1 the Presbyterian Way of Life in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand Dr

The Presbyterian way of life in nineteenth-century New Zealand Dr Alison Clarke [email protected] Paper presented to the Presbyterian Research Network, Dunedin, 15 October 2009. My intention in this paper is to give an overview of the research I have carried out over the past ten years, as it relates to Presbyterians in colonial New Zealand. I will start by saying that one of the key elements of my research into Presbyterians is that I never set out to study them! What I have learned about Presbyterian religious belief and practice is largely a by-product of broader projects and I suspect that gives my work a different focus from that of many other historians of Presbyterianism. My work has been driven by questions about the New Zealand colonial project. What happened when migrants from Europe brought their social, cultural and religious practices to this country? Which of those practices survived the migration process, and how did they evolve in response to the different physical and cultural environment they encountered? Which practices did Maori and European adopt and adapt from one another, and how were migrants from particular communities within Europe affected by the practices of other migrant groups? Did a distinctive Pakeha culture develop out of these cultural encounters? These questions lie at the heart of my research, along with a simpler – perhaps even naïve – one: what were the lives of ‘ordinary’ people like in this period? There are many elements of colonial life which have yet to be examined by historians but were clearly central to the way people lived. Religion pervades my research because, quite simply, it pervaded the lives of many nineteenth-century New Zealanders. One of the striking features of Victorian sources – letters, diaries, supposedly secular newspapers – is the extent of religious discourse. Just as it was integrated into these sources, religion needs to be integrated into histories of colonial life. This is part of a larger principle: that of restoring to past peoples their own priorities. Of course we all look at the past with present-day spectacles and our own interests and preoccupations cannot help but colour our interpretations; no historian is exempt from some degree of anachronism. But it is always fascinating to examine history with as few fixed questions and theories as possible. I am one of those historians who likes nothing better than to immerse myself in lots of original sources and to see what arises from those. 1 My first major research project was a distinctly unfashionable one, prompted by my discovery of a late-nineteenth century debate which had been almost entirely ignored by historians. In 1874 alone it led more than ten per cent of Otago’s adult population to sign a petition, provided a topic for fourteen leading articles in the Otago Daily Times , and stirred a visitor from Scotland to describe Dunedin as a town with “a very turbulent atmosphere … [a]s regards matters social, political and religious.” 1 That issue was Sunday observance. Residents of Britain and her colonies debated how Sundays ought to be spent with considerable fervour in the nineteenth century; it was an issue which revealed sharp religious and cultural divides within Western society. My study focussed on Otago, and I suspect the debate was as fierce here as anywhere else, partly because of the influence of Presbyterians, who tended to be the most fervent sabbatarians. They were joined on one side of the debate by other evangelical Christians. Fighting for a freer Sunday were more liberal Anglicans, freethinkers, and those without strong religious connections. Of course many people fell somewhere between the two poles of the debate: Catholic leaders, for example, agreed with the sabbatarian view that Sunday was a day primarily for religious observance and that people should refrain from working; but they did not, like the sabbatarians, oppose Sunday recreation. The major tension centred on the running of public transport and the opening of recreational facilities, such as the library at the Dunedin Athenaeum. In 1885 sabbatarians held enough sway on the Dunedin City Council to prevent, albeit narrowly, the Naval Band playing in the botanic gardens on Sunday afternoons. One councillor declared that nothing could be more effective in demoralising the children of Dunedin than a band playing at the public gardens on Sundays. It is easy to dismiss nineteenth-century Presbyterians as killjoys; certainly that was the reputation they held with those who opposed their views. But it is interesting to consider why they held the views they did, and also how they actually spent their Sundays. Most importantly, sabbatarianism was deeply embedded in Scottish culture and Scots carried that culture with them to New Zealand. In the colonial setting they 1 David Kennedy, Kennedy’s Travel: A Narrative of a Four Years’ Tour through Australia, New Zealand, Canada, &c . (Edinburgh: publisher**, 1876), pp. 162-3. This project resulted in Alison Clarke, “A Godly Rhythm: Keeping the Sabbath in Otago 1870-1890” (PGDipArts dissertation, University of Otago, 1999). An edited version appears in John Stenhouse and Jane Thomson, eds, Building God’s Own Country: Historical Essays on Religions in New Zealand (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2004). 2 encountered other migrants with differing views on Sunday, forcing them to either amend or defend their own cultural practices. Of course, Scotland itself was not immune from debates over Sunday, which heated up as liberalism gained increasing sway in the late-nineteenth century, and as technology increased the challenges to a quiet day of rest. The agitation for Sunday trains had been a major factor in the decision of John Somerville, his three sons and brother-in-law, all railway workers, to migrate from Scotland to Otago in 1848; they must have been disappointed when the province’s first railway, from Dunedin to Port Chalmers, opened in 1873 with a seven day a week service. Scottish and Presbyterian sabbatarianism had its roots in the Westminster Confession, which stated that the Christian Sabbath was kept holy unto the Lord, when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs before-hand, do not only observe an holy rest all the day from their own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreations; but also are taken up the whole time in the publick and private exercises of his worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy. 2 The idea that Sunday should be a day of rest and worship was not particularly controversial in a society almost entirely composed of Christians; all churches expected their members to attend Sunday services. Presbyterians were fairly diligent churchgoers, with around half of those adults who claimed a census affiliation to the denomination attending services regularly. This made them, incidentally, much better church attenders than Anglicans and a little less diligent than Catholics; all were outranked by Methodists, who achieved close to full attendance. Even parents who did not attend church often sent their children to Sunday school; by the turn of the century three-quarters of children living in Otago and Southland were on the rolls of various Sunday schools. In well-populated districts Presbyterian churches generally offered two Sunday services, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon; later in the century most shifted the afternoon service to the evening. Many people attended both services. Rural Presbyterians generally had access to just one Sunday service. Country ministers had busy schedules, often preaching at three different locations on a Sunday; if they could not come each week congregations generally ran their own 2 Westminster Confession, chapter 21, paragraphs 7 and 8, in The Subordinate Standards and Other Authoritative Documents of the Free Church of Scotland (Edinburgh: publisher**, 1884), pp. 76-7. 3 services on the intervening Sundays. Although attending church was an overtly spiritual act, it also served an important social function, bringing a community together. This social aspect was particularly significant in rural districts. One South Otago woman recalled the special effort that people made to dress in their best clothes and attend church: “Sunday was the great day, when we met all our neighbours, and exchanged the local gossip. I will always remember the Sundays.” 3 Churchgoing was an accepted activity: the difficulties over Sundays centred around how the rest of the day should be filled. The Westminster Confession prescribed abstention from all worldly employments and recreations and the Shorter Catechism, taught to all good Presbyterian children, additionally warned against “profaning the day by idleness”. 4 Conservatives filled their Sundays with explicitly religious activities: family worship, reading the Bible or other religious works and hymn-singing. A favourite activity at Hillend Station, in the Clutha district, was “for everyone to sit around the big dining room table and see who could repeat the longest passage of scripture.” 5 Louisa Will, daughter of the East Taieri manse, was living in Dunedin to attend school when she received a letter from her mother: “Papa and I would not like you to go walking for pleasure on the Sabbath; we would like you to do as we do at home – take a turn in the garden, or take your book and read there if you like, but don’t go either to the sea-beach or to the Botanical Gardens.” 6 Presbyterians, and other sabbatarians, valued reading very highly as a suitably quiet and worthy activity for Sundays. In addition to the Bible, sermons, missionary biographies and local denominational magazines, New Zealanders had ready access to periodicals imported from Britain, including the revealingly named Sunday at Home and Good Words .

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