Sometimes while researching your family members within Archives, you will come across little hidden gems that an archivist will point out to you. Something I had never considered before until I entered the Palmerston North Archive centre in New Zealand. You never know what you can find in an archive centre especially when you are talking to an archivist, who might come out with something pretty much random.
I knew my family member Percival Amos Milverton was a public figure as he was the superintendent of the Palmerston North Fire Brigade around 1935, and had been part of the brigade for many years before that, but I had not realised he would have a caricature of him drawn within a book held by the archives centre. A caricature according to Wikipedia is a drawing to represent a public figure to look either insulting or complimentary.[1] The uses of caricatures range from anything like political cartoons featuring politicians or celebrities as good example.
I was shown one book that had been created by Pat Studio around 1934 and the archivist bought the book out to me to view amongst other records of interest. There are a few other people within the Palmerston North area that had pictures created of them. I would call this another source of information that can be used for family history research. Within the book some of the names of the people had been written in pencil to identify them
Sources
Studio, Pat Just For Fun: Personalities at Par, Pat Studio, Palmerston North, 1934.
Caricature, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caricature, accessed 14/08/2026.
Ian Matheson City Archives Palmerston North
https://www.pncc.govt.nz/Services/Ian-Matheson-city-archives
