Member Profile

First Name

Stephen

Surname

Hamilton

PHANZA Joining Date

2009

Region

Waikato

Specialities

Biography, social and cultural history, local history and the history of settlement

About Me

I am a freelance historian, archivist and academic editor working in Hamilton. I am a Research Associate with the History Programme of the University of Waikato (see www.waikato.ac.nz/wfass/subjects/history/people/research-associates/). My PhD from the University of Auckland was a literary historical and bibliographical study of New Zealand's popular and literary magazines published from the 1920s to the 1960s (see http://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/handle/2292/1146).

My more recent publications range in subject matter from local history to literary biography, from archival practice to an annual bibliographical survey for the Journal of Commonwealth Literature. As an editor I have worked with several major New Zealand publishers on academic works ranging in subject matter from anthropology to history. I also work directly with non-fiction authors to bring their mss to publication standard.

I am able to undertake large and small commissions, from book length studies to essays and articles for academic and mainstream publications, and the editing of non-fiction works, from individual essays to collections and monographs.

In my private capacity, I am writing a biography of William Rysdale, a Waikato military settler whose letters home to his family in England cover the period 1860 to 1890. As an archivist, I am advising a local school on the preservation of its archive following its 125th anniversary, and working as a volunteer archivist with the Community Archive of the Hamilton Central Library. My current project with the Archive involves arranging & describing the papers of William Owen.

I am Chairperson of the Riverlea Environment Society (www.resi.org.nz), founded in 2007 to care for our local Waikato River environment. I am married to a senior academic historian and we have two schoolage children.

Publications and Research

Books

A Radical Tradition: A History of the Victoria University of Wellington Students' Association 1899-1999 (Wellington: VUWSA & Steele Roberts, 2002).

Contributions to edited works:

Seventy-five entries on New Zealand literary magazines in The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, eds Roger Robinson & Nelson Wattie (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2002).

“Recognition, and rewards for success”, in Keith Maslen, Ross Harvey and Penny Griffith (Eds), Book & Print in New Zealand: A Guide to Print Culture in Aotearoa, Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1997, pp. 227-233.

Articles in peer-reviewed journals:

“Charles Orwell Brasch (1909-1973)”, in Mark Williams, Jane Stafford and Paul Millar (Eds), Kōtare 2009, Special Issue —Essays in New Zealand Literary Biography Series Two: ‘Early Male Prose Writers’, Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington, 2009.

“A.R.D. Fairburn (1904-1957)”, in Mark Williams, Jane Stafford and Paul Millar (Eds), Kōtare 2009, Special Issue —Essays in New Zealand Literary Biography Series Two: ‘Early Male Prose Writers’, Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington, 2009.

“Montague Harry Holcroft, 1902–1993”, in Mark Williams, Jane Stafford and Paul Millar (Eds), Kōtare 2008, Special Issue —Essays in New Zealand Literary Biography Series Two: ‘Early Male Prose Writers’, Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington, 2008.

“New Zealand [annual bibliography of literary works]”, Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Vol. 43, no. 4 (December 2008), pp.143-158.

“New Zealand [annual bibliography of literary works]”, Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Vol. 42, no. 4 (December 2007), pp.127-143.

“New Zealand [annual bibliography of literary works]”, Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Vol. 41, no. 4 (December 2006), pp. 141-159.

“New Zealand [annual bibliography of literary works]”, Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Vol. 40, no. 4 (December 2005), pp 157-171.

“New Zealand and the South Pacific [annual bibliography of literary works]”, Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Vol. 39, no. 4 (December 2004), pp. 97-112.

“Censorship, Subversion and Short Fiction in 1940”, Kōtare: New Zealand Notes & Queries, May 2000, pp. 22-27.

“’A snook cocked at totalitarianism': Ian Gordon & New Zealand New Writing”, Journal of New Zealand Literature, 1999, pp. 47-70.

“A bibliographical description and nominal index to The Phoenix, Auckland University College, 1932–1933”, in Kōtare: New Zealand Notes & Queries, May 1999. pp. 35-45.

Articles and reports:

“Woodlands Estate: A Scoping Study Towards a History of the Estate”, Gordonton: Gordonton Woodlands Trust (April, 2010).

“Thames Coromandel District Council: Draft Heritage Review Report: Theme 1: The Arts; Theme 2: Sport & Leisure; Theme 3: Invention & Discovery; Theme 4: Building Communities; Theme 5: Mind & Body”, for Heritage Consultancy Services Ltd (Hamilton, 2009) http://www.tcdc.govt.nz/Consultation/Draft-Heritage-Review-Report/.

“William Thomas Owen: Chymist of Abingdon and Wanganui”, Historical Review: Bay of Plenty Journal of History, Vol. 57, no. 2 (November 2009), pp. 59-65.

“Gallopers and Guano: Rescuing the Archive of the Wellington Racing Club”, Archifacts, Wellington: Archives & Records Association of New Zealand, 2009, pp. 101-112.

“‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ William and Alford Rysdale: A Glimpse into the lives of two military settlers in the Waikato, 1861-1893’, Historical Review: Bay of Plenty Journal of History Vol. 57, no. 1 (May 2009), pp. 29-35.

“Featured Institution: The Hamilton City Archive”, New Zealand Historical Association Newsletter December 2008, pp. 26-30.

“Looking after a community’s memory”, Waikato Times 15 November 2008, p. E5.

“Tale of tragedy in colonial days”, Waikato Times 15 November 2008, p. E2.

“Taranaki battlefield was a moment of reckoning”, Waikato Times 1 November 2008, p. E2.

“A Tale of two migrant brothers”, Waikato Times 18 October 2008, p. E2.

“Pokeno: A Narrative History”, in Ann McEwen, Pokeno Heritage Assessment Report (Franklin District Council, 2008).

“’The First Placard of the Armadillan Absolutists’: Literary Activity at Victoria University College 1947-1951”, New Zealand Studies, September 1999, pp. 5-17.

“Reflecting Ourselves: 'Maoriland' in the Mirror”, New Zealand Studies, March 1998, pp.14-21.

“’Red Hot Gospels of Highbrows’: R.A.K. Mason and the demise of Phoenix”, Kōtare New Zealand Notes & Queries, October 1998, pp. 5-11.

“F.W. Reed, Alexandre Dumas pere and 'Chapbook'”, Antipodes, 1998, pp. 21-23.

“The Risen Bird: Phoenix Magazine, 1932-33”, Turnbull Library Record, 1997, pp. 37-64.

“The Origins of Landfall”, Off the Record 1997, pp. 6-7.

Book Length Editorial Projects

Neil Penman, The University On The Hill: The History Of Todd Park (Penmanship Press, 2005).

Mere Whaanga, A Carved Cloak for Tahu (Auckland University Press, 2004).

Agathe Thornton, The Birth of the Universe: Maori Oral Cosmogony (Reed, 2004)

Karen Sinclair, Prophetic Histories: The People Of The Māramatanga (Bridget Williams Books, 2002).

History

Member for

3 years 36 weeks