PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 September 1938, Page 9

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

GREYTOWN'S JUBILEfe. SOME INTERESTING HISTORY. (Contributed). Tomorrow the Greytown Presbyterian Church will commence the celebration of its jubilee year, when services are to be held at the church, the Rev G. Budd (Superintendent of the Home Mission Committee) preaching in the morning and the evening. A banquet and a Bible class social will be held during next week, and on September 18 the Rev J. Mann (Martinborough) will conduct the morning service. In the evening a memorial service out of respect to the late Mr D. P. Loasby will be held, the preacher being the local minister, Mr K. P. Lilly. Members of the Odd Fellows’ Lodge have been invited. Mr Loasby was the first treasurer of the church carrying out those onerous duties from 1888 till 1896, was on the board of management from 1888 till 1905 and again in 1926. For the past 21 years he had been honorary auditor. It was in 1867 that the earliest Presbyterian services in the Wairarapa were conducted by the Rev John Ross, of Masterton. He itinerated from Wanganui to Castlepoint, supplying occasionally Featherston, Waihenga, Greytown, Lower Valley, Gladstone, Carterton, etc. Similarly the Rev Jas. Lawrie, the Rev James McKee (18751882), and the Rev D. Fulton preached regularly at Gladstone and occasionally at Carterton for a short period. (These last three ministers all went to Australia.)

In September, 1888, the Church Extension Committee Committee (with Rev James Paterson as convener), secured the services of the Rev Alex Whyte, a licentiate of the United Presbyterian Church, Scotland, who preached his first sermon in Greytown on September 16. This service was held in the Foresters’ Hall, situated then at the corner of West and Kuratawhiti streets (and now known as the Crown Theatre in Main Street). After church a meeting was held, when Messrs J. Tully, J. Baillie, J. (Dr) Smith, H. McMaster, D. P. Loasby, D. Cameron and R. C. Black were appointed a committee (Mr Black being the first secretary and Mr Loasby treasurer). On the 20th it was decided to rent the Foresters’ Hall for three months, at 5s per Sabbath with lighting included.

After about two months as minister, Mr Whyte left for Scotland. In October, the committee decided to purchase an organ for £2O. The Rev Chas. Murray, M.A., formerly missionary at Ambrim, New Hebrides, was invited to take up the work. He was inducted on January 20, 1889, and his ministry lasted for nine years, when he was transferred to Feilding. In March, 1889, negotiations between the committee and the Town Lands Trust for the exchange of an acre of land at the northern end for one more centrally situated failed. In July an acre of land was secured from the late Mr G. Stevens, in West Street, for £BO, and a subscription list opened, with the result that in August it was finally purchased. The first communion service was held in Greytown on June 9, 1889, when Mr R. C. Black, Jas. Montgomery, Mrs Young, Mrs C. Montgomery, and Isabella Brunton were received as young communicants. The roll number was 21. The first baptisms recorded are those of Leslie George Humphries 23/6/89, and of Henry, Margaret and Marian Dick, at Morison’s Bush, 8/7/89. On July 28, 1890, tenders received for the erection of the church were: — L. Gray £525, — Varnham £515, H. Humphries £507, and H. Trotman £499. The latter tender was accepted, the building to seat 200 persons. The New Zealand Presbyterian Church trustees sanctioned a loan of £3OO towards having the church built, and this amount was secured from a local resident.

It will surprise many money-lend-ers of today to learn that a rate of 9 per cent was charged in those days, reducible to 7 per cent if interest was paid promptly on the half-yearly due dates. £lOO was to be paid within two years and the balance in ten years.

That year the total takings were over £149, of which about £25 was set aside towards the building fund. The following year seven members each loaned the church £lO for three years free of interest to help the good cause. In 1894 special efforts towards the building fund realised over £65. Then in 1892 another £BO was paid off the loan, but it was not till 1901 that the debt was finally liquidated. In August, 1890, the local Borough Council was requested to form a footpath along Hastwell Street and erect a lamp at the corner of that street where it joins West Street. The first Communion service was held in the church on December 21, 1890, when special collections went to missions and the aged and infirm ministers’ fund. In 1892 the roll of membership had increased to 35.