By Sorrel Hoskin
Envoy Stephen Buick was a legend in Taranaki. Over 70 years the Salvation Army officer walked thousands of kilometres throughout back-blocks Taranaki spreading the word of the Lord.
Stephen Buick knew what it was to be poor and hungry. Born in South Australia in 1857 he grew up in a small wooden cottage on the banks of the American River, an inlet on Kangaroo Island. The nearest school was 20km away so the 16 Buick children took correspondence lessons. To supplement their meagre diet the young boy would help gather shellfish and pelican eggs and snare wallaby that roamed in the surrounding scrubland.
Joining the army
As a young man he turned to drinking and gambling. "I was a bad man," he would recall in later years. "But I found God and he helped me see the way." He heard about the Salvation Army through a brother who was a convert. In a copy of the army's magazine War Cry he read the testimony of a young man who had been cleansed by God. Eager to learn more he travelled to Adelaide where he joined the corps, gave up his vices and was given the task of selling War Crys.
According to Alison Robinson in The Salvation Army in Eltham and Stratford, Stephen became an officer and was sent to Wallaroo, a mining town on the Yorke Peninusula, to open a branch. "He soon had almost the entire mining population involved. Six hundred miners took part in a Salvation Army procession."
From there he travelled to Melbourne and Tasmania, spreading God's word, before deciding to help with the pioneering work across the Tasman in New Zealand. He spent several years in Dunedin and around the South Island before arriving in New Plymouth in 1886.
Stormy beginnings
The first Salvationists had arrived in the town just two years before to start the local corps. Things had got off to a stormy beginning. An early account stated: "like in other parts of the world in those days, the town did not regard the introduction of the Army as an event to be welcomed. The spiritual fight was met by ridicule and physical force, and there were many times when the small band of four or five men and women had their courage placed under very severe stress."
According to the Taranaki Herald in those early days meetings were often broken up by children throwing stink bombs. The Salvationists believed in taking the word to the people on the street - but this was fraught with danger. At first, the best treatment they could expect was verbal abuse, stink bombs and over ripe eggs or drenchings with water. The worst was physical attack.
But this didn't deter the members of the corps, Stephen included, from carrying out their mission. Eventually after many years hard work the public came around - often the Salvation Army was the one and only helping hand for those in need.
A postman with a difference
In New Plymouth Stephen became a postman, gaining a bit of notoriety in the service for refusing to wear anything but his Army uniform at work. He built himself a rough bach and fitted it out with four bunks, making it an 'open house' for men in need, old or young, drunk or sober.
He used to rise early and stand in the street, giving sermons, where people could see him on their way to work. Eventually he gave up his postal work and devoted himself to the work of God. Described as "a little short chap with a great bushy ginger beard and a voice like a fog horn," his one-man open air services, standing with hymn book in hand, delivering sermons in his booming voice, became well-known throughout the town.
Stephen was called back to the Post Office during World War I as many of the postmen had signed up for active service.
Spreading the word
But his real ministry was out in the back blocks of rural Taranaki. Without any transport, Stephen walked around the region spreading the word and selling War Crys.
Money raised from the sale of the magazines went into helping the local community. He is said to have walked astonishing distances, sometimes 60km a day, around rural Taranaki.
Even if people were not interested in his religious beliefs the visit was often a welcome break from household and farming chores and he would be offered a cup of tea and a chat. The isolated settlers and their families came to look forward to his visits.
The small man in Salvation Army uniform became a common sight walking the dusty and sometimes muddy roads east of Stratford, out to Whangamomona, and around the coast to Okoki, where people recall him turning up with the soles of his boots held on with wire, a satchel full of War Crys and paraphernalia over his shoulder.
He was there to offer a few kind words and listen to the woes of farmers and their families during the depression years - when many had to walk off the land. During the Great Depression the Salvation Army's finest hour arrived - in New Plymouth they set up a welfare centre, and gave food and accommodation to those most in need.
A popular pair: Stephen Buick and Lizzie the Model T Ford. Image: Queenie Silby.
After his 70th birthday Stephen made a small concession and caught the bus for part of his journey, getting out at places like Rahotu, Stratford or Brixton and heading off into the back blocks with his satchel of War Crys.
Lizzie the Model T
In the 1940s he acquired a Model T Ford he named "Lizzie." With Lizzie's help Stephen would sell up to 840 War Crys a week and could reach out to more people in need. Stephen and his beloved Lizzie were a popular duo on the back blocks roads.
Stephen once told a Daily News reporter: "I get up every morning between 4 and 5, have a cup of tea and toast then I get my 'book' and call on my God for all he has for me. At 7.30 I get my car and away to the back waters with my War Crys' and papers to commence my daily round."
Memories of a special man
Waitara Salvation Army Captain Queenie Silby tells a tale handed down by her mother. "One evening he dropped into the Waitara office with something and they invited him in for tea. He said 'no thank-you Lizzie wouldn't like it.' The ladies asked my mother 'what's his wife like she must be a grump!' and she had to tell them he wasn't married - it was his car he was talking about!"
Stephen never had a door on the car - "because it was too much trouble to get in and out."
In a taped interview back in 1993, Urenui entity Joe Rattenbury described an encounter with man and car. "I was up in the village one day and I heard a terrific noise coming down the road into the village. I wondered what it was until it arrived - poor Envoy Buick with a puncture in both back wheels just south of the village. So he took both tyres off and drove around on the rims. I've never heard such a noise in all my life! But, undeterred, he parked the car and stood out in the middle of the street and gave his sermon. He was a terrific man, a wonderful man, he had an aura about him. He had a kind word for everyone."
Stephen was also generous recalls Queenie. "He had all sorts of bits and pieces in his bag along with the War Crys. My mother told this story about him. It was about 1920 my eldest brother was just a baby and he was all stuffed up with a cold. Envoy Buick happened to come along and he said 'lady have you got any eucalyptus?' and she said 'I wish I had' well - out of his bag came some and he gave it to her - he carried allsorts in his bag!
Devoted to the backblocks
"He devoted himself to backblocks work. He lived a very frugal life. If you went and knocked on his front door he'd come out the back door to see you and vice versa.
Likewise the people were generous in return. "My mother would make Scotch broth for Sunday lunch," recalls Queenie. "She'd do it up on a Saturday and heat it up on the morning of the Sunday - then put it in the hot box (a box containing hay used to keep meals warm) then give some to him to take with him in a jar wrapped with newspaper.
One day in 1947 a car hit the little Model T Ford and it was damaged beyond repair. Unperturbed, Stephen was back out walking the roads the next day - at the age of 89.
Until he was 94 he would still be seen walking the backblock roads, averaging 20km a day and his "raucous but cheery voice was still to be heard as far afield as Whangamomona and Opunake."
His "distinguished service of exerting an influence for good" was recognised when he was awarded the Salvation Army's Order of the Founder.
In 1952, aged 95, he became seriously ill and was taken to hospital, but he recovered and was admitted to Rangimarie Home. "When finally had to go into a home they went into his house and found his bed was fern," says Queenie. "He spent all his money on God's work."
Stephen was soon back out on the streets of New Plymouth, a stooped tousled man delivering sermons in his now crackling voice. His uniform - the one he'd always worn - was green with age and his whiskers were grey and bristly. He celebrated his 96th birthday in Rangimarie on 7 July 1953. The next day he became the first man in New Zealand to receive a Coronation Medal - one of only 37 awarded in the Commonwealth.
On 1 December 1953, after nearly 70 years service to the Lord in New Plymouth, Envoy Stephen Buick was "promoted to Glory." He was buried in New Plymouth's Te Henui Cemetery.