SOME NELSON HISTORY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 514, 29 April 1949, Page 17

SOME NELSON HISTORY

HISTORY OF THE NELSON INSTITUTE. C. B. Brereton. A. H. and A. W. Reed. Price 8/6, ABOARD the Whitby (350 tons regis-. ter) the Nelson colonists set up a committee to organise a literary and philosophical institute. It is true they didn’t know how long they would be before they sighted land again nor even in what part of New Zealand they would

eventually settle. This was in 1841, And now we have a history of the outcomeunfortunately rather dull when one considers the extraordinary ‘capacities and careers of the founders of the Institute. The Nelson Institute appears to have undergone much the same growing pains as have similar libraries and museums elsewhere. We read that, at the first meeting, "there ‘were too many present to decide details,’ but in 1941 "the annual meeting was again poorly attended" and "in 1947 there were insufficient nominations for a full committee." Nevertheless there were original developments also, For example, when the Savings Bank threatened (for the third time) to put in the bailiff the (continued on next page)

BOOK REVIEWS (Contd)

(continued from previous page) committee truculently invited them to do their worst. The bank replied by reducing the rate of interest! And who would not have been present at the early Institute dinners when all spirits were five shillings a gallon? Understandably, there is no index. It would have been composed largely of proper names. But surely careful revision should have unearthed such extraordinary statements as "happy eager faces queueing up for books, often stretching across'the room into the doorway." Nor is this the worst, or even

an isolated, example.

J.D.

McD.