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Minutes of the General Assembly 2012
Presbyterian Church. His father, John McLeay, attended and mother, Flora (nee
Lourie), was a member of the Turakina Presbyterian Church. Maurice attended
Mangara School, the valley school across the road, until the age of 10; he always used
to comment he was the top and the bottom of his class as he was the only one in that
standard. He then attended Friends School in Wanganui, before going onto become a
boarder and head of boarding at New Plymouth Boys High School. Maurice committed
his life to Christ as a teenager and began to feel the call to the ministry while a member
at St Andrew’s Church, New Plymouth.
Maurice was accepted as a student for the ministry by the Taranaki Presbytery in 1939.
He enrolled for a BA at Otago University, residing at Knox College in preparation for
training for the ministry before WWII interrupted these plans.
In 1940, Maurice volunteered for military service joining the 25th Battalion. He found
himself in Maadi Camp and in Greece where in 1941 a large number were captured,
and he became a POW. The next five years were spent as forced labour on farms in
Austria until war’s end brought his repatriation to England and then home.
Maurice, following his calling, returned to Knox (1946 – 1949) and completed his
studies for the ministry; he was licensed in Turakina, his home parish, by Wanganui
Presbytery (to which he had transferred) in November 1949. Maurice began his
ministry at Westmere Parish in Wanganui, where he was ordained on the 3 March
1950.
On 3 June of that same year, Maurice married Tui Maclennan, grand-daughter of the
Reverend John Pringle, at Kaikorai Church, Dunedin, where Maurice had been a youth
leader for the previous two years. After a solid six years of ministry in Wanganui,
including being elected to the Patea licencing trust, Maurice was chosen to be the first
minister of a New Life congregation at Titahi Bay, Wellington. He was inducted on 19
April 1956 to St Timothy’s. It was here that Maurice completed his BA at the University
of New Zealand, studying in Wellington, and also served on the Armed Forces
Chaplaincy Board. During Maurice’s time, the congregation grew in number, enabling a
separate parish to be established in Porirua, and the enthusiastic Bay congregation
built a new church. On 31 January 1967, Maurice became ‘Bill’ when he was called to
Knox, a large rural parish in Morrinsville.
Bill was very active in the community, joining the Rotary Club and serving on the
college board of governors. Bill’s last parish was St John’s in Rotorua, where he was
inducted on the 14 September 1978. Bill took a proactive interest in the Pacific Island
people and managed to unite St Johns into a multicultural congregation. Bill retired in
May 1985 to Taupo, where he became an active member of St Paul’s Union parish in
Taupo and served on the parish council there for many years.
Bill and Tui had five children, Vivian, Flora, Mary, John and Simon; two of whom, Vivian
and Simon, have been ordained as Presbyterian ministers.
Bill was a keen fisherman and capable gardener, and loved living at Kinloch on the
northern shores of Lake Taupo where he and Tui lived from retirement until moving into
Taupo in 2004.
Bill served as moderator of t Wellington, Waikato and Bay of Plenty Presbyteries and
attended the World Council of Churches, with Tui, in Canberra in 1991. Following his
long time interest in the healing ministry, Bill served as warden of the New Zealand
Order of St Luke the Physician from 1987-1990.
38 Session 2