TWO New Zealand Maori people came to Bishops Castle this week to visit the grave of their ancestor who is buried in Bishops Castle churchyard. They were met by members of the Bishops Castle Heritage Resource Centre who had researched the family, whose links with Bishops Castle go back to the Napoleonic Wars. Awhina Hetet and her father Robert came to the town to honour their ancestor Mary Morgan who died in 1875 and is buried in the grounds of St John the Baptist Church. Mary married Joseph Marie Louis Hetet, a French prisoner of war transferred on parole to Bishops Castle in 1811.

Joseph and Mary married in November 1813 but in May 1814, with a peace treaty signed, Joseph Hetet returned to France. Nine months later Mary gave birth to a son Louis. This remarkable man eventually found his way to New Zealand and settled there in 1842. He married Rangituatahi, a prominent Maori chieftainess, and was assimilated into the powerful Maniapoto tribe.

Their four children and their descendants played a prominent part in the history and development of the North King territory in the western part of New Zealand's North Island. Robert and Awhina, 5th and 6th generation descendants of Mary Morgan, visited her grave every day and performed a ceremony to honour Mary and to thank the people of Bishops Castle. Robert had carved a wahorara, symbolically representing the Hetet family lineage, which he presented to the Bishops Castle Heritage Resource Centre together with a plaque to commemorate the visit.

The pair also walked 'The Frenchman's Mile', down past Crowgate Business Park to see one of the milestones beyond which prisoners gave their word of honour they would not go, and visited The Six Bells public house where it is known that some of the prisoners were billeted.

At the close of her visit Awhinat Hetet said, "Being here in Bishops Castle, the hometown of my ancestor Mary Morgan, has really changed my perception of who I identify myself as. I've always known and felt that I am a New Zealand Maori but the sense of connection I now feel to this town and Mary Morgan has changed that for me. I am proud that I can now acknowledge and appreciate my European heritage, something I have never identified myself with before."