by Tim McKenzie
Rev. John Russell Hervey (1889-1958) was a New Zealand poet.
Life[]
Born in Invercargill, Hervey was educated in Christchurch, where he married Ethel Regina Choat in 1915. That year, he was ordained deacon in Wellington, while full priesthood followed in 1916. After working as a curate in Wellington and Christchurch, Hervey became vicar in a succession of rural Canterbury parishes (Malvern in 1921 and Temuka/Winchester in 1923).[1]
By 1925 he was back in Christchurch, including a seven year term from 1927 to 1934 at St. Stephen’s, Shirley. Here, Hervey was known as an occasional writer, penning hymns for special services, including one for the Mothering Sunday service he instituted with his wife. He was remembered as a ‘dynamic, forceful personality’ and a fine orator, with a notably literary bent to his preaching. Thus, he delivered a sermon series on ‘Great Books and their message’, the books including Les Miserables and Silas Marner. Popular fiction received less approval: in the New Zealand Churchman for 1 September 1923, Hervey blamed calls for experimental marriage partly on sensationalist novels.[2]
Ill-health forced Hervey’s retirement from active church ministry in 1934, although he retained an officiating minister’s licence from 1935. Retirement freed Hervey’s muse, and he began to publish steadily in a selection of periodicals and in New Zealand Best Poems.[3]
In 1940, he drew attention for his prize-winning entries in the Government-sponsored Centennial Literary Competition. ‘War Refugee’ shared first prize in the short poem competition, while ‘Salute to Youth’ beat off 94 other entries in the category for poems over 100 lines.
That same year, Hervey’s first book appeared from The Caxton Press. Selected Poems contained the two prize-winning poems, as well as collecting poems published elsewhere. [4] New Poems followed in 1942.[5]
A gap of seven years separates New Poems from its successor volume, Man on a Raft (1949). In that time, Hervey published regularly in magazines, particularly the New Zealand Listener, while between 1947 and 1949 he also returned to ministry at Waitaki in the Dunedin Diocese. Man on a Raftconfirmed Hervey’s standing in the literary scene, included as it was in The Caxton Poets Series alongside volumes by James K. Baxter, Charles Brasch, Allen Curnow and others.[6]
Hervey continued to attempt poetry of the grand event, with two works commemorating the arrival of English settlers in Canterbury. An undistinguished "Centennial Thanksgiving Hymn" was sung in Christchurch Cathedral and parish commemoration services, and published in the New Zealand Listener in 1950. Typically (though surprisingly given the occasion), the hymn contains no specific references to New Zealand, but many confident assumptions about the merits of colonisation.[7]
Some of these assumptions flow into "Centennial Ode". Performed by the Royal Christchurch Musical Society in 1951 to music by John Ritchie, the Ode blends memory, apprehension, and hope in its paean to the ‘Canterbury Pilgrims’.[8]
‘Centennial Ode’ was collected in Hervey’s final volume, She Was My Spring (1954), though the hymn was not. Like all Hervey’s previous books, She Was My Spring is dedicated to Ethel Hervey, but this time the dedication is also an elegy, with about half the poems approaching the subject of Ethel’s death.[9]
Hervey continued to publish poetry until his death in 1958.[10]
Publications[]
- Selected Poems. Christchurch, NZ: Caxton, 1940.
- New Poems. Christchurch, NZ: Caxton, 1942.
- Man on a Raft: More poems. Christchurch, NZ: Caxton (Caxton Poets No. 4), 1949.
- She Was My Spring: Poems. Christchurch, NZ: Caxton, 1954.
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[11]
See also[]
References[]
- This article uses Creative Commons (CC BY-3,0) licensed text from Kotare: Tim McKenzie, "J.R. Hervey, 1889-1958," Kotare 7:3 (2008), 105-114. Web, Sep. 21, 2014.
Notes[]
External links[]
- Poems
- Books
- Works by or about J.R. Hervey in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- About
- J.R. Hervey, 1889-1958 by Tim McKenzie
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