By Roselyn Fauth
So, I came across a digital booklet in the Aoraki Heritage Collection... a 1969 publication titled Trinity Presbyterian Church Timaru, N.Z. 1865–1969: A Historical Record of the First 104 Years. Written for the church’s centennial, it carried the measured tone of mid-century reflection — when history was often told through institutions rather than through personal voices. I was interested because I had been on a deep dive into a impressive looking church that used to stand on Barnard Street that is no longer there. While on the hunt for Trinity, I learned about Rev. George Barclay (1835–1908).
Interestingly, the booklet called him “the father of education in South Canterbury.” I was curious, what did he do to earn a title like that in the 1860s? And what could his story reveal to us now, more than 160 years later, as education once again stands at the edge of evolution?
Join me on my latest history hunt, a side quest from looking for Trinity, and learning about a young minister in a new British Colony...
George Barclay was born in Ireland and educated at University College, London, where he studied theology and the humanities before being licensed by the Presbytery of London — a formal recognition within the Presbyterian Church that authorised him to preach and lead a congregation.
In the nineteenth century, this kind of training meant far more than religious study alone. Ministers like Barclay were university graduates steeped in the broad classical education of their day. Their courses included Latin, Greek, moral philosophy, mathematics, natural science, and theology — subjects shaped by the ideals of the Scottish Enlightenment, which prized reason, evidence, and moral character. They were trained not only to interpret scripture but to think critically, teach clearly, and engage with the wider world.
After years of study, a minister was “licensed” only once his knowledge, conduct, and preaching had been examined and approved by senior clergy. It was both a professional credential and a public trust.
Barclay set sail for New Zealand in 1864, arriving in Lyttelton on 1 January 1865, a time when the colony was barely two decades old. While Christchurch was still a young colonial town; Timaru was even more basic, at the time there would have been little more than a cluster of wooden buildings built around the harbour, a open roadstead at what is now the foot of George Street. The country was also in the midst of social transformation — land wars were being fought in the North Island, provincial governments were still powerful, and education was fragmented and mostly denominational.
From that world of industrial London that was filled with books, debate, and theology... to the Nor' Westerly windswept Canterbury plains, Barclay’s life must have changed in many ways. I wonder if he carried with him one belief that would define his legacy: that learning was the key to both faith and freedom?
He was the The First Presbyterian Minister of the South
Barclay was ordained at St Paul’s Church, Christchurch, on 8 March 1865, and sent south by coastal ship to Timaru — a voyage that ended, like all landings then, through the rolling surf in an open boat. His parish stretched from the Rangitata to the Waitaki Rivers, and inland to Aoraki Mount Cook.
His first service took place on 19 March 1865 at the Mechanics’ Institute on North Street, Timaru — a place of reading, lectures, and civic gatherings, fitting for a man who saw knowledge as a form of worship. For the next seven years, he travelled tirelessly on horseback across rivers, plains, and mountain passes, preaching in homesteads, woolsheds, and open air.
In 1867, under his leadership and with land gifted by Rhodes brothers, Timaru’s first stone Presbyterian Church opened on Barnard Street. Seating 220 people, it became the seed from which Trinity Church, and indeed Presbyterianism across South Canterbury, grew.
Reading through this booklet made me wonder if Barclay was not content simply building churches. It was noted in the 1969 booklet, that with “a deep love of learning and an appreciation of its value,” he helped to establish schools across the region.
At that time, education in New Zealand was patchy and localised. Small wooden schoolrooms served scattered communities, funded by donations or church subscriptions. Secondary education barely existed. Barclay recognised that a young colony needed more than sermons and trade, to thrive it also needed more structure, access, and opportunity.
He became instrumental in forming the High School Board of Governors, drafting its constitution and helping to shape the framework for secondary education in South Canterbury. This Board would oversee what evolved into Timaru High School, and later Timaru Boys’ High School (1880) and Timaru Girls’ High School (1881) — institutions that remain central to our community today. Our Timaru High School was one of the earliest public high schools in the Southern Hemisphere, following Otago Girls High School, who is noted in the history books as the first.
In recognition of his leadership, Barclay was granted life membership of the Board of Governors by the government — an honour that acknowledged his role in turning ideals into enduring institutions. I have read into the history of getting the high school off the ground, and it was described as a storm in a tea cup. Not everyone supported the idea, and Barclay and his advocates had to work really hard to move through the politics to make it all happen.
He was later elected Moderator of the General Assembly in 1877, the highest office in the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand. His influence extended well beyond the pulpit, into the moral and intellectual foundations of a growing society.
Barclay and His Generation
Barclay was one among a small but and impactful group of ministers who arrived in mid-nineteenth-century New Zealand, bringing with them both scholarship and a sense of civic duty. Across the country, men like Rev. Thomas Burns in Otago and Rev. James MacKenzie in North Otago shared his conviction that learning was a moral act.
What set Barclay apart was the breadth of his parish and the scale of his ambition. He covered country from coast to Alps, founded multiple congregations, and laid the administrative groundwork for public education in South Canterbury. In a time before trains or telegraphs, his legacy was built on endurance, intellect, and faith in the transforming power of knowledge.
Faith, Learning, and a Changing World
To understand Barclay’s impact, I think it probably helps to remember what Presbyterianism meant in the nineteenth century. Emerging from the Free Church of Scotland and its emphasis on self-governance and moral independence, Presbyterian settlers saw education as sacred duty. Literacy was the key to Scripture; discipline and logic were virtues; and schools were seen as extensions of faith and democracy alike.
Barclay had a dual commitment in his worldview — to God and to learning. His parishioners may have been scattered and weary, but he treated every home visit as a chance to strengthen minds as well as souls. His children carried that legacy forward: a barrister, a surgeon, a businessman — each a reflection of his belief that learning shaped both life and conscience.
Thinking Critically and From The Other Side of the Story
For all its strengths, Barclay’s education — and that of many early colonial ministers — you could say also came from a narrow worldview. The liberal, Enlightenment ideals he absorbed in London valued reason and progress, but did they also carry cultural assumptions of superiority common in Victorian Britain?
His learning could have been Eurocentric and male-dominated, given that it was rooted in Greek and Roman classics, Christian theology, and Western philosophy. While it could have provided intellectual confidence, I wonder if his ideas were challenged or impacted by exposure to other traditions in New Zealand, especially Māori knowledge systems that already thrived in Aotearoa.
When Barclay arrived in South Canterbury, he entered a landscape rich with whakapapa, wānanga, and environmental learning — yet these systems from what I understand were rarely acknowledged by the colonial education model he helped build. While his intentions were noble, his framework may have been limited by the world he knew.
Seeing this now doesn’t undo his achievements; if anything I think it deepens them. By learning about him, I am reminded that our heritage is complex, and that progress often begins within boundaries that later generations must continue to learn to widen. Barclay’s drive to educate was transformative, even if it was not as inclusive as education is today.
What This Tells Us About Who We Are Today
Looking back through Barclay’s story tells me that knowledge was a responsibility, and learning a public good.
Today, we’ve inherited the structures Barclay helped to create, but it is interesting to think about how our classrooms face a new frontier. Artificial intelligence is reshaping how we learn, question, and discern truth. We’ve entered what some call an “AI slop” — where information flows faster than understanding, and comprehension could risk falling behind creation.
Barclay’s 160-year-old conviction that learning must shape both intellect and integrity may be more relevant than ever. His world asked how to bring education to the colony; I think our world is now asking how to keep it human, helpful and true in a digital age.
So With All That in Mind, Who Teaches the Machines?
In Barclay’s time, the challenge was access to knowledge. Today, the challenge is trust... knowing which knowledge is true, and how to think critically when every answer appears instantly. I find that when their is a void of information, people are pretty good of filling the space, even if the chat is unsubstantiated.
I think Barclay would have believed education contributed to moral judgment. That knowledge was power. It wasn’t just about learning facts, but about learning how to use them well. Those principles; curiosity, fairness, discernment... I think are still the foundation of a healthy society.
So perhaps the question we now inherit from Barclay’s century is this: Who teaches the machines, and how do we make sure they learn the right lessons?
The future of education may not rest solely in classrooms, but in the shared effort to guide both people and technology toward wisdom, not just information. In that sense, Barclay’s spirit still walks beside us — a reminder that learning, in all its forms, is how a community remembers who it is and decides what kind of future it wants to build.
Source: Trinity Presbyterian Church Timaru, N.Z. 1865–1969: A Historical Record of the First 104 Years (Trinity Presbyterian Church, Timaru, 1969; Aoraki Heritage Collection).