Samuel Marsden (25 June 1765 – 12 May 1838) was an English-born priest of the Church of England in Australia and a prominent member of the Church Missionary Society. He played a leading role in cross-cultural interchange with Māori people and bringing Christianity to New Zealand. Marsden was a prominent figure in early New South Wales, partly through his role as the colony's senior Anglican cleric and as a pioneer of the Australian wool industry. He is also remembered for his harsh punishments meted out as a magistrate at Parramatta, his bigoted social views and his self-serving financial dealings, all of which attracted contemporary criticism.
Born in Farsley, near Pudsey, Yorkshire in England as the son of a Wesleyan blacksmith turned farmer, Marsden attended the village school and spent some years assisting his father on the farm. In his early twenties his reputation as a lay preacher drew the attention of the evangelical Elland Society, which sought to train poor men for the ministry of the Church of England. With a scholarship from the Elland Society Marsden attended Hull Grammar School, where he became associated with Joseph Milner and the reformist William Wilberforce, and after two years, he matriculated, at the age of 25, at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He abandoned his degree studies to respond to the call of the evangelical leader Charles Simeon for service in overseas missions. Marsden was offered the position of second chaplain to the Reverend Richard Johnson's ministry to the Colony of New South Wales on 1 January 1793.
Marsden married Elizabeth Fristan at Holy Trinity, Hull on 21 April 1793. The following month William Buller, the Bishop of Exeter, ordained him as a priest.
Rapid rise in power and wealth
Marsden travelled as a passenger on the convict ship, William to New South Wales, his first child Anne being born en route. He arrived in the colony on 10 March 1794, and the Lieutenant-Governor, Francis Grose gave him the position of assistant chaplain at Parramatta, 15 miles (24 km) inland from the main Port Jackson settlement. Marsden was advised to be "submissive and corteous" to the military government of the New South Wales Corps, and was quickly rewarded by Grose with a 100-acre land grant at Marsfield, supplemented with free convict labourers.
However, Marsden took issue with the extortion and the alcohol-driven economy of the officers, and in 1795 sided with the newly appointed Governor John Hunter to attempt to reform the system. In return, Hunter gave Marsden significant political and social power by naming him as the magistrate for Parramatta and also giving him a further land grant of 374 acres.
Marsden, receiving dual salaries as both a chaplain and magistrate as well as deriving an income from the produce of his landholdings, further built upon his wealth in 1797 by purchasing some of the first flock of valuable merino sheep imported into the colony. He also established a business partnership with the merchant Robert Campbell, one of the most prominent export traders operating in Sydney.
By 1802, Marsden owned six properties totalling 619 acres, including several houses and twelve convict servants. He had succeeded Richard Johnson as the senior Church of England chaplain in New South Wales and retained his position as magistrate at Parramatta, making him one of the wealthiest and most influential identities in the colony. By 1806 his landholdings rose to 3,000 acres (12 km2), which started criticisms against Marsden for his financial self-interest taking precedence over his religious role.
In the early 1800s, there was a large increase in the proportion of Irish Catholic convicts being sent to New South Wales. Marsden was a staunch Anglican and Tory with an "inveterate hostility" toward Catholics and the Irish. In his role as magistrate, he became known as the "Flogging Parson", with the historical record showing he handed down severe punishments (notably extended floggings), even by the standards of his day on the accused. The Australian historian, Robert Hughes in his book, The Fatal Shore, describes Marsden as, "a grasping Evangelical missionary with heavy shoulders and the face of a petulant ox". Hughes declares that Marsden's "hatred for the Irish Catholic convicts knew no bounds".
In 1800, ten Irish prisoners were interrogated and tortured after rumours surfaced of an Irish plot for insurrection in New South Wales. Marsden was one of several magistrates who ordered 100 to 500 lashes to be given as a means to extort information. Marsden himself described his interrogation of Paddy Galvin to Governor Philip Gidley King:
"Mr Atkins and I ordered him to be punished very severely in hopes of making him inform...punished on his back and also his bottom when he could receive no more on his back. Galvin was just in the same mood when taken to the Hospital as when he was tied up... I am sure he will die before he will reveal anything"
Joseph Holt, who was transported to Sydney for his role in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, also gave a vivid account in his memoirs of the interrogation of Irish convicts. He related: "I have witnessed many horrible scenes; but this was the most appalling sight I had ever seen...the blood, skin, and flesh blew in my face" as floggers "shook it off from their cats" [referring to the cat-of-nine-tails scourging lash]...The next prisoner who was tied up was Paddy Galvin, a young lad about twenty years of age; he was also sentenced to receive three hundred lashes. The first hundred were given on his shoulders, and he was cut to the bone between the shoulder-blades, which were both bare. The doctor then directed the next hundred to be inflicted lower down, which reduced his flesh to such a jelly that the doctor ordered him to have the remaining hundred on the calves of his legs"
Marsden's attitudes to Irish Roman Catholic convicts were illustrated in a memorandum which he sent to his church superiors during his time at Parramatta:
"The number of Catholic Convicts is very great... and these in general composed of the lowest class of the Irish nation; who are the most wild, ignorant and savage Race that were ever favoured with the light of Civilization...Their minds being Destitute of every Principle of Religion & Morality render them capable of perpetrating the most nefarious Acts in cool Blood...No Confidence whatever can be placed in them"
Despite Marsden's opposition to Catholicism being practised in Australia, Governor King permitted monthly Catholic masses in Sydney from May 1803 under police surveillance. When the Irish convicts actually organised a brief rebellion in 1804 at Castle Hill, Marsden fled Parramatta with the loyalist women and children to the safer location of Sydney until the uprising was over.
Involvement in the orphanage and the Female Factory
Marsden was an active leader in the creation of the first orphanage for girls in the colony, which opened in 1801. His altruism, however, was tempered by a strong dislike of any criticism of the institution. When a member of the public voiced an opinion that one of orphans was of scandalous reputation, Marsden sentenced that person to 100 lashes.
Marsden was also the originator of the New South Wales Female Register which classed all women in the colony as either "married" or "concubine". Only marriages within the Church of England were recognised as legitimate on this list; women who married in Roman Catholic or Jewish ceremonies were automatically classed as concubines.