Turton's Māori Land Deeds & Documents

Henry Hanson Turton (1818–1887) was a Yorkshire-born Methodist minister who arrived in New Zealand shortly after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. He worked as a missionary around the Auckland province before moving to Taranaki in 1843.  He founded a school for Māori (later known as the Grey Institute) and worked as a land claim negotiator. His business activities brought him into conflict with his employer, the Wesleyan Missionary Society, which resulted in his resignation in 1859.  He became the M.P. for New Plymouth in the 1860s before moving to Wellington to where his fluency in Te Reo saw him employed first as an official translator for the 'Native Minister' Donald McLean, and then as a Commissioner to investigate land claims. As part of this role he instigated a project to gather together, transcribe and translate thousands of documents relating to the sale and transfer of Māori land in the North Island dating back to the earliest days of European settlement. This material included native land deeds, receipts for land transfer (indicating prices & vendors) and supporting documents such as correspondence & reports relating to land purchases as far back as the 1830s. His work was then compiled together and published by the Government Printing Office in several volumes from 1878. Turton retired in 1884 and died suddenly at his Guilford Street residence in Thorndon on 18 September 1887 aged 69 and was buried in the Bolton Street Cemetery. 

Note that this collection contains some reports and opinions which today would be regarded as being derogatory and racist. These views were not those of Henry Turton himself but of the original writers of the documents which Turton transcribed and should be read in the historic context in which they were created. This collection has been created by digitising a microfilm copy of the original published volumes resulting in variable image quality across some pages.

The search facility above operates as an 'exact phrase' search across all volumes in this collection only. Personal names were normally printed as First name [space] Surname but occasionally as Surname, [comma space] First name. Initials were also sometimes used instead of a first name. Māori personal names may be printed either in 'common use' short form (e.g. "Wi Tako") or using traditional  long form (e.g. "Wiremu Tako Ngatata"). Note that macrons were not used. We suggest trying all possible name syntaxes and variations if you are searching for a specific individual. Return back to this page to run further searches.