Journey of the Treaty of Waitangi

First New Zealand Day at Waitangi

The Waitangi Day Act 1960 declared that 6 February would be known as Waitangi Day in commemoration of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Prime Minister Norman Kirk in this article answers criticism at Tiriti O Waitangi marae on Waitangi Day 1974 for changing the name to ‘New Zealand Day’. It was the Waitangi Act of 1976 that reinstated the name Waitangi Day.

Dominion Museum

The Treaty documents that Thomas Hocken discovered in 1908 in the basement of Government Buildings in Wellington were water damaged and partially eaten by rats. In 1913 the documents were sent by Internal Affairs Department to the Dominion Museum in Wellington. It was here that staff began repair work by filling in the holes in the parchment sheets. However, this restoration work caused more damage!

Dr G H Scholefield

Dr G H Scholefield was a parliamentary librarian at the General Assembly from May 1926 to March 1948. He was also controller of the Dominion Archives in 1931 when the Hawkes Bay earthquake took place. He advised the Department of Internal Affairs that the founding documents should be stored well away from earthquake fault lines, such as those found in Wellington. His advice was ignored, and the documents remained for many years in the Government Buildings.

Pohaturoa Rock at Whakatane

This is Pōhaturoa rock in Whakatāne where Ngāti Awa gathers for a dawn ceremony every year on 16 June to celebrate the signing of the Bay of Plenty Sheet by 12 rangatira on 16 June 1840. The sheet was taken around the Bay of Plenty by trader James Fedarb on the schooner Mercury. Anglican missionary Robert Maunsell witnessed the signatures. Gifts of pipes, ditto boxes, looking glasses, tobacco and beads of slate were given out at the Whakatāne signing of the Treaty.

This is a portrait of Rev William Williams, the brother of Henry Williams, a senior Church Missionary Society missionary who translated the Treaty of Waitangi into Māori. William Williams was given the East Coast Treaty Sheet to obtain signatures of chiefs from the East Cape through to Ahuriri. He collected around 41 signatures. The CMS missionaries and the Wesleyans welcomed the Treaty of Waitangi and helped collect signatures for it.