Guide to the Records of the Church Missionary Society (as filmed by the AJCP), 1799-1914

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Summary

Collection number:

M173-M243, M1825-1827

Creator:

Church Missionary Society

Extent:

384 items

Language:

English

Preferred citation:

Acknowledgement of use of this material should refer to the location of the original material and to the Australian Joint Copying Project.

Items from this collection should include references to the location of the original material and to the AJCP nla.obj number, which serves as the online identifier for the digital copy.

Example:M Series: Journal of Capt. James Cook, 18 February-23 September 1770, British Library Add. MS 27885 (AJCP ref: http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-987654321)

Availability:

Available

Access conditions:

Available for reference.

Background

Content Summary:

Committee and sub-committee meeting minutes 1799-1884. The minutes contain extracts from and summaries of reports, letters and decisions reached. The correspondence includes letters from aspiring missionaries and letters addressing missionary activity. The minutes include lists of expenses, supplies to be forwarded to the mission stations, bequests and donations.

Sub-committee minutes 1799-1818 for Accounts, Correspondence, Funds and Special Committees.

Letterbooks of correspondence from Society officials to missionaries in New Zealand, 1852-1883.

Mission Books 1820-1880 containing copies of incoming correspondence. Also includes annual reports, journals and details of dealing with colonial officials.

Minutes of the Sydney Corresponding Committee, 1821-1841. The minutes include letters and reports especially relating to the Wellington Valley Mission.

Bishops' Correspondence 1830-1880 mainly to Church Missionary Society but also to Colonial officials.

Correspondence of the Sydney Correspondence Committee, 1820-1852. The correspondence is mainly to and from the New Holland Mission and missionaries in New Zealand.

Missionaries joint reports, 1836-1858. Reports of the New Zealand mission stations as well as correspondence.

New Zealand station estimates and accounts, statistics, medical certificates, documents and correspondence, 1821-1880.

Papers and letters of missionaries, agents and layworkers at the various missionary stations.

Home letter books with correspondence both outbound and inbound, 1808-1875.

Indexes to Society minutes, 1799-1900.

Correspondence and precis books, 1879-1914, concerning grants to missionaries in New Zealand.

Biographical / Historical:

The Church Missionary Society was formed at a meeting in London on 12 April 1899 attended by 16 clergymen and nine laymen. Its original name was 'the Society for Missions to Africa and the East'. The founders belonged to the Evangelical wing of the Anglican Church and included several members of the Clapham Sect, such as William Wilberforce, John Venn, Henry Thornton, Charles Simeon, James Stephen, Charles Grant and Zacharay Macaulay. The Society received contributions from a large number of supporters and was able to send lay and clerical missionaries to many countries and regions: West Africa (1804), New Zealand (1809), India (1814), Ceylon (1818), Constantinople (1819), North-West America (1822), Egypt (1826), West Indies (1826), New South Wales (1830), Smyrna (1830), South Africa (1837) and China (1844).

The Reverend Samuel Marsden, who had emigrated to Sydney in 1794, visited London in 1808 and urged the Church Missionary Society to establish a mission to the Maoris. Three missionaries were appointed in 1809: a carpenter (William Hall), a shoemaker (John King) and a farmer (Thomas Kendall). They had a long wait in Sydney, but in 1814, accompanied by Marsden, they finally arrived in New Zealand. The first ordained missionary, John Butler, arrived in 1819. The early missionaries were based at the Bay of Islands, at Rangihoua, Tepuna and Kerikeri. Their mission was ineffective and divided and they were dependent on Maoris for food and protection. Marsden, who visited New Zealand seven times, provided some leadership, but the situation only began to improve with the arrival of the Reverend Henry Williams in 1823. He settled in Paihia, which became the main centre of the New Zealand Mission for the next decade. In 1830 a station was founded nearby at Waimate, with a farm and model village attached, and it made the missionaries less dependent on the Maori for food and trade.

In the early years the Maoris showed little interest in Christianity and by 1830 there had only been two baptisms. The situation changed dramatically in the 1830s and 1840s and by 1845 it was estimated that 43,000 Maoris were attending Church Missioanry Society services (double the number attending Wesleyan and Catholic services). Moving southwards from the Bay of Islands, a network of mission stations were established: Puriri (1833), Mangapouri (1835), Tauranga (1835), Rotorua (1835), Waikato Heads (1839), Otaki (1839), Poverty Bay (1840), Wanganui (1840) and Taupiri (1843). In 1842 the first missionary arrived at Nelson in the South Island. Some of the missionaries who arrived from England in this period stayed in New Zealand for forty years or more, including Henry Williams, his brother William Williams, Alfred Brown, William Puckey, Richard Taylor, Octavius Hadfield, Robert Maunsell and Robert Burrows. They translated the Bible and other works into Maori and played an influential role in mediating between the Maori and the growing number of European settlers.

After 1840 there were increasing tensions between the missionaries and the Maori, public officials, the New Zealand Company and the first Bishop of New Zealand, G.A. Selwyn. They were antagonistic to many aspects of colonisation, especially the appropriation of Maori lands. Some missionaries, with families to consider, had themselves made large land purchases and were censured by Selwyn, Sir George Grey and others. The dispute eventually led to some missionaries severing their connections with the Church Missionary Society. In 1842-1843 Selwyn made Brown and William Williams archdeacons, but as a High Churchman and an admirer of the Oxford Movement he was distrusted by many of the evangelical missionaries. In the 1850s settler pressure for the acquisition of Maori land increased and while some missionaries were critical of government policies, they were unsure how to respond to Maori nationalism. In the land wars many mission stations were abandoned or destroyed. The Church Missionary Society retained some strength in the northern and south-western districts, but never recovered in the central districts. The last two Church Missionary Society missionaries were sent out from England in 1878.

The first Maori deacon (Rota Waitoa) was ordained in 1855 and by 1900 there were 69 ordained Maori. In 1884 the Church Missionary Society largely withdrew from New Zealand and responsibility for missions to the Maori passed to a local Mission Board. Church Missionary Society grants to New Zealand ceased in 1903, but the Society continued to pay the stipends of its remaining missionaries until the death of W. Goodyear, the last missionary, in 1914.

The involvement of the Church Missionary Society in Australia was short-lived. In 1821 Marsden set up a Church Missionary Society Corresponding Committee and in 1825 he formed a Church Missionary Society Auxiliary in Sydney, with the task of promoting the work of the Society among the Australian Aborigines. In 1830 the Church Missionary Society resolved to send two missionaries, Johann Handt and William Watson, to New South Wales. They arrived in 1832 and were granted 10,000 acres at Wellington Valley, west of Bathurst. For some time, attendances at the church and school were good, many Aboriginal children acquired some literacy and numeracy skills, and a few children were baptised. However, there is no record of any adult conversions. Handt and Watson quarrelled continuously and in 1837 Handt moved to Moreton Bay. His successor, James Gunther, also had poor relations with Watson, as did William Porter, who was in charge of the mission's farm. The mission was abandoned in 1842.

Reference: Robert Glen, ed. Mission and moko: aspects of the work of the Church Missionary Society in New Zealand 1814-1882, Christchurch, 1992.

Access and use

Conditions Governing Access:: Available for access.
Conditions Governing Use:: Many of the records digitised as part of the AJCP are still in copyright. Readers wishing to publish or reproduce documents should seek permission, in the first instance, from the owner of the original material.