William Gilbert Puckey born in Penryn

Penryn, Cornwall

Penryn is a civil parish and town in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated on the Penryn River about one mile northwest of Falmouth...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, was a prominent missionary

Missionary

A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

 in New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

. He accompanied his parents to New Zealand at the age of 14 and quickly learned the Māori language

Maori language

Māori or te reo Māori , commonly te reo , is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand, the Māori. It has the status of an official language in New Zealand...

, speaking it fluently by age 16, and becoming widely regarded as one of the best interpreters of Māori in the fledging mission. He was able to form relationships of trust with many influential Māori from a young age, and in particular, with Nopera Panakareao, of Te Rarawa

Te Rarawa

Te Rarawa is a Māori iwi of Northland, New Zealand.-Prominent Te Rarawa:*Hector Busby, navigator and waka builder.*Whina Cooper, woman of mana, teacher, storekeeper and community leader....

 iwi

Iwi

In New Zealand society, iwi form the largest everyday social units in Māori culture. The word iwi means "'peoples' or 'nations'. In "the work of European writers which treat iwi and hapū as parts of a hierarchical structure", it has been used to mean "tribe" , or confederation of tribes,...

 at Kaitaia

Kaitaia

Kaitaia is a town in the far north region of New Zealand, at the base of the Aupouri Peninsula which is about 160 km northwest of Whangarei. It is the last major settlement on the main road north to the capes and bays on the peninsula...

.

The night before the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi

Treaty of Waitangi

The Treaty of Waitangi is a treaty first signed on 6 February 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and various Māori chiefs from the North Island of New Zealand....

 at Kaitaia, Panakareao called for Puckey and spent a long time discussing and questioning the meaning, translation, and significance of the term "kawanatanga

Kawanatanga

Kāwanatanga is a word from the Māori language of New Zealand. The word kāwanatanga was first used in the Declaration of Independence of New Zealand, 1835. It reappeared in 1840 when the Treaty of Waitangi was being translated from English into Māori. It was used there to translate the concept of...

" which Henry Williams

Henry Williams (missionary)

Henry Williams was one of the first missionaries who went to New Zealand in the first half of the 19th century....

 had used in the Treaty. In Panakareo's speech to assembled chiefs, (translated by Puckey and recorded by Richard Taylor at the time), he endorsed the Treaty. He said he understood the words of the Treaty to mean that "the shadow of the land was passing to the Queen, while the substance remained with Māori", a view he reversed a year later in light of increasingly bitter practical experience in subsequent dealings with Pākehā

Pakeha

Pākehā is a Māori language word for New Zealanders who are "of European descent". They are mostly descended from British and to a lesser extent Irish settlers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, although some Pākehā have Dutch, Scandinavian, German, Yugoslav or other ancestry...

 authorities.

Puckey's fluency and empathy in te reo Māori

Maori language

Māori or te reo Māori , commonly te reo , is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand, the Māori. It has the status of an official language in New Zealand...

 helped him establish effective relationships and understandings with Māori in Northland. Few other Pākehā in the early years of contact could communicate as effectively between races. Puckey often referred to himself and his wife in his Journals as mere 'labourers in the vineyard', and though he was both modest and humble, the actual effect of his labours may have been under-rated, in his lifetime by Bishop Selwyn

George Augustus Selwyn

George Augustus Selwyn was the first Anglican Bishop of New Zealand. He was Bishop of New Zealand from 1841 to 1858. His diocese was then subdivided and Selwyn was Primate of New Zealand from 1858 to 1868. He was Bishop of Lichfield from 1868 to 1878...

, who refused to support him as a candidate for ordination, and by subsequent historians.

Beginnings

Puckey was born in Penryn, Cornwall, and christened there on 5 June 1805. His parents were William Puckey and his wife, Margery (née Gilbert). He left England in 1815 with his parents, who had become lay missionaries with the Church Missionary Society (CMS), and had been to various countries such as Tahiti

Tahiti

Tahiti is the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, located in the archipelago of the Society Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is the economic, cultural and political centre of French Polynesia. The island was formed from volcanic activity and is high and mountainous...

  and Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. Gilbert William and his sister Elizabeth, (later to marry Gilbert Mair

Gilbert Mair (trader)

Gilbert Mair was a sailor and a merchant trader who visited New Zealand for the first time when he was twenty, and lived there from 1824 till his death. He married Elizabeth Gilbert Puckey. They had twelve children. Among them were "famous New Zealanders" like Captain Gilbert Mair and Major...

) came with their parents to New Zealand in 1819 on one of Samuel Marsden

Samuel Marsden

Samuel Marsden was an English born Anglican cleric and a prominent member of the Church Missionary Society, believed to have introduced Christianity to New Zealand...

's Missions. His father had been a boatbuilder, mariner and carpenter in Cornwall, and it is likely both parents had reared their family with a strong focus on Christian religious values with a practical appreciation of other cultures. William Gilbert Puckey joined the CMS mission in his own right in 1821, and after accompanying his father back to Sydney in 1826, returned to New Zealand in 1827, and stayed for the rest of his life. This background, of growing up in his formative years in close contact with Maori communities, and witnessing the vicissitudes of the early Mission settlements, was highly significant to his later development of strong and effective bonds with Māori around the mission stations he worked in, at Kerikeri

Kerikeri

Kerikeri, the largest town in the Northland Region of New Zealand, is a popular tourist destination about three hours drive north of Auckland, and 80 km north of Whangarei...

, Paihia

Paihia

Paihia is the main tourist town in the Bay of Islands in the far north of the North Island of New Zealand. It is located close to the historic towns of Russell, and Kerikeri, 60 kilometres north of Whangarei. The origin of the name Paihia is obscure. One, possibily apocryphal, attribution is to...

, Waimate

Te Waimate mission

The Waimate Mission established one of the earliest settlements in New Zealand, at Waimate North in the Bay of IslandsAt the instigation of Samuel Marsden, a model farming village for Māori was constructed at Te Waimate by the Church Missionary Society...

, and the station he helped found and then stayed at, Kaitaia

Kaitaia

Kaitaia is a town in the far north region of New Zealand, at the base of the Aupouri Peninsula which is about 160 km northwest of Whangarei. It is the last major settlement on the main road north to the capes and bays on the peninsula...

 .

At Waimate North

Waimate North

Waimate North is a small settlement in Northland, New Zealand. It is situated between Kerikeri and Lake Omapere, west of the Bay of Islands.Okuratope Pa was situated here and was the home to chief Te Hotete of the Ngai Tawake hapu in the late 18th-early 19th centuries...

 on 11 October 1831 Puckey married Matilda Davis (who was then aged 17), second daughter of Rev. Richard Davis, thus becoming the first European couple to be married in New Zealand. Their first child was born in early January 1833, but only survived for seven weeks.

Expedition to the Reinga

Puckey was the first Pākehā to travel up the Ninety Mile Beach

Ninety Mile Beach, New Zealand

Ninety Mile Beach is a beach located on the western coast of the far north of the North Island of New Zealand. It stretches from just west of Kaitaia towards Cape Reinga along the Aupouri Peninsula. It begins close to the headland of Reef Point, to the west of Ahipara Bay, sweeping briefly...

 to 'the Reinga' which is known today as Cape Reinga

Cape Reinga

Cape Reinga is the northwesternmost tip of the Aupouri Peninsula, at the northern end of the North Island of New Zealand. Cape Reinga is located over 100 km north of the nearest small town of Kaitaia. State Highway 1 extends all the way to the Cape, but until 2010 was unsealed gravel road for the...

. It is the departing point of spirits in the Māori world-view, and that he was allowed to go there says something about the relationship he had been able to form with local Māori.

In December 1834, not long after his arrival and settlement in Kaitaia, he travelled in the company of an older Chief, Paerata, an early convert to Christianity. They were questioned at Houhora

Houhora

Houhora is a locality and harbour on the east side of the Aupouri Peninsula of Northland, New Zealand. It is north of Kaitaia. Waihopo, Te Raupo, Pukenui, Raio and Houhora Heads are associated localities on the southern shores of the harbour. State Highway 1 passes through all these localities...

 as to their motives for wanting to travel to this most sacred place, and on their return were confronted by a large gathering of tribes who were anxious that Puckey might be damaging the 'aka', the ladder down to the sea, whereby spirits were understood to depart for Hawaiiki .

A large hui

Hui (Maori assembly)

A hui is a New Zealand term for a social gathering or assembly.Originally a Māori language word, it was used by Europeans as early as 1846 when referring to Māori gatherings - but is now increasingly used in New Zealand English to describe events that are not exclusively Māori....

 sat to allow all opinions to be voiced, and at the end, Paerata stood and spoke for 2–3 hours, explaining what he and Puckey had done and discussed on their travels, and how the new Christian beliefs and philosophy that Puckey was espousing were not a threat to the customary beliefs of Māori.

Adventures

As a boy of 14, Puckey set fire to the fern surrounding the mission station, causing great alarm. Missionary J.G Butler recorded in his diary on 6 January 1821 that the fire, “which had like to have burned our standing wheat, the day being windy and the fern high. The fire raged with great fury, so that, with the assistance of a great many natives, we had great difficulty in saving the corn, and putting it out. Mr. F. Hall had some barley burned, but not much".

Later that year, Māori plundered the Puckey family’s house as utu

Utu (Maori concept)

Utu is a Māori concept of reciprocation, or balance.To retain mana, both friendly and unfriendly actions require an appropriate response - hence utu covers both the reciprocation of kind deeds, and the seeking of revenge....

 in response for William’s 11-year-old sister Elizabeth playfully telling the daughter of the great chief Hongi

Hongi Hika

Hongi Hika was a New Zealand Māori rangatira and war leader of the Ngāpuhi iwi . Hongi Hika used European weapons to overrun much of northern New Zealand in the first of the Musket Wars...

 that she would “cut your father's head off, and cook it in the iron pot,” according to Butler’s diary. “When the natives broke in, one of them caught hold of him by the hair of his head, and said he would cut off his head if he spoke a word. As soon as he was loosed, in he ran to his father, trembling in every limb.”

Puckey is reported to have later saved the life of a young Māori boy who was to be thrown into a river. The missionary suggested he buy the boy from them, and rushed back to the mission station to get some money. When he returned, he saw the boy was already in the river. He dived in fully clothed and rescued the boy who joined the Puckey household.

A man of ingenuity, Puckey built what may have been New Zealand's first land yacht. He rigged a sail on his dray, which he then 'sailed' back down Ninety Mile Beach after visits and explorations up that beach, letting the horse have an easy run home.

Impact on Northland

During Puckey’s lifetime, he influenced and enriched the region of Northland greatly. Because he was a skilled builder, carpenter, inventor and architect, many of Kaitaia’s original buildings and roads were made by him. Tools that he used still remain in the Far North Museum today.

His fluency in the Māori language meant that he could correctly translate and communicate parts of the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 into the Māori idiom and language, great assistance for other missionaries and their relations with other Maori communities. Māori converted to Christianity due to Puckey's and his wife's evangelical efforts and example, often spent their life on the mission station, helping to convert other Māori.

A Man of Honour

Puckey lived his life as an honest, humane, and truthful man with considerable integrity; he maintained strong connections with the church and with the purpose of converting the Māori into Christianity and translating the Gospel so they could understand it. Even into his later years when he was bedridden and hard of hearing, he still maintained time to give a ‘nugget’ of wisdom to a young Māori that might happen to come by. Acts like these earned him the respect of Nga Puhi chiefs, such as Paerata and Pana-kareao.

However, some thought he could have improved his contributions. The Waitangi Commission's 'Muriwhenua Land Report' said - "William Puckey was an honest man, and a fluent Māori speaker, but he was more of a faithful artisan than a wordsmith. He was a layman throughout his missionary service, being neither admitted to the diaconate nor ordained as a priest. His use of the Māori language left good scope for improvement, in our view, and as for legal draftmanship his deeds were in urgent need of repair".

Death and legacy

William Gilbert Puckey died at Kaitaia on 27 March 1878, age 73, and was buried at St Saviours Church, Kaitaia. His wife Matilda died on 15 July 1884 in Thames

Thames, New Zealand

Thames is a town at the southwestern end of the Coromandel Peninsula in New Zealand's North Island. It is located on the Firth of Thames close to the mouth of the Waihou River. The town is the seat of the Thames-Coromandel District Council....

. Some prominent relatives of William Gilbert Puckey include his son Edward Walter Puckey, who became a Māori Land Court judge.

William and Matilda's 11 children were:

• Frederick James Puckey (1834-1834) died aged seven weeks, at Waimate.
• William George Puckey (1835-1918) m. Margaret Hunt in 1872. Six children.
• Edward Walter Puckey (1837-1924) m. Annie Russell in 1863. Two children.
• Mary Serena Puckey (1839-1927) m. Dr Thomas Trimnell in 1864. Two children.
• Margarita Jane Puckey (1844-1930) m. William Henry Blyth in 1866.
• Caroline Elizabeth Puckey (1842-1849) died from ear infection.
• Frederick Coleman Puckey (1847-1848)
• Charles Iselton Puckey (1848-1934) m. Doris Sophia Subritzky on 14 May 1873. Nine children.
• Richard Henry Martyn Puckey (1852-1934 ) m. Alice Marion masters in 1883. Seven children.
• Annie Matilda Sophia Marella Puckey (1855?-1932?) m. William Temple Williams in 1891. Four children.
• Albert Francis Puckey (1858-1936) m. Gertrude Robinson. No children.

Other sources

• The Story of Paihia (2000), Nancy Pickmere, Calder’s Design and Print, Whangarei, ISBN 0-473-06767-6
• Kaitaia and its People (1989), Florence Keene, Allied Graphics, Whangarei, ISBN 0-908817-05-3
• A Lamp Shines in Kerikeri (1969), Nancy Preece Pickmere, News Limited, Kaikohe, NoISBN
• Life of W.G. Puckey (1932), A.M.S.M.Williams.
• Journals and Letters of the Rev. W.G. Puckey, 1831 – 1868, (2004), Special Collections, Auckland Public Library
• Letters From the Bay of Islands: The Story of Marianne Williams, (2004), C Fitzgerald (editor), Penguin Books, Auckland
• Descendants of William Puckey (2007) Family website