Te Perehi o te Epikopo Katorika: The Gaveaux Printing Press at Pompallier

Caring for historic properties means treasuring their contents as well as sites and surroundings. There is nothing more powerful than an artefact found in its context.

At Pompallier, visitors invariably respond with awe as they hear how the press here was brought across two oceans and set up in this building, below these hills. Well over 30,000 books and tracts were printed on it between 1842 and 1849. These were some of the first books made in New Zealand and some of the first books in the Maori language.

Sending a copy of the first page printed at the Catholic mission headquarters in the Bay of Islands, Bishop Pompallier wrote to his superiors in Europe, 6 November 1842:

"…The printing press was bought in France in 1840 and the printers are members of the Society of Mary to the number of three. Before giving my writings to the press I give them to one of my missionaries, helped by two intelligent native converts to be examined. I recommend to them with great severity in the matter of my use of language, so that if anything is encountered which is not grammatical or intelligible in their tongue, they should take care to let me know about it. The priest whom I employ for this work notes down the observations of the natives as well as his own, when there is something to be done. Then the whole is examined finally in my presence and then I deliver the book to the press."¹

The Bishop's letter also describes how Maori pressured him for books so much that he decided to print a preliminary 48-page brochure that was to be circulated amongst them"…thus to encourage patience."

The press continued to pour out Catholic literature until the Northern War broke out in March 1845, literally on the neighbouring property. The missionaries' letters describe bullets flying around them as they raced for the safety of a small boat. Although these staunch Catholics chose to stay in the North for the duration of that war, it was deemed prudent to remove the printing equipment to outstations. After all, lead printing type was easily melted into musket shot and paper quickly converted into cartridges for shotguns.

Hence printing was halted for a year. On 14 September 1845, printer Brother Emery Roudet wrote:

"…The press went to Wangaroa (Whangaroa)…I was sent to Terawiti (Te Rawhiti at Cape Brett) to look after our belongings…We are in a reed hut; it takes in water like a bucket. It is 5 feet high, about 20 feet long, and 30 wide. Inside are 60 cases, all the printing paper…and many other things…" ²

As peace was re-established in the North in 1846, so was the press at the Kororareka/Russell printery. The mission printery at Kororareka/Russell produced 12 identified publications between 1839 & 1849, all in the Maori language. A range of Catholic teachings and prayers, catechisms and pastoral letters from Bishop Pompallier were produced. The exception is a lesson sheet that adds questions and answers for teaching reading. The 648-page Ko Te Ako was the last and most ambitious publication from the Kororareka presses, and includes the Gospel of St Matthew.

Internal conflict and the pressures of the rapidly-changing colony meant that in 1850 the missionaries were relocated to the new colonial towns of Wellington and Auckland. The printing equipment was packed up and eventually sold off or given away.

In 1857, Waikato Maori asked Bishop Pompallier to send them a printing press. The Gaveaux press was despatched, but exactly when and how has yet to be discovered. It may well have been around August 1862 when Pompallier wrote to the Maori King Tawhiao:

"…Now this is a token of my love: I send a new Priest of mine for thee and for the tribes of Waikato…"³ Historian, Ruth Ross suggests that the new priest, Father Garavel, possibly took the press with him. The next year hostilities broke out and it is unlikely that travel and transport would have then been possible.

When Tawhiao began publication of Te Paki o Matariki, in 1891, it was the Gaveaux press that went to work. After 1933, when commercial printing of this Maori language newspaper began, the press remained in the Waikato as a taonga in its own right. From 1950 it was stored in a special building on the Turangawaewae Marae. In 1967 Queen Te Atairangikaahu gave permission for the Gaveaux to return to its own turangawaewae at Kororareka/Russell.

Ngaa mihi ki to tatou Ariki Atairangikaahu mo to whakaaro aroha.

Footnotes

1. Archives of the Congregation de Propaganda Fide, SRC Oceania Vol 2.f. 573.
2. Marist Archives, Auckland. Letters from Oceania, Part 3 (translated by Br E Clisby FMS).
3. Quoted in "A Guide to Pompallier House", Ruth Ross 1970.

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