Margaret (Peg) Dewes papers

Six boxes of material, including photographs, correspondence, programmes, newspaper clippings, tape and video recordings, that have arranged into the following series:  

• The Cambridge Music School - including correspondence, newspaper articles, photos and ephemera.
• The Community Arts Service - history of the service and Peggy Dewes support for the service in Tirau. Includes newspaper clippings, programmes, correspondence and administration. 
• Lili Kraus - large collection of material related to Lili Kraus including documentation on her Masterclasses, photos, letters between her and Dewes, news paper clippings on Commemorations/In Memoriam from local and overseas. Collection also includes sub-series of concert programmes, audio visual material and photographs. 
• New Zealand Musical figures  - Correspondence between Peggy Dewes and Douglas Lilburn, Owen Jensen, Layton Ring, Dorothea Turner, Gwyneth Brown and others. Includes newspaper clippings, letters, ephemera. 

An additional finding aid has been prepared for the audio visual material in the collection that has been digitised. This gives details on the documentaries, piano recitals and recollections from and about Lili Kraus.

Brief Biography of Peg Dewes:

Margaret (Peg) Dewes (nee Barnett) first met Hungarian pianist Lili Kraus, and her family, in 1943, following their release from a Japanese Prisoner of War Camp in Java. Lili and her family were billeted at the Barnett farm in Tirau for several weeks, and thus began a lifelong friendship and shared love of music. The Barnett family played a key role in forming one of the first Community Arts Service (CAS) committees in Tirau in 1946. Peg attended the first and second Cambridge Music School in 1946 and 1947 where Lili held a masterclass. By this stage Lili had become a naturalized New Zealander.  Peg and Lili enjoyed a rich friendship until Lili’s death in 1986. Whenever Lili returned to New Zealand for a concert tour she would often stay with the Dewes family, and became a specially loved visitor to the Dewes home at 150 Te Rapa Rd, Hamilton.

The Friends of Lili Kraus group was started after Lili settled in Texas, and Peg was instrumental in ensuring ongoing visits. Lili came frequently to New Zealand to perform and run master classes, including one at The University of Waikato.  After Lili's death, Peg Dewes began the Lili Kraus scholarship for students in The University of Waikato Department of Music. Peg died in 2019, and her collection of papers, memorabilia and writings of this extraordinary 70 year period of musical and CAS history, have been gifted to University of Waikato by the Dewes family.