The first Anglican services in the vicinity of Tinui were undertaken by the Church Missionary Society at Castlepoint in 1843, when the ship that Archdeacon William Williams and William Colenso were travelling on was forced to shelter there. Prior to the 1880s, when better road and rail access to Wellington was established which connected eastern Wairarapa farms and small service centre settlements, coastal ports like that at Castlepoint were essential for communications and trade. The lack of access hindered colonial settlement, however in the mid-1850s the land between the Whareama and Tinui rivers was purchased by the Crown from the Ngati Kahungunu and Rangitane people, soon to be on-sold to European settlers. Tinui (also sometimes referred to as Te Nui), meaning many or large cabbage trees, was established as a farming service town from the 1860s. By the 1870s this small town was replete with all the facilities one would expect, like churches, a school, a post office and other public buildings, as well as businesses such as blacksmiths and saddlers, cake shops and hotels.

After being incorporated into a large parochial district centred around Greytown and Masterton, thanks to the work of Rev. John Chapman Andrews Tinui was established as an Anglican parochial district in 1899. Appropriately, three years later construction of a suitable new church was begun in town at the centre of the parish, with the name Church of the Good Shepherd. A building committee had been formed in 1901 and the prominent Wellington architectural practice of Clere and Swan were approached to design a building that could seat up to one hundred people. Because Frederick de Jersey Clere was in England at the time, the design of the church was the work of John Sydney Swan. This is thought to have been the first church that Swan was solely responsible for, but draws on the established style of Clere’s numerous country churches, including a characteristic bell-tower. Tinui’s Church of the Good Shepherd was built by Charles E. Daniell, who a few years later was also responsible for Langdale’s St Andrew’s Church, which was a Clere building. The Church of the Good Shepherd was completed in July 1902.

The Maunsell family, who owned Tinui Station and were a prominent local family, would have been key parishioners and supporters of the church given Robert and John Maunsell, who owned the station from the late 1850s, were the sons of an Anglican missionary who later went on to become Archdeacon of Auckland. When the Archdeacon travelled to visit his sons in the 1860s he is known to have conducted some of the first services in Tinui. Robert Maunsell was also on the building committee for the Church of the Good Shepherd and the Maunsells have continued to support the church with donations over the years, including the creation of a lychgate for the church in 1983.

Just over a decade after the Church of the Good Shepherd was constructed the Tinui community was, like most others in New Zealand and Australia, deeply affected by the result of the disastrous ANZAC campaign at Gallipoli that lasted nine months. Therefore, the Maunsells and the wider community were keen to commemorate this through a series of events on the first ANZAC Day. The day’s events on 25 April 1916 started with a morning religious service at the Church of the Good Shepherd. This service was one of hundreds of religious memorial services throughout New Zealand, Australia, and England that took place on the first official ANZAC Day, setting a precedent for future commemorations. However, because of the recorded 7.30am start for the ANZAC and St Mark’s Day morning service, the ceremony at the Church of the Good Shepherd is believed to be the world’s first ANZAC Day religious memorial service.

After the church service the ceremonies then continued with Bugler Hancock of the 13th Regiment, who was at home at Tinui on final leave from the Featherston camp, playing a salute while a Union Jack was ceremonially delivered to and unfurled at Tinui Hall. Other events of the day included refreshments at Tinui Station before a long trek to the top of Mount Maunsell/Tinui-Taipo to erect a memorial cross in honour of the ANZACs, one of the first ANZAC memorials established in New Zealand.

Since its construction in the early twentieth century the Church of the Good Shepherd, designed by prominent architect John Sydney Swan, has had social and spiritual significance as the heart of the local Anglican congregation, a community led by the Maunsell family who were the settlement’s important landowners. Not only did this prominent family have a strong connection with the church, but as a result of the inaugural ANZAC commemorations in 1916 the Church of the Good Shepherd and the Tinui ANZAC Memorial Cross Site, on the former Maunsell land, form an important historical and cultural complex. The Church of the Good Shepherd has further commemorative and historical significance as the site of the world’s first known religious observance commemorating the ANZACs.