New Zealand Church Missionary Society
[5] In 1893 Miss Marie Louise Pasley, the first missionary candidate, was selected, and who was subsequently sent to Japan.
The CMS founded its first mission at Rangihoua 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.
[10] Kendall and Hall left New South Wales on 14 March 1814 on the Active for an exploratory journey to the Bay of Islands.
Kendall, Hall and John King, returned to the Bay of Islands on the Active on 22 December 1814 to establish the Oihi Mission.
[14] In 1819 Marsden made his second visit to New Zealand,[15] bringing with him John Gare Butler as well as Francis Hall and James Kemp as lay settlers.
[10][17][18] In 1826 Henry's brother William and his wife Jane joined the CMS mission and settled at Paihia in the Bay of Islands.
The CMS Mission House in Kerikeri, completed in 1822, ranks as New Zealand's oldest surviving building.
[23] However the evangelical mission of the CMS achieved success only after the baptism of Ngāpuhi chief Rawiri Taiwhanga in 1830.
The possessions of these missions were plundered during an inter-tribal war between the Māori people of Matamata, Rotorua and the Waikato river.
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.
[31] 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.
[39] 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).
Williams organised the CMS missionaries into a systematic study of the language and soon started translating the Bible into Māori.
[46] By 1830 the CMS missionaries had revised the orthography for writing the Māori language; for example, ‘Kiddeekiddee’ became, what is the modern spelling, ‘Kerikeri’.
T. W. Meller M.A., the Editorial Superintendent of the British and Foreign Bible Society, worked to revise the translation of the New Testament.
[54] 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.
[57] 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.
There was often a wide gap between the views of the CMS missionaries and the bishops and other clergy of the high church traditions of the Oxford Movement (also known as the Tractarians) as to the proper form of ritual and religious practice.
Bishop George Selwyn established St. John’s College at Te Waimate mission in June 1842 to provide theology to candidates for ordination into the Anglican Church.
