Part Three
Interrogating Gadd’s Interpretation of the Manukau Wesleyan Mission
by Rosa Ewing*
D.B.H. Gadd’s manuscript, The Baptismal Register of the Ihu Matao Wesleyan Mission Station 1849-54 and the Manukau Wesleyan Circuit 1855-1869, tells a story of the rise and fall of Māori-mission engagement on the Manukau. According to Gadd’s edited baptism register, the story began in 1849 with enthusiastic participation of Māori in the mission. This changed as Māori-settler relations deteriorated into distrust and eventually war, and Māori withdrew from the Wesleyan Mission. The story ends in 1871, after Māori baptisms had remained at zero for several years.
This article, the third in a series that has explored The Baptismal Register, will briefly consider the halting of Māori baptisms post-1866, before examining, in more depth, the influences on Gadd’s compilation of this source and the narrative that it tells. The source represents a methodical translation of quantitative data from the original baptism register and is an important example of interpreting a dense source into a relevant and digestible story. While the source represents a useful process and tool for understanding the local history of the Manukau, it is necessary to interrogate and understand the influences that shaped the narrative presented by Gadd.
LEFT: The Original Baptism Register for the Manukau-Onehunga Wesleyan Circuit. Kei Muri Māpara/Methodist Church of New Zealand Archives, B-25, 2380. RIGHT: Bernard Gadd. The Baptismal Register of the Ihu Matao Wesleyan Mission Station 1849-54 and the Manukau Wesleyan Circuit 1855-69″ edited by D.B.H. [David Bernard Hallard] Gadd, B.A. Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira. MS-109.
Trends in Baptisms post-1866
As outlined in Article 2, Māori baptisms decreased dramatically between 1857 and 1866, but there were several Māori who continued to have their children baptised during this period. These Māori were involved in the Wesleyan Church as assistants to the mission, so likely did not move away and continued to have their children baptised because of their strong faith and commitment to the Church.
From 1866, Māori baptisms on the Manukau Circuit halted completely, and remained at zero until 1871, where Gadd ended his abridged register. Meanwhile, European baptisms in the area continued to increase. Gadd noted two events that influenced this trend. In 1868, the Waiuku Circuit separated from the Manukau Circuit. While Māori baptisms were already zero in the previous year, 1868 also saw a reduction in annual European baptisms from 7 to 2. The Waiuku Circuit separated some of the southern Churches from the Manukau Circuit, including Waiuku, Mauku, Pukekohe, and Drury. Gadd observed that some members of the congregation were reallocated from the Manukau Circuit, reducing baptism numbers on the register.
Growing European Settlement in Waiuku, ca.1868-1871. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections Footprints 04019.
Gadd also noted that Vogel’s immigration policy commenced in 1870. Julius Vogel, Colonial Treasurer, was responsible for assisting thousands of immigrants to New Zealand to expand the colony’s infrastructure and economy. Coinciding with the implementation of Vogel’s plan in 1870, European baptisms on the Manukau Circuit increased from 5 to 22, likely due to an influx of European immigrants.
Gadd ends his edited register in 1871. This source persuasively elucidated the tragic decline in Māori baptisms due to the deterioration of race relations and outbreak of war after aggressive actions by the colonial government and reflected the increasing Pākehā settlement of the Manukau. Gadd’s abridged register represents a skilful and considered translation of data from the original, dense, baptism register, and the interpretation of this information into a coherent narrative. In Gadd’s words, the narrative that the register tells of decline in Māori baptisms is ‘the most tragic period in the history of the Christian church in New Zealand.’ The rest of this article will explore influences on Gadd and why he may have compiled his manuscript to tell this narrative.
Who was D.B.H. Gadd?
David Bernard Hallard Gadd (1935-2007) was a teacher, writer, and editor. He was born in Hamilton in 1935. Gadd graduated from Auckland University College before attending Auckland Teachers College to train as a high school teacher. Gadd began his teaching career in 1959.
Bernard Gadd, pictured outside his home in 2006, age 70. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, OH_1512_05.
Described as a ‘flag-bearer for NZ literature,’ Gadd has been praised for his commitment to multiculturalism in literature and education. As head of English at Hillary College, Ōtara, in the 1970s, he shifted the focus of the curriculum from traditional English literature to local stories that reflected the multiculturalism of the South Auckland community.
In addition to his teaching career, Gadd wrote and published a wide range of literary works. His body of work includes short stories and novels for children and young adults, poetry, and plays. Gadd’s writing, often targeted at young adults, explored themes of New Zealand identity and multi-culturalism. Alongside three other Hillary College teachers, Gadd cofounded a publishing cooperative, Te Ropu Kahurangi, in the early 1980s, that published these high-school level stories.
Gadd also has a substantial body of non-fiction work, including handbooks on pedagogy and journalism. His handbook for teachers, Cultural Difference in the Classroom, aimed to introduce teachers to principles of Māoritanga and provided guidelines for incorporating these principles into education. Despite praise for his contributions to teaching and literature, some academics took issue with his works on multiculturalism, with Thomas K. Fitzgerald describing Cultural Difference’s conclusions as ‘half-baked generalisations’ and as including unsupported assertions.
Gadd clearly had significant interest in the history of South Auckland. In 1990 he wrote the historical novel Blood of Tainui which focused on the Waikato War, and he wrote a local history of Papatoetoe in 1987. Earlier in his career, Gadd also wrote biographies of Methodist figures Rev. James Buller and William Morley (who wrote The History of Methodism in New Zealand). Both biographies were published by the Wesley Historical Society. As apparent in his oeuvre, Gadd had a keen interest in local history and Māori and Pacific culture. His interests and outputs demonstrate a considerable dedication of time to researching local histories, including the Waikato War and Wesleyan missionary activities, and a keen interest in communicating these stories to a public audience. Donating his edited version of the baptism register to Auckland Museum, as well as John Kinder Theological Library, tells us that Gadd was active in wanting the story that his source tells to make it into public institutions, where it would be protected and researched as part of the historical record. This fits with his commitment to highlighting local stories, as reflected in his teaching.
Influences on Gadd
Gadd was raised Methodist and asserted the influence that his religion had on his literature and scholarly interests. In a 2005 oral history interview, Gadd described how his family were devout church-goers, and his father’s Methodist Church would encourage locals to write poems and stories for their magazine. Further, Gadd believed that ‘it went with being a Methodist… being interested in reading and writing and thinking and talking,’ citing the popularity of current events discussions in Bible Class movements. Gadd continued to attend Church into his adulthood. Minutes of the Methodist Church of New Zealand’s Annual Conferences from 1963-1966 show that Gadd was an active member of the Wesley Historical Society. Gadd also had several articles published in the New Zealand Methodist newspaper, including his views on education policy.
While a member of the Pukekohe Methodist Church in the early 1960s, Gadd joined the board of Camp Morley, the Methodist Youth Camp at Waiau Pā. In fact, Gadd suggested the camp be named after William Morley, a pioneer Methodist minister, and he was commissioned with researching Morley for the Wesley Historical Society. This research culminated in his 1964 biography, William Morley: Statesman of God Among Australasian Methodists. This biography was published as Wesley Historical Society proceedings in 1964. This was the same year that Gadd donated his manuscript, The Baptismal Register of the Ihu Matao Wesleyan Mission Station 1849-54 and the Manukau Wesleyan Circuit 1855-1869, to the Auckland Museum.
Upon his arrival to New Zealand in 1864, Morley had been appointed resident minister at Waiuku, before working around Auckland and being drawn further into administerial roles in the Church. In 1900, Morley published his History of Methodism in New Zealand, which, as has been explored in this project, largely set out the same trends and their causes that Gadd outlined in his edited register. Gadd’s representation of the decline in Māori baptisms as ‘the most tragic period in the history of the Christian church in New Zealand’ echoed Morley’s discussion of the New Zealand Wars, the deterioration of Māori-Pākehā relations, and the decline of the Manukau mission as ‘the darkest and most chequered pages of New Zealand’s history.’’ It is apparent that Gadd’s research on Morley influenced his understanding of the baptism register. The bibliography of Gadd’s William Morley shows that he consulted the baptism register in his research and is likely the starting point for his interest in creating the edited version he donated to the Auckland Museum. While Gadd’s publication of William Morley was funded by the Wesley Historical Society, no details on his manuscript of the abridged register have been located within the Society’s minutes. I reason that the manuscript was an independent project of Gadd’s, although deeply influenced by his research on Morley.
William Morley, prominent Wesleyan Minister, author of The History of Methodism in New Zealand, and subject of a biography by D.B.H. Gadd. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections NZG-18910321-0009-03.
The period that Gadd was working in likely also influenced his interpretation of the baptism register. The 1960s were a period of growing popular and academic interest in New Zealand history. Around the mid-twentieth century, many centenaries, including the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi/The Treaty of Waitangi, Church related anniversaries, and battles in the New Zealand Wars were signified. These centenaries coincided with changes in New Zealand’s relationship to the British Empire and helped to contribute to a need for New Zealanders to construct and understand a national identity. The New Zealand government began to sponsor public history projects, including an encyclopedia of New Zealand and a 44-title series of New Zealand in the Second World War. Amateur historians published memoirs on pioneers and local histories. Simultaneously, academic history was growing as university enrolments increased after World War II.
Academics began to direct questions towards race relations in the mid-nineteenth century and the New Zealand Wars. Significantly, 1959 and 1960 saw the publication of the first two general histories of New Zealand (by Keith Sinclair and W.H. Oliver) which reached public bookshelves with their questions of New Zealand’s identity. Evidently, the 1960s represent a time of growth for popular and scholarly interest in national identity and local histories. It is likely that this influenced Gadd to produce his edited baptism register and donate it to the museum for it to be preserved as part of the historical record, and in the hopes of it being used to understand a part of New Zealand’s history.
Gadd’s diverse work in local history, literature, and education represents a genuine concern for and dedication to understanding multiculturalism and the relationship between Māori and Pākehā identities at the time. However, it is also important to acknowledge his distance from the Māori experience as a Pākehā man. In 1991, on his fiction work pertaining to Māori and Pacific youths, Gadd said, ‘I find it easier to write about people totally opposite. That to me is teenage Māori and Pacific Island girls.’ In both his fiction and non-fiction work, distance from the experience of Māori may make these narratives easier to analyse and communicate, but we must be wary of telling Māori stories with dominant Pākehā voices. While Gadd compiled a useful source that does offer a glimpse into the nuances of Māori-Pākehā relations during the New Zealand Wars, the story of tragedy that Gadd tells with his edited register needs to be interrogated beyond the voice of Gadd himself or the influence of the Church.
As a Pākehā historian myself, I acknowledge my own distance from the Māori experience and have endeavoured to find Māori sources to aide interpretation of the baptism register. This has proven difficult, given the limited written record of many Māori lives during the 1860s, and the finite literature on the Manukau Circuit, mainly covered in Pākehā-written histories, such as Morley’s History of Methodism or Albert Tonson’s Old Manukau. Further research could be used to connect more specific details of tūpuna Māori, and wider stories of Māori experience to Gadd’s manuscript.
Significance of Gadd’s edited register – and what to do with it
Evidently, in The Baptismal Register, D.B.H. Gadd has compiled an important source for understanding the impact of the New Zealand Wars on Māori-missionary relations. Gadd has outlined trends and factors in the decline, which are corroborated in primary sources and historical literature. The source can be used to explore the experiences of Māori on the Manukau between 1849 and 1869 and it provides substantial quantitative information for historians. Further, Gadd’s interpretation of the register presents a coherent narrative, made digestible for audiences that may not have extensive background knowledge of the history of the Manukau.
Housed in the Auckland Museum Research Library, Gadd’s donation represents a keen desire for the preservation and use of his source. The manuscript presents a solid basis for understanding the Māori-missionary relationship on the Manukau, as demonstrated by Lucy Mackintosh’s use of it in her recent revision of the Ihumātao Mission Station in Shifting Grounds.
While it has been used in the reasonably accessible Shifting Grounds, is there further potential for the information contained in Gadd’s edited manuscript to be communicated to the public? As part of the Museum’s collection, can it be interpreted in an exhibition? The quantitative information in Gadd’s edited register can give numeric evidence to the impacts of the New Zealand Wars on a localised group and provides interesting nuances in the Māori relationship to Wesleyan Methodist faith. Further, the source contains a history that lends itself to visual representation through graphs and figures. Museums, as a node for communicating history to the public, need to present information that is quantifiable, digestible (involving a large visual component), and relatable to their constituents. While not forgetting the importance of interrogating the influences on his work, Gadd’s edited register presents a wealth of information that has been pre-interpreted, presenting numeric figures that are easily communicable to the public. Overall, the source represents the dedication of Gadd to public history, and a rich window into the Wesleyan Manukau Circuit during a time of great historical change. However, like other historical sources, it will continue to be the subject of revision and reinterpretation as new questions are posed about the past.