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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Otago & Southland Provincial Districts]
Evangelist Matthew Wood Green
Evangelist Matthew Wood Green , formerly of the Tabernacle, Church of Christ, Dunedin, was born in Manchester, in 1840, and brought up in the doctrine of the Church of England until his fourteenth year, when after a short association with the Wesleyan body, he left and united with the Church of Christ. Before his eighteenth birthday he was asked to give addresses to mixed audiences. In 1862 he came with his wife and son to New Zealand, with some other members of the Church of Christ from Manchester, and landed at Auckland. After spending five years there Mr. Green decided to go to Sydney, where he laboured for nearly three years. In 1889 he accepted an invitation to the Swanston Street church; but after remaining there a year he went to North Melbourne and formed a church with a nucleus of four members, who were baptised on the occasion of their first meeting. In five years the new church had 300 members. Owing to a break down in his health Mr. Green went Home in 1877, having been previously presented with a purse of 100 sovereigns by his fellow church members in Melbourne. He came to Dunedin in 1878, and remained seven years, during which the fine tabernacle in Great King Street was erected. After a residence of three years Mr. Green was pressed to stand for Parliament, and represented Dunedin East from 1881 till 1884. He was invited in 1885 to succeed Mr. J. Gore at Adelaide, where he continued to minister for twelve years. In 1902 he again revisited Dunedin, having been requested to take charge of the Tabernacle, which he did for a year and a half, and then returned to Melbourne.