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Thomas Kendall
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Thomas Kendall
Thomas Kendall (13 December 1778 – 6 August 1832) was a schoolmaster, an early missionary to Māori people in New Zealand, and a recorder of the Māori language. An evangelical Anglican, he and his family were in the first group of missionaries to New Zealand, accompanied to the Bay of Islands by Samuel Marsden in December 1814 and settling there. He wrote the first book in Māori, published in 1815. By 1821 he felt it necessary to accede to local Māori demands for guns in order to ensure their continued protection of the mission, and the Church Missionary Society dismissed him in 1822 for gun dealing. Marsden visited New Zealand to dismiss him in person in 1823, after learning that he had committed adultery with a Māori woman. Kendall left New Zealand in 1825 and died in a ship sinking in Australia in 1832.
A younger son of farmer Edward Kendall and Susanna Surflit, Thomas Kendall was born in 1778. He grew up in North Thoresby, Lincolnshire, England, where he was influenced by his local minister Reverend William Myers and the evangelical revival within the Anglican Church. Dates of his early careers are disputed. While a teenager he moved with Myers to North Somercotes, where he was assistant schoolmaster and also helped run Myers's 15-acre (6.1 ha) farm. Kendall also tutored a gentleman's children in Immingham, where he met Jane Quickfall. On 21 November 1803, he married her and set up business as a draper and grocer. The business did not prosper.
In 1805, while attempting to sell a cargo of hops in London, Kendall visited Bentinck Chapel, Marylebone. Preaching of Basil Woodd and William Mann changed his outlook. He sold his business and moved his family to live in London, joining the congregation of that church and taking a job as a schoolmaster.
In 1808, he decided to become a missionary and applied to the Anglican Church Missionary Society to go to New Zealand. The society was a powerful organisation with a number of political connections, including the Colonial Secretary. It had recently adopted an experimental policy of sending lay preachers with practical skills to new missions, with the idea of bringing native peoples the benefits of English culture and religion – and the hope that men who could make their living from a trade might be welcomed by indigenous people where theologians were not.
More than 150 years previously, Dutch sailor Abel Tasman and his crew had become the first Europeans to sight New Zealand, and 40 years previously the coast had been mapped by Captain James Cook. However, extensive European contact with the Māori people had only begun in the previous decade. This was mostly by whalers operating out of shore bases; however, a few traders had formed a small settlement at Kororareka in the natural harbour of the Bay of Islands. This had gained a reputation for drunken lawlessness and corruption, with the sailors accused of encouraging prostitution and alcoholism among the Māori as well as kidnapping or press-ganging them. While there was some truth to this the sailors were in a poor position to present a threat to Māori, and lived largely by grace of these martial people. Nevertheless, as far as the Church Missionary Society was concerned, they were heathen souls[clarification needed] to be converted.
A mission to New Zealand was promoted by Samuel Marsden, a Church Missionary Society agent in New South Wales, and in 1809 Kendall was chosen to join tradesmen William Hall and John King on a mission, with Kendall to work as a schoolmaster.
After some delays and fundraising, Kendall and his family left for Sydney in May 1813. After further delays in Australia, Kendall and Hall took Marsden's vessel, the Active, and set out on 14 March 1814 on an exploratory journey to the Bay of Islands. They met rangatira (chiefs) such as Ruatara and the rising war leader of the Ngāpuhi, Hongi Hika, who had helped pioneer the introduction of the musket to Māori warfare. Hongi and Ruatara went with Kendall when he returned to Australia on 22 August.
The Governor of New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie, gave permission for the foundation of the mission in November and appointed Kendall as a magistrate by an order dated 9 November 1814. His authority was stated to be: "that no Master of any Ship or Vessel belonging to Great Britain or any of her Colonies, shall land or discharge any Sailor or Sailors, or other Person, from on board his Ship or Vessel, within any of the Bays or Harbours of New Zealand, without having first obtained the Permission of the Chief or Chiefs of the Place, confirmed by the Certificate of the Resident Magistrate, in like manner as in the foregoing case." The governor also presumed to extend his own powers over New Zealand, issuing a proclamation that "natives are not to be carried off from New Zealand or the Bay of Islands by masters of vessels, or seamen or other persons without permission of chiefs, made in writing under hand of Revd Thomas Kendall, resident magistrate".
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Thomas Kendall
Thomas Kendall (13 December 1778 – 6 August 1832) was a schoolmaster, an early missionary to Māori people in New Zealand, and a recorder of the Māori language. An evangelical Anglican, he and his family were in the first group of missionaries to New Zealand, accompanied to the Bay of Islands by Samuel Marsden in December 1814 and settling there. He wrote the first book in Māori, published in 1815. By 1821 he felt it necessary to accede to local Māori demands for guns in order to ensure their continued protection of the mission, and the Church Missionary Society dismissed him in 1822 for gun dealing. Marsden visited New Zealand to dismiss him in person in 1823, after learning that he had committed adultery with a Māori woman. Kendall left New Zealand in 1825 and died in a ship sinking in Australia in 1832.
A younger son of farmer Edward Kendall and Susanna Surflit, Thomas Kendall was born in 1778. He grew up in North Thoresby, Lincolnshire, England, where he was influenced by his local minister Reverend William Myers and the evangelical revival within the Anglican Church. Dates of his early careers are disputed. While a teenager he moved with Myers to North Somercotes, where he was assistant schoolmaster and also helped run Myers's 15-acre (6.1 ha) farm. Kendall also tutored a gentleman's children in Immingham, where he met Jane Quickfall. On 21 November 1803, he married her and set up business as a draper and grocer. The business did not prosper.
In 1805, while attempting to sell a cargo of hops in London, Kendall visited Bentinck Chapel, Marylebone. Preaching of Basil Woodd and William Mann changed his outlook. He sold his business and moved his family to live in London, joining the congregation of that church and taking a job as a schoolmaster.
In 1808, he decided to become a missionary and applied to the Anglican Church Missionary Society to go to New Zealand. The society was a powerful organisation with a number of political connections, including the Colonial Secretary. It had recently adopted an experimental policy of sending lay preachers with practical skills to new missions, with the idea of bringing native peoples the benefits of English culture and religion – and the hope that men who could make their living from a trade might be welcomed by indigenous people where theologians were not.
More than 150 years previously, Dutch sailor Abel Tasman and his crew had become the first Europeans to sight New Zealand, and 40 years previously the coast had been mapped by Captain James Cook. However, extensive European contact with the Māori people had only begun in the previous decade. This was mostly by whalers operating out of shore bases; however, a few traders had formed a small settlement at Kororareka in the natural harbour of the Bay of Islands. This had gained a reputation for drunken lawlessness and corruption, with the sailors accused of encouraging prostitution and alcoholism among the Māori as well as kidnapping or press-ganging them. While there was some truth to this the sailors were in a poor position to present a threat to Māori, and lived largely by grace of these martial people. Nevertheless, as far as the Church Missionary Society was concerned, they were heathen souls[clarification needed] to be converted.
A mission to New Zealand was promoted by Samuel Marsden, a Church Missionary Society agent in New South Wales, and in 1809 Kendall was chosen to join tradesmen William Hall and John King on a mission, with Kendall to work as a schoolmaster.
After some delays and fundraising, Kendall and his family left for Sydney in May 1813. After further delays in Australia, Kendall and Hall took Marsden's vessel, the Active, and set out on 14 March 1814 on an exploratory journey to the Bay of Islands. They met rangatira (chiefs) such as Ruatara and the rising war leader of the Ngāpuhi, Hongi Hika, who had helped pioneer the introduction of the musket to Māori warfare. Hongi and Ruatara went with Kendall when he returned to Australia on 22 August.
The Governor of New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie, gave permission for the foundation of the mission in November and appointed Kendall as a magistrate by an order dated 9 November 1814. His authority was stated to be: "that no Master of any Ship or Vessel belonging to Great Britain or any of her Colonies, shall land or discharge any Sailor or Sailors, or other Person, from on board his Ship or Vessel, within any of the Bays or Harbours of New Zealand, without having first obtained the Permission of the Chief or Chiefs of the Place, confirmed by the Certificate of the Resident Magistrate, in like manner as in the foregoing case." The governor also presumed to extend his own powers over New Zealand, issuing a proclamation that "natives are not to be carried off from New Zealand or the Bay of Islands by masters of vessels, or seamen or other persons without permission of chiefs, made in writing under hand of Revd Thomas Kendall, resident magistrate".
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