Dr Grant Phillipson

PhD

The Tribunal was delighted to welcome Dr Grant Phillipson as a new member in December 2010. Dr Phillipson’s professional involvement with the work of the Tribunal extends over nearly two decades, beginning in 1993 when he joined the Waitangi Tribunal Unit as a commissioned researcher. In 1995, he was appointed research manager and, two years later, chief historian – a role that he held until his appointment to the Tribunal. During the course of his career, Dr Phillipson has written numerous research and historical reports, commissioned variously by the Waitangi Tribunal, the New Zealand Māori Congress–Crown Joint Working Party, the Crown Forestry Rental Trust, and Māori claimant communities. These reports have featured prominently in a number of district inquiries, most notably the Te Tau Ihu o te Waka a Māui (northern South Island) and Rekohu (Chatham Islands) inquiries. As chief historian, Dr Phillipson was responsible for supervising the Tribunal’s commissioned research programme, in addition to providing research and report writing advice to numerous Tribunal panels.

Outside his work for the Waitangi Tribunal Unit and as a commissioned researcher, Dr Phillipson has also published a number of distinguished academic papers. These include an account of the different types of evidence presented to the Tribunal, The Waitangi Tribunal: Te Roopu Whakamana i Te Tiriti o Waitangi; a study of the Church Missionary Society’s role in the Kerikeri region up to the mid-nineteenth century in Te Kerikeri, 1770–1850: The Meeting Pool; and an appraisal of how Bishop George Selwyn has featured in reports to and by the Tribunal in A Controversial Churchman: Essays on George Selwyn, Bishop of New Zealand and Lichfield, which continues an interest in Bishop Selwyn that began with Dr Phillipson’s doctoral thesis, completed in 1992. His study of the origins of the Native Appellate Court featured in last year’s New Zealand Journal of History.

Next: Professor Tamati Reedy