Bogus priest
When Mrs Harvey, widow of Presbyterian minister Reverend Harvey, washed up penniless and vulnerable in Sydney in 1924, it struck a chord with Te Awamutu residents.
She had recently lived among them running a small shop, her husband having died from consumption. She was left with one child and was pregnant with twins who were born a few months after Reverend Harvey’s death.
She then could not earn a living and kindhearted Te Awamutu folk responded promptly to an appeal for funds, well over £I00 being collected on her behalf as well as food and clothing.
She relinquished shopkeeping, lived privately for a few weeks, and then departed quietly.
The next heard of her was an interview published in a Sydney newspaper, reprinted in New Zealand papers under the dismaying headlines of ‘Helpless in Sydney’, ‘Destitute in Sydney’ and ‘Left to starve.’
The Reverend’s widow was again in very reduced circumstances which reflected badly on the church.
She had gone to Sydney from Auckland, where she had been virtually starving, despite appeals on her and her three young children’s behalf to the church authorities.
Money was provided to pay her passage to Australia where she and her family were homeless and without food and clothing until some compassionate individual placed a room at her disposal.
But the Reverend Harvey, dead and buried somewhere in the Te Awamutu district, appeared to be a phantom.
Presbyterian Church officials in Auckland expressed doubt as to the lady’s honesty, as there was no minister of the name Harvey in the Auckland register.
There was a suggestion he was perhaps a Presbyterian home missioner- not a fully ordained minister – who had been stationed in a township on the railway south of Te Awamutu, possibly Kihikihi.
Several months later a bogus clergyman was arrested in South Gippsland, Victoria.
He had hymn books and a clerical collar in his possession.
He had made the acquaintance of Mr Tregear, a Methodist minister, at St Kilda, introducing himself as the Reverend Harvey.
The kindly Mr Tregear found a room for him to stay in and arranged for him to preach a sermon at the local church.
One morning, however, it was found that he had disappeared, and clothing and a wristlet watch belonging to the other boarders were also missing. Inquiries by a detective led him to a man who was now representing himself as the Reverend Haslam, a Methodist clergyman on furlough from Adelaide.
A coincidence perhaps but it was the only hint left of a Reverend Harvey, the Te Awamutu minister that never was.
Photo: Mikhail Nilov pexels.com
