TAYLOR, RICHARD (1805-73) was born at Letwell, Yorkshire, his father being of Kentish extraction and his mother, Catherine Spencer, of a Yorkshire family. While at Dr Inchbald's school at Doncaster, he was left an orphan by the death of his father (1818). At the age of 16 he decided to enter the ministry, and for some years he studied under the Rev Mr Snowden, of Horbury, and the Rev Thomas Brown, of Devonport. In 1825 he entered Queen's College, Cambridge, where he graduated (B.A. 1828; M.A., 1835). He was never robust, and on that account spent much of his time abroad in the pursuit of botany and geology. While in Paris he became a freemason in a lodge under the Grand Orient of France. His religious views were broad almost to evangelicalism, and throughout life he was disposed to cooperate with nonconformist sects to the fullest extent that Bishop Selwyn would permit. In 1828 he was ordained deacon and appointed to the curacy of St Botolph's, Cambridge, which was in the gift of his College. In July 1829 he married Mary Caroline Fox, in November he was ordained priest, and in 1830 he accepted the post of vicar of Coveney and Manea in the Isle of Ely. Having been accepted by the Church Missionary Society in 1835 for the New Zealand field, Taylor preached his farewell sermon in Nov 1835, and a few months later sailed in the Prince Regent for Sydney, where he arrived 13 Jun 1836. Being short of clergy, Samuel Marsden retained Taylor at Parramatta and had him appointed chaplain of Liverpool, where his parishioners were mainly the garrison and convicts. This post he retained until the death of Marsden (12 May 1838) released him to proceed to New Zealand with his two boys in the Nimrod (Mar 1839).

At Bay of Islands he was warmly received by the missionary community. He accompanied William Williams (q.v.) on a journey to his prospective charge at Waiapu and then, leaving his sons at Paihia, returned to New South Wales in the Magnet and in Sep brought the rest of his family to New Zealand in the Achilles. He arrived opportunely to take over the mission school at Waimate, freeing Hadfield for his new duties at Otaki (Oct 1839). Taylor assisted in the conclusion of the Treaty of Waitangi, the text of which he engrossed on parchment the night before it was signed (Feb 1840). When Henry Williams was returning from installing Hadfield at Otaki he found many of the Whanganui people at Putikiwharanui already under the influence of Christian teaching and anxious to receive a missionary. Accordingly he sent the Rev John Mason, with Richard Matthews as catechist. They arrived on 20 Jun 1840. Though unsuited to the work, Mason threw himself with great energy into it. Within two years he opened a fine brick church (19 Jun 1842), and he had baptised more than 300 adults when he met his death by drowning in the Turakina river (Jan 1843). Taylor was appointed to take his place, and he arrived with his family in the Columbine (30 Apr 1843). On the assumption that it would be his permanent home, he at once commenced the erection of a substantial house. He organised the work of his district through a regular rota of visits to the widespread villages of the Maori, amongst whom he soon exercised an influence which was of inestimable value in improving relations between the two races. He did much to persuade the chiefs to permit emigrants to settle while the claims of the New Zealand Company were being contested. The brick church at Putiki being badly damaged by earthquake in 1843, he built in its place a large edifice of wood (opened 1844). In Jan 1844 he opened the first church in Wanganui for the settlers, and later in the year he established a small hospital at Putiki.

Taylor showed extraordinary energy and method in his pastoral journeys from end to end of his district. In 1843 he travelled as far as Roto-aira to meet Bishop Selwyn and conduct him to Wanganui. A few months later he visited all the pas en route to New Plymouth, and returned to the Wanganui by the headwaters of the Waitara river. He then walked to Wellington, and a month or two later was summoned (as he thought) to the deathbed of Hadfield at Otaki. On his return, finding a taua of Ngati-Tuwharetoa close to Wanganui, he strained every nerve to dissuade Te Heuheu from seeking vengeance against the Ngati-Ruanui. All the efforts of himself and his Wesleyan colleague being fruitless, he appealed to Major Richmond for troops, and it was only after he had brought a detachment to Wanganui (where Selwyn had also arrived) that Te Heuheu could be prevailed upon to make peace. In spite of repeated alarms of a new taua from Taupo, he continued his ministrations with such success that at this time he was baptising more converts than any other missionary in New Zealand. Governor Grey, visiting Wanganui in 1846, was much impressed by the school which Taylor had opened for the Maori. Later in the year he opened one in the town for the children of the settlers (which was the nucleus of the Wanganui Collegiate School) and also a small hospital. Hearing of the disaster to Te Heuheu at Waihi, Taylor made an arduous winter journey into the interior, read the burial service at the fatal landslide, and persuaded Iwikau (q.v.) to make peace with the Wanganui people. New excitement swept the district when news came of the outbreak in the Hutt Valley and the participation of a taua from the upper Wanganui. When troops arrived in the Calliope (Dec 1846), Taylor dissuaded Captain Laye from promulgating in Maori the proclamation of martial law.

At a prayer meeting at Putiki on Boxing Day several Christian natives offered themselves as emissaries to the heathen and hostile tribes of the interior. Manihera and Kereopa were accepted and started on their pilgrimage in Feb 1847. At Tokaanu they were fired upon and killed as utu for the Ngati-Tuwharetoa men slain in 1840. Without hesitation Taylor went to Taupo against the advice of the natives and read the burial service over the graves of the martyrs. After visiting Auckland for the meeting of the central committee, he returned (Apr 1847) to find the settlement in a state of great alarm owing to the murder of the Gilfillan family. The missionaries tended the survivors, and Matthews had been mainly responsible for pacifying the natives. Grey hastened to Wanganui, all the settlers and missionaries withdrew to the protection of the stockade, Putiki was deserted and the new church at Aramoho was burned. On 13 Jun the hostile taua attacked the stockade without success. Failing again in an assault on 19 Jul, it withdrew up the river and the missionary families and natives were able to reoccupy their homes at Putiki (16 Nov). A month or two later Grey enlisted the services of Taylor in the discussion of land claims. McLean continued the negotiations in Apr, and on 25 May a deed of sale was signed by the chiefs conveying 80,000 acres to the Government. Prosperity and peace returned to the district in 1849, when the long feud with Taupo was finally settled. About 4,000 natives gathered for the Christmas celebrations at Putiki. A few months later Telford arrived as Taylor's assistant (Jul 1850) and was installed at Pipiriki.

Taylor visited England in 1855, taking with him a leading convert chief, Hoani Wiremu Hipango (q.v.), with whom he was presented to the Queen and Prince Albert. While there he published his scholarly book, Te Ika a Maui, an authoritative account of the Maori and their customs, with 100 illustrations from his own sketches. He returned to the Colony by the Lancashire Witch in 1856. Being relieved in 1860 by the appointment of his son, the Rev Basil Taylor, as missionary in charge of Putikiwharanui, he thereafter devoted much of his time to scientific studies, upon which he contributed many papers to the New Zealand Institute. A Leaf from the Natural History of New Zealand was published in 1848 and The Age of New Zealand in 1867. He was elected a fellow of the Geological Society. When the Hauhau war broke out on the Wanganui river, Taylor's close intimacy with the tribes was of great service to the loyalist troops, with whom he served as chaplain. In 1867 Taylor again visited England, taking with him Hipango's son, Hori Kingi (who died there). While in London Taylor published The Past and Present of New Zealand. Returning to New Zealand in 1870 he took up duty at Christ Church, Wanganui, where he was engaged almost to the time of his death, which occurred on 10 Oct 1873. Taylor corresponded with many leading scientists. He played an important part in bringing the first moa bones to the notice of Professor Owen, and furnished specimens of New Zealand flora to Dr Hooker, including the fungus-like dactylanthus taylori, which was named after him. He was a man of deep culture, scholarship and spirituality.

G.B.O.P., 1846/37; Marsden, L. and J.; Chapple and Barton (p); Buller; Thomson; Taylor, op. cit. and journals in Alexander Turnbull Library; Woon; N.Z. Herald, 31 Aug, 7 Sep 1889.

Reference: Volume 2, page 190

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