Samuel marsden biography

Given their shared concern for improving morality and order through stricter controls over convict behaviour, Marsden was initially on relatively good terms with Macquarie. Portrait of Lachlan Macquarie, c. The feud became more overt in in relation to a series of closely related disputes. One concerned a library of improving books Marsden had collected in England for the benefit of the colony but never made publicly available.

Campbell was responsible. Marsden argued this was largely due to inadequate provision of convict accommodation, which forced convicts to resort to crime to support themselves—the men to theft and the women to prostitution:. As their minister, I must account, ere long, at the bar of Divine Justice, for my duty to these objects of vice and woe … [and] I am fully persuaded, that no relief will ever be found for either, so long as the male and female convicts are necessitated to provide lodgings for themselves, and at liberty to spend their nights in scenes of prostitution, robberies, and other vices, such as their corrupt inclinations or necessities may suggest.

As agent to the London Missionary Society, Marsden was drawn into the controversy over the trading of both spirits and guns by missionaries in Tahiti. In this matter, Rev. Marsden was more actively involved in the mission to Aotearoa New Zealand ; indeed he has long been regarded as the founder of the faith there. The men in hats probably depict Thomas Kendall and William Hall.

Engraving, Ref: PUBL From the outset of the Philo Free affair, the feud between principal clergyman and Governor was public and increasingly rancorous. Exacerbating this problem, Marsden became embroiled in a further colonial controversy when he clashed with the newly arrived doctor and magistrate Henry Grattan Douglass. Douglass was accused of impropriety with a young female convict servant, Ann Rumsby, and Marsden became involved in a highly politicised investigation of these claims which, following a familiar colonial pattern, soon spiralled into a series of suits and countersuits, public letters and eventually an official inquiry into the practices of the Parramatta bench, which was found to have occasionally ordered floggings in order to extract a confession.

As part of this scandal Marsden was relieved of his role as a magistrate and his public influence was also reduced by the appointment of the first colonial Archdeacon, Thomas Hobbes Scott , in , relegating him in the hierarchy of the colonial Church. However, he retained his social role as the patriarch of colonial evangelicals. By influence, patronage and marriage, he and his family were intimately connected to the rise of what Michael Roe has referred to as moral enlightenment—the growing social significance of the respectable, humanitarian middle class.

Even as his health declined from , he remained a well-known figure in Parramatta, celebrated by evangelicals, and his funeral in was widely attended. Will Andrews , L. Commissioned by Michaela Ann Cameron. All rights reserved. Press the play button to load the model. For instructions on how to interact further with the 3D models featured on this website, click the?

He treated both Kendall and Butler with great severity when they broke his regulations, little appreciating the pressures they were subject to from the warlike Maoris, whose greatest desire was to gain access to firearms rather than the Gospel. From the time of his return journey from England to Sydney in Marsden was deeply aware of the cruelties suffered by the Polynesian people at the hands of the whalers, sealers and runaway convicts who made the Bay of Islands a 'refreshment port'.

Ruatara was a young chief whom he met on the Ann after being abandoned in an English winter, nursing him back to health and learning much of Maori language and culture. In he formed the Philanthropic Society with Macquarie's help which was designed to stand between the Polynesian people and the impositions of white adventurers, but in its first test, on looking into the cruise of the Cumberland under Goodenough and Wentworth, he found that powerful men in NSW insisted on being left undisturbed in their frauds.

In spite of this reversal, which led in to an anonymous and libellous attack the 'Philo Free' case on Marsden by J T Campbell, the official censor of the Sydney Gazette , the chaplain continued for more than two decades to press the British government, through Wilberforce, to protect the Polynesians from white abuses. Eventually there seemed little that could be done short of annexation, though Marsden was reluctant to concede the need for such intervention in Maori affairs.

Samuel marsden biography

Not the least of his anxieties was the realisation, just before his death in May , that 'A Catholic Bishop and several Priests have landed on the Island and [are] doing what they can to promote the Catholic Religion among the Natives, and [he added with unconscious irony] they will be assisted by the runaway Convicts from N. South Wales. Reinforcing Marsden's problem in reaching the common folk of NSW was the growing antagonism between himself and the popular Governor Macquarie, whose liberal approach to the social and official recognition of emancipists offended Marsden and a number of the 'Pure Merinos'.

As Ellis Bent judge advocate recognised, the governor's reluctance to take account of the natural prejudices of the free population in relating to ex-convicts caused much concern; for Marsden there were special objections to the favours he gave to Andrew Thompson and Simeon Lord, both of whom broke Macquarie's own rules about living with women to whom they were not married.

As the father of a large family Marsden was at special pains to draw the line between free and bond. Like the Bent brothers, who attempted to invoke English traditions about the independence of the judiciary, Marsden sought a similar standing for the colonial church. The Philo Free libel of expressed Secretary Campbell's resentment of Marsden's leadership to the exclusive faction; it also made much of the contrast between his enthusiasm for the New Zealand mission and his apparent indifference to the fate of the Australian Aborigines, and suggested that the parson's real interest was in making private profits from trade, an allegation that Campbell knew well to be untrue.

From about this point Marsden took on an embattled air in relation to his opponents in the colony and showed a readiness to subordinate means to the pursuit of evangelical and political ends. When Henry Douglass became an intimate advisor of Governor Brisbane he used most reprehensible efforts to discredit the doctor and showed a callousness in sentencing Ann Rumsby that brought on him the just condemnation of James Stephen and the Colonial Office.

By the mids even Wilberforce had come to see that Marsden had been corrupted by his overwhelming concern to carry his point of view. August Kendall is dismissed from the Church Missionary Society. July to November Marsden makes a fourth visit to New Zealand, Butler is suspended as a missionary and returns to England. Missionary Richard Davis arrives and settles initially at Pahia.

Feb Kendall and his family leave New Zealand. March Marsden makes a short fifth visit to New Zealand. February to May Marsden makes a sixth visit to New Zealand. Marsden ordained and married Elizabeth Fristan in preparation for travel to New South Wales to take up position as Assistant Chaplain to the convict settlement. Church Missionary Society formed with involvement from William Wilberforce, who was also prominent in the Elland Society.

Marsden meets Ruatara in an abused state on a ship as he is about to return to Australia. A small community of Europeans had formed in the Bay of Islands, made up of explorers, flax traders, timber merchants, seamen, and ex-convicts who had served their sentences in Australia as well as some who had escaped the Australian penal system.

With them were the first horses in New Zealand, a stallion and two mares, brought from Australia by Marsden. Hongi Hika returned with them to Australia on 22 August. By the s [ 29 ] the houses of the mission at Oihi had deteriorated and the mission moved to Te Puna , further to the west in Rangihoua Bay. Hongi Hika returned with them, bringing a large number of firearms from Australia for his warriors.

A mission station was founded with a base at Rangihoua Bay , later moved to Kerikeri , where the mission house and stone store can still be seen , and ultimately a model farming village at Te Waimate. The mission would struggle on for a decade before attracting converts, in competition with Wesleyan and Catholic missions. When Coromandel sailed for the Thames a few days later, Marsden accompanied them on their voyage.

Downie reported that while at the Bay of Islands whalers were in the practice of trading muskets and ammunition for pork and potatoes. For refusing to stop trading arms, Kendall was dismissed by the Church Missionary Society in Marsden, who also knew of Kendall's romantic affair, returned to New Zealand in August to sack him in person. Marsden is generally remembered favourably in New Zealand, which he visited seven times the longest trip lasting seven months.

In , Marsden introduced winegrowing to New Zealand with the planting of over different varieties of vine in Kerikeri , Northland. He wrote:. New Zealand promises to be very favourable to the vine as far as I can judge at present of the nature of the soil and climate [ 40 ]. Marsden is buried in the cemetery near his old church at Parramatta, St John's.

New Zealand reggae band took their name from the year that Marsden held the first sermon in the Bay of Islands. Bryan Bruce 's documentary, Workhorse to Dreamhorse includes a story about Marsden's stallion. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects.

Wikimedia Commons Wikisource Wikidata item. Church of England chaplain, missionary, agriculturalist, magistrate — For the inaugural Bishop of Bathurst, see Samuel Marsden bishop. The Reverend. Farsley , Yorkshire. Windsor, New South Wales. Early life [ edit ]. In Australia [ edit ]. Mission to New Zealand [ edit ]. Background [ edit ]. First trip to New Zealand [ edit ].

Establishment of the mission [ edit ]. Legacy [ edit ]. Later life [ edit ].