On 26 March 1835, Mary West wife of missionary James Stack, gave birth to their first child in a tent on a Maori pa at Puriri near Thames.
James first attended school at St John’s College in Auckland but when his father’s health and sanity collapsed, he spent a year at Sydney College before the family returned to England. There he was supported by the Church Missionary Society till he was 14. He was then employed by them as a clerk but had no intention of becoming a missionary himself. This attitude changed when his beloved mother died unexpectedly.
A reunion with Reverend Williams consolidated his vocation. The reverend had translated the Bible into Maori and taught at a boy’s school in Paihia for CMS families. Too young to be a missionary, he spent a year teaching at the CMS training College at Islington. Notable Maori leader, and evangelist Tamihana Te Rauparaha was in London at the time, which gave James the opportunity to revive his fluency in Maori as an interpreter and companion.
James sailed to New Zealand in 1852 with Tamihana, disembarking at Wellington. For the next six years he taught boys at the CMS industrial school, first at Maraeti, then at Waikato Heads and finally at Te Kohanga under Reverend Dr Robert Maunsell’s supervision. When Bishop Harper invited him to work at the newly founded Maori mission In Christchurch, he accepted, was ordained deacon and became a priest in 1862. The mission complex was sited at Tuahiwi on 20 acres Maori had gifted from the Kaiapoi reserve. Stack travelled extensively around Banks Peninsula and occasionally as far as Stewart Island. His wish was to set up a Maori church within the Church of England and Reverend George Mutu’s ordination as deacon was a hopeful sign this could be realised.
But by the 1870s the church was suffering from a lack of money and the prophet, Hipa Te Maiharoa’s teachings drew many Maori throughout the district. Stack believed that their bitter sense of betrayal over loss of land ‘blighted all our work’. He lobbied the government on their behalf to prevent the leasing of Maori land on disadvantaged terms and he considered the reserves ‘ridiculously small’. He also complained about the government’s slowness in settling claims and was perturbed by the extreme poverty among South Island Maori, who were now feeling the impact of European settlement.
When the Mission House at Tuahiwi accidentally burned down there were no funds for a rebuild so the Stack family moved back to Christchurch. His proficiency in the Maori language enabled Stack to supplement his meagre clerical income by taking an appointment as government interpreter. He later became inspector of native schools in the South Island as well as presenting reports to the Native Department on the condition of Canterbury Maori.
In 1880, due to government cost-cutting, he lost his employment and accepted the incumbency of the Duvauchelle Parish which gave him access to Banks Peninsula Maori with whom he rebuilt some church connections. He and his wife Eliza visited England briefly in 1883 then returned to take charge of a series of parishes - St Albans, Kaiapoi, Woodend, and Fendalton. He also became honorary canon of Christchurch Cathedral.
In 1898 Canon and Mrs Stack left New Zealand to live with her brother in Bordighera, Italy until 1907 when they moved to Worthing, England where James died in 1919. Private cable advice was received of his passing by several New Zealand newspapers that paid tribute to this remarkable man. They detailed his many achievements during his years as an Anglican missionary in this country. His friend, Julius von Haast at the Canterbury Museum consulted him as an expert on Maori matters. He wrote on Maori subjects for the local press and gave public lectures hoping to enlighten European society in Canterbury, which largely ignored the Maori world. He was an advocate for the preservation of Maori place names, arguing from his in-depth knowledge of local tradition that ‘every part of the country was owned and named’ which is verified in the detailed maps he sent to the provincial surveyor in 1896. (DEIRDRE ROELANTS)