816, joined the Wesleyan Church, becoming a lay preacher three years later. Towards the close of 1822, because he wanted to do missionary work among the convicts, he decided to emigrate to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania). Shortly after his arrival there in 1823, however, Turner persuaded him to offer his services to the New Zealand Mission. He accompanied Turner to Sydney, where Marsden offered Hobbs employment with the Church Missionary Society and arranged to bring them to New Zealand. They arrived at Paihia on 3 August 1823 and proceeded to Wesleydale. When ill health forced Leigh to return to Sydney, Hobbs decided to remain at Wesleydale rather than join the Church Missionary Society. He quickly mastered the Maori language and came to speak it fluently. By his sympathy and understanding of their problems, Hobbs soon won the confidence of the local Maoris and became unofficial counsellor to several influential chiefs. At the same time he acted as general factotum about the station, where his practical abilities and readiness to oblige made him very popular among the Europeans. Unfortunately, Te Ara (George), the Ngati Pou chief of Whangaroa, who was ailing when Hobbs arrived, found it increasingly difficult to protect the mission. In January 1827, after his death, hostile natives attacked the station and the missionaries were forced to flee to the Bay of Islands. After the destruction of Wesleydale Hobbs returned to Sydney, where he was ordained.

Although their first station in New Zealand had been destroyed, the Wesleyan authorities in Sydney were unwilling to abandon their efforts in the country. They decided to set up a new mission in the more populous Hokianga district, where two thriving European business settlements were already established and where they would be adequately protected by Patuone, the powerful Ngapuhi chief. The task of establishing the new station was confided to Hobbs and the advance party sailed from Sydney in the Governor Macquarrie, arriving at Hokianga on 31 October 1827. With characteristic zeal Hobbs visited Patuone and sought his help to provide a mission site. On 14 December 1827 he chose a place at Te Toka, but this did not prove as suitable a location as he had hoped. Therefore, on 20 March 1828, the mission was moved to Mangungu, about a mile distant from Brown and Raine's establishment at Horeke. Hobbs, with the assistance of Stack, planned the new station and took charge of its management. At Hokianga, as at Whangaroa, his fluent command of the language, together with his wide knowledge of practical matters, enabled him to secure immense prestige among the Maoris. One of the secrets of his success as a preacher lay in his mastery of the traditional methods of the Maori orators. In his sermons Hobbs adopted the gestures they were accustomed to see in their own orators, and he painted his gospel message with illustrations drawn from their own daily experience. He was also a skilled musician and composed many Maori hymns. Some of these, as well as his translations of English hymns, are still sung in Maori churches.

After 1830, when White, the senior Wesleyan minister, returned to New Zealand, he and Hobbs differed about the running of the mission. As a result the latter, in 1833, asked to be transferred to Tonga, where he took charge of the mission press. He remained there for some time before being appointed to Tasmania; however, Turner interposed to retain his services at the Bay of Islands. There he built boats and houses and looked after the mission press. With Taonui's assistance, he translated the Book of Job into Maori. He also accompanied Bumby, the General Superintendent of Wesleyan Missions, on several exploratory journeys. One of these took him to Port Nicholson where, on 8 June 1839, he negotiated with Ngatata for a mission site. This land, which lay between the “stream called Kumutoto to another stream called Te Aro”, was the “no-man's-land” between the pas of these names. Some months later, when Colonel Wakefield arrived, he induced Aldred to exchange this for several acres in the Courtenay Place area of Wellington. Hobbs also visited the Cloudy Bay area and afterwards travelled overland from Port Nicholson to Hokianga.

At the time of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, Hobbs interpreted for Hobson at the great meeting at Mangungu. What is not so well known, however, is that, prior to the Waitangi ceremony, Hobbs spent several days discussing with Nene the advantages of British sovereignty. In this respect Hobson probably owed a large part of his mission's success to these talks.

In 1848, when his son-in-law was selected to open a new mission station at Pipiriki in the upper Wanganui district, Hobbs offered to help him settle in on the site. On the way south his ship was wrecked in a storm and he spent a night lashed to the mast. This experience brought on the deafness which later increasingly incapacitated him for active duty. In the early 1850s Hobbs was one of the three Wesleyan representatives on Wm. Williams's committee which revised Maunsell's translation of the Old Testaments. He spent 1855–56 resting at the Three Kings institution and then retired from the mission. He died at Beresford Street, Auckland, on 24 June 1883, and was buried in Grafton Cemetery at the spot he chose himself.

On 15 August 1827, at Sydney, New South Wales, Hobbs married Jane Broggreff, of Ramsgate, Kent, and by her had two sons and five daughters. One of his sons, Richard (1833–1910), represented Franklin (1879–80) and Bay of Islands (1881–90) in the House of Representatives. He married Emma, daughter of the Rev. John Waterhouse and a sister of G. M. Waterhouse. Hobbs's eldest daughter, Emma, married the Rev. William Kirk in 1848 and lived at the Pipiriki mission for some years.

Hobbs's contemporaries greatly admired his amazing versatility in mechanical matters and he was always a welcome visitor at outlying settlers' homes. On his many trips through the north, he found it no trouble to repair settlers' clocks, tune their pianos, or adjust their spectacles. His advice was sought constantly on their agricultural and horticultural problems, as well as on their building or boat designing. He was often called upon to attend the sick and, on occasions, performed quite intricate surgical operations. In the mission field he is best remembered for his work at Mangungu, where the successful re-establishment of the Wesleyans provides an enduring tribute to his ability as an organiser. Hobbs's relations with the Maoris were equally successful. Although he taught them by his own example as well as by precept and proved himself to be just and liberal in all his dealings with them, the Maoris soon learned that he was not a man to be coerced.

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

• Extract from the original record of the Journal of John Hobbs (typescript), Turnbull Library (1940)
• Fragments from the Journal of the Rev. John Hobbs, Hobbs, R. (Comp.) (1908)
• Wesley Historical Society (N.Z. Branch) Proceedings, Vol. 3, Jan 1944

At present the circumstances attending the prehistoric settlement of New Zealand are matters of learned controversy and three rival theories are being debated. The older school, which bases its view on the canon of Polynesian tradition, asserts that Tahitian explorers discovered New Zealand and that they or their descendants later decided to emigrate there. Another group accepts this but insists that these explorers and settlers found aboriginal inhabitants whom they killed or enslaved. The third school holds that New Zealand was settled solely as the result of accidental one-way voyages of people who were blown off course during local canoe journeys.

Recent research appears to confirm that the “Great Fleet” of Maori tradition is a myth coined by European Maori-phils in the generation after the Maori Wars. The myth, which arose out of popular scholastic attempts to systematise conflicting tribal arrival-traditions, gained wide acceptance owing to the belief that European contact had doomed the Maori race to rapid extinction. In any case, the Maori-phil image of the Maori as the classical “noble savage” called for a historical background of similarly heroic proportions. Thus certain interested Europeans interpreted the “Canoe” traditions to fit their own preconceived notions, with the result that a specious theory was gradually accepted by other Europeans, and many Maoris, as being historically accurate. In fact, because few of the early Maori-phils were trained scholars, they often misunderstood, glossed over, or suppressed, inconsistencies in the traditions, references to earlier inhabitants in some versions being a case in point. Present-day historians, while not doubting that the legendary canoes arrived in New Zealand, believe that such arrivals were the result of accidental voyages rather than of organised attempts to migrate and colonise. A re-examination of the legends shows that, far from there having been a large fleet of canoes, those which reached New Zealand came at irregular intervals during the 300 or so years following Kupe. The legends also show that only Tainui and Arawa came together.

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

Not all the errors in the interpretation of the past can be related to the evolution of myths: only the interesting and significant ones. They may be made simply by mistaking the nature and the tendency of evidence. Generations of New Zealanders have learned (and perhaps still learn) to distinguish sharply between the so-called “Moriori” and the Maori, the first and the second wave of pre-European inhabitants. The term Moriori should, in fact, be limited to the inhabitants of the Chatham Islands, people who were largely killed and assimilated by Maori invaders early in the nineteenth century. It should never be employed to identify a very dark-skinned, primitive non-Polynesian (perhaps Melanesian) race of New Zealanders, an inferior people wiped out by the superior, subsequent, and conquering Maoris. All early inhabitants of New Zealand were certainly Polynesian and the likelihood is that Maori culture developed continuously from the time of the first settlers from the Pacific Islands, without sharp breaks, and determined by isolation and by the conditions of the environment.

And yet, one may be permitted to wonder, is not this “error” strangely related to the myth of the possessors? If the Maoris themselves could be represented as an invading, conquering, expropriating people, would not this story serve to justify the activities of a race of subsequent conquerors, to turn the charge of expropriation upon the victims themselves?

by William Hosking Oliver, M.A.(N.Z.), D.PHIL.(OXON.), Professor of History, Massey University of Manawatu.

The commonly accepted myth of settler uprightness may also be designated “the myth of the possessors” – the myth of those who entered upon their inheritance in the 1870s, having tamed the Governors, freed themselves from the Colonial Office, abolished the Church (in the person of the missionaries) as an effective force, and defeated the Maoris. Not all the settlers, of course, were possessors: men of considerable property, in land, commerce, and finance, dominated the country socially, economically, and politically. The non-possessors, subsistence farmers, artisans, and labourers, were numerous, and their numbers were swelled by the emigration policies of the 1870s. Their condition, further, was worsened by the depression of the 1880s. By 1890 they were a political force, thanks to manhood and equal suffrage; their adhesion to the political party headed first by John Ballance and then by Richard Seddon inaugurated and maintained the Liberal era. From their aspirations and successes emerged what might be called a counter myth, “the myth of the non-possessors”.

Again, this myth involves the person of George Grey, this time in a heroic role, though he was not responsible for its creation. Credit for that must go to the journalist, politician, and historian, William Pember Reeves. Grey certainly used the label “Liberal” in the 1879 election; Ballance's successful party in 1890 was indeed called “Liberal”. It was temptingly easy, and the great majority of historians from Reeves to the present day succumbed to the temptation, to assume that the 1880s saw “the rise of the Liberal Party” as a continuous development from Grey to Ballance. The politics of this decade do not permit much certainty even yet, but one thing that is certain is the absence of any Liberal Party, or of any other political party in a modern sense, during the period. The continuous development of Liberalism as an organised movement cannot, it seems likely, be placed earlier than 1887.

The myth of the non-possessors can account for the whole of New Zealand history from Grey's premiership (1877–79) to the present day. Indeed, the myth is still in the process of formulation: “the quest for equality” is its current designation. The heroes are all champions of the non-possessors, busy using the power of the State to turn them into possessors. The list will include John Ballance; Richard Seddon; John McKenzie; William Pember Reeves; Joseph Ward; and the trade unionists and socialists who founded the Labour Party, Henry Holland, Michael Savage, Peter Fraser, and Walter Nash. They are heroes, and eminently successful ones; the tradition they set was from time to time interrupted, but not for long, by some rather low-keyed villains: Harry Atkinson, W. F. Massey, J. G. Coates, George Forbes, Adam Hamilton, and Sidney Holland.

The error of this myth is not that it asserts that the main impetus in New Zealand politics since 1890 has come from a succession of parties grouped around leaders who run from Ballance to Nash; and not that it asserts that these men and parties were, at least in considerable part, concerned with social welfare: these two assertions are quite true. The error is rather that the myth exaggerates the identity between leaders and parties it canonised, as well as the difference between the “heroic” left and the “villainous” right in New Zealand politics. It serves to obscure the antipathy between Grey and Ballance, between Ballance and Seddon, and between Seddon and Reeves. Ballance's chosen successor was Stout, not Seddon, a fact which has only recently become known and accepted. It serves further to transform a political line-up into a social cleavage. Parties, to continue to exist, must fight each other, but we do not need to suppose that they are always, or even often, fighting about anything that matters. As far as policies and achievements go, Massey and Coates are a good deal closer to Ballance and Seddon before them and to Savage and Fraser after them than this reconstruction would suppose.

It remains to be said that the myth of the possessors and the myth of the non-possessors have one thing in common. They are myths of the settler New Zealand which sealed its victory in the 1860s, myths of the initial and of the subsequent inheritors of the country. Not until the advent of a Labour Government in 1935 did the myth of the non-possessors expand to include the Maoris as a deprived group; until that time the heroes of the right and the heroes of the left were at one in regarding the Maori as a vanishing race, an inferior race, a race whose land was a settler legacy, the gift of a Pakeha providence.

The myth of origins persists into the period of racial strife. Self-government had put the settlers in the saddle; even in the important realm of native affairs, and especially of native land purchase and policy, which was in theory reserved for the discretion of the Governor, they could, thanks to Governor Gore Browne's weakness, Native Secretary Donald McLean's responsiveness to public opinion, and to the constant pressure of the General Assembly, secure the dominance of their views. Yet the settlers and speculators remained frustrated in the North Island, notably in Taranaki and south of Auckland. Why? Patently because there were new villains to cope with – the Maoris themselves, who were, it was argued, engaged upon conspiracy against the authority of the Crown. Some of them were, in fact, acting in unison to bring land alienation to a stop – quite a different matter. Politicians in the 1860s constructed the myth of the Land League, and described it as a tightly-knit illegal conspiracy, a deliberate flouting of the law. The myth entered subsequent history; it is now clear that no such league was ever contemplated or formed, but it figures prominently in books written between the 1860s and 1940s.

Two further Maori War aspects of the myth may be noted. First, it became common form among some earlier historians to criticise the role of missionaries and clergymen as alleged instigators of Maori resistance – Octavius Hadfield in particular. Hadfield did, in fact, counsel some Maoris to hold on to their lands, but this no longer appears as a disloyal activity. But a missionary was always a fit villain for the myth of origins and pioneer virtue: missionaries, earlier, had assisted Hobson, had staffed the Protectorate Department, and had been relied upon by FitzRoy.

Secondly, it is still widely believed that Imperial troops were of no effect in fighting Maoris, that settler militia alone brought the resisting tribes to heel. Indeed, they played their part (together with Maori allies), but it was far from such a dominant role. This aspect of the myth, again, emerged in the conditions of the decade of fighting, the 1860s. Beleaguered settlers, who hated the officials, from the Governor down, for not defeating the Maoris in one swift blow and driving them from their lands, were quick to pass on to the further argument that the Imperial troops at the disposal of the Governor were, in any case, quite useless, and that colonial troops, settlers under arms, would do the job quickly if given their head. This view, which has entered subsequent history, may be classed as an extension of the antipathy to officialdom, both local and British, which characterised the 1840s. Related assertions of official incapacity, folly, and wickedness, persist into the post-war years.

Towards the end of the 1860s the British Government made plain its determination to withdraw troops from New Zealand unless the New Zealand Government made arrangements for their payment. The Liberal Government in the United Kingdom had, in fact, become reconciled to colonial self-government, believed that self-government should carry with it financial self-reliance, and was further anxious to reduce its own expenditure as far as possible. Notification of its intention to withdraw the troops prompted in New Zealand a veritable tirade of accusation – the Liberal “Little Englanders”, it was asserted, were bent upon the destruction of the Empire as a whole, and were making a start upon New Zealand. This wholly unsupportable view has found its way into many subsequent histories.

Here it may be noted, on the side, that James Edward FitzGerald, who joined a still non-responsible Executive Council in 1854, cannot be called, as he sometimes is, New Zealand's first premier. That distinction must be reserved for the leader of the first executive responsible to the elected house of legislature – Henry Sewell, who took office briefly in 1856.

The myth persists past the period of early settlement and the achievement of self-government (that is, the 1840s and the 1850s) into the period of racial conflict (that is, the later 1850s and 1860s). Heroes need villains to provide contrast. Once the officials and the missionaries had been defeated, the native race itself came to occupy this position. Here the story may begin with George Grey.

Grey, in the 1840s, certainly held up the grant of self-government until he had, as he thought, settled the land and native problems. But he did not, as has been asserted, oppose self-government as such, nor was it wrested from him and from an obtuse Colonial Office by settler agitation. Rather, the settlers were agitating for what Grey and his superiors had already decided they should have in due course. Grey had, early in his administration, fought Maoris with signal success; nevertheless, he, together with Hobson and FitzRoy, were condemned at the time, and by some subsequent historians, for preferring the interest of doomed natives to that of heroic settlers. To some extent they did, but they were not quite without reason: the Maoris, as we know now, were not doomed; they were at the time both numerous and powerful, and many settlers were, at the very least, capable of avariciousness and fraud. Apart from his pro-Maori policy, Grey has been unrealistically castigated for a sinister design to perpetuate autocracy even in the course of implementing the 1852 Act conferring self-government. His chosen method, on this view, was to set the provincial governments in operation before the general, or central, legislature could meet. Indeed, he did this, but the fact that he did so cannot be made the cause for the dominance of provincial institutions in New Zealand government throughout the 1850s and even beyond. The social, economic, and demographic facts of New Zealand life postulated provincialism, and would have required it whatever arrangements Grey had made in 1852–53.