A Day in the Life of Museum Staff
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If you were fortunate enough to see Te Papa’s exhibition Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War, featuring larger than life sculptures of WWI soldiers, you will enjoy this article.
The first sculpture in the exhibition was that of Spencer Westmacott (1885-1960) who was an officer with the 16th Waikato Regiment, which departed New Zealand for the First World War in October 1914. Te Papa wrote a story about him on their blog.
A few weeks ago, Kate and I were accessioning a collection that originally belonged to Mavis Harris – a music teacher in Cambridge during the 1940s and 50s She taught youngsters from the Beer, Boyce, Garland, Haworth, Levesque and Steen families to name a few. She later married Syd Aitchison of Otorohanga.
Among her music notebooks, certificates and photographs, we found a small cookbook with two used envelopes inside. The backs of the envelopes had been used to write in pencil weekly menus for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The two envelopes were originally addressed to Spencer Westmacott and Mrs Westmacott. The cookbook had “Westmacott June 1924” written in pencil on the cover.
Before she worked for us, Kate was Regional Collections Manager at the Waikato Museum. It was fortunate that she recognised the Westmacott name and understood the importance of the objects – especially to the Otorohanga Museum. The Westmacotts farmed near Otorohanga, and Kate knew that the museum already had a Westmacott collection.
We contacted the donor, who had no idea the items were significant. She was happy for us to pass them on to the Otorohanga Museum. Needless to say, the staff there were delighted to receive them.
Karen Payne, 2024