MISSIONARY PIONEER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 834, 30 November 1929, Page 11

MISSIONARY PIONEER

ARCHDEACON BROWN’S CENTENARY TAURANGA CELEBRATION On the site of the original mission chapel at Tauranga tomorrow a special service will be held to commemorate the centenary of the arrival in New Zealand of Archdeacon Alfred N. Brown, first Archdeacon of Tauranga. After 50 years of notable service in that district. Archdeacon Brown died there in 1854. JT was on November 29, 1529, that Archdeacon Brown landed in New Zealand at Paihia, in the Bay of Islands, and he first visited Tauranga in 1834. According to journals in possession of the Archdeacon’s nieces, the Misses Maxwell, of Tauranga, the determination to establish mission stations in the Bay of Plenty district resulted from a council of missionaries held at the Bay of Islands. • Accompanied by the Rev. W. Williams, Archdeacon Brown journeyed by schooner to the Firth of Thames and left Matamata on September 4, 1834, io walk to Tauranga. Three _ days later they arrived at Otumoetai, the principal of the Tauranga pas. “Although the chiefs U.ikaia, Tupaia and others came to pay their respects to us this morning, they were very taciturn and seemed very indifferent as to the establishment of a mission station among them,’’ wrote Mr. Brown. However, some 500 of them attended divine service, and the missioner noted with pleasure that they paid considerable attention both during the reading of the prayers and while Mr. Williams addressed them. At Papa provision was made for the erection of two raupo houses, and eventually a mission station was established. THE FIRST CHIMNEY Early in 1835 Mr. and Mrs. Brown and child left the Bay of Islands again to take charge of- the mission station at Matamata. At Matamata he wrote that “a chimney would be a great luxury to us, • but we must dispense with it until we can collect materials and build one,” Ultimately shells were carried over from Tauranga and burnt to provide the necessary lime. That was the first chimney erected in the Waikato. Owing to hostility in the Thames Valley the station at Matamata was abandoned in 1836. January 1, 1837, found the missioner back at Tauranga fighting an outbreak of influenza and using his influence to establish peace. On January 30 a start was made levelling the ground where his rush dwelling was to be erected, but on February 1, the workers, fearing an attack from a Rotorua war party, left for safer quarters. On January 4 Mr. Brown returned again to Tauranga, and the first chapel was erected. The little chapel has now disappeared, but the work that was done and the influence of the devoted missioner lives on today.