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Nelson's History |
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| You’ll find a short history of the
establishment of the Anglican Diocese of Nelson and the
City of Nelson below. However, for those who prefer a
‘potted’ history, click here
to read some historical snippets written by Arch Barclay
for Radio Nelson and kindly sponsored by Marsden House. |
| Nelson officially became a city in 1858
not because it had reached a magic number in its population,
but because the city was established as a see, or seat,
for an Anglican bishop. Queen Victoria issued Letters
Patent, or a royal decree, allowing the creation of a
cathedral in the city. Once a town had a cathedral, or
at least permission for one, it could enjoy the status
of a city.
In fact, the right to constitute a Cathedral in Nelson
was not exercised for 29 years when the Church on the
Hill, opened in 1851, was enlarged and consecrated in
1887.
The city by 1858 only had a population of 5000. It
looked more like a rural village, with many sections
still farmed. |
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Half a world away the royal decree was
written with these key words included: ‘And
we do further, by these our Letters Patent, order and
constitute the Town of Nelson, to be a Bishop’s
See and the seat of the said Bishop, and do ordain that
the said Town of Nelson shall be a City.’
The Nelson Anglican diocese and the city of Nelson
are therefore this year celebrating 150 years of existence.
The centennial celebrations held by the city in 1958
opened with an exhibition on missionary work. |
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It was the provincial push from Nelson
to get its own bishop, just as Christchurch had done
and Wellington was in the process of doing, that led
to Queen Victoria issuing her royal decree.
Bishop George Selwyn, who had opened the Church on
the Hill in 1851 on an acre site bought from the New
Zealand Company, was, by the late 1850s, keen to subdivide
his huge diocese (which included New Zealand and Melanesia)
into manageable units. He travelled to England and lobbied
for the idea. |
| However, his suggestion that Wellington
and Nelson should be united in one diocese met loud
protests at a public meeting in Nelson. Even he appreciated
that Nelsonians would have seen very little of their
Wellington-based bishop.
Nelson was able to become a diocese because it was
endowed with 10,000 pounds from the England-based Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel and therefore had
the financial means to support a bishop (by 1895 the
endowment paid 375 pounds of the bishop’s 500
pound annual stipend).
Other endowments were 5000 pounds from the New Zealand
Company, which founded the Nelson settlement, and a
sum from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. |
| Nelson’s first bishop was tall, good-looking,
athletic, Eton and Oxford-educated and well-off. He later
bequeathed his Bishopdale property, which he had fancied
as a site for the city’s cathedral, to the Diocese.
It was Hobhouse’s friendship with Selwyn that
saw his name put forward to be Bishop of Nelson. He
had served as Vicar of Saint Peter’s in East Oxford,
England for 15 years. He married Mary Broderick on New
Year’s Day, 1858 and was consecrated in the Lambeth
parish church (London) later that year, aged 41. The
sermon was delivered by the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel
Wilberforce, son of anti-slavery crusader William Wilberforce.
The current Bishop of Oxford, the Right Reverend John
Pritchard, has been invited to preach in Nelson in April
2009. |
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| The Hobhouses set out on the long voyage
to New Zealand in December 1858, travelling via Malta,
Suez, and Colombo. Mary, homesick and craving for ‘a
little frost’ to make her feel at home, as their
ship exited the warm climes of the Red Sea, wrote:
‘On the 1st of January we could write no
letters for it was the first of two days of headwind
which implies much more than I had any idea of. Most
of the passengers ... disappeared or were laid prostrate,
and yesterday there could be no service, from the impossibility
of clergy or congregation keeping their legs.’ |
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Bishop Hobhouse left Mary in Sydney
to seek dental care and arrived in Nelson on February
18th 1859 to start house-hunting. When she eventually
reached Nelson in March she found the accommodation
less than pleasing, but admired the beauty of the bay
- ‘but as everything is valued with reference
to good grazing she does not find the settlers of Nelson
proud of their picturesque advantages.’
In the middle of April the Bishop returned from attending
General Synod in Wellington to be re-united with his
wife. Ten days later, on April 28th, Thursday in Easter
week, he was installed in Christ Church on the Hill.
The Bishop’s Chair, made of intricately carved
black birch, was presented by some women in the congregation. |
| The next day, as if setting a pattern for
his tireless pastoral visits, a feature of his bishopric,
Bishop Hobhouse set out for Motueka on horseback, where
he met a large number of Maori who were delighted to have
their own bishop. They tried hard to pronounce the name
‘Hobhouse’ but confessed ‘Truly
the name is a hidden name’ and gave up the
attempt.
Edmund Hobhouse would only be Bishop of Nelson in full
measure until 1864 when he announced his resignation
due to ill-health. He then administered the Diocese
for a two further years as far as health permitted before
he returned to England. His wife Mary had died in October
1864, two days after giving birth to a still-born child.
Her grave in the Brightwater cemetery is an enduring
memorial to the generous and energetic leadership the
Hobhouses provided in the establishment phase of the
Diocese of Nelson.
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Map of the Nelson Diocese published in 1862
Posted on this website with the permission of the Alexander
Turnbull Library
Reference B-K 836-MAP
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