Richard Taylor (missionary)

File:Reverend Richard Taylor.jpg

Reverend Richard Taylor

See also: New Zealand Church Missionary Society

Richard Taylor (21 May 1805 – 10 October 1873) was a Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionary in New Zealand. He was present at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, but is perhaps most notable for the numerous books he wrote on the natural and cultural environment of New Zealand in his time. Taylor wrote A leaf from the natural history of New Zealand (1848).

He was appointed a head of the school at the Waimate Mission Station and in 1842 joined the CMS mission station at Whanganui. By 1844 the brick church built by Revd John Mason was inadequate to meet the needs of the congregation and it had been damaged in an earthquake. A new church was built under the supervision of Revd Richard Taylor with the timber supplied by each pā on the river in proportion to its size and number of Christians. His travels as a missionary extended into the Taranaki region along the coast to the north of Whanganui. in March 1846 he hosted Governor George Grey when he visited Whanganui.

In 1849 he travelled back to Whanganui via Taupo from meeting of CMS missionaries in Tauranga. His missionary travels include travelling up the Whanganui River to settlements such as Pipiriki and to Lake Rotoaira at the base of Mount Tongariro. He named settlements along the Whanganui River Ātene (Athens), Koriniti (Corinth), Hiruhārama (Jerusalem) and Rānana (London) and the Wanganui suburb of Taylorville is named after him.

After his death on 19 October 1873, his son, the Revd B K Taylor, took over the Whanganui mission.

Works

• A leaf from the natural history of New Zealand (1848)
• Te Ika a Maui or New Zealand and its Inhabitants (Macintosh, 1855)
• The Past and Present of New Zealand (Macintosh, 1868)