Collision, Compromise and Conversion during the Wesleyan Hokianga Mission, 1827–1855

Drawing upon modern scholarly insights, Methodist historian, Gary Clover, investigates the nature of culture change and Māori `conversion’ from 1827–1855 during New Zealand’s early contact era. He narrates an absorbing tale of Māori and Pākeha inter-relationships, colourful personalities, and their foresight and failures. Clover explores how Hokianga Māori, amidst immense turmoil and change, adopted and `Māorified’ European technology, culture, and Christianity. Also how William White, a little known, extra-ordinary Wesleyan Mission Superintendent, moved far beyond the traditional missionary mould to help retain his `Mihanere’ chiefs’ tribal lands. They entrusted White with large tracts to hold in trust. At Māngungu’s chapel, school, farm, and sawyers’ pits, they learnt skills to participate in the new economy, becoming competitive against their European rivals. But White’s personality flaws and his opponents saw him dismissed in 1836. And outside forces by 1855 brought about the end of all three original Hokianga mission stations. A well-researched, scholarly, and detailed analysis of culture change and Māori `conversion’ in a region professional historians have largely neglected.

About the Author :
The Rev Gary Allan Malcolm Clover, MA Hons, 1st (Auckland), BD (Otago), Dip.NZLS, Dip.TMTC, in 1949 was born in Thames and raised on a dairy farm in Waitakaruru on the Hauraki Plains. He entered Auckland University in 1967. After gaining an MA Honours (1st) in early contact New Zealand history in May 1973, he trained at the New Zealand Library School, then worked a year as a National Bibliography cataloguer and reference assistant at the Alexander Turnbull Library on The Terrace. During 1975 he spent a year on OE in Israel and Europe and returned to work for five years as an archivist and New Zealand Room assistant at the Canterbury Public Library. In 1984 he began training for the Methodist ministry at the combined colleges of St John the Evangelist and Trinity Methodist Theological College in Auckland. On graduating with a BD from Otago University he served as a parish presbyter for thirty years in various parts of New Zealand.Since 2014 Gary has lived in retirement in Richmond, Nelson. He continues to indulge in his scholarly interest in researching and writing on the history of New Zealand missions, the Treaty of Waitangi, and the process by which a 'nominal diffusion' of Christian influence, what he prefers to call a 'conversion to modernity', took place throughout Aotearoa-New Zealand among the Māori people of the early nineteenth century. Gary enjoys reading history and biographies, writing letters in defence of chiefly tribal tino rangatiratanga in the Treaty in The Nelson Mail, tramping, cycling, taking the odd church service, and engaging with his young niece and nephew. He is a Rotarian, a voluntary driving mentor for Nelson refugee learner drivers with Nelson Red Cross, and volunteers at the Port Nelson Seafarers Mission.Gary married Sara Thompson in 1983.