George Augustus Selwyn

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George Augustus Selwyn (born April 5, 1809 in Hampstead in London , † April 11, 1878 in Lichfield ) is a bishop and saint of the Anglican Church. His feast day is April 11th. From 1868 to 1878 he was the first Anglican bishop of New Zealand , whose diocese also extended to Melanesia . After being divided into several dioceses, Selwyn was primate of New Zealand from 1858 to 1868 . On his return to England he was Bishop of Lichfield from 1868 to 1878 .

Early years

Selwyn was the second son of the lawyer and writer of legal works William Selwyn (1775–1855) and his wife Laetitia Frances Kynaston. At the age of 7 he entered the preparatory school of Dr. Nicholas entered Ealing . Among his schoolmates were the future Cardinal Newman and his brother Francis . He entered Eton College , where he excelled as a student and rower. There he made the acquaintance of William Ewart Gladstone . In 1827 he became a student at St John's College . He was the second best student of the Classical Honors Tripos of 1831 and graduated with the BA , 1834 as Master of Arts and 1842 as DD per lit. reg. He was a fellow of St John's from 1833 to 1840 and during his studies a member of the team of the Cambridge University Boat Club , which took part in the first Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race at Henley-on-Thames in 1829 , but lost to Oxford.

After graduating, Selwyn worked in Eton, becoming one of the deputy headmasters and private tutors of Lord Powis' sons .

Decision for the Church

Selwyn made a conscious choice to serve the Anglican Church. In 1833 he was ordained a deacon on Trinity and exactly one year later in 1834 he was ordained a priest in St. George's in Hanover Square . He worked from 1833 to 1841 as the vicar of the Reverend Isaac Gossett, Vicar of Windsor. In both Eton and Windsor, Selwyn showed a pronounced talent for organization.

Bishop in New Zealand

Memorial in the Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

In 1841 an episcopal conference in Lambeth decided to appoint a bishop for New Zealand. The Archbishop of Canterbury , William Howley , was looking for a suitable candidate. Charles James Blomfield , then Bishop of London , initially offered the post to George Selwyn's older brother, William. George then applied for the post and received it a week later.

Selwyn was ordained bishop in Lambeth on October 17, 1841 .

Selwyn embarked on December 26, 1841 on the Bark Tomatin from Plymouth to New Zealand. He appointed William Charles Cotton to be his chaplain . In addition to their luggage, the 23-person mission brought pets and four beehives with them. On the trip, Selwyn learned from a young Māori who was returning to his homeland, his language , so that he could preach to the locals as soon as he arrived. He also learned seamanship, which later allowed him to steer his own ship through the dangerous waters of the Pacific.

In April 1842 the Tomatin reached Sydney, Australia, and ran into a rock when landing. Most of the mission company is waiting for repairs, with a few others including Selwyn and Cotton leaving for New Zealand on May 19th on the brig Bristolian . They reached Auckland on May 30th .

After spending a few days as guests of Governor William Hobson , Selwyn and Cotton took the schooner Wave on June 6 and toured the mission stations on the Hauraki Gulf and then north towards the Bay of Islands , where they arrived on June 20. Among the tour company was William Bambridge , who later became Queen Victoria's photographer , as an employee .

Selwyn decided to take his official residence at the Te Waimate mission station , about 15 km inland from Paihia . The Church Missionary Society (CMS) had founded a settlement there eleven years earlier. On July 5, 1842, Selwyn set out on a six-month journey through his diocese, leaving the mission station in the care of his wife and Cottons. In November Selwyn took the brig Victoria down the west coast of the North Island to visit Octavius ​​Hadfield on the Otaki Mission and the Wanganui Mission . Then he drove up the east coast and visited William Williams . In October 1843, more missionaries had arrived in Waimate. Selwyn visited mission stations and native settlements in the southern part of the North Island with Cotton on a second trip. The trip was partly in a canoe, but mainly on foot, often over long distances through difficult and dangerous terrain. On the way, Selwyn split up the party, part of which was led by himself, the second by Cotton. After nearly three months, Cotton returned to Waimate in early 1844, and Selwyn a few weeks later.

Later in 1844, Selwyn moved about 160 km south to Tamaki near Auckland, where he had bought 450 acres of land he called "Bishop's Auckland". The move started on October 23rd and arrived in Auckland on November 17th. In the first half of 1845 Selwyn was mostly out and about and the administration of the settlement, especially the schools, fell to Cotton.

Selwyn had a controversy with the head of CMS in New Zealand, Archdeacon Henry Williams , over controversial land purchases for private purposes. When Williams refused to return the land, the CMS fired him. Selwyn reconsidered his position vis-à-vis Williams later and this was taken back into the CMS in 1854 with support from Selwyn. The missionaries of the CMS represented the principles of the Low Church as they prevailed among the evangelical members of the Anglican Church. The bishops and other dignitaries , who were influenced by the tradition of the High Church of the Oxford Movement , often contradicted these as to the correct form of the rite and the practice of religion. Selwyn himself represented the tradition of the High Church, but nevertheless appointed missionaries of the CMS in offices of the Anglican Church of New Zealand , including William Williams as the first bishop of Waiapu .

Selwyn's diocese was an early establishment in a series of colonial dioceses established by the Anglican Church. In six years he completed an in-depth tour of all of New Zealand, and in December 1847 began a series of trips to the Pacific Islands which his diocese had made through a mistake in his letters patent . The letters and diaries of these journeys through Melanesia have been preserved. Melanesia was split off in 1861 as a separate diocese under John Coleridge Patteson as Archbishop of Melanesia .

Selwyn developed a plan for the self-government of his diocese. In 1854 he visited England to have the division of his diocese approved and to obtain permission that New Zealand could regulate its own affairs. A general synod of bishops, preachers and lay people should serve this purpose. His address at Cambridge University made a great impression. Upon his return to New Zealand, four bishops were ordained, two for the North and two for the South Island.

The first general synod was held in 1859. Selwyn's establishment of the Anglican Church of New Zealand influenced both the development of the colonial church and the Church at home in England. In 1855 the New Zealand Wars stopped the spread of Christianity among the Māori . Selwyn was a critic of the New Zealand Company's unjust and ruthless land acquisition practices and was misunderstood by both the English and the Māori. He tried to give his Christian care to both warring parties.

Bishop of Lichfield

Monument to George Augustus Selwyn in Lichfield Cathedral

In 1867 Selwyn visited England again to attend the first Pan-Anglican Synod of the Lambeth Conference , an institution he had helped to create.

During his stay in England he was offered the bishopric in Lichfield after the death of John Lonsdale on October 19, 1867, which he accepted after much hesitation.

Selwyn was named 91st Bishop of Lichfield on January 9, 1868 . His successor as Primate of New Zealand was Henry Harper . Later that year he paid a farewell visit to New Zealand. He was episcopal in Lichfield until he died on April 11, 1878, at the age of 69 in Lichfield Bishops' Palace . He was buried in the cathedral grounds. William Dalrymple Maclagan was succeeded in office .

In 1878, Selwyn ordained another class of deacons, of whom John Roberts is venerated as a Saint of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America for his missionary work in the Bahamas and Wyoming.

Honors

The Selwyn College, Cambridge was built in his honor and founded by royal decree on September 13 1,882th

Other educational institutions that bear his name are Selwyn College in Dunedin (1893) and Selwyn College in Auckland (1956), furthermore houses of the Kings School in Auckland, Wellesley College in Wellington and the Wanganui Collegiate School .

A picture of the bishop painted by George Richmond is in St John's College , Cambridge.

The Selwyn River and the Selwyn settlement were named after him; after the river, the Selwyn District got its name.

Private life

Selwyn's wife Sarah Harriet

Selwyn had four brothers and four sisters:

  1. William Selwyn (1806-1875);
  2. Thomas Kynaston (1812-1834), author of Eton in 1829-1830: a diary of Boating and other Events, written in Greek. 1903;
  3. Charles Jasper Selwyn (1813–1869), lawyer and judge;
  4. Lætitia Frances (1807-1886);
  5. Frances Elizabeth (1815–1903), wife of George Peacock and later William Hepworth Thompson .

Another brother and two sisters died in childhood.

His great-uncle Major Charles Selwyn († 1749) was a companion of General Oglethorpe and an important patron of the Church in Jamaica in the early 18th century. His grandson George August Selwyn is buried at the Ascension Parish Burial Ground in Cambridge, he died in 1912 at the age of 16.

On June 25, 1839, at St Giles in the Fields Church in London, Selwyn married Sarah Harriet Richardson, the only daughter of the Court of Common Pleas Judge , John Richardson . With her he had two sons; William, benefactor of Hereford Cathedral and John Richardson Selwyn (1844–1898), Bishop of Melanesia . John Selwyn also rowed for Cambridge in the Boat Race , graduated in 1866 and became the second headmaster of Selwyn College after he had resigned from the post of Bishop of Melanesia due to illness. The Church of the Province of Melanesia honors this younger Bishop Selwyn on February 14th.

Works

  • Are Cathedral Institutions useless? A Practical Answer to this Question, addressed to WE Gladstone, Esq., MP, 1838.
  • Sermons preached chiefly in the Church of St John the Baptist, New Windsor. privately circulated, 1842.
  • Letters to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel from the Bishop of New Zealand, with extracts from his Visitation Journals. printed in the Church in the Colonies series, nos. 4, 7, 8, 12 and 20.
  • Verbal Analysis of the Holy Bible, intended to facilitate the Translation of the Holy Scriptures into Foreign Languages, 1855.

His estate from 1831 to 1872 is kept in the archives of Selwyn College, Cambridge.

literature

  • Frank W. Boreham: George Augustus Selwyn: Pioneer Bishop of New Zealand 1911.
  • George Herbert Curteis: Bishop Selwyn of Lichfield: A Sketch of His Life and Work 1889.
  • JH Evans: Churchman militant: George Augustus Selwyn, Bishop of New Zealand and Lichfield . Allen & Unwin, 1964, ISBN 0-04-922006-3 , p. 298.
  • Arthur R. Smith: William Charles Cotton MA, 1813-1879. Priest, Missionary and Bee Master . Countyvise, Wirral, England 2006, ISBN 1-901231-81-X .
  • Henry William Tucker: Memoir of the Life and Episcopate of George Augustus Selwyn: Bishop of New Zealand, 1841-1869; Bishop of Lichfield, 1867-1878. 2 volumes, William Wells Gardner, 1879.
  • CR Knight: The Selwyn churches of Auckland Reed, Wellington 1972.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Selwyn, George Alexander . In: John Archibald Venn (Ed.): Alumni Cantabrigienses . A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900. Part 2: From 1752 to 1900 , Volume 5 : Pace – Spyers . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1953, pp. 462 ( venn.lib.cam.ac.uk Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  2. ^ Walter Bradford Woodgate: Boating  - Internet Archive , 1888.
  3. ^ A b The Church Missionary Gleaner, February 1842 . In: Departure of the Bishop of New Zealand for his Diocese . Adam Matthew Digital. Retrieved on October 9, 2015. (only with registration).
  4. ↑ Smith, pp. 36-45.
  5. ^ The Church Missionary Gleaner, February 1843 . In: Testimony of the Bishop of New Zealand as to the Progress of the Gospel in that Country . Adam Matthew Digital. Retrieved October 12, 2015 (only with registration).
  6. ^ A b The Church Missionary Gleaner, August 1843 . In: New Zealand Mission — Extracts from Two Letters From the Bishop of New Zealand . Adam Matthew Digital. Retrieved October 12, 2015 (only with registration).
  7. ↑ Smith, pp. 56-65.
  8. ↑ Ruth Etherington: William Bambridge (1819–1879). In: Bambridge Family Tree. Darrin Lythgoe, 2009, archived from the original on July 25, 2011 ; accessed on April 12, 2018 (English).
  9. ↑ Smith, pp. 65-66.
  10. ^ The Church Missionary Gleaner, October 1843 . In: The Bishop of New Zealand's Account of the Observance of the Lord's Day in that Land . Adam Matthew Digital. Retrieved October 13, 2015 (only with registration).
  11. ↑ Smith, pp. 114-122.
  12. ↑ Smith, pp. 134-135.
  13. ^ Smith, p. 147.
  14. ↑ Lawrence M. Rogers: Te Wiremu: A Biography of Henry Williams . Pegasus Press, 1973.
  15. ^ Hugh Carleton: Appendix to Volume II . In: The Life of Henry Williams . University of Auckland Library, 1874.
  16. ↑ William Williams: The Turanga journals, 1840-1850 . F. Porter (Ed.) Wellington, 1974, p. 37.
  17. ↑ Selwyn, George Augustus. In: Encyclopedia of New Zealand.
  18. ↑ Anderson: Colonial Church. iii. Pp. 544-545.
  19. ↑ George Augustus Selwyn (1809-78), Bishop of New Zealand. Selwyn College, Cambridge, archived from the original on June 16, 2011 ; accessed on April 12, 2018 (English).
personal data
SURNAME Selwyn, George Augustus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION first Anglican Bishop of New Zealand and Bishop of Lichfield
DATE OF BIRTH April 5, 1809
PLACE OF BIRTH Hampstead , London
DATE OF DEATH April 11, 1878
Place of death Lichfield