John Beaglehole had a lifelong association with Victoria University College, which became Victoria University of Wellington, and after his death it named the archival collections after him.
10 Facts About John Beaglehole
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2.
John Cawte Beaglehole was born 13 June 1901, in Wellington, New Zealand, the second son of David Ernest Beaglehole, a clerk, and his wife Jane.
3.
John Beaglehole was educated at Mount Cook School and Wellington College before being enrolled at Victoria University College, Wellington of the University of New Zealand, which later became an independent university, and where he subsequently spent most of his academic career.
4.
John Beaglehole became lecturer, later professor, at the Victoria University College.
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John Beaglehole married Elsie Mary Holmes on 17 February 1930, and they had three sons.
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John Beaglehole became known internationally for his work on Cook's journals which brought out his great gifts as historian and editor.
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Nevertheless, it is clear that John Beaglehole's work is, by and large, a continuation of the long tradition of Cook idealisation, a tradition from which post-John Beaglehole scholarship has started to diverge.
8.
For John Beaglehole, Cook was an heroic figure who practically could do no wrong, and he is scathing about those contemporaries of Cook who ever ventured to criticise his hero, such as Alexander Dalrymple, the geographer, and Johann Reinhold Forster, who accompanied Cook on the second voyage.
9.
John Beaglehole was only the second New Zealander ever to receive this award, the first being the nuclear physicist Ernest Rutherford.
10.
Just before he died in 1971 John Beaglehole was in the process of revising his detailed and authoritative biography of Cook, which was prepared for publication by his son Tim, who was Chancellor and Emeritus Professor at Victoria.