'That Glorious Stinking Stuff...': Whale Fishing and the Economic Development of Early Wellington

Brad Patterson

doi:10.26686/jnzs.v0i1.78

Authors

Brad Patterson

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26686/jnzs.v0i1.78

Abstract

Whale fishing was of major economic importance for the New Zealand settlement. The whaling industry helped to ensure the viability of the settlement in the short term and that there were long-term structural legacies for the evolving settler economy.

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Author Biography

Brad Patterson

Brad Patterson, a resident at the Stout Research Centre in 1991. has taught widely in New Zealand secondary and tertiary institutions, most recently in Victoria University's Economic History Group. He was formerly official historian to the Department of Lands and Survey.

Senior Research Fellow at Victoria University of Wellington’s Stout Research Centre, and in 2002 was appointed Director of the Centre’s Irish-Scottish Studies Programme. His present research interests are the Celtic diasporas and the economic history of the nineteenth century ‘regions of recent settlement’. Recent publications include Sport, Society and Culture in New Zealand (1999) and The Irish in New Zealand: Historical Contexts and Perspectives (2002).

Brad Patterson is in his second year at the Centre. He is presently completing his extended study of the political economy of early New Zealand settlement, the particular focus being nineteenth century Wellington. He reports that progress is s low but steady, and that completion of a first draft of 'Wakefleld, Wool and Waste Land' is expected around the end of 1992. Over the past twelve months Interim reports have been published in a number of journals, the most recent in the present issue of the Review. A spin off from his work was last year's seminar on business archives and the writing of business history Board Rooms and Balance Sheets: Recording New Zealand's Business Past, jointly sponsored by ARANZ and the Stout Centre.