Oliver Tiai
Oliver Tiai, Postgraduate student
Funding practices in the CCCS
A narrative of missionary enterprises in the South Sea islands : with remarks upon the natural history of the islands, origin, languages, traditions, and usages of the inhabitants / by John Williams, of the London Missionary Society …(London : John Snow, 1840). [Also other editions].
Description: 34th thousand [cheap ed.] ix, [1], 154 p. : ill., map, port. ; 23 cm.
“My interest in John Williams’ book arises from the fact that he introduced Samoa to Christianity. My research focus is the Congregational Christian Church of Samoa and the financial problems that its funding practices have caused for church members, so I had to explore the original practices – from the beginning in the days of the Missionary Society 1795, and then when the name changed to the London Missionary Society, under which John Williams’ missionary work in the Pacific operated.”
Matthew Tonks
Matthew Tonks, Postgraduate student
Mourning & Memorialising
Michael Joseph Savage
Publisher: [Wellington : New Zealand Labour Party, 1940]
Description: [16] p. : ill. ; 30 cm.
“In 1940 New Zealand’s most beloved Prime Minister, Michael Joseph Savage, died in the peak of his political popularity after a battle with cancer. As a leader who instituted the ‘cradle to the grave’ social security system, Savage’s death sparked the most emotional farewell to any political figure in New Zealand’s history. The ways in which he was mourned and memorialised is the subject of my dissertation. This biographical booklet, dedicated to Savage’s memory and sold to raise funds for his national monument on Bastion Point, conveys the sentimentality that characterised the nation’s grief at this time.”
- Paul Diamond
Paul Diamond, Freelance historian
Esperanto in New Zealand
A history of the introduction and spread of the international, auxiliary language, Esperanto, in New Zealand (during the period 1904-1963) / compiled by Wm. H. King.
Publisher: Wellington : NZ Esperanto Association, 1973.
Description: 332 p. ; 27 cm. Limited ed. of 100 copies.
“Acknowledgements and references”: p. 5
“In 1920 Charles Mackay, the disgraced mayor of Wanganui began serving a 15-year prison sentence for attempting to murder D’Arcy Cresswell. While in prison, Mackay wrote articles and letters in Esperanto, the universal language constructed by L.L. Zamenhof in the late 1870s and early 1880s. Mackay also taught Esperanto to other prisoners. King’s history of Esperanto in New Zealand helped me understand how widespread the language was in the 1920s, revealing an area of hidden history ripe for further study.”