Benjamin Yate Ashwell

Benjamin Yate Ashwell (26 May 1810 – 29 September 1883) was an English Anglican missionary and a member of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) mission in New Zealand in the 19th century. He was missionary to the Māori in the western Waikato region. In 1839 he was sent to Kaitotehe, near Mount Taupiri, where he established the Kaitotehe Mission, with branch missions at Te Awamutu and Otawhao in the valley of the Waipā River.

Early years Ashwell was born on 26 May 1810 at Birmingham, England. His father was Benjamin Ashwell, a brassfounder. Ashwell joined the CMS in 1831 and in 1832–33 he studied at the Church Missionary Society College, Islington.

CMS missionary work in New Zealand Tūkaitote, the pā of Pōtatau Te Wherowhero, first Māori King. In the Waikato, Taupiri mountain in the distance Ashwell and his wife arrived in Paihia on 23 December 1835. He worked as a catechist among the Europeans at Kororāreka. with branch missions at Te Awamutu and Otawhao in the valley of the Waipā River. He remained at that mission into the 1840s. He was ordained in December 1848 after attending St John's College, Auckland.

In the early 1860s, Ashwell opposed the Māori King Movement, which was a means of attaining Māori unity to halt the alienation of land at a time of rapid population growth by European colonists. In July 1863, Ashwell moved to Auckland following the Invasion of the Waikato by the colonial government forces who were sent to crush the Māori King Movement. Ashwell returned to Kaitotehe Mission at the end of 1864, however the war in the Waikato had scattered the Māori people who had supported the mission. He worked to re-establish the mission until the end of the 1860s, when he retired from missionary work to engage in church administration.

On 26 April 1883 he retired from the CMS. Ashwell died on 29 September 1883 at Remuera, Auckland.