KISSLING, GEORGE ADAM (1805-65) was born at Murr, Württemberg. Leaving school at the age of 14, he spent three years in the Moravian settlement of Kornthal, where he studied industrial arts in preparation for his admission to a theological course, which he commenced in 1823 in the Moravian college at Basle. He was ordained a minister of the Reformed Lutheran United Church, and in 1827 went to West Africa under instructions from the Basle Missionary Society to translate the Scriptures into the Bassu language. He was engaged for some years on this task and in charge of a native school. In 1833 he was appointed by the Church Missionary Society to a post in Sierra Leone, where he had charge of the two parishes of St Peter and St James at Bathurst and Charlotte. In 1837 he married and returned to Sierra Leone as headmaster of the native college at Fourah Bay. In 1840, owing to ill-health, they returned to England, and Kissling was ordained deacon and in the following year priest. He then decided not to return to Sierra Leone but came to New Zealand, arriving in May 1842. The Society had intended to station him in the south, but Bishop Selwyn appointed him in 1843 to Kawakawa, near East Cape, where he took up his duties amongst tribes which were rather turbulent and ill-disposed. In 1846 ill-health again compelled him to give up his charge, and he was for some years employed as chaplain in the neighbourhood of Auckland. In 1849 he was appointed to the parish of St Barnabas, his duties including the charge of the native girls' school. In 1851 he took charge of St Stephen's school at Taurarua, and in 1852 was appointed archdeacon of Waitemata, to which was added later the charge of the parish of St Mary's, Parnell. Kissling died on 9 Nov 1865.

Southern Cross, 10 Nov 1865; N.Z. Herald, 21 Sep 1891.

Reference: Volume 1, page 252

🌳 Further sources