Sir Edmund Hillary made many trips back to Nepal after his ascent of Everest, helping the Sherpa people to build schools and hospitals. Photo / Supplied
Sir Edmund Hillary made many trips back to Nepal after his ascent of Everest, helping the Sherpa people to build schools and hospitals. Photo / Supplied
The legacy of Sir Edmund Hillary has scaled new heights, with his personal letters, photographs and diaries added to a list of the world's most treasured documents.
The Hillary Archive, safely stored in the basement of the Auckland Museum, has been inscribed on to the Unesco Memory of the World International Register - a list identifying "documentary heritage of universal value".
Only two other New Zealand items are on the list - the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi and the 1893 Women's Suffrage Petition.
Sir Ed's documents - amassed during his 88 years as a mountaineer, explorer, environmentalist, beekeeper and humanitarian - are in fine company.
Among the latest inscriptions on the world register of 348 document collections are the papers of Sir Winston Churchill, the notebooks and laboratory records of French scientist Louis Pasteur, the first recordings of the human voice, and the 1914 telegram of Austria-Hungary's declaration of war on Serbia, which began World War I.
Before his death in 2008, Sir Ed bequeathed his personal archive of 25,000 papers, photographs and documents to the museum, among them the diary he wrote in each day on his way to successfully conquering Mt Everest in 1953.
His daughter, Sarah, said the Hillary family were "absolutely delighted" that the piles of papers and photos that were once in "complete chaos" had been given international recognition.
"To think that this collection has been considered so important is a tremendous honour. It means it will always be looked after properly and more people in the world will be able to see it and use it. I think Dad would be astounded by it all," she said.
Sarah Hillary's favourite items in the collection are personal photos of her family's adventures together, and letters sent between her father and her mother, Lady Louise, who died in a plane crash in 1975. "There was a lot of humour in their letters; my parents were very funny."
The historic paperwork has been dutifully sorted, labelled and stored since being handed over to the museum by Sarah Hillary and her brother, Peter.
The public can request to see much of the archived material in the museum's library, and museum director Roy Clare says it will eventually be digitised and available online, starting with the photographs.
"The inscription in the Memory of the World is an affirmation of Sir Ed as a statesman of international repute," said Mr Clare. "All New Zealanders acknowledge Sir Ed as a national hero and we in the museum are honoured to have the responsibility for caring for his archive in perpetuity."
Unesco's Memory of the World programme began in 1992 to ensure the world's documentary heritage is preserved and promoted.
In a two-year process, an international committee of 14 experts approves historical items to be added to the world register. The Hillary collection is the first inscription from New Zealand since 1997.
Diane Macaskill, chairwoman of the Memory of the World New Zealand Trust, said it was an exciting acknowledgment that Sir Ed's achievements were globally important.
The Hillary Archive
Sir Edmund Hillary Archive. Photo / Supplied
• More than 25,000 papers, letters, photographs and documents, and the Everest diary, in which the mountaineer wrote daily entries detailing the famous 1953 ascent of the world's highest mountain.
• The public can request to see items. The archive will eventually be digitised.
