Sarah Mathew's scrapbook

Caricature of Felton Mathew, Sarah's husband, and first surveyor general of New Zealand, from Sarah's scrapbook, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, ref. no. NZMS 81.

The Sir George Grey Special Collections at Auckland Libraries have digitised the scrapbook of Sarah Mathew. It seems that Sarah, baptised in 1805, kept the scrapbook for most of her long life (she died in 1890). Along the way, she gathered samples of flowers, lithograph prints, sketches, descriptions of the world (there's a bit in there about Hong Kong, 1842), something written by one of those who died at the 1843 Wairau affray -- in all, this is a lovely glimpse into a by-gone time. What interested Sarah so much that she wanted to keep it -- the feathers from a favourite bird, killed by a dog. Sea weed. Flowers from various places. The skeletal remains of leaves.

Worth a look.