Louis Rozet

Fr LOUIS ROZET, aged 28 (on arrival in New Zealand in Group V on 15 Jun 1841).

He was not a Marist but a priest who volunteered his services on a trial basis. About a month after his arrival he sailed with Pompallier on the Sancta Maria to be left at Opotiki to found a new station. A year later he was recalled to Auckland to accompany Michel Borjon to Wellington, but missed the rendezvous with the Speculator and was spared Borjon's fate. Instead he went to Whangaroa where he began a small school for Maori catechists. In 1849 this school (enlarged) was transferred to Takapuna with Rozet in charge. To ensure a smooth takeover for his successor he stayed on there after the Viard Marist exodus, arriving in Wellington on 4 December, 1851. Rozet left New Zealand on the Tory on 3 February 1853 to return to France and make a formal novitiate. He took his vows as a Marist on 10 September 1854 but did not return to Wellington. His Maori manuscripts which he took with him, and which included an abbreviated version of the Bible, were never printed much to Viard’s disappointment. He died in Rochefort on 31 July 1884, aged 70.

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