Colenso, William (1811-1899), was an English-born printer, missionary, and scientist who printed the first books in New Zealand. His press produced Bibles, prayer books, religious pamphlets, and government documents, many of them in the language of New Zealand’s Indigenous (native) Māori people. He did much to convert Māori to Christianity and to develop the Hawke Bay district.
Colenso was born in Penzance, England, on Nov. 17, 1811. In 1834, the Church Missionary Society, the missionary arm of the Church of England, sent him to New Zealand to become a printer at its mission on the North Island. In 1835, he printed the first book in New Zealand, a translation into Māori of the New Testament epistles to the Philippians and the Ephesians. In 1844, he was ordained a deacon and sent to open a mission near Napier on Hawke Bay. Colenso also collected thousands of botanical specimens and wrote scientific papers about the natural history of New Zealand. He died in Napier on Feb. 10, 1899.
