author
Thomas Lindsay Buick
1866–1938
A self-taught New Zealand journalist, politician, and historian, he turned a sharp reporter’s eye into lively books about the country’s past. He is especially remembered for writing an influential early history of the Treaty of Waitangi and for preserving regional stories that might otherwise have been lost.
2 Audiobooks
The Treaty of Waitangi; or, how New Zealand became a British Colony
by Thomas Lindsay Buick
An Old New Zealander; or, Te Rauparaha, the Napoleon of the South.
by Thomas Lindsay Buick
About the author
Born in Oamaru in May 1865, Thomas Lindsay Buick built his career through journalism before entering politics. He served as the Liberal member of Parliament for Wairau from 1890 to 1896, but writing and historical research became the work for which he was best known.
Publishing as T. Lindsay Buick, he wrote on subjects ranging from local and regional history to major figures and events in New Zealand’s past. Among his best-known books are Old Marlborough, Te Rauparaha, and The Treaty of Waitangi, a work first published in 1914 that helped shape popular understanding of the treaty for many years.
Although largely self-educated, he earned a strong reputation as a careful and energetic historian. His work reflects an early effort to gather documents, oral traditions, and local memories into readable history, making him an important figure in how New Zealand’s story was recorded in the early twentieth century.