Journals, Reports, and Correspondence of the Rev. T. S. Grace.

Summary of Paper by A. F. Grace, Anthropology and Maori Race Section, Auckland Institute, 1943.

This paper was a collation of passages from the journals, reports, and correspondence of the Rev. Thomas Samuel Grace, a C.M.S. missionary in the Poverty Bay, Taupo, and Bay of Plenty districts from 1850 to his death, in 1879, with additional matter from annotations and other writings by his youngest son, the late Alfred A. Grace.

T. S. Grace wrote much to the Church Missionary Society in London about the Maoris among whom he worked, beginning when he assumed temporary charge of the established mission station at Turanga, Poverty Bay, and continuing through the pre-war period in Taupo under the chief Te Heuheu Iwikau, the early stages of the king movement, the war years, the period of Hauhau incursions, the campaigns against Te Kooti, and the gradual reversion to peaceful living. He commented much on the changes in Maori social and economic life which accompanied these events, particularly on the land problem, and reported many conversations with Maoris of all degrees, including Hauhaus as well as friendlies.

The manuscripts were presented to his children by the C.M.S. about the year 1907, and various transcriptions were made. The greater part of the material was published in 1928 under the title A Pioneer Missionary Among the Maoris (Palmerston North, G. H. Bennett, Ltd.). The editors, three of his sons and a daughter, elected to let the missionary's writings tell their own story, and provided almost nothing in the way of annotations. In order to spare the feelings of living persons, many passages containing criticism of missionary policy and of individuals were omitted. In particular, the narrative of the murder of the Rev. C. S. Volkner, at Opotiki, in 1865, and Grace's escape thence was reduced to a small portion of the original.

The writer of the paper stated that arrangements had been made to present the original manuscripts and certain transcriptions to the Turnbull Library when they had been edited and a complete text prepared, as some parts of the originals were missing. This would make them accessible to students. If a further edition of the book were ever brought out, it should be fully annotated from other sources of information about the events recorded. Numbers of Maori place-names required elucidation, if possible by a map.