Adkin Leslie

Leslie Adkin 1888-1964

A biography is: An Eye for the Country, The Life and Work of Leslie Adkin Anthony Dreaver, 1997, Victoria University Press.

From the "blurb":

Leslie Adkin (1888-1964) was one of those extraordinary New Zealanders who, self-taught and operating outside professional and academic structures, made major contributions in an enormous range of activities. As a historian, geologist and anthropologist, his views continue to stimulate and challenge; as a keen tramper, he mapped large areas of the Tararuas; and he was one of the finest photographers New Zealand has had. AN EYE FOR COUNTRY recounts the astounding range of Leslie Adkin's exploits and achievements in absorbing detail. Through study of the extensive archival materials left by Adkin, Anthony Dreaver has united the disparate parts of Adkin's life and personality into an imaginatively coherent whole. With its generous selection of Adkin's superb photographs, maps and sketches, this fine biography is a treasure for anyone with an eye for the country or the past of New Zealand.

Dreaver has also contributed an entry on Adkin to the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography DNZB.

Adkin's principal published archaeological work is Horowhenua: Its Maori Place-names and their Topographical and Historical Background 1948, Polynesian Society Memoir 26, Wellington. Despite its title a lot of it is about archaeology.

The National Library has a page on Adkin here He was a remarkable photographer and his work can be sampled on line at the National Library.