The Nelson Literary and Scientific Institution was founded in May 1841 as the New Zealand Company ships, the Whitby and Will Watch made their way to New Zealand. The leaders of the enterprise, which included Captain Arthur Wakefield, had a vision for: "a civic centre...consisting of a well-equipped library, a museum of history and ethnology and a philosophical society to promote intellectual development."
With an initial collection of 700 books donated by passengers, and money sent to England for more books, journals and periodicals, a new library and reading room was built and ready for business within months of the settlers arrival in Nelson in 1842.
A high level of illiteracy (31.3% of the population could not read in 1848), expensive fees and a membership process involving nomination by two members, may be why some saw the Institute as a club for the privileged classes. No women participated in the early life of the Institute.
The Nelson Institute remained at the top of Trafalgar Street on part of Town Acre 4458 until 1861 when a new facility catering for a library, museum and lectures was constructed on the corner of Hardy and Harley Streets. The Nelson Provincial Council wanted the Institute to broaden its activities and become a literary and mechanics institute and gave the land and a £200 grant towards the new building. An additional museum wing was added in 1883.
By 1873, there were 11 public libraries, mechanics institutes and other literary and scientific institutions throughout the Nelson province.
On February 25, 1906, disaster struck - fire gutted much of the wooden Institute building. A crowd of people, directed by Institute president, Fred Gibbs, managed to salvage many books and museum artifacts. The library re-opened in Kings Hall, a hall also used by the Athletic Club on Bridge Street, in the block between Harley and Collingwood Street, just a week later and remained there for seven years.
The new Institute was built of reinforced concrete at a cost of £3726, and opened by the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Honourable F.D.H. Bell who urged the Institute "not to fill the shelves of its library with abtruse works of science, which the ordinary man had not time to read. The Institute's rules said: "there was to be no lying on benches, eating, smoking, spitting or striking of matches." Conversing or reading aloud was also prohibited.
The imposing brick-clad building in Hardy Street was the home of the Nelson Public Library for 78 years and now houses the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology's School of Marine Studies.
The two facilities of the Institute were separated in the mid-1960s, the public library coming under the direct control of the Nelson City Council and the Museum under the administrative control of the newly-formed Nelson Provincial Museum Trust Board. The museum and its library and archives were relocated from Hardy Street to Isel Park, Stoke in 1973. An additional exhibitions and education venue opened in October 2005 - on part of the original Town Acre 445 where the Institute began.
The Nelson Literary Scientific and Philosophical Institute continues to this day with lectures and discussion groups. The Institute's 170th birthday was celebrated on 22 May 2011. (
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The inscription on the plaque reads:
On 17th May 1841 somewhere in the mid Atlantic on board the Whitby bound for New Zealand, the Nelson Literary & Scientific Institute was established. It's library & reading room was one of Nelson first buildings opening on this site on 27th September 1842. The Institute is still active, making it the oldest body of the kind in New Zealand.