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Te Ao Hou, September 1966, Page 60

Williams arrived at Putiki - Wharanui, Wanganui, on his way back to the Bay of Islands, after installing the Revd Octavius Hadfield at Otaki. To the Revd Henry Williams belongs the honour of being the first European missionary to visit Wanganui, but he was by no means the first to disseminate Christian teaching in this region. Christianity had already penetrated to the Wanganui tribes through the work of a Taupo chief, Wiremu Te Tauri I. When Williams visited the various pa kainga of the Wanganui area, an appeal was made to him to send to Wanganui a missionary. On 20 June 1840, the Revd John Mason, Mrs Mason and a lay catechist, Mr Richard Matthews arrived in Wanganui to establish the Mission. In January 1843, the Revds John Mason and Octavius Hadfield, travelling together south on horseback, reached the Turakina River. Although the river was in flood, the two missionaries, hardened to such dangers, attempted to cross near its mouth, and unfortunately Mason was drowned. This was the first European missionary life to be lost in New Zealand. Shortly after the sad news of Mason's death reached the Mission station in Paihia, the Revd Richard Taylor, M.A. (Camb.) was assigned to the Wanganui Station (Camb.) was assigned to the Wanganui Station and arrived at Wanganui on 30 April 1843, establishing his headquarters at Putiki. He remained there until his death in 1873. The Revd Richard Taylor left a complete journal of his multifarious interests and doings from the time he was an under-graduate at Cambridge in 1825, until within a few days of his death at Wanganui in 1873, and it is from this journal that Mr Mead has collected the extensive and interesting material for his book. Taylor's thirty years' connection with Wanganui was broken by two trips to his native land, the first in 1855 when he took with him a Wanganui chief. Hoani Wiremu Hipango. While in England on this occasion, he published the book which has earned him well deserved praise—‘Te Ika a Maui: or New Zealand and its Inhabitants’—a volume which gives an interesting account of the manners, customs, mythology and religious rites of the Maori as well as details of New Zealand geology, natural history, productions and climate. In 1867, Taylor was again back in England and whilst there published his second book, ‘Past and Present of New Zealand, with Prospects for the Future’. Both books are today out of print and extremely valuable. But to return to ‘Richard Taylor: Missionary Tramper’. No road, no track, no river, no lake, no forest, no flood—in fact, nothing could prevent Taylor from visiting the vast area allotted to his care. His adventures, however, were not limited to the West Coast of the North Island. It would be more correct to say that his ‘parish’ was boundless, for often he would be in Auckland, or in Wellington, or in some pa in Taranaki or Taupo or somewhere else. Wherever and whenever he was wanted, whether it be to mediate between tribes, or to assist someone ill, and even to persuade a war party not to pursue its cause, Taylor was there. Nothing was too much, too great or too small for him. A truly dedicated man, his many journeys on foot, on horseback, by canoe, took him to practically every marae in the North Island. Greatly loved by the Maori, the Wanganui people called their life-long friend Te Teira. I am grateful for being asked to review ‘Richard Taylor: Missionary Tramper’ for, 86 years following Taylor's death, I was greatly honoured to be installed and inducted to the Mission at Putiki — the Mission which was established by Taylor, the Missionary Tramper, a faithful servant and steward and a true rangatira of the highest order. To Mr A. D. Mead, by his masterly extraction and editing of Taylor's journals, enabling the publication of this excellent book, New Zealanders owe a debt of gratitude, for through his labours, he has brought to light what sort of stuff the early missionaries were made of.