Mackenzie Family

Jessie Hort Huxham MacKenzie: Large ornate headstone with shield showing standing stag rearing on hind legs, motto "Vivat Rex", according to 1980 NZSG survey. Shield appears based on Clan MacCorquodale crest. Faded into the stone at present.

Sacred to the memory of Jessie Eva Hort Huxham, the Princess Torquil of Denmark, Baroness MacCorquodale of Loch Tromley, Chieftainess of the Clan MacCorquodale, and wife of The Rev Alexander MacKenzie, MABD, died 12 April 1887 aged 28 years; also of George Alexander Hort MacKenzie, died 14 September 1887, aged 13 months.

Photograph of 1986 ceremony organised by the Danish Consul on the 99th anniversary of Jessie MacKenzie's death. From Burgess family scrapbook collection. Note different orientation of Rev Alexander MacKenzie's stone (centre).

Sacred to the Memory of Rev Alexander MacKenzie MABD, born Sutherlandshire, Scotland 4 June 1842, and died at Auckland, 8 October 1920. "Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." (Matthew 5:6)

Sacred to the Memory of Jane Sophia Field, wife of Rev Alexander MacKenzie, BD, died 9th September 1913. "The Lord is At Hand."

There is the IHS symbol at the top of both Jessie and Sophia's grave stones, a monogram for the name of Jesus.

Historical information

Row A, plot 1: Gravestones for Rev. Alexander, Jessie Hort Huxham and Sophia Field MacKenzie.

The Legend Maker: Rev Alexander MacKenzie (1842-1920)

After the progress and stability of the ministry of Rev Robert Sommerville from 1876 until 1885, his successor to the Avondale Presbyterian Church in 1885 was welcomed heartily. Under Rev Sommerville the country church bought land in New Windsor and constructed a manse for their ministers, and had seen the coming of the railway to the district. Rev Sommerville himself had been School Committee Chairman, in 1882, when the Avondale Primary School was settled into their purpose-built accommodation on the Great North Road property. But the ministry of Rev Alexander MacKenzie who followed him was to prove the stormiest and most controversial in the whole history of the little country church. And the legacy continues on, in the form of a headstone in the churchyard’s cemetery.

Alexander MacKenzie was born in Bonar Bridge, Sunderland in 1842. Evidence points to him being a learned and meticulous man in early life, especially when it came to his own achievements. In Row, Scotland, he married Jessie Eva Hort Huxham, daughter of Hortensius Huxham and Eleanor Emma Huxham neė MacCorguodale in June 1880. Some sources say he may have been a tutor of hers. There was indeed 17 year gap between their ages. Jessie herself was born (oddly enough for the legends of her being a Scottish Danish Princess) in Glamorganshire in Wales. She resided with her father at Swansea, but must have returned to Scotland briefly for her marriage to MacKenzie.

The couple with their two-year-old son Torquil George headed for New Zealand some time in 1885. They’d arrived around November of that year, and Rev MacKenzie was warmly welcomed by the Auckland Presbytery on December 1, 1885. Immediately, there was a call “by 77 members and adherents” put forward from the Avondale Church for Rev MacKenzie to provide service to their parish. Rev Sommerville had, for some time, been unable to provide any more than basic and sporadic service to the country parish for some time. His health had been poor, riding too painful, and since 1883 he had the extra roles of being minister of two charges, Clerk of the Presbytery, being one of the Church Property Trustees, and Moderator of the General Assembly from 1883. He accepted a call to St. Peter’s Church in July 1885, and so the charge at Avondale fell vacant.

The seeds of trouble were planted right from the start – and the first one was that of money. Presbyterian ministers relied, for their incomes, on the stipend paid by the parish to which they gaveservice. But Avondale was in a bit of a cleft stick at the time. It already owed Rev Sommerville an amount of his stipend in arrears; the mortgage was still being paid for the manse and lands up at New Windsor (and wouldn’t finally be paid until 1897); and possibly the building of the St Jude’s Anglican church meant a diversion of income away from their parish, seeing as the Anglicans had used the Presbyterian Church for some of their services. The Avondale Presbyterians said from the outset that they couldn’t promise MacKenzie the minimum stipend of £200 (such a huge sum coming from the fact that his parish stretched from Avondale to Helensville and Kaukapakapa, taking in the whole of West Auckland and included Riverhead. All covered by horseback). They offered instead at least £150, and asked the Presbytery for a grant of £30 or £35. Rev MacKenzie was formerly inducted on 17 December 1885 at a soiree in Avondale, “thanking all those who had taken part in the warm reception that had been accorded to him. He would do his best, “he said, “in his new sphere, and he hoped to be supported by those among whom his lot had been cast.”

The Avondale parish seemed, from the outside, to be doing well under Rev MacKenzie. The Sunday School featured prominently on prize lists at regional competitions in October 1886. In January 1887, MacKenzie as Chairman of the church committee reported that “the Church services had been regular and well attended”, that there was “a Communion roll of 72 members, about 20 of whom joined the church during the year, and 10 others not yet enrolled,“ the manse had been painted and papered, grounds and fences improved, while the church itself had been repaired and graveyard laid out and improved.

However, this may have been deceptive optimism. Rev Alexander MacKenzie has in sources since been described as “harsh”, “domineering”, “a miserly man” whose style caused the large congregation built up by Rev Sommerville to dwindle sharply. The NZ Herald, at the time of the 75th anniversary of the church in 1935, reported:

“At one time the school had been held in the church, and, as the sequel to a dispute, the parishioners reciprocated by holding services of their own in the school. It is recorded that when Mr. McKenzie vigorously rang the bell of the church the summons was responded to only by the members of his own household.”

The church committee, knowing that the church’s existence relied heavily on donations, grewincreasingly discontented, and had apparently demanded in December 1886 at a meeting possibly chaired by Rev Sommerville that MacKenzie resign, declaring that any claims from the reverend for his stipend would not be recognised from the 17th of that month. The battle began between the reverend and the church committee that was to continue until 1889.

The stir of discontent amongst parishioners at Avondale that was kept private and out of the media’s eye finally blew up in February 1887.

An event within the Presbyterian community occurred around this time which may have given fuel to the discontented parishioners at Avondale. In early February 1887, at the meeting of the General Assembly in Wellington, clause 216 to the book of order and rules was voted on and passed. This proposed:

“That if it appears after Presbyterial visitation that from any minister’s inefficiency, remissness in duty, or unsuitableness to the sphere, spiritual or general interests of his congregation are being sacrificed, the Presbytery should be entitled to dissolve the pastoral tie, and declare the charge vacant, or report the matter to the General Assembly for its decision.”

Two weeks later, some unknown member of the presbytery whispered into the ears of the NZ Herald reporter.

“We are informed that the state of affairs in the Avondale Presbyterian Church is not at present very peaceful or comfortable. A number of the congregation are much dissatisfied with the Rev Mr McKenzie, the minister, and all efforts of the Presbytery hitherto have failed to heal the breach. The malcontents form a majority of the congregation, and they are now meeting in the schoolhouse. We do not know the causes of the dissatisfaction, but it is said that the minister’s faults are those of “manner”, not of doctrine. So far as we can ascertain, he is quite sound on the Westminster confession.”

The Herald then published an angry rebuttal on 16 March 1887 from Rev MacKenzie, accusing Rev Sommerville and Avondale church elder John Buchanan, as well as the Auckland Presbytery itself, of being the instigators of a breach between him and the parish, possibly the one which began the previous December. This included, apparently, Buchanan telling a lady of what the Presbytery planned to do, and this was duly circulated around the parish by her, and Rev Sommerville asking the parish treasurer about the church’s financial position. He accused Sommerville of failing to hold communion during the last two years of his Avondale service, something Sommerville pointedly denied in a letter of his own to the paper the next day.

A parishioner of Avondale, Mr A Morrison, wrote in a letter published in the Herald on 18 March that it was neither Sommerville nor Buchanan’s influence on the parishioners which created the rift.

“The cause of dissension arose in the congregation, and Mr MacKenzie was the sole cause of it. He was not long moving about among us when we began to look at each other and express fears for the future, and these have been more than realised. We could not respect him as our minister, so rather than go wandering about we had a meeting and resolved to have services among ourselves until we see what action the Presbytery will take. It will give you some idea of the state of matters when I state that we have an attendance varying from 70 to 92, while Mr MacKenzie has an attendance (so I am informed) verging from 4 to 16. We are the congregation, and we are perfectly united in our aims and desires … That letter of Mr. MacKenzie’s is sufficient, by its spirit, to show the outside public the man we are supposed to respect as our guide in matters religious. In addition to its statements being at variance with facts, his characteristic sneering at men who hold a place in our esteem he never can raise himself to is its own condemnation.”

The reverend’s wife Jessie, described by parishioners as a gracious little lady of delicate health, died on 12 April 1887 of tuberculosis, 5 months after giving birth to her second son George (who died the following September). Mrs Forsythe, Jessie’s nurse, described how Jessie was only fed porridge during the pregnancy, until Mrs Forsythe stepped in and corrected the diet. Stories like this, and one of the reverend placing Torquil down a well for 24 hours for some misdemeanour, did little to enhance the reputation of Rev MacKenzie in the eyes of the parishioners, and Avondale.

In the midst of the dispute he had with the church committee and parishioners, Rev MacKenzie used his wife’s passing to create a legend that continues to this day here in Avondale. He had inscribed on Jessie’s headstone that she was Baroness MacCorquodale, of Loch Tromley, Scotland, and Princess Torquil of the Royal House of Denmark, and so started the rumours of a Danish royal connection with the little church cemetery. The NZ Herald in 1935 wrote about the grave in the church burial ground, which often attracts interested visitors, serving curiously to perpetuate one of the acts of her husband. He is said to have insisted on placing her grave on the one place in the graveyard which the managers of the church had told him would be required for future additions to the building. Consequently when the vestry was added it had to be built with a recess in it so that the grave might not be covered. This would explain why Jessie’s grave is today almost hard up against the south wall of the extension, a damp place with hardly any sun.

MacKenzie may have taken much of his belief in the royal links of his wife from a book published back in 1869, William Anderson’s The Scottish Nation. Like many such “genealogies” of the Victorian era, it was as much comprised of traditional speculation and belief as it was of hard fact. Through her maternal grandfather John MacCorquodale, Jessie was said to have descended from Torquil who had fought in the army of Kenneth the Great and been granted extensive lands by Loch Awe in Argyll. Torquil was said to have been from the stock of Danish princes – hence the belief that Jessie in turn was a “Danish Princess”. But in fact her grandfather was merely a factor on an estate (or in other words an estate agent, one who acted on behalf of the landowner in collecting rents, maintaining the estate, etc.) He owned four properties, mainly cottages and allotments, one of which he left to Jessie in his will. Chances are that Rev MacKenzie sold this land on Jessie’s death, and the proceeds went towards his incremental purchase of land at Heaphy Street in Blockhouse Bay and the building of his own house there.

A week before Jessie’s death, the Auckland Presbytery met. They did not seem to be in a patient mood with regard to the shenanigans at Avondale, or with Rev MacKenzie. MacKenzie sent them a telegram asking to be excused attendance, “his wife and child being unwell” and asked that the meeting be deferred so he could attend at a later date and speak against any resolution by the meeting. This, after much discussion, the meeting agreed to, but plainly some members doubted MacKenzie’s reasons for not attending. A Mr. Huston “thought that there should be a medical certificate put in, and not go upon the mere statement of Mr MacKenzie.” MacKenzie’s letter to the paper was described as “imprudent”, and now meant that the private matter was being discussed “in open court”. In speaking against postponement, Mr. Morris reported that the congregation at Avondale was indeed “getting supply at present”, but McKenzie had been preaching for the past nine Sundays to only three persons in the morning, and eight or ten in the evening.

Two weeks after Jessie’s death, the Presbytery met again, this time with MacKenzie in attendance, but “at considerable inconvenience”. No mention was made of the passing of his wife. He accusedSommerville and Buchanan of having financial interest in the Avondale Church, which they denied (the Church did still owe Sommerville £50, but he hadn’t pursued this), and he railed against members of the Presbytery meeting, declaring that a number of them had no right to meet in judgment of him. He queried whether the matter was being dealt with by the old book of rules, or the new. There was some confusion over this, but it appeared that the Presbytery, despite being brought in to sort the matter two months before the new rules, decided to use them anyway. The meeting decided to ask McKenzie for his resignation, and gave him until the 7th of June to make his decision.

In June, the Presbytery voted that MacKenzie’s resignation be accepted (although he refused point blank to tender his resignation until he’d received arrears of payment from his stipend plus costs incurred by him in doing up the manse). They did agree to provide him with a certificate on his application for same, but did not respond when he asked for a recommendation to the Church Extension Committee for further employment. Plainly, the Presbytery had now tired of him, of the troubles at Avondale, and of being accused by him of being at fault and for meddling in Avondale’s affairs.

The Avondale church committee continued their efforts to have Rev MacKenzie resign all during 1887, and only succeeded on 31 January 1888. The parish regained possession of the manse dining room 3 days before, and found the dining room in which MacKenzie had stubbornly locked himself away “uninhabitable”, in need of thorough cleaning and repapering of the walls.

This did not end matters, however. At a meeting of the Auckland Presbytery on 7 February 1888, as the Avondale parish asked for a moderator for a meeting to issue a call to Rev Worboys to take over the charge, a letter was received from MacKenzie again requesting payment of the arrears of stipend he claimed was still owed to him, being £70 4s 7d, or around half a year’s pay (possibly from December 17 1886 to June 7 1887). Mr. Morrison from Avondale reported that the congregation refused to pay the arrears, claiming that MacKenzie’s service had ended from the date of their letter to the Presbytery. The parish apparently offered him £15 in lieu of claim, which he refused.

At the call meeting itself in March, MacKenzie protested right through the meeting that no call could be issued to Rev Worboys until his arrears had been paid. He later protested to the Auckland Evening Star that he hadn’t caused disruption to the meeting at all, and claimed that one parishioner later “followed me to the door to have a fight”. The dispute over his stipend continued until at least October 1889 when a certificate was signed by Sommerville stating that MacKenzie’s Avondale ministry terminated officially on 7 June 1887. He left for Australia soon after this, with his son Torquil and his housekeeper Jane Sophia Field.

In Australia, Rev MacKenzie married his housekeeper, but the family didn’t stay long in Australia, returning to New Zealand after a few years. Torquil ran away from home to live in Hillsborough in 1895, and Rev MacKenzie is believed to have ended his days somewhere in Blockhouse Bay, outliving his second wife who died in 1913. He buried her in the grave plot at Avondale, with her headstone perpetually facing that of Jessie’s. It has been suggested that he ran a small school from his home, the property later becoming Hilltop School in Heaphy Street, and in the 1960s a girls’ secondary school. The writer of the St Ninians centenary booklet said that it was remembered that Rev Alexander MacKenzie attended Avondale Church in the mornings, and evening services at Blockhouse Bay. No doubt not quite as cantankerous towards the church members as he had been in the previous century.

He had nothing to do with his son Torquil or with Torquil’s family after 1895. Torquil apparently tried to make contact twice – first to take his first-born baby daughter to visit MacKenzie, but was not allowed to cross the threshold. The same happened when Torquil took his 11 year old son along. No word, it is said, ever passed between grandfather and grandson.

Alexander MacKenzie died in 8 October 1920 in a private hospital in Grafton, the only one to identify his body being his undertaker. He is buried beside his wife Jessie, the posthumously famous “Danish Princess”, and his second wife. He left Torquil £5 in his will, out of an estate valued at £1800. Torquil contested the will, and was awarded £800. MacKenzie did leave the remainder of his estate, after £100 went to a Martha Uren (possibly his last house keeper), including all his books to the Auckland Public Library.

Out of all the controversy during his time at Avondale, and of all the players in the drama acted out at the little country parish, it is after all Rev. Alexander MacKenzie’s fanciful legend in the cemetery at St Ninian’s Church, born out of Victorian pride and a need to be special and “better” than those around him, that has outlived them all.

Lisa J Truttman