Vivien Edwards – a life to celebrate

 I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived [1].

Photo: Beth Bowden

Those who come to this website for quality writing and research are always in good hands if the article that piques their interest is the creation of Viv Edwards, an occasional contributor since 2011.  Viv died on 9 June 2026.

Elsewhere on this site you can find her characteristically modest explanation for her self-taught skills in reporting the past: “History sparked my interest, after finding an old Hospital Board report on the 1918 influenza epidemic, while nursing at Auckland Hospital. This led to several articles, talks and researching other topics.” 

Vivien was always one for understatement.  Her output over her lifetime was prodigious.  She never seemed to stop working.  As a mature student, she graduated B. Sc in biological sciences, a disciplined achievement for the working mother, by that stage, of two sons.

Nurses graduation. Staff nurse V.S. Edwards, Tutor nurse E. Hereford (2/2). Published 29 September 1964. 

Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo gca-7396

Her first and early career as a nurse culminated when she became a nursing tutor.  Some of her alumni were at her memorial service, and spoke warmly of her abilities to communicate technical information in a way that never lost sight of the human dimension.  She adapted that to many different subject areas in her lifetime.

For instance: she was the author of "Winkelmann: Images of Early New Zealand" (Benton Ross, 1987) and "Battling the Big B: Hepatitis B in New Zealand" (Dunmore Publishing, 2007). The two books could not be more different.  The first is a beautiful art hardback in large format, dealing with nineteenth-century challenges of photography.  It met the technical challenges of twentieth-century book production so well, it won the 1988 Book of the Year prize in that category.  The second is a contemporary account of health reform efforts led by Dr Alexander Milne.  His work is much cited in on-line journals but it takes 27 Google search listings before Viv’s work shows up.  Hers is not a scientific report; it is an eye-witness story – a ‘first draft of history’ - of just how hard it was to deal with an unacknowledged epidemic [2].  

Book of the Year award, 1988. Photo courtesy of Trevor Hoff

After leaving nursing in 1984 Viv made her living as a freelance writer for over 20 years, working for trade and professional magazines such as NZ Forest Industries Magazine, NZGP (the periodical for general practitioners), Management, NZ Business, The Transportant, Pharmacy Today, Safeguard, Her Business, NZ Pine International, Sea Spray, Bits and Bytes, Uno (Waikato and Bay of Plenty), and the Shed.  Every article was clipped and meticulously filed - in scrapbooks; her early journalism pre-dated the World Wide Web although she was quick to see its benefits and adapted fast.

Blogs for Tauranga Historical covered things that caught her fancy.  You can search for her articles on -

• Oliver Macy Quintal (July 2011).  Pursuing this early lawyer’s past took her and her partner Trevor to find his grave on Norfolk Island.
• Hannibal Marks, Harbourmaster (July 2014).  One of the many maritime tragedies of Tauranga’s past: he drowned here.
• Tauranga Hospital’s Roof Garden (Feb 2019).  Viv took the photos to illustrate this article.  Her eye for colour and form is evident.

She also wrote a personal memoir of her nursing days for the Historical Review [3].  A 50-year history booklet written for New Zealand Lumber, 'History in Motion: Evolution of the NZL Group 1949-1999”, was aptly named; history never stood still for her.

Perhaps her most telling achievement was the long effort to publish the story of Mary Sutherland, the first woman forestry graduate in the world. At some point in her magazine-article work she opened a long-ignored filing cabinet at the Forest Institute and discovered a trove of papers relating to Mary.  Although her memorial plaque is in Whakarewarewa Redwood Forest, Viv knew there was more to explore.

Viv and an as-yet unidentified companion at Mary Sutherland’s memorial, c. 2011. Photo courtesy of Trevor Hoff

For several years she researched and wrote Mary’s story.  A Path Through the Trees was published in 2020 and in 2021 won the Ian Wards Prize “for making substantial imaginative and exemplary use of New Zealand archives and records.”

This is a fitting accolade for Vivien’s professional competence.  She had advanced bibliographical skills; she was a capable indexer; she was also a warm and insightful interviewer whose personal communications gleaned information that otherwise would never have come to light.  Before the internet, before and during the advent of the personal computer, she had a knack for the research process and collecting and managing large amounts of information.

She was also a tiger for the truth, who doggedly pursued her hunches.  Mary Sutherland first saw the light of print in 2011, as an entry in the Tauranga Library’s 2011 Memoir and Local History Competition.   If Trees could Talk: the Whakarewarewa Redwoods was the title of the essay [4].  It was to be a long time before the book itself showed up. For this and all these other reasons, Tauranga Historical can be very proud of her.

References

[1] David Thoreau, Walden; or Life in the Woods, Ticknor and Fields,1854. At the memorial service my eulogy concluded with a fuller passage from this work, which can be found at https://www.environmentandsociety.org/mml/walden-or-life-woods

[2] The book is now out of print but can still be borrowed from Te Whatu Ora’s library in Tauranga.

[3] Historical Review, Vol 70, No. 1, May 2022: Vivien Edwards, Nursing at Tauranga in the 1960s

[4] https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/20049

Forestry on Matakana Island in 1969

From Tauranga City Library’s archives

A monthly blog about interesting items in our collection

Matakana Island Timber Mill
Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 21-248

Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries' Heritage and Research Team and its predecessors have been collecting local history material for over 50 years. The snapshot above is from a set donated to the team by Hamilton City Libraries - Te Ohomauri o Kirikiriroa, and digitised in 2021. The set is undated, but looks like it may be from the 1970s or 1980s. The set can be viewed here, each individual image includes an edited version with colour restored, due to severe fading of the original prints.

The present Heritage and Research Team at Tauranga are reviewing their Vertical File collection and other, related items are emerging. In the Forestry file was an article clipped from an unidentified magazine and with no date, called "Matakana Island : reaping the Pineland wealth", by Olaf Petersen. After some investigation we determined it was published in the New Zealand Weekly News of 2 June 1969. We have added a scan of the article to Pae Korokī.

It contains twelve images selected from photographs the Auckland-based Petersen took of timber felling and processing on Matakana Island, in Tauranga Harbour. Of the twelve photographs in the piece, eight include pictures of individuals. For some reason only one of them is named - Mr Stuart Hume, forest plantation manager on Matakana - in the top left corner of page 31.

In 1988 the photographer donated his archive to the Auckland War Memorial Museum. It is described at length in their Collections Online entry for the archive. Two of the photographs from this article have been digitised. The photographer had collected information about his subjects that wasn't included in the published article, so we can now add a little bit more detail to the story of forestry on Matakana Island.

The photograph on page 31 captioned "A stack of timber is wired together ready for transport" is described by Auckland Museum as "Photograph of Hohepa (Joe) Hamuera Kohu working in a shed and operating a hand lever used in timber production".

The photograph below it, captioned "Morning tea break in the Pinelands forest on Matakana", is described as "Three men who are working at felling trees in the forest, stop for a break to drink from jars and a thermos. On verso the men are named as L to R; Melbo Rolleston, Charlie Murray, Eru Tukaki. They are surrounded by felled trees and a stand of forest in the back ground. Sitting on the trees near them are two chainsaws and an axe". The published version has been cropped and is missing Melbo Rolleston.

We hope that over time more photos used in the article will be digitised, allowing the identification of more individuals.

Extracting the article, finding the work of other institutions and receiving donations has allowed us to both increase our knowledge of a subject of local interest and enable more questions to be asked. This process of accumulation can be slow and indirect, but placing it in Pae Korokī opens it up to discovery and engagement by one of the distinctive communities of Tauranga Moana. 

Sources:

Matakana Island / Neil G. Hansen. Journal of the Tauranga Historical Society No. 63, August 1979, pages 38-40 (or 41-43 of the PDF).

Matakana Island (Tauranga) / Jinty Rorke. Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries, Matakana Island.

Matakana Island / Suzanne Woodley. Wellington, N.Z. : Waitangi Tribunal Division, Department of Justice, 1993.

Petersen was a well-known photographer who died in 1994. Te Ao Mārama -Tauranga Libraries holds copies of a recent collection of his nature photography - Nature boy : the photography of Olaf Petersen.

Matakana Island

Pilot Bay from above, Mauao and Matakana Island
Colour postcard, photographed by Bob Ricketts, Old Grumpy’s Gallery, Mt Maunganui
Collection of Justine Neal

Matakana Island is a mixture of white, sparkling sand, pine forest, farmland and a peaceful harbour. It is the third largest island by area in the North Island and the 15^thlargest within New Zealand waters. The island’s long, white sandy beach is popular with surfers and is also a nesting place for the New Zealand dotterel/tuturiwhatu, a threatened shorebird.

Matakana Island and the Tauranga Harbour from the Bowentown Heads, June 2023
Photograph by Justine Neal

The island is 24 kilometres long and rarely more than 3 kilometres wide. It is New Zealand’s largest barrier island. Its development, together with that of the tombolo (a narrow strip of land, usually made of sand or gravel, that connects an island to the mainland or another island) adjoining Mauao and Bowentown Heads, formed Te Awanui/Tauranga Harbour, a 200 square kilometre estuarine lagoon.

Matakana Island, northern channel and Mauao from the Bowentown Heads, June 2023
Photograph by Justine Neal

The island has been continuously populated for centuries by iwi who are mostly associated with Ngai Te Rangi.

Nine year-old trees, Matakana Island
Unmounted silver gelatin print by unidentified photographer
Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Ams 12/4/5

The island has two distinct parts, 5,000 acres of farm and orchard land on the inner harbour and 10,000 acres of forest covered coastal land.

Wharf at Matakana Island
Unmounted silver gelatin print by unidentified photographer
Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Ams 12/4/4

The 1920’s saw the development of a pine forest through private plantings. In 1949 the first logging crew went into the forest. The first 30 year old plantings were used for the post and poles market. In 1951 Bunn Brothers Ltd. took up the island’s pine milling rights.

S.S. Ngakuta clearing the Tauranga Heads, View from the Mount, c. 1916-1922
Real photo postcard, photographed by John Welsh, published by Frank Duncan & Co. for A.J. Mirrielees, Tauranga
Collection of Justine Neal

My postcard shows part of Matakana Island as a low-lying sand bar in pre-forestry days. The SS Ngakuta was built in 1913 and owned by the Blackball Coal Co. She was designed and equipped as a collier but carried other cargoes including fruit from Pacific Island ports. From 1922 she was leased to the United Steam Ship Co. and purchased outright by them in 1942. She was sold to ship breakers in 1952.

References

Wikipedia

NZ Ship and Marine Society

National Library of New Zealand

Bay of Plenty Regional Council

New Books: A Path Through the Trees

Mary Sutherland graduated from the University College of North Wales (now Bangor University) in 1916. She was the first woman forestry graduate in the world, and during WW1 she worked with women in Britain’s forests; on a Scottish Baronet’s estates, then with the developing British Forestry Commission. Mary came to New Zealand in 1923 and was employed by the NZ State Forest Service. An educated woman with practical skills working in an entirely male-run industry created challenges. 

After losing her position for the second time following the 1932 Economic Commission report, Mary forged a new career in botany at the Dominion Museum. During World War 2, she supervised at the YWCA-administered War Workers’ Hostel in Woburn and at the end of the war, she was appointed the Department of Agriculture’s first farm forestry officer.

A conservationist, and life-long lover of trees, Mary maintained her membership with the New Zealand Institute of Foresters throughout life: she served on the NZIF council in 1935-36, and as vice president during 1941-42. Interested in the world and in travel, Mary was proud of her university training. Believing all women deserved higher education, she served on various committees and the executive, for the Wellington Branch of the Federation of University Women.

Vivien is grateful to the Stout Trust, and the New Zealand Institute of Forestry for enabling Mary’s story to be published.

Tauranga connections

Mary Sutherland’s niece was the late Frances Glendenning, who lived in Welcome Bay, and was a friend of the Tauranga Library. Known as Frankie, she collected Sutherland family information, which included nine letters written by Mary, her 1952 diary and photographs.

Marion Stewart, who was Margaret Mackersey’s aunt, was a friend to Mary Sutherland. Marie, as she was called, owned the chicken farm ‘Cheriton.’ She set up the Tauranga Egg Marketing Cooperative which supplied American forces in the Pacific with eggs and chickens, and she was a long-standing member of the Tauranga Hospital Board. Mary and Marie’s cruise together in Fiordland in 1950 is a chapter in the book, written using information taken from Marie Stewart’s diary and Mary’s family letter.

Violet MacMillan was born in Katikati in 1902 and died in Tauranga in 1981. She was the first supervisor at the Woburn War Workers’ Hostel in World War 2 and  returned a year later to her position at Otago University College. Mary Sutherland who had been working as assistant supervisor, then took over as supervisor.

The author

Originally a trained nurse, Vivien Edwards worked as a freelance writer for over 20 years. She used to be a regular contributor to New Zealand Forest Industries magazine, hence her interest in how a woman came to be working in this country’s forests in the 1920s and 30s. Vivien has an interest in research, and Mary Sutherland’s story is her third book. The others were ‘Winkelmann: Images of Early New Zealand’ (Benton Ross 1987) and ‘Battling the Big B: Hepatitis B in New Zealand’ (Dunmore Publishing Ltd. 2007). As many readers will be aware, Vivien is also an active member of the Society and a past contributer to this blog.

A Path through the Trees has been reviewed on Kete Books and is available from Books A Plenty or directly from the author (Email).

Arthur Huia Honeyfield, by Max Avery

Book Review contributed by Gill Larsen

Arthur Huia Honeyfield, by Max Avery
published by John Charles Honeyfield under the auspices of the Tauranga Historical Society
Monograph Number One, 2016

Newcomers to Tauranga who are looking to explore the history of their new city, or long-time residents who have been part of its development, will enjoy this monograph of a man central to our story. Arthur Honeyfield’s journey ‘From the farm to the boardroom’ depended on the fertile land of the Bay of Plenty and his astute business activities. From a first position, as a new graduate, with stock and station agent Wright Stephenson, Honeyfield's varied career saw him involved in the management of poultry, vegetable provision for war supplies, forestry, dairying and avocados. He gave many years of service to the Bay of Plenty Harbour Board, key to employment and growth opportunities in both urban and rural Tauranga.

Honeyfield was a bit of a character, adventurous and bold in business and personal affairs. His flight logbook, necessary for his private pilot’s licence, shows some creative accounting. Employees describe a single-minded man whose wife Edith provided a caring influence. Always involved in local initiatives, Honeyfield was the unofficial ‘Mayor of Katikati’ in his later years.

Max Avery’s monograph includes generous images, each of which tells its own story. Throughout the text are names of men who contributed to the Tauranga in which we live. Their names are remembered on our buildings, reserves, businesses and street signs.

Copies are available from the society at $25.00 each. Please contact Julie Green.