Friends of the Turnbull Library (FoTL)

The Friends of the Turnbull Library (FoTL) is a national organisation, supporting the work and activities of the Alexander Turnbull Library since 1939.

Titiro ki muri kia whakatika ā mua. Preserving the past to enlighten the future.

The Alexander Turnbull Library is a guardian of our heritage, a great research institution serving the general public and scholars in the fields of historical research, literary, cultural and genealogical studies. The Friends of the Turnbull Library promotes public interest in the Library’s collections and supports research and use of its collections.

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Our Next Speakers

 

Tuesday 29 April, at 5.30pm: Derek Leask, ‘Mapping the New Zealand Wars’

The New Zealand Wars were long and tortuous.  Māori knew the land and the waterways of Aotearoa and understood where they were going.  British and Colonial soldiers often did not, and drew maps to make up the deficit.  Those 19th-century maps are the backbone of Derek Leask’s ‘Atlas of the New Zealand Wars’, offering for 21st-century readers a new narrative of the wars and defining the pathways through them.  Other plans described the defenses built by Māori and Pākehā engineers and the actions that took place around them.

The Atlas draws on the Turnbull cartography collection.

Derek Leask will introduce his Atlas and talk about his passion for the maps and plans of the New Zealand Wars, many of them found in off-shore archives and libraries, and his hopes that the Atlas will help to make them accessible to New Zealanders.

Derek has been an enthusiastic patron at the Turnbull Library and at Archives New Zealand for over 35 years.  His long foreign service career was capped by a five-year posting as New Zealand’s High Commissioner in London (with accreditation to The National Archives at Kew on Saturdays).

 

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Add this event to your calendar

Can’t make it in person?
This event will also be available online using Zoom. You do not need to install the software to attend, you can opt to run Zoom from your browser.
Register here if you’d like to join this talk and you’ll get a link to use on the day.