Kathryn Patterson

Kathryn Patterson

Appointed an Adjunct Research Fellow in 2014, Kathryn has had a long career in the NZ public service, principally in information management, holding senior managerial positions, including Deputy Parliamentary Librarian, Director of Information Management at The Treasury, and Director and Chief Archivist at Archives New Zealand. In these roles she was a regular participant in international fora and committees, with many contributions to the professional literature in Australian and international journals.

As a bibliographer, she was co-compiler of the prize-winning New Zealand volume 18 in ABC-Clio’s World Bibliographical Series, published 1998, and was co-editor (with Brad Patterson) of Ireland and the Irish Antipodes: One World or Worlds Apart? (2010) and (with Brad Patterson and Richard Hill) After the Treaty: The Settler State, Race Relations & the Exercise of Power in Colonial New Zealand (2016).

Her current independent research is focused on a book investigating Irish soldiers from regiments of the British Army opting to take their discharge in New Zealand following nineteenth-century service in the colony. Central, through collective biography, is an endeavour to assess the material success as settlers of this otherwise largely unrecorded group of migrants. Several inte4rim results have been presented in publications and conference papers.

As Honorary Librarian Kathryn manages the Stout Centre library, an eclectic collection of predominantly New Zealand books many of which have been donated by eminent scholars associated with the Centre. A major initiative has been listing and reorganising the collection to facilitate ease of access for staff and residents.

Recent Research Outputs:

2023    'In other parts of the world the position of the soldier's wife is very different to what it is here', Irish soldiers' wives in nineteenth century New Zealand’,. In ‘Irish Women in the Antipodes’, Adelaide: Wakefield Press.

2022     ‘Old soldiers never die, they say. At any rate they are often tough lads, hard to kill.’  An assessment of the longevity of Irish soldiers who took their discharge in New Zealand prior to 1870. ISAANZ Conference, University of Auckland, 2021.

2017    ‘Something of a mixed bag’: Irish soldiers discharged from the Imperial Military Forces in early colonial New Zealand’. New Zealand Society of Genealogists, Kilbirnie Branch meeting, March 2017.

2016    ‘Thus the old warriors go out, some to die in hospitals, others in the benevolent institutions, and some in the asylum...’: Discharged Irish soldiers as settlers in colonial New Zealand. Paper presented to ISAANZ Conference, Flinders University, Adelaide, November 2016.

2014    Forgotten migrants? Irish soldiers discharged from Imperial military forces in early colonial New Zealand. Paper presented to 2014 NZSG conference at Wellington, May 2014.

General Information

• Hon Life Member, Archives and Records Association of New Zealand (2001)
• Kippenberger Library Trust Board 2016-
• Member, Researchers of Ireland, Irish and War in Long Nineteenth century 2022-
• (with Brad Patterson) John Harris Award for distinguished contribution to New Zealand bibliography Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa (LIANZA) 2000