Publications
The Otago Settlers Association is involved in publications in three areas: we have commissioned and published our own history, we produce four newsletters annually and through the Alfred and Isabel Reed Fund we give financial assistance to works on Otago history and culture.
To Fame Undying, by Sean Brosnahan, The Otago Settlers Association, 1998, second (updated) edition 2008.
Our story began in 1898 on the 50th anniversary of the arrival of Scottish settlers in Otago and for much of its life it is also the story of the Otago Early Settlers’ Museum – now Toitu Otago Settlers’ Museum. Proud of what they had achieved in half a century, these early settlers wanted a place to store the artifacts, images and documents oftheir colonial experience. So it is fitting that our history should be the work of Museum curator and local historian, Seán Brosnahan. Seán told the story of the first century, 1898 to 1998, in the first edition and added a substantial chapter on the next decade in 2008. All new members of the Settlers’ Association are given a copy of our history.
Our newsletter is sent to members four times a year. Edited by Dr Austin Gee, the Otago Settlers News not only keeps us up to date with the activities of the OSA and Toitu Otago Settlers Museum, but also features original and often highly entertaining articles on local history. Did you know, for example, that a brand new two bedroom Dunedin house was up for raffle in 1915 at half a crown a ticket? Or that ‘Upini’s World Celebrated Performing Fleas’ were a popular attraction at the 1889-90 Exhibition?
Alfred and Isabel Reed Fund
The Otago Settlers’ Association administers the Alfred and Isabel Reed Fund, this was set up by the publisher in 1939 to encourage the production of works on Otago history and culture, administration of the fund passed to The Otago Settlers’ Association in 1947 . Reed continued to support the Fund until his death in 1975 and the Association has since added money to it.
Currently we are able to provide up to $2000 to writers to help with the costs of publication of works which fit the criteria and are of an acceptable standard.
A selection of publications that have benefited from the Fund in recent years:
- Charles Croot, Dunedin Churches Past and Present (1999)
- Norman Ledgerwood, Heart of a City (Dunedin’s Octagon) (2008)
- Gordon Parry, My Dunedin (2006)
- Peter Entwistle, Behold the Moon. The European Occupation of the Dunedin District 1770-1848 (revised edition, 1999)
- Rosemary Jamieson, In Command, Minesweeper, Captain and Labour Parliamentarian. Phil Connolly. (2009)
- Don Gordon, Robbie, the Story of Dunedin’s Burns Statue (2009)
- Isobel Veitch and Mervyn Palmer (eds), Growing up in Wartime. Recollections from Children and Adolescents of the 1940s (2009)
- Jane Smallfield and Brian Heenan, Above the Belt – a History of the Suburb of Maori Hill (2006)
- Olive Trotter, John Larkins Cheese Richardson, ’The Gentlest, Bravest and most Just of Men’ (2010)
- John Ingram and Paul Clements, Ready Aye Ready: 150 Years of Dunedin Fire Brigades, 1816-2011 (2011)
- Hilary Hunt, A Passion for Fashion. Lindsay Kennett, master milliner (2016)
- Ian Dougherty, Dunedin: Founding a New World City (2017)
- Julia Stuart, Southern Service The First 50 Years of Dunedin's Family Care Centre (2020)
Click here to download the Alfred and Isabel Reed Fund application form