OUR FIRST PRINTER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21118, 27 February 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

OUR FIRST PRINTER.

BY MATANGA

REAL BEGINNING OF AN ERA.

Thanks to the alertness of Auckland's City Librarian, a welcome correction has been given to the statement that New Zealand's first printer was William Colenso, and its first press-product the little book he completed at Paihia on February 21, 1835. Mr. Barr gives, with the highlycredible support of Bishop Williams' valuable " Bibliography of Printed Maori," and Dr. Hocken's " Beginnings of Literature in New Zealand " (a characteristically thorough paper contributed to the New Zealand Institute Transactions), particulars of an earlier product. 'This is a little six-page Maori catechism—iho third, concluding part of a work whose earlier portion was printed in Sydney; and although it bears no date or imprint there is good reason to believe that it w r as printed at Kerikeri, in 1830, oh a small press brought by the Rev. William Yato in that year, on his return from superintending certain mission printing in Sydney. This would seem to transfer from Colenso to Yate the honour of being New Zealand's first printer, and throw back by four years the date of the first local product. Dr. Hocken's comment affirms that " this fact detracts nothing from the honour of William Colenso, who, with his efficient press, arrived four years later," and there is sound reason for this judgment. Colenso's fame was given memorial on the marble tablet that flanked the north door of the Napier Cathedral before its destruction by earthquake. "He was New Zealand's first printer," one of the inscription read, and the description looses little of its aptness when all known facts are weighed. The six-page product of the Kerikeri press bears its own witness to the fact that Yate was not a printer, whereas Colenso was skilled and experienced. It is set up with obvious care in its two styles of type, but with inadequate spacing; it has signs of inexpert imposing; and the printing off was so roughly done that the impression goes deeply into the paper. Colenso's work gives proof of expertness.' In Dr. Hocken's story there is well summarised what is known about this effort, Mr. Yate himself deeming it not worth chronicling in his well-known " Account of New Zealand," wherein the formation and progress of the Church Missionary Society's enterprise in this country are very "fully narrated, although he gives particulars of his Sydney task as supervisor of press-work. Unfulfilled Hopes. "Mr. Yate took the precaution," says Dr. Hocken, in telling the tale of the bringing of the little press from Sydney after Yate's first visit, " to bring also a youth of fifteen, named James Smith, who had enjoyed some trifling experience in the Sydney Gazette newspaper office. This vouth was probably no more than a printer's devil, and, as Mr. Yate was not even that, it is probable that the efforts of the pair resulted in besmearing themselves and their paper, and then forswearing the business as hopeless. It is, certain, however, that they succeeded in printing the slips of a few_ hymns, ana also a small catechism, for in a letter to the society Mr. Y r ate says, after thanking them for the gift, ' You will perceive, by the copy of a hymn forwarded, that we shall be able, in a short time, to manage it,' There is something suspicious about this sentence; at any rate, I have not been able to learn from any source that, their expectations of use and economy were realised." The expectations were those of the missionaries in New Zealand. Th€y had hoped to cut out the expense and inconvenience of sending somebody to Sydney to see their needed books through the press. That books were needed is pitifully evident from all records of those pioneering times. i 4 Oh, that I had books!" is Watkin's reiterated plaint in the diary of his hard days at Waikouaiti for the Wesleyan mission, and he had an ecstasy of joy when some at last from the denomination's, press at Mangungu. Henry Williams' first letter to the Church Missionary Society authorities in England asked for a printing press, " with which we may prepare, as he explained in his private letter to the -Rev. E. G. Marsh, small books, etc., *\c., making what alteration we from time to time may think proper." The " gift" came with Yate when he returned from the first Sydney visit, but it did not solve the problem. Need for Something Better.

The work of translation and writing went on, but nothing morn than the sixpage catechism and a few hymns, presumably on separate sheets, came from that press; and the best thing to do was to send Mr. Yate back again to Sydney for months of more supervision of printing there. It was not a great success. Dean Jacobs' comment in his ' £ e . a " land" volume of 44 Colonial Church Histones" is that Yate's work in this way " does not appear to have been very carefully managed," and Henry Williams, eager that the work of translation being so ardently directed by his brother William should be well printed, expressed ins disappointment. He says of work supervised by Yate that it " abounds in typographical errors—not less, I should think, than two to a page; it must not be offered ■without correction." And he despairingly adds, "so much for colonial work; it is a sad place." _ Had the ability of Mr. Yate and James Smith been equal to the need, there is no doubt that the press at Kenkeri would have been in continued use, for the cniet requisite for full success, above skill in the printers, was the constant oversight of the scholarly men engaged in translating. Yate and Smith mglonously failed and there was nothing for it but either to continue sending material to London for printing there or to get a capable printer and an adequate plant sent out Of the press brought by Yate from Sydney, Williams' " Bibliography says it " was apparently soon discarded and found its way back to Sydney." Jbe new and more satisfactory order was begun when Colenso came. A Fervid Welcome. It was a new order. Colenso, who must have heard all about the earlier, ill-fated venture, recalled afterwards the enthusiasm with which his coming was hailed and the excitement in the makeshift printing office at Paihia, " filled with spectators to witness the performance, when he " pulled proofs of the first book printed in New Zealand." Yate and Smith were in " the grey, grey company beforo the pioneers" and entitled to " maiden lilies," but Colenso is par excellence the pioneer in this instance. In a letter written at the time of the landing of his press, he tells of the necessity to get it unpacked on board before trusting it to the two lashed canoes covered with a wooden platform. Sight of it enthused the Maoris, wishful to abandon their stitched* sheets of cartridge-paper, written over with " some mixture of lampblack, or powdered charcoal, for ink," as George Clarke tells, for a real " pukapuka" (book). " Could you but have witnessed the natives when it was landed: they danced, they shouted, and capered about in the water, giving vent to the wildest effusions of joy, inquiring the use of this and the place of that with all that eagerness for which uncivilised nature is remarkable—certainly they had never seen such a thing before." Had they not ? There had been the brief career of the little press at Kerikeri, but they seemed to have forgotten it, as others have done. It lies in the shadows of old time, eclipsed by what Colenso brought for employment in every kind of work that to-day is grouped under j the comprehensive heading of'- tne press." I