A little bit of Quaker history has surfaced in a busy part of Nelson, New Zealand. A Friend has sent some local newspaper clippings of a story which started way back when Europeans settled in Nelson in the mid-nineteenth century. There were Quakers among them who together bought an acre in the new settlement from the New Zealand Company – quickly nicknamed the 'Quaker acre' by locals.

The Friends made headway, becoming shopkeepers and surveyors, later building their own Meeting house on the Quaker acre, said to be the first in New Zealand.

But all was not plain sailing for these early pioneers. As we know from more recent history, settlement brings conflict with native populations and the Quakers were concerned with Maori welfare, speaking out about harsh treatment of tangata whenua (indigenous people of the place or land). And in what is described as a Maori affray, Quaker surveyor John Cotterell stuck to his pacifist principles and was killed on surrender after refusing to fight.

Now the city has opened its first 'quiet garden' on the site of the Quaker acre. With two years of preparation by Grace Sutherland of Nelson Meeting a near derelict site in the city centre has been transformed into a simple space with plain benches. Close by are the graves of Samuel and Martha Strong, Quakers who died in the 1800s. Their graves constituted a 'cemetery' – the smallest in the city –and this was why the piece of land was never developed.

The Quakers and the city council got together to give the Nelsonians a place of solitude right in the middle of one of their noisier intersections. We trust our Friend there will take full advantage of this oasis.

Labels: maori, new zealand, quaker