The British Parliamentary Papers (BPP) represent an important source of largely untapped information about New Zealand in the mid-nineteenth century. They comprise reports, correspondence and other documentation sent to the Government in Britain and cover all aspects of life and events in the colony at the time from the late 1830s to the 1870s.
• In the earlier part of this period, because there is no local collection of such documents, this makes the BPP crucial to researchers, historians and students examining Mäori history and European colonisation.
• By the 1850s, although the New Zealand Government had started to publish similar documents in their Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives (AJHRs), many reports continued to be sent directly to Britain and were not published locally.
• Few libraries in New Zealand carry copies of the original BPP and even fewer appear to hold a full set (perhaps only National Library in Wellington). Despite their immense usefulness as historical sources, as a result they tend to be little known and little used.
The Irish University Press (IUP) undertook a mammoth project back in the 1970s when they republished most of the British Colonial papers from the nineteenth century, including the items referred to here covering New Zealand. Some New Zealand libraries (including the University of Waikato) purchased these New Zealand volumes. However, researchers do not often consult the IUP reprint owing to the extraordinary difficult in using the source and finding material. For instance, IUP introduced secondary pagination while the index volumes do little to help the process.
Existing scope
The University of Waikato Library possesses 14 volumes with approximately 5,300 foolscap sized pages. It is probable that a few more volumes would need to be interloaned to complete the exercise (the exact number is being investigated).
Examples of what is included:
Despatches from Governor Sir George Grey
Maps e.g. Plan of the town of Auckland 1841
Comments
We think these are a significant collection of documents and would like to see access improved.
The British Parliamentary Papers are a valuable resource about early New Zealand history that is not well known and needs to be promoted. The New Zealand entries in the BPP were reprinted by the Irish University Press in several volumes concerning our early colonial history. Digitisation of these volumes would make them more accessible and available to researchers and the general public and open up a wealth of information about New Zealand’s foundation era.
This project will make available a rich source of information to professional historians, postgraduate student researchers, genealogists and iwi and hapu researchers. Having the full set of these papers will enable intensive long-run studies of historical change in early colonial New Zealand. These documents are vital to understanding who we are and how our country has developed over time.
This project is an important one for our New Zealand Collection and also fits in with our department of History’s efforts to create a new stream of learning for students around Digital Histories. We are very keen to see this happen as students and other library users will be able to access and utilise the materials for a large variety of research projects which will make it a unique digital collection.
Cathy Coleborne, Associate Professor in History
This material is of great value and importance to New Zealand historians and genealogists, and its digitisation will greatly facilitate both knowledge about the material and retrieval from it.
Tony Millett, North Shore City
A great collection of primary source material of outstanding interest and usefulness to 19th century research.