02/09/2026
NEW ZEALAND CHRISTIAN HERITAGE
WILLIAM COLENSO - PROMINENT EARLY MISSIONARY TO NEW ZEALAND BASED IN HAWKES BAY
William Colenso certainly wasn't perfect. He made some mistakes, but he was also used by God to significantly advance Christianity in New Zealand.
I choose to honour him for being a very prominent early missionary to New Zealand that did some incredible things for God and N.Z.
The bibles he printed into Te Reo were the first books to ever be printed in N.Z. and God used these printed bibles as a catalyst in christianity spreading all over New Zealand.
If you know the story of Tarore, she had one of his printed Gospels of Luke. Her gospel of Luke was read and preached from and literally whole tribes came to Christ. This transformed New Zealand. He initially printed 1000 gospels of Luke that went all over New Zealand and reached thousands of people for Christ.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarore
Born in Penzance, Cornwall, probably on 17 November 1811,[3] he was the cousin of John William Colenso, bishop of Natal. His surname is locative and it originates from the place name Colenso in the parish of St Hilary, near Penzance in west Cornwall.[4] He trained as a printer, starting an apprenticeship in 1826. In 1833 he worked for a London firm who were printers for the Church Missionary Society. The society wanted someone to run a printing press at Paihia in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, and Colenso got the job.[3]
Proof copy of the Epistles to the Ephesians and Philippians, printed in Paihia 17 February 1835, with the corrections of translator William Williams
He sailed for New Zealand via Sydney in June 1834 and arrived at Paihia on 30 December 1834.
His first production was a Māori-language version of the Epistles to the Ephesians and Philippians, printed on 17 February 1835.[3]
By July 1837, he had printed and bound 2,000 copies of the Epistles to the Ephesians and Philippians, as well as printing addition, multiplication, and shillings-and-pence tables for the schools.[5]
By 5 January 1836, he had composed and printed 1,000 copies of St Luke's Gospel, as well as further material for the schools.[5]
He was responsible for the printing of the Māori-language translation of the New Testament in 1837. It was the first book printed in New Zealand and the first indigenous language translation of the Bible published in the southern hemisphere.[6] In 1840, he had printed 10,000 Catechisms, 11,000 Psalms, other religious texts and material for the schools; as well as 200 copies of the New Zealand Gazette for the colonial government.[7]@
