30 Facts About Samuel Marsden

Samuel Marsden was an English-born priest of the Church of England in Australia and a prominent member of the Church Missionary Society.

Samuel Marsden played a leading role in bringing Christianity to New Zealand.

Samuel Marsden abandoned his degree studies to respond to the call of the evangelical leader Charles Simeon for service in overseas missions.

Samuel Marsden travelled as a passenger on the convict ship, William to Australia, his first child Anne being born en route.

In 1800 Samuel Marsden succeeded Johnson and became the senior Church of England chaplain in New South Wales; he would keep this post until his death.

Samuel Marsden was given grants of land by the colonial government and bought more of his own, which were worked with convict labour, a common practice in Australia at the time.

Samuel Marsden concentrated on the development of strong heavy-framed sheep such as the Suffolk sheep breed, which had a more immediate value in the colony than the fine-fleeced Spanish merinos imported by John Macarthur.

Samuel Marsden was an important promoter of the wool staple, even though his contribution to technology, breeding and marketing was far eclipsed by that of Macarthur.

Samuel Marsden is believed to have later introduced sheep to New Zealand, where he would develop a somewhat gentler reputation than in Australia.

Samuel Marsden was held to be involved in this secret action by the authorities.

Some have written that Samuel Marsden ordered such treatment but Holt's memoirs do not explicitly link Samuel Marsden to the floggings at Toongabbie on that day.

Holt believed that Samuel Marsden tried to intimate to Holt that his wife and children were free, but he was not.

In 1822, Samuel Marsden was dismissed from his civil post as a Parramatta magistrate on charges of exceeding his jurisdiction.

Samuel Marsden cared for them on his farm, providing accommodation, food, drink, work and an education for up to three years.

Samuel Marsden gave one Maori chief some land on which he could grow his own crops and taught other Maori to read and write English.

Samuel Marsden learnt Maori, beginning an English-Maori translation sheet of common words and expressions.

Samuel Marsden was a member of the Church Missionary Society and remained formally based in New South Wales, but developed an interest in evangelising New Zealand from the early 1800s onwards.

Samuel Marsden was concerned that they were corrupting the Maori way of life, and lobbied the Church Missionary Society to send a mission to New Zealand.

At a meeting in the Colony of New South Wales, held at Sydney, on 20 December 1813, Samuel Marsden formed the "New South Wales Society for affording Protection to the Natives of the South Sea Islands, and promoting their Civilization, for the protection of South Sea Islanders who may be brought to Port Jackson", and to defend their claims on the masters and owners of the vessels who mistreat those islanders.

Samuel Marsden met Maori rangatira from the Ngapuhi iwi, who controlled the region around the Bay of Islands, including the chief Ruatara who had lived with him in Australia, and a noted war leader, Hongi Hika, who had helped pioneer the introduction of the musket to Maori warfare in the previous decade.

The service from the Church of England Book of Common Prayer was read in English but it is likely that, having learnt the language from Ruatara, Samuel Marsden preached his sermon in the Maori language.

On 24 February 1815 Samuel Marsden purchased land at Rangihoua for the first Christian mission in New Zealand.

Samuel Marsden was in the Bay of Islands in May 1820 when HMS Coromandel, under the command of Captain James Downie, arrived at the Bay of Islands from England for the purpose of procuring a cargo of timber in the Firth of Thames.

When Coromandel sailed for the Thames a few days later, Samuel Marsden accompanied them on their voyage.

Samuel Marsden, who knew of Kendall's romantic affair, returned to New Zealand in August 1823 to sack him in person.

Samuel Marsden is generally remembered favourably in New Zealand, which he visited seven times.

In 1819, Samuel Marsden introduced winegrowing to New Zealand with the planting of over 100 different varieties of vine in Kerikeri, Northland.

Samuel Marsden was on a visit to the Reverend Henry Stiles at St Matthew's Church at Windsor, New South Wales when he succumbed to an incipient chill and died at the rectory on 12 May 1838.

Samuel Marsden is buried in the cemetery near his old church at Parramatta, St John's.

New Zealand reggae band 1814 took their name from the year that Samuel Marsden held the first sermon in the Bay of Islands.