Not many New Zealanders have ever heard of Mangungu, let alone know of its importance in the history of the country.
Situated on the south bank of the upper reaches of Hokianga Harbour in Te Tai Tokerau – Northland, these days it is a sleepy settlement, with a pier jutting out amongst the mangroves and what some people claim is the country’s oldest pub (the Horeke Hotel) just down the road.
In 1827, however, Eruera Maihi Patuone, a Maori chief of the Ngapuhi iwi took a very noble step. He gave permission and protection to English followers of that great reformer and founder of Methodism, John Wesley, in the setting up of a mission station at Mangungu.
The Ngapuhi village of Horeke was nearby, and with the help of these locals, in three years a number of buildings were constructed at the mission, including houses, a school, and a carpenter’s shop. Gardens and an orchard were planted, and a cemetery was established.
Unfortunately, a decade on the main house burnt to the ground in an accidental fire, a not uncommon occurrence in the days when candles and oil lamps were the only source of illumination.
But a replacement house was soon built in time for the arrival of a new superintendent of missions from Britain, along with his housekeeper, who quite properly also happened to be his sister.
A year later, on 12 February 1840, the mission played host to a great meeting between Ngapuhi chiefs and the representative of the British Crown, Lieutenant Governor William Hobson. It was one of the largest gatherings at the time of Maori and Pakeha, and in the end 70 chiefs put their signatures to a document that would become known as the Treaty of Waitangi.
In fact, the record shows that this signing in the Hokianga included more names than the previous one, which took place six days earlier at Waitangi, 60km away on the opposite coast in the Bay of Islands.
So the mission house at Mangungu should rightfully hold pride of place for its important role in the founding of modern New Zealand.
But that’s not all. Mangungu, it turns out, is highly significant for a very different reason as well. When the good ship James from Gravesend, England, anchored off the mangroves at the mission station on the 13th of March, 1839, the housekeeper accompanying her missionary brother brought with her something very special when she disembarked.
You see, her brother loved honey, and the mission church could certainly use some beeswax candles. So amongst the meagre household belongings she managed to take on the voyage, she had included two skeps, those woven straw hives that were common at the time throughout Europe.
And inside the skeps was something truly remarkable: two colonies of honey bees that had miraculously survived the six-month journey on a sailing ship all the way from England.
The woman herself could hardly have had a better name, at least for the purposes of this tale — she was Mary Bumby, and she was the very first person in New Zealand to ever keep honey bees.
Mary’s diary has been lost, and as a result we have no details about how she managed to look after her charges on that long voyage, or even how the bees took to their new home.
We do know what she looked like, however, since her portrait now hangs on the restored mission house at Mangungu. It shows off Mary’s bright cheeks, which one of her contemporaries said entitled her to be called ‘The Bonny English Rose’.
Mary was also known for her cheerful disposition, and her love of children. A letter written many years later by the daughter of the head of mission, Mrs Marianne Gittos (nee Hobbs), recalls her being taken as a small child to see “the bees from England” soon after the hives’ arrival.
As housekeeper, Mary Bumby played host to Governor Hobson at the signing of the Treaty. The hives had arrived the previous autumn, well after the honeyflows. But they would have settled in over the winter and collected most of their crop of honey the next season by the time the signing occurred, since summer comes very early in the Far North.
And we have a very good idea about the sort of honey Mary’s bees would have initially made. Contemporary drawings show the area around Horeke to have been covered with manuka. It’s a hardy native shrub that was used extensively by Maori for purposes ranging from building materials to medicine.
Manuka also blooms profusely every spring, producing lots of nectar, so the natural resource itself was plentiful. It’s just that before Mary arrived, New Zealand was devoid of honey-producing bees.
Of course the honey that comes from manuka is these days famous around the world, both for its high quality and its unique antibacterial activity. And this part of Northland has always been a major centre of production, along with the first honey produced in the country every year.
So putting two and two together, it’s likely that this wonderful honey is what Mary would have harvested at the end of 1839 as well. Manuka honey isn’t just a Kiwi icon. It was almost surely the very first honey New Zealand ever produced.
Given Mary’s keenness in sharing her beekeeping bounty, the time of year, and the illustrious visitors present at the station, it’s also not outside the realm of possibility that she may have served manuka honey on the occasion of the Treaty signing, either in tea or perhaps on bread. Her brother, the Reverend John Bumby, would certainly have approved.
What is certain is that Mary shared at least some of that honey she produced. Marianne Gittos recalls her family received a package from Miss Bumby around that time. In it was a special treat — “We tried for the first time in our lives real honey in the comb.”
No one knows how long those first beehives remained at Mangungu. Mary’s brother John tragically lost his life just four months later, when he and seven others drowned while attempting to cross the Hauraki Gulf. They had been visiting southern mission stations and decided to save time by taking the water route.
By the end of the year, Mary had married Gideon Smales, a young missionary who earlier had been given the sad duty of informing Mary of her brother’s death. They were posted to another mission station at Pakanae, had a family, and lived in New Zealand for a further 21 years. Mary Bumby Smales, the “Mother of New Zealand Beekeeping”, died at sea on her way back to England in 1862.
ooOOoo
The Mission at Mangungu is maintained by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. But the extraordinary thing is that this almost two century old building hasn’t had the sort of sedentary life you’d expect of a famous house.
In 1855 it was taken to pieces and moved by sea, through the treacherous entrance of Hokianga Harbour, and then down the west coast to the Auckland suburb of Onehunga. In that location it was first a Methodist parsonage, and then sold to private owners in 1921.
Then in 1972 it was dismantled once again, trucked in sections some 300km all the way back up to the Hokianga, where it was faithfully and beautifully restored by the Historic Places Trust. Many of the stories about Mary Bumby and her brother John are now included in documents on display in the house.
The Mission House at Mangungu is open to visitors on different days of the week depending on the time of the year. Hopefully many more New Zealanders will get to know it in the years to come, because it sits right at the end of the the Pou Herenga Tai – Twin Coast Cycle Trail.
It’s a great 87km journey on old rail lines and quiet country roads that starts at the port of Opua in the Bay of Islands, and runs through Kawakawa and Kaikohe to the headwaters of the Hokianga Harbour, ending at Horeke.
You can hardly ask for a better way to experience some of the history and beauty of Te Tai Tokerau – Northland than to do it using a bit of your own pedal power.
~An excerpt from Manuka: The Biography of an Extraordinary Honey, originally composed in March, 2014~