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Edward Robert Tregear , Ordre des Palmes académiques (1 May 1846 – 28 October 1931) was a New Zealand public servant and scholar. He was an architect of New Zealand's advanced social reforms and progressive labour legislation during the 1890s.
His research on comparative mythology and linguistics was expressed in a controversial book The Aryan Maori (1885), in which he placed the Māori language in the ranks of the Indo-European language family and further claimed, interpreting racial rather than linguistic aspects of the theories of Friedrich Max Muller, that Māori were descended from Hindu Brahmins who spread south, from India; he argued therefore that Māori had the same Indo-Iranian origins as Europeans. While this 'Aryan Māori' theory was hotly contested in New Zealand it received favourable attention overseas. Tregear frequently contributed articles on Māori anthropology to scholarly British journals, received fellowships of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Historical Society. Following on the heels of these fellowships, in 1893 he received a silver medal and an offer of a fellowship from the Society of Science, Letters and Art, which he wisely refused, a refusal that triggered an exposé in New Zealand, which proved the institution to be without authenticity. Evening Post, New Zealand, Volume XLV, Issue 132, 7 June 1893, p.2: A bogus literary society Retrieved 6 February 2014 Tregear was to repeat and refine his theory of the Aryan origin of Māori in many works during the succeeding two decades.
A freethinking socialist, Tregear was a personal friend of the politicians John Ballance and Reeves. When the Liberal Party took office in 1891, he was named head of the new Bureau of Industries, later known as the Department of Labour. Working closely with Reeves as Minister, Tregear was responsible for the huge amount of progressive labour legislation passed in the 1890s. He was editor of the Journal of the Department of Labour.
In 1891 Tregear published the Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary which is regarded as his most important contribution to scholarship. In 1892 he co-founded the Polynesian Society with Percy Smith, with whom he co-edited the journal of the society. The French Government took official cognisance of the great amount of work devoted to the dialects of the French Polynesia, and he received the high honour of Officier of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques. (1934): "Famous New Zealanders, No. 13, Edward Tregear – Pioneer, Scholar, Humanitarian": The New Zealand Railways Magazine; Volume 9, Issue 1 (2 April 1934). He completed a substantial work, The Maori Race in 1904. Following his retirement as Secretary of Labour in 1910, he was honoured with the Imperial Service Order.
Tregear never stood for Parliament, despite Ballance's urgings. In a 1912 by-election, he was elected to the Wellington City Council (re-elected 1913) and became president of the militant Social Democratic Party. However, in 1914, afflicted with failing eyesight and gravely troubled and disheartened by the failure of the waterfront strike, Tregear suddenly resigned all his offices. He retired to Picton in the South Island where he died on 28 October 1931. He was survived by his wife Bessie and their only daughter Vera.
Mount Tregear in the Southern Alps is named after him in close proximity to peaks named after other Liberal Party figures Notman, John Ballance and Robert Stout.
Tregear's documentation of Moriori Census on the Chatham Islands as of 1889 is essential even today for the preservation of this unique culture: Read on the Moriori of the Chatham Islands: By Edward Tregear, F.R.G.S.
"Thinking that, as the Moriori are rapidly dying out, scientists at the end of the next half-century might be interested in knowing what was the exact state of the native population in 1889, I made a census-inquiry, with the following result:—
Chatham Islands, 23 September 1889.
At Manukau.
Men: Hiriona Tapu, Tiritiu Hokokaranga, Heta Namu (half-caste, Maori and Moriori), Horomona te Rangitapua, Apieta Tume, Te Karaka Kahukura, Te Ohepa nga Mapu (half-caste, Maori and Moriori).
Women: Rohana Tapu, Paranihi Heta, Pakura te Retiu, Himaira Horomana, Harireta te Hohepa, Ruiha te Hira (half-caste, Maori and Moriori).
Children: Tame Horomana (boy), Mika Heta (boy), Ngana Riwai (girl).
At Kaingaroa.
Men: Hoani Whaiti Ruea, Te Ropiha Rangikeno (an old man), Riwai te Ropiha, Tamihana Heta.
Women: Eripeta Hoani Whaiti, Kiti Rīwai (a quarter-caste pakeha—i.e., child of pakeha and half-caste woman), Emiri Parata (half Maori, half Moriori).
At Waitangi.
Men: Pumipi te Rangaranga (a very old man), Heremaia Tau, Wi Hoeta Taitua, Te Teira Pewha, Timoti Wetini, Taitua Hangi, Temuera Numi.
Women: Hipera te Teira, Paranihi Taitua, Ereni Timoti (or E Puti) (half-caste, Maori and Moriori).
Making twenty-seven of pure Moriori descent, and five half-breeds. The Maoris on the islands number about two hundred and fifty souls, and there is roughly about the same number of a white population."
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