Books
Shelf life
by John Cochrane
Geoff Alley was larger than life – physically huge, a tenacious and determined rugby lock in his day; a dominant persona whose name is forever linked with the long struggle that resulted in the National Library of New Zealand.
But it would be a great mistake to think that W J (Jock) McEldowney’s new biography is a book just for librarians. Yes, Alley was the country’s first National Librarian. And yes, there is a vast amount of library history here. But McEldowney has given us a book that profiles a complex and driven New Zealander who is of interest in his own right, and interweaves that with the story of a post-colonial country groping its way towards a library system that would help underpin its economic, social and cultural emergence.
McEldowney takes time to place Alley in the context of his family: Irish Protes-tants whose lives were dominated by hard work and a determination to get on, despite the realities of frontier life. (One example of the individualism in the line: Alley’s paternal grandfather, a Canterbury cattle dealer, died when thrown from his horse, in 1869. His 30-year-old wife set about raising, supporting and educating their three children on her own. Asked by a grandchild why she had not remarried, she replied that what was good enough for the dear Queen, Victoria, was good enough for her.)
Alley’s father Frederick became a teacher and part-time farmer, and married Alley’s mother Clara in 1891. Their seven children were all drawn to education, in one form or another, and all were influenced by their mother’s independence and quick sense of humour. Frederick is remembered as well-meaning but stern and often dominating; the children adored the mother and respected the father.
Alley was born in 1903, part of a tight-knit family. (His siblings are all notable, not least Rewi Alley, whose relationship with China was unique for a New Zealander, and Gwen Somerset, groundbreaking in her understanding of the education of young children.) The young Alley was a bright boy and a plucky rugby player, who – in the spirit of the time of war – was removed from school at 15 to manage the family’s small farm, near Lumsden. He returned a year later, fit and strong, and once school was over he returned to the farm, at the same time becoming a feature player in the Southland rugby team (and later, the Canterbury and South Island teams, and the All Blacks, for the 1926 Australian tour and 1928 South African tour).
Entering Canterbury College in 1926, he emerged with an MA (1st class Hons) in 1932. During this time he came to the notice of Professor James Shelley, who had bold ideas about rural adult education. On January 1, 1930 (the same year he married Euphan Jamieson), Alley became a travelling tutor – which involved a travelling library, in a van. Alley and libraries were thereafter linked, and he became part of a small but active group who lobbied for a Country Library Service. With Alley as its head, this evolved into the National Library Service in 1946.
Further along, this led to the realisation that a National Library, drawing together the General Assembly Library, the Alexander Turnbull Library and the National Library Service, was the only way to maximise the value to the country of these three wings. Alley was appointed National Librarian in 1964, and in 1965 the National Library Act was passed – not without fierce lobbying and debate over the relationship of its parts. Alley retired at the end of 1967, and though his profile remained high, he gradually withdrew to private life. He died in 1986.
Only Jock McEldowney could have written this book. A distinguished librarian and writer on library matters, he devoted 18 years to it, with some support from the G T Alley Trust and the National Library Society. He knew Alley well, and places his personal insight against his knowledge of how librarianship evolved in New Zealand. McEldowney worked with vast amounts of source material and interviewed dozens of people (some now dead), and this shows in the authority and integrity of his writing.
And it’s not just Alley we see here: many well-known educationalists, librarians and politicians populate these pages: C E Beeby, Graham Bagnall, Archie Dunningham, Peter Fraser, John Harris, Alister McIntosh, Keyes Metcalf, Stuart Perry, Tom Shand and Dorothy Neal White among them.
How big was the task of achieving a National Library, and was Alley the biggest player? The task was huge – there was bitter disagreement on just how a National Library for New Zealand should be defined, and widespread suspicion of such centralisation. Alley led the group that was certain that the three major state libraries should be brought together. The manoeuvring was intense (and sometimes personal), but Alley and his camp doggedly found ways to neutralise the opposition. The vision of the National Library was not Alley’s alone, but he was the driving force, ever the lock in the scrum, that others would pack behind. (He would not welcome the metaphor, as he increasingly distanced himself from the muddy rugby years.)
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