Reverend Samuel Marsden of Parramatta

Reverend Samuel Marsden was one of the founding fathers of Australia and there are many published accounts of his life and work. The following is reprinted (with acknowledgements) from the Dictionary of National Biography. It should be noted that this presents a very positively biased picture of a man who acquired the nickname "The Flogging Parson" as the result of the severe punishments which he handed out in his role as magistrate to the penal colony. A more balanced view may be found in "The Fatal Shore" by Robert Hughes or the more extensive biography "Marsden of Parramatta" by A. T. Yarwood.

Samuel Marsden (1764-1838), apostle of New Zealand, son of a tradesman, was born at Horsforth, a village near Leeds, on 28 July 1764 [He was actually born at Farsley - JBM]. He was educated at Hull Grammar School, and then entered his father's business. Being a lad of good character, he was adopted by the Elland Society and on 7 Dec 1790 was admitted scholar of Magdalene College, Cambridge. At the University, he won the friendship of the Rev. Charles Simeon. Before his university education was completed he was ordained, and by a royal commission, dated 1 Jan 1793, appointed second chaplain in New South Wales. He arrived in the colony on 2 Mar 1794, and took up his residence at Parramatta, where and at Sydney and Hawkesbury, he had charge of the religious instruction of the convicts. In 1807 he returned to England to report on the state of the colony to the government, and to solicit further assistance of clergy and schoolmasters. While in London he obtained an audience of George III, who presented him with five Spanish sheep from his own flock, and these sheep became the progenitors of extensive flocks of fine-woolled sheep in Australia.

On his return to New South Wales in 1809 he turned his attention to the state of New Zealand and finding he could not persuade the Church Missionary Society to do much for him, he at last, in 1814, at his own risk, purchased the brig Active, in which he sent two missionaries to those islands. On 19 Nov Marsden accompanied by six New Zealand chiefs who had been staying with him at Parramatta, made his first voyage to New Zealand. He was received with cordiality by the natives and found no difficulty in procuring land for a mission-station. This was the first of seven voyages which he made to New Zealand between 1814 and 1837. No one ever exerted more influence over the native chiefs than himself and he must be regarded as one of the most important of the settlers and civilisers of the country.

As a chaplain in New South Wales he endeavoured, with some success, to improve the standard of morals and manners. He established orphan schools and female penitentiaries and made Parramatta a model parish. Unfortunately the governors did not always give him assistance or help and in 1817 he had to bring an action for defamation of character against the governor's secretary for an article he published in the "Government Gazette". In 1820 a commission was sent out from England to investigate the state of the colony and to enquire into Marsden's conduct, but the charges against him were in no instance substantiated. At Parramatta he set up a seminary for the education of New Zealanders, but this was given up in 1821. His salary as chaplain was raised to £400 a year in 1825; later on, when Sydney was erected into a bishopric in 1836, he became minister of Parramatta parish. He paid a last visit to the Maoris, in his usual capacity of peace-maker, in 1837. He died at the parsonage, Windsor, on 12 May 1838, and was buried at Parramatta, where some Maoris subscribed a marble tablet to his memory (TAYLOR, New Zealand, p 601). On 21 Apr 1793 he married miss Ellen Tristan [this is an error for Fristan - JBM]. She died at Parramatta in 1835.

Marsden published: 1. "An Answer to certain Calumnies in Governor Macquarie's Pamphlet and the third edition of Mr. Wentworth's "Account of Australia"", 1826. 2 "Statement including a Correspondence between the Commissioners of the Court of Enquiry and S. Marsden relative to a Charge of Illegal Punishment preferred against Doctor Douglass", 1828.

[Nicholas's Narrative of a voyage to New Zealand, performed in the years 1814 and 1815, in company with the Rev. S. Marsden, 2 vols, 1817; A Short Account of the Character and Labours of the Rev. S. Marsden, Parramatta, 1844; J. B. Marsden's Memoirs of S. Marsden, 1859, with portrait; Rusden's Hist. of New Zealand, I. 102, 152; Bonwick's Romance of the Wool Trade, 1887, pp 82-6]

Modified 6 March 2009