UNESCO New Zealand

*The 1893 Women's Suffrage Petition

Registration number: 2
Year of registration: 2011 (International Register 1997)
Location: Archives New Zealand, Wellington
Image: A signed sheet from the 1893 Women’s Suffrage Petition, including Kate Sheppard’s signature.

Further information: Archives New Zealand

The 1893 Women's Suffrage Petition led to New Zealand becoming the first self-governing nation in the world where women won the right to vote. It was signed by close to one quarter of the female adult population and was, at that time, the largest petition of its kind signed in New Zealand and other Western countries.

Nomination form

*Toyko War Crimes Trial Papers

Registration number: 3
Year of registration: 2011 (Asia-Pacific Register 2010)
Location: Macmillan Brown Library, University of Canterbury, Christchurch
Image: Justices of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East

Further information: University of Canterbury

The collection is one of the most complete and unique sets of original documents of the International Military Tribunal Far East (IMTFE) 1946-1948.   It has enormous significance for the Asia Pacific region as it documents the history of Japanese ambitions in the Pacific prior to World War II.  It rivals in significance the Nuremburg collection held by Harvard Law School.  It was presented to the University of Canterbury in 1949 by Justice Erima Harvey Northcroft, the New Zealand Member of the IMTFE.

Nomination form

The Grey New Zealand Māori Manuscript collection

Registration number: 4
Year of registration: 2011
Location: Auckland Libraries, Central City Library, Auckland
Image: GNZMMS 8: Description of the ceremonies observed on the occasion of tattooing a chief and the method of performing the operation. By Wiremu Te Rangikaheke of Te Arawa (Ngāti Kererū, Ngāti Rangitihi).

Further information: Auckland Libraries

Sir George Grey (twice Governor of New Zealand), a soldier, explorer, politician, philanthropist, and linguist donated his substantial manuscript, book collection and personal papers to the citizens of Auckland. Part of the ‘Governor’s Gift’ included the Grey New Zealand Māori Manuscripts (147 items).

The Grey New Zealand Māori Manuscript collection is a substantial cultural and historical record of pre-European examples of Māori knowledge and information. It is a record documenting mātauranga Māori (knowledge) in relation to song, incantation, custom, ritual, genealogy and traditions pertaining to various Māori collective communities.

Nomination form

Overture Aotearoa

Registration number: 5
Year of registration: 2011
Location: Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington

The item is the manuscript score of Douglas Lilburn’s Overture Aotearoa; an overture for orchestra written in 1940, while Lilburn was a student in London at the Royal College of Music.  It was premiered  at a matinee concert in His Majesty’s Theatre, London, on 15 April 1940. The event was planned as a celebration of the New Zealand centenary, and Lilburn’s new composition, played by the Sadler’s Wells Orchestra under expatriate conductor Warwick Braithwaite, opened the programme. Almost twenty years passed before the first New Zealand public performance of Overture Aotearoa, given by the National Orchestra under John Hopkins on 30 March 1960, but the work has since entered the orchestral repertoire in New Zealand, and has been commercially recorded four times.

Nomination form