Auckland Libraries Research

08/09/2026

07/09/2026

📑🗃️Manuscript Mondays No. 16

Sir George Grey had already served as Governor and Premier of New Zealand by 1887 when he was electedMP for the Auckland Central electorate. Despite stints in Australia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom, as well as extended stays in Thames and Christchurch, Grey loved his adopted home of Auckland and spent most of the rest of his life there, representing the citizens continuously from 1881 until 1895.

Between 1887 and his death in 1898, Grey expressed his appreciation for the people of Auckland through a series of donations from his personal library and archives. These included thousands of books, manuscripts, letters, and other items he collected throughout his life. At the time, the donation doubled the collection of the Auckland Free Public Library and helped justify the costs of the new library building, today’s Auckland Art Gallery.

Throughout his years in New Zealand, Grey became fluent in te reo Māori and sought out ancestral knowledge from the various rangatira and Māori elders he met. His tutor, colleague, and personal secretary was Wiremu Maihi te Rangikāheke (William Marsh), who worked closely worked with Grey in most of his linguistic pursuits. The two hand-recorded waiata (songs), karakia (chants), whakataukī (sayings), whakapapa (genealogy), pūrākau (traditional narratives), and karakia hāhi (religious rites). He also translated English works into te reo Māori, collected recorded stories written by others, and wrote long lists of Māori words and phrases to help him learn the language.

In total, Grey donated to the library 176 separate manuscript items related to his pursuit of learning te reo Māori and mātauranga Māori. These were recognised in 2011 as a UNESCO Memory of the World collection. Many of the manuscripts have been digitised and are available by request on Kura Heritage Collections Online. The full list of Grey’s Māori Manuscripts can be viewed here: https://bit.ly/3UEqa0h.

If you are interested in exploring the Grey New Zealand Māori Manuscripts collection or other archival collections held by Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, you can arrange a viewing here: https://www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/en/heritage-and-research/research-booking.html.

31/08/2026

🌿 Whakapapa connects us to our whenua, our tīpuna and the stories that shape who we are.

Whether you’re just beginning your whakapapa journey or deep into your research, join us at Tātai Hono, a whakapapa research open day designed to support you wherever you’re at.

Bring your pātai, research goals and curiosity, and connect with Māori research specialists and expert advisors who can help you explore whakapapa resources, navigate research challenges and uncover new research pathways.

You’ll also have the chance to explore unique taonga and special collections and connect with specialist partners including representatives from the Māori Land Court.

📅 Friday 18 September 2026 | 10am–3pm
✨ Free event | Registration required
📍 Te Whare Wānanga, Level 2, Tāmaki Pātaka Kōrero | Central City Library
🔗 Register here: https://bit.ly/4xxSWOO

Nau mai, haere mai. Come and research your whakapapa in a supportive kaupapa Māori environment.

31/08/2026

📑🗃️Manuscript Mondays No. 15

One day in 1964, the Reverend Clarence T. J. Luxton of Waiuku decided he wanted to solve a mystery. Five years earlier, the former minister of the Wesley Methodist Church had given a lecture entitled ‘Methodist beginnings in the Manukau: The story of the Pehiakura Mission 1834-1862’. The problem was: he did not actually know the location of the mission. Fortunately, he was not alone in his curiosity. Historian Brian Muir and writer Elsie Locke also wanted to know the location, so they set off looking for it.

Luxton, Muir, and Locke spent much of the summer of 1964 searching through records for any hints about its location. Pehiakura had flourished under the leadership of the well-known Ngāti Tamaoho rangatira Epiha Putini during the 1840s. For a brief moment, it was the centre of Methodist missionary activity in the region and its buildings included a substantial raupo church. But the mission and settlement were abandoned due to an ongoing territory dispute with Ngāti Te Ata.

In August 1964, following maps and breadcrumbs, Muir and Locke finally discovered the mission site near Lakes Pehiakura and Pokorua, outside Kohekohe. Nearby, the ruins of a pā gave further evidence of a sustained Māori presence in the region. Luxton quickly spread word of the discovery to radio stations, newspapers, magazines, historical groups, and the Methodist Church. Locke, meanwhile, produced a radio documentary and wrote a fictional book about the mission.

Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections holds a small collection of material relating to this discovery, donated to Manukau City Libraries’ research centre by Luxton’s daughter, Ann. It includes photographs, several of Luxton’s publications with amendments and annotations, maps and research items, newspaper clippings, and radio transcripts. A finding aid for the collection can be found here: https://kura.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/digital/collection/manuscripts/id/40101.

If you are interested in exploring the C. T. J. Luxton collection or other archival collections held by Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, you can arrange a viewing here: https://www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/en/heritage-and-research/research-booking.html.

Image: Brian Muir, Pehiakura pā and mission site, 1964. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections Footprints 07154. https://kura.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/digital/collection/photos/id/39580.

26/08/2026

📖 Asked and Answered #20

Mahuru Māori is almost here, and as thousands of people across Aotearoa commit to speaking te reo Māori in their everyday lives, we've been thinking about one of the most powerful ways te reo lives on: in the names our tūpuna (ancestors) gave to the land.

We often get asked about Māori place names: what they mean, where they come from, and how to learn more about them. Every answer leads us to a whole new story.

Ingoa wāhi (place names) are not just labels on a map. They are stories compressed into a word or two, carrying the memory of ancestors, events, and the natural world that once defined a landscape. Waitematā, the harbour that glitters like obsidian, holds within its name a description so precise and beautiful that no English translation could ever quite do it justice.

This Mahuru (September), why not let the land be your teacher? Te Kohinga Matua (our specialist Māori collection) at Research Central is a wonderful place to start exploring the stories behind those names. Get in touch with our team, and we'd love to help you find what you're looking for. You can explore our catalogue here: https://bit.ly/3MUqTEP

Need help with research or accessing heritage collections? Submit an enquiry 👉 https://www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/en/heritage-and-research/research-services.html

Source: Māori Place Names: Their Meanings and Origins by A.W. Reed (revised by Peter Dowling), 2016.

Image: Tamaki-makau-rau, Map 9502, sourced from Kura: https://bit.ly/4gxMNL4

Mahuru Māori: https://bit.ly/3rs947D

24/08/2026

📑🗃️Manuscript Mondays No. 14

New Zealand is not particularly well known for its medieval manuscripts, and there’s good reason for that: the country is over 18,000 km from Europe. Nonetheless, when Europeans began to settle in Aotearoa, they brought with them mementos of the cultures they left behind. By the late 1800s, the Renaissance was well in the past and ideas about the Middle Ages had evolved into respect for the hand-drawn and decorated books produced in monasteries and workshops from the 6th through 16th centuries.

Sir George Grey, former Governor and Premier of New Zealand, and Henry Shaw, a renowned bibliophile, collected many medieval manuscripts, as well as dozens of late 15th century printed works (called incunabula). Perhaps unsurprisingly, most manuscripts are religious in nature and written in clerical Latin. In fact, three are Bibles, one is the New Testament, and another is a collection of the Gospels. In addition, quite a few are treatises on God or a specific aspect of Christianity, while others were used in religious services and ceremonies.

Not all the manuscripts were about religion, though. One Bohemian text is a Czech translation of Guido de Columna’s ‘History of the Destruction of Troy’ (Historia destructionis Troiae). Grey also acquired a French translation of Boethius’ 6th century poetic ‘The Consolation of Philosophy’ (De consolatione philosophiae). And highly influential to medieval scholars was Aristotle’s ‘Metaphysics, Physics, and Meteoris’, a Latin copy of which Grey also had.

Medieval manuscripts could also be beautiful artworks. Grey’s Book of Hours includes 25 miniature illustrations of scenes from the Bible, as well as beautifully drawn initials. Meanwhile, several medieval texts, such as an Antiphonary, are filled with sheet music intended for use by a liturgical choir.

Grey and Shaw donated their large collections of books, including their medieval manuscripts, to Auckland Public Library, where they now sit with Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections. In total, 29 medieval manuscripts are currently available on Kura Heritage Collections Online, spanning roughly 400 years from the early 1100s to the early 1500s. These can be browsed here: https://bit.ly/4xQj1bx.

If you are interested in exploring the medieval manuscripts or other collections held by Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, you can arrange a viewing here: https://www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/en/heritage-and-research/research-booking.html.

Image: Illustration of St George and the Dragon, from Grey’s Book of Hours, circa 1450-1475. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections MedMS-G146. https://kura.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/digital/collection/manuscripts/id/22726

18/08/2026

17/08/2026

📑🗃️Manuscript Mondays No. 13

James Kemp and his wife, Charlotte, arrived in the Bay of Islands in August 1819 as some of Aotearoa’s first permanent Pākehā settlers. They co-founded the second station of the Church Missionary Society at Kerikeri and quickly set to work converting Māori to Anglican Christianity. As guests of Hongi Hika and situated close to his pā, the Kemps experienced the Musket Wars, the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and the Flagstaff War firsthand. After years of mixed success, the station closed in 1848, but the couple remained in Kerikeri until Charlotte’s death in 1860. Afterwards, James moved to Auckland, where he died in 1872. Their home still survives as the oldest existing building in New Zealand, while the business they ran, known as the Stone Store, is still a major Kerikeri landmark.

In 1933, Charlotte Kemp, a granddaughter of the original Charlotte, donated to Auckland Public Library a box filled with writings from her grandfather’s time in Kerikeri. Part of the collection is composed of letters, reports, estimates, and other material composed by James Kemp from 1823 to 1846 covering his businesses interests and his activities on behalf of the Society. The other part is a diary he wrote between July 1823 and August 1834, with many gaps, recording his life in Kerikeri and some of his travels on behalf of the Society.

Faithful typescript transcriptions of this material were produced by librarians, probably in the 1950s, and bound in two red volumes, that have been digitised on Kura Heritage Collections Online and can be found here https://kura.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/digital/collection/manuscripts/id/44457 and here https://kura.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/digital/collection/manuscripts/id/44458. Alexander Turnbull Library holds an undigitised transcription of a different journal that includes many of the dates missing in Auckland Libraries’ copy, as well as additional correspondence for 1821 to 1826 (https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22915317), and a journal covering the years 1832 and 1848-1852 (https://natlib.govt.nz/records/23080331). Together, these journals and correspondence present a fascinating history of early Pākehā-Māori relations in Northland during especially turbulent years.

If you are interested in exploring the James Kemp Collection or other archival collections held by Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, you can arrange a viewing here: https://www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/en/heritage-and-research/research-booking.html.

Image: Stone Store and Kemp House, Kerikeri, circa 1910. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 4-06268 https://kura.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/digital/collection/photos/id/411543

12/08/2026

🔎 If you’re passionate about heritage, archives, history or collection-based research, this could be for you.

Applications are now open for the John Stacpoole Scholarship, offered publicly by the Auckland Library Heritage Trust to researchers, practitioners and professionals with a particular interest in items in Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections.

The scholarship provides a $6,750 grant, supervised access to the collections, and support from specialist staff to help bring your research to life.

Explore photographs, maps, rare books, manuscripts, Māori and Pacific heritage collections and more, and uncover stories that deepen our understanding of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland’s history and culture.

📆 Applications close 4 September 2026

🔗 Find out more and apply: https://bit.ly/4wmSvFm

📸 Image References:

August Hettig. Maopa Choir, Nuku'alofa, Tonga, 1956. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 1951-060-045.

Charlotte Smith. Poem in Charlotte Smith's Hand (Coleridge Letters), undated. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, GL-C42-04.

John Stacpoole. John Stacpoole, 1958. Photographed by Clifton Firth. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 34-0408.