Support for families in diary battle
There is a glimmer of hope for Kiwi families who have been fighting for the return of Great War diaries held in a British collection.
A Nelson family’s 40-year search for a relative’s World War I diary, held in a collection at Leeds University, may get a boost with official intervention.
Veteran Hartley Palmer of Nelson publicly appealed for the return of his Gallipoli diary in 1984, but died never seeing it again. He lost track of where the diary wound up and it wasn’t until after his death that it was found, housed in the Leeds University collection. His daughter, Margaret Kearns, has continued the crusade.
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Maggie Barry ‘‘will seek advice from officials’’ to assist families in their quest for repatriation of precious family items held in the Liddle Collection.
Barry says she had ‘‘sympathy’’ for the families with diaries, photos, letters and other materials kept in the collection more than 18,000km away from New Zealand.
She said the items were a ‘‘last tangible link with their relations who fought so bravely in the first and second world wars’’.
The Leeds repository features well over 4000 people who experienced World War I, and another 500 items from World War II soldiers.
Of special significance to New Zealand are the diaries of 14 WWI soldiers who thought they were lending the documents to British military historian Peter Liddle. The celebrated English historian came to New Zealand on a research visit in 1974.
Families of the soldiers have maintained the diaries were only ever loaned to Liddle but he has claimed the diaries were willingly handed over.
One family were not aware their family had links to possessions in the collection.
After a Stuff investigation, Leeds University confirmed it does not hold a ‘‘depositor agreement’’ – a standard legal document when any treasured antiquities are given to a museum or private collection.
An overjoyed Margaret Kearns said on Friday: ‘‘Well, it seems like there’s some hope for us, doesn’t it?
‘‘This is what we’ve been saying all along. Our family never had any documentation.’’
Leeds University said in a statement: ‘‘Peter Liddle began collecting in the 1960s and it was not unusual for material to be collected from individuals without the type of depositor agreement that we would take for granted in museums and archives today, so we consider each request on a case-by-case basis and examine all evidence very seriously.’’
Barry said ‘‘there is no mechanism’’ under the Protected Objects Act (1975), or the Historic Articles Act (1962) to return the diaries. Legislation at the time only covered documentary heritage over 90 years old. But when Liddle collected the materials in 1974 onward, it did not meet that criteria.
‘‘Their export wasn’t regulated under the legislation at the time. Someone wishing to export original World War I diaries today would need to make application for export permission under the [Protected Objects] Act.’’
The National Army Museum collections curator Windsor Jones said the material held in England were ‘‘of national significance’’ and there was a possibility materials could be returned to New Zealand. He said an institutional approach could be the best bet to have anything repatriated.