The History of the NZMSS

The New Zealand Marine Sciences Society came into being on Monday 16th May 1960, during a meeting of the Oceanography Section at the 9th New Zealand Science Congress. This initial meeting commenced at 5 pm, after the Congress’s afternoon session of marine science presentations on “Currents in McMurdo Sound” by A E Gilmour and “Analysis of ocean currents around New Zealand” by J W Brodie. The main business of the meeting, which was attended by ‘some 50 interested persons’, was to make interim appointments of chairman, committee and secretary. The meeting determined that membership of the Society should be ‘open to all with an active interest in marine research and it also proposed four objects of the Society, which, despite some slightly archaic and doubtfully politically correct wording, have remained the four Objects of the Society included in its Rules through to the present day, namely:

  1. To encourage and assist marine research in  New Zealand.
  2. To provide means of communication among persons engaged in marine sciences and to provide opportunity for them to foregather at least once a year.
  3. To act as a spokesman where required on behalf of the interests of marine research in New Zealand.
  4. To co-operate with other scientific bodies and to seek such affiliations as may be appropriate.

Read more about the history of NZMSS by downloading these documents: