18/08/2026
📑🗃️Manuscript Mondays No. 13
James Kemp and his wife, Charlotte, arrived in the Bay of Islands in August 1819 as some of Aotearoa’s first permanent Pākehā settlers. They co-founded the second station of the Church Missionary Society at Kerikeri and quickly set to work converting Māori to Anglican Christianity. As guests of Hongi Hika and situated close to his pā, the Kemps experienced the Musket Wars, the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and the Flagstaff War firsthand. After years of mixed success, the station closed in 1848, but the couple remained in Kerikeri until Charlotte’s death in 1860. Afterwards, James moved to Auckland, where he died in 1872. Their home still survives as the oldest existing building in New Zealand, while the business they ran, known as the Stone Store, is still a major Kerikeri landmark.
In 1933, Charlotte Kemp, a granddaughter of the original Charlotte, donated to Auckland Public Library a box filled with writings from her grandfather’s time in Kerikeri. Part of the collection is composed of letters, reports, estimates, and other material composed by James Kemp from 1823 to 1846 covering his businesses interests and his activities on behalf of the Society. The other part is a diary he wrote between July 1823 and August 1834, with many gaps, recording his life in Kerikeri and some of his travels on behalf of the Society.
Faithful typescript transcriptions of this material were produced by librarians, probably in the 1950s, and bound in two red volumes, that have been digitised on Kura Heritage Collections Online and can be found here https://kura.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/digital/collection/manuscripts/id/44457 and here https://kura.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/digital/collection/manuscripts/id/44458. Alexander Turnbull Library holds an undigitised transcription of a different journal that includes many of the dates missing in Auckland Libraries’ copy, as well as additional correspondence for 1821 to 1826 (https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22915317), and a journal covering the years 1832 and 1848-1852 (https://natlib.govt.nz/records/23080331). Together, these journals and correspondence present a fascinating history of early Pākehā-Māori relations in Northland during especially turbulent years.
If you are interested in exploring the James Kemp Collection or other archival collections held by Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, you can arrange a viewing here: https://www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/en/heritage-and-research/research-booking.html.
Image: Stone Store and Kemp House, Kerikeri, circa 1910. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 4-06268 https://kura.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/digital/collection/photos/id/411543
