Samuel Marsden

Samuel Marsden

Samuel Marsden (born June 25, 1765 in Farsley , Yorkshire , England , † May 12, 1838 in Windsor , New South Wales , Australia ) was an Anglican clergyman , rancher in New South Wales , as a missionary of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in New Active in South Wales and New Zealand and founder of the first Christian mission in New Zealand.

Live and act

England

Samuel Marsden was born on June 25, 1765 in Farsley , Yorkshire . His father, Thomas Marsden , was a blacksmith and operated a. a. a small farm in Farslay . Marsden , who was brought up religiously, attended the village school and then learned the blacksmith's trade from his father. During this time he made himself known as a lay preacher in the district. He came into contact with the Elland Society , an evangelical group in the Church of England that provided education for underdeveloped youth. At the age of 24 Marsden attended the Hull Grammar School in Kingston-on-Hull and came into contact with William Wilberforce , abolitionist and later British MP.

Admitted to the Elland Society , Marsden began studying at the college on December 7, 1790 with financial support from Magdalene College . On January 1, 1793, before completing his studies, he accepted the appointment of the Royal Commission to serve as the second clergyman to the Reverend Richard Johnson in the British colony of New South Wales (NSW). Marsden was called a deacon in Bristol on March 17, 1793 , married his wife Elisabeth , née Fristan , a month later on April 21, was appointed a priest in May, and on July 1, 1793 with his wife on a convict ship in Sail towards New South Wales . Marsden's daughter Anne was born on the journey . The marriage later resulted in a son, Charles Marsden , who took over the property on South Creek in St. Marys (today: suburb of Sydney) after the death of his father , and the daughters Mary and Martha . In March 1794 they reached Port Jackson , Sydney Harbor , and Marsden took over his assigned priesthood in the Parramatta Ward . In 1796 he opened a church there and in 1801 an orphanage.

New South Wales

In 1796 Marsden was appointed magistrate, a kind of lay judge, by NSW Governor John Hunter . In accordance with his relentless severity and disciplinary measures, he was called " Flogging Parson " (as a flogging pastor). His behavior eventually led to public reprimand and suspension from office by Governor Lachlan Macquarie in 1818 and later disciplined by Governor Ralph Darling for his unduly harsh treatment of convicts.

Marsden began buying land in 1802, and although he had no experience, tried his hand at raising sheep. In three years he had more than doubled his number of sheep to over 1000 and 100 pigs and 44 cows rounded off his livestock. In the years 1803-1805 he made various reports on the prospects of sheep breeding and wool production in the colony and forwarded them to the governor Philip Gidley King and the naturalist Sir Joseph Banks in London.

Marsden had already made a name for himself with his successful breeding in NSW and beyond, and when he traveled to England in 1807, he impressed King George III. with items of clothing made from the wool he had brought with him. Merino sheep were the king's thanks to honor his achievements. Years later, Marsden managed to deliver quality wool to England with his sheep population and thus became an important promoter of the wool trade between the colony and the mother country.

In England from 1807 to 1809 , Marsden was busy drawing the attention of church leaders to what he believed to be a lack of a religious class in New South Wales . So he was able to convince the Church Missionary Society and get additional priests for the colony. In England he also prepared the ground for a mission project in New Zealand , which the Church Missionary Society wanted to support benevolently. After the frustration in proselytizing convicts and the equally unsuccessful proselytizing of Aborigines , Marsden promised more success with the Māori of New Zealand, he said to them in his opinion: "but more intelligence, mental capacities and a natural tendency towards moral and hardworking behavior to be able to internalize and thus be open to the introduction of the Gospel ".

But his plan was thwarted after his return to NSW in 1809 by the news of a massacre of the crew of the whaling ship Boyd in the Bay of Islands by the Māori . It was not until 1814 that supporters for a mission project in New Zealand were found again.

New Zealand

On March 14th, Marsden sent his London recruited missionaries Thomas Kendall and Willam Hall to New Zealand to investigate opportunities and conditions for a missionary project. Both came on August 22, accompanied by the Māori - Chiefs Hongi Hika , Ruatara , Korokoro and Tui , back to Sydney . After the Chiefs on proselytizing and trade in Marsden had reached agreement broke Marsden on 28 November 1814, accompanied by Thomas Kendall , Willam Hall , John King and Māori - Chiefs to his first of seven trips to New Zealand and sailed with the Brig active towards the Bay of Islands , the place which was well documented by James Cook and by reports of whalers and which seemed most suitable to him. They reached the bay on December 23, 1814 and Marsden celebrated his first Christian mass a day later. On February 24, 1815, he bought a piece of land in Rangihoua and founded the Te Waimate Mission, the first mission station in New Zealand. Marsden made New Zealand his most important project from now on, visiting the North Island repeatedly in 1819, 1820, 1823, 1827 and 1830. His seventh trip in 1837 would be his last. He died a year later on May 12, 1838 in Windsor , New South Wales, and was buried in the parish cemetery in Parramatta .

Publications

• An answer to certain calumnies in the late Governor Macquarie's pamphlet: and the third edition of Mr. Wentworth's Account of Australasia . J. Hatchard and Son, Piccadilly , London 1826 (English, online [accessed January 31, 2011]).
• Robert Howe (Ed.): Statement, including a correspondence between the Commissioners of the Court of Inquiry, and the Rev. Samuel Marsden, relative to a charge of illegal punishment preferred against Doctor Douglass . London 1828 (English, statement made in Parramatta in July 1825 at the request of Lord Bathurst in connection with the Bill of Indemnity.).
• Coulls Somerville Wilkie Ltd and AH Reed for the Otago University Council (eds.): The letters and journals of Samuel Marsden, 1765-1838, senior chaplain in the colony of New South Wales and Superintendent of the Mission of the Church Missionary Society in New Zealand / edited by John Rawson Elder . Dunedin 1932 ( online [accessed January 28, 2011]).

literature

• Keith Robert Binney : Horsemen of the First Frontier (1788-1900) and The Serpents Legacy . Volcanic Productions , Sydney 2005, ISBN 0-646-44865-X , pp. 58-64 (English).
• AT Yarwood : Marsden, Samuel (1765-1838) . In: Australian Dictionary of Biography . Volume 2. Melbourne University Press , 1976, ISSN  1833-7538 , pp. 207-212 ( online [accessed January 28, 2011]).
• John Rawson Elder : The Letters and Journals of Samuel Marsden . Ed .: John Rawson Elder . Coulls Somerville Wilkie Ltd. and AH Reed for the Otago University Council , Dunedin 1932 (English, online [accessed January 28, 2011]).
• John Buxton Marsden : Life and Work of Samuel Marsden . Ed .: James Drummond . Whitcombe and Tombs Limited , Christchurch 1913 ( online [accessed January 28, 2011]).
• John L. Nicholas: Travel to and in New Zealand.  in the German Digital Library , Verlag des Landes-Industrie-Comptoirs, Weimar 1819 (with digitized version, comprehensive contemporary description of his work)

Web links

• Charles Andrew Sharp : Marsden, Samuel . Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand , accessed January 28, 2011 . 

Individual evidence

1. ^ Keith Robert Binney : Horsemen of the First Frontier (1788-1900) . 2005, p.  58 ff .
2. ^ Victor S. Barnes, Lyall J. Moore, Ann Oxenham : The Modern Encyclopedia of Australia and New Zealand . Horwitz-Grahame , Sydney 1964 (English).
3. ↑ ^{a b c} A. T. Yarwood : Marsden, Samuel (1765-1838) . Australian Dictionary of Biography , accessed January 31, 2011 .  

Remarks

1. ↑ Samuel Marsden's date of birth becomes with
   • June 24, 1765 from AT Yarwood, Australian Dictionary of Biography ,
   • June 25, 1765 by Charles Andrew Sharp, Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand ,
   • June 25, 1765 by John Rawson Elder, Life and Work of Samuel Marsden 1765-1838
   • July 28, 1764 in Dictionary of Australian Biography ,
   • July 28, 1764 by John Buxton Marsden, Life and Work of Samuel Marsden ,
   specified. John Rawson Elder , in his book, The Letters and Journals of Samuel Marsden, is the only one to state that Marsden sent a letter to Dandeson Coates , a secretary of the Church Missionary Society , on June 25, 1835, saying , " I am seventy years old this day. "( I am 70 years old that day ). His baptism was in Calverley Parish Church on July 21, 1865. This means that June 25, 1765 can be assumed to be probable.
2. ↑ There are also different details about Marsden's place of birth. Most Australian and New Zealand sources give Farsley as the place of birth (see e.g. Australian Dictionary of Biography: Marsden, Samuel .). In British sources, however, the place Horsforth , which is only a few kilometers northeast of Farsley , is mentioned more frequently (see e.g. Samuel Marsden, Apostle of New Zealand .). There is currently no clear evidence for one or the other location. In this article Farsley is to be assumed for the time being , since he is mentioned more often in the various sources.