These portraits are of eight of the 24 visionary men who established the Auckland Philosophical Society, the forerunner to the Auckland Museum Institute.
Frederick Whitaker was the Institute’s first president; Thomas Kirk, the Museum’s first curator; Thomas Gillies, the Institute’s first secretary; and Frederick Hutton, a member of the Institute’s council.
The group’s first meeting on 6 November 1867 marks the beginning of a desire to give the people of Auckland a fully fledged museum.