Lover of New Zealand’s underwater past

Kenneth Richard Scadden, archivist, museum administrator: b Masterton, April 10, 1952; m Kristina (diss), 2s; p Wendy Adlam; d Wellington, October 17, 2016, aged 64.

Maritime history was Ken Scadden’s lifelong passion, whether he was chasing vanished shipwrecks, or fighting to preserve Wellington’s waterfront past.

‘‘Our underwater cultural heritage is an integral part of our country’s story,’’ he wrote to The Dominion Post in 2014, in support of a proposed shipwreck institute for the city.

As director of the Wellington Maritime Museum for a decade, he oversaw a major overhaul that revived its historic waterfront building and expanded its mission into the realm of social history, as reflected in its rebranding as the ‘‘Museum of Wellington, City and Sea’’.

Yet he later abruptly resigned from the post and became a sharp critic of the museum’s leadership for what he saw as its abandonment of the city’s maritime treasures.

Scadden’s g passion for history and for all things aquatic began at a young age. By 8 years old, he had decided he wanted to be an archaeologist and set up a small museum with his brother, Brian. Reading the classic stories Coral Island and Treasure Island was a further inspiration.

‘‘I planned to run away to sea, but my parents were too nice,’’ he recalled in 2007.

Soon he was diving and fishing in Palliser Bay, hauling up portholes from the area’s shipwrecks – and bringing his passion to life. Neither that passion nor his feeling for the Wairarapa ever left him: his final book, published last month, was a maritime history of the region, Rugged Coast, Rough Seas.

Scadden’s maritime curiosity extended far and wide – and to the end of his life. He was buried in a coffin shaped into a model of the Virginia, a Confederate gunboat from the US Civil War, made for him by his brother Brian.