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The Village Doctor

Nelson Bennett

Online Cenotaph Collection Technician

The Royal New Zealand Fencible Corps is often viewed as a blip in the history of New Zealand. The initiative, created in response to Governor George Grey’s call for more troops, was active for about ten years, from 1847-58. In this article we learn more about the experiences of one fencible Doctor John Thomas Watson Bacot.

25 Years of Online Cenotaph

Victoria Passau

Online Cenotaph and Enquiry Services Manager

Online Cenotaph has been commemorating the experiences of Aotearoa New Zealand’s military service for more than 25 years. Online Cenotaph is a collection of data relating to Aotearoa New Zealand’s operational military service including personal, biographical, demographic, social and military information. But it is much more than a collection of datapoints.

Sparrow Industrial Pictures

Helena Lunt

Sheldon Werner Summer Student

Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira houses and cares for a collection of approximately 50,000 Sparrow Industrial Pictures negatives. Donated to the Museum in 1982 by Commercial Photographers Ltd, these negatives depict images taken, predominantly in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, from 1945 to 1966.

Termite Nomenclature Outbreak at the Museum

Grace Yee

Collection Technician, IDEA Project

In the depths of the wet collection in the entomology department at Tāmaki Paenga Hira, a termite collection was recently rediscovered that had been given to the museum by John Mackgill Kelsey in March 1975. These have recently been catalogued by our IDEA project team.

"What is to be Auckland's War Memorial?"

Dr David Gamister

Tumu Whakarae Chief Executive

“Those who are acquainted with the working of the Museum are aware that it has arrived at a stage in its history when the growth of its collections has altogether overtaken the existing accommodation ... one conclusion remains:- to erect a new Museum for Auckland, planned on such a scale, and equipped in such a manner, that it may adequately serve for the recreation, instruction and intellectual advancement of the people of Auckland.”

Cataloguing Hawaiian Flora with International Cooperation

Frances Duff

Collection Technician, IDEA Project

Lucy Cranwell was Auckland Museum’s curator of Botany from 1929 to 1943. Along with her knowledge of botany, Cranwell was an expert in palynology (the study of fossil pollens) and from June and September 1938 participated in a Hawaiian Bog Survey.

Geoffrey Fairfield

Jessica Wagstaff

Collection Technician, IDEA Project

Frank Geoffrey Fairfield (23 March 1906 – 15 November 1995) was an engineer, author, local historian, and collector. He discovered his first Māori artefact in a swamp near Buckland’s Beach while fishing, and it triggered a lifelong passion for archaeology.

Shining a light on Fluroescent Fossils

Thomas Stolberger

Collection Technician, IDEA Project

The palaeontology collection at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum is home to approximately 23,000 fossil specimens from Aotearoa and abroad. This includes the bones of ancient sea monsters, ammonites the size of tractor tires, and tiny foraminifera no bigger than a grain of sand.

Beauty on the Inside: the Diaphonisation of Animal Specimens

Grace Yee

Collection Technician, IDEA Project

What do you think of when you think of the preservation of animals? Perhaps you imagine taxidermied animals, or the bleached white bones of an animal. Something that is often forgotten are the diaphonised specimens. Here Grace Yee shares more about the diaphonised shore skinks (Oligosoma smithi), at Tāmaki Paenga Hira.

Arthur Guyon Purchas and the Auckland Institute and Museum 1867 – 1906

Elizabeth Lorimer & Martin Collett

Documentary Heritage

The Reverend Dr Arthur Purchas was among the group of twenty-three forward-thinking Aucklanders who formed the Auckland Institute and set themselves the task of "promoting science and literature by means of a museum and library".

The Museum Newsletter: Recording the Redevelopment of an Icon

Ian Brown

Collection Technician (IDEA Project)

As part of the larger Improved Documentation and Enhanced Access (IDEA) project, I spent five-months enriching the records of these newsletters and had the opportunity to peer into a narrow window of the Museum’s history. Over the course of 27 years, and more than 11 design changes, I traced two museum directors as their individual legacies helped the Museum find its own identity.

Te Reo Māori Translation Project Evaluation

Victoria Passau and James Taylor

Collection Information and Access

In 2020, we were granted funding from Internet NZ to support the translation into te reo Māori of the user interfaces of our two flagship digital platforms, Online Cenotaph and Collections Online. The project’s goal was to broaden the accessibility of the Museum's online collections.

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