Samuel marsden australian dictionary of biography

Church of England chaplain, missionary, agriculturalist, magistrate (1765–1838)

For the inaugural Bishop of Bathurst, see Samuel Marsden (bishop).

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 bringing Christianity to New Zealand. Marsden was a prominent figure in early New South Wales and Australian history, partly through his ecclesiastical offices as the colony's senior Church of England cleric and as a pioneer of the Australian wool industry, but also for his employment of convicts for farming and his actions as a magistrate at Parramatta, both of which attracted contemporary criticism.

Early life

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