From earliest times the surf movement in New Zealand was a branch of the activities of the Royal Life Saving Society. This society produced its own surf medallion which was awarded for competence in any one of the seven positions of the then standard surf-reel team. There were many attempts to provide separate district controlling bodies. District surf associations were formed in Canterbury and Wellington in 1917 under various names; for example, Wellington had its “Surf Bathers' Council”. The New Zealand Surf Life Saving Association was formed in Wellington in 1932. Since then it has functioned as the main surf body of New Zealand, working with district associations in the main centres. This control has been widened and strengthened until today there are 10 district associations, often wrongly called “surf provinces”. The practice has been to pass local control to a district association as soon as a minimum of three clubs has been established in that district.

The New Zealand system was paid a great compliment a few years ago when the Australian movement, for many years ruled from the offices of the New South Wales Surf Association, decided to adopt the New Zealand pattern. Since then the Australian administration has been happier and as a result, the next step has been made possible – namely, the establishment of an International Council of Surf Life Saving.

New Zealand is a world leader in surf lifesaving, a service sport which has been followed in this country for more than 50 years. It grew spontaneously on the country's surf beaches some five years after the birth of the parent movement in New South Wales.

There is some doubt as to which was the first lifesaving club in New Zealand. This is due mainly to the fact that some clubs existed only on paper for a time before becoming active. Some of the first meetings of the senior clubs were those of New Brighton, Christchurch, in July of 1910, and of Lyall Bay, Wellington, in August of the same year. It seems above challenge, however, that the first reel to be used was imported from Australia by W. G. Morpeth on behalf of the Wellington Amateur Swimming Club for service with the Lyall Bay club. By December 1910, Lyall Bay had three reels.

(Rhipogonum scandens).

Supplejack is one of the best known and commonest representatives of climbing, woody plants or lianes which were a feature of the mixed forest at lowland and montane elevations throughout New Zealand from the far north to the extreme south. Its tangled masses of strong, tough stems formed an effective barrier to speedy progress through the bush and, as the early explorers soon found, it was only with difficulty that a way could be cut through the tangled forest undergrowth. Although supplejack is still common in. much of the remaining forest, it has been greatly reduced in extent by the depredations of introduced browsing animals. Its technical name, Rhipogonum scandens, indicates its nature. The first name, meaning flexible and jointed, refers to the stems, and the second means climbing. The Maoris used the flexible stems of supplejack in a variety of ways, including the making of fish pots, and Europeans also use them for the same purpose. Supplejack belongs to the Smilax family. It has opposite, tough, and shining leaves, more or less ovate, which measure up to 12 cm in length. Male and female flowers are separate and the latter form large berries, bright red in colour.

by Alec Lindsay Poole, M.SC., B.FOR.SC., F.R.S.N.Z., Director-General of Forests, Wellington.

(Mola mola).

This giant oceanic fish is not uncommon off the New Zealand coast. It is a lazy swimmer and is usually recognised by the tall dorsal fin, somewhat drooped at the tip, which cleaves the surface. The Auckland Museum has the cast of a specimen stranded at Leigh in 1931 which was 9 ft in height and weighed 10 cwt 7 lb. This fish is harmless.

by Arthur William Baden Powell, Assistant Director, Auckland Institute and Museum.

(1815–?).

Maungatapu murderer.

Joseph Thomas Sullivan was born in Ireland of Catholic parentage, and brought to London where he attended primary school. After a career as a prizefighter he became a baker. Convicted for burglary in 1840, he was transported to Tasmania where he received his ticket-of-leave in 1845. He then “jumped” to Victoria. There, in 1846, he married Frances (Sullivan) by whom he had two sons. Recaptured and sent to Port Arthur, he was released in 1853. Sullivan then ran a public house at Wedderburn, Victoria (1855–66). He arrived in Hokitika on 10 April 1866, meeting Burgess and Kelly who used their knowledge of Tasmanian days to induce him to join them. These three, with Levy, together formed the gang who committed the series of killings at Maungatapu, Nelson.

Sullivan turned Queen's evidence at the trial and, on promise of pardon, secured his confreres conviction. But he incriminated himself in evidence of complicity in Battle's murder, and for this stood trial, and was sentenced to death. This was commuted, and Sullivan gave evidence in Hokitika at the trial of others of the gang (1867). He was pardoned on 11 March 1874, and sailed for England. Returning to Victoria in December 1874, he was arrested and his deportation to New Zealand was ordered. The New Zealand Government refused to receive him. Nothing further is known about him from that date.

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

The law of succession concerns the distribution of a person's property on his death. In New Zealand and other advanced societies, property may be disposed of by will (testate succession) or in accordance with legal rules if the deceased leaves no will (intestate succession). Most primitive societies, too, recognise at least a limited power in the individual to dispose of his property. Maori history contains many incidents testifying to a person's right to hand on personal possessions to a chosen successor. Dying Maoris often indicated in a formal speech their wishes regarding the disposal of their property and their interests in tribal land.

The New Zealand law relating to wills is similar to that of England. Subject only to the law of family protection, a testator may leave all or any of his property to anyone he chooses. A will, except that of a serviceman or mariner in certain cases, must be in writing signed by the testator and signed or acknowledged by him in the presence of two witnesses, who must sign the will in his presence.

Before 1874 the rules in force in New Zealand governing intestate succession to real property (land) differed from those relating to other forms of property. These rules were complicated, but the principle was that land descended to the eldest son to the exclusion of others, while personal property was divided between the surviving spouse and all the children. Legislation in 1874 and 1879, anticipating English law by 50 years, brought the rules governing succession to land into line with those applicable to personal property – a step of some importance towards the democratisation of society.

The rules as to intestate succession were altered in 1944 and are now contained in the Administration Act of 1952. They may be stated in a simplified form as follows. A surviving spouse takes the personal chattels and £1,000. In addition, he or she takes one-third of the remainder of the estate if there is issue, two-thirds if there are surviving parents but no issue, and the whole if there are neither parents nor issue. If there is no surviving spouse the estate passes to the deceased's issue, that is, to his children who reach 21 or who have married as minors, with any children of a deceased child taking their parent's share. If the deceased leaves neither spouse nor issue, the estate goes to his parents, failing them to his brothers and sisters, failing them to his grandparents, and failing them to his uncles and aunts. The share of a deceased brother, sister, uncle, or aunt goes to his or her children, if any. Should none of these relatives survive the estate passes to the Crown.

Problems used to arise where two people died together and it was impossible to say who died first. In 1927 New Zealand adopted an English rule that the deaths were presumed to occur in order of age. This sometimes gave unjust results. For example, if a childless couple died together, the wife's parents usually took the husband's property. Accordingly, in 1958 a rule similar to that which prevails in the United States was introduced, under which each person so dying is presumed to survive the other for purposes of succession.

by Bruce James Cameron, B.A., LL.M., Legal Adviser, Department of Justice, Wellington.

These, the barest, bleakest, and most desolate of New Zealand's outlying islands, lie in latitude 47° 43' S and longitude 179° 5' E, i.e., some 490 miles east of Stewart Island. Built wholly of granite, they may well be described as a distant outlier of Stewart Island itself. Their total area is just over half a square mile.

Captain William Bligh of the Bounty discovered and named them in 1788. It was only in the early 1800s that they had any appeal at all to visitors. Sealers marooned their gangs there on the most inhospitable of bare rock terrain, without any natural vegetation and without permanent fresh water supply. The vast seal population was soon almost completely destroyed, and the survivors today seem to be building up in numbers only very slowly. There is, however, a prodigious population of sea birds, especially penguins and mollyhawks.

The islands have no other practical significance. As a sanctuary they should be preserved; in any case they are very difficult to visit and no one is likely to stay there long.

by George Jobberns, C.B.E., M.A., D.SC., Emeritus Professor of Geography, University of Canterbury.

• N.Z. Geographer, Vol. 4, No. 2, (1948), “The Outlying Islands of New Zealand”, Falla, R. A.

These consist of a main island some 5 miles long by 3 miles wide, with offshore islets and rock stacks making an area estimated to be 24 sq. miles in all. They lie in latitude 49° 41' S and longitude 178° 43' E. The main island is a rough plateau bounded by remarkably even lines of steep cliffs, especially in the north-west. The highest point (Mount Galloway) is 1,320 ft. The surface is very rough with a widespread blanket of waterlogged peat, with swamps and tarns in the hollows. Knowledge of geological structure is scanty but all the islands of the group seem to be of volcanic origin. Similarly, detailed information about the climate is meagre, but the dense cover of coarse tussock and hardy herbaceous plants growing on cold, wet peat indicates that conditions are bleak and inhospitable.

The islands, once famous for their fur seals, were discovered in 1800 by Captain Waterhouse of HMS Reliance. The first sealer was Pendleton, an American, whose gang was marooned there for nearly two years. They brought 60,000 skins back to Sydney and started the rush that soon exterminated the stock.

A depot for castaways was maintained on the Antipodes, but only two wrecks have occurred there. The crew of the first, the Spirit of the Dawn, in 1893, did not find the depot, but it was useful to the castaways from the President Felix Faure in 1908.

This legend of the exiled princess, of which there are several versions, all highly romantic, is associated with heather plants that grow on the island, in all probability introduced by an early whaler or sealer. According to the legend a stone fireplace, a shell-paved pathway to the nearby water's edge, a ragged stand of flax bushes - at one time evidently a neatly planted windbreak - and some straggling heather plants identify the remains of the lonely home of an exiled lady of noble birth who is described usually as “the French princess” or “the Jacobite princess”. About 10 years after the Napoleonic Wars had ended this “princess” is said to have been involved in a plot which threatened to overthrow the then French monarchy. One version says that she was a daughter of Bonnie Prince Charlie, but this account is perhaps the least credible, because that daughter died in France. Another version states that the exiled princess was betrothed to a Scottish nobleman who laid claim to the thrones of England, Scotland, and France. For some reason it was desirable to send her out of harm's way. She was therefore sent overseas in the care of a sea captain who, eventually, put her ashore at Campbell Island. A small sod hut was built for her at Camp Cove and there, it is said, she was found dead of starvation a year later. Near the hut was found a patch of Scottish heather, which, according to the legend, was planted by the princess to remind her of her lover.

This island, some 44 sq. miles in area, lies in latitude 52° 30' S and longitude 169° 8' E, i.e., some 150 miles ESE of the Auckland group. High and rugged in the south (up to 1,867 ft), it slopes off more gently to the north where smoothed ridges and open valleys suggest considerable recent glaciation. The east coast is broken by the two long, narrow, sheltered inlets of Perseverance and North-east Harbours; the former, indeed, almost severs the island in two. Off the cliffed coasts of the west and south are several little rocky islets. The geological structure of the island is rather complex. There are some scattered sedimentary beds, but most of the surface rocks are nearly horizontal sheets of lava and scoria, with older coarse-grained gabbros in the rugged south-west.

The climate of Campbell Island is similar to that of the Auckland group; though a little colder, it has less cloud and more sunshine and soils are not so wet and sour. Over most of the area is a cover of tussock with some scattered patches of scrubby Dracophyllum. Herbaceous plants, formerly varied and abundant, have for the most part been eaten out by sheep.

The island was discovered in 1810 by F. Hasselburgh, captain of the sealing ship Perseverance, owned by the Sydney firm of Campbell and Co. The seal population was soon reduced to the point where interest in the island was lost. It was visited by the Ross expedition in 1840 and, sporadically up to the 1890s, by whalers. In 1896 sheep were introduced and the island was more or less continuously occupied up till 1931.

Present interest in Campbell Island centres on the meteorological station set up there in 1941, and maintained continuously since.