John Whiteley

John Whiteley (20 July 1806 – 13 February 1869) was an English missionary for the Wesleyan Missionary Society (WMS) in New Zealand, active from his arrival in the country in 1833 up until his death.

Born in England, he came to New Zealand with his wife and initially settled in the Hokianga where there was an existing WMS mission station. As the WMS expanded its activities in the country, Whiteley later established and ran a mission at Kawhia for several years. He subsequently worked in the Taranaki region, where the colonists there had become embroiled in land disputes with the local Māori. The tensions in the area meant Whiteley, sympathetic to the settlers' cause, found it difficult to carry out his missionary work. On 13 February 1869, he was murdered at Pukearuhe by a Ngāti Maniapoto war party.

Early life Born on 20 July 1806 at Kneesall in Nottinghamshire, England, John Whiteley was the son of a grocer, James Whiteley, and his wife, Elizabeth . He was educated at Farnsfield, after which he started an apprenticeship as a baker. In 1831, he joined the Wesleyan Missionary Society (WMS) for training in the Wesleyan ministry. In September the following year, he married Mary Ann née Cooke. Soon afterwards, at Lambeth Chapel in London, he was ordained into the ministry.

New Zealand Whiteley and his wife left for New Zealand in October 1832 aboard the New Zealander, arriving there in May the following year. He was initially based at the WMS Māngungu Mission in the Hokianga. Their infant son died soon after their arrival. Also in New Plymouth, the Whiteley Memorial Methodist Church is named for him. The present structure was built in the early 1960s after the original building, erected in 1898, burnt down. In 1923, a memorial cairn for Whiteley was put up close to the site of his death but this was later demolished. The land on which the cairn was built was part of a Treaty of Waitangi settlement with Ngāti Tama, the local iwi, in 2003. The iwi saw the area as a site of grievance and after the Methodist Church declined to remove the memorial due to a lack of funds, it was demolished after its plaque was removed. Another memorial was erected nearby in 2008.