JOHN BEAGLEHOLE

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 5, Issue 1, 1 May 1972, Page 4

JOHN BEAGLEHOLE

R.1.M.8.

One of my earlier recollections of John Beaglehole concerns a party some time in February 1940 at; 6 Messines Road, Karori, when he and Elsie were hosts to John Grierson, Canadian Government Film Commissioner. A more recent memory fastens upon the occasion two weeks before his death when he presided over a small farewell party in the office of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust to the retiring ‘office boy’ aged 65. These two boundaries hint at the almost Renaissance span of his interests. But, even more, they call attention to the humanity that was so much a part of his personality and which always gave an extra lift to those affairs in which he had had a hand.

A distinguished film producer who had done exciting things with the G.P.O. Film Unit and had something new to say about the propaganda purposes of documentaries was certain to find plenty of kindred spirits at a Beaglehole party. There, especially in the 19305, were people who still dared to have hopes of a brave new world and where the uncertain could take comfort from being together. The menace of fascism was the only shadow and the statement on the title page of John’s poems, published in 1938, that the proceeds were to be used for Spanish medical aid bears witness to this sympathy with its victims. Other evenings in that house were given over to the enjoyment of chamber music and were to lead slowly but directly to the formation of the Wellington Chamber Music Society. Stanley Oliver and the Schola Cantorum were confirming John’s love for Bach and introducing others to the Passions and Masses. This was long before L.P. records had reached us.

This first party that I now recall was a jolly one with plenty of good talk and laughter. There was equal laughter at the final party and much of it John himself led. He could so easily have pleaded on that day that Cook demanded his attention (there had been too many interruptions already for his peace of mind), that most of the afternoon might be frittered away, that he did not feel too well, all would have been perfectly honest excuses. But he came to this little gathering because he could not bear to disappoint these admirable but diffident people who valued and loved him and who in fact were using this farewell to one of their members to say thank you to John for the privilege of having known him and for his acceptance of them as colleagues.

John came into the Centennial, later Historical, Branch of the Department of Internal Affairs mainly because of his interest in book production and, to a less extent, because he already had an official position, very much a personal one, and never repeated, as Research Adviser to the Alexander Turnbull Library. Because in those days the Department, of Internal Affairs controlled the Library and because the prescription

for his duties was wisely left somewhat imprecise he could move into any area of the Department where he was likely to be made welcome.

He was already using his talents, and a lot of his time, in persuading the New Zealand Council for Educational Research’s printers that the Council’s publications deserved the highest possible standards of presentation. He wanted something much more than the rather pedestrian attitude they had shown in earlier commissions and knew that if he were to get a whole-hearted commitment from the printers (nothing less would satisfy him) he would have to set the pace himself. His achievements as a friend of the Council, including the respect of the printers themselves, came only because of his infinite capacity for taking pains over the smallest detail and his willingness to experiment with others’ preferences. These experiments, amiably conducted, usually resulted in a confirmation of his own judgment. But this did not mean that he was too innocent to question the printers, sometimes even to scold them, for their practice of charging against the job any time they had spent in learning their true skills from him.

John was drawn to a Department that could discreetly use the excuse of the country’s Centennial for an ambitious programme of publishing, attracting to its staff such people as Eric McCormick, Oliver Duff, J. W. Davidson, John Pascoe and David Hall. John was later to recruit from his own students a clutch of officers equally lively but less deferential and, because it was early days for them, less distinguished. In Joe Heenan, the Permanent Head of the Department, he recognised this Branch’s point of origin, and thus in more or less spontaneous fashion there began a fruitful partnership that lasted until Sir Joseph Heenan retired. The only interruption was a public disputation over the choice and the method of Anderson Tyrer’s appointment to the newly formed N.B.S. orchestra, a rift skilfully healed by John’s use of Cromwell’s advice to the Scottish divines. Lesser men than Heenan could not have resisted this call for a return to good sense.

So John became Typographical Adviser to the Department and, simultaneously, the Research Adviser to the Alexander Turnbull Library was translated into the unofficial research consultant to the Centennial Branch. The first benefit, a lasting one, was the high standard of production in the Centennial Surveys and A Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. John had a high regard for 18th century typography and had always preferred unobtrusive simplicity. So he persuaded the printer to buy Aldine Bembo and Baskerville type-faces for these two jobs and now, thirty years later, both series are still a delight to handle. But whatever success they had owed more to the care with which the typographer meticulously planned the spacing and organised the lay-out than it did to the choice of font. Getting the Dictionary ready for the printer,

wrestling with an untidy and tattered manuscript, was a formidable task which he had to do all alone and only when his primary tasks at Victoria College allowed. Yet he was quite unruffled and always found the time to discuss the problems of others in the Branch. This was his hallmark—he was as interested in people as much as he was interested in good typography or the erudition of Erasmus. This same sympathy made it easy for him to persuade artists such as George Woods and Mervyn Taylor to accept commissions to illustrate later publications and even to draw new designs for the New Zealand coat of arms. It is one of the misfortunes of book production in this country that the Historical Atlas of New Zealand was never completed or published. Whatever other merits it might have had (and with John as its midwife and foster-parent these would have been substantial) it would undoubtedly have been an exciting publication. The exuberance with which he discussed possible end-papers, whether these should show the legends and monsters that mediaeval cartographers had loved or whether the tools of trade such as rose compasses, backstaffs and astrolabes would be better, gave a hint of the style and gusto of his thinking. But by that time Heenan had retired and the veterans of orthodoxy who succeeded him did not wholly share Heenan’s enthusiasm for this form of departmental endeavour.

While the war scattered the original staff in all directions, John held on to a small core of girls and with them produced Abel Janszoon Tasman & The Discovery of New Zealand (which included his own essay on Tasman) and Introduction to New Zealand. The latter, intended as publicity for Americans, when adorned by Mervyn Taylor and George Woods, and lit throughout by John’s editing, was a surprising production for those war-lean years. Other authors who had John’s assistance in seeing their manuscripts through the press at every stage were Apirana Ngata, Peter Buck, A. E. Plischke, G. L. Adkin, K. B. Cumberland, and R. S. Duff.

Authors can sometimes be clamorous and a few of them assume that to get their book on to the market one has only to push a master button and the presses will do the rest. They overlook the fact that printers just as much as liberty need the curb of eternal vigilance and that every page can reveal its own aberration. Thus a disciplined imperturbability, of which John seemed to have inexhaustible reserves, is helpful when dealing with some authors and with most printers. This same refusal to be hasseled was very necessary when proposals to establish a co-operative bookshop in Wellington unexpectedly triggered off a quite phrenetic attack from those who said they feared such a bookshop would become too precious. John, as one of the promoters, had to answer the shrilly expressed sneers that co-operative type readers

wanted saloons and not salons or listen to the suddenly revealed truth that cushions on the floor to support and comfort jaded workers were more important than the Golden Cockerel imprint. Though this cannonade came without notice and was planned by people who were thought of as literate and even civilised John’s good sense, supported by Walter Scott’s restraint, meant that the brawl remained one-sided. Its main result was to convince the very able manager that he would be wiser to have his own bookshop than share a cave with these strange Adullamites who seemed to hate books. John ignored this unfortunate beginning and for years continued to give time to the affairs of the bookshop.

He was even more prodigal with the time he gave to the Historic Places Trust. He recognised the significance of the Trust’s task and his generous spirit accepted the need for something more than an occasional participation in its affairs. As with all his personal covenants his commitment to the Trust had to be a full-blooded one. For instance, any time he visited U.K. or Australia he would make a point of calling on those with equivalent responsibilities or enthusiasms and so begin reassessing New Zealand’s preservation difficulties in the light of someone else’s experience. He was the last of the Trust’s foundation members and few are likely to rival his 16 years’ continuous membership.

His determination to take the Trust seriously was reinforced by his respect for, and understanding of, the long-serving chairman, Ormond Wilson. Their recognition of each other’s talents and mettle made for an easy and productive relationship. John’s membership of almost every committee of the Trust meant, for the staff at least, a series of exciting debates and a succession of opinions that tended to become its guide lines. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the Old St Paul’s Advisory Committee, especially when possible uses of the building were being explored. Of course, John came to these particular meetings with the mana that belongs to those who had often smelt the enemy’s powder and who though prepared each time to come home on their shields had returned alive and, in the end, triumphant. It will always be an interesting question whether the greatest individual contribution to the preservation of Old St Paul’s came from John’s refusal during 12 years of pleading to accept any form of compromise or from the practice of successive Government Architects of including the building in every draft plan of the Government Centre and so slowly creating an air of inevitability. Probably both pressure points had to be used to stop this ecclesiastical haemorrhage.

Other memories of the Trust come flooding in—the sedating effect of his interventions when feelings became prickly, his skill in redrafting resolutions to give coherence to an untidy and occasionally confused debate, the good humour with which he argued an absolutist and thus unpopular

cause (public servants with their training in compromise made up portion of the membership), his willingness to journey to any place in New Zealand where he thought he might be able to help and his refusal to allow lost or threatened travel connections to spoil the day, his patience when invited to prepare yet another paper or join yet another deputation, an anxiety not to overcommit others, and the comfortable silences. Though like the rest of us he preferred the company of lively minds he cared for many people, including the homely and not so lively. He cared also for the institutions in which he worked, and among those he cherished most was the Alexander Turnbull Library, as witness his Jubilee address. Because he saw clearly that the Library would gain from its legislative union with the National Library he came out strongly and publicly in favour of the union. His opinion commanded so much respect that its opponents either reconsidered or held their peace. It always amazed him when people were prepared to listen to his cautions. But these public handsels and any reactions they prompted were not the real essence of the man. This might be found and savoured in the more discreet acts, in the shyness with which he offered a book from his father’s library, the cheerful preambles on the phone before getting round to the business of the day, the invocations and the pastorals on postcards and presentation copies of his publications and, perhaps above all, in his courtesy to other men and women. His ‘little candle of experience’ continues to glow with a radiance all of its own.

It is, we think, appropriate to publish as an appendix to Mr Burnett’s commemorative note, the schedule of duties which Dr J. C. Beaglehole drew up himself at the time of his appointment as Research Adviser, for the approval, readily given, of the Under-Secretary for Internal Affairs, Mr ]. W. Heenan.

MEMORANDUM FOR THE UNDER SECRETARY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS ON THE DUTIES OF THE RESEARCH ADVISER TO THE TURNBULL LIBRARY. I think these duties, briefly stated, should be as follows: (1) To carry out historical research and to supervise the publication of material in the library as facilities may be provided by the Government. (2) To advise bona fide students on methods of research and to help them in their work wherever possible. (3) To advise the Under-Secretary, Department, Government, in cases where application may be made for financial help in carrying out research or publishing its results. (4) Generally to advise the Government on points of historical interest when such advice should be thought necessary.