Rev. Johann Frederick Henry Wohlers

It is difficult to assess the impact of Wohlers's religious teachings on the Māori. There was no word for 'hope' in the local dialect; the dying, formerly left to themselves with a cold potato and a drink of water, may well have felt that Wohlers's 'lieber Gott' had something to offer. Whatever the case, when Wohlers himself died at The Neck, Stewart Island, on 7 May 1885, those he left behind were inconsolable. Source: Sheila Natusch. 'Wohlers, Eliza and Wohlers, Johann Friedrich Heinrich', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1990, updated October, 2017. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1w36/wohlers-eliza (accessed 3 February 2024)

New Zealand, Naturalisations, 1843-1981
Name John Heinrich Friederich Wohlers
Former Nationality German
Occupation Missionary
Naturalisation Date 14 Jun. 1843
File Number 1843/1733

JOHANN FRIEDRICH HEINRICH WOHLERS arrived NZ Nelson 1843. Southland 1844. Married Elsie Parnen widow Wellington. One daughter. Married A.W TRAILL S Island JOHN WOHLERS, Thornbury was Nephew' http://www.ngaiopress.com/cormlist.htm

Rev John Wohlers: A missionary based at Ruapuke Island for over 40-years, Wohlers preached to, taught and lived with local Māori. Wohlers' communication with his mission society, his publications on Māori legends and his writings about his life and interactions with people on Ruapuke are an important resource on Southern Māori and their interactions with Pākehā.

Known in New Zealand as John Fredrick Henry Wohlers, Rev. Wohlers was born in 1811 in modern day Germany as Johaan Friedrich Heinrich Wohlers. The North German Mission Society sent Wohlers to New Zealand on board the ‘St Pauli’ in 1842. On an exploratory journey to the South Island, Wohlers met Chief Tuhawaiki of Ruapuke at Port Cooper (Lyttlelon). The pair discussed the establishment of a mission in the South and on May 17, 1844 Wohlers settled at Ruapuke Island in the Foveaux Strait. Based at Ruapuke, Wohlers' parish extend from Rakiura (Stewart Island) to Moeraki.

Wohlers' learnt the Māori language and local customs which helped his preaching in the church he built in 1846. In 1849, he married Eliza Palmer, an English woman who spoke fluent Māori. A kind, firm and practical woman who devoted herself to the church, Eliza settled into mission life well. Māori were drastically affected by Pākehā diseases and Eliza, later with the help of her daughter Gretchen, nursed and counselled many people and cared for many orphaned children. When the New Zealand Government established the ‘native school’ at Ruapuke in 1868, Eliza assisted Rev. Wohlers with educating the local population.

After Rev Wohlers' death in 1895, the population of Ruapuke quickly declined and the landscape returned to scrub. The impact that Wohlers' mission had on Māori is difficult to assess, however, his legacy of literature through communication with the mission, the Canterbury Museum and his memoir Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben translated as Memories of the life of J. F. H. Wohlers has provided a wealth of information on the life of the mission and nineteenth-century Southland.

Wohlers, John Frederick Henry, 1811-1885 Lutheran missionary. Born in Mahlenstorf, a village several miles from Bremen in north Germany. Arrived as a missionary in Nelson in 1842 on the St Pauli with other German settlers from North Germany. Visited Banks Peninsula and Otago, from whence he proceeded to Ruapuke Island to set up a mission station where he remained until his death. Married Elizabeth Palmer (widow of Richard Woodcock Palmer), known as Eliza Wohlers (1812?-1891)

https://natlib.govt.nz/records/23131823?search%5Bi%5D%5Bname_author...

Rev Wohlers being brought ashore from the Deborah' on his first landing at Ruapuke Island in 1844. He is being carried ashore from a dinghy on the back of a Maori, while others wait to greet him.