Natural History and Technological Collections

1. The following statement has been prepared at the invitation of the Standing Committee for presentation to the Half-yearly Meeting of the Council.

2. In the development of New Zealand museums during the past century, the interests of a colonizing population in a new and strange environment, which changed rapidly before their eyes, led, from the start, to a dominant attention to the natural features of the new land—the rocks, plants and animals—many of which required museum study for their classification and understanding. This situation still remains, and the chief activities and qualifications of staff in New Zealand Museums lie in the fields of Natural History, Zoology, Botany, Geology and Ethnology of the Maori.

3. Despite the persistent interest of New Zealand Museums in Natural History, they have had to take increasing responsibility in other fields and are at present repositories of many collections other than those of natural history.

4. As New Zealand developed in a period of rapid changes in every sphere of human interest, an historical sense has arisen, in which items recording the progressive story of European colonization, ways of life that preceded our present ones, have been increasingly valued by individuals who have retained and treasured objects that recall the past. These have been, and are being offered, in increasing numbers to museums for safe keeping, and so the collections of technological and historical specimens now accumulating are of an extremely wide variety.

5. Most old industries and all new ones can (and often do) offer machines, appliances and other equipment which illustrate the progressive evolution during the period of great change which runs contemporaneously with their history.

6. Two World Wars have been landmarks in our history, and their material relics and documentary records form a further major item in the category of technological collections illustrating critical episodes in the history of the nation's growth.

7. To some limited extent, special provision has been made for the housing and display of technological collections, generally at a local (provincial) level. Thus an old Colonists Museum was formerly active in Auckland, another is established at Dunedin, the Auckland War Memorial Museum has catered especially for World War collections and records, and a Nautical Museum has been maintained at Davenport (present status not known to the writers). Turnbull Library, a national institution, has specialised in documents, books and, to some extent, graphic records (photos, paintings) illustrating New Zealand history. There is or was a (private) automobile museum at Rotorua. Generally, however, the main museums have attempted to cope with a great deal of technological and historical material, in addition to the Natural History collections, that have been their chief responsibility and interest.

8. In other parts of the world, the situation outlined above also applies. It is just one hundred years since the British Museum in London separated off the Natural History Collections