Moulton Street

Moulton Street runs between Lawry Street and Calvert Road in Moturoa, its eastern and western ends separated by a Paritūtū Bowling Club green and Mangaotuku Stream.

The divided street is part of an area previously known as Whiteley Township, once owned by the Wesleyan Missionary Society, and was named for an evangelist who helped spread the gospel in the Pacific.

James Egan Moulton was born on 4 January 1841 in Northumberland, the son and grandson of Methodist ministers. Asthma and a debilitating stammer prevented him from attending university so he worked as a shipping clerk until his stuttering was apparently cured by the power of prayer. It was this miracle that led him to join the Wesleyan Mission ministry in 1863. Moulton immigrated to Australia later that year and at the tender age of 22 was appointed first headmaster of Newington College in Sydney.

In 1865 Moulton was sent to Tonga, the “Friendly Islands”, accompanied by his new bride Emma – single men were deemed unsuitable for foreign postings. The couple had been engaged for over a year, with Emma, also the daughter of a Wesleyan preacher, travelling from England to marry her fiancé two days before Christmas in 1864. They went on to have six children.

Moulton picked up the local language quickly and was able to preach his first sermon just a few months after arriving.  A gifted teacher, he founded Tupou College in 1866, naming it after the Tongan King George Tupou I (1797-1893), and set up a printing press to supply books for the new school. Tupou, on the island of Tongatapu, is now the oldest secondary school in the Pacific Islands.

Moulton rendered the Old Testament, hundreds of hymns and even Milton’s Paradise Lost into Tongan. He eventually translated the entire Bible, a project which took him 25 years, and his version remains in use today.

Moulton returned to Sydney in 1888 where he was re-employed by Newington College, this time as its president. He held this role for seven years and was eventually awarded a Doctor of Divinity for his educational work. He went back to Tonga in 1895 and taught at Tupou College for another ten years until poor health forced him to retire.

James Moulton died in Sydney on 9 May 1909 at the age of 68. His body was wrapped in a chiefly woven mat from Tonga and a copy of his Tongan Bible placed in one hand before being buried in Gore Hill Cemetery.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.

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