A reflection on the Early History of the Society of St Vincent de Paul in New Zealand 1867-1925

It may be 150 years since our Society of St Vincent de Paul has been established in New Zealand, but how much do we actually know about the work of those who have gone before present-day members?
Long standing Society member Tim O'Sullivan set out to discover and record what could be found. Considering the scarcity of early records, both within the Society and in public, he has achieved a highly creditable result in this book.
Some early Society records were simply not kept, others have disappeared over time and, nationally, others have been lost in a fire.
Public records are readily available on-line up to the 1920s but from that time on have largely not been made available as yet.
Working around these problems Tim has detailed the activities of Society members in the across a period of almost 60 years.
They were many and varied, but all motivated by a common cause - Faith and a desire to help those in need.
Their fundraising efforts were legendry — no shops but jumble stalls, concerts, lectures, even a supporters group paying a regular subscription.
The charitable work they did was in some ways not a lot different to today, although some larger projects were undertaken.
Of special interest are the women's groups. At a time when the Society had a male only membership, women's conferences incorporated separately in Bologna were established and in some cases became the mainstay of the Society's work.
Thanks to problems sourcing public records, the book looks at nothing post-1925. This in a way as good as history can become clearer when viewed through the lens of time, but it also serves as a lesson to today's members to look after their conference and council records.
There is a huge amount of information packed into the 184 pages. For those interested in what has gone before it is well worth reading.
Michael Hanrahan.