August 2012 Issue - Federated Mountain Clubs of NZ

ReviewsFocus on William Colensoby Shaun BarnettIn the last two years William Colenso has madean extraordinary comeback, with four newbooks featuring his life or work as their subjects,as well as a major conference in Napier.Printer, missionary, explorer, naturalist andpolitician, the nineteenth century Cornishmanwho helped found Napier was a fascinatingcharacter by any measure. Trampers know himbest for his travels over the Ruahine Range,and through the bush country of Te Urewera.Colenso’s eight crossings of the Ruahine Range,including the first by a Pakeha, marked him outas an explorer, and on these journeys he was alsothe first to collect alpine plants from the area.Colenso became a prodigious footslogger, not justbecause he loathed sea travel, but also becausehe enjoyed walking. Indeed, he can arguably becalled New Zealand’s first tramper.Colenso can also be regarded as the fatherof New Zealand printing (although strictlyspeakinghe was not the country’s first printer).After leaving Cornwall, aged in his early twenties,he arrived in New Zealand in 1834 to work asa printer with the Church Missionary Society.Not only was Colenso present at the signing ofthe Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, but he printedthe Maori version of it. By then fluent in TeReo, Colenso wanted to became a missionary,and eventually had his wish granted when in1844 the CMS posted him to Hawke’s Bay asa deacon in order to establish a mission stationat Waitangi, near present-day Napier. It wasfrom here that Colenso launched himself intothe Ruahines, using a long-unused Maori trailacross the ranges.But in 1852 Colenso fell from grace afterit became known that he had fathered anillegitimate child with a Maori woman, RipekaMeretene, who was part of the household staffat Waitangi. Expelled from the church, despisedby many of his former allies and friends, Colensonevertheless continued to stay in Hawke’sBay, and reinvented himself as a land-owner,naturalist, collector, school inspector and –briefly – politician. Overbearing, difficult andoutspoken are some words to describe hischaracter, but generous, whole-hearted andmisunderstood are others. In many ways he wasa man far ahead of his time – notably in his viewthat Maori should not sell their land, for which hewas disliked by both land-hungry Pakeha settlersand those Maori wishing to profit from sales.Last November, the Hawke’s Bay Museumand Art Gallery hosted a major conferenceon Colenso, marking the 200th aniversary ofhis birth. About 100 people attended, withpresentations covering all aspects of his life andwork. The conference also coincided with thelaunch of Peter Wells’s ambitious new biographyof Colenso, The Hungry Heart, and two morevolumes featuring Colenso’s work – one onhis collections, and the other on his letters tothe editor, both edited by Colenso-phile IanSt George. St George is also about to releasea new edition of the classic 1948 biographyof Colenso by A. Bagnall and G. Petersen.Colenso would no doubt be delighted by allthis attention. Complex, spirited and energetic,Colenso excelled in so many aspects of life, andlived for so long (he died in 1899, aged 88), thathis life and writings form important parts of ourcolonial – and indeed tramping – history.52FMC Bulletin • August 2012