Out of the Common Way by E.W.Hames 1972

Transcription

1 Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #27(2&3) Page 1

2 Acknowledgements Foreward Chapter I Under the Maori Mission Chapter II The Pioneers CONTENTS Chapter III Chapel to Church Chapter IV The New Century ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the assistance of several members of the publishing committee of the Wesley Historical Society who have read my mss. and made helpful suggestions, and especially of my wife who has put up with my clutter and my preoccupation, and whose comments are always pertinent. For statements of fact I have relied upon the Minutes of Conference, upon the early church papers and upon numerous local publications. If I have slipped up here and there it is my fault alone and I apologise in advance. My opinions and prejudices are my own, not to be taken as Gospel. I began with the intention of naming few individuals, since it is impossible to mention everyone. But the annual Conference and the itinerant ministry have made our leading ministers known from end to end of the country, so that often the mention of a name will "fix" an event or a period at once. For this reason only I have referred to many ministers by name, while leaving the laity for the most part anonymous. The Connexional Office and the Library of Trinity College Auckland have been most helpful. I am indebted to Mr and Mrs Eric Winstone of Takapuna for the use of the J. B. Richardson correspondence, and to Mrs Lees, New Lynn, for the de Carteret diary. The quotations from A. R. D. Fairburn's Collected Poems are included by kind permission of the publishers. The Pegasus Press, Christchurch, to whom our thanks are due. E. W. Hames Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #27(2&3) Page 2

3 FOREWORD Someone has said that if you wish to master a subject that interests you, don't read a book about it, write one. The preparation of this small volume required research which has been its own reward. Morley's monumental History of Methodism in New Zealand will never be rivalled or brought up to date. The cost would be prohibitive. For detailed studies of circuits and congregations with photos and tributes to individuals we must be content with local brochures commemorating jubilees and centenaries, of which the Connexional Office possesses a unique collection. Most of these are adequately researched and all are valuable. We also have some admirable regional surveys, such as Wesley Chambers' careful and detailed treatment of Canterury Methodism, the volume on Marlborough issued in 1965, and John R. Grigg's recent book on Methodism in the Manawatu. We would like to see all the principal districts written up in this way. The Wesley Historical Society planned the present series of four small volumes as part of its celebration of the 150»h anniversary of our Church in New Zealand. It seems inevitable in this ecumenical age that "the people called Methodists" will soon be merged in a larger unity. Whatever our regrets at losing familiar landmarks and whatever the problems that follow, we may hardly doubt that God calls us in this direction. "Names, and sects, and parties fall: Thou, O Christ, art all in all." Yes, indeed. But "fine words butter no parsnips". The coming generation is likely to be a testing time for all Christians. If Methodists are to contribute something positive to the united church, as our partners would hope and wish, we should be anxious to know ourselves a little better. Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #27(2&3) Page 3

4 I Under the Maori Mission The World Parish When John Wesley wrote "I look upon all the world as my parish" he was trying to defend his ecclesiastical irregularities. The phrase was not original with him, 1 but served to express his sense of being called "out of the common way". But it says a great deal for the vitality and self-propagating energies of the people called Methodists that within thirty years of Wesley's death (1791) they had not only established themselves securely in Great Britain and the United States, but had missions in Ireland and France, in Canada and Newfoundland, in Ceylon and India, West Africa and South Africa, and in the South Pacific in New South Wales and Tasmania, and were preparing to enter both New Zealand and Tonga in the following year. They had already put a girdle round about the earth. Maori and Pakeha The Wesleyan missionaries who entered New Zealand from 1822 onwards came to evangelise the Maori people. But inevitably they were also required to minister to pakeha folk living in the areas under their influence. They baptised, married and buried, and preached to any Europeans who would listen to them. The early baptismal and marriage registers reflect this situation. They show perhaps one European to a page of Maori names. This situation obtained at the very beginning both in Wellington and Auckland, as well as in the smaller centres at Nelson, Wanganui and New Plymouth. It was characteristic of scattered communities like Hokianga, and wherever traders came. When the advance party of the New Zealand Company arrived in the Tory and landed at Petone in September 1839, the members were greatly surprised to be received at a Christian service conducted with dignity and reverence by a native. The incident reminds us that the European settlers came to a country already evangelised, at least in the coastal areas. The Maori greatly outnumbered the Pakeha, and almost without exception for two or three decades the missionaries had a dual role. They served both races as a matter of course. The pioneer European mission station in the South Island was entered with a view to serving Pakeha as well as Maori. John Jones offered transport and facilities to the Wesleyans if they would occupy his whaling station at Waikouaiti. He hoped to civilise his employees. When the Rev. James Watkin arrived in 1840 he found that the Maori responded better than the Europeans. The situation was so difficult that four years later he greeted his successor with the words, "Welcome to hell on earth". From Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #27(2&3) Page 4

5 Waikouaiti Watkin evangelised the Otakou peninsula. Mrs Watkin suffered some terrifying experiences while her husband was away from home. It was an isolated station which Walter Lawry, the General Superintendent, thought should not have been entered. He reckoned that if the agent attended all the District Meetings he should he might be out of his station for six months of the year. Not for the first time, or the last, these enthusiasts were biting off more than they could chew. Organised Settlement Begins Before 1840 there were few Europeans in the country and work among them was incidental. But with the arrival of numbers of settlers under the New Zealand Company's scheme, and the subsequent establishment of colonial government in Auckland, the situation changed. So for our purposes it is necessary to review developments between 1840 and 1855, when an independent Australasian Methodist Conference was inaugurated. During these fifteen years the Mission was directed by the Committee of the Wesleyan Missionary Society in London, and the agents engaged were its employees under the British Conference. In a somewhat anomalous way European congregations or circuits were founded in a number of towns by the missionaries. These stations were expected to be self-supporting at the earliest possible date, though they depended on the Missionary Society for ministerial staff. When in the fifties and sixties the Maori Mission faltered and almost foundered under the stresses of the land wars, the Mission discovered itself a Pakeha Church, with responsibility for continuing work among the Maori people as a side issue. WELLINGTON 1840 As part of the southern drive of the Maori mission, which was now in its most successful period, in 1839 John Bumby and John Hobbs made an exploratory journey to Port Nicholson. On June 7th they landed at Pipitea beach, and on Sunday the 9th they conducted the first Christian service held in the area. Before continuing their journey they purchased a block of land for a mission site, part of what is now the commercial heart of Wellington. They left six native teachers behind to prepare the ground for the appointment of a European missionary. 2 In November of the same year the Rev. James Buller was directed to proceed south from his station at Tangiteroria on the Northern Wairoa, to occupy the ground at Port Nicholson. He chose to travel overland, a journey that took two months, on foot and by canoe, arriving on January 20th, 1840, to discover that Colonel Wakefield had bought the whole Port Nicholson area on behalf of the New Zealand Company, including the land previously tapued for the Mission. This last deal was made over the heads of the Te Aro chiefs, a transaction that prefigured later misunderstandings and Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #27(2&3) Page 5

6 tragedies over land tenure. Buller decided to return north for consultation and further instructions, but before he left he met the first batch of immigrants which had just arrived on the Aurora, and conducted on board the first European service in what was later to become the capital city. This was on January 26th, Lay Initiative In the event Buller was retained on the Kaipara, so the settlers had to manage for themselves for nearly a year. Lay preachers and zealous members arrived on subsequent vessels, and services and prayer meetings were held at Petone, notably in a group of houses known as "Cornish row". In May the Mission ship Triton reached Hokianga with six recruits for this country, of whom the Rev. John Aldred, a young single man, was appointed to Port Nicholson. He reached his first charge in time to preach on Christmas Day, 1840, and was immediately engaged in a round of activity among Maori and Pakeha. The first services were held in the native chapel at Te Aro, but the Europeans soon left this primitive house of God for the Exchange, which was hired for Sunday afternoons and soon filled. Then the congregation was offered the free use of Wade's saleroom in Lombard Street. Aldred was sincere and likeable and although he was moved to Nelson after a term of just over two years, he left a lasting impression. He organised the English congregations under a Quarterly Meeting, the first of its kind in this country, and left a membership of forty meeting in class, and several preaching places including "Waiwetu" and "Petoni". Two very brief probationary appointments followed. George Buttle left to find a bride across the Tasman. Gideon Smales helped the congregation to erect a tiny chapel with their own hands. It measured sixteen feet by twenty-two, boasted a small pipe organ (status symbol of the Victorian Methodists) and was opened in August, Then came the Wairau incident, which indirectly provided the infant cause with the authoritative leadership it needed. Fearing reprisals after the "massacre" the Wesleyan natives from Cloudy Bay decided to return to their kinsmen in the North Island. Consequently Ironside, the experienced missionary from Cloudy Bay, was shifted to Port Nicholson to keep in touch and make the best of a confused situation among the Maori people in Cook Strait. With him came James Watkin, now released from Waikouaiti, to take charge of the European congregation, which now grew steadily in numbers and responsibility. The resentment that followed Bishop Selwyn's first impact on the mission situation, when he called in question the "lay" baptisms of the Wesleyan missionaries and caused great confusion among the natives, is reflected in the report for "One of the best antidotes to Puseyism is a respectable English cause, so that the natives would see that there are those of our own countrymen who would regard us as true ministers of the cross." Selwyn was not in fact a "Puseyite", merely a strict Anglican who was determined to introduce discipline among the agents of the Church Missionary Society, whom he regarded as lax in their ways. One suspects that like many Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #27(2&3) Page 6

7 Anglicans of his class Selwyn had very little contact with Methodism before he came to this country, and was not prepared to find it cutting right across his diocese. The First Manners Street Church Following the Government inquiry into the land claims of the New Zealand Company the Wesleyan Mission was granted title to two acres in Te Aro, on part of which the Maori people had already placed a mission house and garden. But the Company had set the block aside as a market reserve, so to avoid ill-feeling among the settlers the Mission agreed to an exchange by which they took possession of a site on the western side of Cuba Street with a main frontage to Manners Street, together with an acre of land on The Terrace as a parsonage reserve. It was one thing to have a site, and quite another to place a suitable building on it. But fate or Providence intervened. Governor Fitzroy arrived in Wellington. (He was a descendant of King Charles the Second by Barbara Villiers, and an ardent evangelical). He was favourably disposed towards the Wesleyan Mission, having met Walter Lawry a number of times before leaving London, and having already promised a grant of land in Grafton Road, Auckland, for a Wesleyan Native Institution. Fitzroy was anxious to improve his standing with the Wellington public, and he also wished to use Ironside's influence with the Maoris to secure better relations between them and the Government. He told Ironside that he would render any assistance in his power towards the erection of chapels or schools. The lay officials then made an immediate canvass of the town for funds, and decided to build. The result was a brick chapel seating 300 persons. The Governor laid the foundation stone on February 22nd 1844, and on December 5th it was opened for use. It was a very creditable building for the time. A little later the Maori people were given a new meeting-house, since the original one had blown down. At this stage Thorndon, Porirua, Johnsonville and the Hutt (Aglionby) were regularly visited, with chapels in most places, and Sunday Schools maintained as a matter of course. For a time there was a day school at the main Te Aro centre, where the membership topped the one hundred mark. Then disaster fell, not a "rushing mighty wind" this time but an earthquake. The brick church was destroyed, with the loss of three lives. The work went on, but it was not until the beginning of 1850 that the brick building was replaced by a wooden one of the same capacity on the same site. Both the central congregation and the circuit continued to grow. The original Wellington Circuit has been described at some length, as it illustrated the anomalous situation of the European congregations at this date. The pakeha members were expected to provide their own chapel, and to share in the provision for the minister, who was nevertheless appointed by the Mission and responsible to its officers, and whose primary task was the evangelisation of the Maori people. In practice it seemed to work well enough, and the settlers were in no situation to Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #27(2&3) Page 7

8 complain. Considering their origins. New Zealand Methodists should be a missionaryminded people. NEW PLYMOUTH 1841 Taranaki was occupied by the Wesleyans as part of the same southern drive which took the Mission to Port Nicholson and the South Island. On their return journey after inspecting Port Nicholson, Bumby and Hobbs landed at Ngamotu, the site of the future town of New Plymouth. Later in the year (1839) in response to a deputation of chiefs, Whiteley sent two native teachers from Kawhia to prepare the ground. 3 In January 1840 the Mission purchased one hundred acres at Ngamotu, and a month later the agents of the New Zealand Company acquired widespread lands from the Taranaki chiefs. In January 1841 Charles Creed settled on the Mission property, and on March 31st the William Bryan arrived with the first group of settlers. Creed had been holding services for Europeans in the tiny settlement, and was ready for the new arrivals. In 1842 a raupo church was put up in Brougham Street, which served for a year, after which the congregation was able to take over and complete a stone building commenced by a Congregational minister. This building served the Wesleyan cause for twelve years. During this period our missionary ministered to both races as a matter of course. AUCKLAND 1841 In March 1841, Governor Hobson moved the seat of Government from Russell to Auckland. The nearest Methodist agent was James Buller who was stationed on the Northern Wairoa. Buller visited the new capital in September of the same year to survey the situation. Intertribal war had depopulated the Tamaki Isthmus, but the Pakeha peace and prospects of trade were bringing the natives back. Buller found a community of nearly two thousand Europeans and a large number of Maori. There was a small group of Methodists already in fellowship, including one or two lay preachers. One of these, a Mr Florence Gardiner, conducted the first Methodist service in the new town in a sawpit in Mechanics Bay. 4 Buller spent three weeks in the tiny capital, preaching to both races and organising class meetings, which act placed Auckland officially on the Methodist map, as part of the Kaipara Circuit. The infant society met in a cottage and held public worship in a carpenter's shop. At the District Meeting held at Mangungu, Hokianga Harbour, in December the Missionary Society was urged to provide for an agent to be settled in Auckland. The High Street Chapel In 1842 Buller was in Auckland again. He found 13 Europeans and 150 natives meeting in class. He persuaded the Governor to make a grant of land suitable for a Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #27(2&3) Page 8

9 chapel in High Street, and collected money towards the cost of building. In July the Auckland Wesleyans opened their first chapel. It was a wooden building, dimensions 40ft. by 25ft. on brick foundations, and it cost 246. It even boasted a small pipe organ, which cost 100 in Sydney. For some months the services were maintained by three lay preachers. Then George Buttle took charge temporarily until the arrival in 1844 of Walter Lawry who had been sent from England to take charge of the English congregation and to superintend the New Zealand Mission. For twenty years and until the town grew away from it the High Street chapel flourished. The wooden building was first enlarged, then demoted to serve as schoolroom on Sundays and weekdays, when in 1848 a brick chapel was erected to stand alongside. Ultimately with an extension and the addition of galleries this building accommodated over a thousand people, having the greatest seating capacity of any place of worship in Auckland at the time. It was used to capacity, especially when the soldiers paraded to church from the barracks nearby. The chapel stands out prominently in pictures of early Auckland as seen from the waterfront. It was sold in 1874, but the building may still be seen at the corner of High Street and Courthouse Lane, part of a complex occupied by the Justice Department. The Auckland Circuit For a few years the chapel was served mainly by Lawry and by Thomas Buddle who was brought to Auckland to manage the Native Institution in Grafton Road and to superintend native services in the area. Later these men were reinforced by Fletcher at the Wesleyan Seminary and by Alexander Reid at Three Kings, where the Native Institution was situated from One preachers' plan served both races. By 1855 there were outposts with chapels at Parnell, Epsom ("a village four miles from Auckland") Onehunga, Howick and Whau Road (Kingsland) and preaching places at Matakana, Shoal Bay (forerunner of Takapuna) and North Head, beside a number of Maori villages. The circuit sent preachers as far as Kawau, to the copper mines. The Connexion was very much alive, with a strong group of lay preachers and class leaders. A Commercial Centre One realises that Auckland has always tended to be the odd man out among New Zealand cities. Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin were all founded according to the best principles. Their founders were working to a plan. But Auckland just grew around the Government services and opportunities for trade. Its leading citizens came across from Sydney or Hobart in the hope of picking up a fortune, or at least a decent living. They were go-getters. Among them were some very loyal Wesleyans, a proportion of whom had at least a little capital. Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #27(2&3) Page 9

10 One elderly gentleman still living in the city who carries an honoured Methodist name loves to tell how his maternal grandfather cornered the Auckland sugar supply. He did it by getting up earlier in the morning than his competitors. He bought the whole sugar cargo of a newly-arrived vessel before the city was out of bed, and charged his own price till his rivals could import another cargo. The point is that his competitors did not regard him as wicked above other men or hypocritical because he went to chapel twice on Sundays. They only wished they had the early morning habit themselves. It is a mistake to judge the 1840's by the standards of the 1970's. The same merchant was a generous and consistent Wesleyan, who gave much time as well as money to his church. He doubtless tithed his ill-gotten profits conscientiously. It was a hard world, with little margin for mistakes, and cruel hazards by the way. Ventures in Education For eleven years the New Zealand Mission was administered from Auckland, which meant that High Street was at the centre of policy. Lawry became very concerned about education. His influence with the Government led to the establishment and endowment of the Native Institution which was designed to provide trained native pastors. The Institution was situated first in Grafton Road, then at Three Kings, where it remained till It is now represented by Wesley College, Paerata. Lawry also discovered on his journeys as official Visitor to the missions in Tonga and Fiji, and to the remoter parts of New Zealand, that the missionaries were concerned for the education and future prospects of their children. A majority of the experienced workers were pressing to be allowed to return to England for the sake of their families. The Superintendent then produced a scheme for a proprietory school on a model common at the time among middleclass non-anglicans in England. The proposal was that the missionaries should be the proprietors, taking out a 20 share for each child they wished to benefit, to provide the necessary capital, and pledging their annual childrens' and educational allowances to meet the running costs. The Missionary Society was asked to send a trained teacher to take charge, to provide school equipment and bedding, and to grant a subsidy of 100 for two years. "Send me a thoroughly good schoolmaster for the children of my hardworking brethren the missionaries" wrote Lawry in April, The plan was taken up with enthusiasm. The missionaries subscribed freely. Seven allotments in Upper Queen Street, eight and a half acres in all, were purchased for 932, and a building erected at a cost of something over 2,000. It still stands foursquare (1972) the centre portion of what is now the Rembrandt Private Hotel. Up to eighty children at a time, boys and a few girls, were taught there, many of them being boarders. They were packed in by modern standards. The school was officially named "The Wesleyan College and Seminary" and opened in January, The Rev. J. H. Fletcher, a very able young minister, was sent from England to take charge. The Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #27(2&3) Page 10

11 boarders were collected from Australia as well as from Fiji, Tonga and further parts of New Zealand by the Mission vessel, and returned for the annual summer holiday in the same way. As they grew older the boys from remote stations found employment in Auckland. For a time the school flourished. It had up to seventy boarders, as well as day pupils from people of all denominations in the town. NELSON 1842 The first settlers arrived towards the end of The first Methodist minister to preach in the town was Whiteley, but the real pioneers were the lay preachers. Edward Green had organised services in the open air at Brook Street by March, On June 1st, Whiteley preached on the occasion of laying the foundation stone of a primitive chapel the colonists raised by their own labours, and on the 26th Samuel Ironside visited the settlement in the course of his circuit round, in time to preach to both Maori and European congregations, and to baptise two European children. From this time weekly services were maintained by the laymen, until Aldred arrived to take charge of both Maori and Pakeha. The congregation first met in the open air, then in a house, then in what was called the "Ebenezer" chapel mentioned above, which was used by all denominations, then in a brick schoolroom. Aldred obtained a grant of land and a building subscription of 125 from the New Zealand Company, and with a little assistance from the Missionary Society the local people put up by voluntary labour a brick building to accommodate 200 worshippers. A year later a rather primitive dwelling was provided for the minister. A Gentle Pastor Aldred did excellent work at the beginnings of Wellington, Nelson and Christchurch and should be better remembered. He was a son-in-law of Walter Lawry, a gentle man and one greatly valued as a pastor. He stayed in Nelson for a six-year term, since he was a missionary and as such not subject to the three-year rule for itinerants. He covered a wide area, with congregations at Nelson, Stoke, Richmond, Spring Grove, Waimea Village, and Whakapuaka. He also had oversight of William Jenkins, the catechist at Motueka who cared for the Maoris in that district. In 1849 Ironside took over from Aldred. He also served a six-year term pushing the bounds of the circuit as far as Hope and beyond. An older man than Aldred, with considerable mana, he preached in a gown and disciplined both preachers and members. Note that towards the end of his term the congregation was divided on the issue of using alcoholic wine at Communion. It was a little cloud like a man's hand, promising a great rain. Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #27(2&3) Page 11

12 When he moved to New Plymouth in April 1855, Ironside left 170 Europeans and 200 Maori in membership. These figures are significant especially when we remember the stringent requirements for membership at that date. From this time the Nelson minister would be mainly concerned with work among Europeans. OTAGO 1848 It was in May 1840, that Watkin began the South Island extension of the Wesleyan Mission at Waikouaiti (Karitane) and almost immediately he was in contact with the natives of the Otakou peninsula. He and his successor Charles Creed who followed him in 1844, together with a number of native assistants, maintained a witness extending from Lyttelton and Akaroa to Riverton and the Bluff. A Shabby Deal In July 1844, a great gathering of Maori people was held at what is now Port Chalmers, to arrange the sale of Otakou in preparation for Pakeha settlement. Pybus records 5 that twenty-two of the twenty-five chiefs who signed the deed of sale had been baptised by Wesleyan missionaries. The land was sold at l½d an acre, the chiefs agreeing to sign on the understanding that one tenth of all town, suburban and rural land would be set aside as a native reserve. The agreement was not kept. Endowments went to education and to the Presbyterian Church, but none to the Maori. This caused great bitterness and a revulsion against Christianity among the natives. Unfortunately it was the Wesleyan Mission that got the backlash, since the missionaries had been naive enough to advise the natives to sell. Dunedin Founded In September 1844, Creed conducted the first service for Europeans in "New Edinburgh" and four years later he was on hand to greet the first settlers, among whom there were a few Methodists, including one lay preacher, T. Ferens. Since Otago was officially a Presbyterian settlement the Methodists felt no great urge to exploit the situation, especially when it was made clear that they were not welcome, though they did try to keep in touch with any of their members who desired their ministry. They also served some Anglicans, who would find them acceptable in the absence of a clergyman, because they used the Book of Common Prayer. But no appointment was made to Dunedin. Creed remained with headquarters at Waikouaiti for nine years, being succeeded by William Kirk. Kirk preached frequently at Port Chalmers, for a time officiating in the Presbyterian church, which was vacant. But his major responsibility was always to the enormous round of Maori settlements. WANGANUI 1848 Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #27(2&3) Page 12

13 The Wesleyans wished to extend their influence in South Taranaki. Accordingly a party led by John Hobbs, with Mr and Mrs G. Stannard and Mr and Mrs W. Kirk, sailed south to the mouth of the Wanganui river. Their little vessel went aground on the north bank of the river in a storm, but the party escaped with their lives. On the Sunday following they gave thanks to God in a service of worship held in a large raupo hut in the settlement. As the Anglican Mission (Rev. R. Taylor) was well established in the neighbourhood Kirk went up the river to Ohinemutu, above Pipiriki, where he and his wife sustained an heroic ministry for a number of years. Stannard worked Waitotara and the Kai Iwi area. Both men visited Wanganui from time to time and preached there. Naturally the little group of committed Methodists in the town consolidated around their leadership. In October of the same year the Rev. William Woon of the Waimate station reported "we have a chapel in Wanganui". It was probably no more than a temporary raupo hut. At a later stage services were held in the Court House. When Woon retired from the active work in 1853 he settled in Wanganui and organised the first class meeting, which met in his home. But it was only very slowly that the European work came to take precedence over the Maori mission. CANTERBURY 1851 Though the Wesleyans had been ministering to Maori people in Canterbury from 1840 if not earlier, through native agents, no pakeha minister was appointed to reside in the province until the arrival of the Canterbury Association settlers. Owing to the peculiar relationship of Methodism to the Church of England it was still common enough, especially in rural England, for families to be in good standing with both Church and Chapel. For example, the Rev. William Baumber once told the writer that in his youth in a small Lincolnshire town he went to both church and chapel as a matter of course, his chief mentor being the parish schoolmaster and organist; and that on his return from the Conference at which he was accepted for training as a Methodist minister, he found waiting for him an invitation to train as a clergyman. So it came about that there were Methodists in each of the four first ships, although the Association was supposed to be a strictly Anglican venture. When at the request of some settlers Watkin visited the settlement in October 1851, he discovered a Sunday School established in Mrs. Quaife's whare in Hagley Park. Watkin held services in Lyttelton and Christchurch and gave cohesion to the little flock. For a short time Lyttelton appeared on the preachers' plan of the Wellington Circuit. House services were held also at St. Albans at a very early date. Among the lay leaders was a Primitive Methodist layman, a Mr. Flavell. Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #27(2&3) Page 13

14 By a fortunate accident in 1853 when William Kirk was on his way south to his appointment at Waikouaiti, he was held up at Lyttelton. He found the situation so promising and the people so pressing that he was allowed to remain till the next year, when Aldred took over. Within a few months a Mr Broughton offered a site in High Street, where a small weatherboard building was opened for worship at Easter It measured 35tt by 20ft. The year following a small building was opened in Lyttelton. Services were held regularly at St. Albans, Riccarton and Kaiapoi. Aldred was left in Christchurch for six years, and he laid good foundations. Christchurch was the last of the major centres to be settled, but because the province held an abundance of good land ready for immediate occupation, and few Maori people to dispute its use, it soon prospered, and the churches prospered with it. For some decades Canterbury Methodism was the strongest in the colony, and in some respects it is still the most stable. THE PRIMITIVE METHODIST MISSION IN NEW ZEALAND 1844 In response to an appeal by a faithful layman in this country, Mr J. Harris, the Primitive Methodist Conference in England decided to establish a Mission in New Zealand. The Rev. Robert Ward was chosen as the pioneer agent. He landed in New Plymouth in 1844, and was welcomed by the Wesleyan brethren. There was room for all. He found a few Bible Christians banded together in fellowship, who were glad to throw in their lot with him, and soon had a small building in which to meet and a nucleus of preachers and workers. Ward possessed strength and determination, and a good deal of common sense, and made an impact on town and surroundings. He was accustomed to preach in the open air, and to use more aggressive methods than the comparatively staid Wesleyans of the day. Wellington Two years later the Rev. Henry Green arrived to assist Ward. After a year in New Plymouth finding his feet in the new country. Green was sent to open a cause in Wellington. A "mud" church which was erected in Sydney Street in 1847 fell to pieces in the earthquake of the following year. It was replaced by a weatherboard building. Outposts were at Tawa Flat, the Hutt and Stokes' Valley. Ward had his eye on Auckland. He visited the capital, as it then was, in Characteristically, when his schooner was tidebound off the Muddy Creek in the Manukau Harbour, he managed to get ashore and preached to the bushmen camped nearby. The next day he was in Auckland, where he formed a class and so gave official status to his work. Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #27(2&3) Page 14

15 Opening in Auckland The next year the Rev. Joseph Long came from England and began what was to prove a fruitful nine-year ministry in Taranaki. This set Ward free to open a public ministry in Auckland. Again he was cordially received by the local Wesleyans, and he was able to open a church building on Sunday, March 16th, It was erected on a halt acre site granted to the denomination by Governor Grey, situated in Edwardes Street (later Alexandra Street, now Airedale Street) part of the land now occupied by the Auckland Methodist Mission Building. Within a few years as settlers continued to arrive in the colony a thriving society was built up, with outposts at Mechanics Bay and Freeman's Bay, at Otahuhu and Onehunga, at Howick, Tamaki East, Epsom and Panmure. In fact they tried to do too much too fast, a common Methodist mistake. A careful reader will notice that the Primitive Methodists were concentrating in areas where the labouring population was to be found. They were appealing to the same class of people who had welcomed Wesley one hundrd years earlier, the "mechanics" i.e. the artisans, the more intelligent ambitious type of workman. A Notable Lay Preacher John Clement 6 was an outstanding example of the type of worker to which Primitive Methodism owed everything in its formative period. Born in 1828 in Berkshire, England, he was converted and began to preach at a very early age. In 1847 he enlisted in the 56th regiment and came to New Zealand with his unit. Did he join the army because he was unsettled following the death of his first wife, or did he find it hard to make a living in "the hungry forties"? We do not know. He was accredited to the Sydney Street church as a lay preacher in Clement was over six feet in height, strongly built and tough as leather. He appears to have been proud of his feats as a pedestrian, and preferred to travel long distances on foot. On one occasion when he was employed in Masterton he was unable to catch his horse, so he set out to walk to Wellington, a mere sixty or seventy miles. Arriving early on Sunday morning, he preached three times, and then walked home again. Why not? Men were men in those days. The worst we know about him is that he was once admonished for preaching long sermons. For over forty years he averaged sixteen services a quarter, being used by the Wesleyans as well as by his own denomination. It is hardly likely that his sermons were cultured or profound, but coming from such a man and with the type of hearers represented they would be effective. He died in 1914 at the age of ninety, active to the last, senior lay preacher of the Taita church after union. A greatgrandson is President of the New Zealand Methodist Church at the time of publication. Those who know R. F. Clement will recognise that the genes persist, and that New Zealand has proved a land of opportunity. Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #27(2&3) Page 15

16 A WORD TO THE UNINITIATED The Minor Methodist Churches The title "Methodist" was originally a nickname dating from the Holy Club at Oxford. Later it was used loosely in a more or less derogatory way to describe individuals and groups caught up in the Evangelical Revival, Christians of a fervent emotional temper who made much of the need for conversion. In the early period Wesley referred to his followers as "The United Societies," but later they referred to themselves as "the people called Methodists". They were often popularly described as Wesleyans, and at a later date after the formation of other Methodist Connexions the adjective Wesleyan invaded official documents to distinguish the original body. The Methodist New Connexion In the decade after Wesley's death a small group led by Alexander Kilham seceded and formed the New Connexion. They were early democrats and wanted to move faster than the main body. They were found mainly in the north of England and their chief title to fame is that they produced William and Catherine Booth, founders of the Salvation Army. Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians The French Revolution brought peril for the Methodists in England. Popular gatherings were suspect and it was necessary to walk warily as the societies might have been suppressed under suspicion of sedition. It had always been doubtful if the Toleration Act really applied to the Methodists, who rejected the title of Dissenters. With a fair show of legality a hostile government might have clamped down on openair gatherings and any sort of popular enthusiasm. Ministers were exempt from service in the militia, but in 1809 it was suggested that the exemption should apply only to ministers of settled congregations. This would have enabled hostile magistrates to arrange for itinerant Methodist preachers to be pressed into the navy or the militia. The proposal was dropped because of resolute opposition, both by Methodists and by the Nonconformists, but it shows how the official mind was working. As a result of these pressures the Wesleyans acquired a habit of caution. They practically abandoned open-air preaching and settled down in their chapels, all the more readily because they were prospering without it. The connexion trebled its membership in a little over twenty years. A Further Revival About 1810 a wave of evangelical fervour swept over two widely separated areas. In the northeast the Primitive Methodists appeared, in the southwest the Bible Christians. Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #27(2&3) Page 16

17 Both were started by charismatic leaders who were unwilling to be confined to the official Wesleyan channels, and were disciplined by Superintendent ministers who did not recognise the explosive mixture they were handling. The leaders of the new movements made no attempt to disrupt existing work, but simply walked out and started again. They went to the poor, as Wesley had done, and were successful with the agricultural labourers, whom Wesley had hardly reached at all. They were crude, they sang doggerel rhymes, they were described as "ranters". Many of the first generation of preachers were almost without education, but they won thousands of converts. The Government reacted in 1811 with a stronger Bill, directed at "the kind of people becoming dissenting ministers". "Cobblers, tailors, pigdrawers, chimneysweepers..." All very shocking to people with set ideas about the lower orders. This second attempt at repression was also defeated, and the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in 1828 ended all danger of suppression. Readers of George Eliot's Adam Bede will recall the woman preacher, Dinah Morris; and the comment of the inn-keeper: "I've beared as there's no holding these Methodisses when the maggit's once got i' their head; many of 'em goes stark staring mad wi' their religion." Both Primitives and Bible Christians made considerable use of women preachers. At the time when these people began evangelising in New Zealand they were, speaking generally, a generation or more behind the Wesleyans in social development, though there was a good deal of overlap. The Free Methodists These were the product of the one considerable schism British Methodism suffered. In the era following the Reform Bill during the forties and early fifties the connexion was racked by controversy over the constitution of the Conference and the rights of the laity. The Conference was dominated by a group of able but domineering leaders, of whom Jabez Bunting was the chief. Their monopoly was challenged by a younger group, who naturally sought to use the rising democratic spirit as a lever. Unfortunately it was not a straight issue between Tories and Radicals which would have worked itself out after a generation of wrangling, but the matter was bedevilled by personal animosities. There was some vicious infighting. There are no quarrels like quarrels within the family. This one led to the loss of one hundred thousand members and a rash of small independent bodies which soon sorted themselves out and coalesced into the Free Methodist connexion. All these Methodist bodies were identical in doctrine and connexional in polity, and nobody outside the family could tell them apart. The Wesleyans were the most mature and the most staid, the Primitives were the most aggressive, but they overlapped and intermingled freely. They shared the tight, unified polity Wesley had bequeathed, which was more suited to an Order than to a continuing religious denomination, their "connexionalism", and a set of peculiar terms' such as Circuit for the round of the Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #27(2&3) Page 17

18 travelling preacher. Society for the congregation, Steward for the lay official who handled money. Agent for an employee of the Conference, and so on. Wesley avoided the use of common ecclesiastical terms because he did not wish to seem to be setting up a rival to the Church, but he left us a system that baffles the outsider. The Salvation Army and Methodism Though they have never had any official connection, the Army may reasonably be viewed as the third wave of aggressive Methodism. When William Booth resigned from the ministry of the New Connection he was doing much as the early Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians had done. He had to be free to go to the rejects of the great cities as they had gone to the fields and the mines. Moreover, under the uniforms and the army titles we may recognise Wesley's autocracy and his concept of a disciplined band of dedicated workers, going "out of the common way" to carry the Gospel to those who needed it most. 1 Journal, Standard Edition. Vol. 2 p.218 note. 2 They were Minarapa Rangihatuake, who took up work at Te Aro; Reihana-te-Karoro, who with his wife and 'children was located at Pipitea; Moretara, Ngaroto, Maka, and Hemi and his wife. See Centenary of Wesley Church, Taranaki Street, p.4 W.H.S. 3 They were named Te Awaiti and Hohaia. 4 We have this on the authority of the late Rev. M. A. Rugby Pratt, who was a greatnephew of Gardiner. 5 Otakou and the First Christian Mission, T. A. Pybus. 6 Hands Across the Century. Booklet commemorating centenary of Wesleyan Methodist Church in Taita, Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #27(2&3) Page 18

19 II The Pioneers There is a myth absorbed in their youth by most older people raised in this country, to the effect that New Zealand was colonised by a rather superior sort of people, idealists who believed in plain living and high thinking, not like those vulgar Australians. We now realise that this was almost pure nonsense. It was dreamed up by a tiny people lost at the bottom of the world, to give them a little pride and confidence in themselves. In fact the overwhelming majority of immigrants travelled steerage and they came here because there seemed no hope of a decent life in the land they had left behind them. The new land was "Haven of hunger; landfall of hope; Goal of ambition, greed and despair." 7 As for the adventurers who flocked to the diggings, they were a very cosmopolitan lot. For our purpose it is important to notice that these little people, displaced by the Industrial Revolution, shaken out of the humble security of village life, but still tough enough and ambitious enough to make a fight for it, were the very stuff of which Methodism was made. The connexion flourished in New Zealand for the same reason that it prospered everywhere among the same sort of people throughout the Victorian era. It met their needs. A Spiritual Revival Methodism was a product of the Evangelical Revival, the revival of personal religious faith, "experimental" religion, which had such a powerful effect on the Englishspeaking world in the 18th and 19th centuries. It may be regarded as a second, softer and more tolerant wave of the Puritanism which had done so much to shape both English and American life in the 17th century, and which is depicted for all time in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. The revival affected both the Established Church and the Dissenters, but its greatest direct impact was through the Methodists. John Wesley was influenced by the High Anglicans among whom he was bred and trained, by his Puritan ancestry (both his parents came of distinguished Puritan families) and by the warm emotional hymnsinging Moravians whom he encountered for the first time in Georgia. The result was a peculiar fellowship which was simple, spiritually optimistic, warm and emotional, but at the same time strongly Biblical and ethical in emphasis. Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #27(2&3) Page 19

20 Under Wesley's firm guidance the Methodists spread through some of the neediest areas in England, and leaped across the Atlantic to become a force in America. Its success showed that it was meeting a need which the Established Church had failed to recognise. Both the Wesleyans and the Minor Methodist bodies that followed made converts because their hearers were ready for the message. It found them at the point of their inner poverty and insecurity. It "spoke to their condition" as an older generation might have phrased it. It provided spiritual stamina and compensation to a group becoming aware of its need, and in so doing it opened opportunities for betterment. The movement retained much of its special vitality and creative energy until about the last decade of the nineteenth century. A Social Movement It would be as foolish to ignore the social significance of the Methodist Movement as to deny its religious impact. When the Wesley brothers went abroad preaching the love of God "for every soul of man" they were in effect teaching men to value themselves. A great deal has been written about Wesley's work for the poor. That work was genuine and costly. But an examination of the records shows that the people who dominated Wesleyan chapel life in the second half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth already had their feet on the bottom rung of the social ladder. It is significant that Wesley himself seems to have made very little direct impact on the agricultural labourer. But miners and artisans and early factory workers who were forced to adjust to a new situation responded to a message that offered significance to their lives. Soldiers too were attracted to Wesley's preaching, providing some effective travelling preachers and helping to carry the Gospel round the world. Chapel life was tailored to the need of these aspiring people. It gave them the company of their own kind, the responsibility of office, and practice in working together. It taught the simple virtues of honesty, sobriety, industry and frugality, by which they prospered. With each generation a proportion of the successful ones moved into other socially more acceptable circles; but others took their places and filled the chapels. Some of them were astonishingly articulate. As opportunity offered they mastered the three R's, but their education was strictly practical, being deficient in imagination. There is a mass of biographical material available, expressed mainly in a rather repellent pietistic jargon, but revealing a consistent pattern. These were not stupid peasants but tough realistic people with courage and tenacity and an eye to the main chance, both in heaven and upon earth. When old England failed them, large numbers came to New Zealand, drawn by the lure of cheap land, land which represented the ultimate in security to the mid-victorian. Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Publication #27(2&3) Page 20