Samuel D Carpenter

Category: Williams biography

  • 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…

  • 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. 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…

  • Te Whānau Wiremu ki Aotearoa: How the Williams’ story has shaped Christianity, Culture, and Nation in Aotearoa, New Zealand

    Just published in Stimulus: The New Zealand Journal of Christian Thought and Practice, vol. 30, no. 1, 2023: Te Whānau Wiremu ki Aotearoa: How the Williams’ story… This article is a slightly abbreviated version of my talk at the Williams family 200-year reunion, which took place at Waitangi in April this year (2023). (The reunion…

  • 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…

  • Williams Family Reunion 200th anniversary, 1823-2023.

    This coming weekend will see a significant family gathering take place in Waitangi, Bay of Islands, when descendants of Henry and Marianne Williams, and William and Jane Williams, will gather to mark 200 years of living in and contributing to this land of Aotearoa New Zealand: https://www.williams2023.co.nz/. The event will be hosted by the hapū…

  • #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):

  • Selwyn Lecture by Dr. Samuel Carpenter

    St John’s Theological College/Hoani Tapu te Kaikauwhau i te Rongopai, November 2nd, 2022. Abstract The Paihia mission settlement was a site of revolutionary change as Māori and missionaries forged a new culture at the intersection of British and indigenous worlds. In this lecture, Dr Carpenter focused on the ‘life-ways’ of this mixed settlement, describing how…