Thomas Hocken

Thomas Morland Hocken (14 January 1836 – 17 May 1910) was a New Zealand collector, bibliographer and researcher.

He was born in Stamford, Lincolnshire on 14 January 1836, the son of a Wesleyan minister, and educated at Woodhouse Grove School and a school in Newcastle. He studied medicine at Durham University and Dublin University, and in 1859 became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons.

The following year, he decided to leave England's cold climes for the sake of his health, and became a ship's surgeon. In 1862, he arrived in Dunedin, New Zealand where he set up practice, also becoming the city's coroner, a post which he held for over 20 years. During much of this time he was also president of the Otago Branch of the New Zealand Medical Association, and lectured in surgery in the Otago Medical School. Hocken was married twice, to Julia Annia Daykne Simpson in 1867, and Elizabeth Mary Buckland in 1884.

Hocken's keen mind and instinct for collecting and preserving the past came to the fore when gold was discovered near Dunedin in 1861. His house, "Atahapara", was located on Moray Place, close to First Church, and here he built up a huge collection of manuscripts and artefacts relating to Otago's history. Fearing the changes that the goldrush, with its rapid influx of population, would bring to the southern South Island, he began to collect books, records, and ephemera from the early years of European settlement. His interests soon spread to New Zealand history in general. He became an expert in this field, presenting papers, writing essays, and assisting with the preparation of exhibits on such diverse topics as Pacific island costumes, early colonial settlement, and extinct New Zealand birds. He was a member of such organisations as the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Historical Society, and the Linnean Society.

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