MARSDEN, SAMUEL (1765-1838) was born at Farsley, Yorkshire. His father was a blacksmith and small farmer of undistinguished birth, a good living man and a Wesleyan Methodist. Samuel went to the village school and then to the free Grammar School at Hull, but left early to enter the shop of an uncle at Horsforth, near Leeds. Showing a disposition to enter the Church, he was adopted by the Elland Clerical Society and placed at Magdalene Hall, Cambridge (1790). There he became a friend of Charles Simeon, one of the founders of the Church Missionary Society.

A diligent, unassuming student, he attracted the attention of William Wilberforce, through whose influence he was offered in 1792, before being ordained, a chaplaincy in the convict colony of New South Wales, where Wilberforce was most anxious to have a good type of man. Marsden hesitated to accept, but his firmness of principle, intrepidity of spirit and strong judgment had so impressed his friends that he was prevailed upon, and in 1793 he was appointed second chaplain. Having been ordained in the meantime, and married at Hull to Elizabeth Fristan (1772-1835), he proceeded to London and joined the convict ship William (1 Jul 1793). On the voyage out Marsden had his first insight into the rough characters of the convicts and of the ship's company. Arriving in Port Jackson on 10 Mar 1794, he took up his abode with his wife in the barracks at Parramatta. Shortly afterwards, owing to the resignation of the senior chaplain, Marsden assumed that post. To his regret, he was prevailed upon to accept also the position of a magistrate of the colony. This not only required him to inflict punishment upon evildoers, which he did reluctantly, but it also brought him into conflict with leading citizens and with fellow magistrates of doubtful antecedents (with whom he occasionally refused to sit). Besides interesting himself in the moral welfare of the colony, which he found in a shocking state, Marsden took up the hundred acres of land allotted to each civil servant, and before long he had established a farm which became a model for convicts and free settlers. By this means the Colony became less dependent than it had been upon food supplies imported from England.

While chaplain in New South Wales, Marsden took a keen interest in the South Sea missions of the London Missionary Society. Though his work in New Zealand was carried out under the auspices of the Church Missionary Society, he remained for many years the adviser of the London Society. In 1808 he sailed on furlough to England, taking samples of his own wool to be made into cloth, and proposals for the reform of the convict system in the Colony. He persuaded the Home Government to introduce manual training for the convicts and to allow a certain number of their wives to accompany them overseas. He also obtained concessions for female convicts in the Colony, whose working and living conditions were degrading in the extreme. During an interview with George III he was promised two merino sheep from the royal flocks. When he returned to New South Wales in 1810, Marsden took with him not only a library for the use of convicts and settlers, but several tradesmen to instruct the convicts; and a number of farm animals-horses, cattle, sheep and poultry-to improve the livestock of the Colony.

He had, moreover, persuaded the new Church Missionary Society to take an interest in the natives of New Zealand, and believing that the arts of civilisation should go hand in hand with the Gospel, he got two laymen, William Hall and John King, designated by the Society to open a mission in New Zealand. In the same ship, the Ann, by which he returned to Australia, Marsden discovered and befriended a young Maori of good birth, Ruatara, who had been deceived and cheated by English shipmasters on his visit to England. Ruatara learned some agriculture while staying at Parramatta and when some months later he returned to his native land he took with him a quantity of seed wheat, with full instructions as to sowing. Having purchased on his own responsibility the brig Active, for the benefit of the mission service in New Zealand, Marsden wished to proceed in her to install Hall and King as the nucleus of the mission, for which Ruatara's influence at Bay of Islands had prepared the ground. Being refused the requisite leave of absence to go himself, he sent the Active in 1814, with Hall and Kendall (q.v., who had been sent out from England to supplement the mission). They returned to the Colony bringing a number of Maori chiefs to stay at Parramatta. Governor Macquarie then gave Marsden full permission to proceed to New Zealand to establish the mission. It had become clear to him that steps must soon be taken to regulate the intercourse between the Maori and residents of New South Wales and to protect the natives against lawless whites. Marsden sailed from Port Jackson on 19 Nov 1814, with a party of 36, including Kendall, Hall and King, the chiefs Hongi, Ruatara, Korokoro and Tui, a smith and two sawyers. After touching at North Cape to communicate with the natives, and spending a night at Whangaroa to settle a long-standing feud between the Whangaroa and Bay of Islands tribes, Marsden proceeded to Bay of Islands, where the Active anchored on 23 Dec, not far from a village belonging to Ruatara. The landing of a horse struck the natives with amazement.

At 10 o'clock on Christmas morning, Marsden held the first Christian service in New Zealand, a great crowd of natives attending, with all the principal chiefs. Preaching from the text 'Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy' (St Luke ii, 10), Marsden was attentively listened to, though his hearers did not understand what he said. He showed his fearless and trusting character by allowing 28 chiefs, fully armed, to accompany him in the Active on a cruise to various ports. At Bay of Islands he purchased one hundred acres of land for the purposes of the mission, and then returned to Sydney, taking 10 chiefs with him. A few days after his departure the chief Ruatara died. At the instigation of Marsden the chiefs Tuhi and Titore were sent to England in H.M.S. Kangaroo, were well treated while there, and kept as fully employed as possible learning useful arts, and helping in the compilation of a Maori dictionary. When they returned Marsden accompanied them back to New Zealand in 1819, and took advantage of the visit to select a site for a mission station at Kerikeri, in Hongi's territory. On the earnest entreaty of Tuhi he promised that another would shortly be established in the territory of the disappointed Korokoro, at Whangaroa. Undaunted by the hostilities of the warring tribes, Marsden during his three months' stay in New Zealand on this occasion journeyed more than 700 miles, visiting many disputants and prevailing upon them to abandon their expeditions.

At the request of the Admiralty he visited New Zealand again in the following year in H.M.S. Dromedary, to inquire into the use of New Zealand timber for spars. They were anxious years for the new mission. The return of Hongi from England, elated with his experiences and flushed with the possession of firearms, disturbed the relations of all the northern tribes, revived the bloody wars of earlier days, and encouraged the natives to treat the whites with contempt. On a visit in 1823, Marsden had to dismiss a missionary for trading in arms, but he took with him a pillar of strength for the New Zealand field, the Rev Henry Williams, with his wife and family. The hope that he had entertained of seeing the Maori tribes organised as a political unit was frustrated by the ambitions of Hongi, who aimed at the supreme kingship.

On Marsden's fifth visit, in 1827, the outlook was still gloomy in the extreme. The Wesleyan mission at Whangaroa having been destroyed, the Rev Mr Turner sought refuge at Parramatta. Marsden hurried across in H.M.S. Rainbow to prevent the abandonment of his mission, which he found happily surviving the storm. The strong personality of Williams was equal to the occasion. On his seventh and last visit (1837) Marsden landed at Hokianga (with his youngest daughter) and crossed to Bay of Islands, where he joined H.M.S. Rattlesnake for a cruise round the coast as the guest of Captain Hobson. He believed that the early inauguration of British sovereignty in New Zealand was inevitable.

Though his main interest in later life was the New Zealand mission, Marsden continued to be the trusted adviser of the London Missionary Society in regard to its establishments in the Pacific islands. On his return from England in 1810 he found at Parramatta the disheartened missionaries who had fled from Tahiti, and encouraged them to return-as they eventually did-and to persevere in that field. He even proposed going himself to the Friendly Islands if necessary. It was not necessary, and he had the satisfaction of seeing the island missions one after another firmly established. He assisted generously missions of all denominations and made himself personally responsible for considerable sums of money on their behalf.

From the time of his first arrival in New South Wales Marsden frequently came into conflict with his fellow officials on account of his strenuous efforts to improve the condition of the convict population. The training farm attached to his parsonage at Parramatta developed into an important institution in connection with the manual training of Australian blacks, convicts and Maori visitors. Orphan schools were established on his urgent advocacy. His efforts to reform the living and working conditions of female convict workers in the cloth factory brought him into a bitter controversy. He was removed for a while from the magistracy, but completely vindicated in the report of the Bigge commission.

On the establishment of a bishopric in New South Wales, Marsden ceased to be the senior chaplain of the Colony, a respite from administrative cares which he welcomed with advancing years. Mrs Marsden had died in 1835, and his own health declined rapidly after his last visit to New Zealand. He died on 12 May 1838. Marsden was a man of great energy, decision and honesty of purpose; pious, but endowed with a keen knowledge of the world and men. Single-minded to a degree, he had his main interest in later life in the missions to the different branches of the Polynesian race; but he never relaxed his advocacy of measures of reform in the sordid conditions of life in New South Wales.

J. R. Elder, Letters and Journals of Samuel Marsden, 1932 (p), and Marsden's Lieutenants, 1934

Carleton; Hist. Rec. Aust.; McNab, Murihiku

Marsden MSS. in Hocken and Turnbull Libraries

Ramsden; Scholefield, Hobson; Buller; Smith, Wars; Stak.

Reference: Volume 2, page 31

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