ST MARY

Today’s post features the launch St Mary, seen here transporting an Anglican Home Mission priest on the Hokianga River. The church used launches to undertake church work in the Far North in areas inaccessible by road. The photo was spotted at the Pah Homestead in Hillsborough by John Burland & is ex the Sir George Grey Collection (Auckland Library) & taken by Barry Bennett.

Any woodys able to tell us some more info on the launch & what happened to St Mary?

ps – seems even back then, boaties had ideas around building a ‘block of flats’ 🙂

Harold Kidd Input – Jack Harker wrote a great little book about this Anglican clergyman “Soldier, Sailor, Priest”. ST. MARY was based in the “Roadless North” at Kohukohu in 1914, was 24′ loa and had a single cylinder 4.5hp Standard engine. I don’t think he did a Jasper Calder and preached from the boat.
By 1923 it was said to be the only launch the Anglican Church owned in NZ. The minister, the Rev. J.C. Hawkesworth conducted 276 services, performed 34 baptisms, 8 marriages, 9 funeral services and 41 candidates for confirmation. The northern shore of the Hokianga is largely Roman Catholic with a superb church at Te Karaka, visible for miles, set up by Bishop Pompallier, so there was a bit of inter-denominational rivalry going on.
I can’t find a whiff of her provenance in the book or anywhere else.
The Anglican Church did build other launches, one in 1909 for use at Stewart Is and Ruapuke and a 40 footer in 1914, G.A. SELWYN, (later just SELWYN) by E.R. Lane for use at Nelson for the Church’s Sounds and Tasman Bay communities.