Rev Henry Torlesse

From "Banks Peninsula: The Cradle of Canterbury" by Gordon Ogilvie (1990), p 119.

"When the Rev Henry Torlesse was appointed deacon in charge of Okains Bay and neighbouring settlements in September 1859 he was appalled at the disorderliness of the Okains population. Most of the bushmen there, he reported, seemed to spend their spare time getting drunk and thumping their wives. He believed that the bay needed a resident policeman, but without any such help Torlesse set about the task of taming his charges with a rare energy and determination.

Henry Torlesse, a nephew of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, had come out to the Canterbury Settlement in 1853 aboard the Minvera to join his brother Charles, the surveyor and runholder. On his arrival at Okains with his wife, Elizabeth, and infant son, Henry Torlesse lived with his family in a one-roomed hut for the first six weeks. They then settled into the still-unfurnished vicarage in time for the birth of their daughter Louisa in early December.

Once installed in the vicarage Torlesse began a school in one of its rooms while the chapel-school, completed by Christmas 1859, was being built. This school now replaced Tuson's. He then advertised that he would take boarders. In this chapel-school, situated between the present school and vicarage, the bay's first church services were held. The rougher element at the bay had not given Torlesse a very warm welcome. Early services were disrupted by noise and organised dog fights. One character staggered into the chapel during a service, said "What bloody rot!", then retired.

However, Torlesse was a courageous and personable cleric who made it his job to win such men over. This he did by organizing a sports meeting and social on his first New Year's Day to welcome in 1860 and beating most of the bushmen in the men's events. He also got a cricket team started and encouraged the settlers to plant vegetable and flower gardens. When Bishop Harper visited the bay in July 1860 he saw Torlesse teach 27 pupils by day and preside over a congregation of 40 at a special evening service where the bishop presided - aptly enough - on the parable of the Prodigal Son. In the same year Torlesse also began a night school to help the bay's adults, some of whom were quite illiterate.

...

The splendidly servicable Tuson also helped Torlesse to establish a library at Okains, in May 1860, the first public library on Banks Peninsula. Torlesse induced 59 residents of Christchurch and the Peninsula to give his Okains Bay Circulating Library financial support and within a year he had a ollection of 220 volumes with another 500 on order from england. There were 47 Okains subscribers. A library building to house the collection was opened in November 1865 on a site opposite the church and paid for by John Thacker. It was full every night. Several subscribers could still not read and the news was read to them by those who could.

The success of this venture encouraged Torlesse to drive hard for a new church and in October 1862, a committee was formed to raise funds. Donations came from all parts of Canterbury, as well as from England, and the foundation stone for St John's Church was laid by Elizabeth Torlesse at a well-attended ceremony on New Year's Day 1863. ....A brass plate on the wall of the sanctuary, erected after Torlesse's death, commemorates their first vicar's impact on the bay. "..in rememberance of valued friendship and faithful ministrations. By his exertions this Church was built".

Torlesse, not a strongly built man, had undermined his health riding his mule in all weathers to see parts of his parish which included Duvauchelle, Le Bons, Little Akaloa, Pigeon Bay and Port Levy. Elizabeth also ran the Sunday School and trained local teachers to help her. Reluctantly they left Okains in 1864. The Rev Henry torlesse, who died at Rangiora in 1870, aged a mere 38, had given Okains Bay both spiritual and intellectual life and had been responsible for imposing on the settlement some much-needed stability"