Every month I write a local heritage-themed column, on behalf of The Treasury, for the
Grahamstown Gazette. Here's my piece for the May edition.
From The Treasury:
Western music got off to an early start on The Thames.
As far back as 1833 – more than thirty years before the declaration of the
Thames goldfields, and seven years before the Treaty of Waitangi was signed – something
unexpected was happening on the Waihou River.
In the early 1830s, the Church Missionary Society had
its sights set on the Hauraki region. Keen to bring Anglicanism to the rest of
the country and build on the success of their operation in the Bay of Islands,
the Church Missionary Society identified the banks of the Puriri stream, among
other places, as a potentially ideal spot for their first southern mission
station. The Rev. Henry Williams and three other missionaries set out to visit Puriri
in early 1833.
While this small group of missionaries weren’t the
first Europeans to travel up the Waihou River, Europeans who dared venture so
far inland were definitely few and far between. European activity in New
Zealand was still mostly confined to the Bay of Islands, with Kororareka – the frontier
‘Hellhole of the Pacific,’ better known these days as Russell – the largest
European settlement. New Zealand’s total
European population at the time was still less than 2000 people. Information
for travellers going inland was scarce. Following maps drawn by Captain Cook,
the missionaries journeyed up the Waihou River and arrived in Puriri with the
tide.
However, when it came to bringing European music to
the Plains, someone else beat the group of missionaries to the punch. Much to
their surprise, the missionaries were thrilled to discover the 200-strong Ngati
Maru hapu who greeted them already knew the words to several Anglican evening
hymns and prayers. This was thanks to a group of local boys who had been
educated at the Paihia mission school, and had passed on the songs they had
learnt to others at Puriri when they had returned. Anglican church music had
reach Puriri well before the missionaries themselves.
Puriri was eventually chosen to be the site of the new
Hauraki Mission Station, and with the establishment of the new station came the
first instances of arranged Western music with instruments being played on the
Coromandel, both for fun as well as for church services. The swampy conditions at
Puriri meant the mission station was moved to Parawai a few years later, where
traces of the mission still stand. The mission station at Parawai was the first
permanent European settlement – and the first permanent venue for Western music
– in the modern Thames township. It was the beginning of a long tradition of
music on the Thames.
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