Samuel D Carpenter

Category: archives

  • Conference paper: Henry Williams’ intellectual formation in English Dissent

    … and his views on the Waitara controversy, c. 1860. The slides and recording below represent a conference paper given at the New Zealand Historical Association Conference last week, at the University of Auckland. (The NZHA conference is the main conference of Aotearoa-NZ historians held biennially.) Abstract of paper: The Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionary…

  • Marianne Williams and the Missionary Impulse

    In this postcolonial age, many things are said and written concerning missionaries to foreign/ indigenous lands. I have just been reading a source which reveals that in its purest, Christian form, the missionary impulse was, well, pure and Christian. It would also, doubtless, have seemed reckless and ridiculous to many contemporary observers, not to mention…

  • Talk at National Library on Henry Williams + Te Tiriti

    I was invited by the National Library, “E Oho! Waitangi!” series, to share my research and insights into Henry Williams’ translation of the Treaty of Waitangi. I append below my text from this talk for download. (Please cite to this page if using for research purposes.) The Event page at National Library is here: E…

  • The Church Missionary Society settlement at Paihia, 1820s-40s

    Recently I’ve been seeking to understand the core mission ideas, practices and day-to-day realities of the Paihia mission – the leading mission station of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in the period from 1823-40. This research has also revealed the dynamic interactions and relationships between Māori and Pākehā that made this place tick. I gave…

  • From the Archives, no. 8

    I have taken great pleasure recently in writing a concise narrative of the great sea battle of January 1815 between HMS Endymion and USS President, which took place at the close of the War of 1812 with America – after which the Napoleonic Wars in Europe also drew to a close. I received the other…

  • From the Archives, no. 7

    Microcosm of a missionary library – Church Missionary Society, New Zealand, 1824. Yesterday, I came across this fascinating little insight into the reading world of an early nineteenth century, evangelical missionary. Recorded in Missionary Committee minutes of meeting is the following little window on this world: Mr [Henry] Williams reports that Mr [Thomas] Kendall has…

  • From the Archives, no. 6

    Research at Alexander Turnbull Library (Wellington) last week delivered some remarkable documents and taonga, including this whakapapa showing descent from Hoturua (leader of the Tainui waka) and baptism registers revealing some significant rangatira names of Te Atiawa, Ngāti Raukawa and other hapū. The whakapapa was literally inside the back cover of a Church Register, and…

  • From the Archives, no. 5 –

    Memorial to Henry Williams from the Māori Church, 1876. As I’m nearing the end of a draft of a new biography of Henry Williams, I’m reading some fascinating newspaper material on the final period of his life and the memorials to him that came afterwards. The two main ones were the new Trinity Church at…

  • From the Archives, no. 4: early printed versions of He Wakaputanga 1835 and Te Tiriti 1840 – printed at the Paihia mission press

    I came across these in my files this week and just thought I would post them here: first, because they are beautifully clear printing efforts by William Colenso (in 1836) and John Telford (in 1845) on the Paihia mission press; and second, because they are reminders of how interwoven the story of these documents are…

  • #From the Archives, no. 3

    Henry Williams’ account of the spread of Christianity like wildfire along Kāpiti Coast under teacher Ripahau; and the challenge of working in parallel with Wesleyan missionaries! Henry Williams to CMS, 23 January 1840, Paihia, CMS CN/O94, NLA (original and typescript):