Friends of the Dorothy Neal White Collection
Notes Books Authors
1991
NOTES BOOKS AUTHORS
NUMBER 4
1991
Notes-Books-Authors
is edited by Trevor Mowbray
and published by
the Friends of the
Dorothy Neal White Collection
Wellington
New Zealand
Copyright August 1991
ISSN 0114‑5428
The Friends of the Dorothy Neal White Collection gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the National Library of New Zealand in the preparation of this issue of Notes‑Books-Authors.
How Names Become People
Celia Dunlop
The aspect of research I like most is its creativity; the way every new detail fills in or leads onto another part of the puzzle and how, eventually, a mere name fleshes out into a fairly rounded person. This essay is an outcome of this long research process, of gradually filling in the jigsaw about Edith Howes (1872-1954) who came to New Zealand as a child, and later became one of New Zealand's most loved children's authors.
I began this research by gathering information from published sources like Who's who, The New ZeaIand National Bibliography, and newspaper and journal articles. I then wanted to enhance the sketch that resulted, to gain a fuller picture of the person Edith Howes. This was achieved in various ways: by conversations with her descendants and one
of her former pupils1; by access to collections of records about Edith Howes2; by responses from people who
knew her to a letter placed in The Press (Christchurch), and by browsing and fossicking. My extra information came particularly from unpublished sources like letters, family discussions, a tape, and photographs, as well as newly discovered published material. There was also an element of chance - like the time I came across an article by Howes that explained the love of nature and careful research which underpinned her writing for children.3
The result of this work is that I now have a reasonably comprehensive picture of the author. I can now imagine her physically and in character, and, the following essay I document some of the activities she thought important or enjoyed. My main sources of information in building a picture of Edith Howes are indicated, where known, in the footnotes.
Edith Annie Howes
From 1910-1930, Edith Howes and her contemporaries Esther Glen, Isabel
Peacocke, and Mona Tracy made a real impact on the New Zealand - and
Australian - literary scene4. Their books were in demand because they offered children stories set in their own country with characters, dialogue, and natural life they could identify with, and relate to. This was an exciting change from the staple diet of English books that were strongly didactic in tone, with lifestyles and settings unfamiliar to New Zealand children. A survey of children's favourite
authors by the Canterbury Public Library in December 1926 showed that books by Howes, Peacocke and Glen were especially popular with girls.5 Howes ranked fourth - ahead of Charles Dickens - and behind only Ethel Turner Angela Brazil, and L.M. Montgomery. Historically Glen's books are particularly important. Based on her family life including childhood holidays on a South Island sheep station, these adventure stories are notable for their lack of
instruction, fresh, vigorous style, and humorous realistic picture of children rather than the stuffy portrayal typical in children's fiction of the day. Mona Tracy's writing was also innovative. Her racy, romantic tales showed the influence of her early life amongst Maori families and featured not only strong Maori characters, but the issues of mixed marriages, loyalties and race.
Edith Howes came to write for children through her work as a teacher. Her
friend, Charles R. Allen noted 'that the great body of her writing is coloured with this didactic instinct'.6 Her aim in Nature-teaching was to 'rouse interest... to give the children something simple and imaginative as well as technically correct'.7 Between 1899 and 1917 (with the exception of 1913 when she was granted a year's leave of absence and a free government railway pass to gather more information for her books)8 Howes was infant mistress and
headmistress at Gore Public School. Inspired by New Zealand landscapes, flora and fauna but lacking books to show children the wonders and beauty of Nature, she wrote her own tales about local sea, plant and insect life. Painstakingly and accurately researched but shrouded in fairy fantasy, these stories lead the poetess Jessie Mackay to observe that Edith Howes 'clothed science in the green robes of Elfinland'.9
Edith Annie Howes as a girl
Howes' first book, The Sun's Babies (1910) was publicly acclaimed by Dr. W. B. Benham, Professor of Biology at the University of Otago. Its success lead to Howes being made in 1911, an honorary member of the New Zealand Institute (now the Royal Society) and the motivation to write many books that were not only popular at home but in demand internationally. They were also recognised as textbooks by Commonwealth education authorities and used widely in Australia and New Zealand.10 Some of the best remembered are Fairy Rings (1911), Rainbow Children (1912), Maoriland Fairy Tales (1913), The Cradle Ship (1916) - which conveyed 'the facts of life' in a way thought a little 'ultra' by some at the time11 - , The Singing Fish (1921), The Dream Girl's Garden (1923) and a real New Zealand adventure story set around Stewart Island, Silver Island (1928). Howes also contributed to the Whitcombe's Story Books series for schools and wrote stories, poetry and playlets for journals including the American World Youth. Active in women writers' groups and also writing plays for adult magazines and newspapers, she received the MBE in 1935 and the George VI Coronation Medal in 1937 for her literary work.
Howes' approach to writing stemmed largely from the influence of her younger brother George (William George), a naturalist involved in establishing the marine biology centre at Portobello on the Otago Peninsula, and a Fellow of the Entomological Society known for his fine, meticulous work. Edith and George Howes enjoyed a life-long bond; George was Edith's 'great chum'.12
Following her brother's example, Edith Howes spent much time observing and recording the plants and creatures she wrote about. Later she verified her data with the help of microscopes and authoritative texts. For The Singing Fish, a story of seasshore life, she spent many months exploring the beaches and rock pools around Wellington and Stewart Island.13 People remember her at the Island sitting on rocks, gazing intently at the sea life around her and taking notes. The author always stayed with the Thomson family at 'Greenvale' boarding house, in a room upstairs with a fireplace, basin and running water,
and a glorious view across Halfmoon Bay. On one visit, Howes befriended the Thomson's ten-year-old grand-daughter, Enid.
Edith wanted to make an aquarium to study sea creatures for a book she was writing, The Singing Fish. I rowed her to the islands in the bay and we collected all the little sea creatures and took them back to Greenvale where we had a large glass tank about two feet square and fairly deep. We had baby octopus, sea slugs, sea anemones... We fed them on pieces of fish at the end of a long hatpin...they put out their tentacles and pulled the fish off.14
Night excursions to the bush with George gave Howes some of her most
magical outdoor experiences. In the following passages, she conjures up the scene.15
William George Howes collects insects at night
The Entomologist said: "Come collecting with me tonight."
I watched his preparations. Into a satchel went a brush and a jar of treacle and stale beer mixed - a heady allurement, the 'sugar' of entomologists; into it went also a chloroform bottle to bring swift and painless death to the captives, with small boxes and tubes to hold caterpillars, beetles, eggs... An acetylene lamp on his bicycle, and a butterfly net of green muslin with a jointed adjustable handle completed his equipment. We set off on our bicycles for the nearest edge of the bush.
Its scents stole out delightfully as we left bicycles and the setting sun behind us...Through the darkening tracks we waIked softly...Dusk deepened, grew stiller, more fragrant...
Edith Annie Howes, author and teacher
A swoop of the great muslin net and a dozen moths fluttered in its green depths of gauze. The brilliant light of the lamp shining through the glistening mesh disclosed unexpected loveliness: tremulous moths exquisitely made, fine-limbed and feather-feelered and rose-eyed, fairy-like small inhabitants of the night, all gleam and grace and balanced poise.
The Entomologist turned his lamp on a tree trunk. In the broad viscid streak left by his brush, tawny moths fed, eagerly sucking up the odorous sweetness of the lure..." There is so much to explore" he said..."here's another world out in the dark...and it's crammed with fascination."
He talked in his quiet voice of the lives of the insects, of their dangers and vicissitudes, the marvels of their metamorphoses, their tragedies and triumphs until the darkness became a pulsing worId of enchantment and romance.
This description is also indicative or the 'romanticised science'16 by which Howes introduced children to biology and botany (but which eventually dated her work). When Charles Allen suggested that this approach was foreshadowed in Charles Kingsley's Water Babies, he received a stern reproach.17
'Dear Stodge (C.R.Allen), Do l like to be called the Charles Kingsley of New Zealand?. I do not, nor the anybody else of New Zealand. I like to be just myself, not aspiring to high places, Doesn't it strike you that there is a tinge of depreciation in such a title?. As if one were being labelled a copyist, or, at least, as if one wrote under the undue influence of someone else.
There is, of course, the name of my first book, The Sun's Babies... I have neglected to count the times someone has said, "O, Yes, Miss Howes, you wrote the Water Babies didn't you". ...One grows tired of repudiating such high honours...Egoism you think? or the desire to retain some spark of individuality in an overpowering world.
Yours sincerely
Edith Howes
This was not an isolated case of assertiveness. Edith Howes can be seen as an early feminist, a member, for example, of 'that pushful circle'18 the New Zealand Penwoman's Club who gave much time to the promotion of women's writing. One event she organised was the 'remarkable' collection of women's work on view at the South Seas Exhibition in Dunedin in 1926.19 Howes showed too, in her award-winning play Rose Lane which was first performed in New Zealand in Dunedin in 1936, that she was mindful of the extreme hardships endured by women plucked from their British homes and thrust into the stark primitiveness of pioneering New Zealand.
Letters from people who knew Edith Howes picture her as a dainty woman with a crown of red-gold hair, shining eyes, and bright step. She is said to have had a 'Peter Pan' quality,20 to be not unlike a fairy herself.21 Her warmth and infectious smile are especially remembered by former pupils. She was also however, a disciplinarian who gave Alex Dickie his first 'strap'. He recalls;22
What the misdemeanour was all about I just don't remember.. but the sequel has certainly stayed with me... Way back in 1912 when we were passing back into our own room from Miss Howes singing class session, a girl comes up to me, places her hand on my forearm and looking up at me with her sweet little face said, 'You got the strap' (it didn't really hurt) ...that expression of sympathy from Winnie Cullen was to remain with me all through the years.
Edith Howes' teaching skills showed early. In 1888 at age sixteen she became the pupil teacher at Kaiapoi Borough School. During her four and'a half years there, 'she did her work excellently...[and] showed very commendable diligence in her teaching'. On her departure,'her sterling principles... thorough trustworthiness and skill as a teacher' were recommended23
These qualities were further in evidence at Gore Public School. Here Howes managed classes of 220 children assisted by only five or six young women whom she had to train herself. She also learned and gained official acceptance for Montessori teaching methods and introduced other innovations for the benefit of her young pupils. Alex Dickie remembers her getting a local building firm to make small individual chairs, and tables to accommodate four pupils - a big improvement on the old-fashioned forms and desks. The action concert by Howes' pupils to raise funds for these was 'an event in itself. The boys and girls all dressed in white made a colourful spectacle as they went through their
action and marching songs'.24 Songs were an important part of Howes' teaching programme. Some of her own featured in scrapbooks of games and songs she made up for the younger members of her family. In tone these ranged from the heavily instructive The Bad Little Bird) to the ethereal, Snowdrops.25
Snowdrops, snowdrops, did the snowflakes make you?
Does the spring wind come to you,
And lift you, and shake you,
And peep in your shy white bell?
Did the sunbeams play round you,
And laugh when they found you,
And whisper they would not tell?
Several letters about Edith Howes refer to her attractive homes and love of gardening. In Gore, she had her home built near the reservoir on the top of Gore Hill. Though squarish from the outside, the house inside was intriguing with a central room leading to others which captured the sun and housed hot plants. Howes built sod walls rather like stone walls in England, around this house, and grew daisies and primroses all over them.26 Later in Dunedin she lived in a long cottage at 35 Rawhiti Street, Sunshine, a 'bright little home that seemed to speak of her personality.27 Here, Howes hosted dances and play readings for both younger and adult circles. Roey Winn recalls that the
property's steep section was terraced and gay with nasturtium-coloured
flowers... the same shades were in the house and in the glassed-in porch...There were hanging baskets of nasturtiums.28 At her last home in Motu Street Dunedin, Howes created a smaller but similarly vibrant garden.
Gardening and entertaining were just two of her loves. She also found time for woodwork, to sew, paint, cook. and latterly, to play bridge. It seems that Edith Howes was a woman of 'rare charm'29 and enterprise who loved life, made the most of it and brought much pleasure to others, particularly the young readers of her books. While her books are saccharine by modern standards, it has to be remembered that with Esther Glen, Isabel Peacocke, and Mona Tracy, she paved the way for an indigenous literature which has gradualy blossomed into the exciting developments in New Zealand children's books that are very much
in evidence today.
1. The assistance of Mr. E.T. Beardsley in taping a discussion with his mother, Mrs Connie Beardsley, an early pupil of Howes, is gratefully acknowledged.
2. The co-operation of Mrs Dorothy Thomson, Mrs Claire Schoon, and Sally
Schoon is gratefully acknowledged; also the assistance of material by the late Eileen Soper.
3. Howes, Edith 'An Enchanted Evening' The Wooden Horse Vol. 1. No. 2 (July) 195O.
4. I have written biographical essays on Edith Howes, Mona Tracy, and Isabel Peacocke for the Book of New Zealand Women and I am currently preparing an in-depth profile of Esther Glen.
5. Is Yours Here?. Children's Favourite Authors' Sun (Christchurch) 16 April, 1927. p.20.
6. Allen. C.R. 'Miss Edith Howes M.B.E.' Newspaper clipping. unsourced. Likely source Otago Daily Times ca.1935-1936. Collection of Dorothy Thomson.
7. M.E.F. 'Miss Edith Howes' The Lone Hand 2 Februay 1914. p.171.
8. ibid.
9. Art in New Zealand March, 1929. p.165.
10. Grinling. A.H. 'Edith Howes' The Bookman December.1914. p.70.
11. Allen. C.R. op. cit.
12. Grinling. A.H. op. cit. p.69 Also, Dorothy Thomson has repeatedly
mentioned this special bond.
13. Phillips, Enid B.V. 'New Zealand's Rich Store of Children's Books' New Zealand Journal of Agriculture December, 1948, p.631.
14. Enid (surname unverified) Letter to Eileen Soper. 3 July 1983.
15. Howes, Edith op. cit. pp. 18, 19.
16. Allen. C.R. op. cit.
17. Stodge 'A to Z in New Zealand Letters' The Wooden Horse Vol.2, No.4 [1951], p. 18.
18. The Recorder 'Progress of a Penwoman' Aussie October 15 1926, New Zealand Section, p.VIII.
19. Taraire 'Edith Howes' Aussie April 15 1926, New Zealand Section, p.XII.
20. Winn, Roey (Aroha) Letter to Celia Dunlop 22 December 1989.
21. Robertson M.B. 'Edith Howes. M.B.E.' Woman Today Vol.2 no. 1 1938 p.304.
22. Dickie. Alex Letter to Eileen Soper, 16 July 1983
23 Chairman. Kaiapoi Borough School Testimonial, 8 October, 1894
24. Dickie, Alex op. cit.
25. Howes, Edith From a family scrapbook. Collection of Claire Schoon.
26. Beardsley, Connie A memory, recorded in a letter from Eric Beardsley to Celia Dunlop. 7 January, 1990.
27. Allen, C.R. op. cit.
28. Winn, Roey (Aroha) op. cit.
29. 'Edith Howes - The Fairy Godmother' Newspaper clipping, unsourced
Collection of Dorothy Thomson.
