The Church Missionary Society (CMS), an Anglican mission founded in England in 1799, sent missionaries to settle and work in New Zealand from 1814. The Rev. Samuel Marsden, the Society's agent and senior chaplain to the New South Wales government, officiated at its first service on Christmas Day in 1814, at Oihi Bay, within Rangihoua Bay in the Bay of Islands. Mission stations were founded in turn at Rangihoua, Kerikeri, Paihia and Waimate North, all in the Bay of Islands area. Later they were established in other parts of the country.
A branch of the CMS, the New Zealand Church Missionary Society (NZCMS), was founded in 1892, to send missionaries from New Zealand to other countries. The NZCMS works within the Anglican Communion and Protestant, Evangelical Anglicanism.
History
Founding of the mission in New Zealand The CMS founded its first New Zealand mission at Rangihoua Bay in the Bay of Islands in 1814 and over the next decade established farms and schools in the area. Thomas Kendall and William Hall were directed to proceed to the Bay of Islands in the Active, a vessel purchased by Samuel Marsden for the service of the mission, there to reopen communication with Ruatara, a local chief; an earlier attempt to establish a mission in the Bay of Islands had been delayed as a consequence of the Boyd massacre in Whangaroa harbour in 1809. Kendall and Hall left New South Wales on 14 March 1814 on the Active for an exploratory journey to the Bay of Islands. They met rangatira (chiefs) of the Ngāpuhi including Ruatara and his uncle Hongi Hika; Hongi Hika and Ruatara travelled with Kendall when he returned to Australia on 22 August 1814. Kendall, Hall and John King returned to the Bay of Islands on the Active on 22 December 1814 to establish the Oihi Mission at Rangihoua. The protector of the mission station was Ruatara; following his death in 1815, Hongi Hika accepted responsibility for the protection of the mission.
In April 1817 William Carlisle and his brother-in-law Charles Gordon joined the mission from New South Wales. Carlisle was engaged as a schoolteacher, and Gordon to teach agriculture; they remained at the mission until 1819. In 1819 Marsden made his second visit to New Zealand, bringing with him John Gare Butler as well as Francis Hall and James Kemp as lay settlers. William Puckey, a boatbuilder and carpenter, came with his family, including William Gilbert Puckey, to assist in putting up the buildings at Kerikeri. In 1820, Marsden paid his third visit, on HMS Dromedary, bringing James Shepherd.
Butler and Kemp took charge of the Kerikeri mission, but proved unable to develop a harmonious working relationship, and from 1822 to 1823 Butler was in dispute with Marsden. In 1823, Marsden paid his fourth visit, bringing with him Henry Williams and his wife Marianne as well as Richard Davis, a farmer, and William Fairburn, a carpenter, and their respective families. In 1826 Henry's brother William and his wife Jane joined the CMS mission and settled at Paihia in the Bay of Islands. The immediate protector of the Paihia mission was the chief Te Koki and his wife Ana Hamu, a woman of high rank and the owner of the land occupied by the mission.
Work of the mission in New Zealand The CMS Mission House in Kerikeri, completed in 1822, is New Zealand's oldest surviving building. In the early days the CMS funded its activities largely through trade. Thomas Kendall sold weapons to Māori people, with muskets being the primary item traded by whaling and sealing ships for food; with this trade in weapons resulting in the Musket Wars (1807–1842). Kendall brought Māori war chief Hongi Hika to London in 1820, creating a minor sensation. When Henry Williams became the leader of the missionaries at Paihia in 1823, he immediately stopped the trade in muskets. The mission schools provided religious education and literacy skills in the Māori language, as well as English language skills. Karaitiana Rangi was the first person baptised, which occurred in 1825. However the evangelical mission of the CMS achieved success only after the baptism of Ngāpuhi chief Rawiri Taiwhanga in 1830. His example influenced others to be baptised into the Christian faith.Dench, Alison, Essential Dates: A timeline of New Zealand history, Random House, 2005 The CMS established farms at Kerikeri and at Te Waimate mission and engaged workers from Sydney to assist in the farming; William Spikeman, a herdsman, arrived in 1833.Gillies, Iain and John (1998). East Coast Pioneers. A Williams Family Portrait; A Legacy of Land, Love and Partnership. p. 27/8. Published by The Gisborne Herald Co., Gladstone Road, Gisborne NZ. In 1833 a mission was established at Kaitaia in Northland as well as a mission at Puriri on the Waihou River. In 1835 missions were established in the Bay of Plenty and Waikato regions at Tauranga, Matamata and Rotorua. The possessions of these missions were plundered during an inter-tribal war between the Māori people of Matamata, Rotorua and the Waikato river. In 1836 a mission was open in the Manukau Harbour region.
Salary and allowances of CMS missionaries In 1832 the salary of single laymen or catechist was £30 per annum; a married couple were paid £50 p.a.. Ordained ministers were paid £80 p.a.. All children received a free education, with board, at the CMS school at Te Waimate mission. Children under school age had an allowance of £10. After that £18 was allowed for each child up to the age of fifteen.
The CMS provided rations to the missionary families of of flour per week for a male, and for a female, with half ration for each child up to seven or eight years of age. There was an allowance of sugar, tea and soap, but if mustard, pepper, vinegar and other luxuries were required, these had to be purchased from the mission store.
Herald Henry Williams commissioned a ship to provision the Paihia Mission and to visit the more remote areas of New Zealand to bring the Gospel to the Māori people. William Hall, William Puckey (Senior), William Gilbert Puckey designed and built , a 55-ton schooner, using timbers salvaged from the wreck of the Brampton, plus other timbers procured locally. Gilbert Mair, who became her sailing master, and Māori carpenters also worked on Heralds construction.
Herald was launched on 24 January 1826. Herald went to Sydney, Australia four times; the Bay of Plenty four times; and sailed three times around the North Cape, to Hokianga Harbour on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. On 6 May 1828 Herald was wrecked on the Hokianga bar.
Translation of the Bible into the Māori language
The first book published in the Māori language was A Korao no New Zealand! The New Zealanders First Book!, published by Thomas Kendall in 1815. In 1817 Tītore and Tui (also known as Tuhi or Tupaea (1797?–1824)) sailed to England.NZETC: Maori Wars of the Nineteenth Century, 1816 They visited Professor Samuel Lee at Cambridge University and assisted him in the preparation of a grammar and vocabulary of Māori. Kendall travelled to London in 1820 with Hongi Hika and Waikato (a lower ranking Ngāpuhi chief) during which time work was done with Professor Samuel Lee, which resulted in the First Grammar and Vocabulary of the New Zealand Language (1820).Rogers, Lawrence M., (1973) Te Wiremu: A Biography of Henry Williams, Pegasus Press, p. 35, f/n 7 & 39 The CMS missionaries did not have a high regard for this book. Williams organised the CMS missionaries into a systematic study of the language and soon started translating the Bible into Māori.Fitzgerald, Caroline (2011) Letter of Henry Williams, 9 February 1824Fitzgerald, Caroline (2004) Journal of Henry Williams, 12 July 1826 After 1826 William Williams became involved in the translation of the Bible and other Christian literature, with Henry Williams devoting more time to his efforts to establish CMS missions in the Waikato, Rotorua and Bay of Plenty.
In July 1827 William Colenso printed the first Māori Bible, comprising three chapters of Genesis, the 20th chapter of Exodus, the first chapter of the Gospel of St John, 30 verses of the fifth chapter of the Gospel of St Matthew, the Lord’s Prayer and some hymns.Gillies 1995, p. 48Rogers 1973, p. 25, f/n, p. 70 It was the first book printed in New Zealand and his 1837 Māori New Testament was the first indigenous language translation of the Bible published in the southern hemisphere. pp 20-110
By 1830 the CMS missionaries had revised the orthography for writing the Māori language; for example, ‘Kiddeekiddee’ became, what is the modern spelling, ‘Kerikeri’.
In 1830 during William Yate's stay in Sydney, New South-Wales, he supervised the printing of an edition of 550 copies of a translation of the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis; the first eight chapters of the Gospel according to St. Matthew; the first four chapters of the Gospel according to St. John; the first six chapters of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians; parts of the Liturgy and Catechism.
William Gilbert Puckey collaborating with William Williams on the translation of the New Testament, which was published in 1837 and its revision in 1844. William Williams published the Dictionary of the New Zealand Language and a Concise Grammar in 1844.
The translation and printing of the Book of Common Prayer was completed by November 1841. The greater number of the Collects were translated by the Rev. William Williams; the Sacramental and Matrimonial Services by William Puckey; and the remaining Collects, with the Epistles from the Old Testament, Thanksgivings, and Prayers, Communion of the Sick, Visitation of the Sick, Commination, Rubrics, and Articles of Religion, by William Colenso. From May to September 1844 a committee consisted of Archdeacon William Williams, the Rev. Robert Maunsell, James Hamlin, and William Puckey revising the translation of the Common-Prayer Book.
After 1844 Robert Maunsell worked with William Williams on the translation of the Bible, with Maunsell working on the translation of the Old Testament, portions of which were published in 1840. In 1845 the Book of Common Prayer was translated by a committee comprising William Williams, Robert Maunsell, James Hamlin and William Puckey. The full translation of the Bible into the Māori language was completed in 1857.
The Rev. William Williams and the Rev. T. W. Meller M.A., the Editorial Superintendent of the British and Foreign Bible Society, worked to revise the translation of the New Testament. In 1853, 15,000 copies were printed in England. These copies, when circulated, made the total number of 106,221 copies of the New Testament printed in the Māori language and distributed by the CMS and Wesleyan Missionary Society in New Zealand. In the early 1860s Elizabeth Fairburn Colenso helped prepare the revised Māori Old Testament and New Testament for the press. She correcting the printed copy, sometimes suggesting alternative translations. The first edition of the full Māori Bible was published in 1868.
Influence of the CMS in New Zealand
The concern about the European impact on New Zealand, particularly lawlessness among Europeans and a breakdown in the traditional restraints in Māori society, meant that the CMS welcomed the United Kingdom's annexation of New Zealand in January 1840, with Henry Williams assisting Captain William Hobson by translating the document that became known as the Treaty of Waitangi. Henry Williams was also involved in explaining the treaty to Māori leaders, firstly at the meetings with William Hobson at Waitangi, but also later when he travelled to Port Nicholson, Queen Charlotte's Sound, Kapiti, Waikanae and Otaki to persuade Māori chiefs to sign the treaty. His involvement in these debates brought him "into the increasingly uncomfortable role of mediating between two races".