https://doi.org/10.32912/ram.2023.57.2

Abstract

In 2014, the Drier Collection of New Zealand molluscs, comprising 4,000–5,000 lots, was transferred from Museum of Vancouver to Auckland Museum. This shell collection is thought to have been assembled between 1926 and 1929 by Dr Ezra Newton Drier, who came to New Zealand in 1916 as the surgeon aboard a troop ship. He and his family settled in New Zealand until in early 1930 they embarked on a two-year world tour before returning permanently to Vancouver, Canada, where Dr Drier died in 1942. While in New Zealand, he met A.W.B. Powell, who started him on his shell collecting, and Drier is believed to have carried out most of his collecting between 1926 and 1931 in New Zealand and Australia. The collection is considered to be of high value to Auckland Museum because it will contribute additional baseline biodiversity data for the mid- to late-1920s, a period for which few dates are recorded in the Auckland Museum molluscan collections. Initially little was known of Dr Drier himself, but as part of further research to contextualise the mollusc collection, a picture of an energetic, perhaps driven man, has emerged from information held in online resources and the archives of Museum of Vancouver and Auckland Museum.

Download this Article

• 
• Dr Ezra Newton Drier (1871–1942) and his collection of New Zealand Mollusca
• In 2014, the Drier Collection of New Zealand molluscs, comprising 4,000–5,000 lots, was transferred from Museum of Vancouver to Auckland Museum. This shell collection is thought to have been assembled between 1926 and 1929 by Dr Ezra Newton Drier, who came to New Zealand in 1916 as the surgeon aboard a troop ship.
• Last updated on: 1 Aug 2023 | File Size: 2.9 MB

Citation

Blom, Wilma M. (2023). Dr Ezra Newton Drier (1871–1942) and his collection of New Zealand Mollusca https://doi.org/10.32912/ram.2023.57.2

Other titles in this issue

• The Auckland War Memorial Museum Collection of Stone Tools from Pitcairn Island, Southeast Polynesia  

  By Emma Ash and Louise Furey

  PP. 1-16

  Auckland Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira holds approximately 20,000 stone tools from Pitcairn Island. Acquired in the 1930s–1950s it is the largest museum-held collection of tools from the island.

  Read more
• Hochstetter's missing rocks - the Kirk to Haast letter, 1869

  By Hugh R. Grenfell

  PP. 31-40

  In 1859 Ferdinand Hochstetter (1829–1884) donated geological specimens from his work in the Auckland Province to the Auckland Museum. A short letter from Thomas Kirk to Julius Haast in 1869 inquiring about the specimens gives us a clear insight into the perilous state of the fledgling Auckland Museum 17 years after its formation in 1852 and 10 years after Hochstetter had left New Zealand.

  Read more