Hocken : Prince of Collectors

Dr. Thomas Morland Hocken (1836-1910) arrived in Dunedin in 1862 at the age of 26. Throughout his busy life as a medical practitioner he amassed books, manuscripts, sketches, maps, and photographs of early New Zealand. Much of his initial collecting focused on the early discovery narratives of James Cook, the writings of Rev. Samuel Marsden and his contemporaries, Edward Gibbon Wakefield and the New Zealand Company, and Maori, especially in the south. He gifted his collection to the University of Otago in 1910. In this magnificent piece of research, Donald Kerr examines Hocken's collecting activities and his vital contribution to preserving the history of New Zealand's early postcontact period.