Dunedin: Founding a New World City, by Ian Dougherty by Image supplied by author

Non-Fiction Special: Dunedin

The town that went on to become a UNESCO City of Literature in 2014 had somewhat humbler literary beginnings.

Dunedin author Ian Dougherty shares what he discovered while researching his recently-published book, Dunedin: Founding a New World City.

Dunedin slowly acquired various educational, cultural, social and sporting organisations and activities. Library services began on board the first two ships. Bibles, testaments, and a variety of religious and secular books for the adults, and schoolbooks and scripture lessons for the children, were distributed on board the John Wickliffe; and a free lending library operated on the Philip Laing. These and other donated books brought on the John Wickliffe and the Blundell formed the nucleus of the first public library, which started operating from the school/church building in June 1849. Most of the 1000 or so books were solid works of theology, biography and poetry. The lighter reading included novels by Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, and William Thackery, along with practical works on arts and sciences. The library also boasted a complete set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, a parting gift from the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, Adam Black, brought out on the Philip Laing. Thomas Burns spent several weeks numbering and cataloguing the library’s books and acted as the first librarian. The books were housed in their storage boxes stood end on end and furnished with shelves. They were available to readers at a subscription of one shilling and six pence a quarter. New members were signed up and books given out between six and seven o’clock on Saturday evenings. The boxes of books also formed a mobile library, with boxes each containing 50 books sent to outlying districts.

The Dunedin Mechanics Institute became a somewhat erratic cultural hub for the community. The Institute was established in 1851 to provide public lectures and classes on subjects such as philosophy, history, astronomy, geology, political economy, music and languages, and to hold regular fortnightly meetings for the mutual improvement of members through essay writing, reading and ‘conversational inquiry’. The occasional lectures delivered during the long winter evenings included one from Burns in October 1851, on the ‘Pleasures and advantages connected with the Pursuits of Literature and Science; or the Value of Intellectual Self-culture to the Working Man.’The Institute met in the school/church building until the Mechanics Institute building opened in January 1853. The building had two reading or class rooms, and a large room capable of accommodating 100 people. On 25 February 1853, Charles Jeffreys delivered the opening lecture on, ‘A remarkable lately discovered Experiment for establishing, by means of a pendulum, the fact of the Rotation of the earth about its Axis.’ The attendance was reported to be ‘numerous, many persons coming from a considerable distance to be present. Many were, however, unable to obtain admission.’

The Mechanics Institute’s popularity dwindled and its lectures lapsed, before experiencing a revival from the winter of 1857, when ‘a number of professional and other gentlemen’ delivered a course of 12 weekly philosophical, literary and scientific lectures in the larger venue of the church. Burns led off with a talk on the need to counter ‘the money worshipping propensity’ with ‘intellectual and moral culture’. Burns also delivered a lecture on the state of Europe; his fellow Presbyterian ministers, William Will on astronomy, and William Bannerman on mechanics institutes; John McGlashan on Christianity and civilisation; John Fenton on theology; William Lambert on printing; and William Purdie on the meaning of life (and the benefits of a clean skin). One of the organisers, James Barr, recalled that more than 300 of the 800 inhabitants of Dunedin and suburbs gave up ‘the snug and cozy corner by the fire-side’ each evening in exchange for ‘sitting in a dim, cold, dreary house’. A fair proportion of the audience was composed of ‘the gentler sex’, who had to plunge through the muddy streets to get there. ‘One family of very sensible maidens, I remember, rather astonished me by the style in which they arrived. Each was appropriately equipped for the darkness and the slush: garments tucked up, and Wellington or other kind of masculine boots drawn over their own. Each carried a long six or seven foot New Zealand Alpenstock, or colladie (the flower stalk of the flax) to feel their way with; while the younger one of the family headed the cavalcade with a lantern. Disentangled, and their extras left at the door, to resume on their return (a good mile from town), they listened to the predilections with comfort, and I have no doubt with profit.’ The Institute arranged similar lectures during subsequent winters. In 1859, the Mechanics Institute amalgamated with the Athenaeum to form the Dunedin Athenaeum and Mechanics Institution, which opened a building on the corner of Manse and High streets in 1861.