Looking for information on the Church Missionary Society?
Featured is a list of Church Missionary Society missionaries which was created by Bishop William Simkin in 1965. [ANG 17/3/3}. The list we understand is compiled from a printed register first published by the Church Missionary Society.
The work of the CMS began in New Zealand with the visit of Samuel Marsden in 1814. With Marsden, who was chaplain to the prison colony of New South Wales, came three lay workers: carpenter William Hall, flax spinner and shoe-maker John King and school teacher Thomas Kendall.
The missionaries were part of a voluntary religious movement rather than an official expansion of the church’s domain and although Marsden was not a CMS missionary, he continued for the next forty years to act on behalf of the Society. On his second in 1819, Marsden brought with him the Rev. John Butler, James Kemp and Francis Hall as reinforcements for the mission.
The list of missionaries is divided into three parts; part one – known as ‘the missionary period’, extended from 1814 to 1841, ending with the arrival of Bishop Selwyn; part two – known as the ‘period of organisation’ extended from 1841 to 1903.
For this second period, most of those listed were already resident in New Zealand and were appointed on local recommendations.
Part three of the list gives the names of sixty-eight ordained Maori who became missionaries, beginning with the Rev. Rota Waitoa in 1855.
