‘On the influence of the scientific societies of New Zealand on the character of the nation’ - Collecting and identity at the Hawke’s Bay Philosophical Institute museum, 1874–1899

This paper explores the collection and collecting activity of the Hawke’s Bay Ph ilosophical Institute of Napier, New Zealand. It examines the development of the Institute’s museum and considers the motivations, intentions and interests of the collectors and their activity within the broader scientific and museum context. The work of two significant collectors is examined in detail: William Colenso, FLS, FRS, missionary, explorer and enthusiastic botanist, who engaged in over fifty years of correspondence and botanical exchange with Sir Joseph Hooker at Kew Gardens; and Augustus Hamilton, the curator of the museum who later became Director of New Zealand’s national collection at the Colonial Museum in Wellington. Through consideration of the Institute’s activities during the period 1874 to 1899, it is proposed that within the collection, the emergence of a distinct local identity can be discerned, during the early colonial period of Hawke’s Bay.