Handwritten pages in te reo Māori
These two small pages, handwritten in Te Reo Māori, are part of the Trinity Methodist Theological College Library archive collection held here at the John Kinder Theological Library. These records include an eclectic assortment of items relating to early Methodism in New Zealand and were donated to, and collected by, the Trinity College Library. The original provenance of these pages is unknown. However, the pages may have come from someone’s papers or laid in a book at some point and have come loose. It appears their are pages missing because the second page is marked with the number “4”.
Part of the title reads:
“tokomaha o ngā Māori?”, referring to the “many Māori”
These notes are written on the back of a blank form for an invitation to attend the “meeting of the Committee of the Auckland Association for the Prevention and Suppression of Intemperance and Immorality” dated “185-“. This Association was part of the early temperance movement in New Zealand. Drunkenness and prostitution, seen as a sign of social and moral decline, was on the rise in Auckland where the population was steadily increasing.
Attendees of the first meeting who voted on forming the association included Archibald Clark, regarded as the first Mayor of Auckland and later the Chairman of the Auckland Board of Governors in 1854; Thomas Buddle, Methodist missionary and teacher at the Wesleyan Native Institute; Arthur Guyon Purchas, a medical surgeon and ordained Anglican priest in 1854 and serving the parish of St Peter’s in Onehunga until 1875; Frederick Thatcher architect for the early Anglican Church in New Zealand and first Vicar of St Matthew’s.
It is possible that these two pages are notes for a lecture perhaps given by Thomas Buddle who was fluent in Te Reo Māori and taught at the Wesleyan Native Institute in Grafton, instructing Maori men and preparing them for the Methodist ministry. Buddle was also the editor of the Māori language newspaper, Te Haeata, from 1859 to 1862. A comparison between the handwriting on this item and that of the letter books we hold written by Thomas Buddle, appear to be very similar.