CROWDED HISTORY WH TAURANGA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 82, 17 January 1941, Page 10

CROWDED HISTORY WH TAURANGA

A CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF TAURANGA. By W.H. Gifford and H. Bradney Williams. -Published for the Tauranga Centennial Committee by A. H. and A. W. Reed, Wellington and Dunedin. Reviewed by ALAN MULGAN S one who was born near Tauranga and remembers that town as a child, I must say at the outset that I approach the Centennial history of Tauranga with a very special prejudice. God gave all men all earth to love But since our hearts are small, Ordained for each one spot should prove’ Beloved over all. The. landscapes of the district are more deeply etched in my memory than any others. There is the narrow coastal strip of Katikati, a settlement planted by Ulstermen, with its- stream-divided spurs running down from blue mountains to the many-inleted Tauranga harbour; its homesteads set in deep plantations; a land of sunshine and sea, hills and rivers. Tauranga itself, the chief town of the Bay of Plenty, lies at the southern end of the long, mazy, land-locked harbour, a gatden town tanged with the sea and opening on to a mellow countryside. As I remember it, long whiteshelled roads ran between grassy borders. There was the old cemetery by the sea, where the dead from the Gate Pa engagement lay. The circular tent marks could be plainly seen in the closecropped sward at the Monmouth Redoubt. The "Bay of Plenty Times," like other country papers.of that time, was printed by man-power; I can still see the half-caste youth turning the handle. Saturday, when the Clansman came from Auckland and returned, was the day of the week. Her bell hangs in my porch to-day. Neglected Tauranga Tauranga, as this centennial history shows, has seen much history, Maori and European, but it has not received the

attention it deserves. It blazed into publicity in the Maori Wars, and again at the Tarawera eruption, but it was off the track of tourists (except for a time as a stopping place on the way to Rotorua), and economically, like other places in the Auckland province, it did not really begin to prosper until dairying was established. It was reached either by an all-night sea journey from Auckland, or by a long coach run over bad roads from Paeroa or the Thames. Now there is a tailway, and one can run down quickly by motor. In the summer, thousands of visitors enjoy surf bathing at the Mount (as Maunganui is called); those waters were honoured by Mr. Bernard Shaw himself, and Tauranga, enjoying one of the best climates in New Zealand, has drawn as residents people from distant lands. There you may hear talk of someone getting the Rawal Pindi command, or somebody’s son being appointed to a ship, or mild regret voiced for those days at Shanghai when domestic servants were so easy to get. Even to-day, however, Tauranga (like New Plymouth), is insufficiently known. This Centennial history should be an advertisement. The two authors of Tauranga’s history, Messrs. W. H. Gifford and H. Bradney Williams, have done a good piece of work. The book suffers a little from its bulk. It is too fat, and exhibits a tendency of local histories to give too much detail, and especially to print documents in full that would not suffer materially from condensation. But the early story of Tauranga is here, and if at times it may seem to the outsider a little overloaded, it is a very. valuable record and a readable one. A Storm Centre Before the white man came, and for years after the mission station was established at Te Rapa, Tauranga was a storm centre. There was a large Maori

population on those rich lands, and by those rich waters, and Rotorua and Waikato were neighbours. There was much fighting. The hero of Tauranga history is Archdeacon Alfred Nesbitt Brown, who settled in Tauranga in 1838, and died there in 1884. The authors are very frank about Brown. Indeed it is one of the virtues of this history that it is frank about persons and events, and salts the record with humour. Brown suffered from a sense of mental superiority, and, even judged bythe missionary standards of those days, his narrowness and intolerance seem to have been exceptional. But Brown was a great missionary, most deeply sincere and absolutely devoted to his task of Christianising the Maori. Rather than leave his people, he put aside opportunities to revisit England, though he must have felt that a change of scene would ease his afflictions, which were severe. In the early days, his task was about as difficult as could be, and dangerous as well, War seethed round him, and he had to witness the most horrible aspects of Maori custom. In the wars between Maoris and between Maori and European, Brown was the strongest influence for peace, and altogether, over a long period, the most civilising factor in the district. His Mission House, built in 1847, still stands, and is, or should be, the chief sight in Tauranga. The illustration of it here shows how good was the taste of the early missionaries in architecture, and how sadly later generations have failed to benefit by the example. Gate Pa, Te Ranga The stories of Gate Pa and Te Ranga are told over again, and there are chapters on Hauhauism, land confiscation, and the failure of military settlement. It is made clearer what a benefit to the whole district was the organised settlement promoted by George Vesey Stewart. The chapter on the Mission Cemetery records a striking example of the neglect into which historic places were allowed to fall in our middle period. A question was actually asked about it in the Imperial Parliament, Perhaps the most piquant passages in the book are those dealing with that institution of Tauranga, Canon (fams« iliarly known as Parson) Jordan, the fighting Irishman who was vicar of Tauranga from 1873 to 1912, and seems to have been a storm centre for most of that time. "The only hope left them (the most ‘discontented parishioners) was to starve the vicar out ... rare indeed, in those early days, was any meeting at which he was present that. did not develop into a " Donnybrook" (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) + his. spiritual duties were certainly not carried out according to modern ideas." But the authors draw attention to the fact, as showing Canon Jordan’s standing in the community, that he was elected Mayor of Tauranga nine times. The main story ends in the early ‘eighties, but the authors say they have material for a continuation. The illustrations in this centennial history are excellent. They range from a sketch of Brown’s first house, built in 1838, to an aerial view of the town. The book was printed in the office of the " Bay of Plenty Times" and is published for the Tauranga Centennial Committee by A. H. and A. W. Reed, of Wellington and Dunedin.