Knox founder Stuart's private life revealed

The contrast between a loved and respected public figure and the private angst of his tragic family life makes a strong theme for Richard Huber's play written to celebrate Knox Church's 150th anniversary.

The church's first minister, Donald McNaughton Stuart, nurtured the family structure of community life, but at the same time his own family fell apart drastically and he found that difficult to deal with, according to Huber.

Voice of Heaven is not the first play written about this remarkable man who was so influential in the early Dunedin community.

In 1998, Simon O'Connor wrote Stuart for the sesquicentenary of Otago, the settlement founded by the Free Church of Scotland.

"Simon had already covered Donald McNaughton Stuart well in his marvellous play so I was looking for another angle, and chose to focus on the relationship between Dr Stuart and his wife, Jessie," Huber explained.

When the Stuarts arrived in Dunedin in 1860, Jessie was ill and had to be carried from the boat in a chair.

The first thing she was given was fresh strawberries and cream.

"I was struck by that image, that after such a long sea journey you arrive at this extremely foreign place, you are sick and you have three small children, and people give you nature's bounty."

The relationship between Dr Stuart and his wife had a rocky beginning.

They met while he was teaching in England, but Jessie Robinson's mother refused to allow them to marry unless the young Stuart changed to Church of England, according to Huber.

He refused, and returned to Scotland to train as a Presbyterian minister.

Mrs Robinson died a couple of years later, and the two were able to marry, but Jessie remained an Anglican.

"I get the sense that his early experience of having to deal with the problem of his wife's religion, even though he wouldn't change his own, helped inform his liberalness of mind," Huber said.

However, reflecting on their relationship many years later, Dr Stuart felt a deficiency in his feelings for his wife.

He loved her in the sense that she was a good person and good company, and would make a good Christian wife, but he felt he lacked the feelings of a romantic or poet, Huber said.

Sadly, Jessie Stuart died in childbirth two years after arriving in Dunedin.

Her sister Isabella came out to look after the three boys, but she also died a couple of years after arriving here.

The boys were brought up by Margaret Hedley, the housekeeper who came with the Stuarts, but she drank heavily.