History of the Church Missionary Society Mission in Tauranga	Click here for The Elms Timeline
Before Europeans set foot in Tauranga, Maori lived on the cliff top site now occupied by The Elms. In 1828 most of the people living here were killed by a raiding party of Ngati Maru warriors from the Coromandel. The few survivors fled, leaving the northern point of the Te Papa peninsula unoccupied.

The site of the Te Papa mission station, selected in 1835, was permanently occupied in 1838. Accommodation consisted of raupo (reed) houses, beautifully decorated inside with Maori reed work, and fitted out with tables, chairs, book cases and even a piano brought out from England. Carpenters at the mission station constructed permanent buildings: a library, a chapel, servants’ quarters, a bake house, a dairy, a laundry, store houses and wooden houses for the missionaries.

The land wars of the 1860s marked a turning point. The battles of Gate Pa (29 April 1864) and Te Ranga (21 June 1964) opened the way to government confiscation of land in the western Bay of Plenty and the beginning of European settlement.

In 1873 Brown and his second wife, Christina, purchased some 17 acres of mission land, including the house and library, from the Church Missionary Society, naming it The Elms for a fine avenue of the trees on the property. The mission station closed in 1880.

The property has been registered as a heritage area by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust.

The Mission House Historic Place Category 1 NZHPT

This delightful example of Georgian architecture dates from the early 1840s. Kauri logs from Coromandel forests were pit sawn by resident carpenters. Indentations showing the location of the sawpits are visible on the north lawn. The skill of the carpenters, working only with hand tools, can be seen in the construction of the window frames, the doors and the elegant curved staircase. Archdeacon Brown would still recognise his home. The house is painted in colours which would have been available in the 1860s. The roof shingles have been replaced with corrugated iron.

Much of the furniture in the house, notably the oval table in the dining room, the Allen piano, and the wardrobes and secretaire in the main bedroom, was brought to New Zealand from England in 1829 by Alfred and Charlotte Brown. Other items, such as the four poster bed and the Broadwood grand piano, belonged to Rev. Andrew Maxwell and his wife, Euphemia.

Archdeacon Brown’s Library Historic Place Category 1 NZHPT

Many books in the library are of a religious nature. However, perhaps more interesting to us today are the many volumes used by the isolated family as guides in their daily lives. Encyclopaedias, medical texts and books on gardening all had their place on a missionary’s book shelf.

The library also contains pictures and mementos from the early years of the mission station, when Alfred Brown hosted meetings in the book-lined room.

Who lived in the Mission House?

Rev A.N. Brown, Charlotte Brown his wife and his daughter Celia moved into the newly completed house in 1847. Charlotte died in 1855, and Celia moved to Auckland on her marriage to Rev. John Kinder in 1859. Brown remarried, and his wife Christina moved into the mission house with him. Brown died in 1884, and Christina in 1887.

The property was inherited by Christina’s sister, Mrs Euphemia Maxwell, who lived here with her two daughters Edith and Alice Heron Maxwell. Euphemia died in 1919, Edith in 1930, leaving Alice living alone in the mission house until 1949.

The property then passed to Alice’s nephew, Duff Heron Maxwell and his wife Gertrude, who occupied the house for over 40 years. The property was purchased from the Maxwell family by The Elms Foundation in 1998.