COLENSO AND OTHERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22000, 5 January 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

COLENSO AND OTHERS

A MISSION CENTENARY

BY MAT A NT. A

In some recent references to a notable New Zealand centenary, December 30, 1834, has been named as the date of the landing of Colenso's printing press at Paihia in the Bay of Islands. This is an error. Colenso arrived in the Bav on that date, but the press was not landed until January 3, 18.35, and to that interval of four days an interesting story is attached. The whole venture is worthy of detailed recall.

A preface is necessary to get all in order. In New Zealand, as elsewhere in missionary beginnings, the need of printed matter in the native tongue was urgent. " Oh, that I had hooks!" was Watkin's reiterated plaint in the diary of his hard days at Waikouaiti for the Wesleyan mission, and he rejoiced greatly when some at last came from the denomination's press at Mangungu on the Hokianga. That was in the early 'forties, by which time the need had been overtaken in the settled north, so sunderingly far from Watkin's Otago station; but even in the Bay of Islands the need was sorely felt long before it could be satisfied. The Rev. Henry Williams, in his first letter to the Church Missionary Society authorities in England after his arrival in 1823, asked for a printing press—- " with which we may prepare," as he explained in a private letter to the Rev. E. G. Marsh, " small books, etc., etc., making what alteration we from time to time may think proper."

Writing a Language

The important task of giving Maori a written form had then be£n accomplished, although not finally, for the " wh " (for the breathed " w") now so familiarly characteristic was not introduced until many years had passed. Kendall, one of Marsden's three pioneering lay agents, had within two years of their arrival in 1814 written a little primer of Maori words and phrases. This was printed at the office of the Sydney Gazette. In 1820 he visited England with the chiefs Hongi and Waikato, and all three went to Cambridge to assist in Professor Lee's decisive recording of the language. The result, Kendall and Lee's grammar, is a permanent landmark.

Translation came next. The Rovs. William Williams and Robert Maunsell won distinction in this, but Maunsell's work, on the Old Testament, was not begun until after'Colenso's arrival with his press. Maunsell reached New Zealand in November," 1835. William Williams, joining the mission in 1826, had already given scholarly direction to a committee of missionaries and catechists in preparing selected portions of the New Testament, part of the Liturgy, a Catechism and some hymns. So was prepared material for the printer. But where was he to be found? Only at a distance. So the Rev. William Yate, who had joined the mission in 1827, was sent off to Sydney with his manuscript, enough for 117 closely-printed pages. Piloting it there through the press occupied him for six months. The Maori welcome for these books was intensely eager; they were gladly accepted as wages or taken in exchange for anything the missionaries wanted.

After two years, more was ready for the printer—the complete Liturgy, with all its Services, a larger number of hymns, additional Catechisms, and six prominent books of the New Testament. Once more Mr. Yate went off to Sydney to look after the printing, being away nine months and returning with 1800 copies of these translations, described by him as " the most valuable cargo that ever reached tho shores of New Zealand." He had the help of a Maori youth, Edward Parry Hongi;-.in correcting the proofs. First Local Venture But this second visit of Mr. Yate to Sydney followed a rather inglorious attempt to work a press in New Zealand. No mention of it is to be found in Yate's "Account of New Zealand" (1835), although he knew all about it, but by Dr. Hocken and others the facts concerning which Yate is understandably modest are interestingly set out. Coming back from his first experience in press-work at Sydney, he brought a tiny printing plant and set it up at Kerikeri, and with its aid a little six-page Maori Catechism —tho third, concluding part of the Catechism printed during, that Sydney visit —was produced. • „

It bears its own witness to Yate's amateurish ability: it is set up with obvious taking of pains in two styles of type, but the spacing is pitiable to the trained eye; it has been inexpertly imposed; and the printing has been so clumsily done that the impression goes unevenly, in places damagingly, into the paper. Dr. Hocken unashamedly makes merry about it:

Mr. Yate took the precaution to bring also a youth of fifteen, named James Smith. who had enjoyed some trifling experience in the Sydney Gazette newspaper office. Thi3 youth 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, and also a small catechism, for in a letter to the Society Mr. Yate 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 aboxit 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 Urgent Need The expectations were those of the missionaries, who seem to have agreed on second thoughts that it was better to send Mr. Yate for long visits to Port Jackson than to have him wasting time and material, both worth money to the Society, in sorry experiments at Kerikeri —to say nothing of imperilling, body and soul, the said James Smith. This press, says Bishop Williams in his Bibliography of Printed Maori, " was apparently soon discarded and found i.ts way back to Sydney." Perhaps Yate took it back on his second visit, having it .hermetically packed and stowed well out of sight. His supervising toil there, however, docs not seem to have covered him' with glory. Dean Jacobs' comment is that Yate's work' in this way " does not appear to have been very carefully managed," a judgment based presumably on Henry Williams' contemporary vexation: he says the outcome "abounds in typographical errors —not less, I should think, than two to a page; it must not be offered without correction. ... So much for

colonial work; it is a sad place." To have a good printing plant and a competent printer on the spot, in close touch with the translators, was the one thing urgently nefcdful. How this came about a hundred years ago, not without trials of its own, provides the story of Colenso-s rather amazing experience.