Pompallier — Piera McArthur

POMPALLIER

Bishop Pompallier, the first Catholic bishop of Western Oceania, was born in 1801 into a prosperous family involved in the silk industry in Lyons, France. He belongs to an age of evangelical fervour bordering on fairy-tale, and the painter's imagination has had free rein.

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Bishop Pompallier gives lessons in Maori to Governor Hobson's wife

Last episcopal visit to Kaitaia

Four friendly chieftains carry Bishop Pompallier across a swamp

Bishop Pompallier converses with Maori chieftains

Bishop Pompallier engages in conversation with Henry Williams

Burning with zeal Pompallier preaches far into the starry night

During Hone Heke's siege of Kororareke the British ammunition dump blows up

Travel through the bush is difficult

To the astonishment of his converts the Bishop levitates in an excess of fervour

Exhausted missionaries in search of souls

Shipwreck of a missionary schooner off East Coast with two drowned missionaries going down to Davey's locker

Marsden rides through the surf with the unruly cattle. The foreshore teems with marine life. 1814

Great animosity and rivalry spring up between Pompallier and the Anglicans who look with horror on a French and Catholic Bishop! Aka Go Easy on the Hell Fire!

So much swamp-crossing gives Pompallier feverish fantasies! He dreams he has built himself a ‘flying fox’ and can whizz overhead while the paddlers look at him aghast!

Trying to impress the New Zealanders by levitating

Signing of the treaty

Going aboard the French ship l’Heroine

Go easy on the hell-fire!

Arguing with Henry Williams

Still a little too much hell-fire!

Various missionary activities

A letter to those at home in France

Six ways for a Bishop to go ashore

Getting one’s bearings