SAMUEL LEIGH IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

Glen O’Brien

An address given at The Stream Theological Symposium,East City Wesleyan Church, Auckland, New Zealand, 8

August 2015

Introduction

10 August 2015 marks the bicentenary of the arrival toAustralasia, at the age of twenty-nine, of the firstWesleyan Methodist missionary, the Rev. Samuel Leigh(1785-1852). Australian and New Zealand Methodism arelinked by Leigh as he was the first Wesleyan missionaryto arrive in both places. He visited Samuel Marsden’smission at the Bay of Islands in 1819 and then, in 1822established the first Wesleyan mission, Wesleydale inWhangaroa, among the Maori accused of the Boyd massacrein December 1809. Leigh belonged to a period whenMethodism had close ties to the Church of England, andthe fact that he was ‘not radically a Dissenter’ was onecause of conflict with his fellow missionaries. The waveof the future for nineteenth-century Methodism would beas a strong, independent, body of Dissenters. Thislecture will examine Leigh’s relationships with his co-workers and argue that, as a man who belonged morenaturally to an earlier period of Methodist development,he may be remembered as a pioneer, but not as a builder,of Methodism in Australia and New Zealand.

Samuel Leigh arrived in New South Wales. on 10 August1815 in response to a request from class meetings led byJohn Hosking and Edward Eagar, to begin what would turnout to be a gruelling ministry with little earthlyreward.1 Born in Milton, Staffordshire, Leigh was first a

1 Early correspondence with the Methodist Missionary Society in London, Minutes, and Leigh’s journal are available on microfilm, Methodist Missionary Society Archives, London (IDC Microform Publishers, 1991), H-2720 – H-2721. Much valuable early correspondence is also available on microfilm in the Missionary Papers of the Bonwick Transcripts in the Mitchell Reading Room at the

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lay preacher with the Independent Church at Hanley.Finding the Calvinism in those circles distasteful hejoined the Wesleyans at Portsmouth and was soon appointedto the Shaftesbury Circuit. Following a missionary callhe was preparing to remove to Montreal, Canada when theWesleyan Missionary Committee decided he should insteadbe appointed to NSW. Like most early nineteenth centuryMethodist preachers, Leigh had very limited education.His manuscripts from his days at Dr. David Bogue’sCongregational Seminary at Gosport show little by way ofadvanced intellect.2 What he lacked in native intelligencehe made up for in a strict application of Methodistpolity, a vigorous approach to discipline that led tosome loss of members soon after his arrival.3

Leigh’s work cannot be described as a resounding successbut he did establish the requisite Methodist disciplinethat provided a foundation for subsequent growth,something the earlier lay preachers had not been able todo. Birtwhistle rather optimistically sees the home

State Library of NSW, though these should be approached with some degree of caution as the original correspondence has been corrupted. The basic facts about Leigh and early Methodism in NSW are well covered in the secondary literature. See Glen O’Brien, ‘Methodism in the Australian Colonies, 1811-1855,’ in Glen O’Brien and Hilary Cary,eds. Methodism in Australia: A History (Farnham, Surrey and Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate, 2015), 15-27; Don Wright and Eric G. Clancy. The Methodists: A History of Methodism in New South Wales (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1993), 3-32; Lengthy quotations from the primary sources are available in Gloster S. Udy, Spark of Grace: The Story of the Methodist Church in Parramatta and the Surrounding Region (Parramatta: Epworth Press, 1977). This paper draws extensively on, ‘“Not Radically a Dissenter”: SamuelLeigh in the Colony of New South Wales,’ Wesley and Methodist Studies 4 (2012): 51-69.2 J.M.R. Owens, ‘The Wesleyan Missionaries to New Zealand before 1840,’ Journal of Religious History 7:4 (Dec 1973), 326. Details on Bogue’s seminary can be found in W. N. Gunson, ‘Evangelical Missionaries in the South Seas, 1797-1860,’ PhD thesis, Australian National University, 1959, 60-62. 3 J. D. Bollen, ‘A Time of Small Things: The Methodist Mission in NewSouth Wales, 1815-1836,’ Journal of Religious History 7:3 (June 1973), 234. Leigh was determined to establish and maintain ‘every part of the discipline of Methodism’ believing it to be ‘God’s discipline.’ Leighto Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society Committee [hereinafter referred to as WMMS, December 1817 [the day does not appear on the original], Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 2:306, Box 50.

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Church’s appointment of Leigh in response to the need inNSW as a ‘splendid appointment.’ He is said to haveencountered only ‘initial difficulties with the Governor’and to have ‘laid the foundations of what became thegreat Methodist Church in Australia.’4 This lecture willshow that Leigh’s ‘difficulties’ with Lachlan Macquariewere the least of his problems.

I. Leigh and Governor Lachlan Macquarie

Leigh received a less than enthusiastic welcome from laypreacher, and converted ex-convict, Edward Eagar. WhenLeigh introduced himself as a Wesleyan missionary, Eagarreplied, ‘Indeed! I am sorry to inform you that it is nowdoubtful whether the Governor will allow you to remain inthe country in that capacity.’5 Staying overnight in theEagar household, Leigh felt so despondent that he retiredto his room after supper, overwhelmed by the uncertaintyof his prospects. The next day he presented himself toGovernor Lachlan Macquarie, accompanied by Eagar, and itseemed that the latter’s fears were not unfounded, whenthe Governor informed Leigh, ‘I regret you have come hereas a missionary, and feel sorry, and cannot give you anyencouragement in that capacity.’6 The Governor informedLeigh that he had ‘missed his way’ by not presentingproper letters of introduction from British governmentofficials. The authorization papers Leigh had broughtwith him were of no use in this ‘strange country’ towhich he had come. Cautious about sectarian conflictserupting in the colony, Macquarie referred to a recentrebellion ‘aggravated by the bitter hostility of bothpapists and Protestants,’7 perhaps a reference to theIrish convict rebellion at Castle Hill in March 1804. ‘Ihad rather you had come from any other Society than theMethodist. I profess to be a member of the Church ofEngland and wish all to be of the same profession andtherefore cannot encourage any parties.’ Leigh then4 Birtwhistle, ‘Methodist Missions,’ 37. 5 Alexander Strachan, Remarkable Incidents in the Life of the Rev. Samuel Leigh: Missionary to the Settlers and Savages of Australia and New Zealand with a Succinct History of the Origin and Progress of the Missions in those Colonies (London, 1855), 34-35. 6 Strachan, Remarkable Incidents, 35. 7 Strachan, Remarkable Incidents, 36.

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assured Macquarie of his own churchmanship and of hisdesire to remain himself closely attached to the Churchof England.8

Macquarie offered Leigh a position in the government,through which he was assured he would grow much more richand comfortable than by going about preaching. Leighturned down the offer insisting that he had come to thecolony as a Wesleyan missionary and could act in no othercapacity while he remained there.9 Before the interviewwas over, however, Macquarie had given qualified approvalto Leigh’s itinerancy so long as he stuck to his ownWesleyan flock and expected no government funds. TheSurveyor General’s Office was instructed to provide Leighwith free passage throughout the colony.10 The Governorseems to have admired Leigh’s character, but requestedthat in future ‘only regular and pious clergymen of theChurch of England and not sectaries’ should be sent to‘the new and rising colony.’11

Macquarie’s initial skepticism toward the arrival of aMethodist preacher need not be read too negatively. Itmore than likely arose out of his conscientious sense ofresponsibility. According to his biographer John Ritchie,the Governor saw himself as a benevolent landlord, all ofthe citizens of the colony, from the lowest to thehighest estate, including the Aborigines, were hispersonal responsibility.12 According to John Hirst thereason that Macquarie is so well remembered today isbecause ‘he treated a ramshackle colony of 5000 people asif it were or could be a significant place.’13 The sudden8 Samuel Leigh to WMMS, 6 March 1816, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary2: 213-14, Box 50. 9 Strachan, Remarkable Incidents, 35. 10 Strachan, Remarkable Incidents, 36. 11 Michael Hogan, The Sectarian Strand: Religion in Australian History (Melbourne: Penguin, 1987), 31.12 John Ritchie, Lachlan Macquarie (Melbourne: University Press, 1986). Ritchie focuses on the Governor’s character. Malcolm Ellis’ earlier work gives greater attention to Macquarie’s administration of the colony. Malcolm H. Ellis, Lachlan Macquarie: His Life, Adventures and Times (Sydney: Dymock’s, 1947). 13 John Hirst, ‘Lachlan Macquarie,’ in Graeme Davison, John Hirst, andStuart Macintyre, eds. The Oxford Companion to Australian History (Melbourne:

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arrival of a new religious sect imported from the homecountry had the potential to destabilise this developmentproject.

II. Leigh and the Anglican Clergy

In requesting a minister, the Wesleyan class leaders hadmade it clear that they did not want anyone who was‘radically a Dissenter,’ but rather, one who could workwith the Anglican chaplains, and not act independently ofthe Church of England.14 Thomas Bowden expressed a desirethat whoever was sent should follow ‘the primitive way ofMethodism, not in hostility against the church, butrather in unison with it, not so much as to make a partydistinct from the church as to save souls in it.’15 Theyappear then to have been ‘Church Methodists’ rather than‘Chapel Methodists,’ not thinking of themselves primarilyas Dissenters but as allied closely with the EstablishedChurch.16 Eagar himself had read the Anglican service onbehalf of the Rev. Richard Cartwright, one of thecolonial chaplains.

Leigh turned out to be just the man they wanted and hequickly established good relations with the Anglicanclergy and made it his business to cooperate fully withthem ensuring that Methodist activity would in no wayinterfere with the routines of Anglicanism. Leigh wrotehome to the Wesleyan Missionary Society on 2 March 1816,assuring its members that the Anglican clergy wereentirely friendly toward him.17 Samuel Marsden who hadhimself been influenced by Yorkshire Methodism in his

Oxford University Press, 2001), 408.14 Thomas Bowden to WMMS, 20 July 1812; Bowden and Hosking to WWMS, n.d. see James Colwell, The Illustrated History of Methodism (Sydney, 1904), 36-39.15 Thomas Bowden, 30 July 1812, cited in Udy, ‘Spark of Grace,’17.16 Detailed discussion of the nature of the relationship between Methodism, the Established Church, and the Dissenting churches is found in John Munsey Turner, Conflict and Reconciliation: Studies in Methodism and Ecumenism in England, 1740-1982 (London: Epworth, 1985). 17 Samuel Leigh to WWMS, 2 March 1816, cited in Wright and Clancy, ‘The Methodists,’ 4; The same sentiment is expressed again in Leigh to Adam Clarke, 14 Oct 1817, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers 2:202, Box 50.

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youth, donated land to the Methodists for a chapel inWindsor whose foundation stone was laid on 13 September1818.18 Leigh was invited to Newcastle to preach by theEvangelical Anglican chaplain William Cowper.

Not all colonial Methodists shared Leigh’s enthusiasm forthe Anglican formularies and as we shall see this wouldbecome the locus of much of the conflict between Leighand his colleagues. Leigh saw the Methodist mission asancillary to the Church of England, but others did notseem to share that opinion. In reality Methodistsfunctioned more often as an alternative to Anglicanworship than a supplement to it. Leigh held services at9am and 7pm so as not to clash with church hours, but in1821 the missionaries established an 11am service inSydney and held Communion services there as well as atParramatta and Windsor. Benjamin Carvosso may have beenthe chief belligerent in the bitter dispute that ensued.19

He made it clear that ‘scarcely an individual of thosewho attend our morning worship was accustomed to attendthe Established Church at the disputed hour,’20 a practicethat flew in the face of Leigh’s preferences.

These events led to the earlier close relations betweenWesleyans and the Church of England being disrupted sothat after the 1820s the two churches had little to dowith other after and when they did, they were not alwaysfriendly encounters.21 In any case, identification withthe Church of England, if it had continued, may well havebeen a hindrance to Methodist growth, as the populationwas largely emancipist in sentiment and feltdisenfranchised by Anglican exclusivity.22

18 For a good biography of Marsden, see A. T. Yarwood, Samuel Marsden: The Great Survivor (Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1996).19 R. B. Walker, ‘The Growth and Typology of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in New South Wales, 1812-1901,’ Journal of Religious History 6:4 (Dec 1971), 332. 20 Benjamin Carvosso, District Minutes, 2 October 1822, cited in Bollen, ‘A Tome of Small Things,’ 242. 21 Walker, ‘Growth and Typology,’ 346. 22 The ranks of early Methodist leadership included many emancipists including Edward Eagar, John Ennis, Lancelot Iredale and Thomas Street. Walker, ‘Growth and Typology,’ 332.

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III. Leigh and His Fellow Workers

Leigh’s ministry as a circuit rider took him on a regular240km circuit covering Parramatta, Liverpool, Windsor,Richmond, Castlereagh, and the Hawkesbury River district.Spending ten days in Sydney, frequenting the Rocks areaswith its evident human need, then ten or eleven daystraveling his circuit, Leigh sought to establish a causein the tried and true Methodist pattern. It soon becameapparent that there was more work in the colony of NSWthan a single Methodist preacher could handle and in 1817Leigh began to request the Committee to forward a co-worker. The Cornishman Walter Lawry arrived on theconvict ship Castlereagh, on which he had served aschaplain, in May 1818.

The two got on famously at first but stresses in theirrelationship soon became apparent. Wright and Clancygive the following character portraits:

Leigh was a humourless, intense, single-minded man, quiteprepared to kill himself in the fulfillment of hismission; Lawry was warm, even emotional, found itdifficult to remain serious in company for long and,while willing to work hard, placed rather more importanceon his home comforts than did Leigh.23

According to Bollen, Leigh’s manner was ‘heavy like hisframe.’24 One might say he had a tendency to throw hisweight around. It probably did not help that Lawrydecided that he should ‘faithfully and affectionately’apprise Leigh of the ‘most glaring deficiencies andinconsistencies’ he discovered in him.25 Nor would it havebeen taken kindly by Leigh that Lawry successfully wonthe hand of Mary Hassall, a young woman whom Leigh hadearlier failed successfully to court. In the estimate ofthe preachers who would join them on the field in 1821,the two men were ‘naturally unfitted for agreement in all

23 Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, 6. 24 Bollen, ‘A Time of Small Things,’ 234.25 Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, 6.

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the affairs of life.’26 Leigh was twenty-nine or thirty,Lawry twenty-three upon arriving in NSW. Most of thetwenty-five who followed them up to 1840 were underthirty, reflecting the youthfulness of Methodistmissionary work.27 Young, sometimes hot-headed men withoutthe wisdom and restraint of age can often fail to see eyeto eye and be unwilling to compromise. In 1819 Lawryexpressed his concern about the deterioratingrelationship between Leigh and himself. ‘Mr. Leigh, withwhom I wish the most intimate union, is of such a curiousand eccentric manner that I find it most difficult tolabour in unison with him. His preaching talent appearsto be all dwindled away. He is a most miserablespeaker.’28

The Committee reinforced its earlier insistence that theutmost deference be shown to the Anglican clergy and boththe Committee and Leigh wrote to the colonial chaplainssupporting them over against their fellow Methodists whoseemed deliberately to be working against the clergy. Asituation soon developed in which Leigh, the colonialAnglican chaplains, and the Missionary Committee inLondon on the one side were arrayed against everyMethodist preacher in NSW on the other. There were manyaccusations flung in both direction and much behind-closed-door plotting and scheming.29 The MissionaryCommittee sided with Leigh and the Anglican clergy on allthe matters that came before them. They issued rebukesand warnings to each of the missionaries, threatening towithdraw them from the field if they persisted in theiractions. The towns were to be left to the EstablishedChurch; the Methodist preachers were to confinethemselves to the scattered population in the bush.30 Anyrefusal to obey this directive would be considered a

26 Benjamin Carvosso, Ralph Mansfield and William Walker, letter to WMMS, cited in Udy, Spark of Grace, 58-9. 27 Bollen, ‘A Time of Small Things,’ 228.28 Walter Lawry to WMMS, 11 August 1819, cited in Udy, Spark of Grace, 43. 29 For a detailed discussion of this dispute see Udy, Spark of Grace, 43-61. 30 Committee Minute Book, 3 July 1822 cited in Wright and Clancy, The Methodists,10-11.

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dereliction of duty.31 Leigh’s original plan should befollowed, the work of the Anglican clergy was not to beinterfered with, services were not to be held in churchhours, and all controversial sermons should be avoided.

The arrival of the Rev. George Erskine to serve asSuperintendent and later District Chairman, on 4 November1822, only further isolated the already besieged Leigh.The conflict between Leigh and his fellow preachers,Erskine considered ‘an exceedingly unpleasant affair.’32

For Erskine, the Wesleyan Methodist Church needed to showlittle deference to the Established Church. It was itsown ecclesial body with its own doctrine and discipline.To be stationed at so far a distance from Englandrequired the granting of ‘a discretionary power to act inaccordance with local circumstances, and to have libertyto embrace with prudence every opening of usefulness.’33

In this missional pragmatism he was at one with the otherpreachers, pointing toward the self-sustaining andindependent future of nineteenth-century WesleyanMethodism, leaving Leigh looking backward to the previouscentury. But Erskine was not a well man and he lacked thedrive and energy to offer strong leadership.

IV. The Wesleyan Mission in New Zealand

It was out of concern for Leigh’s health that SamuelMarsden invited Leigh to travel to New Zealand atMarsden’s expense and scout out the possibility ofestablishing a mission there, hoping that the changewould do him good. The first Christian mission in NewZealand had been established by Marsden in the Bay ofIslands in 1814 and Leigh made his first trip there in1819. Once Walter Lawry had arrived and settled in, Leighfelt free to accept Marsden’s invitation to visit the Bayof Islands and encourage the lay settlers there. Leigh’strips to New Zealand and to England were a source ofcontinual irritation to his colleagues, who felt they had31 Udy, Spark of Grace, 52-53. 32 George Erskine to R. Watson, 19 Nov 1822, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 4:1200, Box 52.33 George Erskine to R. Watson, 19 Nov 1822, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 4:1201, Box 52.

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to defer to the authority of one who was not asintimately acquainted as they with conditions on thefield.34

Leigh’s understanding of the Maori people would have beenshaped by Samuel Marsden’s positive views first developedafter interaction with those visiting Sydney. Theirreputation as fierce cannibals was widely known butMarsden was of the opinion that massacres had beenretaliation for instances of European injustice andcruelty.35 Leigh did not confine himself to the settlersbut visited six surrounding Maori villages which, aftergaining the people’s assent to receive Christianinstruction, he formed into a circuit. He drew apreaching plan, attaching the names of the lay settlerswho had up to this point seemed to have done very littleto reach out to the Indigenous people. Lord’s Dayservices were held every Sunday. The second Sunday afterhis arrival he entered a nearby Maori village lined atthe entrance by twelve severed tattooed heads stuck onpoles on the assumption that Leigh would want to purchasethem.36 The sale of such heads was strongly opposed byMarsden.37

Leigh travelled to London in 1820 and toured the circuitspromoting the work in Australia and New Zealand. He alsomarried Catherine Clewes, and requested the MissionaryCommittee to supply at least three additional preachersfor NSW.38 He was also given permission to raise money fora Wesleyan mission to New Zealand, though the missionarycommittee balked at forwarding any direct funds while the

34 During Lawry’s three years in the colony, Leigh was present for only two short periods totalling nine months. Udy, Spark of Grace, 44-45.35 Strachan, Remarkable Incidents, 79. For a recent collection of essays on Marsden’s establishment of the Church Missionary Society in New Zealand, see Peter G. Bolt and David B. Pettett, eds. Launching Marsden’s Mission: The Beginnings of the Church Missionary Society in New Zealand, Viewed from New South Wales (London: The Latimer Trust, 2014). 36 Strachan, Remarkable Incidents, 86.37 See ref in Bolt and Pettett. 38 Samuel Leigh to WMMS, 22 June 1820, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary3:676, Box 51.

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NSW mission was £10,000 in debt.39 Leigh returned to NewZealand arriving in the Bay of Islands on 22 February1822.40 During his deputational trip to England, Leigh hadbefriended the visiting Maori warrior Hongi Hika, who hadbeen much impressed by the musketry and militarydiscipline of the troops of King George. Now returned toNew Zealand, Hongi was determined to settle scores withhis traditional enemies determined ‘to sweep [them] fromthe earth.’41 The warrior declared that since Leigh andother missionaries stood in the way of the local peopleobtaining muskets and gunpowder, ‘we New Zealanders hateboth your worship and your God. In our very hearts wehate them. They are not like ours. We only worship insacred places, where no food has been cooked or eaten.You worship anywhere!’ After Hongi Hika had gathered athousand warriors the loan of the mission’s boat wasrequested. Leigh consented to this but when greaterdemands were made he resisted and was shown the point ofa spear. At this point he tore open his shirt and rushedupon the spearman saying he would receive the spearbefore surrendering any more property. At this pointHongi intervened and told his over-zealous warrior thathe was being unreasonable before banishing him to thebush.42 Hongi’s war raged for five years spreadingthrough the northern part of the country and as far southas the Waikato and Rotorua. Leigh had at first intendedto establish a mission to the Thames River (Waihou River)and Mercury Bay, but after Hongi had declared that hewould carry his war into these districts, he settledinstead on Kaeo near Whangaroa harbour, 56 kilometresnorth-west of the Bay of Islands.

Whangaroa was the home of the Maori who had been accusedof the Boyd massacre of December 1809 in which up to 70Europeans had been killed and eaten in a dispute over theill treatment of Maori on board. This made the choice of39 Strachan, Remarkable Incidents, 96-101.40 For a helpful general discussion of the earliest Wesleyan missionaries to New Zealand see J.M.R. Owens, ‘The Wesleyan Missionaries to New Zealand before 1840,’ Journal of Religious History 7:4 (Dec 1973), 324-4141 Strachan, Remarkable Incidents, 126-27.42 Strachan, Remarkable Incidents, 127.

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location a difficult one for the missionaries. The burnthulk of the Boyd had been found with only four survivorsincluding a young mother, an infant and a toddler.Alexander Berry, who was in charge of cargo on the shipCity of Edinburgh, laid the blame for the incident at thefeet of Te Pahi, a Maori chief well known in Sydney,though he was innocent of the charges and a victim ofBerry’s dislike. Samuel Marsden had taken a greatinterest in this matter and, through his investigations,aimed to clear Te Pahi’s name, fixing blame instead on TeAra (known as ‘George’) and his sons who had been treatedpoorly by the Boyd’s Captain Thompson. Marsden built onhis investigations to argue for the prosecution of shipscaptains who treated Maori with brutality and petitionedthe British government to establish and protect the ruleof law in New Zealand.43 Te Ara was still present in 1823when Leigh arrived and he showed him the wreck of theBoyd giving his version of events which substantiallymatched Marsden’s account. He and another young chief hadrefused to do manual labour en route from Sydney on thebasis that they were chiefs and such work was beneaththem. Thompson thought they were lying and had themwhipped. Upon arrival in Whangaroa, Te Ara reported hisill treatment to his father and a retribution partyresulted.44

Leigh was not at first welcomed by the Whangaroans whocharged upon him ferociously, Te Ara doing nothing toprevent them. He made a narrow escape by distributingfish hooks but returned later on the 6 June accompaniedby his wife Catherine, the Rev. J. Butler and laymenShepherd and Hall. Sailing into the harbour by theimposing 300 foot pa they were greeted in a friendlymanner, the earlier gift of fish hooks being remembered.The first Christian service held in that part of NewZealand took place on 8 June with Leigh preaching from 1Samuel 7:12, ‘Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.’ Sevenmiles upriver, in the picturesque valley that was the43 Peter Bolt, ‘The Boyd Set-Back to Marsden’s Mission: The View from New South Wales,’ in Bolt and Pettett, eds. Launching Marsden’s Mission, 61-78. 44 Te Ara’s version of the events is recounted in Strachan, Remarkable Incidents, 132-33.

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home of Te Ara and his brother Tepui, they established‘Wesleydale.’ Anticipating that the country would becolonised by Great Britain, Leigh secured the land onwhich the mission station stood, paying twice what thelocal people demanded in ‘spades, hoes, blankets, andpairs of trousers,’ and securing five acres of property.When the validity of such transactions were later testedby the British government, and many rendered invalidbecause inequitable, the arrangement at Wesleydale wasdeemed to have been just.45 The Maori people wereintroduced to European crop production raising wheat,fruit, and vegetables and the mission would eventuallydevelop into quite a thriving enterprise.

Catherine Leigh appears to have been a resourceful andspirited woman. She learned the Maori language andintroduced the local women to needle and thread. On oneoccasion, faced with a band of attacking warriors who hadknocked her husband to the ground and demanded a qualitygarment to settle some earlier score, she rushed to hercottage and removed her bedspread offering it to agrateful assailant who wore it with pride. Later that dayshe physically restrained a warrior who was attempting toopen a cask of pork.46 Alarmed at the high rate ofinfanticide among the Maori women, Catherine conceived aplan to dress every infant in highly prized Europeanclothes promising to visit each child to watch over itsgrowth and development. In this manner she was convincedthat she had saved ‘scores of lives.’47

On 6 August 1823, Wesleyan missionaries Nathaniel Turnerand John Hobbes arrived at Wesleydale and were warmlywelcomed. On the 15 August the government ship Snappercarried Samuel Marsden, along with Turner’s wife andchildren, into the harbour, much to the delight of bothmissionaries and the local people. Marsden led the Sundayservices on the 17 August including the administration ofthe sacraments. Marsden was convinced that Leigh’s health

45 Strachan, Remarkable Incidents, 147.

46 Strachan, Remarkable Incidents, 153-54.47 Strachan, Remarkable Incidents, 158.

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had deteriorated to the point where he should immediatelyreturn to Sydney. Reluctant to leave he was persuadedonly when Chief Tepui told him that if he went to NewSouth Wales, promising to return after he had recovered,that he would give up war and stay at home and plantkumara. They sailed on the 19 August for the Bay ofIslands but the Brompton was shipwrecked and they tookrefuge on a deserted Pacific island for three days andnights before being rescued by a passing vessel. Asexciting a missionary narrative as this is, it should benoted that it all took place in the space of two or threemonths (though Leigh spent a total of about 16 months inNew Zealand, mostly in the Bay of Islands).48 NathanielTurner and John Hobbes continued to lead the mission butHongi’s forces finally attacked Whangaroa in earnest inJanuary 1827 and Wesleydale was abandoned. CatherineLeigh died in Sydney on 15 May 1831, in the midst of anepidemic. Leigh finally retired from the field andreturned to England the following year broken in spiritand in health. Remarrying in 1842 he continued for atime in circuit work, until finally suffering a strokewhile addressing a Missionary Meeting in 1851 and dyingthe following year.

Both Anglicans and Wesleyans saw considerable success inthe Northlands so that by 1840 half the Maori people ofthe Bay of Islands had converted to Christianity.49 TheMaori believed in the spiritual powers of nature (atua),the spiritual authority of individuals within thecommunity (mana), the concept of the special sacrednessof holy things (tapu), and that codes of behaviour(tikanga) existed to regulate communities.50 Therefore it48 I am grateful to Allan Davidson for pointing this out. 49 Keith Sinclair, A History of New Zealand (Auckland: Penguin 2000), 4350 A fascinating 19th century discussion of mana can be found inchapter 15 of Frederick Edward Maning’s, Old New Zealand: Being Incidents of Native Customs and Character in the Old Times by A Pakeha Maori (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1863) available on line at the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre. http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-ManPake-c15.html accessed5 April, 2013. See also Allan K. Davidson, Aotearoa New Zealand: Defining Moments in the Gospel-Culture Encounter (Geneva: WCC Publications, 1996) for a good, though brief, survey of Maori responses to Christianity.

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was not a huge jump for them to add to this religiouscosmology, belief in one God, whom they named Te Atua.Some have even perceived evidence for belief in a supremedeity, Io, in pre-Christian-contact Maori belief.According to Michael King, however,

The major points of Christian belief that would contrastwith tikanga Maori were the notions that natural man wasa fallen creature needing to be redeemed by Christ’ssuffering and death; and that every human life - whetherof rangatira [chief], commoner or slave - was of equalvalue in the eyes of Te Atua and those who acknowledgedHim.51

In spite of such points of contact, the earliestMethodist missionaries to New Zealand seem to have sharedquite a low view of the Maori people. Even as late as1922 the Rev W.J. Williams in his Centenary Sketches of NewZealand Methodism could write, ‘Anything more unlovely thanthe character and disposition of the Natives who at thattime lived on [the shores of Whangaroa Harbour] it isimpossible for the human mind to picture.’52 Methodistmissionaries spoke to a group of thirty or forty Maorifrom Tauranga in July 1825 and asked them how many godswere among them. One of the group whispered to anotherthat he should reply, ‘One,’ but when asked the name andlocation of this god, the man demurred. The missionariesthen urged the Maori people to follow the example of theTahitians and adopt the Christian religion.53

51 Michael King, The Penguin History of New Zealand (Auckland: Penguin, 2003), 139-40. 52 W.J. Williams, Centenary Sketches of New Zealand Methodism (Christchurch, n.d., circa 1922), 12. 53 ‘Death of Christian Rhangi, a New-Zealand Chief, who died September15, 1825, the day after his baptism,’ The Primitive Methodist Magazine 7:9 (September, 1826), 316. It is unclear whether Ranghi was his given name or whether this was an honorific derived from rangatira, the Maoriword for ‘chief.’ The ariki was the paramount chief at the head of thetribe. Rangi was also the name of a god who along with Papa had produced a pantheon of lesser gods. Sinclair, 21-22. Though this account is given in a Primitive Methodist magazine it must be drawingon earlier Wesleyan source material since Primitive Methodism did notarrive in New Zealand until 1844.

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In Maori mythology, the term Te Reinga (from the nounmeaning ‘a place of leaping’) is used to refer both tothe place of departed spirits and to the locality of theNorth Cape the area to which the wairua (soul or spirit)travels.54 Methodist missionaries taught that those whodid not believe the teachings of the Bible would be ‘thedevil’s servants here and…his slaves in the Rainga[sic].’ In conversation with the Tauranga ‘chief,’Rhangi, the missionaries enquired into the state of thedying man.

Sometimes when sitting alone, I feel my heart gloomy ordark; and think that the God of the White people is notour God, and that the Rainga [sic] is the only placewhich we have to go to: then my heart feels enlightened,and again becomes gladdened with the thought of going toheaven…I think of the love of Christ, and ask him to washthis bad heart, and take away this native heart and giveme a new heart.55

To these particular Methodist missionaries thedesignation ‘Christian’ was more or less equivalent to‘European.’ They told Rhangi, ‘The people who believe inJesus Christ are called by one name after him, which is,Christian. We, who are here now, are called so; that isEuropeans: but those who do not believe are callHeathens: the New Zealanders are Heathens…’56 The oldchief died on Thursday, 15 September, 1825, but notbefore confessing faith in Jesus Christ, being baptisedon the previous day and entrusting the care of hischildren to the missionaries. The missionaries regardedhis ‘stedfastness [sic]…on the verge of the grave, andhis firm resistance of all the Native Superstitions’ assufficient grounds for baptism. In addition to his Maoriname he took the name ‘Christian’ energetically repeatinghis new name several times during the ceremony. Though heexpressed a desire that his body be delivered over to themissionaries, presumably so that it could receive aChristian burial, the local people took the body away ina canoe and would not reveal to the missionaries what

54 http://www.maoridictionary.co.nz/ accessed 4 April 2013. 55 ‘Death of Christian Rhangi,’ 317.56 ‘Death of Christian Rhangi,’ 317.

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burial customs would be observed. There may be some sourgrapes in the missionaries telling the local people that‘their disposing of the body was of no consequence as tohis salvation; for his body was all corruption, but hissoul was in heaven.’57

Keith Sinclair, not known for his high regard forreligion in New Zealand life, took a dim view of themissionaries’ approach to indigenous beliefs.

It is probable that many aspects of Maori religion havebeen forgotten by the Maoris and were never accuratelywritten down or even understood by Europeans. Few of theearly missionaries, who made a determined onslaught uponheathenism, were concerned to record for posterity whatthey were so busy destroying.58

There were, however, some exceptions to this approach.Wesleyan missionary Thomas Buddle (1812-1883), firstprincipal of the Wesleyan Native Institution establishedat Grafton in 1845, and editor of the Maori newspaper TeHaeata from 1859-1862 gained a considerable wealth ofknowledge regarding Maori language, customs, andmythology.59 Generally speaking however Wesleyans sharedwith other Protestants of the period a sense of Europeancultural superiority. William Morley, writing in 1900,looked back favourably on the educational ministry of theearly missionary work as having enabled missionaries ‘tobecome acquainted with the mental powers and habits oftheir people…and, by communicating knowledge, sap thefoundations of their superstitious practices. Moreover,the facts thus placed before [the Maori] gave them freshfood for thought, directed that thought into healthierchannels, and so tended to raise and purify theirminds.’60 Maori culture was thought of as something to besupplanted by a civilising process that went hand in hand57 The author of the account is not given but those present are named as ‘Messrs. Davies, C. Davis, Fairburn, and myself.’ William Puckey served as interpreter during the baptismal rite. ‘Death of Christian Rhangi,’ 320-21. 58 Sinclair, 21-22. 59 Y. L. Sutherland, ‘Te Reo o te Perehi: Messages to Maori in the Wesleyan Newspaper Te Haeata 1859-62,’ MA thesis, University of Auckland, 1999.

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with Christianisation.61 The education of Maori ministers(though they were not considered ministers in their ownright, but merely ‘assistants’) was best carried out,according to Morley, ‘away from the demoralisinginfluence of the native kaingas [villages].’62 In acontext such as this little interest was likely to beexpressed toward the religious beliefs of the Indigenouspeople.

The attitude toward the declining Maori population andculture reflected in W. H. Daniel’s History of Methodism(1879) is typical of the ‘social Darwinist’ view of thetime. ‘The Maoris are a rapidly declining race. Likethe aborigines of Tasmania and Australia, they seemeddestined to melt away before the Anglo-Saxon.’63 One Maoriview of the situation was similar: ‘The white man’s rathas killed the native rat. The fly which came with theEnglishman has driven our fly away. The clover which hehas sown in our fields is killing the ferns which coveredour hills, and the Maori will disappear before the Pakeha[white man].’64

The New Zealand Wars raged between 1860 and 1870 aslargely Protestant settlers appropriating large tracts oftraditional Maori lands met fierce resistance from apeople with a proud warrior culture.65 During this timemany Maori converts renounced the Christian faith. Susan60 William Morley, The History of Methodism in New Zealand (Wellington, McKee and Co, 1900), 109. 61 James Belich, Making Peoples: A History of the New Zealanders from Polynesian Settlement to the End of the Nineteenth Century (Auckland: Allan Lane, 1996), 124-127. For a good discussion of missionaries in New Zealand see Michael King, The Penguin History of New Zealand (Auckland: Penguin, 2003), chapter 10, ‘God and Guns,’ pp. 131-50. For other valuable insights into settler-Maori relations see Keith Sinclair, A History of New Zealand (Auckland: Penguin, 2000) especially ‘Part One: Maori and Settlers, 1642-1870.’62 Morley, History of Methodism in New Zealand, 47. 63W. H. Daniels, The Illustrated History of Methodism in Great Britain, America, and Australia (Sydney and Melbourne: George Coffey, 1879), 792. 64 Daniels, 792.65 Once called the ‘Maori Wars’ it is now recognised that this one-sided designation places blame on only one party to the conflict. Wars are always conducted between two opposing sides. Similarly, the‘Boer War’ is now usually referred to as ‘The South African War.’

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J. Thompson states that ‘of all the churches involved inMaori work, Methodism suffered most damage as a result ofthe wars’ with fighting beginning in Taranaki ‘a Wesleyanstronghold’ and the spread of hostilities to the Waikatoand King Country seeing Wesleyan missionary personnelwithdraw from those areas. When missionaries sided withsettlers during the conflict many Maori defected andreturned to their traditional beliefs, leaving Wesleyanchurches seriously depleted by the 1870s.66 Some adopted anew hybrid religion of their own, blending elements oftraditional Maori religion with Jewish and Christiancustoms.67 After the New Zealand Wars the importance ofstrengthening the autonomy of Maori culture and languagebecame of central importance, leaving the paternalisticviews of some Wesleyans to appear all the more archaic.

A very negative view of the traditional religious beliefsof the peoples of the Southern World was typical ofMethodist missionaries. The Australian Aborigine wasthought to have had no religion at all but to have thepotential to be raised from a primitive state through thecivilising influences of the Gospel. The Maori werethought to have a more complex set of beliefs even ifthis perception was flawed, since Aborigines had in theirown way just as sophisticated a set of beliefs. With somenotable exceptions it was thought best to keep Maoriconverts away from the debilitating effects of theirtraditional religious culture. This attitude of rejectionis understandable given the conviction of nineteenthcentury Methodists that the Gospel of Jesus Christ wasthe only hope for the ‘heathen’ world. Even if their workmust inevitably be seen as part of a colonising process,missionaries did not engage in the civilizing project for

66 Susan J. Thompon, Knowledge and Vital Piety: Education for Methodist Ministry in New Zealand from the 1840s (Auckland: Wesley Historical Society, 2012), 35. Maori attendance in Wesleyan churches dropped steeply from 7,590 in 1855 to 2,434 in 1874. The number of Maori chapels also declined during the same period. Eric W. Hames, Out of the Common Way, The European Church in the Colonial Era 1840-1913 Published as vol. 27 nos. 3 and 4, 1972, of the Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society of New Zealand to mark the 150th Anniversary of New Zealand Methodism (Auckland, 1972), 51-52. 67 King, Penguin History of New Zealand, 147-48.

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its own sake. Believing that people were lost withoutChrist they tried to bring them the good news ofsalvation. Largely they acted out of love and compassion,and this may be said without denying the detrimentaleffect that missionary work often had on Indigenouscultures. The role of missionaries in Australasia and thePacific, as elsewhere, has been presented in bothpositive and negative ways. They have been seen either asperpetrators of cultural genocide or as benevolent andenlightened humanitarians. Though examples of both typesof missionary may be found, the truth is found somewherein between these extremes.68 Many missionaries had apaternalistic view of Indigenous people as ‘children’ ofa ‘degraded and depraved race’,69 and as ‘the ultimateexample of Ham’s curse.’70 At the same time humanitarianmissionary efforts were respected by Indigenous peoplewho often admired the missionaries’ ‘raw courage’ and whobenefited from the application of European medicines totreat endemic health problems.71 Henry Reynolds, writingabout the Australian colonies in the 1830s and 40sreminds us that it was often missionaries and clergy whospoke up for Aboriginal welfare ‘when so many fellowcolonists looked on with indifference or were keen to seethe indigenous people and their legal rights troddenunder foot in the onrush of colonial progress.’72 They‘may not have changed many minds, significantly alteredcolonial behaviour or moderated the violence out on thevast frontiers but they clearly troubled many consciencesand raised questions which didn’t easily go away.’73

Samuel Marsden stands as perhaps the finest example ofthis advocacy for the rights of indigenous NewZealanders, and Marsden was perhaps Samuel Leigh’s mostsignificant mentor.

68 Richard Broome, Aboriginal Australians (Sydney: Allan and Unwin, 2001), 108. 69 Richard Broome, Aboriginal Australians (Sydney: Allan and Unwin, 2001), 108.70 Harris, One Blood, 31. 71 Broome, Aboriginal Australians, 105-107. 72 Henry Reynolds, This Whispering in Our Hearts (St. Leonards NSW: Allan and Unwin, 1998), 22. 73 Reynolds, This Whispering in Our Hearts, 13.

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It also does a disservice to the peoples of the SouthernWorld to portray them merely as passive victims ofcultural genocide as though they had no self-determination. Rather, they often actively andcreatively negotiated the new situation that presenteditself to them in order to ensure their ongoing survivaland flourishing. Embracing Christianity and creatingunique expressions of the faith in terms of their owntraditional culture was one such strategy.74

Thankfully a more positive view of traditional religiousbeliefs is discernable in a second stage of missionaryencounter with Indigenous Australians and New Zealandersin the twentieth century. This greater openness towardtraditional cultures occurred partly because of the needfor settler societies and the traditional custodians ofthe land to arrive at an understanding of their sharedpast in order to move toward national reconciliation.

Conclusion

Samuel Leigh may justly be remembered as a pioneer ofWesleyan Methodism in both Australia and Aotearoa/NewZealand. He assiduously followed the tried and trueMethodist pattern of classes, circuits, and frontierpreaching, working closely with the Church of Englandclergy. He bought an organisational discipline that wasabsent from the work of the earlier lay preachers. Thoughhis time in New Zealand was brief, along with his wifeCatherine, Leigh showed great courage in facing thechallenge of hostile Maori warriors in wild, inhospitablecountry. No doubt they shared the assumption of Europeansuperiority that was typical of the era. Yet theyattempted to learn the Maori language and exhibitedgenuine compassion toward them. Their shock at what theyconsidered the ‘savagery’ of such practices ascannibalism and infanticide was a driven by a

74 Broome, Aboriginal Victorians: A History since 1800 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2005), 127.

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humanitarian concern and their conviction about thedignity and value of persons made in the image of God.

The constant bickering between Leigh and his colleaguesover the nature of Methodism’s relationship to the Churchof England was a major contributing factor in the lack ofsuccess in NSW. Leigh was a hard worker, but he worked toohard, so hard that his health broke down, and he waswarned by the Missionary Committee against killinghimself with too much hard work. Owens suggests thatLeigh was not only stressed but showed signs of mentalillness. His colleagues accused him of being ‘mentallyunbalanced; and although colleagues are not alwayscharitable in their judgments, it is hard to believe theywere wrong [about Leigh].’75 Robert Howe, editor of theSydney Gazette, considered Leigh ‘diseased in the mind,’though it is hard to know how seriously to take Howe’sopinion.76 In any case he was not a team player, he lackedtact and administrative skill and he systematicallyworked against his own closest colleagues in a situationof extreme physical isolation where unity was an all themore valuable commodity.

The fact that Leigh was ‘not radically a Dissenter,’ aquality admired by the lay preachers who first requesteda missionary, kept him tied to an earlier phase ofMethodist development. Walter Lawry, Benjamin Carvosso,and George Erskine were the wave of the future with theirvision of Methodism as a strong, independent Dissentingbody, holding its own distinctive doctrines anddiscipline, albeit with Anglican origins. Leigh was a manwho belonged more naturally to the eighteenth-centurystatus of Methodism as closely aligned to the Church ofEngland, and thus was a constant drag to theirprogressivism. He may for these reasons be remembered asa pioneer but not as a builder of Australasian Methodism.Notwithstanding this natural conservatism, the more fullydeveloped structures of late nineteenth-century

75 Owens, ‘Wesleyan Missionaries to New Zealand,’ 340.76 Robert Howe to Wesleyan Missionary Committee, 20 Feb 1824, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 5:1391, Box 53.

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Methodism, would not have been possible without thepioneering efforts of our Wesleyan ancestors Samuel andCatherine Leigh, whose memory we honour today.

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