Thomas Poynton (1802 – 1892) and Mary Poynton (1812 – 1891) and their children were among the first

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

families to settle in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. They were instrumental in bringing Bishop Jean Baptiste Pompallier to New Zealand and were involved in the growth of Catholicism and Catholic missions in the

Hokianga The Hokianga is an area surrounding the Hokianga Harbour, also known as the Hokianga River, a long estuarine drowned valley on the west coast in the north of the North Island of New Zealand. The original name, still used by local Māori, is ' ...

and later on in the North Shore of

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about ...

Early lives

Thomas Poynton was born in

Ballivor Ballivor ( /'bælaɪvər/ BAL-eyevər; ) is a village in County Meath, Ireland. It had a population of 1,809 at the 2016 census. It is located on the R156 regional road between the towns of Mullingar and Trim. Public transport Bus Éireann ro ...

County Meath County Meath (; gle, Contae na Mí or simply ) is a county in the Eastern and Midland Region of Ireland, within the province of Leinster. It is bordered by Dublin to the southeast, Louth to the northeast, Kildare to the south, Offaly to the ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. In his earlier life he was educated in France and later convicted of " Whiteboyism". He was

transported ''Transported'' is an Australian convict melodrama film directed by W. J. Lincoln. It is considered a lost film. Plot In England, Jessie Grey is about to marry Leonard Lincoln but the evil Harold Hawk tries to force her to marry him and she w ...

to Sydney in 1822. Later he met Mary Kennedy, who had been born in Sydney, and was also from an Irish Catholic background, and they married.

Move to New Zealand

In 1828, they moved to New Zealand. They were based in the

and lived in Papakawau. They still resided there at the time of the

Treaty of Waitangi The Treaty of Waitangi ( mi, Te Tiriti o Waitangi) is a document of central importance to the History of New Zealand, history, to the political constitution of the state, and to the national mythos of New Zealand. It has played a major role in ...

in 1840. They had three children, Mary Margaret (born 1830), Edward (born 1832) and Catherine (born 1836). There was no Catholic parish in New Zealand at the time so they travelled to Sydney to have their first two children

baptised Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost inv ...

. In 1835 Thomas Poynton travelled to Sydney to ask for a Catholic priest to serve the Catholic community in New Zealand. In Rome the wheels had already been turning and in 1833 a decision had been made to appoint a Bishop to serve New Zealand and the surrounding Pacific Islands. Bishop Jean Baptiste Pompallier arrived 10 January 1838 and stayed at the home of Thomas and Mary Poynton until his own house was established in

Kororareka Russell, known as Kororāreka in the early 19th century, was the first permanent European settlement and seaport in New Zealand. It is situated in the Bay of Islands, in the far north of the North Island. History and culture Māori settle ...

. With the Poynton family in the congregation, Pompallier celebrated the first

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...

in New Zealand on 13 January 1838 at Totara Point, Hokianga.

Later life

Thomas Poynton had made a very good income from the timber industry as a sawmill owner in the Hokianga. Later on Thomas and Mary Poynton owned a large amount of land in

Takapuna Takapuna is a suburb located on the North Shore of Auckland, New Zealand. The suburb is situated at the beginning of a south-east-facing peninsula forming the northern side of the Waitematā Harbour. While very small in terms of population, it ...

and donated some of it to Bishop Pompallier in 1867. In 1899 a large plot of land was purchased by the

Sisters of Mercy The Sisters of Mercy is a religious institute of Catholic women founded in 1831 in Dublin, Ireland, by Catherine McAuley. As of 2019, the institute had about 6200 sisters worldwide, organized into a number of independent congregations. They a ...

from Catherine Shea, the youngest of the Poynton children. The land owned by the Sisters of Mercy would eventually be used to build two Catholic schools, St Joseph's Takapuna

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

and Carmel College girls' secondary school, which sits on the edge of

Lake Pupuke Lake Pupuke (traditionally known in Māori as Pupukemoana) is a heart-shaped freshwater lake occupying a volcanic crater (or maar) between the suburbs of Takapuna and Milford on the North Shore of Auckland, New Zealand. The heart shape is a re ...

in Milford. Thomas and Mary Poynton are both buried in O'Neill's Point Cemetery on Auckland's North Shore.

Legacy

On the North Shore there is a Crescent named after Mary Poynton and there is a large retirement facility on Shakespeare Road named "The Poynton" after the family who had originally owned the land it is built on.

References

External links

Thomas Poynton on the Catholic Mission in New Zealand, 1838
{{DEFAULTSORT:Poynton, Thomas and Mary New Zealand Roman Catholics Settlers of New Zealand People from the Hokianga