The People Behind the Letters

Please join us for the first of a special members-only series for Friends of the Turnbull Library.

The 2025 ‘Letters Out Loud’ highlighted letters from a range of fascinating people, including devoted prison reformer and writer Blanche Baughan, famous guide and academic Maggie Papakura, American writer Mary Redmer, and English dancer and actress, Diana Gould Menuhin. Three of these women were writing to a man and one to a woman. In this lunchtime talk, Professor Emerita Barbara Brookes will discuss their backgrounds and how their letters survived to be placed in the Alexander Turnbull Library.

The Alexander Turnbull Library contains a treasure-trove of correspondence from people in all walks of life. In each of the cases to be discussed, the author’s letter was caught up in a correspondence with someone else, whose papers were deposited in the Turnbull. A single thread of their life remains preserved. From that thread, we can
often follow connections to their wider and fascinating worlds.

Blanche Baughan had a stellar academic career in London and came to New Zealand in 1900 where she received recognition as a writer and a poet. She increasingly turned her attention to society’s ‘misfits’ and worked toward a more humane prison system.

Maggie Papakura received a posthumous PhD from Oxford University in 2025. Of Pākehā and Māori descent, she was of Te Arawa and Tūhourangi iwi. At the time of writing her letter in 1907, she was a famous guide at Whakarewarewa.

Mary Redmer met Sutch brother and sister, Bill and Margaret, when working in London. Margaret was an educational psychologist The Sutch’s remained important to Mary throughout her life, although she never visited New Zealand.

Diana Gould Menuhin was a noted ballerina, said by Anna Pavlova to be the only English dancer ‘with soul’. On her marriage to Yehudi Menuhin, she devoted herself to his career, describing herself as ‘the stoker in the boiler room.’

About the Speaker

Barbara Brookes is Professor Emerita, University of Otago and President of the Friends of the Turnbull Library. Throughout her
academic career, she has been fascinated in the revelations historians find in private correspondence. She enjoys exploring the Turnbull’s collections and curating the letters to share with the public in the annual ‘Letters Out Loud’ events