DEATH OF REV J. G. LAUGHTON RECALLS HIS ASSOCIATIONS WITH TAUPO 40 YEARS AGO

Taupo Times, Volume XIV, Issue 54, 13 July 1965, Page 6

DEATH OF REV J. G. LAUGHTON RECALLS HIS ASSOCIATIONS WITH TAUPO 40 YEARS AGO

The death has occurred in Rotorua of the first man to set up a printing press in Taupo. He was The Very Rev John George Laughton CMG, JP, a former moder ator of the Presbyteriar Church, who died ir Rotorua, aged 73. Rev. Laughton was th( Moderator of the Maor: Synod when, in Decembei 1933 he started a 16-pag( monthly church bulletin printed entirely in Maori and published in Taupo. Known as the Waka Karaitiana — the Christian Canoe — the paper

was nursed into being by Rev. Laughton at a time when money was short in the district and the population was small. , The printing plant cost - about £140 to install and i it, was powered by an auto i engine. Rev. Laughton was an i authority on the Maori and i classical Maori language : and the Maoris regarded i him as an elder of the race. > Mr Laughton's deep un- > derstanding and knowledge of the Maoris was often called upon by historians, writers and visiting dignitaries. One of his last duties in thip respect was to act a/s interpreter and liaison officer for the GovernorGeneral, Sir Bernard Fergusson, during the first vice-regal visit to Ruatoki earlier this year. He was moderator of the Maori synod from 1956 to 1962 and had been chairman of the Maori Bible Revision Committee since 1946. He published the Presbyterian Maori Service Book. Born in Orkney in 1891, Mr Laughton arrived in New Zealand in 1903. He was educated in Dunedin and lived in Mosgiel for several years. In 1913 he was a pioneer home missionary at Piopio, in the King Country and in 1918 was appointed Maori missionary in the Urewera Country. His headquarters were at Maungapohatu, where he opened the first school. During his stay at Maungapohatu, Mr Laughton was one of the few people in personal contact with the Maori prophet Rua. He went to Taupo in 1926, and was later transferred to the new mission headquarters at Whakatane, in 1938. "He was a gift of God, not only to the Maori people but also to the people of New Zealand," said Mr D. N. Perry, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, paying his respects to Mr Laughton at Ohope. Mr Laughton's body was I taken to Te Maunaunarongo, the central marae of the Presbyterian Maori Synod, | where more than 2000 Maoris, most of them mem- j bers of the Tuhoe tribe in I the Urewera Country, gathered for the tangi. Mr Laughton. is survived by his wife, two sons and two daughters.