Massey Documents by Type

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/294

Browse

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 37

Littledene’s Dominion : re-imagining Crawford and Gwen Somerset’s Oxford experiment : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History, Massey University, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2025) Brown, Julie Voila
Crawford Somerset’s attractively written Littledene emerged from a distinct social experiment in rural community education during the interwar years. An early study of its kind in New Zealand, the location in Oxford, North Canterbury, remained undisclosed at the time, hence the pseudonym Littledene. Crawford’s overall interpretation of the Oxford community is illuminated within his intellectual network which included his wife and educational collaborator Gwendolen Alley, academic supervisor James Shelley, and research associate Clarence Beeby. Influenced by ongoing debates in education and its place in social development, the group shared similar aspirations for education reform. As teachers at Oxford School Crawford and Gwen illustrated a sense of social dislocation from urban New Zealand and its greater society. Perceiving the Oxford farming community as detached from intellectual and cultural life, they creatively experimented with new ideas in community education. The Oxford experiment included an environmental approach shaped by the respective value Crawford and Gwen placed on fostering a sense of belonging within the Canterbury landscape. As a sophisticated blueprint demonstrating their ideas for wider social change, Littledene appears as a symbolic portrayal of the Oxford community. This thesis will demonstrate how far the Somerset’s projection of Oxford was influenced by a palimpsest of ideas introduced to them via the movement of intellectuals between Europe and the Dominion during the early twentieth century. Alongside archival sources, this critique draws on autobiographical material from Victoria University and audio-visual material from Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision archive. The sources offer an understanding of the local and international forces that shaped Crawford and Gwen’s intellectual histories from childhood. Importantly, the sources provide a vista of the intellectual culture that informed the Oxford experiment as the product of a rich intellectual history within the context of interwar studies in New Zealand.
The Albertlanders : the making and remaking of a New Zealand provincial immigration scheme : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History at Massey University, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2025-09-26) Wheeler, Read
This thesis examines immigrants who joined the Albertland Special Settlement Scheme, which was established in 1861 by the Auckland Provincial Government to bring a group of Christian non-conformists from Britain to the Kaipara. The scheme was one of several special settlements which provided the opportunity for religious or ethnic settlements to be established in New Zealand. They were an attempt by the provincial governments to boost migration to the colony and to settle outlying areas. Some of these have been previously studied, such as the Scottish settlement at Waipū and the Bohemian settlement at Pūhoi. These studies have focused on the correspondence and journals of the migrants to build a sense of these settlements and how their traditions changed or were abandoned. Other community research involved large demographic studies with observation focused on the development of the townships rather than the lives of those who stayed there. This study also focuses on the lives and experiences of the migrants, but it augments archival records with new digitally available resources, such as genealogical websites, to explore the long histories of these immigrants’ lives from their place of origin, until 1962, when descendants of the settlers assembled to celebrate a century since their arrival. The advent of the internet and the widespread digitisation of archives and secondary sources has provided unprecedented access to new primary sources and better ways of accessing and managing existing sources. This thesis draws on these new methodologies. The Albertland settlement has been assessed by general histories and dedicated works as a failure. This thesis argues while the northern Kaipara did not attract or retain the vast majority of the Albertland migrants, those who did settle were able to recreate something of the non-conformist communities they hoped for, despite the limitations of geography, poor agricultural potential and isolation. This was a major achievement. A good proportion of migrants who never even went to Albertland, or who stayed but briefly, also did well in the new colony through business ventures and community standing. The thesis explores several phases of the scheme’s history. The first stage, the making of the Albertland scheme, occurred though the joining of like-minded individuals prior to departure. In the second phase, the migrants faced the challenges of the voyage out and the dramatic difference between what was expected and the isolated, surveyed and difficult country they found on their arrival. Many chose not to go on. The hope of establishing a non conformist community, the joining together of those with different religious beliefs, was shattered by the dispersal and fracturing of the scheme into separate communities, isolated from each other. Those remaining in or shifting to Auckland often did very well. Three thousand prospective settlers registered for the Albertland scheme, just over 2,500 of these voyaged to New Zealand. The Albertlanders came from more diverse backgrounds than previously thought and yet they began forming communal bonds as soon as their voyages to New Zealand began. However, from this group only 300 journeyed to the settlement and after five years only 150 remained. This represents only five percent of the prospective settlers. Nonetheless, strong non-conformist foundations were maintained, and community feeling was strengthened, not weakened, through responses to challenges such as land speculation, crime, and civil administration. Around 2,000 of the settlers remained in Auckland and influenced the development of the city and some even the colony. However, while separated from their compatriots on the Kaipara they were still referred to as the Auckland Albertlanders. Those who stayed on the Kaipara and those who remained in Auckland reunified the scheme in nostalgia, forging in memory the cohesion and stability that saw the settlers and their descendants maintain a common identity through anniversary celebrations and remembrances. Success had different meanings throughout Albertland’s history. For the founders of the scheme, success was the establishment of a large, independent, non-conformist settlement with a centralised leadership. For the original settlers, success meant remaining on the land and establishing a functional community. Those who left Albertland for elsewhere or had remained in Auckland found success meant establishing businesses and engraining themselves into the already established communities they moved to. The descendants of the Albertlanders found success in regaining a connection and reclaiming the vision of the founders, tempered through the hardship of those who settled on the land. Ignoring the extent to which the community had been dispersed across the Kaipara, and throughout the country.
'Te rua o te taniwha' : pākehā settlement of the Ruataniwha plains : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History at Massey University, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2025) Gordon, Laurence James
Historians have generally characterised the Pākehā settlement of Hawke’s Bay as a socially stratified frontier where men of capital controlled both the rural and fledgling urban spaces. A space where owners of extensive pastoral runs taken up in the late 1850s and early 1860s dominated, both politically and socially. Development of rural communities and settlements has also been characterised as being male dominated, due to both the nature of the rural labour force and to the paternalistic hand of wealthy runholders. Based on a database of 769 individuals and utilising archival research, including contemporary newspapers and genealogical sources, this thesis investigates the ‘settler world’ on the Ruataniwha Plains. After the initial sale of land, Māori continued to engage with settlers and government seeking to advance the interests of hapū, fighting alongside government forces during the New Zealand Wars. Pākehā settling on the plains arrived with their own cultural and economic agenda and lived largely separate lives from their Māori neighbours. Government regionally and nationally, prioritised immigration and distributed land to cement control of the lower North Island. Farmers, labourers, businesspeople, men and women then established themselves and their families in an isolated rural environment. Initially, social supports were fragile, and some individuals fell through the cracks. In this context, families became the key social unit and are the research focus of this study. Family relationships could also be fragile. Relationship and health problems left women particularly vulnerable. Tracing the lives of women both within and outside the context of the family unit is a further focus of inquiry for this thesis. Community life on the plains was fluid, dynamic and complex. The ‘settler’ community allowed for an openness, particularly in relation to status, compared to the standard social pattern of the age, where relationships and conventions were more fixed. ‘Settler’ society was often profoundly unsettled, giving greater room for ‘ordinary’ immigrants to have an impact in community life that was larger than their status would imply. Community life was rich, varied and not always polite and comfortable. This study seeks to determine how ‘ordinary’ individuals and families found ways, within the dynamism of the local context, to build social links and develop community institutions.
Coal miners and farmers : a social history of the Te Akatea rural farming settlement and its ‘Scots’ mining village of Glen Massey, 1900-1945 : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History, Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2024) Stone, Douglas
This thesis examines the early 20th century development of Glen Massey within the late 19th century settlement of Te Akatea The more financially secure settlers in the isolated and topologically challenging settlement of Te Akatea, west of Ngāruawāhia were farmer entrepreneurs who viewed themselves as a leading ‘class’ by virtue of their imperial military service and the amount of land they had accrued and cleared. They not only sought to exploit the coal resources on their land, but were significant movers in the creation of commercial entities and infrastructure to do so. These efforts led to the opening of the Waipā mine and its private railway to Ngāruawāhia and the construction of the mining village of Glen Massey and an influx of mining immigrants, predominantly highly unionized Northern English in 1914. On the face of it, these immigrants represented a direct threat to the conservative social values that had hitherto obtained in Te Akatea, although in fact, miners shared the farmer ethos of ‘getting on’ by dint of hard work. The new village was effectively run by a loose cabal of company, union and church laymen. The coincidence of the start of the village and the outbreak of World War One induced issues around conscription and sedition which also incidentally flagged the ongoing issue of how media controlled the narrative of Glen Massey’s story at various stages. The construction of sport and leisure facilities and subsequent participation manifests both traditional mining, farming and gender cultures and some seminal indications of cultural shift. There were struggles for the provision of adequate housing, health and secondary education in the context of both a steadily declining mine output, shorter hours and lower wages towards the end of the 1920s. The Wilton Mine, which opened after the closure of the Waipā mine, did not really live up to employment and wage-paying expectations for the next decade. In the context of falling demand and reduced hours caused by the Depression, Glen Massey was torn by contending forces of the broader national agenda of the mining union agenda and local imperatives, particularly around home ownership. They finally opted for the latter, which entailed an enormous cost in terms of wider mining bonds. This had a complementary, if not causative disintegrating impact on the activity of the Church congregations, in particular the Methodist Church. Local economic hardship provided an opportunity for the farming community to reassert a degree of control after fifteen years of relative insularity through various, ostensibly unrelated events: a School Committee coup; discontinuance of the highly successful school Soccer team in favour of Rugby Union and a serious attempt to establish an adult Rugby Union team. Strategic withdrawal into an ‘invented past’ with Glen Massey being retroactively constructed as a ‘Scots Village’ was one avenue explored to counter the perceived threat to traditional social patterns. The breaking of the traditional ‘ties that bind’ also stimulated a search for alternative agents of social change within the community as a whole. However, there is evidence that for at least a significant segment of the farming community, local society continued to be constructed around a ‘class’ mindset which posited themselves at the apex and miners at the base.
"What is it we are going to remember?”: comparing New Zealand's centennial narratives of World War One : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2024) McLean, Jessica Anne
The centenary of World War One (WWI) was a significant cultural event in New Zealand. During the period 2014-2019, a great deal of material was produced that aimed to ‘remember’ the war and the New Zealanders who were involved. The centenary of the landing at Gallipoli in April 2015 was by far the most dominant event of the period, and with it came familiar national and cultural identity narratives about the Anzac diggers and the birth of modern New Zealand. This thesis interrogates these and other narratives of the commemorations and assesses whether mythic cultural understandings of WWI were challenged by the centennial historiographies, or whether the period reinforced established beliefs about New Zealand’s war experience. Five narrative themes are investigated: the New Zealand soldier, mateship and relationships, depictions of suffering and sacrifice, the creation of personal connections, and the depictions of Māori and women. This thesis examines these themes across two bodies of material: the ‘print histories’ and the ‘non-poppy material’.
The politics of contemporary collecting in Aotearoa New Zealand : examining shifts in museum policies and practices from the 1981 Springbok tour to COVID-19 : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Museum Studies at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University, Te Papa-i-Oea Palmerston North, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2024) Claasen, April Charlotte Jane
Museums are more than repositories of material culture; they are active participants in shaping collective memory and negotiating societal norms. This thesis examines the evolving collecting practices of New Zealand museums during two pivotal national events: the 1981 Springbok Tour and the COVID-19 pandemic. Through these case studies, it explores how museums navigate power dynamics, ethical challenges, and community expectations in their curatorial decisions. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concepts of cultural capital and habitus, and Foucault’s theories of power, governmentality, and surveillance, this research interrogates the tensions between institutional authority and community engagement. The analysis traces a shift from reactive approaches during the Springbok Tour, shaped by dominant political pressures, to the proactive, community-focused collecting strategies employed during the COVID-19 pandemic. This shift highlights an ongoing negotiation between preserving institutional priorities and representing diverse societal voices. Using a mixed-methods approach—including interviews, archival research, and survey data— this thesis argues that curatorial decisions are never neutral but are shaped by institutional frameworks and the politics of memory. It advocates for reflexive and collaborative collecting practices that decentralise dominant narratives, fostering inclusivity and equity in documenting Aotearoa’s histories. Ultimately, this study situates museum collecting within the broader dynamics of power, responsibility, and ethics, offering insights into how museums can engage meaningfully with their communities while responding to the complexities of contemporary society.
Ringleaders in mischief : a study of one Māori whānau in New Zealand child welfare case records, 1926-1948 : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science (Psychology) at School of Psychology, Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2024) Austin-Collins, Summar
The causes of Māori over-representation in state care have been connected to enduring symbolic and structural violence and can be linked to processes of colonisation. Recent survivor testimony has highlighted the need to critically examine the way welfare service providers understand and engage with service users. However, limited opportunities exist to examine the historical roots and impacts of violence on Māori in their engagement with the foundational child welfare agencies of the settler society. This research seeks to address this gap, by documenting an exemplar of the relationship between four Māori siblings - who were rendered wards of the state - and the Child Welfare Branch of the Education Department between the years 1926 to 1948. The inquiry applies a narrative analytical framework to examine the way power was expressed and contested within the case file records of these siblings. The analysis identified several broad themes in the representation of power. These related to the construction of the state’s actions as heroic, and the behaviours and identities of the Cole whānau as threatening. The goal of state intervention was assimilation, and success was measured against a set of assumptions of good citizenship, which limited the siblings’ capacity to thrive. The research theorises that stigmatising narratives take on the guise of truth, and these create the context for the state’s engagement with whānau. Creating a more empowering social context requires targeting the narrative social field as well as the legitimating political structures. Limitations of the research are discussed, and recommendations made that link historical antecedents to the current welfare environment.
New Zealand's 'Incorrigibles' : tackling the vices of the socially problematic, 1870-1930 : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2024-10-04) Blondell, Delwyn
Some of those on the edge of New Zealand society have been labelled 'incorrigible'. Examining their experiences offers a way of understanding the lives of poorer people during the period of major social change between the 1870s and the 1930s. This period saw the State expand its scope in response to social clamours, moral panics, and newfound responsibilities. As a result, it was thrust into the position of not only governing, but also of exploring social problems; that is, regulating them or providing some form of institutional response. This required a balance between accommodating some elements of the problem and controlling the unacceptable extremes. For the most part, attempts to deal with the incorrigible were attempts to deal with the ‘undeserving poor’, and looking at those labelled incorrigible shows considerable overlaps with generalisations made about that group. Despite being identified as the cause of social problems, the undeserving have largely been excluded from established narratives, or recognised by historians mainly for the ways in which they allegedly undermined social morality. This thesis shifts the focus by centring five groups associated with unrespectable behaviours. Prostitution in New Zealand saw older common prostitutes convicted as incorrigible rogues. Among railway labourers, an unexpected number of informal and bigamous marriages leads to questions about a working-class subculture with values different from those of the majority. The actions and motives of women who provided a home for unwanted children were distrusted when the baby-farming label was used to generate moral panic. Difficult reformatory girls housed at Te Oranga Home, the national girl’s reformatory, were supposed to be turned into useful domestic servants, but those who resisted reform were termed incorrigible. 'Mental defectives' were the subject of a Committee of Enquiry report in 1925 as interest in eugenics led to a particular focus on hereditary in degeneracy. The families used as case studies demonstrate how readily these ideas were accepted and imposed on the New Zealand context. The approach taken primarily focuses on the people themselves, with evidence about their lives gathered using genealogical tools and practices. State efforts to control social behaviours were often mitigated by the desire for the transformation of those behaviours into more acceptable forms, with recognition of a lack of capacity to address the contributing factors. New Zealand society and the State tolerated informal marriages due to unwillingness to accept divorce, it allowed troublesome older women to be labelled common prostitutes, it tolerated baby-farmers as they provided necessary foster-care, and it provided institutions to care for young women rather than provide support for families. As society developed ways of dealing with social problems, it seems to have been accepted that eradication was not possible, nor was it necessarily desirable. There was often a practical underlying reason, a real issue that the behaviour addressed, and social labels served a useful purpose, enabling a degree of community policing and control of the objectionable. Investigating groups of 'incorrigibles' deepens our knowledge of how society attempted to control those it feared. In addition, this thesis also shows how people dealt with being labelled. The perceived problem was often symptomatic of other less obvious tensions and expectations. In fact, the 'misfit' was part of the community, and their behaviours show the strength of middle-class norms, despite the obstacles the underserving encountered.
Propaganda, profit, and remembrance : the role of postage and Cinderella stamps of New Zealand and Australia relating to the First World War : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2023-12-06) Dawson, Kenneth
The representation and interpretation of the events of the First World War and its aftermath through Cinderella stamps, and definitive and commemorative postage stamps, offer an alternative approach to the study of First World War history. This thesis examines the role of such stamps from the perspective of New Zealand and Australia during the period 1914-2018. By studying these historic documents, as primary source material, much can be learned about fund raising for the war, the developing patterns of war remembrance and the post-war changes in the self-image of both countries. The specific approach adopted in this study was to pose three research questions in order to gain insight into the role of the various forms of stamps in providing direct information about matters relevant to or resulting from the First World War. Specifically addressed was the use of stamps for fundraising and propaganda purposes. A further question inquired as to whether postage stamps and Cinderella stamps play a part in war remembrance and especially at the time of the First World War Centenary between 2014 and 2018. Thirdly, did stamps reflected any changes in self-image and self-identity in the two countries over the one-hundred-year period from the onset of the war. The methodology employed involved a wide search for all the relevant postage and Cinderella stamps issued over the last one hundred years in New Zealand and Australia, and any Cinderella stamps that were known to have circulated in both countries during the study period. In addition, archival studies were carried out in both countries for material linking postage and Cinderella stamps to the First World War. Further investigations related to the origins and rationale for the release of the identified stamps. Cinderella stamps played an important role in the raising of funds for soldiers’ welfare during the First World War. New Zealand used postage stamps as a means of raising funds for the war effort, while Australia simply raised postal rates overall as a war tax. Cinderella stamps also played a role in the dissemination of propaganda, more so in Australia than New Zealand. Postage and Cinderella stamps can reflect societal change and have mirrored the developing self-images of New Zealand and Australia. Remembrance of the war by commemorative stamps was limited during the first seventy-five years following the war. Prior to and during the centenary of the First World War, there was a massive output of stamps directed at recalling the effects of the war on both societies and remembrance of the fallen.
Forgotten cornerstone : a history of Coleman Place in Palmerston North from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History at Massey University
(Massey University, 2023) Heaphy, Isaac
New Zealand histories have typically referred to the idea of place in passing, with scholarly examinations featuring and interrogating place less frequently. This thesis examines the development of Coleman Place, a place within Palmerston North’s city centre (adjacent to The Square), that has received little attention within the wider history of its surroundings. Originally government reserve land, Coleman Place emerged organically as a thoroughfare and developed into a commercial space between several streets, part of the developing regional centre in the late nineteenth century. Its name became attached to an early figure in Palmerston North, Sylvester Coleman, who it can be argued was typical of European settlers during this period who came to New Zealand in order to improve their economic and social standing. Despite Coleman’s contributions to Palmerston North in public and private capacities, his historic memory faded quickly after his death in 1881 while Coleman Place developed into a mixed space of commercial and public use. While public use of the space disappeared shortly into the twentieth century, with Coleman Place solidifying into a place of commercial and retail use, the space was also significant in serving for a time as a gathering place in town. Later in the century, Coleman Place became the focus of placemaking within two redevelopments. The first, in 1973, took the form of a pedestrian mall after groups and individuals discussed how it could balance its commercial use while fitting into modernisation of the wider city. Redevelopment was undertaken by the Palmerston North City Council with the expectation to further develop the area, however conditions and priorities did not result in significant changes until 1996 when the city’s main library shifted nearby. Though part of a wider project to create a cultural precinct on The Square’s north western area, this second redevelopment inadvertently reconnected Coleman Place with elements of its past, despite being unrecognisable from its original state. In its present form, having reopened with through traffic from The Square to George Street, it has retained its commercial and retail usage while becoming again linked to public use, housing the library’s Youth Space and becoming used again as a gathering place for various events. Overall, this thesis’ focus on a specific history of Coleman Place offers insights into how places, specifically urban developments, more broadly may be understood. Additionally, it also adds to the historical knowledge of Palmerston North.

Massey Documents by Type

Browse

Filters

Settings

Sort By

Results per page

Search Results