Robert Maunsell: Missionary to the Maori and Orange sympathiser

Abstract

Irish-born Robert Maunsell (1810-1894) is best known as a pioneering missionary to the Maori and as an exceptional linguist who produced Maori translations of the Bible and his famous 'Grammar of the New Zealand Language'. With the exception of the 1967 thesis the only biographies of Maunsell were written by family. What is noticeable in all these works are the absence of his connections with the Loyal Orange Institution (LOI) and the downplaying of his staunch evangelical views.