ABSTRACT
Many observers of life in New Zealand have commented on the considerable place which sport fills in the public consciousness throughout all classes of society. In New Zealand's short history, New Zealanders have thought of themselves as belonging to a great sporting nation and a country devoted to sport, and these images have been important foundations for the development of national identity. Despite this, few scholars have attempted to study sport, and even in general histories of nineteenth-century New Zealand society little mention is made of either sport or recreation. Clearly then, to explore the notion of recreation and sport as potential avenues for achieving an emancipation of sorts for women in colonial New Zealand suffers from several weaknesses. There was no ‘national history of sport’ to use as a starting-point and archival primary source documents with an athletic flavour, such as records of Caledonian Societies, early rugby clubs and voluntary associations were, at least in their executive memberships, exclusively male.
