Overview

From the early 1820s, Church Missionary Society missionaries made significant journeys to Tauranga and Rotorua, Maketu and later to the East Coast to establish mission stations. The Rev Henry Williams had made five journeys to Tauranga by 1831. Mr W.T. Fairburn, one of the Church Missionary Society lay catechists, recorded a voyage to Tauranga in 1827. Mission Stations were established in Tauranga and Rotorua in 1834 and 1835, in Opotiki at the end of 1839, and at Turanga (Gisborne) in 1840.