We cannot be healthy until we man the ranks of our Clergy from the homes of the colony1
Significance of 1891 in New Zealand History
It is accepted that modern New Zealand political history began in the year 1891,2 when the Liberals took office, and this introduced a new era as legislation reformed working conditions, broke up large estates, granted female franchise, and introduced a number of welfare measures. The role of the state increased as much of the apparatus of modern government was established. The popular view of the Liberals that they represented the ordinary people of the land3 is contested by some recent writers who argue that they ‘represented all classes against all class communities.’4 Belich agrees that the Liberals were an alternative to ‘the early-settler genteel elite that had run New Zealand since the 1850s’,5 but they were ‘transitional between two eras: progressive colonisation and its successor system, recolonisation.’6
He is, however, quite clear that the Liberals did make one significant change in New Zealand’s role. In declining to federate with the other Australasian colonies, they effectively declared New Zealand’s independence. Until 1901 New Zealand ‘was part of Australia, to the extent that any such thing existed’ but, by not joining the others, ‘New Zealand suddenly became small.’ 7
Before 1901, New Zealand was not small in its local context. It ranked third of the seven colonies in population and production, and it was closer to the big two, Victoria and New South Wales, than to the small four. … New Zealand suddenly shrank to about a quarter of its previous relative size.8
Anglican churches in Australia and New Zealand now followed different paths and such links as existed were moderated through the Mother Church. In respect of the period covered by this chapter, only three per cent of the clergy were born in Australia and only seven per cent had been ordained there. Re-colonisation was entrenched in the Church.
1 Bishop Neligan’s address to Auckland Synod, Supplement to the Church Gazette, December 1904, p. IV. 2 Michael King, The Penguin History of New Zealand, Auckland: Penguin, 2003, p. 258.
3
For example, the reference in ENZ, vol. 2, p. 54, to the Liberals as representing ‘… the depressed of town and country – from farm labourers who wanted to become farmers, from small holders who farmed for food rather than profits, from townsmen who saw in a farm an avenue to future security, from industrial workers oppressed by low wages and smarting under a recent crushing industrial defeat’
4 James Belich, Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders from the 1880s to the year 2000, Auckland: Penguin, 2001, p. 42.
5 Ibid, p. 41. 6 Ibid, p. 46. 7 Ibid, p. 46. 8 Ibid, pp. 51-2.
God’s Own Country: A new British Nation in the South Seas
New Zealand’s reputation as a democratic and egalitarian society, hailed as the ‘social laboratory’ of the world, stems from this period, which was also marked by a return to prosperity, a feeling of confidence, and a growing sense of national identity. Under ‘King Dick’ Seddon, New Zealand viewed itself as a ‘land of milk and honey’, nothing less than ‘God’s Own Country’, where people could live life in the open spaces in a gentler climate, leaving behind the inequalities and injustices of Britain’s ‘dark satanic mills’. Miles Fairburn argues that it was an Arcadian rather than a Utopian society:
New Zealand was a country of natural abundance, that it provided ample opportunities for labouring people to win an ‘independency’, that it was a society which naturally created a high level of order, and that its simple life guaranteed middle-class people freedom from status anxiety.9
The new white inhabitants of this land believed they could achieve their British dreams in a new environment. They remained loyal to the imperial cause; the identity they sought was a British identity. They were British, but they were ‘Better Britons’; and not only Better Britons but, in fact, ‘more British’ than Britain herself. The proportion of Scots and Irish in New Zealand was indeed higher than in the British Isles. While Scots made up only ten per cent of the British population, in New Zealand they represented 24 per cent of the total, while the Irish provided another 19 per cent.
It is argued that the Scots built the British Empire10 and certainly it seems true that it was the Scots and Irish, rather than the English, who took the lead in nation-building or nation- defining in New Zealand.11 Because English immigrants made up about two-thirds of the colonial population they were slow to appreciate that New Zealand was a British rather than an English colony. They were not troubled by the need to affirm their identity and so they made little effort to set up distinct institutions and to celebrate their culture. Morris dancing never took hold in New Zealand as much as Highland dancing and the Irish jig.
First, although many English people came to New Zealand, their representation among all those from Britain and Ireland was less than it was back home. In other words, New Zealand has always been less English than the United Kingdom. And despite, or more likely because of, their large numbers the English, unlike other immigrant groups, did not tend to establish institutions exclusive to their own people. There were a few sporting ‘Albion’ clubs, and a Church of England was established, but the former quickly lost any English associations and the latter attracted other groups, especially Irish from the Church of Ireland.12 For the most
9 Miles Fairburn, The Ideal Society and its Enemies: The Foundations of Modern New Zealand Society 1850-1900, Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1989, p. 25.
10 See, for example, Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.
11 As an example, Belich, p. 41, points out that Ward’s 1908 Cabinet of ten included five Scots, two Maori and an Irish Catholic prime minister.
12
The writer may have exaggerated the Irish element in the New Zealand Church. Although the comment presumably refers to the population of Irish ancestry, the number of Irish-born clergy was small in comparison with those born in England. For example, there were 23 Irish-born licensed clergy in 1891 and only 17 in 1910.
part, the English established institutions which may have been English in origin, but were intended to cater for the whole society. The English assumed that English patterns were the correct way to do things.13
Towards a ‘Better Church of England’
Unlike the Scots and Irish, for whom denominational allegiance was an expression of nationalist aspirations (by escaping the Highland Clearances and the Potato Famine), the Englishman’s relationship to the Church of England was taken for granted, except perhaps by the Wesleyans and Nonconformists, who were most anxious not to allow an Anglican hegemony to take root. Radical and democratic emotions stirred less vigorously within the Church of England than among other Christian traditions. In the great social reform movements of the late nineteenth century – the campaigns for women’s franchise and prohibition – the strongest advocates were drawn from the Nonconformist churches rather than the Church of England. The Puritan element in society found its home in the Presbyterian, Methodist, Congregational and Baptist churches rather than in Anglican parishes. Moderation in all things, rather than prohibition, summed up Anglican attitudes.
The Anglican Church was not seized with reforming zeal. Its earlier energies (or, more accurately, those of its first bishop) had been expended in devising a more appropriate form of polity for a non-Establishment environment. Any suggestion that the Church of England should be a state church in New Zealand was dealt with firmly in the early 1850s.14 By embracing the concept of a ‘voluntary compact’, the Church effectively defined itself and its role, and allowed it to be more truly itself, free from the dreaded disease of Erastianism. The New Zealand Church saw itself as a ‘Better Church of England’.
It initiated no programme of reform comparable to that which revolutionised the state and the economy, but in the closing years of the nineteenth century a new generation of leaders emerged who were eager to take the Church from its isolation and preoccupation with domestic concerns to a closer connection with new movements overseas. As these new bishops recognised that the pioneering stage was over, they began to see to it that proper diocesan structures and a comprehensive national parochial structure were put in place. They were facing the consequences of what had taken place around 1840. It was now fifty years since the Treaty of Waitangi had been signed, since the first organised settlers – and the settler church – had arrived. It was not a Church anxiously seeking to assert itself by
However, there was certainly a cluster of Irish clergy in the Diocese of Auckland. In 1891, 12 Auckland clergy were Irish-born, about half of the New Zealand total.
13 Terry Hearn, ‘The English’, Ch. 16 in Jock Phillips, (general ed.), Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, Settler and Migrant Peoples of New Zealand, Auckland: Bateman, 2006.
14 G.A. Wood, ‘Church and State in New Zealand in the 1850s’, in Journal of Religious History, vol. 8, no. 3 (1975), pp. 255-270.
proclaiming its autonomy. New Zealand was seen as ‘an extension of England and the Church as a loyal daughter of the parent Church in England’ and, at St John’s College, ‘theological education, helped by regular Prayer Book worship and teachers from England, inculturated students into these worlds and showed little attention to the New Zealand context. The colonial ecclesiastical mind was shaped by an inheritance received from a distance.’15 England and Ireland provided most of the clergy, and bishops, on their visits to England, expended energy recruiting clergy and raising money.16
Population
In only twenty years, the European population increased by two-thirds and reached the one million mark in 1910.17 The population drift from the South to the North gained momentum, and towns and cities grew. Native-born New Zealanders out-numbered immigrants, the age profile matured, and marriage and the family were more popular than ever.
Although the rate of population increase was not as high as it had been in the public works and immigration era of the 1870s, it reached an annual rate of 3.0 per cent in the early 1900s.
Table 3.1
Non-Maori population: 1891-1911
Census Population Increase % increase % p.a. increase 1891 626,658 1896 703,360 76,702 12.3 2.5 1901 772,719 69,359 9.8 2.0 1906 888,578 115,859 15.6 3.1 1911 1,008,468 118,890 13.4 2.7 Expressed in decades: 1891-1901 146,061 23.3 2.3 1901-11 234,749 30.4 3.0
In 1891, 55 per cent of the population lived in the South Island; by 1911, 56 per cent lived in the North Island. In this period, the North Island’s population doubled; the South’s grew by only 29 per cent.
15 Allan K Davidson, Selwyn’s Legacy, The College of St John the Evangelist … 1843-1992, Auckland: The College of St John the Evangelist, 1993, p. 116
16 W.P. Morrell, The Anglican Church in New Zealand: A History, Dunedin: John McIndoe for the Church of the Province of New Zealand, 1973, p.116.
17 During this period, the Maori population increased from 42,000 to 50,000, but as a percentage of the population it fell from 6.7% to 4.9%.
Fig 3.1
North and South Islands: population: 1891-1911
0 100,000 200,000 300,000 400,000 500,000 600,000
Yr1891 Yr1896 Yr1901 Yr1906 Yr1911
North South
Fig 3.2
North and South Islands: percentage of population: 1891-1911
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Yr1891 Yr1896 Yr1901 Yr1906 Yr1911
NI% SI%
These simple facts explain much of what happened in the Church during this time as the population trends were replicated in the Anglican population. The three North Island dioceses faced major problems coping with the need for more buildings and more clergy. In 1891, Auckland and Christchurch were the largest dioceses, but by 1911 the growth of Wellington had squeezed Christchurch into third place. The three large dioceses accounted for 68 per cent of Anglicans in 1891; and for 72 per cent by 1911.
Fig 3.3
Anglican population: percentage resident in each diocese: 1891 and 1911
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Auck Chch Wgtn Dun Nel Waip
1891 1911
Table 3.2
Dioceses: total population: 1891-191118 Total Population 1891 Total Population 1911 Increase 1891-1911 % Increase Auckland 135,176 266,214 131,038 96.9 Waiapu 39,863 81,435 41,572 104.3 Wellington 104,117 214,968 110,851 106.5 Nelson 53,861 72,075 18,214 33.8 Christchurch 137,241 181,371 44,130 32.2 Dunedin 152,453 191,180 38,727 25.4 Total 622,711 1,007,243 384,532 61.8 By Islands North 279,156 562,617 283,461 101.5 South 343,555 444,626 101,071 29.4 Table 3.3
Dioceses: Anglican population: 1891-1911 Anglican Population 1891 Anglican Population 1911 Increase 1891-1911 % Increase Auckland 61,157 120,340 59,183 96.8 Waiapu 19,706 37,705 17,999 91.3 Wellington 47,420 95,942 48,522 102.3 Nelson 23,254 32,648 9,394 40.4 Christchurch 60,918 82,255 21,337 35.0 Dunedin 38,420 44,045 5,625 14.6 Total 250,875 412,935 162,060 64.6 By Islands North 128,283 253,987 125,704 98.0 South 122,592 158,948 36,356 29.7 Table 3.4
Dioceses: population in relation to New Zealand population: 1891-1911
% of N Z Total Population 1891 % of N Z Total Population 1911 +/- % of N Z Anglican Population 1891 % of N Z Anglican Population 1911 +/- Auckland 21.7 26.4 + 4.7 24.4 29.2 + 4.8 Waiapu 6.4 8.1 + 1.7 7.9 9.1 + 1.2 Wellington 16.7 21.3 + 4.6 18.9 23.2 + 4.3 Nelson 8.6 7.2 - 1.4 9.3 7.9 - 1.4 Christchurch 22.0 18.0 - 4.0 24.3 19.9 - 4.4 Dunedin 24.5 19.0 - 5.5 15.3 10.7 - 4.6 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 By Islands North 44.8 55.9 + 11.1 51.1 61.5 + 10.4 South 55.2 44.1 - 11.1 48.9 38.5 - 10.4
Nationally, the Anglican population increased faster than the total population (65 per cent, compared with 62 per cent) but this advantage was confined to Nelson and Christchurch. In Auckland, the rates of increase were identical, while in Wellington and Waiapu, Anglican growth fell short of total growth, and in Dunedin where the total population increased by 25 per cent, Anglican numbers increased by only 15 per cent.
18 In these tables, only the resident non-Maori population is included, and those on board ships or on adjacent islands on census night are excluded. This explains the discrepancy between this table and table 3.1. The difference is in the order of 0.63%.
The most rapid growth took place in North Island provincial areas and in some the population more than doubled.19 The completion of the Wellington-Manawatu Railway in 1886 opened up the Horowhenua to European settlement, and the link with the government railway near Palmerston North became even more significant in 1891 when the line through the Manawatu Gorge was completed. The rail expansion favoured Palmerston North at the expense of Foxton, and it linked Manawatu to Wellington as well as Wanganui.20 The King Country was opened up to Pakeha and through it the North Island Main Trunk Railway was completed in 1908. Between 1891 and 1911 its population increased from only 427 to 11,845. In more established areas – Canterbury, Nelson, Marlborough, Hawkes Bay, Wairarapa and Northland – the rate of increase was lower, and in parts of Otago the population actually fell. In the cities, while Auckland and Wellington doubled in size, Christchurch’s population increased by 68 per cent and Dunedin’s by only 40 per cent.
Most of the growth was the result of natural increase and internal migration. Assisted immigration was suspended between 1892 and 1903 and so net immigration accounted for only 29 per cent of the increase.21 Not surprisingly, the New Zealand-born percentage of the population increased from 61 to 71 per cent. The number of marriages more than doubled,22 there was a startling reduction in infant mortality, and a significant re-shaping of the age profile of the community. Those aged under 20 fell from 50 to 40 per cent, those in the 60 plus age group increased from four to seven per cent, and those of ‘working age’ from 45 to 53 per cent. The male percentage rose only from 51.6 per cent in 1891 to 52.7 per cent in 1911. The aging of the population and the ‘domestication’ of society provided further evidence that the colony had moved from its frontier origins.
More people were living in the towns, those living in boroughs and cities increasing from 40 per cent to 48 per cent and those in the four main centres from 27 to 30 per cent. Auckland outstripped its rivals as its population grew to 102,676 in 1911, followed by Christchurch (80,193), Wellington (70,729) and Dunedin (64,237),23 but the status of the ‘four main centres’ was assured as the next cluster of towns (Invercargill, Timaru, Palmerston North, Wanganui and Napier) had populations little higher than 10,000. Hamilton (3542) was over- shadowed by the mining town of Waihi (6436).
19 Wanganui (148%), Manawatu (109%), Taranaki (114%), Waikato (180%) and Gisborne (163%).
20 Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand, What’s the Story? Manawatu and Horowhenua, by Malcolm McKinnon. http://www.teara.govt.NewZealand/Places/ManawatuAndHorowhenua/ManawatuAndHorowhe…., accessed 23 August 2006.
21 Net immigration had been negligible until 1900, with significant numbers arriving only after 1901. The net increase in 5-yearly periods was: 1891-95: 15,320; 1896-1900: 10,638; 1901-05: 45,446; 1906-10: 40,966, giving a total of 112,370, compared with a population increase of 384,532.
22 The rate increased from 6.04 to 8.70 per 1000.
Leadership in the Anglican Church
Major leadership change took place in the Anglican Church early in this period, as the bishops who had held office throughout the colonial years retired or died between 1890 and 1902. Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland looked overseas for new leadership rather than drawing from the (admittedly limited) range of local clergy who had experience of colonial life. The call was for young bishops for a young country and so under the positive leadership of men in their forties – Julius (Christchurch), Wallis (Wellington) and Neligan (Auckland) – significant progress was made. Entrusting leadership to a younger generation was not an uncommon experience, as the following table indicates:
Table 3.5
Bishops: age profile: 1841-1910
Diocese Bishop Born Year
appointed Age appointed Years in NZ prior to appointment Year retired Age retired N.Z./Auckland Selwyn 1809 1841 32 0 1869 60 Auckland Cowie 1831 1869 38 0 1902 71 Neligan 1863 1903 40 0 1910 47 Waiapu W. Williams 1800 1859 59 31 1876 76 Stuart 1827 1877 50 0 1894 67 W.L. Williams 1829 1895 66 42 1909 80 Wellington Abraham 1814 1858 44 8 1870 56 Hadfield 1814 1870 56 31 1893 79 Wallis 1853 1895 41 0 1911 58 Nelson Hobhouse 1817 1858 41 0 1865 48 Suter 1830 1866 36 0 1891 61 Mules 1837 1892 55 25 1912 75 Christchurch Harper 1804 1856 52 0 1890 86 Julius 1847 1890 43 0 1925 78 Dunedin Nevill 1837 1871 34 0 1919 82
In two of the smaller dioceses, however, continuity and familiarity were favoured over innovation. Waiapu, with its strong Maori component, turned to the 66-year old W.L. Williams, son of William Williams. The new Bishop in Nelson, C.O. Mules (55), had arrived on the same ship as his predecessor and had served as Vicar of Brightwater for 25 years. The other diocese, Dunedin, retained the same bishop throughout the period. Bishop Nevill had already held office for twenty years when the period began and remained as bishop until 1919.
However, by the end of the period, all three North Island bishops had tendered their resignations. The second Bishop Williams retired from Waiapu in 1909 at the age of 80. Neligan’s tenure in Auckland was tragically cut short in 1910 when, at the age of 47, he resigned following a series of strokes which had incapacitated him. He returned to England where he spent the rest of his days as vicar of a small Northumberland parish. Bishop Wallis resigned from Wellington in 1911 and also returned to England, where he became an archdeacon in the Diocese of Salisbury.
Dealing with complexity
The bishops obviously relied on their senior clergy for advice but it is difficult to draw too many conclusions in relation to this period because some of these roles were still in embryonic form. Christchurch alone had a full-time Dean in 1911.24 As often as not, canons were appointed in recognition of faithful service rather than for their leadership qualities.