The Magistrates' Court has evolved from the Courts of summary jurisdiction of the nineteenth century, which were presided over by Resident Magistrates and Justices of the Peace. The Resident Magistrates on the pattern of the sixties, seventies, and eighties have disappeared, and the judicial functions of the Justices of the Peace have suffered practically the same fate in New Zealand, although the Justices of the Peace Act still has its place on the statute book. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the rise of the Magistrates' Court Bench as a powerful influence in the community is the lowly, and sometimes suspect, inauguration from which it sprang. A legal profession and a public accustomed to the contemporary standards and dignity of the Magistrates' Courts of the Dominion, and also to the milder methods of current criticism of matters judicial, could hardly fail to be intrigued, if not actually appalled, by some of the practices and procedures in the sphere of justice when summary jurisdiction was almost entirely in the hands of Resident Magistrates. Recourse to the lower Courts was commonly regarded as a hazardous business, and there must have been many who could appreciate vividly what Voltaire meant when he said: “I was never ruined but twice; once when I lost a lawsuit and once when I won one”.

It is probable that no other court of summary jurisdiction in the British Commonwealth has anything like the extensive civil and criminal jurisdiction of the Magistrates' Court in New Zealand. Nor have Magistrates of other countries the many special jurisdictions and extra-judicial functions conferred on New Zealand Magistrates by statutory enactment. In fact, it is not too much to say that the Magistrates' Court in New Zealand during the present century has acquired a degree of public confidence which has raised it to a level not far below that of the superior Court.

(1864–1917).

Politician and historian.

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

Robert McNab was born on 1 October 1864 at Dunraggit, Southland, son of Alexander McNab, runholder, and a prominent figure in the political life of Otago and Southland. His mother was Janet, née McQueen. Robert was educated at the Invercargill Grammar School where he was dux in 1879, and entered Otago University in 1880, where he graduated B.A. in 1883 and was senior mathematical scholar. He graduated M.A. in 1884 with honours in mathematics and physics.

He then turned his attention to law. He entered the firm of Chapman, Sinclair, and White in Dunedin, was called to the Bar in 1889, graduated LL.B. in 1890, and commenced the practice of law in Invercargill with J. L. M. Watson as partner. In 1896 he left the law and took up farming on his late father's estate at Knapdale, Gore, which he retained for the rest of his life. Here, at considerable expense, he experimented in forestry and set a much-needed example in tree planting to the farmers of Southland. One of his earliest works was Forestry in Relation to the Farmer, published at Gore in 1903.

McNab entered public life in 1891 when he was elected to the Southland Education Board and in the following year to the Board of Governors of the Southland Boys' and Girls' High School. In 1893 he stood for Parliament in the Liberal interest for the Mataura electorate, defeating G. F. Richardson. Richardson regained his seat in the elections of 1896, but retired in 1898. McNab was again elected for this seat, which he retained until his defeat 10 years later. In 1911 he unsuccessfully contested the Palmerston seat, but succeeded in re-entering Parliament in 1914 for the Hawke's Bay electorate, which he held until his death.

Seddon offered McNab the portfolio of Lands but he made conditions, evidently to Seddon's surprise, and the offer was withdrawn. Eventually, however, he agreed to become Minister of Lands and Agriculture under Ward in 1906. His strong, conscientious advocacy of leasehold tenure ran counter to the increasing body of freehold sentiment in the country, and his only large-scale attempt to make his mark in politics, by strengthening the leasehold legislation passed by Ballance and Seddon, was rebuffed by the more politically sensitive and astute Ward who withdrew McNab's Bill. This discomforture, combined with his advocacy of strict regulation in the dairy industry, contributed to his defeat at the polls in 1908.

In August 1915 McNab was appointed Minister of Justice and Marine in the wartime National Ministry, more for his reputation as a “safe” man than for his other qualities. This post he accepted reluctantly because of his absorbing outside interests, but with typically conscientious thoroughness he applied himself to his task with outstanding industry and earnestness.

It appears that McNab entered politics more from a sense of duty than for desire for fame or power. He had little imagination or sensitivity to political trends and pressures; he was no orator (although a keen debater and a cogent speaker), and he had little of the verve or sparkle that brings popularity. But patriotism and conviction drove him on to do his duty as he saw it to his country, his party, and his constituents in the face of discomforture and in spite of his increasing concentration on interests that lay right outside political affairs.

One of these outside interests had been the advocacy of compulsory military training. From his university days McNab had been an energetic volunteer, first in the Dunedin B Battery, then as commander of the North Dunedin Rifles, and, later, as commander of the Invercargill G Battery. He was also a keen rifle-club man and, for a time, represented Otago on the New Zealand Rifle Association. This early interest in military training stayed with him unabated. In 1909, spontaneously and at his own expense and in his own time, he began a national campaign for the introduction of compulsory military training for all fit young men. This campaign caught the public imagination and it may be fairly said that the Military Service Act of 1911, which replaced the old volunteer system with territorial training, was passed on the strength of the interest that had been aroused during McNab's campaign. It is no exaggeration to call McNab one of the founders of the Territorial Army.

The manifestation of McNab's keen patriotism had another, and quite different aspect – that of interest in his country's history. From a modest beginning of research into the early days of Southland, it developed to embrace the whole of New Zealand and took him searching round the world for records dealing with the history of the country since its first contact with Europeans. To this he increasingly devoted his fortune, his time, and his dogged energy, to achieve results which have not yet been surpassed. There is no doubt now that his fame rests on his work for New Zealand history rather than on his political career.

His earliest excursion into historical research began in 1898, when he started gathering material for a small history of Southland. The first-fruits of this work was the publication at Gore in 1905 of Murihiku. McNab was dissatisfied at the incompleteness of this, and, an opportunity presenting itself for a visit to America where he knew there was much material on his subject, he resolved to suppress this edition and to rewrite and expand it into a more satisfactory and complete form. The revised edition which appeared in 1907 included much new material and brought the history down to 1829. A further revised and extended edition, which came out in 1909, included material covering the whole of the South Island (and the southern shores of the North Island) down to 1835.

These later editions of Murihiku were based on records and books that McNab had unearthed in libraries and archives in Australia (notably Sydney and Hobart), the United States, Great Britain, and Europe. The Public Record Office of London, the French National Archives, and the maritime collections of the eastern seaboard of America all revealed material dealing with New Zealand's early days which, together with the information he had gleaned in New Zealand, were strung together by McNab in narrative form. He was the first to acknowledge that his method might not please either the serious student of history or the more general reader, but the fact remains that his book is a mine of information which, for the most part, has still considerable value today.

Acting on a suggestion made to him by Seddon, McNab edited and made available to the Government Printer for publication much of the raw material he had collected in the course of his researches. The result was the Historical Records of New Zealand, the first volume of which appeared in 1908. This was a frank imitation of the Historical Records of New South Wales, and the first volume consists largely of copies from the latter work, the rest of the volume being made up of transcripts from unpublished New South Wales records. The documents in the first volume run from 1770 to 1839, from Cook's first voyage to Hobson's departure from England. The second volume covers the same period, but extends back to Tasman's discovery of New Zealand in 1642.

While there are notable omissions in this collection of documents, which McNab intended to fill later, it is still unsurpassed. Any defects, which are small compared to the magnitude of the achievement, were not due to carelessness but to McNab's generous eagerness to make available to the public with the least possible delay the remarkable and exciting discoveries that he had made. His anxious desire to avoid mistakes in transcription and his wish to present the original documents with exactitude led him to conclude that the best method to be followed in a work of this sort would be to publish photographic facsimiles. The techniques then available made such a proceeding impracticable on a large scale, but with recent developments in photocopying it is interesting to note that this method of publication is coming increasingly into favour.

The Old Whaling Days, which was published in 1913, covers the years 1830–40 and deals with the bay whaling period of southern New Zealand's history. The next year Tasman to Marsden was published. This deals with the history of the northern parts of New Zealand from 1642 to 1818. Both these works are similar to Murihiku in that they consist of extracts from or paraphrases of original documents placed together in narrative form. McNab explained that this method arose from his wish to give the reader the results of his research and not the fruits of his thought, and that he believed that this manner of presentation was sufficiently near to the original form of the documents to be quoted as a record and sufficiently connected chronologically to be read as a narrative.

For these works McNab received the degree of D.Litt. in 1914 – the first time this degree had been conferred by the University of New Zealand. This was, without doubt, a well-deserved recognition of his long and thorough work on behalf of New Zealand scholarship.

The mechanics of McNab's works are, however imperfect: if there are bibliographies they are incomplete, and references to source materials are often too vague or altogether lacking. This can be irritating, and a higher standard in these matters is now expected. Admittedly, McNab meant his works to be read by all who evinced a curiosity about the history of their country, but the watering down of his scholarship to suit popular taste has weakened the value of his work. This is by no means intended to reduce the magnitude of his achievement, not the least aspect of which was to arouse an interest in the early history of New Zealand and to foster a respect for the documents and books in which it is recorded. Nor should it be forgotten that McNab achieved what he did without expectation of reward, unaided, spontaneously, in his own time, and at his own expense. Few scholars, if any, could now do this, much less combine such work with a long and active participation in political affairs. The wonder is not that his work was done so well, but that it was done at all.

McNab was a robust, sturdy Scot, with a marked Scottish accent. It is peculiarly characteristic of him that he was a keen temperance supporter, but his breadth of view and intelligence never permitted him to become an obnoxious bigot. He died, unmarried, in Wellington on 3 February 1917. His large and valuable collection of books on New Zealand and the Pacific was left to the Dunedin Public Library, and his papers were deposited in the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.

by Michael Wordsworth Standish, M.A. (1920–62), late Dominion Chief Archivist, Wellington.

• New Zealand Times, 5 Feb 1917 (Obit)
• Evening Post,5 Feb 1917 (Obit)
• Dominion, 5 Feb 1917 (Obit).

(1780–1866).

Clergyman and pioneer coloniser.

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

McLeod was born of fisherman-farmer stock at Clatchtoll, Assynt, Sutherlandshire, on 29 September 1780. During his formative years his parish minister was the Rev. William McKenzie, who earned McLeod's disrespect and coloured his opinion of the ministers of the Established Church of Scotland. In his twenty-eighth year he decided to prepare for the ministry by studying at Aberdeen University, where he graduated master of arts in 1812, gaining the gold medal in moral philosophy. After studying theology for two years at the University of Edinburgh he left, probably because of his dissatisfaction with the state of the Church of Scotland. He returned to Assynt to teach, taking a position at Ullapool. But he still continued to preach, denouncing the mode of life and teachings of the parish ministers; consequently he was forced to abandon his school and to take up fishing as a livelihood. With the threat of “Highland clearances”, many small farmers were leaving Scotland. Norman McLeod, foreseeing continual strife with the church, joined many of these Highlanders in the Frances Ann and sailed to Nova Scotia with his wife (née Mary McLeod) and their two sons. They arrived at Pictou late in 1817 and settled near West River, where McLeod's preaching drew large congregations each Sunday. With the influx of Scottish settlers and their ministers, he decided to leave for Ohio in response to a call from a settlement of Highlanders.

In September 1819 McLeod, with some of his followers, sailed in the Ark. While skirting the coast they arrived at the tree-clad shores of St. Anns Harbour, Nova Scotia, which they found well stocked with fish. Being delighted with the surroundings they decided to settle and, after selecting land and commencing to clear it, they returned to Pictou for the winter to bring their families back to their new homes in May 1820. In the autumn of 1821 McLeod visited Ohio, returning in 1822 to open a school which was to render excellent service till 1851. McLeod was a born teacher and his ability was recognised by the Government, which gave his enlarged school the status of a “grammar school”. His leadership was recognised in 1823 when he was made a Justice of the Peace, continuing in this office until the Government removed this commission from all clergy. Although McLeod was the leader both civil and spiritual of his people, he keenly felt the lack of ordination; in 1825, therefore, he went to New York for 12 months' training under the Presbytery of Genesee, a licence being granted on 12 September 1826.

In 1848, at a time when the Nova Scotian potato and wheat crops had failed and when the fishing industry was being threatened by American competition, McLeod's son Donald wrote to his father from South Australia extolling the virtues of that area. After further inquiries from Donald and wishing to spare his flock the worry of possible religious controversy, McLeod, despite his 70 years, decided to leave for Australia. From 1849 till 28 October 1851 when the Margaret left St. Anns, ships were built, properties sold, and food gathered for the migration, all being done as was customary with worship as the centre of activity. About 140, including Norman McLeod and his family, sailed under Captain Watson, reaching Adelaide on 11 April 1852, only to find that Donald had moved to Melbourne. The migrants tried to obtain land near the coast, but as this was difficult, the majority set sail for Melbourne on 27 May, arriving on 4 June 1852. There the Margaret was sold. Many of the young men of the party went to the goldfields, a number of them remaining in Australia some years before coming to New Zealand.

Meanwhile the Highland Lass sailed from Big Harbour, Bras d'Or, on 17 May 1852 and arrived at Adelaide on 6 October. Nineteen of the Highland Lass people remained at Adelaide while the remaining 90, together with 33 Margaret people, came to Auckland in the Gazelle, leaving Adelaide on 2 September and arriving on 18 September 1853. Soon after their arrival Duncan McKenzie and Duncan Mackay interviewed Governor Grey on the question of a suitable site for settlement. Various places including the South Island and Hawke's Bay were suggested, but by November a party seeking a heavily forested area which would yield timber for homes and boats, land suitable for cropping, and a coast where fish could be caught, sailed up the east coast north of Auckland, entered the Waipu River and decided to settle the area. Their application, which was filed with the Commissioner of Crown Lands on 26 November 1853, was unsuccessfully challenged by James Busby. This delayed settlement and it was not until September 1854 that the first settlers landed at Waipu from the schooner Don. In the meantime, on 7 January 1854, the Gazelle had left Melbourne with some of the Margaret's passengers, including the Rev. McLeod and family, reaching the Manukau on 26 January. While waiting to select suitable land, the settlers rented houses in Albert Street and obtained work in the town and neighbouring countryside. Gaelic services were held in a hall in Symonds Street and McLeod preached several times in St. Andrews Church. In due course news was carried back to Nova Scotia of the advantages of life at Waipu, with the result that over 850 people in the six ships, Margaret, Highland Lass, Gertrude, Spray, Breadalbane, and Ellen Lewis, left for the south from 1851 to 1859. McLeod took up land in Waipu and remained the patriarchal leader of his people till his death there on 14 March 1866.

McLeod was an autocratic leader with a keen intellect, great physical strength, oratorical powers, and strict Calvanistic faith. He was attentive to every aspect of the lives of his followers, particularly in matters of religion and morals, and did not hesitate to castigate even his most intimate friends for offences which were often of a trivial nature. Nevertheless he earned the devotion and loyalty of most of his followers for they knew he continually sought their welfare. In patriarchal fashion, as clergyman, schoolmaster, and Magistrate, he moulded the character of a community which, by his inspiration, has won a unique place in the annals of colonisation.

by John Sidney Gully, M.A., DIP.N.Z.L.S., Assistant Chief Librarian, General Assembly Library, Wellington.

• Letters, 1835–1851, McLeod, Norman (Nova Scotia, Public Archives Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 1), (1939)
• The Gael Fares Forth, McKenzie, N. R. (1942)
• Lion of Scotland, Robinson, N. C. (1952).

(1903– ).

Artist and Director of the National Art Gallery.

Stewart Bell Maclennan was born at Dunedin on 14 May 1903 and received his art training at the Dunedin School of Art and the Royal College of Art, London. Prior to this he had engaged in commercial art. In 1939 he became art master at Wairarapa College, and in 1946 education officer at the National Art Gallery, being appointed Director two years later. He was a member of the Council of the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, 1943–49, and vice-president, 1949–59. He was awarded first prize in the watercolour section, National Bank of New Zealand Art Competitions, 1962 and 1963, and first prize watercolours, Hay's Competition, 1962. He has exhibited at international print exhibitions in Cincinnati and Tokio and has shown paintings in exhibitions in New Zealand and overseas. He is represented in most New Zealand permanent collections.

(1863–1932).

Nurse and administrator.

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

Hester Maclean was born in 1863 at Sofala, New South Wales, daughter of Harold Maclean, Comptroller-General of Prisons and of Emily, née Strong. She was educated at a private school in Sydney and did her training in general nursing at the Prince Alfred Hospital, graduating in 1893. For the next 12 years she held a number of senior nursing positions in Australia. She was for a time matron of Kogarah Cottage Hospital; matron of the Queen Victoria Hospital for Women and Children; matron of the Women's Hospital, Melbourne; matron of Bay View Hospital; and sister in charge of the District Nursing Associations in Melbourne and Sydney. In 1905 she obtained her midwifery C.M.B. Certificate in England. She was therefore well qualified to be appointed in 1906 as the successor to Grace Neill as Assistant Inspector of Hospitals and Deputy Registrar of Nurses and Midwives in New Zealand.

Hester Maclean took up office during a period of rapid expansion in health facilities and in the nursing services associated with them. It is therefore natural that she should have become particularly concerned with the development of public health services. During her 17 years in office she was associated with a number of nursing reforms. These included the inauguration of the first district nursing service at Uruti in Taranaki in 1909; legislation relating to an eight-hour day for student nurses; the extension of the facilities for the training of midwives; the training of Maori nurses to work among their own people; the appointment of the first school nurses by the Education Department in 1917; and reciprocity of registration with the General Nursing Council for England and Wales. In 1920 the internal structure of the Health Department was reorganised by Act of Parliament and Hester Maclean became Director of a newly created Division of Nursing. She retired from this position in 1923.

One of the many developments in nursing with which Hester Maclean was directly associated was that of the New Zealand Army Nursing Service. As early as 1908 a volunteer nursing service had been proposed but there was little development of the idea until the visit of Lord Kitchener to New Zealand in 1911 when concrete plans were laid for the setting up both of medical and nursing services for the army. Hester Maclean was gazetted as Matron in Chief in 1913, a position she held until her retirement from Government office. The first call on the newly created service came on 15 August 1914, when a small contingent of six nurses sailed with New Zealand troops to Samoa. Later, in April 1915, Hester Maclean left for England on the transport Rotorua with a contingent of 50 nurses who were to be assigned to military hospitals by the British War Office. These “first fifty” were ultimately stationed with units throughout Egypt and, after inspecting the hospitals in which they were working, the Matron in Chief returned to New Zealand in October 1915, where she continued to direct the activities of the Army Nursing Service. She was associated later with the setting up of the Nurses' Memorial Fund, which commemorates those nurses who died during the First World War and in the subsequent influenza epidemic. The fund is still used today to help nurses who require financial assistance.

It was not only in an official capacity that Hester Maclean gave valuable direction and leadership to New Zealand nursing but she served also as the forceful leader of a rapidly growing group of registered nurses who were interested in the promotion of nursing as a respectable profession. They wanted to form a central professional organisation which could formulate general policy; consolidate movements within the profession, and allow a free interchange of ideas. The first constructive step was taken at a dinner party in 1907 when Hester Maclean proposed that a journal should be produced to acquaint all nurses in New Zealand with new trends both at home and abroad. She undertook both the editorship and the expense of the production of the quarterly journal, and the first edition of Kai Tiaki, The Journal of the Nurses of New Zealand appeared in January 1908. She continued as owner and honorary editor until it was sold to the New Zealand Registered Nurses' Association in 1923. The association retained her services as salaried editor until her death, some years later.

It is probable that the concrete existence of a journal where ideas and news could be exchanged gave fresh impetus to the movement to form a national organisation. Also the passing of the Nurses' Registration Act in 1901 and the growth of training schools contributed to the development of a much more professional attitude towards nursing and its problems. In 1909, therefore, the New Zealand Trained Nurses' Association was established. It represented the amalgamation of the four separate organisations then existing in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin. A central council of four members was elected, one from each centre, and Hester Maclean became the first president of what is now known as the New Zealand Registered Nurses' Association. Affiliation with the International Council of Nurses followed a few years later. The story of her contribution to the development of professional nursing is recapitulated by each retiring president of the N.Z.R.N.A. in the Hester Maclean Oration, and is commemorated by the Hester Maclean Memorial Insignia, which is the badge of office of the Dominion president of the New Zealand Registered Nurses' Association.

Hester Maclean retired from public office in 1923. She was awarded the Royal Red Cross (First Class) in 1918, for her services in the organisation of the New Zealand Army Nursing Service, and the Florence Nightingale Medal in 1920. During her retirement she continued as the editor of the Kai Tiaki and in 1925 was appointed a member of the International Publication Committee of I.C.N. Her autobiography, Nursing in New Zealand, was written during this period and published in 1932. She died in Wellington on 2 September 1932.

Hester Maclean was a professional career woman in an age when this was rare. She had intelligence, energy, and foresight and it is clear that she recognised the considerable opportunities available for nurses in a newly developing country. She also realised the need for a powerful central organisation which would protect and consolidate their professional interests while at the same time promoting the growth of ideas in both nursing education and nursing service. She extended and strengthened the foundation already laid by Grace Neill so that subsequent developments in nursing took place on a broad stable basis. She has come to be recognised as one of the key figures in the history of the development of nursing in New Zealand.

by Nancy Joan Kinross, B.A.(N.Z.), M.SC.(BERKLEY), N.Z.DIP.NURSING, Supervising Matron, Southland Hospital, Invercargill.

• Historical Development of Nursing in New Zealand, 1840–1946, N.Z. Department of Health (1947)
• Nursing in New Zealand, Maclean, Hester (1932)
• Kai Tiaki, Apr 1918
• The New Zealand Nursing Journal, 15 Sep 1932 (Obit); Jun 1956; Jan 1958; Apr 1960.

(1820–77).

Land Purchase Commissioner and Native Minister.

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

Donald McLean was born on the Hebridean island of Tiree on 27 October 1820, the son of John McLean of Kilmaluaig, and of Margrette, née McColl. While Donald was still a child his father died and the boy was brought up by his mother's people, the McColls, his grandfather being a Presbyterian clergyman. A well-grounded but frugal upbringing awakened ambition for which, as so often in the Highlands, emigration was the only opportunity and, with a cousin, McLean arrived in Sydney in April 1839. He spent some months in New South Wales, but crossed to New Zealand in 1840 as an agent for the timber-trading firm of Abercrombie and Company, later working around the Hauraki Gulf and on Waiheke Island. He quickly saw that a knowledge of Maori and an understanding of Maori culture would be an invaluable qualification for success. Of commanding physique, adaptable, discreet and even cautious, but of inflexible perseverance and determination, he soon acquired an excellent working knowledge of the language. In 1843 he came under the notice of the Colonial Secretary, Andrew Sinclair, on whose recommendation he was appointed by Governor FitzRoy to a position in the office of the Protector of Aborigines. Following a period of induction he was transferred to New Plymouth as a Subprotector in August 1844.

His first testing responsibility was an attempt to reconcile the Taranaki Maoris to an acceptance of Commissioner Spain's award to the New Zealand Company of a considerably greater area in the district and elsewhere than its Maori owners were prepared to recognise. Soon after he assisted in the purchase of the FitzRoy, Bell, and Tataraimaka Blocks. In 1845, following the abolition of the Protector's office, his title was changed to that of Inspector of Armed Police. In the course of his duties as mediator between the two peoples and as conciliator in tribal differences, he undertook many arduous and lengthy journeys through the interior of the Island. Noteworthy among these were the visits to Mokau, Tuhua, and Taupo in April and May 1845, from where he returned by the Wanganui River, and a second journey to the same area in the reverse direction during the last three months of 1845.

The increasing orientation of McLean's duties to land-purchase operations reflected the Government preoccupation of the period. In May 1848 he completed the Wanganui land purchases which, in common with the New Zealand Company purchases elsewhere, had been a difficulty from the formation of the settlement. His first major success, however, was the acquisition in 1849 of the Rangitikei Block of some 200,000 acres between the Rangitikei and Turakina Rivers. Two years later, in Hawke's Bay, the purchase of the Waipukurau, Ahuriri, and Mohaka Blocks of approximately 630,000 acres opened the future province to pastoral settlement. The Wairarapa had resisted the efforts of several earlier negotiators, but, in 1853, following Sir George Grey's personal intervention, McLean was able to obtain several key blocks which, again, lead eventually to the European acquisition of much of the district. The Wairarapa purchases marked the high-water level of McLean's success. Growing Maori concern at the effect of the sales, particularly the subsequent sharp appreciation in land values and, soon after, the growing strength of the King movement, markedly slowed down the pace of these transactions except in the far north. McLean's methods involved close and prolonged rapport with the key chiefs, the exercise of endless patience in what might be regarded as the softening-up process, and the generous promise of specific reserves.

In 1853 he was appointed Chief Land Purchase Commissioner in the newly established Land Purchase Department. When Gore Browne succeeded Grey as Governor, his position and authority were greatly enhanced. In McLean's view the best interests of the Maori were to be served by rapid land purchases at roughly 1d. to 3d. an acre, which would open the way to European settlement, with a consequent improvement in Maori living standards. Haste, departmental and immigrant pressure, together with the underlying expectation of the early extinction of the Maori race, caused officers to ignore Maori occupation rights and the more subtle aspects of Maoritanga. When the offices of Native Secretary and Chief Land Purchase Commissioner were amalgamated, the reality as well as the appearance of an administratively disinterested concern for Maori welfare, as distinct from land purchasing, was destroyed. McLean supplanted F. D. Fenton as Native Secretary and tacitly opposed the introduction of measures which savoured of indirect rule.

McLean's part in the critical Waitara purchase which led to the Taranaki War has recently been examined by historians. It is clear that he was at fault in not briefing Gore Browne more fully regarding the implications of the Governor's acceptance of the offer of Te Teira to sell the block in which other non-sellers were interested. At the same time it was unfortunate that a critical attack of rheumatic fever at the end of 1859, the penalty of some 15 punishing years in the field, virtually incapacitated him throughout the critical period. His already unrivalled knowledge and judgment could have prescribed caution before both the Crown and Wiremu Kingi, the chief who opposed the sale, had irrevocably committed themselves to positions from which retreat without loss of face was extremely difficult. McLean's last major act before resigning from the secretaryship in May 1861 was the organisation of the Kohimarama Conference at the end of 1860, an attempt to win support for the Government's Waitara policy.

Temporarily free from office, McLean proceeded to develop and extend his station properties. He had purchased Maraekakaho Station in Hawke's Bay, was slowly acquiring Akitio on the Wellington provincial border, and for a time held Run 333 in Central Otago – assets which by judicious sale of the last two were to give him an estate valued at over £100,000 on his death.

In 1863 he was elected Superintendent of the Hawke's Bay Province and in March 1866 defeated Colenso in the election for a seat in the House of Representatives. With J. D. Ormond, he virtually ran the province until the abolition ten years later. His local prestige, together with his knowledge of native affairs, led to his appointment as Government Agent on the East Coast in 1868. The escape of Te Kooti and his followers from the Chatham Islands provided a difficult and testing period both for Government and McLean. In the exchanges between them there were clashes over the competence of individual officers, the wisdom of putting Maori auxiliaries under Col. Whitmore, and finally over the proposal of the Government to send the Ngati Porou chief Ropata and his followers away from their home area to Taranaki. When McLean supported Ropata in his reluctance to leave his tribal territory undefended, McLean's appointment was terminated.

Three months later, following the resignation of the Stafford Ministry, McLean joined Fox as Native Minister and, except for the brief interregnum of the September-October 1872 Stafford Ministry, he was in office under successive premiers until a month before his death, eight years later. He was also Defence Minister until 10 September 1872. The policy which he vigorously applied was directed to ending the war and reaching an understanding and reconciliation with the Maori. The unofficial return of Wiremu Kingi to Waitara in 1872, meetings with the Maori King, and the exercising of restraint at the seeming provocation of a murder on the aukati were generally acclaimed examples of its success. At the same time land purchasing was resumed at an increased tempo, some millions of acres being acquired, chiefly in the Auckland and Wellington Provinces. Results were achieved by the same exercise of personal authority as had characterised his administration as a civil servant in earlier years. The pacification set the stage for the free play of the public works policy of the decade, but McLean himself did not build up an efficient, enduring administration, nor in a number of instances did he exercise judgment in the selection and promotion of subordinates. His K.C.M.G. in 1874, however, was a well-merited tribute to his part in the European occupation of New Zealand. In a political reaction against certain purchases he, with Ormond, was attacked in the House for his own transactions. The resulting anxiety, the cumulative burdens of office, and premature ageing from the hardships of earlier years led to his resignation in December 1876 and death on 5 January 1877.

In 1850 McLean married Susan, the daughter of R. R. Strang, Registrar of the Supreme Court in Wellington. Their tragically brief marriage ended with her death shortly after the birth of their only son Douglas in 1852.

In October 1877 Douglas McLean established the Te Makarini Trust for Te Aute Maori College and endowed it with £3,000 in memory of his father. The income has since provided annually a series of scholarships for gifted students from the primary native schools attending Te Aute College.

by Austin Graham Bagnall, M.A., A.L.A., Librarian, National Library Centre, Wellington.

• McLean MSS, Turnbull Library
• McLean MSS, Hawke's Bay Museum and Art Gallery, Napier
• Sir Donald Maclean – the Story of a New Zealand Statesman, Cowan, J. (1940)
• The Chief of Hawke's Bay, Turnbull, M. (1960).

(1870–1920).

University teacher and administrator.

A new biography of Maclaurin, Richard Cockburn appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Richard Cockburn Maclaurin was born in Selkirk, Scotland, on 5 June 1870 and brought to New Zealand at the age of four. He had a brilliant school and university career, taking first-class honours in mathematics at Auckland University College in 1890. Elected to a foundation scholarship at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1891, he was bracketed with the Senior Wrangler in 1896, and took the Smith Prize in mathematics. He then went over to law with the McMahon studentship at Lincoln's Inn, was elected to a fellowship of St John's in 1897, won the Yorke Prize in 1898, and proceeded to Strasbourg to study philosophy. Solid as well as brilliant and versatile in learning, greatly gifted as a conversationalist, Maclaurin might have done exceedingly well in the Old World; but he had also in his character a curious mixture of worldly wisdom, sense of duty, and sense of intellectual adventure, and his next move, in 1899, was back to New Zealand to the chair of mathematics in the newly created university institution at Wellington, Victoria College. He was careful, nevertheless, not to lose touch with England and established institutions. He took his Cambridge LL.D. in 1904.

Maclaurin was an admirable and stimulating lecturer, and his tact, wisdom, and practical shrewdness made him invaluable in the concerns of the new college: he was first chairman of its professorial board and was also an admirable personality in student social life; though an academic, he could not but be respected in the general community. He was a member both of the Wellington Club and of a Masonic Lodge. He taught some law, as well as mathematics, from the beginning. Few good mathematicians presented themselves and, though he was unwilling to leave the mathematical field altogether, in 1907 he became professor of law, dean of the faculty of law, and honorary professor of astronomy (succeeding Salmond in the chair of law). Unfortunately for the college, Columbia University in the same year offered him its chair of mathematical physics, which he accepted. He was not a man the New Zealand of that day could hope to retain indefinitely, and he had already stayed seven years instead of the five he had designed for himself. Maclaurin stayed at Columbia, in its turn, only one year. Offered the presidency of the rather moribund Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he saw its possibilities as an organ of scientific education; his great, though hitherto latent, administrative talent had full scope, and in a few years he had given it real eminence. The strain, however, of raising endowments told desperately on his rather slight physique, and he died on 15 January 1920.

MacLaurin was perhaps too variously gifted for him to produce many books or to reach full fruition as a scholar in any department. He did, however, publish On the Nature and Evidence of Title to Realty (1901), his Yorke Prize essay, papers in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, and a Treatise on the Theory of Light (1908). His marriage in 1904 to Alice Young, of Auckland, was a happy one; they had two sons. On the New Zealand educational scene he was a dazzling visitant rather than a formative influence; his real creation and monument was the institution he gave his life to in America.

by John Cawte Beaglehole, C.M.G., M.A.(N.Z.), PH.D. (LOND.), Professor of British Commonwealth History, Victoria University of Wellington.

• Richard Cockburn Maciaurin: President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pearson, H. G. (1937)
• Victoria University College, Beaglehole, J. C. (1949)
• New Zealand Magazine, Jan-Feb 1944.

(1851–92).

Explorer.

Quintin McPherson McKinnon was born in 1851 in Argyllshire, Scotland, where he came of a good family. He was well educated, probably at the local parish school, and served as a volunteer with the French forces during the Franco-Prussian War. In the early 1870s he emigrated to Otago, where he became known as an athlete and sportsman. He was a member of the Otago rugby team which toured New Zealand in the late 1870s. About this time he qualified as a surveyor and, being fond of exploring, lived for some years in a hut near Lake Te Anau. In 1887, with G. Tucker, he made his way up the Doon River from the South West Arm of the Middle Fiord of Lake Te Anau and crossed over to Caswell Sound, discovering the two lakes which bear their names. They also discovered the white marble deposits at Caswell Sound. This was the first recorded overland crossing to the sound. On 17 October 1888 McKinnon and E. Mitchell, of Manapouri, discovered and crossed McKinnon Pass, thus finding the first practicable overland route to Milford Sound, now known as the Milford Track. Later in the same year he took part in the search for Professor Mainwaring Brown, who lost his life while exploring the region to the west of Te Anau. During the next three years McKinnon devoted much of his time to improving the Milford Track and in guiding tourist parties to the sound. In 1892 he obtained a Government contract to carry mails between Lake Te Anau and Milford Sound – a trip which then took six days. On 29 November 1892 he left the lower end of Lake Te Anau to cross the lake on a routine trip to Milford. It was not until 27 December that concern was felt for his absence. A search of the lake was organised, but, although his wrecked boat was located, McKinnon's body was never discovered.

Apart from the McKinnon Pass and Lake McKinnon, his name is perpetuated in the Quintin Huts on Milford Track and the St. Quenton (sic) Falls in Clinton Valley. The latter were named by Thomas MacKenzie, who organised a public subscription to build the Quintin McKinnon Memorial Cairn which now stands near the summit of McKinnon Pass.

On 22 March 1879, at Dunedin, McKinnon married Barbara Sinclair, of Lerwick in the Shetland Islands. He was survived by at least one son.

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

NOTE – As there appears to be some doubt about the correct spelling of McKinnon's names – particularly because his son preferred the version Quinton McKinnon – those used in this biography are taken from McKinnon's marriage and his son's birth certificates.

• History of Northern Southland, Hamilton, G. A. (1952)
• Otago Daily Times, 29 Oct 1888; 11, 23 Jan, 21 Feb 1893.

(1873– ).

Medical practitioner.

A new biography of Siedeberg, Emily Hancock appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Emily Hancock McKinnon, a daughter of Franz D. Siedeberg, was born at Clyde, Central Otago, on 11 February 1873. She was educated at Otago Girls' High School and Otago University. After graduating B.Sc., she was the first woman to win a degree in medicine in New Zealand, gaining M.B., Ch.B. in 1896. After doing a maternity course (L.R.C.P.) at Rotunda, Dublin, she studied gynaecology and skin diseases at Berlin. In addition to private practice (1898–1928), she was medical superintendent of St. Helen's Hospital, Dunedin, from its foundation in 1905 till 1938, and medical officer of the Caversham Receiving Home, 1907–30. Always active in social welfare work, especially concerning women, she was for three terms president of the National Council of Women and an executive member of several other organisations. She was made a C.B.E. in 1949. She married James A. McKinnon in 1928. Her publications include Fifty Years Active Service – Women and Children (1949) and Otago Pioneer Women's Memorial (1959).