Finding New Zealand’s Scientific Heritage Conference Handbook

23-24 November 2015 Victoria University of Wellington

Wellington, New Zealand

historyofscience.nz

1

Conference Programme

Monday 23rd November

8.30am Check-in desk open Opening Session, AM102 (Chair, Rebecca Priestley) 9.00am 9.10am 10.10am

Welcome: Professor Piri Sciascia (Victoria University of Wellington)

Keynote: Professor Naomi Oreskes (Harvard University) Why History Matters – Perspectives from the Recent History of Science

Dr. Dan Hikuroa (Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga/Te Pūnaha Matatini) Te Whakapapa o Putaiao kei Aotearoa – The History of Science in New Zealand

10.30am Morning Tea Aspects of New Zealand Science, AM102 (Chair, Conal McCarthy)

10.50am Dr. Simon Nathan (GNS Science) James Hector – the hurricane years

11.20am Dr. Rebecca Rice (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa ) Conversazione at the Curiosity Shop

11.40am Athol McCredie (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa ) Augustus Hamilton: creating a visual database

12.00pm Ass. Prof. Wayne Barrar (Massey University) ‘Delectable deposits’ – tracing the Oamaru diatoms

12.20pm Lunch – Poster presenters available from 12.50pm

Session 19th Century Science, AM102 (Chair, Dan Hikuroa)

General, LB118 (Chair, Cameron Smart)

1.20pm Dr. Ruth Barton (University of Auckland) ‘Not Merely a Scientific Society’: The Character of Colonial Science, as revealed by the TPNZI

Dr. Octavia Cade (University of Otago) New Zealand Restoration of Antarctic Huts: Hillary, Heritage, and the Most Distant Museums in the World

1.40pm Dr. Sascha Nolden (Alexander Turnbull Library) Sir Julius von Haast’s contribution to New Zealand science: expanding horizons, networking, ambition and controversy

Dr. Janine Cook (Victoria University of Wellington) Nature Study and General Biology in New Zealand State Primary and Secondary Schools, 1900-1960: An Overview

2.00pm Dr. Paul Scofield (Canterbury Museum) Percy William Earl (1811-1846) and the European Discovery of Moa in the South Island

Prof. Jean Fleming (University of Otago) The story of science outreach at the University of Otago

2.20pm Prof. Michael Roche (Massey University) ‘A controversy which can hardly be pleasantly conducted’: J.T. Thomson, James Hector and the reckoning longitude in New Zealand

Dr. Katrina Ford (University of Auckland) The Science of Milk: pure vs pasteurised in the early twentieth century

2.40pm Martin Bush (Swinburne University of Technology) William Whitehouse Collins and the deployment of astronomy in New Zealand Freethought

Dr. Pauline Harris (Victoria University of Wellington/Society for Māori Astronomy research and traditions) Revitalising traditional Māori astronomical knowledge

2

3.00pm Afternoon Tea

Session 19th Century Science, AM102 (Chair, Simon Nathan)

Weather, Radar & Astronomy, LB118 (Chair, Jim McAloon)

3.20pm Prof. Ewan Fordyce (University of Otago) James Hector's first 3 months as Otago Provincial Geologist (April - July 1862): geological observations, discoveries and puzzles

Erick Brenstrum (MetService) History of weather and forecasting in New Zealand

3.40pm Chris Paulin (fishHook publications) Sir James Hector’s investigation of Northland mullet

Dr. Matt Henry (Massey University) Meteorology’s Instruments: Radiosondes, Weather Balloons and the Making of a New Atmosphere

4.00pm Prof. Linda Tyler (University of Auckland) Botanical battles: John Buchanan and Thomas Kirk as illustrators in Hector's herbarium

Prof. John Hearnshaw (University of Canterbury) Mt. John University Observatory at Fifty Years

4.20pm Emma Zuroski (University of Auckland) HMS Challenger: The colonial localities of a scientific circumnavigation

Cameron Smart (Wavefront Engineering Limited) New Zealand’s Radar Story

4.40pm Dr. Hēmi Whaanga and Dr. Priscilla Wehi (University of Waikato/Landcare Research) He rongo i te reo rauriki, i te reo reiuru: Discourse analysis and conversations of historical conservation in New Zealand newspapers

Prof. Wayne Orchiston and Prof. John Hearnshaw (National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand/ University of Canterbury) From Bickerton to Bateson: The Challenge to Establish Astrophysics in New Zealand

5.00pm Scientific sessions finish 6.30pm – 10.30pm Conference dinner

Tuesday 24th November

8.30am Check-in desk open 20th Century Perspectives, AM102 (Chair, Anthony Scott )

9.00am Dr. Rebecca Priestley (Victoria University of Wellington/Te Pūnaha Matatini) ‘A place among the immortals’ Ernest Marsden and his 20th century scientific networks

9.30am Prof. Jean Fleming (University of Otago) A brief history of science communication in New Zealand

9.50am Kate Hannah (Te Pūnaha Matatini) From Rutherford’s Sister (or ‘the two Lucies’) to Nanogirl: Deconstructing narratives of female invisibility and hypervisibility in 150 years of New Zealand science

10.10am Dr. Ross Galbreath DSIR: the evolution of a New Zealand department of science 1916 to 1992 10.30am Dr. John Campbell (University of Canterbury) The fight to resurrect Rutherford’s mana in New

Zealand 10.50am Morning Tea

Session 19th Century Science & Scientists, AM102 (Chair, Rebecca Rice)

DSIR & 20th Century Science, CO119 (Chair, Erick Brenstrum)

11.10am Dr. James Braund (University of Auckland) T.F. Cheeseman: The Quiet Captain of Nineteenth-Century New Zealand Science

Prof. Ian Warrington (Massey University) The DSIR Climate Laboratory

11.30am Owen Hughes Philip Lutely Sclater, forgotten Victorian man of science and his New Zealand connections

Prof. John Hearnshaw (University of Canterbury) DSIR’s Industrial Psychology Division 1942-54

11.50am Dr. Vaughan Wood (University of Canterbury) William Grayling: an early consulting chemist in the Antipodes

Dr Fred Davey (GNS Science) Geophysics Division, DSIR, and its antecedents: 1864-1990

3

12.10pm Dr. Pamela Hyde Between “starving and living”: Swiss naturalist, Henry Suter’s pursuit of a scientific career in 19th and early 20th century New Zealand

Dr. Keith Lewis (formerly NZOI/NIWA) The New Zealand Oceanographic Institute, DSIR: small team, multidisciplinary exploration from lagoon to pack ice

12.30pm Lunch Session Panel Discussion, AM102 (Chair Kim Hill) 1.30pm Panel Discussion: The lessons of history for the future of science

Panel includes: Prof. Naomi Oreskes (Harvard University), Prof. David Frame (Victoria University of Wellington), Dr. Jim McAloon (Victoria University of Wellington) Dr. Dan Hikuroa (Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, Te Pūnaha Matatini)

19th Century Scientists, AM102 (Chair, Sydney Shep)

DSIR & Misc, CO119 (Chair, Keith Lewis)

2.30pm Dr. Rosi Crane (Otago Museum) Show and tell: late-nineteenth century science in Dunedin

Keith Willett (Victoria University of Wellington) Four Mile Man – Dr. Richard (Dick) Wright Willett

2.50pm Moira White (Otago Museum) Balancing the record: Jennings, Gibson and Goodlet

Geoff Gregory (formerly DSIR) Service to science: history of the New Zealand Association of Scientists

3.10pm Dr. Elizabeth Pishief (Independent) From scientific specimen to Maori art: the agency of things, and the social, political, and ethnographic effects of the collecting activities of Augustus Hamilton

Dr. Catherine Hodder and Dr. Peter Hodder (HodderBalog Social and Scientific Research/Victoria University of Wellington) Sydney Street West: a first place for science in Wellington

3.30pm Afternoon Tea Looking Forward, AM102 (Chair, Rosi Crane) 3.50pm Tanya Zoe Robinson (Deakin University) ‘All intelligent subjects’: presenting scientific collecting and

identity at the Hawke’s Bay Philosophical Institute Museum, 1865-1899 4.10pm Dr. Ian St George Icones Colensoi: portrayals of William Colenso 4.30pm Dr. John Martin (Historian for the Royal Society of New Zealand) Science and species of politicians in

the 19th century: monkeys or bullfrogs? 4.50pm Closing remarks, conference finishes

4

Welcome Kia ora and welcome to Finding New Zealand’s Scientific Heritage. Victoria University of Wellington is delighted to host this 2015 conference that commemorates a significant year for New Zealand science history. It is 150 years since James Hector arrived in Wellington to set up many of our national science organisations and 100 years since Ernest Marsden arrived at Victoria University. In 1865 Hector was appointed head of the New Zealand Geological Survey, with his responsibilities eventually including the Colonial Museum, Colonial Observatory, Meteorological Service, Colonial Botanic Gardens, and the New Zealand Institute. In 1915, Marsden arrived in New Zealand to be professor of physics at Victoria University. He stayed in this position for seven years then, in 1926, was appointed head of New Zealand's Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, a position he held until 1946. In 1983, The Royal Society of New Zealand and the Alexander Turnbull Library ran a conference In Search of New Zealand's Scientific Heritage. In the more than 30 years since this date there have been significant research and publications into New Zealand’s science history but there is still much to explore. At this conference you’ll hear much about Hector, Marsden, the organisations they set up and led, and their contemporaries. But, perhaps more excitingly, you’ll also hear some stories not already so well told: about Māori science, women in science, and how a historical perspective can help to inform the future of science. A Royal Society of New Zealand bulletin was produced as a record of the 1983 conference. As a record of this conference – and as part of the Royal Society of New Zealand’s own 150th anniversary commemorations – a selection of papers from Finding New Zealand’s Scientific Heritage will be published in the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2017. The call for papers (for submission in March 2016) will be posted on the conference website and emailed to all delegates. Finally, a big thanks to our wonderful conference committee, and to the organisations who have helped to make this conference happen: Victoria University of Wellington’s Faculty of Science for supporting the conference, New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute for sponsoring the panel discussion, and the Royal Society of New Zealand for helping to bring Naomi Oreskes to New Zealand. Thank you all for being here and we hope you enjoy the conference.

Rebecca Priestley, Science in Society group, Victoria University of Wellington Conference convenor Conference committee Kate Bazeley, Science in Society group, Victoria University of Wellington (conference administrator) Jim McAloon, School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations, Victoria University of Wellington Conal McCarthy, School of Art History, Classics and Religious Studies, Victoria University of Wellington Simon Nathan, GNS Science (emeritus)

5

Important Information

6

Conference venue The conference will be held at Victoria University of Wellington. The main venue is room AM102, which is located opposite Wishbone Café in the Alan MacDiarmid building. Break-out rooms LB118 and CO119 are located adjacent to the main room and will be signposted. Please note that there is significant amount of construction taking place on the Kelburn Campus (see red areas on the map), especially outside of the Alan MacDiarmid building. Participants are advised to take care in these areas, and perhaps access the site via The Hub as an alternative route to the conference venue. Emergency & Contact Information Emergency: Dial 111 Event Manager: Kate Bazeley +64 (0)21 082 79 833 Event email: NZhistsci2015@vuw.ac.nz Medical: Wellington Accident & Urgent Medical Centre and Urgent Pharmacy is located in Newtown at 17 Adelaide Road. Medical phone: 04 384 4944, Pharmacy phone: 04 385 8810. Hours: 8am – 11pm 7 days. (No appointment required). Parking Participants are advised that there is limited parking on campus. Pay and display parking is available on Wai-te-ata Road below the Victoria University of Wellington Kelburn campus at $10.00 per day. Coupon parking is available in the Upland Road, Kelburn area for $7.50 per day. Coupons can be purchased from the Four Square on Upland Road. http://wellington.govt.nz/services/parking-and-roads/parking/on-street-parking/coupon-parking Check-in desk The check-in desk will be located in the foyer of the Alan MacDiamid building, opposite Wishbone Café. Delegates are asked to check-in upon arrival. The desk will be open at 8:30am on Monday 23rd November. If assistance is not available at the desk, conference administrators and volunteers can be identified by black Victoria University t-shirts. Check-in hours: 8.30am – 9am on Monday & Tuesday. Catering Morning and afternoon tea will be provided on both days of the conference. These will be served in the foyer outside AM102. Caterers have been provided with delegate dietary information from registration and every attempt has been made to meet all the dietary needs of the participants. Please tell the event manager if you have any questions or need assistance. There are several self-catering lunch options on the Kelburn campus, many of them close to the main conference venue: Wishbone Alan MacDiarmid Building – coffee, sandwiches, salads, baked goods. Vegetarian, dairy-free, gluten-free and paleo options available. Maki Mono Level 2, Easterfield Building – sushi and other Japanese cuisine. Vic Books Easterfield Building – coffee, sandwiches, salads, baked goods. Daily changing special for hot meals. The Lab Ground floor, Easterfield Building – salads, noodles, soups and juices, vegetarian options available. Louis’ Kiosk Level 1, outside Kelburn Library – coffee, sandwiches, salads, baked goods.

7

Milk and Honey Level 1, Rankine Brown Building – proper restaurant serving breakfast and lunch menus. Coffee and baked goods can also be bought to take away. Ilott Café Level 3, Kirk Building – self-service and take away coffee, pizza, hot dogs, fried chicken, baked goods. Transport Wellington Airport is located ~15 min or 8km from the Victoria University Kelburn Campus. Shuttles and taxis are available to take you between the airport and the university: Wellington Combined Taxis 04 384 4444 or www.taxis.co.nz Green Cabs 0508 447 336 or greencabs.co.nz Kiwi Cabs 04 389 9999 or 0508 42 54 94 Wellington Combined Shuttles 04 387 8787 or www.combinedshuttles.co.nz Corporate Cabs 04 387 4600 or www.corporatecabs.co.nz For bus services between Wellington CBD and Wellington Airport, visit www.metlink.org.nz/tickets-and-fares/airport Go Wellington buses run regularly between Wellington CBD and Victoria University Kelburn Campus. Bus numbers 20, 22 and 23 depart from the Courtenay Place and Lambton Quay areas, bus number 17 departs from the train station and bus numbers 18 and 47 depart from the Cuba Street area. The fare is $2.00 between Wellington CBD and Victoria University Kelburn campus, or less with a Snapper card. For more information visit www.metlink.org.nz. Another transport option between Lambton Quay and Victoria University Kelburn campus is the Wellington Cable Car. There are two options for getting to the Maclaurin building from the cable car: from the Salamanca Terminus walk along Salamanca Road and up Kelburn Parade to the roundabout, or from the Kelburn Terminus walk along Upland Road and down Glasgow Street to the roundabout. The fare is $4.00 one way, or less with a Snapper card. For more information, visitwww.wellingtoncablecar.co.nz. Internet access General visitor access is provided on campus by VictoriaGuest. Just connect to the VictoriaGuest network, open your browser and follow the instructions. You will need to enter an email address (this can be any email address). The wireless access may time out after inactivity. Access is re-established after logging in again. Smoking All Victoria University campuses are completely smoke-free. People can smoke outside the University campuses on public land, for instance along Kelburn Parade outside the Kelburn Campus.

Presenters’ Information Talks Presentations will be 20 minutes long – a 15 minute talk plus 5 minutes for questions. Please ensure your presentation is uploaded at least two breaks in advance of your presentation time. Each room will feature standard audio-visual equipment, data projector, lectern and computer. To upload your presentation, please go to the room you are presenting during a break with your presentation on a USB flash drive. Session chairs, members of the organising team, and volunteers will be available to assist you from 8.00-8.30am and at breaks. APPLE MAC USERS – please ensure your presentation is capable of running on Windows, or bring a connecting cable with you to run your presentation from your laptop. Posters Posters will be displayed from 08.30am on Monday 23 November until 5.00pm on Tuesday 24 November. There will be a dedicated poster session on the Monday lunchtime, during which presenters are encouraged to be available for questions. Materials for hanging posters will be provided.

8

Associated Events Panel Discussion “The lessons of history for the future of science” The Panel Discussion will be held after lunch on Tuesday 24th November, in room AM102. Start time: 13:30. The event will be chaired by Kim Hill and panellists include Prof. David Frame (Victoria University of Wellington), Dr. Dan Hikuroa (Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, Te Pūnaha Matatini), Dr. Jim McAloon (Victoria University of Wellington) and Prof. Naomi Oreskes (Harvard University). Conference Dinner The conference dinner will be held on Monday 23rd November at the Royal Society of New Zealand. Drinks will be served from 6.30 pm. Tickets must be purchased in advance via http://www.eventbrite.com/e/finding-new-zealands-scientific-heritage-conference-tickets-18356642211 (you can find a link to this from the conference website). Vic Books Display There will be a display of conference-related books available to purchase throughout the event. Vic Books will have a stall next to the registration desk where you will be able to buy books that have been put forward by conference delegates. JC Beaglehole Room Exhibit The JC Beaglehole Room is located on Level 4 of the library, which is in the Rankine Brown building. Throughout the conference, they will be exhibiting a display of items from the special materials collections of Victoria University Library, showcasing science at Victoria, Antarctic research, vintage scientific apparatus, scientific models and teaching recourses. If you get time during one the breaks it is well worth checking out! Also located in the library is the ST Lee Antarctic Reading Room, on Level 5. The room showcases the Antarctic Research Centre’s unique identity, significant work, and its contribution to the University’s teaching and research excellence. It also includes the Colin Bull collection: a private collection of polar books gifted by Emeritus Professor Colin Bull’s estate to the Friends of Victoria University of Wellington in the United States of America and recognises the longstanding Antarctic Research Centre’s collaboration internationally. Should We Trust Science? Perspectives From the History and Philosophy of Science Royal Society of New Zealand 'At Six' Lecture

Professor Naomi Oreskes Harvard University 6pm Tuesday 24 November 2015 Paramount Theatre – 25 Courtenay Place, Wellington Issues such as the safety of vaccines, or the reality of climate change, can be confusing for many people. Doctors tell us that vaccines are safe, and scientists that climate change is real – but how do they know that? And how are we to make sense of competing claims? In this talk offering perspectives from the history and philosophy of science, Professor Naomi Oreskes argues that we should trust science, and she explains why. Tickets cost $15 ($10 RSNZ members; $10 students with ID – limited student discount tickets available) Tickets available from Eventbrite.co.nz or Door sales – credit card/Eftpos/cash

9

Abstracts Why history matters – Perspectives from the Recent History of Science Monday 23rd November | 9.10am Keynote Speaker: Professor Naomi Oreskes

Harvard University Various scholars have argued for the pertinence of historical perspectives to understanding contemporary issues, but historians of science have, until recently, been mostly loathe to inject themselves into contemporary debates. One reason for this is the belief that an important contribution of our field is the understanding of how different “science” in the past was from its present configuration. It is not merely that our ideas about the world have changed, but also that our beliefs as to how we learn about the world have changed, too. Neither the definition of what constitutes “science,” nor the methods that have been considered “scientific,” have been stable over time; one can discern major changes even within the past century. Yet, despite this, prominent historians of science, myself included, have not only used history to illuminate contemporary debates, but have provided unique and important insights and perspectives. This paper explores how we have done so, and how such efforts can both contribute to society and strengthen our field as an intellectual endeavor. Biography Naomi Oreskes is professor of the history of science and affiliated professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University, and an internationally renowned geologist, science historian, and author. Oreskes is the author of many scholarly and popular books and articles on the history of earth and environmental science, including The Rejection of Continental Drift (Oxford, 1999), Plate Tectonics: An Insider's History of the Modern Theory of the Earth (Westview, 2003), and The Collapse of Western Civilization (Columbia University Press, 2014). For the past decade, Oreskes has been primarily interested in the science and politics of anthropogenic climate change. Her 2010 book, Merchants of Doubt, How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco to Global Warming, co-authored with Erik M. Conway, was shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and won the Watson-Davis Prize from the History of Science Society. The film version was released in late 2014. Oreskes's current research projects include completion of a scholarly book on the history of Cold War Oceanography, Science on a Mission: American Oceanography from the Cold War to Climate Change (Chicago, forthcoming), and Assessing Assessments: A Historical and Philosophical Study of Scientific Assessments for Environmental Policy in the Late 20th Century. She has lectured widely and won numerous prizes, including the 2009 Francis Bacon Medal for outstanding scholarship in the history of science and technology, the 2011 Climate Change Communicator of the Year, and the 2014 American Geophysical Union Presidential Citation for Science and Society.

10

Te Whakapapa o Putaiao kei Aotearoa – The History of Science in New Zealand Dr. Dan Hikuroa

Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga/Te Pūnaha Matatini Most discourse regards Cook’s arrival in Poverty Bay on the 8th October, 1769, as the arrival of science to New Zealand. A Royal Society driven scientific expedition, impelled by enlightenment curiosity as well as imperial ambition, to study and observe the transit of Venus across the sun. It was the secret orders to search for the postulated Terra Australis Incognita which brought the HMS Endeavour to New Zealand. Given his powers of observation and deduction, Cook himself could be considered a scientist, nevertheless Joseph Banks, Daniel Solander, Herman Spöring and Charles Green chief purpose on the voyage was to undertake science. Recently the role of Tupaia, the Ra’iatean navigator and arioi whom accompanied Cook on his voyage south from the Tahitian islands, previously down-played, has been elevated from merely translator, to perhaps chief navigator. Certainly Tupaia’s knowledge of eastern Polynesia was vast and detailed, and that of western Polynesia extensive, possessing the navigation information to voyage to Rarotonga, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. Some also believe that he guided Cook to Aotearoa New Zealand. The navigational database, the way finding techniques Tupaia possessed coupled with the Polynesian outrigger canoe construction technology are testament to millennia of systematic, methodical approaches, empirical in nature, for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, and testing, updating and integrating previous knowledge. In Aotearoa New Zealand, I posit that mātauranga Māori in the form of whakapapa (genealogy), pūrākau (stories) and maramataka (calendars and associated activities) is knowledge that has been has been generated according to the scientific method, but explained within a Māori world view. Therefore, notwithstanding the amazing contributions of Cook and the members of his expedition, of James Hector and Ernest Marsden, of Colenso, Hochstetter, Haast and others, the history of science in New Zealand begins some centuries before, in the time of Aotearoa…

Aspects of New Zealand Science (Chair: Conal McCarthy) James Hector – the hurricane years Dr. Simon Nathan GNS Science The year 2015 is the 150th anniversary of the appointment of James Hector as the first scientist employed by the New Zealand government. Although he was originally employed to search for minerals, Hector had a much broader view of the place of science in a young colony, based on his experience of the scientific scene in London. With a few years he had established the New Zealand Geological Survey (now GNS Science), the Colonial Museum (now Te Papa), the New Zealand Institute (now Royal Society of New Zealand), the Colonial Laboratory (now ESR), the Colonial Botanic Garden (now Wellington Botanic Garden) and taken control of weather forecasting (now MetService). He soon became a trusted government advisor, and whenever a tricky technical problem arose, the response was often, “What does Dr Hector think?”. By the end of 1868 the establishment phase of Hector’s career was complete. For the next 35 years he administered and defended his empire until his retirement in 1903. All the organisations that Hector established continue to the present day, although their names have changed. Conversazione at the Curiosity Shop Dr. Rebecca Rice Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa In 1866, Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker congratulated James Hector on the recent opening of the Colonial Museum, writing:

11

I am heartily glad you have started the Museum at Wellington; there is nothing like a Museum and gardens to screw money out of the public for science. Every shilling we have here has been through the popularity of the Gardens and the Museum, and diverted thence on pure science.

What role could art play in popularising the activities of the Museum and of science? The Colonial Museum was a generator of art in the form, for example, of John Buchanan’s exquisite drawings of grasses and subsequent publication. Such activities reflect the role of art as a tool of science. But the Museum was simultaneously a repository for art. Its collections were enriched by both purchase and donation and ranged from busts of eminent individuals, to photographs of New Zealand’s landscape and industry, and dashing paintings by Gustavus von Tempsky of the New Zealand wars. At the conversazioni held in association with the inaugural meeting of the New Zealand Institute on the 5 August 1868, the Museum also served as a site for an exhibition of art. Sketches and paintings by William Fox, John Gully and J. C. Richmond were displayed alongside microscopes and geological specimens in Te Hau ki Turanga, the whare runanga acquired in 1867. This would have presented quite a spectacle for the 500-odd Wellington elite (including, it was specially noted, ladies and politicians) that attended the event. The apparent miscellany of items acquired by the Museum during Hector’s tenure led to it being dismissed as little more than a ‘curiosity shop’ by the 1890s. Yet perhaps it can be argued that this diverse activity was crucial in gaining the support of the public and colonial elite for embryonic institutions such as the New Zealand Institute and Colonial Museum in the colonial context. By turning an eye to art within this setting, we might also begin to register the rich and complex attitudes that individuals such as Hector had towards art and science. Augustus Hamilton: creating a visual database Athol McCredie Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa In 1894 Augustus Hamilton wrote to the New Zealand Institute proposing that they fund his travel to the East Coast to photograph Maori. These would include portraits with ‘backgrounds perfectly plain, no garments but Maori ones, [and with] a marked rod or standard to be included.’ Photographs would also be taken of the use of ko sticks, decoys and snares, house construction, flax preparation, and other practices. In the event, Hamilton did not take any anthropometric images, and sitters were generally photographed clothed as he found them. But these photographs formed the beginnings of Hamilton’s Record Collection of Photographs of the Ethnology of the Maori Race. When he was appointed director of the Colonial Museum in 1903 he deposited the collection with the museum and immediately set up a ‘Studio for taking photographs of natives and any Carving that may be acquired’. Hamilton not only photographed many of the taonga in the museum, but also visiting individuals, often posed wearing or demonstrating the use of these objects. They included the chief Te Heuheu Tukino V, whom he recorded, ‘was anxious to assist in arranging for photographs of old Maori customs and ceremonies’. In addition, Hamilton proposed employing an assistant who would travel the country, visiting commercial photographers and selecting from their Maori portraits ones suitable for the museum’s collection. Such a scheme was not realised, but Hamilton nevertheless acquired many portraits from studio photographers on an ad hoc basis. In building his archive of images Hamilton created the first substantial photography collection in a New Zealand museum. More significantly, it was the first systematic application of photography to scientific work in this country. The thematic intention behind it was very much one of salvage ethnology: a record of a people and their culture before, as was commonly believed at the time, they became extinct. The practical intention was that – as a collection of file cards organised according to subjects such as canoes, houses, weaving, games, etc – it worked as a visual database in which types and styles could be shuffled and compared. It enabled researchers to view subjects without physically standing in front of them, and to share images between museums. Its utility was such that it became a key resource for the museum’s ethnology department for almost a century, being drawn on extensively by ethnologists ranging from Elsdon Best to Roger Neich

12

‘Delectable deposits’ – tracing the Oamaru diatoms Associate Professor Wayne Barrar Massey University In 1886, James Hector actively sought out samples of North Otago geological deposits for inclusion in the Indian and Colonial Exhibition to be held in London later that year. Among the submitted rock, mineral and fossil samples was a piece of lightweight, chalk-like material from Oamaru, labelled as kaolin. Apparently supplied by Julius von Haast, courtesy of Thomas Forrester, this seems to have been one of several Oamaru samples to reach England at around the same time. This relatively unimposing material generated almost fanatical excitement among professional and amateur scientists around the world once it became apparent that it was in fact diatomite, rich in an extraordinary diversity of diatoms and other microfossils. Within months, this preserved biodiversity was being taxonomically described by experts and Oamaru diatomite was being freely distributed to microscopists to work with. An active network of exchange saw the material rapidly exported throughout the world, and deposits found on Oamaru farms or within rail sidings and cuttings were soon entering collections, archives and the catalogued inventories of commercial slide mounters. This paper will outline my photographically based investigation of the overlapping narratives associated with the discovery, description, archiving and commodification of the Oamaru diatom deposits. Drawing on my ongoing exhibition project “The Glass Archive”, it will discuss the movement and exchange of this material among early microscopists. It will also consider the use of the diatoms in the construction of formal taxonomic resources and in the commercial production of ‘arranged slides’ pitched at a public fascinated by microscopy and the revelation of the unseen.

19th Century Science & Scientists (Chair: Dan Hikuroa) ‘Not Merely a Scientific Society’: The Character of Colonial Science, as revealed by the TPNZI Dr. Ruth Barton University of Auckland This paper analyses the contents of the Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute in the nineteenth century. Scientific endeavour in early-colonial New Zealand was often generalist in nature and not always conformable to the embryonic professional enterprise which has been the focus of most previous studies. Although many of the Institute’s leaders wanted factual, scientific papers that avoided speculation, others wanted the activity of members to be practical, directed to ‘the work of colonization’, and others again wanted a wanted a more generalist enterprise. For example the politician, T.B. Gillies, when President of the Auckland Institute in 1873, told members: ‘We are not merely a scientific society’, factual content could intimidate would-be members, ‘literary or artistic contributions are not foreign to the aims of our society’. As editor, and head of many colonial scientific institutions in Wellington, Hector controlled what was published in the Transactions, where empirical studies of local materials dominate. Papers on Zoology consuming the most space in the journal throughout the nineteenth century. Botany and Geology were also prominent. The general cultural interests of the members, as represented by Gillies, are represented more clearly in the Proceedings than in the Transactions, nevertheless traces remain in the Transactions. A ‘Miscellaneous’ section included topics as various as weather observations, ethnology, educational policy, and local building materials. This generalised focus reflects the unspecialised nature of the Institute and science in New Zealand during the nineteenth century; few specialised scientific journals or societies existed. This paper will argue that the diverse array of subjects covered by the Transactions reflects its role as a repository for a broader intellectual culture of which science was one facet; a culture often neglected by historical accounts. Analysing the contents of the Transactions and Proceedings within a generalised intellectual culture creates a more inclusive view of the character of colonial science.

13

Sir Julius von Haast’s contribution to New Zealand science: expanding horizons, networking, ambition and controversy Dr. Sasha Nolden Alexander Turnbull Library Exploring the archival documentary heritage legacy of Sir Julius von Haast in search of evidence of the growth and expansion of a world wide web of correspondents aimed at the facilitation of the exchange of knowledge, information, specimens and publications. Sir Julius von Haast (1822-1887) was one of the most influential German-born New Zealand scientists of the nineteenth century, who contributed to the development and establishment of scientific institutions, research, exploration and discovery, using a carefully managed network of contacts around the globe to facilitate the exchange of information and knowledge, specimens and publications, but more subversively perhaps also aimed at the accumulation of honours and awards, in the fulfilment of a desire for personal recognition and ambitions for increased professional status. The results of Haast’s efforts and endurance are evident from the maps and reports of the geological survey of Canterbury and Westland, and the establishment and building of the collections of Canterbury Museum. However the finer details of his activities and the nuances of his approach to scientific endeavour and collegial cooperation only become fully evident through the archival and documentary heritage of Haast’s life and work found in the Haast family papers held in the Alexander Turnbull Library. This paper is partially based on some of the interim results of the author’s work on this significant resource for the research into the history of New Zealand science, donated to the library more than 60 years ago. The project1 aims to complete a revision of the archival collections with the aim of making retrospective enhancements to the descriptive records and review name authorities. Among the expected outcomes is an increase in value to researchers by making the contents more discoverable through online finding aids resulting in better access and retrieval of a range of invaluable historical and biographical data relevant to New Zealand’s scientific heritage research. 1 HAAST PROJECT: Revision of the Haast family papers in the collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library – retrospective archival records enhancement and the review of name authority records. William Earl (1811-1846) and the European Discovery of Moa in the South Island Dr. Paul Scofield Canterbury Museum Percy Earl is uncelebrated player in the early natural history of New Zealand. His name is often mentioned by Buller (1878 & 1888) and Oliver (1930 & 1955) but little has been published on his life. Here I offer a short biography of this interesting character and a discussion of his influence on the taxonomic history and nomenclatural history with regard to New Zealand biology. I also use recently discovered information about Earl and other early New Zealand naturalists to more fully inform our understanding of the European Discovery of Moa in the South Island. 'A Controversy Which can Hardly be Pleasantly Conducted' – J.T. Thomson, James Hector and the Reckoning Longitude in New Zealand Prof. Michael Roche Massey University J.T. Thomson FRGS (1821-1884), Chief Surveyor of Otago Province (1856-1876) and later Surveyor General of New Zealand (1877-1879) was a man of many interests and talents. He produced the first detailed maps of the interior of Otago and Southland bestowing many familiar names on the map, he was a philologist albeit that his efforts to link Maori with the languages of India were flawed; he was an occasional lecturer and writer on the geography of New Zealand and a keen amateur astronomer. Professionally his greatest achievement was implementation of a triangulation survey system as Surveyor General that restored accuracy to land surveys in New Zealand, essential as there were to colonization.

14

Thomson was Chief surveyor and held other important positions in the Otago Provincial council officialdom when Hector was recruited as Provincial Geologist in 1862. Fleming (1987, 24) in the official history of the Royal Society of New Zealand is described Thomson as ‘an old critic of Hector from the time when he made his Greenstone-Hollyford explorations’ when he removed Thomson’s names from the map. A more significant disagreement between the two took place over longitude and the time ball in 1874. Hector published a paper in the Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute which criticised of the electronic means of reckoning longitude previously adopted by Thomson. Professor Coughtrey, President of the Otago Institute that commented on the exchange as ‘having introduced a controversy which can hardly be pleasantly conducted’. This paper looks more closely at this exchange, particularly Thomson’s background and expertise and endeavours to place it against a wider backdrop of scientific understanding in 19th century New Zealand. William Whitehouse Collins and the Deployment of Astronomy in New Zealand Freethought Martin Bush Swinburbe University of Technology In the late nineteenth century, the idea that scientific endeavour and religious tradition are implacably opposed received considerable attention and provoked much reaction. Developed in works such as Draper’s History of the Conflict of Religion and Science (1875) and White’s A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896), this ‘conflict thesis’ has appeared continuously in popular science writing ever since, despite having long been rejected as an adequate framework for explaining the development of science. This suggests it warrants further attention—not as a theory of history but as an object of study in the history of the cultural relations of science. The most significant advocate for the conflict thesis in New Zealand was William Whitehouse Collins. Trained as a lecturer by the British National Secular Society, Collins was sent to Australia in 1885, moving to Christchurch five years later. A noted orator and gifted writer, Collins kept Freethought in the Canterbury public’s eye for a quarter of a century, including during one term in the NZ parliament from 1899–1902. Scientific knowledge was central to the Freethought of Collins. It demonstrated errors in the Bible and served as a model for the ideal life of the individual. A particularly interesting use of science in this work concerns astronomy. This was one of the most frequently invoked sciences in Freethought literature, alongside natural history and geology, which were important for contesting the claims of the Bible. Astronomy was important to Freethought for other reasons: it signified the sublime, it focussed a global imagination, and it held authority as an exemplary science and a particularly British one. It thus provided particular aesthetic relationships between scientific knowledge and understandings of the natural world. This paper documents some aspects of the development of the “conflict thesis” in New Zealand, especially in Collins’ work. New Zealand had a particularly prominent Freethought movement in this period, including two Prime Ministers who were open Freethinkers. Although the institutional and cultural contexts for the understanding of science in society have changed considerably in New Zealand since the conflict thesis was developed, it continues to provide a language for this cultural conversation. A better understanding of the aesthetic relationships constructed for sciences like astronomy in the work of Freethought can help explain this.

General (Chair: Cameron Smart) ‘Not Merely a Scientific Society’: The New Zealand Restoration of Antarctic Huts: Hillary, Heritage, and the Most Distant Museums in the World Dr. Octavia Cade New Zealand has long been involved with the preservation and conservation of the historic Antarctic huts of polar explorers and scientists. The restoration of Scott’s and Shackleton’s huts is something this country has taken particular interest in. Not only has New Zealand lobbied for these huts to be designated as Antarctic Historic Sites and Monuments, but we have provided practical and financial support for their upkeep. It is partly due to the efforts

15

of this country that these Antarctic huts have fallen off the World Monuments Watch List of most endangered historic sites. This experience is about to be put to use again, in the upcoming restoration of Hillary’s Hut – one of the few remaining original huts at New Zealand’s Antarctic station, Scott Base. In March of this year, a million dollar plan dedicated to this task was announced by New Zealand’s Antarctic Heritage Trust. Implicit in this reconstruction is the perception of in situ necessity. The very remoteness of the Antarctic huts means that most New Zealanders are barred from experiencing them. Exhibitions such as “Still Life: Inside the Antarctic Huts of Scott and Shackleton” by the photographer Jane Ussher (presented at the Auckland War Memorial Museum) are somewhat capable of bridging the gap between scientific preservation and communication. These capabilities are limited, however, when compared to a more immersive public experience. It’s interesting to compare New Zealand’s (past and future) efforts to, for instance, the Australian debate about whether or not to relocate Mawson’s Hut from the ice (an exact replica was later built in Tasmania) – or, in a non-polar context, the wholesale relocation of Goddard’s rocket research laboratory to a more central, accessible museum in New Mexico. It’s plausible that these recreations/relocations have increased the potential benefits of communicating science history to the general public. This strategy is arguably something which could be looked at in the preservation of New Zealand’s own scientific and Antarctic history. Nature Study and General Biology in New Zealand State Primary and Secondary Schools, 1900-1960 – An Overview Dr. Janine Cook Victoria University of Wellington We talk about the present time as the ‘age of the gene’, but prior to the advances in genetic science in the second half of the twentieth century, scientists were referring to the twentieth century more generally as ‘the age of biology’. Biology as a term was first coined around 1800, but it was not until the first half of the twentieth century that it came into mainstream public usage. The development of secondary school courses in ‘biology’ or ‘general biology’ was one important consequence of professional scientists promoting a unified concept of biology from the 1890s. In America, high school ‘biology’ courses commenced in New York in 1910, and New Zealand high schools began teaching courses in general biology in the 1930s. New Zealand primary schools, like those of other Western nations, were also influenced by the re-energised focus on overarching biological perspectives, with the development of ‘nature study’ curricula which commenced around 1905. This paper charts the key developments and goals of nature study and general biology between 1900 and 1960 within the New Zealand primary and secondary curriculum. The story of science outreach at the University of Otago Prof. Jean Fleming University of Otago Public engagement with science at the University of Otago began in earnest in late 1980’s with a flurry of different activities: a senior Science quiz that still runs nationwide, a Junior Maths competition and problem challenge, that also continue to operate across the country. These provide stimulation and extension to thousands of students each year. In 1989, several staff at the University of Otago and the Educator from Otago Museum met to organise the first Hands-on Science Summer Camp. This weeklong, live-in programme has since gone from strength to strength, celebrating its 25th anniversary in January 2014. For 2016 the Hands-On programme has extended to include Humanities and Business projects – with an anticipated 400 students from across the country attending Hands-On at Otago. A diverse range of science outreach events followed Hands-on Science. By 2015 these included a biennial International Science Festival (started 1998), a broad educational engagement programme in Marine Sciences centred around the Portobello Marine Laboratory, as well as many science outreach programmes to schools from a number of departments. The Department of Chemistry invests heavily in outreach with staff specifically hired for this work, and Physics has followed suit. The University also provides a science academy for gifted science students from rural/provincial and low decile schools (which includes teacher professional development for the same schools),

16

Science Wananga on marae throughout New Zealand and a programme aimed at recruiting and supporting Maori and Pasifika students into the health science workforce. Although the International Science Festival is an independent organisation, the personal contributions of academic and general staff at the University of Otago, who believe in taking their science to the community, sustain this and other events, which attract participants from all over New Zealand. The University recognises the strategic importance of these external engagements in its Strategic Directions 2020, explicitly listing “Commitment as a Local, National and Global citizen” and also “Strong External Engagement”. The Science of Milk – Pure vs Pasteurised in the Early Twentieth Century Dr. Katrina Ford University of Auckland In 1904, in a wide-ranging discussion of problems with the country’s milk supply, Dr James Malcolm Mason, New Zealand’s Chief Health Officer, noted that the purity of the milk supply ‘is of the very greatest importance to the State.’ His words still ring true over a century later. Milk is of immense significance to New Zealand, both economically and culturally. In recent years, debates about the health benefits of raw milk have highlighted some key issues surrounding pasteurisation, including food safety, farming practices, and the public authority of science. These debates contain fascinating echoes of older discourses. In the first half of the twentieth century, pasteurisation was one of the most controversial examples of state intervention in the food supply. The construction of knowledge about milk was particularly fraught, because of milk’s status as a substance essential to infant health. Doctors, public officials and consumers engaged in heated debate about the advantages and disadvantages of the process. While some claimed that pasteurisation was the rational solution to the problem of disease germs in the milk supply, particularly the bovine tuberculosis bacillus, others argued that pasteurisation stripped the milk of properties vital to human health and rewarded unhygienic farming practices. Instead, opponents of pasteurisation argued, the aim of public health regulations should be to produce a pure milk supply, free of disease germs from the outset. Both proponents and opponents of pasteurisation claimed to have science on their side, and these debates provide important insights into definitions of science, and its authority, in the early twentieth century. This paper will examine the science of milk in New Zealand in the context of the development of both agricultural science and public health. It argues that the science of milk was a critical domain for the evolution of public ideas about scientific knowledge in this era. The Revitalisation of Māori Astronomical Knowledge and Traditional Calendars Dr. Pauline Harris Victoria University of Wellington/ Society for Māori Astronomy research and traditions There is clear evidence showing that Māori maintained extensive knowledge of the night sky. This in-depth understanding of astronomy was central in the development of the complex relationships that exist between Māori and the natural world. In traditional times, astronomy was infused across the breadth and depth of Māori society, being preserved in mōteatea (traditional song), whakataukī (proverbs), karakia (incantations), kōrero tuku iho (oral tradition), planting and harvesting practices, as well as in the building of ancestral houses. Additionally, detailed observations and astronomical expertise were also a central component of oceanic navigation ensuring the settlement of the Pacific region. Most Māori astronomical knowledge that is publicly available today results from research conducted by early ethnographers, such as Elsdon Best. However, Best and his ilk were unable to fully access the knowledge that existed, so that what was collected and published was sparse and generic. In contrast, we contend that Māori astronomical knowledge is encoded and integrated across many aspects of the Māori landscape, which still requires in-depth research and analyses. This paper will discuss some of the efforts to reclaim this knowledge in this space and will describe two major projects: Te Mauria Whiritoi, the sky as a cultural resource—Māori astronomy, ritual and ecological knowledge and the Maramataka Project—a mātauranga Māori scientific investigation of traditional Māori calendars.

17

19th Century Science & Scientists cont’d (Chair: Simon Nathan) James Hector's First 3 Months as Otago Provincial Geologist (April to July 1862) – Geological Observations, Discoveries and Puzzles Prof. Ewan Fordyce University of Otago James Hector arrived in Port Chalmers on 15 April 1862 to take up employment as the first Otago Provincial Geologist charged with exploring the region's coal and gold resources. Within 4 days, he was in the field examining sites around Dunedin and making geological observations. Two weeks later (30 April), he set off on a 3 week long expedition, visiting Kaitangata, Tuapeka, Mataura Falls, Landslip Hill, Oyster Creek, Pomahaka and Moa Flat, among other localities. After a week back in his newly established Geological Survey Office, Hector was again in the field (30 May), this time travelling via Shag Point to Manuherikia, in Central Otago. On 10 July, in mid winter, he travelled north to Oamaru and the Waitaki Valley, making field notes on Shag Point, the Moeraki Boulders, and Oamaru limestones and pillow lavas. In his first 100 days in Otago, he spent more than 50 days in the field, covering about 1000 km on horseback and on foot. His copious observations were recorded in field notebooks with brief remarks and numerous annotated field sketches: however, most of these have never been transcribed, as the illegibility of Hector's handwriting was noteworthy even at the time of writing. Hector's education was in medicine and geology although he never developed a career in medicine. Most of his initial training in geological field work was carried out in Scotland and England, followed by extensive and challenging field work in Canada as part of the Palliser Expedition. He made a brief stop in Australia en route to Otago to gain some familiarity with goldfields. In Otago, Hector's focus was on geological resources, and in the first few days he made notes on the durability of local building stones. In the following weeks he recorded observations on coal and gold, but also on fossiliferous rocks ranging in age from Jurassic to Quaternary (probably concomitantly collecting fossils) and sketching and writing descriptions of volcanic rocks. Unfortunately, some of his promised detailed reports on the geology of Otago were never published, and many of his field observations are confined to the field notebooks. Many of the sites visited by Hector in mid 1862 such as Pomakaha, Landslip Hill, and the Oamaru Volcano are the subject of current geological research. We have attempted to decipher and transcribe Hector's initial field notebooks in order to retrace Hector's first field journeys in New Zealand, revisiting some of the outcrops he sketched, and recollecting some fossil sites. Where exactly did he go, and why did he go there? What geological observations did he make? And, just what part did these first few months in Otago play in Hector's long and illustrious future career in geology? Sir James Hector's Investigation of Northland Mullet Chris Paulin fishHook publications Grey mullet (Mugil cephalus) provided an important food resource for Māori in pre-European Northland, and subsequently supported one of New Zealand’s first commercial fisheries. The abundance of fish led European settlers to establish canning factories in the mid 1880s, the product being sold locally and exported. Both fishing and canning declined towards the end of the 19th century, and the government asked Sir James Hector as an independent (although government funded) scientist to examine the fishery in. It was one of the first fisheries to be ‘investigated’ in New Zealand, and the lack of information on mullet biology limited the conclusions Hector could draw.

18

Botanical Battles – John Buchanan and Thomas Kirk as Illustrators in Hector's Herbarium Prof. Linda Tyler University of Auckland The two titans of botanical illustration in nineteenth century New Zealand were Thomas Kirk and John Buchanan. Almost exact contemporaries, they were bitter rivals. Their lifelong enmity in turn rehearses other familiar tropes: English versus Scottish heritage, Auckland versus Wellington as centres of scientific significance, and most tellingly, middle class versus working class involvement in the colonial world of botanical discovery and depiction. Even their religious thinking was opposed. A Baptist, Thomas Kirk embraced Charles Darwin’s theories of natural selection and descent from the apes, whereas John Buchanan, a Morisonian, railed against evolution, and fought its introduction into school textbooks for biology. An examination of the Buchanan-Kirk dynamic reveals what was at stake in working in the field of botanical illustration in the colonial context. Buchanan and Kirk were able to put aside their differences to collaborate on publications describing new species, although Kirk likes to cast aspersions about the reliability of Buchanan’s botany: For example, in a lengthy letter to Dr James Hector, Director of the Colonial Museum, in April 1870, Kirk discusses a co-authored (and illustrated) paper on the Northland plants in the Transactions: “I am glad the North lists are printed although somewhat regretting the mode. It appears as a joint paper by Mr Buchanan and myself but if any voice in its preparation had been allowed to me I should have objected to the publication of Gualtheria rupestris and some other of Mr Buchanan’s plants as indigenous in the North…did you or Mr B. really gather Adiantum formosum at Whangarei?” Kirk goes on to discuss his disagreement with Buchanan’s treatment of Pittosporum species and their affinities, and concludes: “The value of individual authority as to the occurrence of plants in particular districts in New Zealand will in a very few years be of as great importance as it now is in Britain and should be jealously guarded.” Jealousy does indeed characterize some, but not all, of their interaction. One notorious incident is recorded when Kirk stole some of the specimens that Buchanan was illustrating from the Colonial Museum’s Herbarium. At other times, they seem to have exchanged plants readily for the purposes of identification and drawing. Both were immigrants who arrived in 1852 and 1862 respectively, and they worked quickly to establish discrete areas of expertise. Buchanan, the elder of the two, had his major work commissioned by Governor Grey: an illustrated study of the Indigenous Grasses of New Zealand, which was printed in 1879, with its nature-printed lithographs earning him top prizes in the Sydney and Melbourne exhibitions of 1879 and 1880-81. Kirk’s magisterial and authoritative Forest Flora of New Zealand appeared in 1889, a more lavishly illustrated work, and also a government commission. Working prolifically throughout their six decade careers, they established the standards for scientific illustration, yet Buchanan is now celebrated as the more important artist whereas Kirk has claim to be the greater botanist. This paper will tease out how their individual contributions were shaped by their rivalry, and how this particular artistic relationship reveals tensions inherent in the New Zealand scientific establishment as a whole. HMS Challenger – The Colonial Localities of a Scientific Circumnavigation Emma Zuroski University of Auckland In 1872 the HMS Challenger set sail on a four-year circumnavigation of the globe in pursuit of knowledge of the deep sea. The expedition, which was jointly sponsored by the Royal Society and the Royal Navy, took place on a British naval ship specifically renovated to accommodate onboard scientific laboratories and included a scientific staff of six among the nearly three-hundred-member crew. The scientific staff employed the practices of botany, zoology, geology and chemistry to conduct the most complete and systematic exploration of the deep sea ever pursued. Touted as an emblematic success of Victorian science and continually identified as the beginning of modern oceanography, the Challenger expedition is a fundamental historical moment in the conception of the ocean as a scientific object. Histories of the HMS Challenger have focused primarily on the scientific achievements of the expedition and its contributions to the history of oceanography. My larger project aims to historicize the expedition and draw out the ways in which the early knowledge and practices of the science of the ocean were entwined in longer histories of British colonialism, Victorian sciences, maritime exploration and natural history of the Pacific. The Challenger is a well-known event in British history but little has been done to understand the contributions and engagement of the

19

British colonies and their role in the expedition and the following early years of ocean science. In this paper I will shift the lens of the Challenger narrative towards the physical and cultural networks of empire through which the expedition occurred, using the scientific community of New Zealand as the primary example. Over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, New Zealand had become a place of keen interest to British naturalists and it was uniquely located for the study of the natural history of the sea. By examining the engagement of New Zealand naturalists both during and after the expedition I will explore the distinct contributions colonial localities made to this cosmopolitan project thereby highlighting the ways in which science and scientists in colonial New Zealand contributed to British natural history and the history of the British Empire. He Rongo i te Reo Rauriki, i te Reo Reiuru – Discourse Analysis and Conversations of Historical Conservation in New Zealand Newspapers Dr. Hēmi Whaanga1 and Dr. Priscilla Wehi2 1University of Waikato 1Landcare Research Biocultural conservation encompasses all forms of diversity: biological, cultural and linguistic. This requires the nurturing of human cultures, customs, languages, knowledge, and the plants and animals on which they depend. The current biodiversity crisis in Aotearoa and worldwide has led to wide ranging debate about environmental management and the cost of conservation. For Māori, however, much more than species diversity is at stake. In Te Ao Māori, people are linked directly to flora and fauna through whakapapa (ancestry). As such, conservation can be viewed, not in terms of preserving ‘otherness’, but in terms of preserving ‘us-ness’: our very selfhood. We use discourse analysis to examine the concept of ‘conservation’ in 19thC Aotearoa, and how this is perceived by Māori communities in particular. To investigate these relationships, we deconstruct and re-examine the notion of conservation and the range of interpretations associated with it that are evident in both Māori and English language newspapers published between 1840s and the early part of the 20thC. We highlight discussion of species that we have identified as culturally significant from an analysis of whakataukī, ancestral sayings that are an important part of Māori oral tradition. Our analyses focus on the complex inter-relationships between language, society and changing conservation thought in Aotearoa in the late 19th century, and how Māori society engaged with this concept.

Weather, Radar & Astronomy (Chair: Jim McAloon) History of Weather and Forecasting in New Zealand Dr. Erick Brenstrum MetService To mark 150 years of meteorological science in New Zealand, MetService established a website (https://www.iwonderweather.co.nz/) dedicated to the history of weather and weather forecasting in New Zealand. There are entries about the climate controversy of the 1840s that caused the Colonial Administration to buy its first thermometers and the cyclone of 1868 that led to the start of forecasting in New Zealand following the methods of Admiral FitzRoy. New Zealand’s worst floods, cyclones, snowstorms and tornados are gradually being documented as well as occasions when fine weather averted disaster. During the Second World War the size of the Meteorological Service increased six-fold. New Zealand forecasters pioneered tropical forecasting and several went on to become world experts. Two New Zealand forecasters were involved in the forecast for D-Day in June 1944; one in the Royal Navy and one in the United States Army Airforce. There are also entries on women in meteorology; New Zealand place names and the weather; the weather endured by immigrants in the age of sail; and traditional Maori methods of forecasting. Further entries are being added as time allows and there is a facility for members of the public to contribute ideas.

20

Meteorology's Instruments – Radiosondes, Weather Balloons and the Making of a New Atmosphere Dr. Matt Henry Massey University The history of meteorology in New Zealand is largely coterminous with the instrumentation of meteorology as a discipline. Indeed, it can be argued that meteorology itself is defined by its struggles with developing its own measurement systems, and the instruments through which weather can measured and inscribed into graphical forms including the ubiquitous synoptic map. Yet, with a few exceptions, the histories of meteorology have largely relegated meteorological instruments, their philosophy, manufacture, circulation, certification and use to being footnotes. This paper places one of these instruments, the radiosonde, at the centre of its analysis. A radiosonde, which when attached to a weather balloon, enables meteorologists to take upper atmosphere observations. The paper explores the introduction, development and use of radiosondes in New Zealand after the First World War, how their use enabled the discovery and exploration of new weather spaces, and how they were embedded into already existing networks of meteorological practice. In making possible the exploration of new weather spaces the paper argues that use of radiosondes presented meteorologists with the opportunity to extend their credibility, but in doing so it also presented them with practical and epistemological challenges as to how to integrate the new atmosphere they were discovering into existing networks of weather forecasting. Mt John University Observatory at Fifty Years Prof. John Hearnshaw University of Canterbury Mt John University Observatory at Lake Tekapo is New Zealand’s only professional research observatory for optical astronomy. It was founded in 1965 as a joint institution of the universities of Pennsylvania and Canterbury, in order to give the Pennsylvania astronomers access to the southern sky. Pennsylvania’s support for Mt John disappeared by 1980, but Canterbury’s interest in astronomy steadily grew, and astronomy became an important part of the teaching and research in Canterbury’s Department of Physics and Astronomy. In spite of funding crises, personality battles, a student demonstration and even a destructive fire, Mt John survived and thrived. Canterbury designed and built the 1-m McLellan telescope in the early 1980s and in 2004, a 1.8-m telescope was installed as a joint project with Nagoya University, in a project to detect extrasolar planets by microlensing. In the last ten years Mt John has also become a mecca for astro-tourists, who have come to appreciate the pristine dark sky of the Mackenzie and the beautiful landscape seen from the observatory. Mt John is now 50 years old and a symposium was held at Lake Tekapo in May 2015 to mark the anniversary. The symposium celebrated 50 years of outstandingly successful research and the 175 graduate student theses that have come from Mt John data; but it also pondered the uncertain future for the observatory as recent funding cut-backs have curtailed its current programmes and development. New Zealand’s Radar Story Cameron Smart Wavefront Engineering Ltd New Zealanders working at home and overseas contributed to radar for defence and then for air traffic control, radio-meteorology, radio-astronomy, and detection of speeding drivers. Ernest Marsden started the first strand of development when he learned of the secret “new scientific technique of a defence nature” in England in mid-1939. He brought his new knowledge and some useful parts home to set up teams in the Wellington East Post Office and the Aero Club’s “Green Hut” on the Wigram airbase. By December 1939 Wellington detected ships in the harbour and by March 1940 had fitted a home-built set to an aero club plane which could pick up the inter-island ferry Rangitira during a flight to Wigram. Improved sets for an Oxford trainer and ancient Wildebeest bombers followed. HMNZS Achilles got her first radar in May 1940, with Ian Walker being prominent. Meanwhile, John Banwell moved from Canterbury University College to England for PhD studies. He joined the war effort by developing an antenna that transmitted powerful pulses without damaging the sensitive receiver circuits. He brought his technology home and adapted it for coastal defence sets initially near Auckland.

21

The second strand of development occurred when Britain’s Taffy Bowen brought a high-power magnetron to the United States in September 1940. This allowed the Americans to start their Radiation Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and begin a huge production of microwave radar sets. Marsden recognised their importance, and in 1942 sent Banwell, Charles Watson-Munro and others to MIT to learn the new techniques. NZ built radio stations in Fiji early in 1941, and at the beginning of 1942 built radar stations there, with Bob Unwin in a leadership role. NZ built Long Range Air Warning radars into trucks which served with US Navy Argus units in the Solomons, Bougainville, and places north. Elizabeth Alexander led an operations research group specialising in the interaction between radar and the weather. When our station on Norfolk Island picked up odd signals from the horizon around dawn and dusk she realised their importance, and in following up with Bowen, who had by then moved to Sydney, helped to start Australian radio-astronomy. In 1944 and 45 Alexander and Unwin, believing the invasion of Japan was imminent, began to study the radar ducts that sometimes formed when Föhn winds flowed out to sea. This led to the post-war Canterbury Project in Ashburton. From Bickerton to Bateson – The Challenge to Establish Astrophysics in New Zealand Prof. Wayne Orchiston1 and Prof. John Hearnshaw2 1National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand 1University of Canterbury Astrophysics was an exciting new style of astronomy that drew on photography, photometry and spectroscopy to replace positional and descriptive astronomy in many areas of the world late in the nineteenth century and early in the twentieth century. It is the style of research astronomy that is prevalent today, but it was a long timing coming to New Zealand, even though one of our earliest astronomers, Canterbury University College’s Professor Alexander Bickerton, was writing papers on what we would now regard as astrophysics back in the 1870s and 1880s (but his theories were not accepted internationally). At this time, and subsequently, other New Zealand professional and serious amateur astronomers focussed on positional and descriptive astronomy, and despite an abortive attempt to establish a major solar observatory in Nelson in 1914, it was only in the 1930s and 1940s that New Zealand-based astronomers finally engaged in cutting edge research, thanks in part to the emergence of radio astronomy. However, it was left to Frank Bateson to establish a major New Zealand observatory devoted primarily to astrophysics. In this paper we will examine Bickerton’s ‘Partial Impact Theory’, before discussing the rationale for the Cawthron Solar Observatory; the meteor work of R.A. McIntosh’s Meteor Section of the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand in the 1930s and 1940s; the different radio astronomy projects pursued in the mid to late 1940s; abortive efforts to launch photoelectric photometry at the Thomas King and Carter Observatories in the late 1940s; and the radar meteor astronomy research by Cliff Ellyett, Colin Keay and their graduate students at the University of Canterbury in the 1950s. It was these pioneering efforts that led finally to the emergence of on-going astrophysical research at both the Carter Observatory and the University of Cantebury during the 1960s. The Canterbury initiative can be traced back to Frank Bateson’s determination to establish a major research observatory and teaching facility in New Zealand, which resulted in the founding of the Mt John Observatory.

22

20th Century Perspectives (Chair: Anthony Scott) 'A Place Among the Immortals' – Ernest Marsden and His 20th Century Scientific Networks Dr. Rebecca Priestley Victoria University of Wellington/Te Pūnaha Matatini Ernest Marsden arrived in Wellington in 1915, to work as physics professor at Victoria University College. His appointment was thanks to the recommendation of his teacher and mentor, Ernest Rutherford. In 1909, while a 20-year-old physics student at Manchester University, Marsden had fired a series of alpha particles at a thin gold foil. When some of the alpha particles bounced back, Rutherford had described it as “almost as incredible as if you fired a cannonball at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you”. Rutherford used the results of this experiment to determine the nuclear structure of the atom. Marsden used the results to launch a career in science. In 1926, he became first head of New Zealand’s Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), a position he held for more than 20 years. In 1969, near the end of Marsden’s life, Australian physicist Harrie Massey described Marsden’s early work with Rutherford as earning him “a place among the immortals”. Throughout his career, Marsden made repeated use of what Ross Galbreath has called “the Rutherford connection,” even long after Rutherford had died. He maintained close connections with the network of “Rutherford old boys” – physicists working in the UK, US, Canada and Australia – while at the same time building networks amongst the growing body of DSIR scientists in New Zealand. A Brief History of Science Communication in New Zealand Prof. Jean Fleming University of Otago Science Communication started informally in New Zealand with the formation of the New Zealand Institute in 1867, renamed the Royal Society of New Zealand (RSNZ) in 1933. The Institute published the first scientific papers in the Transactions from 1868. The New Zealand Association of Scientists (NZAS), formed around 1942, published The New Zealand Science Review, aimed at a broader audience and established the first awards for science communication, with the Science Journalism Award in 1980 and the Science Communicator’s Award in 1990. Radio has been an important medium in the emergence of New Zealand science communication. The monthly Science Report radio programme was started by the New Zealand Broadcasting service in 1957, and in 1999, Allan Coukell established the weekly Eureka! radio programme. Regular science programming is now well established in the weekly Our Changing World. The late Professor Sir Paul Callaghan and Radio New Zealand National journalist Kim Hill did much to establish the place of science on Saturday morning radio, and Radio NZ National continues to discuss scientific issues regularly. The wildlife documentary has also played a major role in early science communication in this country. The Natural History Unit was established in 1978 and evolved into Natural History NZ (now NHNZ), internationally recognised for its documentaries on wildlife. In 2001 the NHNZ formed a partnership with the Zoology Department of the University of Otago, leading in 2008 to the formation of the Centre for Science Communication at the University of Otago. Interest in and engagement with science took off in the late 1990s and early 2000s, after a number of science centres were established in museums throughout the country. The first New Zealand International Science Festival was held in Dunedin in 1998 and has been a biannual event ever since. Major public inquiries, such as the Royal Commissions on Nuclear Power Generation (1976-1978) and Genetic Modification (2000-2001) may have contributed to the rise in public engagement with science in New Zealand. An increase in levels of outreach and public engagement all over New Zealand was seen in the 2000s. In 2004, agricultural journalist Peter Burke formed the Science Communicators’ Association of New Zealand (SCANZ), with support from the Ministry of Research, Science & Technology. The arrival of SCANZ and the Centre for Science Communication signalled New Zealand’s coming of age in science communication.

23

From Rutherford's Sister (or 'the two Lucies') to Nanogirl – Deconstructing narratives of female invisibility and hypervisibility in 150 years of New Zealand science Kate Hannah Te Pūnaha Matatini Formal narratives of New Zealand science have largely focused on the key figures in the emergence of a science community in New Zealand since the appointment of James Hector to head the New Zealand Geological Survey in 1865. This conference – finding New Zealand’s scientific heritage – lists Hector, Marsden, Colenso, Hochsetter, Haast, Rutherford, Fleming, Cotton, “others”. In deconstructing historic and contemporary narratives of science in New Zealand, this paper will explore the move from socially-sanctioned invisibility for women scientists (“others”) towards socially transgressive hypervisibility for women scientists such as Siouxsie Wiles, Nicola Gaston, and Michelle Dickinson (Nanogirl). Sanctioned or transgressive presentation or representation in a variety of narratives will be contextualised within a science social discourse that provides a group of tropes within which women scientists’ visibility is coded. Drawing upon emergent notions of subaltern counterpublics within Habermas’ public sphere, and looking at how the so-called digital public sphere treats women’s and men’s discourses differently, will reveal the consistent under- or mis- representation of women in New Zealand science as one aspect of ‘backlash’ as described by Mansbridge and Shames (2008):

when a group of actors disadvantaged by the status quo works to enact change, that group necessarily challenges an entrenched power structure. The resistance of those in power to attempts to change the status quo is a “backlash,” a reaction by a group declining in a felt sense of power…1

Perceived hypervisibility is as disadvantageous to women scientists now as invisibility was historically. The hypervisibility of women in science and technology discourses contrasts with the low uptake of science, technology, and engineering careers by women – and exploring the impact ‘backlash’ has on both those hypervisible women and those women and girls who remain invisible in historic and contemporary narratives of New Zealand science provides an opportunity to confront bias, via deconstruction of socially sanctioned compliance or socially unacceptable transgression. 1 Mansbridge, Jane, and Shames, Shauna L., ‘Toward a Theory of Backlash: Dynamic Resistance and the Central Role of Power’, Politics and Gender Journal 2008: 4 (4): 625 DSIR – The Evolution of a New Zealand Department of Science 1916 to 1992 Dr. Ross Galbreath The principles and structures of 'Scientific and Industrial Research', which Britain urged upon its Dominions under wartime exigencies in 1916, were not adopted in New Zealand until 1926, after a change of government and a visit from a British expert. But those principles and structures enabled the new Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, DSIR, to expand to take a dominant role in scientific research and science policy in New Zealand. In Britain the principles of SIR were modified and the structures eventually broken up in 1965 but in New Zealand DSIR's dominance continued until 1992. The Fight to Resurrect Rutherford's Mana in New Zealand Dr. John Campbell University of Canterbury Only in New Zealand was Ernest Rutherford looked down on by non-scientists. Some examples of that sad fact will be given, how this mythology arose explained, and the 35-year fight to resurrect his good name and honour covered. The sad fact is, my fight appears to have been a failure going on comments by educated non-scientists as recently as when this abstract was submitted.

24

19th Century Science & Scientists (Chair: Rebecca Rice) T.F. Cheeseman – The Quiet Captain of Nineteenth-Century New Zealand Science Dr. James Braund University of Auckland Thomas Frederick Cheeseman (1845-1923), best remembered nowadays for his classic Manual of the New Zealand Flora (1906) and for his nearly five-decade-long directorship of the Auckland Museum, must surely rank as one of the undisputed captains of nineteenth-century New Zealand science – that small but select group of men who, as directors of museums or as presidents of scientific institutes in the main centres, functioned as the leading administrators of this country’s fledgling scientific community, while at the same time laying pioneering foundations for future work in their individual areas of disciplinary interest. Cheeseman served longer than any other of the great New Zealand museum directors of the nineteenth century; he had a lengthier career as a working scientist than almost all his peers in the colonial period; and he also built up extensive lines of communication with colleagues both locally and overseas. In contrast, however, to his perhaps more well-known (and in some cases: more outspoken) fellow captains of colonial science – men such as Hector, Haast, Hutton and Colenso – Cheeseman has not enjoyed quite the same level of posthumous attention and is yet to be the subject of an extended critical study. This paper seeks, among other things, to explain this discrepancy. Drawing on a range of archival and other material, and in particular Cheeseman’s extensive correspondence with fellow scientists, this paper reviews his more notable achievements and offers a number of explanations for both his remarkable professional longevity and his comparatively low profile nowadays. Philip Lutely Sclater, Forgotten Victorian Man of Science and his New Zealand Connections Owen Hughes Philip Lutely Sclater (1829-1913) was the secretary of the Zoological Society of London from 1860 to 1903 (43 years). He was the founding editor of Ibis (the journal of the British Ornithological Union) from 1859 off and on till 1912. He also held leading roles in the British Association for the Advancement of Science, the Linnean Society, the Royal Geographical Society, and the Geological society. Sclater established the six faunal geographic regions of the globe that are still widely accepted. However, he has been overshadowed by others such as Alfred Wallace (in biogeography), Linnaeus (in taxonomy), and Joseph Hooker (in science leadership). Sclater had a special interest in the birds of Central and South America. However, he had a number of connections to New Zealand. For example, he was a leading light in the British Ornithologists Club that, between Walter Buller (c.1888) and WRB Oliver (c.1930) radically adjusted the taxonomy and classification of New Zealand birds. The paper will focus on the curious link between Sclater and the Nicaraguan bird paintings attributed to Gustavus von Tempsky, that are now held in the Alexander Turnbull Library. William Grayling: an Early Consulting Chemist in the Antipodes Dr. Vaughan Wood University of Canterbury Histories of the chemical sciences in New Zealand, when covering the nineteenth century, have concentrated quite naturally on the post-1865 period, that is, from the time of the establishment of the New Zealand Institute and the Colonial Laboratory. The pioneering period leading up to the formation of the New Zealand Institute is less well studied. Among the individuals active in this earlier period was the self-styled ‘practical chemist’ William Grayling, who emigrated from the United Kingdom first to Australia in 1843 and thence to New Zealand in 1852. The paper will examine the efforts of Grayling in particular, and to a lesser degree those of contemporaries, such as James Norrie in Sydney and Dr Thomas Ralph in Wellington, to provide chemical education and/or private analytical services within the Australian colonies and New Zealand during the 1840s and 1850s. To this end, it will compare their educational and social background and range of activities with popular consulting chemists back in the United Kingdom, together with the public response to their work in Australia and New Zealand. To the extent that the limited scope of their publications allow, the quality and currency of the work will also be discussed. It will conclude

25

with some remarks on what the study of their respective careers might add to our understanding of the scientific climate in New Zealand at the time of the formation of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1865 (and in Australia and the time that similar institutions were established there). Between ‘starving and living' – Swiss Naturalist, Henry Suter's Pursuit of a Scientific Career in 19th and Early 20th Century New Zealand Dr. Pamela Hyde Hans Heinrich Suter-Naef arrived in New Zealand from Zurich, Switzerland with his wife Ida and seven children on New Year’s Eve 1887. He changed his name on arrival to Henry Suter. He saw New Zealand as a place of scientific opportunity and had plans to make a life and a living from the expertise he had gained in Switzerland as an analytical chemist and amateur conchologist and malacologist. He made connections with Hutton, Hector, Cheeseman, Colenso and others in an attempt to gain a foothold in the scientific community and find employment to support his family. Suter spent his life in New Zealand balancing the competing demands of warding off poverty and indulging his passion for science. This presentation draws upon research undertaken for a biography of Suter and is based upon diaries, letters and scientific papers. It explores the ways in which Suter managed to carve out a scientific niche, overcoming the significant challenges which on occasions almost overwhelmed him. The factors which helped and those which hindered Suter will also be discussed. Suter’s personal characteristics will be touched upon to explain the part they played in his eventually writing the definitive work on New Zealand mollusca and becoming recognised in New Zealand and internationally as an expert scientist in his field.

DSIR & 20th Century Science (Chair: Erick Brenstrum) The DSIR Climate Laboratory Prof. Ian Warrington Massey University The DSIR Climate Laboratory (or phytotron), located in Plant Physiology Division at Palmerston North, was a national controlled environment centre that was opened in 1969. Designed primarily for plant and animal use, it served researched projects from a number of DSIR Divisions, MAFTech Research Centres, and the NZ Forest Service (subsequently by various Crown Research Institutes), and all NZ Universities. Precision control of temperature, relative humidity, light intensity, daylength (photoperiod), carbon dioxide concentration and mineral nutrition regimes was provided in 24 large walk-in rooms. The facility was world-leading in a number of its overall operating system designs and featured some unique features unmatched in any other similar facilities globally. These technical characteristics of the Climate Laboratory will be outlined in the presentation. The advent of science reform in New Zealand, including the emergence of user-pays and the decline of the whole-plant sciences, saw a significant decline in the use of the facilities from 2000 onwards and the facility was closed in 2013. Major contributions were made in the fields of plant physiology, horticultural science, agronomy, botany, forestry science and many others of which a number of examples will be provided. DSIR's Industrial Psychology Division 1942-54 Prof. John Hearnshaw University of Canterbury DSIR’s Industrial Psychology Division was founded in 1942 by Ernest Marsden, and its mission was to research the working conditions in factories of wartime New Zealand. The education of management and workers on good working practices was also an important part of its work, as was the undertaking of special service investigations, as required. The first director was Leslie Hearnshaw (my father), at the time a psychologist at Victoria University College, and he hired Ralph Winterbourn (from Canterbury University College), Arthur Churton and later Ralph Waite to the Division’s staff.

26

Some of the issues that arose were the high level of absenteeism in NZ factories, the employment of girls in many NZ munitions factories, keeping workers motivated for tedious and repetitive work, excessive hours of work (in one case up to 74 hours per week) and poor lighting at factories causing eye strain. Visits were made to factories all over New Zealand; during the war there were 456 with at least 50 employees, and about 200 with more than 100 employees, but there were almost 6000 small workshops for manufacturing and engineering. My father came into contact with many interesting people during this work, including Clarence Beeby, Ernest Marsden, Sandys Wünsch, Anthony Hare, Karl Popper, Henry Field and Ernest Beaglehole. He resigned in 1948 to return to the UK, and was replaced by Dermot Straker who continued the work of the division until 1954, when regrettably it was closed. The DSIR Industrial Psychology Division represents the beginning of industrial psychology as a discipline in New Zealand, so is an important though quite brief phase of NZ scientific history. Geophysics Division, DSIR, and its Antecedents: 1864-1990 Dr. Fred Davey GNS Science The Time Service in Wellington, established in 1864, evolved through the Colonial and Dominion Observatories to the Seismological Observatory of the NZ Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). It was the oldest of six groups within DSIR that were amalgamated in 1951 into Geophysics Division, DSIR, that was led by Dr Eddie Robertson. The other groups; Magnetic Survey, Christchurch, Geophysical Survey, Wellington, Underwater Research Laboratory, Auckland, Geophysical Observatory, Christchurch, and Oceanographic Survey, Wellington, had had a varied history ranging from Magnetic Survey, set up in 1902, to Oceanographic Survey that had been in existence only a few years. Dr Robertson was succeeded as Director in 1964 by Dr Frank Evison, who moved in 1967 to Victoria University of Wellington to start the Institute of Geophysics. Dr Trevor Hatherton was then Director until 1985, when he resigned as Director and became President of RSNZ. Dr Fred Davey was appointed Director until the Division was amalgamated with the NZ Geological Survey of DSIR in 1990. The structure of Geophysics Division changed with time. Underwater Research Laboratory was transferred to Navy Department in 1955 as its work was largely classified and focussed on defence requirements. Oceanography developed rapidly and the New Zealand Oceanographic Institute was set up as a separate DSIR division in 1958. Magnetic Survey and Geophysical Observatory were transferred in 1970 to Physics and Engineering Laboratory to join workers in similar research, but transferred back to Geophysics Division in the 1980s. The Division formally maintained the seismological and geomagnetic observatory programmes in Rarotonga and Apia until the mid 80s, and operated instruments at several South Pacific locations. The International Geophysical Year (IGY) in 1957/58 had a major impact on the Division's activities with the Director chairing the NZ IGY organising committee and the Division implementing the Antarctic programme at Scott Base and Hallett Station for years 1957 to 1959. Two examples of major projects are the detailed site investigations for the major Tongariro hydroelectric power scheme and the setting up the New Zealand wide digital seismograph network for locating and studying earthquakes. The New Zealand Oceanographic Institute, DSIR – Small Team, Multidisciplinary Exploration from Lagoon to Pack Ice Dr. Keith Lewis formerly NZOI/NIWA The New Zealand Oceanographic Institute budded, hydra-like, from Geophysics Division, DSIR in the mid 1950s, when empire-building was out of fashion. It was conceived by leading scientists as a place where physicists, geologist, and biologists could work interactively with specialist technicians, and make best use of expensive ship hire. It was the first multidisciplinary marine science organisation outside USA and UK. Its brief was ludicrously large; to understand the interactions of currents, seabed and fauna, from New Zealand’s ‘Island Territories’ near the equator to its ‘Ross Sea Dependancy’, providing background for exploitation and management of a sizeable proportion of the earth’s surface. Jim Brodie, a fairly recent geology graduate, was appointed its first Director on the

27

basis of some sea experience, enthusiasm, and proven administrative and people skills. His emphasis was always on understanding processes to interpolate between widely spaced data. His mantra: “This is an Institute, not a Survey”. Initially, navigation was by sextant, with errors of tens of nautical miles after days of cloud. Equipment was mainly homemade by ingenious workshop and electronics technicians, often working from blurred photographs. Ship-time was hitched on vessels-of-convenience, but progressed to hire of an ancient Fijian island trader, and later to purchase of elderly but better equipped vessels. “Drift cards” and hydrocasts quickly defined the main current patterns in the SW Pacific, and work progressed to ocean variability on many timescales; vital background to later climate change understandings. Cores, sonar and seismic data, some from oil company files, defined the interactions of seabed with currents and tectonic processes. Dredges and trawls defined the fauna of over many latitudes and depths, and ecological responses to currents and seabed. Typically of DSIR heads, Jim Brodie was not the best scientifically qualified, nor the best paid member of the staff he rapidly recruited. Administrative support was minimal - a single ‘clerk’ who organised all financial and personnel matters. With a staff of thirtyish, he maintained a ‘flat’ management style. “Project planning and review” was an informal hour-long chat every 6 months. Research could respond rapidly to new ideas and techniques. By the time NZOI was subsumed into ‘big business science’ in the late 80s, it had defined the main oceanographic features of the SW Pacific, a firm basis for future research.

19th Century Science & Scientists cont’d (Chair: Sydney Shep) Show and Tell – Late-Nineteenth Century Science in Dunedin Dr. Rosi Crane Otago Museum How hard do we have to look to find science in late-nineteenth century Dunedin? The short answer is not very. Clearly institutions, like the University or the Museum with its ever-growing collections of stuffed animals, dried plants and ethnological artefacts, played important and significant roles in the creation of scientific knowledge. But where else could members of the public find and participate in the scientific enterprise? The educated regularly attended meetings of the Otago Institute but neither the Dunedin Naturalists’ Field Club nor the Dunedin Microscopical Society with their less ambitious aims were as successful. Good attendance figures show interest in displays of new discoveries and new technologies at major exhibitions remained high and the public could keep themselves well informed. Additionally newspapers reported on local events and also carried in-depth articles from overseas. But a locally produced scientific magazine was only short-lived. This paper examines the contributions Thomas Jeffery Parker FRS (1850-1897) made to such activities. Parker arrived in Dunedin in 1880 to a joint job as professor of biology and curator of the museum. He had previously worked for eight years as demonstrator for Thomas Henry Huxley FRS (1825-1895) in London. Parker’s research focused on developmental morphology and embryology as befitted a committed evolutionist of the late-nineteenth century. Although naturally shy Parker adopted Huxley’s drive to educate. So he wrote and lectured on evolution to a variety of audiences when the opportunity arose. And used his curatorial role to display evolution both within the museum and at international exhibitions. The patterns of show and tell, of exposition and explanation, can be understood more broadly. This paper shows how late-nineteenth century science in Dunedin with its interlocking practices fitted into broader webs of knowledge production and creation. Balancing the record – Jennings, Gibson and Goodlet Moira White Otago Museum Most summaries of the history of the Otago Museum, Dunedin, focus on its roots in James Hector’s geological collection, displayed in the 1865 Dunedin International Exhibition. They chart the changing locations, the administrative connection with the University, and recognize the life science emphasis that resulted from the

28

appointment of its first three Curators – Frederick Hutton, Thomas Parker and William Benham - who also lectured in Zoology at the equally youthful University of Otago. Hutton was appointed in 1873, Benham resigned in 1936; they spanned more than six decades. There were, however, also non-curatorial positions at the Museum in those years. This paper seeks to address the imbalance of some accounts by looking at the contribution of three other employees of the Otago Museum in those decades: Edwin Jennings, E.H. Gibson and William Goodlet. One of Frederick Hutton’s first actions at the Museum was appointment of Mr Jennings as its taxidermist. In 1874 Hutton reported that the ‘number and beauty of the birds’ that Jennings had mounted spoke for itself of ‘his zeal and talent’. Jennings worked with Hutton, Parker and Benham during his time at the Museum. Described as a genial and courteous man, he was also a keen and knowledgeable bird collector. He died in 1910. In 1911 Mr E. H. Gibson was the successful candidate for the advertised position of a taxidermist “acquainted with Museum methods” at an annual salary of £156. He offered a more modern style of display work, with greater reference to the natural environs of the specimens when alive. His cabinetmaking abilities were a valuable bonus and he soon learned other skills. His colleague, the janitor William Goodlet who began work in the same year, was described by Benham as industrious and willing; ‘an excellent man for the position’. He cleaned and polished ‘so the whole interior looks cheerful’, was polite and helpful to visitors, and offered them information about a range of items in the Museum’s collection. This paper offers a more detailed account of these three men and argues that Jennings, Gibson and Goodlet were as integral to the Museum’s role in its scientific community as Hutton, Parker and Benham. From Scientific Specimen to Māori art – the Agency of Things, and the Social, Political, and Ethnographic Effects of the Collecting Activities of Augustus Hamilton Dr. Elizabeth Pishief In this paper I investigate the complex, deeply emotional performance called collecting by examining the collecting activities of Augustus Hamilton, which ranged from lists of birds, to collections of ferns, pelargoniums, and marine specimens, (among other things), before culminating in his ‘great work’ the national collection of ‘Maori Art’ for New Zealand. Hamilton was a teacher and amateur scientist with a passion for collecting who belonged to a number of learned societies including the New Zealand Institute, the Polynesian Society, the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, and the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, and had a wide and eclectic network of friends and colleagues, scientists, artists, educationalists, and collectors. The 19th century scientific philosophies and methods, and the prevailing social, cultural and political movements from 1880 to 1910 enabled Augustus Hamilton to use his scientific collecting abilities to advance his career from country schoolmaster to the Director of the national (Colonial) museum in Wellington. Themes of emotion, aesthetics, ambition, appropriation, and power underlie Hamilton’s collecting activities and philosophy, and influenced and were influenced by, both the objects he collected and New Zealand society at the time. Moreover the repercussions of those collecting activities and philosophy reverberate in museums to this day.

29

DSIR & MISC (Chair: Keith Lewis) Four Mile Man – Dr Richard (Dick) Wright Willett Keith Willett Victoria University of Wellington Richard (Dick) Willett was the Director of the New Zealand Geological Survey (NZGS) from 1956 – 1967 then Assistant Director-General of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research until his unexpected death on 6 June 1974. He was also my father. Born in Dunedin in 1912 he attended primary school in Dunedin and Invercargill, then Otago Boys High School and on to a Bachelor of Science in Geology from the University of Otago. In the spring of 1936 he joined the NZGS, then located at 156 The Terrace, Wellington, with two similarly-aged young men as a geologist. They were the first new recruits to the NZGS for some years because of the recruitment restrictions brought on by the Depression. Dick cut his teeth as a field geologist in the late 30’s undertaking field-work in Otago in the summer then writing up the results back in Wellington. While staying at the Arthur’s Point Hotel (with Harold Wellman) he met Kathleen Fairbairn, also from Dunedin, marrying her in 1939. He and Harold published in 1942 a two-part paper that recognised for the first time the extent and significance of the Alpine Fault – this has since became a classic paper. In 1941 he graduated with a Master of Science from Victoria College of the University of New Zealand. In 1942 he was transferred to Invercargill district office until 1948 when he returned, by now with two daughters, to Wellington to take over responsibility for coal surveys. Dick had already been noticed as a competent administrator and Sir Ernest Marsden nominated him to the role of Commonwealth Geological Liaison Officer. From 1951 till 1954 the Willett family, now including me, resided in London. His appointment as Director of the NZGS in 1956 revitalised the Survey. During his term the Survey moved to new and larger premises in Lower Hutt, focussed on economic geology and his most satisfying achievement during his term was the completion of the 1:250,000 scale (the Four-Mile project) geological mapping of NZ in time for the 1966 centenary of the NZGS. In that same year the University of Otago awarded him a Doctor of Science Honoris Causa. Dick joined the Royal Society and held various regional and central offices, culminating with a fellowship in 1961 and a term as president from 1971-74. He was a member of IUGS and SCAR amongst many other organisations which necessitated extensive overseas travel and he led the first NZ science delegation to China shortly before he died. Service to Science – History of the New Zealand Association of Scientists Geoff Gregory formerly DSIR In December 1941, the New Zealand Association of Scientific Workers was formed, with the objects: ‘to secure the wider application of science and the scientific method for the welfare of society and to promote the interests of scientific workers’. These have remained the Association’s principal objects, although others have been added. The Association survived the anti-communist paranoia of the 1950s by repeatedly affirming its political independence, and in 1954 it changed its name to New Zealand Association of Scientists (NZAS) to overcome the stigma attached to the word ‘workers’. NZAS also fostered the formation of a separate national technicians’ institute in 1963. The Association produced the first issue of New Zealand Science Review (NZSR) in December 1942, and despite intermittent production and cost problems, NZSR has continued as the flagship publication ever since. Initially aimed at recording the progress of science in New Zealand and stimulating public interest, it has evolved into a prominent forum for the exchange of views on science and science policy. NZAS initiated series of important data-gathering projects, such as scientists’ surveys, which have continued at intervals, the most recent being in 2008 (published 2010). These have provided the information needed to make

30

representations to government to bring salaries and conditions for government and university scientists more in line with overseas, to improve the status of women in science, and to improve the science syllabus in schools and technical colleges. From its foundation, NZAS has worked to ensure freedom of scientists to ‘speak out’. Responding to perceived growing public disaffection with science from the mid-1970s onwards, NZAS promoted studies of the impact of science on society and the environment. It also tackled issues such as nuclear power, genetic engineering, lead in petrol, conservation of native forests, and maintenance of biodiversity, and, more recently, introduction of rabbit calisi virus, risk assessment, and climate change. NZAS has repeatedly promoted dialogue with government ministers and departments and statutory bodies on policy changes, most notably on the major reorganisation of science organisations that started in the late 1980s, and the persistent problems that have come from this system and the competitive bidding for funding it installed. In the last 20 years, NZAS has organised annual conferences at which policies for organisational change, funding, and science and innovation, including its own policy statements, were aired. Sydney Street West – a First Place for Science in Wellington Dr. Catherine Hodder1 and Dr. Peter Hodder2

1HodderBalog Social and Scientific 2Victoria University of Wellington Carparks and faceless office buildings in the remnants of Wellington’s Sydney Street West give no clues of the street’s heritage as the birthplace of Wellington’s scientific institutions. First to be built was the Italianate ‘core’ of the Colonial Museum, and an associated Colonial Laboratory, the latter of which may actually have been one of the two cottages built earlier on the site. The museum was always too small for its envisaged purpose: despite a series of extensions and modifications, it strained to accommodate the increasing number of specimens of modern and fossil flora and fauna collected by W.B.D. Mantell and other naturalists and samples of rocks and ores amassed by James Hector and employees of an embryonic Geological Survey. The Museum also hosted a scientific library and was the initial home of the New Zealand Institute. By 1905 the Colonial Laboratory had moved into a new imposing brick building, next to Hector’s house and just around the corner from the Museum. An elegant building, it was well complemented by the Vaccine Station built in 1904 on the site of Hector’s garden, Hector’s house also being used for scientific purposes related to health. Meanwhile Mantell’s son, Walter Godfrey, had been building houses further along Sydney Street. One of the largest of these wooden houses contained his dental surgery, while adjacent was a brick apartment-house for members of his family. Both of these later became Crown properties, accommodating parts of the expanding Dominion Laboratory and other research divisions of the DSIR formed in 1926. Other houses along Sydney Street were similarly incorporated into a collection of endlessly modified houses surrounded by sheds and out-buildings, all of steadily increasing decrepitude. If that was not enough, the construction of Bowen Street in the 1930s meant the loss of several of the houses at the western end of the street and the loss of the backyards of most of the rest. The Museum had already decamped to Mount Cook, and the death-knell of the remaining buildings was sounded by the development of a Government centre first proposed in the 1930s. In fact, only Bowen State, Broadcasting House and Fergusson Buildings were ever built. Although the plans for Fergusson were redrawn several times to variously include and exclude the old Colonial Laboratory building and the brick Mantell apartment-house, both eventually succumbed to the relentless demands of the Wellington Urban Motorway in the 1960s, and the divisions of DSIR still at Sydney Street were dispersed to other parts of Wellington, the Hutt Valley and beyond.

31

Looking Forward (Chair: Rosi Crane) 'All intelligent subjects' – Presenting Scientific Collecting and Identity at the Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute Museum, 1865-1899 Tanya Zoe Robinson Deakin University On 11 October 1884, Augustus Hamilton, Curator of the Hawke’s Bay Philosophical Institute Museum, gave a lecture, ‘On the influence of the Scientific Societies of New Zealand on the Character of the Nation.’ Other than the title, no record of this lecture remains but it presents the tantalising proposition that in some way, Hamilton considered the work of his local Institute could be linked to the idea of local character or identity. With a similar view, this paper explores the collection and collecting activity of the Hawke’s Bay Philosophical Institute of Napier, during the period 1874-1899. It examines the development of the Institute’s Museum and considers the motivations, intentions and interests of the collectors within the broader scientific and museum context. Central to the activities of the Institute was the development of a museum collection. Collection items were regarded as a crucial source of new knowledge used for research, illustrating papers and as a prompt for learned discussion, so for the Institute a museum was an essential way in which it presented and produced scientific knowledge. This paper details the work of two significant collectors and encouragers of others: William Colenso, FLS, FRS, who placed the Institute’s collecting within wider scientific networks; and Augustus Hamilton, who sought to professionalise the museum, and later became Director of New Zealand’s national collection at the Colonial Museum in Wellington. Colenso worked hard to establish the Institute, popularise its aims, and define its purpose, by encouraging the members to work hard ‘for their museum’. For Hamilton, the museum became the place where he established his personal collecting interests within an understanding of international museum practice. Significant throughout the period is the role of women, who participated in the Institute’s activities and were made welcome. The Philosophical Institute was the seventh society incorporated with the New Zealand Institute, and provides a case study of associational scientific collecting during the period 1874 to 1899. Through consideration of the Institute’s activities, it is proposed that within the collection, the emergence of newly formed scientific identities can be discerned, during the early colonial period of Hawke’s Bay. In doing so, it traces the development of the museum’s champions from gentlemen of science to members of a newly professionalised vocation. Icones Colensoi – Portrayals of William Colenso Dr. Ian St George The missionary William Colenso collected and sent over 6000 natural history specimens and artifacts to Britain, and in his later life many more. He wrote many scientific papers, including 76 published in the Transactions; he was thus a frequent correspondent with Hector. Hector stated that Colenso "was the founder, with the late Sir George Grey, of the New Zealand Society, upon which the Wellington Philosophical Society was engrafted." His biographers acknowledge Colenso’s genius, but also his faults, accepting the conservative view of Cheeseman and others since, that he imagined distinctions between plants, differences that did not really exist. He was however often the only person to observe the different uses Māori put apparently similar plants to – and might therefore claim recognition as an ethnobotanist. In his later years, he formally described plants he regarded as distinct. Many of these names were later relegated to synonymy with plants described earlier by others, but many were accepted, and many, with modern taxonomic sophistication, are being reinstated. Almost 100 species of plants and animals carry the epithet "colensoi". Colenso was a missionary who carried his proselytising into his middle life as a public servant and politician. He was obsessional, an uncompromising man who made influential enemies. Those characteristics have tended to diminish the perceived importance of his contributions as a scientist.

32

On the other hand they have brought him to the attention of artists. This paper will discuss the books, plays, television portrayals, photographs and paintings that Colenso inspired through his life and after his death. Science and Species of Politicians in the 19th Century – Monkeys or Bullfrogs? Dr. John Martin Historian for Royal Society of New Zealand This paper relates 19th century science in NZ to organisational change and to politics, in the context of preparing a history of the Royal Society (including its precursor the New Zealand Institute). It looks at science’s political connections in relation to an overarching theme of science and government for the broader history. The paper explores the occupational and educational characteristics of members of societies affiliated to the New Zealand Institute who were also politicians. The comments regarding species of politicians come from James Hector and W.T.L. Travers and express the ambivalent nature of the relationship of science and government.

33

Upcoming Events Information about upcoming events will be posted on historyofscience.nz 2016: The NZ Polymath – Colenso and His Contemporaries The Colenso Society and Victoria University of Wellington announce this upcoming conference. Potential speakers would survey Colenso in his relationships with Māori leaders, with family, with fellow scientists, politicians, churchman and explorers – and thus enquire into the nature of biography itself. For more information please contact Sydney Shep at sydney.shep@vuw.ac.nz 2017: JRSNZ Special Issues In 2017 the Royal Society of New Zealand will celebrate its 150th anniversary. In 2017 a special issue, or issues, of the Journal will be dedicated to publishing papers from this conference with guest editors Simon Nathan and Rebecca Priestley. A Call for Papers, with more detailed information about timing and specifications, will be posted shortly. 2017: Wikipedia Edit-a-thon A Wikipedia Edit-a-thon is being planned for 2017, following the publication of the JRSNZ Special Issue. Over the course of a day, we will update or create Wikipedia entries for key figures in New Zealand's science history. 2019: First Contact Commemorations In 2019 New Zealanders will celebrate the 250th anniversary of first contact between Māori and pākehā, including the first contact between Mātauranga Māori and European scientists.