Kate de Courcy attended a symposium held as part of the History Programme, Victoria University of Wellington/Te Whare Wananga o te Upoko o Te Ika a Maui, Friday 17 April 2009.
Donald McLean, (1820-1877) “administrator, runholder, politician, & provincial superintendent”, was a major figure in 19th century New Zealand history, extensively involved in different roles with Maori and land sales in the North Island.
For further information on his life see the Dictionary of New Zealand biography www.dnzb.govt.nz and the biography by Ray Fargher which appeared last year
The bulk of McLean’s personal papers are held at the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington. They are the single largest group of papers of a 19th century individual held there, and a major source for researchers.
The digitisation project
In 2008 a significant proportion (but not all) of the McLean papers were made available through a new website http://mp.natlib.govt.nz. The microfilms of the originals were digitized, transcripts where available were added and detailed indexing provided. In addition 1000 of the 3000 letters in Maori in the collection have been transcribed and translated as a new project. David Colquhoun and Elliott Young of the Alexander Turnbull Library presented a paper on the project at the LIANZA conference 2008.
The symposium, organized by Dr Charlotte Macdonald of the School of History at Vic brought together Turnbull library staff, the translators, McLean biographers Alan Ward and Ray Fargher, historians, Waitangi Tribunal researchers, and post-modernist historians, who mine the McLean papers for other aspects of 19th history eg attitudes to half-castes, mechanics of cultural transfer in the Scottish immigrant community.
The speakers spoke for 15 minutes each followed by questions and discussion.
Discussion was wide-ranging -- from the theoretical to the detailed -- McLean’s character, future areas of research in the archive, detailed chronology of the Waitara block episode, McLean’s role in land sales, the complexity and process of translating and transcribing the Maori letters, structure and searching of the McLean papers website, the risks of creating such a website, changes in the Maori language.
Researchers were all delighted to have the papers available and look forward to more. One person commented that now the papers are available on your own PC at home, you lose the sense of being part of a research community, all whirring through microfilms in a reading room together and meeting informally. There was a call for social space online connected to the papers. This would also be a vehicle for comments, feedback, corrections etc.
Sir George Grey. There are parallels which can be drawn between the McLean papers and Sir George Grey’s papers held in Special Collections at Central Library, in terms of the size and period of the 2 collections, research use, and translation and digitization potential. It was valuable to meet a group of principally Wellington-based researchers and to participate in the discussions.
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