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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 12 (March 2, 1936)

Te Kopua, and the Three Kings

Te Kopua, and the Three Kings.

For five years, up to the beginning of the Waikato War, a station at Te Kopua, on the Waipa River, near the foot of that conspicuous volcanic mountain, Kakepuku, was carried on by the Rev. Alexander Reid. A great many of the Ngati-Maniapoto and allied tribes received their instruction from him, and from the Rev. John Morgan, of the C.M.S. at Te Awamutu. Young John Gorst, Sir George Grey's protege, magistrate and manager of the school institution at Te Awamutu, became very friendly with Mr. Reid, and frequently rode across to Te Kopua to ask his advice on problems which confronted him in his Government outpostwork. But Reid's principal service to his church was his work in charge of the training school and farm institution at the Three Kings (Te Tatua), those little volcanic mountains near Auckland. There both Maori and pakeha pupils passed through his hands. In the days before and after the Waikato War, boys from a score of tribes received their secular, religious and industrial training at Te Tatua.

This sketch of the Wesleyan Church's brave enterprise beginning in the period of cannibal warfare in New Zealand, necessarily can cover but the leading figures. There are several books which between them narrate fully the story of the mission; the principal of these are the Rev. Dr. Morley's and the Rev. W. J. Williams's histories, the books by the Revs. James Buller and Rugby Pratt.

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