The Eminent New Zealand music historian and writer, the late John Mansfield Thomson, was both a prolific writer and a lifelong collector-of books, manuscripts, art works and musical ephemera At the time of his death in 1999, Thomson had put in order and deposited with the New Zealand Music Archive in the Turnbull Library about half of his personal papers. These have already proved a significant resource for researchers from several disciplines. Following Thomson's sudden death, his family donated the rest of his literary remains to the University of Waikato where Thomson had been a research fellow in the Music Department for several years. Martin Lodge, a staff member of the Music Department, is Thomson's literary executor.