COLENSO, William
(1811-1899)
Missionary, printer, explorer, botanist, and politician.
William Colenso was born in Penzance, Cornwall, on 17 November 1811, the eldest child of Samuel May Colenso, a saddler and town councillor of Penzance. He was educated privately and at the age of 15 apprenticed to a local printer. When he had served his time he went to London where he obtained employment with Richard Watts and Son, printers to the Church Missionary Society. A printer and press were required for the society's mission at Paihia in New Zealand and Colenso was engaged as a missionary-printer.
Colenso was at Paihia when Captain Hobson arrived on 29 January 1840 and he accompanied James Busby to the Herald to welcome him. He was present at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, and in his pamphlet The signing of the Treaty of Waitangi (1880) he gave the best eye-witness account we possess of that historic event.
Ordained a deacon in 1844 Colenso was appointed to open a new mission station at Ahuriri on Hawke Bay. He arrived there with his wife on 30 December 1844 to take charge of a district extending from Taupo to Wellington and embracing the whole area eastward of the Ruahine and Tararua Ranges. His first journey was an unsuccessful, though botanically rewarding, attempt to cross the Ruahine Range to Inland Patea. He made his first complete crossing of the range in the course of a trip through Tarawera (Hawke's Bay) Taupo, and Inland Patea, and subsequently repeated the crossing on five occasions. He described some of his experiences in An Account of Visits to the Ruahine Mountain Range (1884).
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