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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Auckland Provincial District]

Mr. Frederick Edward Maning

Mr. Frederick Edward Maning, sometime Native Land Court Judge, New Zealand, was the eldest son of Frederick Maning, of Dublin, Ireland, and was born in that city on the 5th of July, 1812. His father, attracted by the free grants of land to settlers in Van Dieman's Land, emigrated with his family to that colony, and arrived at Hobart in the ship “Ardent” on the 24th of May, 1824. Young Maning, being of an adventurous spirit, went to New Zealand in 1833, when twenty-one years of age. New Zealand was not then a British colony, but Mr. Maning acquired land from the Ngapuhi tribe at Hokianga, and took up his residence among the natives at Onoke, and rapidly acquired a thorough acquaintance with the laws and customs of the Maoris. The exceptional knowledge thus acquired led subsequently to his being appointed a Judge of the Native Land Court, in which capacity he served for many years. He had lived among the natives and looked upon himself as a Pakeha Maori, by which name he was generally known, and which he used as his pen-name when he published his celebrated book “Old New Zealand,”
Rawene.

Rawene.

page 613 which is a classic in its way, on account of its literary piquancy and the unique value of its author's insight into Maori character, and knowledge of Maori life and customs. There is nothing equal to “Old New Zealand” in this connection in existence. This book was republished in London in 1876, with a preface by the Earl of Pembroke, who was himself an enlightened observer of the Maoris and of other native races in the South Pacific. Lord Pembroke's own book, “Roots,” reproduces with true sympathetic insight much of the haunting charm of the early colonial days and of the romance that then appertained to peaceful social intercourse between the better kind of settlers and the Maoris. “Old New Zealand” has passed through various editions. It and “The War in the North”—also by Judge Maning—were reprinted in one volume in September, 1900, in Macmillan's Colonial Library. “The War in the North” gives an account of the first Maori insurrection, under Heke, and of its suppression by the Imperial forces. The story is told from the Maori point of view, and is of real value as a historical document on that side of the subject. Judge Maning married a Maori woman. He rendered considerable service to the English in the Heke war in 1845, and later in the war of 1861; which he was well able to do from his great influence with the Ngapuhi tribe, the most powerful and advanced tribe in New Zealand, and of which he was a naturalised member. Judge Maning died in July, 1883, in England, whither he had gone for special medical treatment, and his remains were sent out to New Zealand for burial. The following epitaph, written by his friend, Dr. John Logan Campbell, is inscribed on his tombstone in the Church of England cemetery, Symonds Street, Auckland: “In memory of Frederick Edward Maning, known to colonial fame as the author of ‘Old New Zealand.’ He came to this land in his youth; he lived in it to the verge of old age. In New Zealand's first native war he served his country well in the field; in later life as a Judge of her Land Court, he did the State good service on the Bench. When full of years, yet full of strength, stricken with a painful malady, he sought relief in the Mother Country, where he died on the 25th of July, 1883; aged seventy-two years. His last words were: ‘Let me be buried in the land I love so well.’ Here, therefore, loving friends interred him in his last resting place, in the land of his adoption, and have raised this memorial to one of New Zealand's earliest colonists and most faithful sons.”
Rawene, Hokianga.

Rawene, Hokianga.