Tērā te whetū tīramarama kua whakawhenuatia

Together with his wife Hilary, John formed the Mitchell Research consultancy in 1985, and made extensive used of the Turnbull and National Library collections. This included researching a collection of 23 watercolour profile portraits of Māori painted by Isaac Coates, an English Quaker who lived in New Zealand between 1841-1845.

When I started with the Turnbull Library in 2011 as its Curator, Māori, one of my first projects was curating an exhibition of the portraits, Head and shoulders: Portraits of Māori by Isaac Coates, which ran from January to March 2013.

I first met John in 1989, when I worked as an accountant for Te Ohu Kai Moana, the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission, and John was one of the Commissioners. It was great to reconnect several decades later, and meet Hilary, when I contacted the pair as part of my research for the Head and Shoulders exhibition.

Many of the Māori painted by Coates were from or lived in Te Tau Ihu o te Waka a Māui, the top of the South Island. The history of this area was the subject of John and Hilary’s award winning four volume series, Te Tau Ihu o te Waka, published by Huia Publishers in association with the Wakatū Incorporation between 2004-2011. In 2015 they gave a well-received talk in about these books at the library.

John and Hilary were very generous in sharing their research about the Māori painted by Coates. This meant that even if questions remained about how they came to have their portraits painted, more was known about other aspects of their lives. The subjects included well-known rangatira such as Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata, whose portraits were copied more times than any others. The popularity of these images was in large part due to the 1843 Wairau Tragedy, where 22 Pākehā and at least four Māori were killed following a dispute over land. What became known as the Wairau Affray sent shockwaves across Aotearoa and overseas.

As well as the portraits in the Turnbull Library, there are more than 80 others in collections in New Zealand and overseas. The biggest set is 52 in a sketchbook held by the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. These include a man called ‘Poomip’ by Coates, Pumipi Te Rau, named after the Wesleyan missionary John Bumby. Originally from the Ngātiawa iwi (as Te Āti Awa iwi were known) in Taranaki, Te Rau was living in Queen Charlotte Sound. His sister was John Mitchell’s great-great-great-great-grandmother.

The public programme for the Head and Shoulders exhibition included two talks by John and Hilary: ‘Unearthing the Māori History of Te Tau Ihu’; and ‘The Wairau 1843: New Zealand's First Post-Treaty Conflict’. Both talks were recorded and are available online in the Katherine Mansfield Room.

Following the Head and Shoulders exhibition, John and Hilary continued researching the lives of Coates and his sitters. The pair visited England to understand the world Coates left when he travelled to Aotearoa in 1841. They also spent time with the different portraits, in Oxford, Salem Massachusetts, and Canberra. The culmination of this research was He Ringatoi o Ngā Tūpuna : Isaac Coates and his Māori portraits, a magnificent book published in August by Potton and Burton.

Today was to have been the date for a public talk at the National Library by John and Hilary about their new book.

Nā reira e te rangatira, John, okioki mai ra. Kaore i te ārikarika a mātou mihi ki a koe, te tino kairangahau. E kore rawa koe e warewaretia, ka tangi tonu nei mātou mōu, moe mai ra, moe mai ra.

Ki a koe Hilary, koutou ko te whānau pani, ngā mihi aroha ki a koutou.