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 discussed his Atlas and spoke 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).