Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Life in Early Poverty Bay

Presbyterian Church — First to Hold Organised Services

page 59

Presbyterian Church
First to Hold Organised Services

So far as we have been able to trace (said the Jubilee report of the church) the earliest mention of Poverty Bay as a field for the extension of the Presbyterian Church, occurs in the minutes of the Presbytery of Auckland under date 10th January, 1872. It appears from these minutes that some residents in this district had felt the want of the ministry of our Church, and had communicated with the Presbytery about establishing services. Evidently the Presbytery was unable to do anything towards meeting the request immediately. No doubt they felt the difficulty; Poverty Bay was a long way from Auckland, ministers were scarce and there were many other demands. The Poverty Bay communication was allowed to lie on the table for three months, during which there was probably some correspondence on the subject. Anyhow, on the 3rd of April, the Presbytery of Auckland got rid of the problem by passing it on to somebody else. It agreed “that the matter of supply for Poverty Bay be handed over to the consideration of the Hawke's Bay Presbytery in consequence of the greater proximity of the district to that Presbytery.”

It so happened that the Hawke's Bay Presbytery was able to do something almost immediately. The Rev. George Morice, who had been minister of St. Paul's Church. Napier, since 1866, resigned his charge in the month of February, 1872, intending bye and bye to re-visit Scotland. He had some time at his disposal before leaving for Home, and spent some weeks of it in Poverty Bay. He was the first Presbyterian minister to conduct services here. Apparently he found the people anxious to see our Church represented in the Bay, and he proceeded to make preliminary arrangements. A list of promised subscriptions was made out and entrusted to Mr. Matthew Hall, saddler, to look after. A section of land, ten acres in extent, was secured at Matawhero; and the Matawhero Church, then the property of Captain Read, and used at one time by the Anglicans, was bought, It was already an historic building. It had been spared by the Hauhaus during the disturbed times of 1868–70 and had afforded sanctuary to a number of settlers and their families on the occasion of the massacre in 1868. Mr. Morice himself advanced the purchase money for the church. He also wrote an account of what he had done to the Rev. David Bruce in Auckland, who was the Convenor of the Church Extension Committee in those days, and to the Rev. Peter Barclay, in Scotland, who had been in New Zealand, was indeed the first Presbyterian minister in Napier, and was deeply interested in the work of the Church here. Through these brethren he hoped to secure a minister for Poverty Bay.

All these matters were reported to the Hawke's Bay Presbytery at its meeting on the 27th of June, 1872. Mr. Morice had proved a zealous and efficient commissioner, and the Presbytery was inclined to leave the whole business in his capable hands. It resolved that he should be authorised “to proceed as circumstances permitted.” Details of his procedure are not recorded; but the result was that the Rev. W. Heningham Root, formerly a minister of the Anglican Church, but then a minister of the Presbyterian Church of England, was appointed in the Home Country the first minister of the Poverty Bay Charge.

Mr. Root arrived here in February 1873. He made his home in Matawhero to begin with, holding services in Matawhero and Gisborne on alternate Sundays, and visiting Patutahi. Ormond and other places on the flats as he had opportunity. After six months, however, it was apparent that the strategic centre of page break page 61 the work was in Gisborne itself. The original township of Gisborne had been laid off, named, and a sale of town and suburban sections held by the Provincial Government of Auckland in 1872. (The settlement before that was known as Turanganui).

St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church

St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church

Mr. Root later moved into town and resided in Customs Street. From that date services were held in Gisborne every Sunday. The place of meeting was the Court-house, a twostorey building, which stood then on what is now Adair Bros.' corner, and which is still in use on the opposite side of the street as Prime's ironmongery shop (since demolished).

The Presbyterians were the first to hold regularly organised services in Gisborne, and both prior to and for some time after the erection of the church these services were attended by members of the Church of England and other Protestant denominations. A very friendly and harmonious spirit marked the intercourse of all denominations in those early days.

It was not till the following year that Mr. Root visited Napier, and was formally welcomed by the Hawke's Bay Presbytery. At a meeting of the Presbytery on the 4th of February, 1874, he was able to report that he had been twelve months in Poverty Bay, and that good progress had been made in laying the foundations of the Church there. Besides the property at Matawhero secured by the Rev. George Morice, the Church possessed now a couple of acres in Cobden Street, Gisborne, half an acre of which had been given by the Provincial Government out of reserves for Church purposes, and the remainder purchased by five members and presented to it. The five members to whose foresight and generosity the congregation is so much indebted were Messrs. Matthew Hall, W. B. Mill, John Ferguson, Alexander Blair, and Andrew Graham. The acre and a-half cost £25. The section originally given by the Government was the one nearest to Gladstone Road. It was one of four sections set aside for Church purposes. The others were given to the Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Methodist Churches, the assignment being by ballot.

Rev. Geo. Morice.

Rev. Geo. Morice.

Steps were now taken to build a church on this property. The site was covered with scrub, and the pegs had to be sought for among the manuka. An interesting minute of the period tells how the committee approached the Road Board with the request that the formation of the road from Gladstone Road to the Church section should be undertaken. In spite of some difficulties the building was carried through expeditiously. Friends in Auckland assisted the project with subscriptions amounting to £101. Many of the first settlers in Gisborne came from Napier and Hawke's Bay, and a considerable sum of money also was collected in Napier. The Church was opened by the Rev. D. Bruce, of Auckland, and the Rev. D. Sidey, of Napier, on the 25th of October, 1874. Mrs. Brooke-Taylor, a prominent Church of England worker, presided at the harmonium on the occasion. With the exception of the native church on the Kaiti side of the river, this was the first ecclesiastical building in Gisborne.

page 62

Burning questions about this time were the proposed removal of the Matawhero Church to another site, and where to erect the Manse—in Gisborne or at Matawhero? The Presbytery strongly recommended that the Matawhero Church should stay where it was, and the Manse should be in Gisborne. In Gisborne, accordingly, the Manse was built, and occupied by Mr. Root in 1876. It is now the caretaker's cottage at the back of the present Church.

During the years 1874–77, while the congregation was bearing the burden of its building schemes, it received substantial help in the matter of stipend from the Colonial Committee of the Church of Scotland. An annual grant of £50 was paid to it, on condition that it raised £150 itself, making the stipend in all £200.

On the 5th of February, 1878, the Presbytery received the report that Mr. Root was about to ordain elders in Gisborne, and agreed to leave the matter in his hands. This seems to have been the first Session.

Six months later, in August, Mr. Root received a call from Greymouth, which he accepted. There was a fairly long vacancy. In the following March a call was sustained to the Rev. John McAra, of Balclutha. Mr. McAra accepted it, and was duly inducted on the 14th of May, 1879. In its early years the congregation found the problem of finance a somewhat serious one, and it is evidence of the progress made that the stipend offered to Mr. McAra was £300.

St. Andrew's Church was now firmly established, and henceforward its course was like the course of other Churches. It has had its ups and downs, its changes and losses, its difficulties and anxieties; but it has continued throughout all to bear its testimony to Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Saviour of the World. From its pulpit the Gospel has been faithfully preached; in its Sabbath Schools and Bible Classes the young people have been faithfully taught. The hearts of men and women have been refreshed and comforted, and many have been won for the kingdom of God.

Rev. W. H. Root,

Rev. W. H. Root,

Mr. McAra's ministry was cut short in 1890 by a fatal buggy accident on the old Peel Street bridge. He was succeeded by the Rev. R. M. Ryburn, M.A., now the Director of the Youth Work of our Church. On Mr. Ryburn's translation to Wanganui in 1897, the Rev. James G. Paterson, of St. Paul's Church, Napier, was appointed to succeed him. In his time the old Church, which had already been added to, was enlarged to its present size. Mr. Paterson died suddenly on the 10th of August 1906. The Rev. William Grant, formerly of Leeston, was inducted on the 17th of October in the same year. During his ministry, in 1910, a new Manse was built on a site in Childers Road, donated to the Church by the Misses Morice, sisters, of the Rev. George Morice, who had long been resident in the district. A few years later, in 1913, the present Church was erected. Mr. Grant was one of the first ministers to serve as chaplain when page 63 the Great War broke out. His tragic death in the trenches of Gallipoli is commemorated on the stone let into the east wall of the Church, while another stone commemorates men connected with the congregation who died in that titanic struggle. On the 9th of March, 1916, the Rev. James Aitken, M.A., formerly of Mosgiel, was inducted into the pastoral charge of the congregation.

It was during Mr. Ryburn's ministry that the country districts, with the exception of Matawhero, were disjoined from the town. Matawhero was separated in 1899. This present year (1923) saw the suburban district of Mangapapa and Kaiti, where Knox Church and St. David's have for many years been under the fostering care of St. Andrew's, attain independence as a Home Mission charge.