Name: A man of many parts: Isaac ‘Petatone’ Featherston — Part of Friends of the Turnbull Public Programme
Start: 2026-03-10T07:30:00+13:00
End: 2026-03-10T08:30:00+13:00
Location: Corner Molesworth and Aitken Streets, Thorndon, Wellington, New Zealand 6011

$A man of many parts: Isaac \u2018Petatone\u2019 Featherston \u2014 Part of Friends of the Turnbull Public Programme$

Come along to this talk by historian and author John E. Martin to hear more about the life and work of Isaac Featherston, also known as Petatone, and his impact on colonial Aotearoa New Zealand.
Join us at the Library or online. Register for a Zoom link: https://dia-nz.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_5PtO5NngRl2QyE4waFIhCw#/registration
A lasting influence on Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington
John E. Martin, the author of Isaac Featherston — 'Petatone’: A Colonial Life, argues that Isaac Featherston (known to Māori as ‘Petatone’) was the most influential person in the development of the Wellington region from the 1840s to the 1860s.
Arriving as a ship's surgeon in 1841 and struggling with the lifelong affliction of tuberculosis, Isaac Featherston (1813–1876) was a doctor, newspaper editor, and a politician.
Come along to this Friends of the Turnbull talk to learn more about Featherson’s involvement with Māori, including land sales and with kūpapa during the New Zealand Wars. His story reveals the struggles of settlers and Māori in the colonial era, and the conflicts that followed.
A Friends of the Turnbull Library event
The Friends of the Turnbull Library, Ngā Hoa o te Whare Pukapuka Turnbull, offers a monthly programme of free public talks. These talks are held in the National Library in Wellington and on Zoom. Some of these talks will be repeated in Auckland. The public programme highlights the work of researchers who draw on Turnbull material for their projects and staff who care for and research the collections.
About the speaker
Dr John E. Martin has researched and written about New Zealand history since the 1980s, teaching in universities and employed as an historian in the public sector, including as a parliamentary historian. His books include Isaac Featherston – '‘Petatone’: A Colonial Life (2024) and Empire City: Wellington Becomes the Capital of New Zealand (2022), and he is currently preparing an historical atlas that will link New Zealand Company land ownership with Wellington’s spatial pattern of development. John has also written about rural and labour history, the history of science and engineering, and social and political history.