Prof Smith was a ‘remarkable, influential man’
INFLUENTIAL archaeologist and educator Associate Prof Ian Smith explored New Zealand’s early colonial history, including interactions between Maori and the first Pakeha settlers.
Prof Smith, who had retired from the University of Otago last year, died in Dunedin on
January 3 after a long illness. He was 65.
His illustrated book, Pakeha Settlements in a Maori World: New Zealand Archaeology
17691860, which was published last year, reflected on the archaeological record of early Pakeha settlement in New Zealand.
An excerpt, published in the
Otago Daily Times, said the book offered ‘‘vivid glimpses of a world undergoing turbulent change as two vastly different cultures learned to inhabit the same country’’.
Prof Smith also worked closely with his wife, the late Dr Angela Middleton, a former Otago honorary research fellow, in some of his key research, including on New Zealand’s first Christian mission station, at Kerikeri in the Bay of Islands.
Dr Middleton’s book, Kerikeri Mission and Kororipo Pa: An Entwined History, was published by Otago University Press in 2013.
An ODT story in early 2014 stated that two centuries after the country’s first Christian mission was established, Otago University archaeologists were ‘‘shedding new light on the daily lives of the country’s first permanent settlers’’.
‘‘We've found out some pretty amazing things and we've got more to do in terms of analysing the material,'' Prof Smith said in an interview.
Prof Smith and Dr Middleton led the excavation team in two years of fieldwork, supported by the Department of Conservation and the New Zealand Historic Places Trust.
During the Hohi Mission Station excavations, researchers had found what was likely to be the remains of the house of early missionary Thomas Kendall and his family, he said.
Also unearthed were ceramic shards and glass, as well as gun flints, the latter ‘‘evidence that muskets were present at the mission’’.
The site of New Zealand's first school had included a ‘‘modestsized classroom’’ and ‘‘lots of slate pencils, and fragments of writing slates, and children's toys’’.
New Zealand's first permanent European settlement had been founded in 1814, and the research helped clarify what life was like for the Church Missionary Society missionaries and Maori at the time, he said.
Fellow Otago University archaeologist Emeritus Prof Charles Higham recently said that Prof Smith had ‘‘virtually founded research on the archaeology of Pakeha settlement of New Zealand’’.
Prof Smith had led excavations at key sites, including the earliest permanent European settlement in the Bay of Islands, and also worked on whaling stations and sealing bases, including at Codfish Island in the deep south.
‘‘One of his most significant legacies was the number of students who attended field schools and were inspired by his example,’’ Prof Higham said.
His ‘‘crowning achievement’’ was his book, a work that would be ‘‘the standard in the field for years to come’’, he said.
AT a service to honour Prof Smith, celebrant Tania Grave said she had first met him when she had officiated at his wife Angela’s funeral 10 months earlier.
Mrs Grave had quickly realised he was ‘‘an intelligent, caring man full of love and stoicism, as while he took on the oppressive task of planning a farewell for Angela, Ian was silently battling his own cancer’’.
Prof Smith was a
‘‘remarkable, influential man who will live on through his impact on the many lives he touched’’.
His academic life and archaeology practice were ‘‘overridingly his passion’’, however he remained a strong family man who was ‘‘at his happiest chilling at home with family’’.
Dr Middleton was Prof
Smith’s ‘‘soulmate and partner to the fullest extent’’.
Having earlier wished to get personally closer to Dr Middleton, Prof Smith had used a ‘‘professional chatup line’’ and suggested they could do a joint paper together.
‘‘It worked a treat as they went on to become such a formidable husbandandwife team, archaeology notables, real treasures themselves,’’ Mrs Grave said.
Prof Smith had ‘‘packed an incredible amount of life’’ into his years, and he had influenced many people, including family members, and the many students around the world whom he had enlightened, she said.
His curiosity about the past was such that even on holiday at the family holiday home at St Bathans, he would dig up his front path to see what he would find.
In a recent tribute, Duncan Smith said of his brother that, despite ‘‘sharing a bedroom for years, a happy childhood together and the blissful adventures of our teen years’’, it was hard to find the words ‘‘to tidily describe my muchloved, unknowable older brother Ian’’.
‘‘I say unknowable because he had such a still, calm centre. Like a pool of clear water with light reflected on the surface and thus silvery opaque.’’
Prof Smith was ‘‘fun, kind, patient’’ and, while growing up, passionate about his latest field of interest, in which he would ‘‘soon become expert’’.
‘‘From the little brother point of view, you were always disappearing over the horizon ahead, climbing higher up the tree, slipping over the fence, moving on and away.’’
‘‘Picture a balmy summer evening in a Ranfurly garden. Two boys aged 7 and 4, shorts hauled high, tummies prominent, smiling for the camera.
‘‘Behind us are foxgloves humming with bees which we’d trap inside the flower heads and laugh gleefully as the infuriated bees buzzed.’’
The boys were often busily making things together, including building tree huts, and one that was three storeys high, in a macrocarpa hedge.
PROF Smith was perhaps a born researcher, and whatever he turned his attention to ‘‘he would investigate until he achieved a deep understanding of it and often a level of mastery’’.
‘‘Ian had a great spirit of fun — he laughed readily, loved music, his family, his work,’’ Duncan Smith said.
Prof Smith married Judith Laube in 1980, and they shifted to Auckland in 1982, later moving back to Dunedin.
Three children were born: Hannah, Phoebe and Louis.
Prof Smith initially became a lecturer in the then Otago anthropology department in 1989, later being promoted to associate professor.
After the earlier marriage ended, he married Dr Middleton in 2009, having been with her since 2003.
Born on September 21, 1954, Ian Woodford Gibson Smith was the middle child of five, and his parents, Rev Robin Smith and Shirley Smith (nee Fawcett), were living in Shannon, 15km northeast of Levin.
Rev Smith was a Presbyterian minister, like his father and grandfather before him.
In mid1955, the family moved to Ranfurly, where Prof Smith lived until he was 9.
‘‘One of the greatest gifts our parents gave us was being part of a large and loving family,’’ his sister, Shona Smith, recalled in a recent tribute.
‘‘We all have memories of our childhood in the Maniototo — chooks and ducks and sheep in the paddock behind the manse, picnics and swimming at the Creamery bridge or up at Naseby’’.
Their parents ‘‘lived their values of peace and social justice and gave us love in abundance, fun, books, music, interesting talk and intellectual stimulation’’, she said.
‘‘Like the rest of us, Ian learned from the beginning that women could be strong as well as gentle, that men could be gentle as well as strong.
‘‘The adult Ian was certainly both of those things and not afraid of finding himself strong female partners.’’
The family then moved to Hamilton, and Prof Smith shifted from Maniototo Area School in Ranfurly to Hillcrest Normal School, before spending four years at
Hamilton Boys’ High School, where he did well academically.
His independent spirit led him to move to Melville High School for his final year of school, where he was ‘‘able to grow his hair, meet girls and play the lead in Jesus Christ
Superstar, as well as becoming head of the student council’’, she said.
At Otago, he thrived academically, initially majoring in education and anthropology, before gaining a BA (Hons), and a later PhD in archaeology.
Another sister, Hilary Smith, said Prof Smith was intelligent and kind, but, above all, steadfast, in his support for his late wife, and his ‘‘unfaltering love’’ of his children.
Prof Smith is survived by children Hannah, Phoebe and Louis Smith.