John Pascoe

John Pascoe

The use of photographs in the School Journal goes as far back as the First World War. Photography became less prominent in the 1940s and 1950s, when the art editors had a number of talented illustrators to draw on. In the 1960s, with an improvement in printing techniques and an increasing interest in social studies content, photography bounced back.

John Pascoe (1908-1972) discovered a talent for photography through one of his other great loves – mountaineering. In 1928 Pascoe joined the Canterbury Mountaineering Club and began tramping in the foothills of the Torlesse and Craigieburn ranges.

On these tramps Pascoe started to taking photographs as an aid for future route-finding. Some of these photographs were published in local newspapers, and Pascoe also began to write texts to accompany the images. Then he began researching the records of early explorers, and the combined product of all these interests, his classic book Unclimbed New Zealand, was published in 1939.

Pascoe contributed photographs and articles – including a 1953 guide to building a snow hut – to the School Journal between 1947 and 1970. His 1950 serial, 'Was Wicky Lazy?', a quirky tale of rural adventures, was illustrated by Juliet Peter. In 1961 and 1970 he contributed two major photo essays to the Journal, images from which were included in a major touring exhibition of his work, 'Songs of Innocence – Photographs of New Zealand Childhood', in 2005.

John Pascoe biography – Dictionary of New Zealand Biography website

You can see more photographs by John Pascoe by going to the Timeframes website and searching using the phrase 'John Pascoe'.

Timesframes website

Permission of the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa must be obtained before any reuse of this image.

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