Samuel Leigh in the Colony of New South Wales

‘NOT DICALLY A DISSENTER’: SAMUEL LEIGH IN THE COLONY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

Glen O’Brien

Early nineteenth-century British Methodist mission followed imperial trade routes and military expansion until it found itself ensconced in every major selement of what James Belich has called the ‘Seler Revolution.’ 1 In this way, transatlantic Methodism serviced and exploited ‘one of the most dra- matic population movements in human history.’ 2 e rst Wesleyan Meth- odist minister to arrive in the colony of New South Wales (NSW), in 1815, was Samuel Leigh (1785–1852). 3 He was not, however, the rst Method- ist to arrive in Sydney town, for as elsewhere in the British colonies and in America, Methodism had its origins, not in the direct missionary work of

1. James Belich, Replenishing the Earth: e Seler Revolution and the Rise of the Anglo World 1780–1930 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); David Hempton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), 152–53; For an overview of the Meth- odism of the ‘Victorian prelude’ see John Munsey Turner, ‘Methodist Religion 1791–1849’, in Rupert Davies and Gordon Rupp, eds. A History of Methodism in Great Britain , vol. 2 (London: Epworth Press, 1978), 97–112. 2. Hempton, Methodism , 153. 3. Basic biographical information is found in R. H. Doust, ‘Leigh, Samuel (1785–1852)’, Aus- tralian Dictionary of Biography , vol. 2 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1967), 105. ere is an older biography by Alexander Strachan, Remarkable Incidents in the Life of the Rev. Samuel Leigh , 2nd edn. (London: James Nichols, 1855). 60 Wesley and Methodist Studies, vol. 4 preachers, but in the hopes and wishes of the laity. 4 e rst Methodist class meeting in the colony, led by omas Bowden (a school teacher) who had arrived on 28 January 1812, was held on 6 March of that same year. A class leader in England, Bowden encouraged John Hosking, another Methodist school teacher, to follow his example and establish a class meeting in their location in the antipodes. At about the same time, Edward Eagar, a converted Irish ex-convict, established a class meeting in Windsor. On 3 April, the two groups combined to hold a Love Feast and from this meeting sent leers to the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society in England requesting one or two missionaries for NSW. As a result, Samuel Leigh arrived on 10 August 1815 ready to begin what would turn out to be a gruelling ministry with lile earthly reward. 5

4. Neil Semple, e Lord’s Dominion: e History of Canadian Methodism (Montreal: McGill- Queen’s University Press, 1996), 37–52; Dee Andrews, e Methodists and Revolutionary Ameri- ca, 1760–1800: e Shaping of an Evangelical Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 31–38. N. A. Birtwhistle, ‘Methodist Missions’, in R. Davies, A. R. George and G. Rupp, eds. A History of Methodism in Great Britain , vol. 3 (London: Epworth Press, 1983), 36–37. Birt- whistle surveys the rst half century of Methodist missions (1785–1838), 1–43. 5. Early correspondence with the Methodist Missionary Society in London, Minutes, and Leigh’s journal are available on microlm, Methodist Missionary Society Archives, London (IDC Microform Publishers, 1991), H-2720–H-2721. Much valuable early correspondence is also available on microlm in the Missionary Papers of the Bonwick Transcripts in the Mitchell Read- ing Room at the State Library of NSW, though these should be approached with some degree of caution as the original correspondence has been corrupted. e basic facts about Leigh and early Methodism in NSW are well covered in the secondary literature. e standard history is Don Wright and Eric G. Clancy. e Methodists: A History of Methodism in New South Wales (Syd- ney: Allen and Unwin, 1993), 3–32; Lengthy quotations from the primary sources are available in Gloster S. Udy, Spark of Grace: e Story of the Methodist Church in Parramaa and the Surrounding Region (Parramaa: Epworth Press, 1977). See also the excellent overview essay on Methodism in Australia by Ian Breward, ‘Methodists’, in James Jupp, ed. e Encyclopedia of Religion in Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 404–15. An older collection of essays is found in James S. Udy and Eric G. Clancy, Dig or Die: Papers given at the World Methodist Historical Soci- ety Wesley Heritage Conference at Wesley College within the University of Sydney, 10–15 August 1980 (Sydney: World Methodist Historical Society, Australasian Section, 1981). Australian Method- ism is given quite poor coverage in William J. Abraham and James E. Kirby, eds. e Oxford Hand- book of Methodist Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Manfred Marquardt’s essay on ‘Methodism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’ gives scant aention to Australia, mis- spells ‘Sydney’ and mistakenly gives 1904 instead of 1902 as the date of Methodist union. Slightly beer treatment is given in Luther J. Oconer, ‘Methodism in Asia and the Pacic’, ch. 9 in C. Yri- goyen, Jr., ed. T & T Clark Companion to Methodism (London and New York: T & T Clark, 2010), 152–65 and in Kenneth Cracknell and Susan J. White, eds. An Introduction to World Methodism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 83. Glen O’Brien, ‘Not Radically a Dissenter’: Samuel Leigh in the Colony of NSW 61

Leigh was born in Milton, Sta!ordshire, on 1 September 1785 and became rst a lay preacher with the Independent Church at Hanley, which had been founded by the Congregationalists in 1784. 6 An enthusiastic worker, he divided his time over a ve year period between the Independents and the Wesleyans, assisting and gaining the respect of both denominations. On the advice of friends he decided to enter David Bogue’s Congregational Seminary in Gosport. is school was founded in 1789 by a wealthy banker, George Welch, and included a three-year programme of study in the clas- sics and theology with the expectation that the graduates would then enter evangelistic work. David Bogue, the scholarly minister of the Independent Church at Gosport, was chosen by Welch to serve as tutor. 7 Bogue was a staunch Calvinist, and Leigh’s Arminian convictions led to his conclusion that he should quietly withdraw from the Seminary. 8 A"er Leigh’s brother-in-law discussed his situation with the eminent Wesleyan minister, Joseph Sutcli!e, who recommended him to the Portsmouth Society, Leigh turned exclusively to Wesleyan work. Shortly therea"er, he was appointed to the Sha"esbury Circuit where he served for two years. Following a sense of calling to be a missionary, he prepared to move to Montreal, Canada, but the Wesleyan Missionary Commiee decided he should instead be appointed to NSW. 9 Like most early nineteenth-century Methodist preachers, Leigh had very limited education. His manuscripts from his days at Bogue’s Seminary show lile by way of advanced intellectual achievement. 10 What he lacked in native intelligence he was to make up for in a strict application of Methodist polity and a vigorous approach to discipline. 11

6. hp://www.thepoeries.org/church/hanley/tabernacle.htm accessed 25 March 2011. 7. Strachan, Remarkable Incidents , 17–18. 8. Ibid. 20. 9. Minute Book, Wesleyan Missionary Society, June 1814, 2 September 1814, cited in Udy, Spark of Grace , 19. 10. J. M. R. Owens, ‘e Wesleyan Missionaries to New Zealand before 1840’, Journal of Reli- gious 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 Univer- sity, 1959), 60–62. 11. J. D. Bollen, ‘A Time of Small ings: e Methodist Mission in New South 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.’ Leigh 62 Wesley and Methodist Studies, vol. 4

It would certainly be appropriate to see in the work of the earlier lay preachers, the beginnings of Methodism in New South Wales. David Hemp- ton rightly claims that ‘Methodist expansion was the result not of an evangelistic strategy concocted by elites but was carried primarily by a mobile laity.’ 12 Wright and Clancy argue that ‘given the primacy of the class meeting among Methodist institutions at that period’, the work of these earliest class leaders ‘must be seen as marking the real beginning of Wesleyan Methodism in the colony.’ 13 Daryl Lightfoot and Sue Pacey have recently argued that i f Methodism is ‘marked by its two distinctive features of itinerant preaching and class meetings’, the appropriate date for bicentennial celebrations is 2011 in commemoration of Edward Eagar’s pioneer ministry in the Windsor district. 14 While one does not want to diminish the importance of this early lay ministry, this article contends that the arrival of Samuel Leigh is a more appropriate event for commemoration. Early nineteenth-century Wesleyan Methodism was a movement dominated by clerical authority, so Leigh’s arrival signies the beginnings of formal British-Conference-approved Meth- odism in the colony. Leigh’s work could not be described as a resounding success but he did establish the requisite Methodist discipline that provided a foundation for subsequent growth, something the earlier lay preachers had not been able to do. By the time of Leigh’s arrival, the three class meetings established in 1812 had dwindled to a single class with only six members. Within two weeks he established a second class in Sydney; shortly therea"er, classes were also operating in Parramaa, Windsor and Castlereagh. e six members had risen to forty-four.15 is good start augured well but the mo- mentum was not sustained and Methodist membership in NSW would not climb beyond four hundred until 1836, a"er Leigh had le" the colony.16 to Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society Commiee [herea"er referred to as WMMS], De- cember 1817 [the day does not appear on the original], Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 2:306, Box 50. 12. Hempton, Methodism , 30. 13. Wright and Clancy, e Methodists , 4. 14. Daryl Lightfoot and Sue Pacey, ‘Earliest Australian Methodist History Re#ected in an Old Book: omas Coke’s Commentary on the Bible, Volume 2, 1801’, in World Methodist Historical Society Bulletin 37:2 (2010), 5–6. 15. Wright and Clancy, e Methodists , 4. 16. Bollen, ‘A Time of Small ings’, 234. Glen O’Brien, ‘Not Radically a Dissenter’: Samuel Leigh in the Colony of NSW 63

Norman Birtwhistle saw the home Church’s selection of Leigh in response to the need in NSW as a ‘splendid appointment.’ He is said to have encountered only ‘initial di$culties with the Governor’ and to have ‘laid the foundations of what became the great Methodist Church in Australia.’17 is essay will argue that Leigh’s appointment was anything but splendid and that his ‘dif- culties’ with Lachlan Macquarie were the least of his problems.

Leigh and Governor Lachlan Macquarie

Leigh arrived in the colony on e Hebe on 10 August 1815 and received a less than enthusiastic welcome from Edward Eagar. When Leigh intro- duced himself as a Wesleyan missionary, Eagar replied, ‘Indeed! I am sorry to inform you that it is now doubtful whether the Governor will allow you to remain in the country in that capacity.’ 18 Staying overnight in the Eagar household, Leigh felt so despondent that he retired to his room a"er supper, overwhelmed by the uncertainty of his prospects. e next day he presented himself to Governor Lachlan Macquarie, accompanied by Eagar. e fears expressed were not unfounded; the Gov- ernor informed Leigh, ‘I regret you have come here as a missionary, and feel sorry, and cannot give you any encouragement in that capacity.’ 19 Leigh was told that he had ‘missed his way’ by not presenting proper leers of introduction from British government o$cials. e authorization papers Leigh had brought with him were of no use in this ‘strange country.’ Cautious about sectarian con#icts erupting in the colony, Macquarie referred to a recent rebellion ‘aggravated by the bier hostility of both papists and Protestants,’ 20 perhaps a reference to the Irish convict rebellion at Castle Hill in March 1804. Macquarie said, ‘I had rather you had come from any other Society than the Methodist. I profess to be a member of the Church of England and wish all to be of the same profession and therefore cannot encourage any parties.’ Leigh then assured Macquarie of his own churchmanship and of his desire

17. Birtwhistle, ‘Methodist Missions’, 37. 18. Strachan, Remarkable Incidents , 34–35. 19. Ibid. 35. 20. Ibid. 36. 64 Wesley and Methodist Studies, vol. 4 to remain closely aached to the Church of England. 21 Macquarie o!ered Leigh a position in the government, through which Leigh was assured he would grow much more rich and comfortable than by going about preaching. Leigh turned down the o!er insisting that he had come to the colony as a Wesleyan missionary and could act in no other capacity while he remained there. 22 Before the interview had ended, however, Macquarie had given quali- ed approval to Leigh’s itinerancy so long as he stuck to his own Wesleyan #ock and expected no government funds. e Surveyor General’s O$ce was instructed to provide Leigh with free passage throughout the colony. 23 e Governor seems to have admired Leigh’s character, but requested that in the future ‘only regular and pious clergymen of the Church of England and not sectaries’ should be sent to ‘the new and rising colony.’ 24 Macquarie’s initial scepticism toward the arrival of a Methodist preacher need not be read as a negative rebu!. It more than likely arose out of his con- scientious sense of responsibility. According to his biographer John Ritchie, the Governor saw himself as a benevolent landlord; all of the citizens of the colony, from the lowest to the highest estate, including the Aborigines, were his personal responsibility. 25 John Hirst notes that the reason Macquarie is so well remembered today is because ‘he treated a ramshackle colony of 5000 people as if it were or could be a signicant place.’ 26 e sudden arrival of a new religious sect imported from the home country had the potential to destabilise this development project. e autocratic President of the British Wesleyan Conference, Jabez Bunting, wrote to assure Macquarie.

21. Samuel Leigh to WMMS, 6 March 1816, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary 2:213–14, Box 50. 22. Strachan, Remarkable Incidents , 35. 23. Ibid. 36. 24. Michael Hogan, e Sectarian Strand: Religion in Australian History (Ringwood, Vic: Pen- guin, 1987), 31. 25. John Ritchie, Lachlan Macquarie (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1986). Ritchie focuses on the Governor’s character. Malcolm Ellis’ earlier work gives greater aention to Mac- quarie’s administration of the colony. Malcolm H. Ellis, Lachlan Macquarie: His Life, Adventures and Times (Sydney: Dymock’s, 1947). 26. John Hirst, ‘Lachlan Macquarie’, in Graeme Davison, John Hirst, and Stuart Macintyre, eds. e Oxford Companion to Australian History (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2001), 408. Glen O’Brien, ‘Not Radically a Dissenter’: Samuel Leigh in the Colony of NSW 65

Our missionaries have been carefully instructed to honour the au- thorities of the country, to be obedient to the laws, and to conne themselves entirely to the duties of their O$ce. And any departure from a proper line of conduct on their part would be visited by the Society who has sent them out by its Displeasure, and removal. 27

Macquarie seemed eventually to have warmed to the Methodists. In March 1816 he was happy to patronize Leigh’s benevolent society and in January 1819 the foundation stone of a Wesleyan chapel was laid in Macquarie Street on land donated by the Governor and Crown Solicitor omas Wylde. A plot of land was given for a chapel in Parramaa, and Macquarie undertook to provide further plots of land for the same purpose in ‘any or every selement in the colony.’ 28 Following Macquarie’s years as Governor (1810–21), colonial Meth- odists enjoyed favourable relations with Governor omas Brisbane (1821– 25) who considered them ‘a highly valuable and respectable body, who [did] much good.’ 29 Brisbane drew from both the public’s purse and his own to contribute to a Wesleyan chapel in Pennant Hills in 1825. 30 In 1836 Gover- nor Bourke proposed the so called ‘Irish system’ which put a secular system in place with allowance for separate religious instruction. is was deemed unacceptable by Protestants, including Wesleyans, who considered it a ploy to overthrow the Protestant ascendancy. e suggestion of providing equal levels of funding for both Protestant and Catholic schools was argued against, and resulted in all church schools being set adri" to fend for themselves. 31 It should be noted that Methodist complaint during this controversy was in support of the Anglican Bishop’s concerns rather than self-originated.

27. Jabez Bunting, et al. to Macquarie, 16 December 1819, cited in Bollen, ‘A Time of Small ings’, 239. 28. Samuel Leigh to WMMS, 24 February 1819, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 2:412–13, Box 50. 29. ‘South Land of the Holy Spirit, ch. 9 Governors’, Christian History Research hp://www.chr. org.au/fpbooks/SL/slhs9.html accessed 29 November 2010. 30. Benjamin Carvosso to WMMS, April 1825, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 5:1480, Box 53. 31. e details of this tumultuous period may be traced in John Barre, at Beer Country: e Religious Aspect of Australian Life in Eastern Australia, 1835–1850 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1966), 87–163. 66 Wesley and Methodist Studies, vol. 4

Nonetheless, according to Bollen, ‘we may see in this a turning point, the beginnings of the self-condent, aggressive style of later nineteenth-century Methodism.’ 32

Leigh and the Clergy of the Established Church

In requesting a minister, Bowden, Hosking and Eagar had made it clear that they wanted someone who was ‘not radically a Dissenter,’ but rather, one who could work with the Anglican chaplains, and not act independently of the Church of England. 33 omas Bowden expressed a desire that whoever was sent should follow ‘the primitive way of Methodism, not in hostility against the church, but rather in unison with it, not so much as to make a party distinct from the church as to save souls in it.’ 34 Lay Methodists in early NSW appear then to have been ‘Church Methodists’ rather than ‘Chapel Methodists,’ not thinking of themselves primarily as Dissenters but as allied closely with the Established Church. 35 Eagar himself had read the Anglican service on behalf of Richard Cartwright, one of the colonial chaplains. Leigh turned out to be just the man they wanted, and he quickly established good relations with the Anglican clergy and made it his business to cooperate fully with the Established Church, ensuring that Methodist activity would in no way interfere with the routines of Anglicanism. Leigh wrote home to the Wesleyan Missionary Society on 2 March 1816, inform- ing its members that the Anglican clergy were entirely friendly toward him. 36 Samuel Marsden who had himself been in#uenced by Yorkshire Method- ism in his youth, donated land to the Methodists for a chapel in Windsor. e foundation stone was laid on 13 September 1818. 37 Leigh was invited

32. Bollen, ‘A Time of Small ings’, 240. 33. omas Bowden to WMMS, 20 July 1812; Bowden and Hosking to WWMS, n.d. see James Colwell, e Illustrated History of Methodism (Sydney, 1904), 36–39. 34. omas Bowden, 30 July 1812, cited in Udy, Spark of Grace , 17. 35. Detailed discussion of the nature of the relationship between Methodism, the Established Church, and the Dissenting churches is found in John Munsey Turner, Con!ict and Reconciliation: Studies in Methodism and Ecumenism in England, 1740–1982 (London: Epworth, 1985). 36. Samuel Leigh to WWMS, 2 March 1816, cited in Wright and Clancy, e Methodists , 4. e same sentiment is expressed again in Leigh to Adam Clarke, 14 October 1817, Bonwick Tran- scripts, Missionary Papers 2:202, Box 50. 37. For a good biography of Marsden, see A. T. Yarwood, Samuel Marsden: e Great Survivor , Glen O’Brien, ‘Not Radically a Dissenter’: Samuel Leigh in the Colony of NSW 67 to Newcastle to preach by the Evangelical Anglican chaplain William Cow- per. It was out of concern for Leigh’s health that Samuel Marsden invited Leigh to travel to New Zealand and scout out the possibility of establishing a mission there, hoping that the change would do him good. e rst Chris- tian mission in New Zealand had been established by Marsden in 1814. e Wesleyan Missionary Society was commenced by Leigh in 1818 on the rst of several mission trips across the Tasman. ese trips came to be resented by his colleagues in Sydney who tended to read such absences as a desertion of the eld. 38 When Leigh le" for England in 1820, he received very friendly leers of support and encouragement from the colonial chaplains Cowper and Cartwright. 39 Not all colonial Methodists shared Leigh’s enthusiasm for the An- glican formularies; their di!ering aitudes toward the Church of England would become the locus of much of the con#ict between Leigh and his colleagues. Joseph Orton, while Chairman of the Van Dieman’s Land District (now Tasmania), would encounter opposition in the 1830s to the use of the Anglican liturgy among Methodists in Launceston. 40 e sacrament of Holy Communion does not seem to have gured prominently in the Methodist worship of the early Australian colonies. Benjamin Carvosso, who joined the Wesleyan mission in NSW in May 1820, following a brief stay in Hobart Town, Van Diemans Land, stated that he had never paid the rite much aention and that by the Wesleyan mission’s supporters ‘it was lile understood or appreciated.’ 41 Nonetheless, as was the case in America, Methodist administration of the sacraments quickly became a divisive issue. Leigh may have seen the Methodist mission as ancillary to the Church of England, but others did not share that opinion. In reality, Methodists func- tioned more o"en as an alternative to Anglican worship than a supplement to it. Dispute among Wesleyans over their relationship to the Church of Eng- rev. ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1996). 38. For a helpful general discussion of the earliest Wesleyan missionaries to New Zealand see Owens, ‘Wesleyan Missionaries to New Zealand’. 39. William Cowper to Samuel Leigh, 25 February 1820, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers 3:604; Rev. Ralph Cartwright to Samuel Leigh, 28 February 1820, 3:611–17, Box 51. 40. Bollen, ‘A Time of Small ings’, 237–38. 41. Benjamin Carvosso to Secretaries, October 1823, cited in Bollen, ‘A Time of Small ings’, 241. 68 Wesley and Methodist Studies, vol. 4 land would contribute to the earlier close relations between Wesleyans and the Church of England being disrupted; a"er the 1820s the two churches had lile to do with one another, and when they did, they were not always friendly encounters. 42 In any case, identication with the Established Church, if it had continued, may well have been a hindrance to Methodist growth, as the population was largely emancipist in sentiment and felt disenfranchised by Anglican exclusivity. 43 ere were still, however, moments when Wesleyans took a posture of deference toward the Anglican hierarchy. A"er William Grant Broughton was appointed the rst Anglican bishop of Australia in 1836, he received a somewhat obsequious greeting from ‘Ministers and Members of the Socie- ties and Congregations in New South Wales of the people called Methodists, late in connexion with the Reverend John Wesley A.M., some time Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford.’

Firmly aached, as a body to the United Church of England and Ire- land, as by law established, we cannot but rejoice in every measure which promises to extend the usefulness and to increase the pros- perity of that venerable hierarchy. [We] are taught by the example of our Revered Founder, and by the o"-repeated declaration of our parent connexion, an Annual Conference assembled, not less than by our own honest conviction, that the Church [of England] has been the instrument, in the hands of Divine Providence, of preserv- ing to the British realm the blessings of Protestant Christianity, and of spreading far and wide the pure doctrines of our most holy faith . . . 44 Broughton’s reply was equally friendly but he privately expressed alarm that the Wesleyans would not be content to remain in a position of such deference. His disquiet was justied for they soon made it clear that they expected to be treated as the equal of other Churches. ey objected to Governor Bourke’s legislation because it did not give them denominational recogni- tion, protested that the census forms did not reveal their true strength, and

42. R. B. Walker, ‘e Growth and Typology of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in New South Wales, 1812–1901’, Journal of Religious History 6:4 (Dec. 1971), 346. 43. e ranks of early Methodist leadership included many emancipists including Edward Eagar, John Ennis, Lancelot Iredale and omas Street. Walker, ‘Growth and Typology’, 332. 44. Sydney Gazee , 25 June 1836, cited in K. J. Cable, ‘Protestant Problems in New South Wales in the Mid-Nineteenth Century’, Journal of Religious History 3:2 (1964), 125. Glen O’Brien, ‘Not Radically a Dissenter’: Samuel Leigh in the Colony of NSW 69 claimed the nancial support of the state for their ministers and schools. 45 Eventually colonial Methodism took its place alongside of the Church of England, the Catholic Church and the Presbyterian Church as one of the four major denominations in colonial Australia. By 1839, Methodist ministers were receiving government salaries of ₤150-₤200 per annum. 46 is newly gained status meant the end of deference towards the Established Church and the beginning of a condence in its own self-su$ciency, and with good cause, for Leigh’s ‘day of small things’ 47 would ultimately be suc- ceeded by colonial Methodism becoming perhaps the greatest religious success story in late nineteenth century NSW.

Leigh and His Fellow Workers

A leer to the Missionary Commiee stating that Leigh should bring ‘house furniture’ with him had been misread as ‘horse furniture’ so that upon arrival he found himself with ‘an excellent second-hand saddle, bridle and all other requisites’ but no furniture.48 is turned out to be quite providential as his ministry as a circuit rider would take him on a regular 240km circuit covering Parramaa, Liverpool, Windsor, Richmond, Castlereagh, and the Hawkesbury River district. Spending ten days in Sydney, frequenting the crime-ridden area known as ‘the Rocks’ (by the harbour near what is now Circular Quay), with its evident human need, then ten or eleven days travel- ling his circuit, Leigh sought to establish a cause in the characteristic Meth- odist paern. It soon became apparent that there was more work in the colony of NSW than a single Methodist preacher could handle; in 1817 Leigh requested that the Commiee forward a co-worker. Walter Lawry was appointed to this position. Born on 3 August 1793 in Rutheren near Bodmin, Cornwall, Lawry had been accepted as a candidate for the Wesleyan ministry in 1817. He arrived on the convict ship Castlereagh in May 1818, on which he had

45. Cable, ‘Protestant Problems in New South Wales’, 135. 46. Walker, ‘Growth and Typology’, 333. 47. One of Leigh’s favourite texts was Zechariah 4:10: ‘Despise not the day of small things.’ 48. Alan Walker, Heritage without End: A Story to Tell to the Nation (Melbourne: General Con- ference Literature and Publications Commiee of the Methodist Church of Australasia, 1953), 7; Udy, Spark of Grace , 21. 70 Wesley and Methodist Studies, vol. 4 served as chaplain. 49 Initial relations between the two were amicable but stresses in their relationship soon became apparent. Wright and Clancy give the following character portraits:

Leigh was a humourless, intense, single-minded man, quite prepared to kill himself in the fulllment of his mission; Lawry was warm, even emotional, found it di$cult to remain serious in company for long and, while willing to work hard, placed rather more importance on his home comforts than did Leigh. 50

According to Bollen, Leigh’s manner was ‘heavy like his frame.’51 One might say he had a tendency to throw his weight around. It probably did not help that Lawry decided that he should ‘faithfully and a!ectionately’ apprise Leigh of the ‘most glaring deciencies and inconsistencies’ he discovered in him. 52 Nor would it have been taken kindly by Leigh that Lawry successfully won the hand of Mary Hassall, a young woman whom Leigh had earlier failed successfully to court. In the estimate of the preachers who would join them on the eld in 1821, the two men were ‘naturally uned for agreement in all the a!airs of life.’53 Upon arriving in NSW, Leigh was around twenty-nine or thirty, and Lawry twenty-three. Most of the twenty-ve who followed them up to 1840 were under thirty, re#ecting the youthfulness of Methodist missionary work. 54 Young, sometimes hot-headed men without the wisdom and re- straint of age can o"en fail to see eye to eye and be unwilling to compromise. In 1819, Lawry expressed his concern about the deteriorating relationship between Leigh and himself. ‘Mr. Leigh, with whom I wish the most intimate union, is of such a curious and eccentric manner that I nd it most di$cult to labour in unison with him. His preaching talent appears to be all

49. S. G. Claughton, ‘Lawry, Walter (1793–1859)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography , vol. 2, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1967), 95–96. 50. Wright and Clancy, e Methodists , 6. 51. Bollen, ‘A Time of Small ings’, 234. 52. Wright and Clancy, e Methodists , 6. 53. Benjamin Carvosso, Ralph Manseld and William Walker, leer to WMMS, cited in Udy, Spark of Grace , 58–59. 54. Bollen, ‘A Time of Small ings’, 228. Glen O’Brien, ‘Not Radically a Dissenter’: Samuel Leigh in the Colony of NSW 71 dwindled away. He is a most miserable speaker.’ 55 From 1820 onwards, Leigh took frequent trips to New Zealand and to Eng- land, so that he was o"en absent from the colony. is was a frequent source of irritation to his colleagues, who felt they had to defer to the authority of one who was not as intimately acquainted as they with conditions on the eld. 56 Leigh sailed for England 24 February 1820 where he would travel to provincial cities such as She$eld, Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol pro- moting the work in Australia and New Zealand. 57 During this visit he also married Catherine Clewes and requested the Missionary Commiee to sup- ply at least three additional preachers for NSW. 58 is led to the appointment of the Revds Benjamin Carvosso, Ralph Manseld and George Erskine. In addition, the Revd William Walker was to serve as a missionary to the Abo- rigines, and the Revd William Horton would replace Lawry who was reas- signed to Tonga (then known as ‘e Friendly Islands’). 59 Out of deference to the Church of England, Leigh’s practice was to hold services at 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. so as not to clash with church hours. In 1821, however, his fellow Wesleyan missionaries established an 11 a.m. service in Sydney which clashed with Church hours, and held Communion services there as well as at Parramaa and Windsor. 60 Benjamin Carvosso may have been the chief belligerent in the bier dispute that ensued. 61 In justifying the 11 a.m. service, he made it clear that ‘scarcely an individual of those who aend our morning worship was accustomed to aend the Estab-

55. Walter Lawry to WMMS, 11 August 1819, cited in Udy, Spark of Grace , 43. 56. During Lawry’s three years in the colony, Leigh was present for only two short periods total- ling nine months. Udy, Spark of Grace , 44–45. 57. Strachan, Remarkable Incidents , 99–100. 58. Samuel Leigh to WMMS, 22 June 1820, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary 3:676, Box 51. 59. Lawry made the needs of the Friendly Islands known to the Commiee and they seem to have taken this as an o!er on Lawry’s part to volunteer to go. In 1822, along with his wife and two lay helpers, he set sail for Tonga under the Commiee’s direction (though this was probably not his intention when he wrote to London). 60. Walter Lawry was the rst assistant to Leigh, arriving in 1818, followed in 1820 by Benjamin Carvosso, Ralph Manseld and George Erskine. We shall see that Leigh was to come into considerable con#ict with these reinforcements. 61. Walker, ‘Growth and Typology’, 332. 72 Wesley and Methodist Studies, vol. 4 lished Church at the disputed hour,’ 62 a practice that con#icted with Leigh’s preferences. e Commiee reinforced, in January 1821, its earlier insist- ence that the utmost deference be shown to the Anglican clergy and both the Commiee and Leigh wrote to the colonial chaplains supporting them over against their fellow Methodists who seemed deliberately to be working against the clergy. A situation soon developed in which Leigh, the colonial Anglican chaplains, and the Missionary Commiee in London were arrayed against every Methodist preacher in NSW. 63 is rst crop of Methodist missionary reinforcements, like Lawry, did not share Leigh’s outlook toward the Church of England, so that the nature of colonial Methodism’s connection to Anglicanism was destined to be at the centre of disputes between Leigh, his fellow missionaries, and Meth- odist leadership back in England. ere were many accusations #ung in both directions and much behind-closed-door ploing and scheming. 64 Lawry considered the Anglican chaplains to be doctrinaire Calvin- ists who did not welcome Methodists or their Arminian theology. Carvosso seemed to hold the same view and Manseld was said to have delivered a series of Wednesday evening lectures with the express purpose of contra- dicting what the Anglican minister had said the previous Sunday, though he denied that this had been his purpose. 65 Lawry, who reckoned that there were nine Calvinists to every Arminian in Parramaa, 66 opened a chapel there on 20 June 1821, built partly ‘to forestall the preaching of Calvinist doctrine.’ 67 Marsden and Lawry disputed over the fact that the laer’s Sunday School was run in competition with the Anglican school and had drawn away some of its students. 68 Leigh, who took Marsden’s side in this debate,

62. Benjamin Carvosso, District Minutes, 2 October 1822, cited in Bollen, ‘A Time of Small ings’, 242. 63. For a detailed discussion of the various disputes leading to this division see Udy, Spark of Grace , 47–76. 64. For a detailed discussion of this dispute see Udy, Spark of Grace , 43–61. 65. Samuel Leigh to WMMS, 23 October 1821, Bonwick Transcripts, 52:955–58; Ralph Mans- eld to WMMS, 23 November 1821, 52:955–58 cited in Wright and Clancy, e Methodists , 10. Leer from Australian district, 2 October 1832, 22, cited in Udy, Spark of Grace , 227–28. 66. Udy, Spark of Grace , 45. 67. Wright and Clancy, e Methodists , 9. 68. Samuel Marsden to Walter Lawry, 21 May 1821, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 3:805–07; Walter Lawry to Samuel Marsden, 25 May 1821; Walter Lawry to WMMS, 24 May Glen O’Brien, ‘Not Radically a Dissenter’: Samuel Leigh in the Colony of NSW 73 also accused his fellow missionaries of extravagance when they asked the Missionary Commiee for a rise in their stipend to meet the higher cost of living in the colony. 69 Lawry wrote to the Commiee on 9 February 1821 claiming that the gures reported in the Missionary Magazine , presumably by Leigh, were greatly in#ated. Where the magazine claimed eighty-three persons in society at the time of Lawry’s arrival, the real gure, according to Lawry, was closer to twenty. 70 Carvosso, Lawry and Manseld reported gross inaccuracies in Leigh’s statistical reporting. A ‘sixth well-appointed chapel’ is said to have existed ‘no where but in the sanguine conceptions of brother Leigh.’ 71 Leigh protested that he was an honest man and his reports had been accurate. 72 e Missionary Commiee seems to have accepted his protesta- tions. e London Commiee sided with Leigh and the Anglican clergy on all the maers that came before them. ey issued rebukes and warnings to each of the missionaries, threatening to withdraw them from the eld if they persisted in their actions. e towns were to be le" to the Established Church; the Methodist preachers were to conne themselves to the scat- tered population in the bush. 73 Any refusal to obey this directive would be considered a dereliction of duty. 74 During Leigh’s eighteen-month absence from the colony, he did not correspond with the newly appointed missionaries. When he returned on 16 September 1821, with his new wife and William Walker, he called a District Meeting, at which strong directives were issued: Leigh’s original plan should be followed, the work of the Anglican clergy was not to be interfered with, services were not to be held in church hours, and all controversial sermons

1821, 3:808–11, Box 51. 69. Benjamin Carvosso, Walter Lawry and Ralph Manseld to WMMS, 30 July 1821, Bon- wick Transcripts, 51:835–40, Box 51; Samuel Leigh to WMMS, 16 November1821; Finance Sub- Commiee Minutes, Commiee Minute Book 3 July 1822, cited in Wright and Clancy, e Meth- odists , 12. 70. Walter Lawry to Missionary Commiee, 9 February 1821, cited in Udy, Spark of Grace , 51. 71. Benjamin Carvosso, Walter Lawry and Ralph Manseld to WMMS, August 1821, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers 3:842, Box 51. 72. Samuel Leigh to Secretary, WMMS, 24 October 1821, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 4:959, Box 52. 73. Commiee Minute Book, 3 July 1822 cited in Wright and Clancy, e Methodists , 10–11. 74. Udy, Spark of Grace , 52–53. 74 Wesley and Methodist Studies, vol. 4 should be avoided. 75 Without showing a copy of the leer to his colleagues, Leigh wrote to the Commiee in October 1821 laying the bad conduct of his fellow preachers toward the Church of England clergy squarely at the feet of Lawry and his ‘unfriendly spirit.’ He had, charged Leigh, ‘used every means to disturb and annoy the clergy in the colony and . . . encouraged the brethren to act upon the same principle.’ 76 e situation was worsened by a leer from Sam- uel Marsden to the London Commiee, accusing the Methodist preachers of acting improperly by living in ease and at expense, neglecting the work of seeking the lost sheep of Christ in the remote places, and instead seing themselves up ‘in opposition to the Established church.’ e preachers were accused of refusing to obey the directions of the London Commiee, prefer- ring to see them only as words of advice which could easily be set aside. 77 William Cowper wrote to Leigh complaining that the Methodist preachers had interfered with the work of the Established Church. 78 It is possible, though it cannot be stated with certainty, that Leigh may have asked his friends among the clergy to write these leers of complaint. is is suggested in Leigh’s 23 October Report to the Commiee in which he states, ‘I have conversed with the clergy and they wish, with myself, to refer the whole maer to you, and will be perfectly satised with your conclusion.’ 79 e arrival of George Erskine to serve as Superintendent and later District Chairman, on 4 November 1822, only further isolated the already besieged Leigh. e con#ict between Leigh and his fellow preachers, Er- skine considered ‘an exceedingly unpleasant a!air.’ 80 For Erskine, the Wes- leyan Methodist Church needed to show lile deference to the Established

75. e London Commiee’s recommendations are given in Udy, Spark of Grace , 52–53. 76. Samuel Leigh to WMMS, 23 October 1821, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 4:957, Box 52. 77. Samuel Marsden, 19 November 1821, cited in Udy, Spark of Grace , 55; Samuel Leigh to WMMS, 23 October 1821, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 4:957, Box 52. 78. William Cowper to Samuel Leigh, 8 November 1821, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 4:987–90, Box 52. 79. Samuel Leigh to WMMS, 23 October 1821, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 4:957, Box 52. 80. George Erskine to R. Watson, 19 November 1822, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 4:1200, Box 52. Glen O’Brien, ‘Not Radically a Dissenter’: Samuel Leigh in the Colony of NSW 75

Church. It was its own ecclesial body with its own doctrine and discipline. To be stationed at so far a distance from England required the granting of ‘a discretionary power to act in accordance with local circumstances, and to have liberty to embrace with prudence every opening of usefulness.’ 81 In this missional pragmatism he was at one with the other preachers, pointing toward the self-sustaining and independent future of nineteenth-century Wes- leyan Methodism, leaving Leigh looking backward to the previous century. But Erskine was not a well man physically and he lacked the drive and energy to o!er strong leadership. Leigh travelled again to New Zealand to establish a mission at Whangaroa in 1822, before returning to Sydney in 1823. His wife Catherine died there on 15 May 1831, in the midst of an epidemic. Leigh nally retired from the eld and returned to England the following year broken in spirit and in health. Remarrying in 1842 he continued for a time in circuit work, until nally su!ering a stroke while addressing a Missionary Meeting in 1851. He died the following year.

Conclusion

In 1832 the Missionary Commiee considered NSW to be ‘the most unpro- ductive of all its stations throughout the world owing to the “unfaithfulness” of several of its missionaries.’ 82 Erskine, Carvosso, Lawry, Manseld and Walker, had by that time all withdrawn from their work in the colony. A"er more than "een years Methodism could report only 112 members of the Society, twenty Sunday School teachers and 137 Sunday School students. Joseph Orton trimmed these gures down even further to a more realistic sixty-seven members and twelve Sunday School teachers. 83 Methodists were not alone in their struggle to establish a thriving religious community. To some extent all the other denominations faced simi- lar di$culties. e inhabitants of early NSW whether convicts, free selers,

81. George Erskine to R. Watson, 19 November 1822, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 4:1201, Box 52. 82. Missionary Commiee to Chairman of New South Wales District, 15 September 1832, Leer Book, 352–5, cited in Walker, ‘Growth and Typology’, 331. 83. Wesleyan District Minutes 22 March 1831, 10 January 1832, Minute Book of NSW Dis- trict, vol. 3 Dixson Library, ms Q4, cited in Wright and Clancy, e Methodists , 16. 76 Wesley and Methodist Studies, vol. 4 military o$cers or civil servants, were not a particularly religiously inclined group of people. But surely the constant bickering between Leigh and his colleagues over the nature of Methodism’s relationship to the Established Church was a major contributing factor in the lack of success. Leigh was a hard worker, but he worked too hard, so hard that his health broke down, and he was warned by the Missionary Commiee against killing himself with too much hard work. Owens suggests that Leigh was not only stressed but showed signs of mental illness. His colleagues accused him of being ‘mentally unbalanced; and although colleagues are not always charitable in their judg- ments, it is hard to believe they were wrong [about Leigh].’ 84 Robert Howe, editor of the Sydney Gazee , considered Leigh ‘diseased in the mind,’ though it is hard to know how seriously to take Howe’s opinion. 85 In any case he was not a team player, he lacked tact and administrative skill and he system- atically worked against his own closest colleagues in a situation of extreme physical isolation where unity was an all the more valuable commodity. Methodism’s glory days would be seen from the mid-nineteenth century when Methodist strength and in#uence in the dominions would far exceed that of its Mother Church in Britain. In the "y years between 1851 and 1901, Methodism in all the Australian colonies saw tremendous growth, from 5% to 11% of the population. Membership in NSW increased from 121 in 1834 to 707 in 1841, 86 and then to 2,209 in the ten years between 1841 and 1851. 87 e turnaround beginning in the 1830s can partly be aributed to the superior leadership of Joseph Orton, 88 but migration also was a signicant factor, 89 as was proselytizing from other churches. 90 e unique machinery of Methodism with the voluntarism of its classes, circuits and lay preachers, as well as its simplicity of doctrine and emotional directness, were eminently

84. Owens, ‘Wesleyan Missionaries to New Zealand’, 340. 85. Robert Howe to Wesleyan Missionary Commiee, 20 February 1824, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 5:1391, Box 53. 86. Bollen, ‘A Time of Small ings’, 244. 87. Walker, ‘Growth and Typology’, 333. 88. Alex Tyrrell, A Sphere of Benevolence: e Life of Joseph Orton, Wesleyan Methodist Missionary (1795–1842) (Melbourne: State Library of Victoria, 1993). 89. Bollen, ‘A Time of Small ings’, 244. 90. Walker, ‘Growth and Typology’, 333–34. Glen O’Brien, ‘Not Radically a Dissenter’: Samuel Leigh in the Colony of NSW 77 suited to the youthful exuberance of a growing colony. 91 is success was duplicated and in some areas exceeded in the other colonies, and in New Zealand. Methodist growth in South Australia was particularly rapid and widespread. By 1858 the three Methodist denominations in that colony provided seats for 11,000 people and Wesleyans alone made up 13% of the population. 92 In 1854 the entire work in all colonies became independent of the Missionary Commiee and the Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Con- nexion (or Church) was convened in Sydney in January 1855. e fact that Leigh was ‘not radically a Dissenter,’ a quality admired by the lay preachers who rst requested a missionary, kept him tied to an earlier phase of Methodist development. Lawry, Carvosso, and Manseld were the wave of the future with their vision of Methodism as a strong, independent Dissenting body, holding its own distinctive doctrines and discipline, albeit with Anglican origins. Leigh was a man who belonged more naturally to the eighteenth-century status of Methodism as closely aligned to the Church of England, and thus was a constant drag to the progressive views of the more recently arrived missionaries. He may for these reasons be remembered as a pioneer but not as a builder of Australian Methodism.

91. Cable, ‘Protestant Problems in New South Wales’, 125–26 92. R. B. Walker, ‘Methodism in the Paradise of Dissent, 1837–1900’, Journal of Religious His- tory 5:4 (Dec. 1969), 333–34.