By Rhonda Bartle

The email came down from the Collection Department upstairs: Andrea Melvin, Canadian Museums intern, was working through a Puke Ariki collection of 78 items that seemed to span many lives and many years.

The collection had been gifted to the Taranaki Museum in 1979 by a Miss I. Watson - a mysterious benefactor whom no one seemed to know anything about, not even where she came from or what the letter 'I' stood for.

An eclectic mix of Māori artefacts, pioneer clothing from the early 1800s, and World War I memorabilia, the collection caught Melvin's interest.

"The more I go through her collection, the more it seems that Miss I. Watson is one of interest for a potential Taranaki story," Melvin wrote to the Puke Ariki writing/research team.

"What I have pieced together is that she was the daughter of Margaret Kelly, who was a granddaughter of Josiah Flight (a prominent early settler). She seems to be a common link between three very important aspects of local history - Māori, early settlement and the Great War. This collection seems fascinating and deserves to get looked into further."

A job at Puke Ariki

Like Josiah Flight and his family before her, Andrea Melvin arrived in Taranaki full of joyful expectations.

In October 2005, aged 24, she came to take up a Canadian Museums internship at Puke Ariki, funded by Canadian Heritage, a Canadian Government agency that works with museums across Canada.

What began as an interest in history and travel turned into a rare opportunity for six months employment overseas. "I think I had a month to get ready," she grins.

"My family think I'm crazy anyway, so it wasn't too big a deal for them. I'd been travelling over summer anyway. They were pretty excited for me."

Freshly graduated with an honour undergraduate degree in History and Theatre, Melvin also earned a certificate in costume studies, a two-year diploma programme aimed at learning how to sew and design for theatre, museums, film and culture sites.

Her job at Puke Ariki is to go through, organise and itemise the costume and textile collection, making sure it's kept safe for the future. She also updates records, describes the garments properly and highlights some of the collections.

Going through the racks: All part of the job.

The Miss I. Watson Collection

When Melvin first looked at the Watson collection, several fascinating aspects seemed to jump out at her. The collection seemed such a mixed bag, Melvin was puzzled.

"I had gone through a box of military items and when I went through the rest of the collection, I found there was one name that kept coming up - I. Watson.

"Then in this other box was very early stuff which I'm not all that used to. There's not a whole lot of it, but it dated from 1830, which means it wasn't made here but brought over from England."

Three stored boxes contained bed linen, (sheets and a pillowslip), a pair of men's white shirts, a woman's pocket worn under a dress, a sewing sampler and other items, some with carefully embroidered insignia and dates.

Sewing sampler: Part of the Watson Collection

"It might have been a wedding gift or dowry. Or they could have been what Joseph's bride, Anne, made. One of the wedding dates sort of coincided with the dates on the collection.

"I didn't know what the connection was. Perhaps they were just collectors. But I began to think, how did Miss I. Watson get all of it? She must have really held on to it until 1979."

And there was also the large array of items belonging to machine gunner F.W.Watson who died in 1917 in World War I, including uniforms, a writing diary, war photographs and medals.

The more Melvin delved, the more it stirred up questions. What was the connection between Josiah Flight, one of New Plymouth's notable earliest citizens, who had arrived with his family on the Timandra in 1842 and the late F.W.Watson who died in the Great War?

Could I. Watson have been F.W.Watson's wife, but if so, why was she known as Miss?

Digging into the boxes

Up in Puke Ariki's cooled Collection Room, Andrea Melvin pulls on her white cotton gloves. "Would you like to look at some of the artefacts?" she asks.

"Treasures here are stored in tissue paper rather than plastic because paper breathes. Everything touched is touched with care. After opening the first of three large, narrow white boxes, she begins folding back the tissue paper to gently lift out piece after piece of aged fabric.

"Look." Melvin speaks quietly, as she lays one item after another on the table for inspection, pointing out the small insignia in the corners - J A F (Josiah and Anne Flight) embroided in a triangle in tiny pink letters, along with various dates; 1836, 1839.

"These had to be made in England. They must have come over in 1842. They're beautiful, aren't they?" she asks.

Yes, and in remarkable condition considering they're more than 170 years old. It's rare, she says, to find things like these with labels and names on. A sampler follows a tablecloth onto the table, small white cotton squares on pink linen showing the proper way to handcraft a button hole, an eyelet hole, attach a hook. Then comes a stockingnette cap, the pocket, the shirts.

"The woman's pocket would have been worn round her waist under a full skirt, with a slit left for a narrow hand to slip through," Melvin explains. Though the shirts seemed to have very short sleeves for sturdy pioneering men, it's an illusion caused by their dropped shoulder style.

"I find with clothing, it's even more personal because someone has worn it," she says. "If you can link things to someone it makes it more personal, as with most artefacts. This is very cool."

On limited time

As Melvin plucks her way through the boxes, she is careful and caring. "This has travelled the world," she says. "Tiny, tiny stitches. Most of these are hand stitched, but later, some machine stitching, too, I think. And look, these are patched."

More than a century and half have passed since these sheets were made, with material bought by the yard and hemmed. And alongside the insignia, sit finely etched numbers, as though the thoughtful owner had penned an inventory before leaving England for foreign shores.

It's not difficult to imagine Anne Flight naming and counting the precious pieces before stowing them in a chest to be carried below the Timandra decks.

Up in the collection room, Melvin replaces everything back in the boxes, as reverently as though she was picking through somebody's bones.

After the Flight family's personal effects come those belonging to Frederick William Watson, who fell at the Battle of Messines in France in 1917 after being awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for action at Chunuk Bair.

His relics, too, are all handled with dignity. Melvin lays a line of laundered, well-worn army collars out in a row. "The collars get stained and need washing more. And this is really neat." A thin green leather notebook. "A soldier's writing outfit, but there's no writing there."

The diary is safe in the Puke Ariki archives. "I believe he was quite a distinguished soldier. He won a bunch of medals," Melvin says, with her head bent over his possessions.

From Novia Scotia to New Plymouth

It's a long way from Halifax, Nova Scotia to New Plymouth, but Melvin believes that being in a different country doesn't mean you don't respect or appreciate the history as much as you would back home.

"It doesn't matter which country you're in, or what history, it's all significant." Though originally into design elements - she particularly likes the composition and reproducing historical garments for museums, film and theatre - she has found her passion shifting.

"Originally, that's what I was into, the aesthetics of things. But as I go along, I'm becoming more interested in who the wearer was and what the clothing can tell you about them.

"We all choose clothing for a particular reason; we all want to look a certain way. It's perhaps not quite the same with uniforms, but the rest…"

Yes. She'll miss New Plymouth badly when she leaves in April because it's been so very much like home. "I'll be sad when I leave, yes. This is a beautiful setting. People have been so accommodating. Being from a coastal city myself, I like being by the sea. I couldn't be happier with my time at Puke Ariki."

Good luck and better training

Melvin is also hoping the internship might spawn a job in the Canadian heritage sector.

"I've had pretty good luck and I think having been one of the few selected from across the country to come here will be pretty well looked upon. I have a lot of interests in a lot of different things.

Costumes is where I started and is probably where my strengths are but I'm very interested in Canadian and international history.

"We're a very multinational society. I'm really hoping to get in with one of the larger historical sites, perhaps the interpretive type sites like villages and fortresses, where you have to look at reproductive clothing and buildings."

More treasures to find

In the Puke Ariki collections room, after Melvin places the Taranaki antiquities back in their tissue paper beds, she tucks the lids on tight.   Once the Watson collection is itemised, she will set her sights on more fragile garments still packed away.
 
"I have a lot of faith there will be treasures amongst those. Some are early 1800s, so they're pretty old, too. I think they'll tell some fascinating tales."

Andrea Melvin should know. With one eye on the past and another open for potential stories, her time at Puke Ariki should be a benefit for all.

For the story behind the Watson Collection, read A Benefactor Rises Out of the Dust.