The year is 1896. Edwin Harris and his youngest daughter Ellen are dead, and Emily is living alone at 34 Nile St in Nelson. On black-edged notepaper she writes to her sister Mary Weyergang with some important news from England. A letter has come from cousin Bessie Harris in Plymouth, thanking Emily for the condolences Read More…
Tag: emily cumming harris
Kew and Clianthus puniceus
When botanist Daniel Solander went ashore 21 October 1769 at Anaura Bay in the East Cape district of the North Island of New Zealand, one of the first plants he collected was growing near the dwellings of the local people. The shrubs Solander saw were covered in clusters of bright red flowers and he named Read More…
Mountain Flora: The Rendel Connection
We know where Emily Harris’s New Zealand Mountain Flora is now. It was an artist’s mock-up of the book she planned to publish, couldn’t afford and then sold to her English cousin Lord Stuart Rendel for his private collection. By way of the estate of collector Kenneth Webster, the Alexander Turnbull Library was able to Read More…
Emily at the Natural History Museum, London
As the onset of war in 1914 closed sea lanes to Europe and turned international scientific delegates for home sooner than planned, Emily Harris wrote to the Keeper of Botany at the Natural History Museum in London: I have been looking forward for months for the visit of the Scientific visitors to New Zealand & Read More…
Album Photographique
A family photo album is a set of busy intersections, composing and redirecting, grouping and collecting, full of identification, full also of implied knowledge. If that is your grandmother you will know who she is and that the squirming child in her arms is your mother, your father, an aunt or an uncle or even Read More…
Sail | Walk | Drown: The Wandering Texts of Sarah and Emily Harris
‘My sweet babe.’ Thirty years after losing her five-day-old daughter on the voyage to New Zealand, Sarah Harris can barely speak of the experience. Her words wander across the notebook page, she breaks off, starts again, cannot find words or syntax to convey her feelings. Phrases trail off, repeats falter. She can’t find her way, Read More…
Domett in the Bush
Alfred Domett has the last word on the English climate: ‘O horrible, horrible, most horrible.’ For the last month or six weeks dullness-cloud and fog – perpetual Scotch mist or rain – spitting not pouring. ‘Adam loved God – but went apart and dwelt in the shade’ – So Jeremy Taylor began one of his Read More…
Open Call for Emily’s New Zealand Flowers, New Zealand Berries, and New Zealand Ferns
How far did Emily Harris’s books of botanical lithographs travel? How many copies did she sign and hand-colour? These and other questions have come to the fore as we search overseas catalogues and collate the results, finding a surprising number of hand-coloured sets outside New Zealand. New Zealand Flowers, New Zealand Berries, and New Zealand Read More…
Edwin Harris, Painter &c
Sometimes the answers are right there. It just takes a while to see them. We’ve read the William Bryan passenger list, 7 names in the cabin, 141 men, women and children in steerage. The Harrises are there: Harris, Edwin Painter 32; Mrs 30; Boy under 7; Girl under 7; Girl 10 months. In fact Edwin Read More…
The Family Songbook Goes Live
‘A night or two ago I dreamed that I said it is a long time since I called at my Father’s and your parents and that I was determined I would go the next day. I awoke to disappointment wishing I might never dream again.’ (Sarah Harris #15) ‘Will you in the next send me Read More…