Story: Intellectuals

William Pember Reeves's The long white cloud

William Pember Reeves's The long white cloud

This is the cover of the first edition of William Pember Reeves's The long white cloud, Ao Tea Roa, a brilliant history of New Zealand, which was published in London in 1898. By that time Reeves was New Zealand's agent general in London. Before that he had been a journalist, a pamphleteer, a published poet and a political leader responsible for introducing radical labour legislation while serving as minister of labour in the Liberal government. He was a wide-ranging colonial intellectual, but it was in London that he found a community of thinkers. Reeves was quickly at home within the city's Fabian circle, and became friendly with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and George Bernard Shaw. After giving up as agent general in 1908, he became director of the London School of Economics.

Using this item

Private collection, Jock Phillips
Reference: William Pember Reeves, The long white cloud: Ao Tea Roa. London: Horace Marshall & Son, 1898

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How to cite this page:

Chris Hilliard, 'Intellectuals - Colonial absence of intellectuals', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/object/42338/william-pember-reevess-the-long-white-cloud (accessed 24 April 2024)

Story by Chris Hilliard, published 22 Oct 2014