Upper Moutere

Upper Moutere from the Redwood Valley Highway

St. Paul's Lutheran Church, February, 2007

Upper Moutere (originally called Sarau by its founding German settlers) is a locality in the Tasman District near Nelson at the top of New Zealand's South Island.

History

As early as 1839 the New Zealand Company had resolved to "take steps to procure German emigrants" and appointed a Mr Bockelman as agent of the Company in Bremen. At one stage the Company made an agreement in principle to sell the Chatham Islands to the Deutsche Colonisations Gesellschaft but were thwarted by the British Government.[1] However, Lord Stanley did agree to make the German colonists instant British subjects upon arrival in Nelson after being vetted in Hamburg first.

Most of the 140 German immigrants who arrived on the ship Sankt Pauli and formed the nucleus of the villages of Sarau (now known as Upper Moutere) and Neudorf were Lutheran Protestants with a small number of Bavarian Catholics. The trip had lasted 176 days, during which time four young children had perished, seven couples had been joined in Holy Matrimony, one baby had been born and two passengers had jumped ship at a re-provisioning harbour.

After a brief initial period of prosperity the inherent problems of lack of land and capital caught up with the Nelson settlements and they entered a prolonged period of relative depression. Organised immigration ceased until the 1850s and labourers had to accept a cut in their wages by one third. By the end of 1843 artisans and labourers began leaving Nelson and by 1846 a quarter of the immigrants had moved away.

Today, Upper Moutere is thriving and still popular with new immigrants from Germany, the British Isles and the Netherlands.