I am Elizabeth
Elizabeth Colenso
1821-1904

I was born in 1821 at the Kerikeri mission station, Northland. My parents, Sarah and William Fairburn, were lay missionaries with the CMS. Around two years after my birth, we all moved to the new mission settlement at Paihia, established with the Williams family.

Surrounded by Māori people on the mission stations, I quickly learnt the language – and fell in love with it. I always wanted to get it right grammatically and understand the deeper meaning of the words.

Bishop Selwyn thought I would be a good ministry match for the mission’s printer, William Colenso. I married a man I hardly knew. But I saw that William was a gifted printer and a committed missionary. At times however he could be eccentric and impulsive.

In 1844, I moved with William to establish a new mission at Waitangi, Ahuriri (Hawke’s Bay). William was often away on missionary journeys, and I was left to manage the station without him – often for weeks on end. I was lonely, but I loved to teach the Māori women and children. 

Around 1850 my world shattered when it was discovered William had fathered a child to a Māori woman of our household. William was suspended from ministry, and I moved with the child, Wiremu, and our other children to Auckland. I did not see my husband again. I never remarried.

From 1854, I began to recover myself teaching Māori students at the Taupiri mission for 7 years, alongside the Ashwell family. These years were a gift, and I was often happy.

I took my children to England in 1861 for education, but I maintained my close associations with New Zealand. It was a thrill to translate for a visiting party of Māori visiting Queen Victoria – who, startlingly, adopted a Māori infant as her godson. I then worked closely with the team revising the Māori Bible (published 1868). I also wrote scripture stories in Māori.

I afterwards returned to the old Paihia mission and started a school for the Te Tii, Waitangi children in 1869. I then spent two decades translating and teaching for the Melanesian mission at Norfolk Island – a great adventure. I died in 1904 at my daughter’s home in Ōtaki.

I am Elizabeth Colenso. The Māori called me ‘Irihāpeti’ (Elizabeth) or whaea (mother/aunty).