The Three Wives of Philip Tapsell by Ernest E. Bush The descendants of a man who first made landfall on the New Zealand coast in 1809, and who died at Maketu in the Bay of Plenty in August 1873, today count more than two hundred, constituting the ‘Whanau-a-Tapihana’, the Children of Tapsell, and a worthy part of the Arawa people. Philip Tapsell was a master mariner. Born in Denmark in 1779 as Hans Homman Felk, he went to sea at the age of 14. He served in the Danish War against the British, and witnessed the Battle of Copenhagen. He saw Napoleon at St Helena. For 35 years he sailed the seven seas; from 1809 he was chasing whales in Southern waters, his ships being largely based in the Bay of Islands. For fourteen years, he learnt to know the Maori. He was in the vicinity of the Bay of Islands when news reached his ship of the massacre of the crew of the Boyd, and some of his crew took part in the punitive expedition. He saw and admired the work of the missionaries in the region. Hans Felk took his English name in order to ship in British ships. He claimed to be a Manxman, and thus covered his accent. So it is that his gravestone in the little cemetery at Maketu carries the inscription, Hans Homman Felk, known as Philip Tapsell, a native of Denmark who distinguished himself as a Naval Officer. Died at the age of 94 years on 6 August, 1873. Tapsell was married three times, each bride being of the Maori race, and each marriage was according to the rites of the church, the first two solemnised by missionaries of the Church Missionary Society, while the last, though delayed well past the time of union, was performed by Bishop Pompallier on a visit to Whakatane, where Tapsell was living, and where there was neither priest nor mission. The Bishop first christened the children, then married the parents. Philip Tapsell's first marriage is of historical significance, in that it was the first performed in New Zealand according to the rites of the church. The register, carrying the record of Certificate No. 1, states that ‘Philip Tapsell, First Officer of the Ship Asp now at Anchor in this Bay and Maria Dinga a (baptised) native female of this Bay were married at this House by Banns with consent of Guardians this twentythird day of June in the year One Thousand eight hundred and twenty three by me, Thomas Kendall, Minister and missionary’. The certificate was duly signed by the bridegroom. Maria made her mark (and, not being able to read was unaware that her name was misspelt; it should have read Ringa) and the signatures Captain Phillip Tapsell, from a photo taken about 1870.