New Zealand's London: The metropolis and New Zealand's culture, 1890-1940

Abstract

The role of London in forming New Zealand’s culture and identity is a significant feature of New Zealand’s cultural history that has, until now, been overlooked. Ties with London and with ‘Home’ generally, have received little study, and ‘Britishness’ in New Zealand is largely considered a legacy of demography to be eventually outgrown. This thesis suggests something different. During the period 1890-1940, technology changed cultural perceptions of time and space, and it changed the relationship between metropole and former colony too. These technologies drew New Zealand and London closer together. London was constructed as an active part of the New Zealand cultural landscape, rather than as a nostalgic remnant of a predominantly British-born settler population. London was New Zealand’s metropolis too, with consequences for the way New Zealand culture was shaped.

This thesis considers the cultural impact of London using four tropes linked to those changing perceptions of time and space. ‘Greater New Zealand’ is concerned with space, whilst ‘“New” New Zealand’ is concerned with time. ‘London’s Farm’ and the ‘Imaginative Hinterland’ consider propinquity and simultaneity respectively. Each theme draws from different bases of evidence in order to suggest London’s broad impact. Collectively, they argue for a shift away from a core and periphery relationship, towards one better described as a city and hinterland relationship. This approach draws upon existing national, imperial, and cultural historiography, whilst at the same time questioning some of their conventions and conceptions. New Zealand as hinterland challenges the conceptual borders of ‘national history’, exploring the transnational nature of cultural formations that otherwise have been considered as autochthonous New Zealand (or for that matter, British) developments. At the same time, whilst hinterlands may exist as part of empire, they are not necessarily products of it. Nor are they necessarily formed in opposition to the metropole, even though alterity is often used to explain colonial relationships. ‘New Zealand’s London’ is, instead a reciprocal creation. Its shared cultural landscape is specific, but at the same time, it offers an alternative means for understanding other white settler colonies. Like New Zealand, their cultural histories may be more complex cultural constructions than national or imperial stories allow.