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WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
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WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
WILLIAM GRANT
BROUGHTON
BISHOP OF AUSTRALIA
With Some Account of the
Earliest Australian Clergy
By
F. T. WHITINGTON, LL.B.
ft
Hon. Fellow of the Australian College of Theology,
Archdeacon Emeritus of Hobart, and Vicar-General
of the Diocese
AUSTRALIA
ANGUS & ROBERTSON LIMITED
89 CASTLEREAGH STREET, SYDNEY
1936
Set up, printed and bound
in Australia by
Halstead Printing Company
Ltd., Nickson Street, Sydney
19S6
Registered at the General
Post Office, Sydney, for
transmission through the
post as a book
Obtainable in London from
the Australian Book Com-
pany, S7 Great Russell
Street, W.C.I.
TO
THE MOST REVEREND
HOWAED WEST KILVINTON MOWLL, D.D.
I ARCHBISHOP OF SYDNEY, AND METROPOLITAN
I OF NEW SOUTH WALES
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. BEGINNING OF AUSTRALIAN CHURCH HIS-
TORY 1
II. WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON'S ENGLISH LIFE.
ACCEPTANCE OF ARCHDEACONRY OF NEW
SOUTH WALES. VOYAGE TO SYDNEY - - 18
III. AT WORK AS ARCHDEACON - - - - - 31
IV. BROUGHTON'S VISIT TO ENGLAND - 46
V. FOUNDING OF THE BISHOPRIC - - - - 55
VI. SOME OF THE BISHOP'S FRIENDS - 68
VII. EARLY WORK AS BISHOP 80
VIII. OVERSEAS VISITATIONS 92
IX. REVIVAL OF THE EDUCATION CONTROVERSY - 102
X. JOURNEYINGS IN NEW SOUTH WALES - - 111
XI. TRAINING AND SUPPLY OF CLERGY - - - 123 '
XII. THE CARE OF ALL THE CHURCHES' - - - 134
XIII. ST ANDREW'S CATHEDRAL. CHURCH PROPERTY
AND ENDOWMENTS - 145
XIV. SUBDIVISION OF SEE OF AUSTRALIA. BROUGH-
TON BECOMES METROPOLITAN OF AUSTRA-
LASIA 160
XV. THE BISHOP AS A CHURCHMAN - . - - - 180
XVI. THE ROMAN CONTROVERSY 191
XVII. THE 1850 CONFERENCE AND AFTER - - - 207
XVIII. THE FOUNDATIONS OF CONSTITUTIONAL
GOVERNMENT - - - - - - - 227
XIX. MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE 251
viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGO
XX. BROUGHTON'S SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND.
DEATH IN LONDON 264
XXI. RETROSPECT 274
APPENDIXES 283
INDEX 293
ILLUSTRATIONS
WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON - Frontispiece
HYDE PARK, SYDNEY, IN 1842 --'---- 4
VIEW OF SYDNEY IN THE FORTIES 12
THE KING'S SCHOOL, CANTERBURY 16
FARNHAM PARISH CHURCH 16
KING STREET, SYDNEY, IN THE FORTIES - - - 32
ST JAMES'S CHURCH AND LAW COURTS, IN 1842 - - 36
LETTER OF WELCOME FROM GOVERNOR BOURKE TO
THE BISHOP OF AUSTRALIA 44
REV. R. ALLWOOD 96
REV. W. COWPER 96
BISHOP BROUGHTON FROM A SKETCH BY BISHOP
NIXON 112
ST ANDREW'S CATHEDRAL IN COURSE OF ERECTION
WITH PRO-CATHEDRAL IN THE FOREGROUND - 144
LETTER TO GOVERNOR BOURKE GIVING DETAILS OF
THE SERVICE AT THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDA-
TION-STONE OF ST ANDREW'S CATHEDRAL - - 152
ST ANDREW'S CATHEDRAL AS ORIGINALLY PLANNED 160
ST ANDREW'S CATHEDRAL AS ERECTED - - - 160
BISHOP S-ELWYN 164
BISHOP TYRRELL 164
BISHOP PERRY 172
BISHOP SHORT - - 172
BISHOP NIXON 176
OLD ST JAMES'S, SYDNEY - - 192
THE KING'S SCHOOL, PARRAMATTA, IN 1850 - - - 208
THE SIX BISHOPS AT THE 1850 CONFERENCE - - - 224
BROUGHTON'S TOMB IN CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL - 240
PREFACE
THE purpose of this book is to do something towards laying
the foundation for the ecclesiastical history of Australia.
While visiting England many years ago, the writer was a
guest at St Augustine's College, Canterbury. One of the
Fellows, after referring to the recently published English
edition of the first Bishop of Adelaide's life, asked why no
adequate biography of Bishop Broughton had been written,
while lives of his contemporaries Perry, Tyrrell, and
Short had all appeared, particularly as the Bishop was,
| indirectly, the cause of the founding of St Augustine's.
| Although entirely agreeing with this protest, the biographer
| of Bishop Short felt unable to act upon the suggestion that
| he should step into the breach. The task, he urged, should
| be undertaken by a resident of New South Wales, the
| centre of the labours of the Bishop of Australia, who must
have left behind him much valuable information. But a
promise was given to bring the subject before some of the
leading clergy in Sydney. This was done, without effect,
excepting a promise to give assistance in a work which
everybody agreed ought to be undertaken.
The appropriateness of publishing in Australia a biography
of the Bishop of Australia at the time of the commem-
oration of the centenary of Bishop Broughton's enthrone-
ment on 5 June 1836 is obvious. And it is felt, by those
who have been associated in the work, that it has been a
privilege to make the production of this book a con-
tribution to the centenary celebrations. One reason strongly
pressed against venturing on a Broughton biography has
xii PREFACE
been that, a century after a man's work had ended, it
is difficult effectively to record his career with the personal
element essential to revive an individuality that has been
clouded by the passing of time. From the point of view
of mere attractiveness this is true. But the object in handing
on the life-story of public characters is to lay to heart
the man's message to his own age and to try to apply it
to the conditions of succeeding generations.
Judged from this standpoint, William Grant Broughton's
life richly deserves to be kept in mind. It is a common-
place to bemoan the distracted conditions of the world of
to-day. Broughton persistently taught that the first neces-
sity in building up national life was an all embracing educa-
tional system, based upon the cardinal truths of revealed
religion. The political wise men of his time scouted the
idea of an essential dogmatic faith, and following the fatal
lure of the line of least resistance, have covered Australia
with an undenominationalism which is causing deep anxiety
even among many who earn their bread under its aegis.
Next, as chairman of the committee of the early New
South Wales Legislative Council (of which he was an ex
officio member), Broughton produced a report of fifty printed
foolscap pages, in which he pleaded for the settlement of
the people on the Crown lands, and for a contribution, from
the income derived from the public estate, towards a religious
educational endowment for both higher and primary schools.
In sermons, lectures, and speeches he has left a remarkable
amount of literature containing records of the principles
for which he pleaded.
I am glad to be able, here, to express my gratitude to
those who have helped in making this book : To Dr Micklem,
rector of St James's, Sydney, the church so closely asso-
ciated with Australia's first bishop. In the midst of a
crowded parochial and diocesan life he came to the rescue
when age and other infirmities threatened to hold up the
project. Not only has he entirely contributed six chapters
PREFACE xiii
(XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XXI), but he has also
given his scholarship and criticism in reviewing most of the
book, and in reading and correcting the proofs ; and he has
done all this pro ecclesh: to the beloved diocesan of Tas-
mania, Bishop Montgomery, who, after his return to Eng-
land, enlisted Dr Claude Jenkins, then librarian at Lambeth
Palace, in research work among the Lambeth archives; and
he himself, aided by Lady Montgomery, did much copying
of documents: to my old chief at Hobart Cathedral, Dean
Dundas ; and to my dear friends, the Rev. C. E. C. Lef roy,
and the Rev. A, G. B. West. I am indebted, also, to many
members of the laity, including Mr S. G. Boydell and the
late Mr Charles B. Boydell, grandsons of Bishop Brough-
ton; and to our Church Advocate in Tasmania, Mr W. F.
D. Butler, B.A., L.C.B., B.Sc., who guided me in the legal
questions that have often to be considered in publishing
books. Great service has been rendered by the librarian and
staff of the famous Mitchell Library, and the state and
other libraries in Sydney; by the librarians of Melbourne
and Hobart public libraries; and by the Church Registry
staff at Sydney.
The frontispiece portrait of Bishop Broughton is from a
painting in the possession of Mrs E. E. Kemp of Sydney. A
number of the portraits and of the views of old Sydney have
been made available through the kindness of the Librarian of
the Mitchell Library, Sydney. We are also indebted to the
following: Mr William Dixson, of Sydney, the Bishop of
Newcastle, the Rev. Frank Cash, and Mr H. B. Cowper.
The illustration of the King's School, Canterbury, is from
a photograph kindly lent by the Archbishop of Sydney, and
that of Bishop Broughton's. tomb in Canterbury Cathedral
from a photograph provided by the Rev. J. W. S. Tomlin,
Warden of St Augustine's College, Canterbury.
As this book was going through the press the Archbishop
of Canterbury announced his intention of giving an address
in Canterbury Cathedral in connexion with the Bishop
xiv PREFACE
Broughton Centenary and on the day (5 June 1836) on which
is to be commemorated Broughton's enthronement as Bishop
of Australia: and His Grace has arranged for the broad-
casting of the address throughout the Empire. This pro-
posed action on the part of the Primate of all England,
speaking as he will as representative of the whole Anglican
Communion, is an impressive justification of the claims
which this book respectfully makes for a place among the
historical records of the "ancient church of the English."
F.T.W.
Hobart, Lent-, 1935.
"Bishop Broughton, the first Bishop of Australia, whom
no distance wearied, no difficulty daunted, and whose far-
reaching counsel, with an instinct that may without exag-
geration be called prophetic, traced out the boundaries of
Sees and Provinces which to ordinary minds seemed but
the mere creatures of an idle fancy." REV. H. W.
TUCKER: Memoir of the Life and Episcopate of George
Augustus Selwyn, D.D., vol. i, p. 3, London.
CHAPTER I
BEGINNING OF AUSTRALIAN CHURCH HISTORY
(1788-1829)
IT should help to provide a foundation for the better under-
standing of the life and work of the first Bishop of Aus-
tralia briefly to recall the state of religion in Australia
prior to Bishop Broughton's time, even though it may have
already received some notice. And, first, it is more. than
interesting to rescue almost from oblivion the fact that
originally Australia was not designed for a convict settle-
ment.
Upon the revolt of the American colonies, and the con-
sequent impossibility of continuing to send convicts there
from England, attempts were made to found penal settle-
ments on the west coast of Africa, but these failed because
of the deadly climate. About this time James Matra, who
had served as one of Captain Cook's crew in the Endeavour,
suggested to the Government that the Loyalist folk who had
been ruined by their faithfulness to the Crown in the con-
flict with the American people, might be compensated by
being given land to open up a new English colony in Aus-
tralia. 1 He is said to have been supported in the scheme
by Joseph Banks, the botanist of the Endeavour, from whom
Botany Bay has its name. The Government at first looked
favourably upon the plan. But Lord Sydney, the Home
Secretary, saw that a more pressing problem would be
solved by using the island continent for transportation pur-
1 James Bonwick, F.R.G.S., Australia's First Preaoher, Chapter II
(London, 1898).
B
a WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
poses. And so he proposed to the Prime Minister, Pitt,
that New South Wales might be "a very proper region
for the reception of criminals." Matra ultimately con-
curred, declaring that in the idea "good policy and humanity
are united." The outlines for a new penal colony were
accordingly drawn up and forwarded to the Government
by the Lords of the Admiralty in August 1785, though
Howe, the First Lord, is reported as having been against
the proposal. In these outlines provision was made for
each convict ship "to have a 'chaplain on board, together
with a surgeon and one mate; the former to remain at the
settlement," It is therefore a mistake to suggest, as many
writers have done, that no thought was given to religion
in the preliminary arrangements made for beginning to
people Australia by establishing a convict settlement at
Botany Bay. Possibly the ecclesiastical aspect of the scheme
did not receive much detailed attention, for British Govern-
ments generally content themselves with treating the re-
ligious side of state affairs with all politeness, but as some-
thing in the nature of an extra. At any rate the matter
was not altogether ignored.
While all the other preliminaries were being considered,
the Prime Minister seems to have been in consultation with
his fellow Commoner, William Wilberforce, for help in findr
ing a clergyman for the Botany Bay expedition. Wilber-
force consulted John Newton, the poet parson and friend
of Cowper. Newton was the leading spirit of the Eclectic
Society of clergy, Nonconformist ministers and laymen, out
of which the Church Missionary Society finally developed,
and whicH included among its clerical members, such notable
men as Charles Simeon, Fletcher of Mandalay, Venn, and
Baptist Noel; and of the laity Wilberforce, Cowper, and
John Thornton, the wealthy merchant who is believed to have
given away half of his yearly income. This great philan-
thropist appears to have been a friend of a young clergy-
man, Richard Johnson, who had just then been admitted
AUSTRALIAN CHURCH HISTORY (1788-1829) 3
to priest's orders. Born in Norfolk in 1753, he won at
the grammar school of Kingston-upon-Hull a sizarship at
Cambridge, where he graduated senior optime from Mag-
dalene College in 1784. His name was introduced to the
"Eclectics" as a suitable man for the Australian chaplaincy
by Newton, and under date 28 October 1786, Henry Venn
wrote to a kinswoman that Johnson "through the influence
of Mr Wilberforce and Mr Pitt, is appointed chaplain to
Botany Bay at the age of thirty-three, with a salary of 180
per annum." To be exact, the official stipend was 182,
that is, ten shillings a day. His nomination was submitted by
the Government to the Archbishop of Canterbury and ap-
proved. Yet despite the small salary and venturesome sphere
of work, he succeeded in getting a wife, and the Government
provided him with a parson's clerk. Newton spoke of him
as "a humble and simple-minded man. I think he would
not have thought of this service if it had not been proposed
to him : for some time he wished to decline it, but he could
not, he durst not." He seems to have been a true evange-
lical, in the best sense of the word, but of a somewhat shy
and reserved temperament, which did not help him in the
rough task to which he had set his hand, nor was he
physically robust.
But although the authorities of the Church may not have
taken the initiative in procuring the chaplain for Botany
Bay, the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr Moore) interested
himself in getting some suitable literature for Johnson to
carry with him, and in connexion herewith he was presented
to the committees of the Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge, and the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel. There is this record in the S.P.C.K. minutes for
14 November 1786, more than six months before the First
Fleet left London :
Dr Morice [secretary to the S.P.G. Society] reported to the Board
that he was charged with a message from the Lord Archbishop of
Canterbury recommending to this Society that they would furnish
4 WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
the Rev. Mr Johnson, who is going to Botany Bay as chaplain
to the convicts, with some Bibles and other religious books for
the use of his charge, and it was suggested that there was reason
to believe a considerable number of books lately had by Mr Thornton,
on Society's terms, were intended for this purpose. The secretary
was therefore directed to write to that gentleman for information,
whether all or any of the books are to be sent to Botany Bay. If
so, the Board conceives His Grace's wish to have been already
virtually complied with: if not, the Board resolves to reconsider
the matter, at their next meeting and to adopt some conclusion agree-
able to His Grace's wish.
Upon hearing from Thornton that he intended half of the
books mentioned for Johnson, the S.P.C.K. notified
.the Archbishop "that they are most readily willing to make
whatever addition thereto His Grace shall deem expedient,"
and the chaplain-elect attended a meeting of the Board and
received a grant of 100 Bibles, 400 New Testaments, 100
Prayer Books, 500 Psalters, and some 3000 tracts and
other publications of the Society. The official record adds :
"The Board expressed their most fervent wishes that the
Divine blessing might go with him in his undertaking, and
requested Mr Johnson to favour the Society from time to
time with his correspondence." It would seem the 'chap-
lain unfortunately omitted to comply with this request, ex-
cepting by one letter written three years after his arrival
in Australia. And it is singular that his diary of the voyage
to New South Wales apparently has been lost, for it is
clear that he kept one, as Newton wrote him on 24 June
1789 : "I heard a part of your journal read in our Eclectic
Society."
In response to an appeal made by Johnson in 1795, the
S.P.G. agreed to provide grants in aid towards the salaries
of four school-teachers in New South Wales; so both the
venerable English missionary societies did something to
assist the chaplain.
The official commission granted to the first Australian
clergyman seems now a curious document:
AUSTRALIAN CHURCH HISTORY (17884829) 5
George the Third, &c., to our trusty and well-beloved Richard
Johnson, clerk, greeting:
We do, by these presents, constitute and appoint you to be
Chaplain to the settlement within our territory called New South
Wales. You are, therefore, carefully and diligently to discharge
the duty of chaplain, by doing and performing all and all manner
of things thereunto belonging; and you are to observe and follow
such orders and directions, from time to time as you shall receive
from our Governor of our said territory for the time being, or
any other your superior officers, according to the rules and discipline
of war.
Given at our Court of St James's, the twenty-fourth day of Octo-
ber, 1786, in the twenty-sixth year of our reign.
By his Majesty's command.
SYDNEY.
The placing of the chaplain under the "Articles of War" looks
at first sight rather startling, but the explanation must be
that as the new convict colony was entirely a military set-
tlement all its officers had in those early days to be brought
under the ruling regime. Up to 1804 the chaplains re-
mained subject to the military authorities. They were then
placed under the sole direction of the Governor until 1810,
when they were transferred to the control of "the prin-
cipal chaplain," under whose authority they remained until
the coming of the first archdeacon. But even after Aus-
tralia received its bishop, the State often showed a dis-
position to interfere in matters ecclesiastical, and this neces-
sarily led to a good deal of friction, especially in Tasmania,
when that island was 'constituted a separate colony and raised
to an episcopal see.
On 13 May 1787, within a fortnight of seven months
from the date of Chaplain Johnson's official appointment,
the memorable First Fleet set sail from Portsmouth with
Captain Arthur Phillip, R.N., the first Governor of New
South Wales, and his staff, about 200 marines, 750 con-
victs, and some children. There were two warships, the
Sirius and the Supply, six convict transports, and three
supply-ships, and in one of these vessels carrying stores,
the Golden Grove, the chaplain and his wife and the par-
6 WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
son's clerk were travellers, which suggests that those who
organized the expedition evidently considered that the chap-
lain might have been appropriately labelled "Not wanted
on the voyage," as they separated him from both the official
staff and the soldiers, and from the unhappy human freight
in the transports.
After a passage of a little over eight months the voyagers
reached Botany Bay, the first of the vessels arriving on 18
January 1788. On that day in that month, forty-eight years
afterwards, the letters patent creating the bishopric of Aus-
tralia were issued the year before Victoria came to the
throne. An examination of Botany Bay satisfied Phillip
that it would never be a satisfactory harbour, so
he took to the boats and inspected the adjacent Port Jack-
son, and thus the site of the first Australian city was fixed
on the shores of what is admittedly one of the finest natural
ports in the world. The fleet received orders to move into
what Phillip named Sydney Cove, after the then Home
Secretary in England.
The official landing took place on Saturday, 26 January
1788, but all the vessels from Botany Bay had not reached
Port Jackson in time for the ceremony, and the ship with
the chaplain on board was one of these, so he 'could not
have taken part in the proceedings even if the Governor
had so wished. It is said that the chaplain held a service
on board the Golden Grove on Sunday, 27 January, the day
after the proclamation of the colony. In a narrative by
Captain Watkin Tench, of the Marines, in reference to the
formal occupation of the new settlement, it is said: "On
the Sunday after our landing service was performed under
a great tree by the Rev. Mr Johnson, chaplain of the Settle-
ment, in the presence of the troops and convicts, whose
behaviour on the occasion was regular and attentive." This
tree is said to have been in the lower George Street of to-
day, near to the foot of Argyle Street. From an entry in the
journal of Arthur Bowes, the surgeon on one of the trans-
AUSTRALIAN CHURCH HISTORY (1788-1829) 7
ports, the date is more particularly fixed by the entry:
"Feby 3rd. On this day the Rev. Mr Johnson preached on
shore for the first time." And the 'chaplain in his register
of births and marriages and burials also records: "Feby 3,
first divine service, and on this Sabbath the first baptism,
a son of Samuel Thomas, a marine, was performed." The
text of the first sermon preached in Australia was: "What
shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me"
(Ps. cxvi, 12). Besides the service on shore on the
morning of Sunday, 3 February, the chaplain officiated
in the afternoon on the Sirius, the Governor's flagship. The
first celebration of Holy Communion was on Sunday morn-
ing, 17 February, truly a dies memordbitis, of which the
significance made its impression on at any rate one of the
official establishment, a certain Lieutenant Clark, who in a
Pepys-like diary, forwarded to his wife, wrote: "Major
Ross sent to ask me if I would be so good as to let the Gov-
ernor have our marquee to take Sacrament in, which I did
not refuse, and I am happy that it is to be my marquee
never did it receive so much honour. Oh, my God, my God,
I wish I was fit to take the Lord's Supper. When it pleases
Him that I return home, the first thing that I will do shall
be to take it with you, my dear Betsy. I will keep this
table, also, as long as I live, for it is the first table that ever
the Lord's Supper was eaten from in this country."
Even if some excuses may be found for the absence of
an official act of thanksgiving on the Sunday immediately
succeeding the proclamation, they are discounted in the
light of the subsequent failure of the authorities to make
any provision for public worship. Four years after the
forming of the settlement, the chaplain was still holding the
services under the gum-trees, and when Governor Phillip
returned to England in 1792, the settlement was still with-
out any church building. At length Johnson determined per-
sonally to set about putting up, with the help of labourers
whom he had to pay, the wattle-and-daub structure which
8 WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
must be ever memorable as the first building placed on Aus-
tralian ground as a house of God. The chaplain, of course,
did not know that at this very time the Archbishop of Can-
terbury, to whom he had appealed in his distress, was writ-
ing to the Under Secretary, Nepean: "I should be obliged
to you for a hint of information whether any measure is
taken in respect of a place or places of worship at Botany
Bay, the want of which is so apparent from the letters which
I communicated to you for Mr Dundas's [the Home Secre-
tary] information."
The site of the chaplain's temporary church is generally
accepted to have been where Bligh and Hunter streets join
in busy, modern Sydney, and upon it is placed the memorial
cross to which a procession of clergy and laity go on the
Sunday nearest to 3 February every year to offer public
intercessions and thanksgivings on behalf of Australia. It
consisted of a nave 73ft x i5ft, and transepts 40ft x I5ft,
the materials being a framework of wood wattled, i.e. inter-
woven with tea-tree and daubed with clay, the roof being of
grass-rushes. Hence the old English verb, "to wattle,"
gave its popular name to the golden acacia bloom which has
become the national flower of Australia, the wood and
foliage of these trees having been worked into this primi-
tive house of God. Its accommodation, according to the
chaplain, was for 500 worshippers, and it had its holy
table, font, prayer-desk, and pulpit. In the construction
Johnson took a personal part, as well as being the architect,
and the sketch of the building shows it was not without a
simple, rough dignity. On Sunday, 25 August 1793, the
first service in it took place, and it was also used for a
school that the chaplain organized. The modest 'claim for the
actual expenses in building the church was apparently
pigeon-holed, and the account remained unpaid until Gover-
nor Hunter called attention to it four years after it had
been rendered.
AUSTRALIAN CHURCH HISTORY (1788-1829) 9
The new Governor, having a more seemly sense than his
predecessors of the need for a due observance of religion,
issued instructions that "the overseers of the different gangs
do see their men mustered every Sunday morning, and that
they do attend them to church." But this had an unexpected
consequence, for on the night of i October 1798, about a
couple of months after the order had been given, the church
was burnt down, and there appears to be no doubt that it had
been maliciously destroyed. The offer of a reward for the
discovery of the perpetrators of the sacrilege proved fruit-
less, but the Governor promptly had a large store tem-
porarily fitted up for church services, so the incendiaries
failed to achieve their purpose. Within a month Governor
Hunter took steps to build a permanent church, but more
than a decade passed before it was dedicated. At the same
time the foundations were laid of a church for Parra-
matta, and this was used long before the one in Sydney.
A Government and General Order of 1802 declares that "His
Excellency is pleased to direct that in all spiritual, judicial,
and parochial proceedings" the district of Sydney and its en-
virons "be comprised within a parish to be henceforth named
'Saint Phillip' (sic) in honour of the first Governor of this
territory, and that the districts of Parramatta, and its sur-
roundings, be comprised within a parish to be henceforth
named 'St John's,' in honour of the late Governor, Captain
John Hunter, and the churches now building at Sydney and
Parramatta to be respectively named Saint Phillip and Saint
John." Thus were formed the two pioneer parishes of New
South Wales.
Richard Johnson, besides being the first Australian chap-
lain, has the distinction of having published what must have
been one of the first literary efforts (excepting, of course,
the official correspondence with the Home authorities) that
had birth in Australia. This was a pamphlet of seventy-
four pages addressed by the chaplain as a pastoral appeal
io WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
to his flock after four years' work among them. The title
page runs:
An Address to the Inhabitants of the Colonies
established in New South Wales and Norfolk Island
By the Rev. Richard Johnson A.B.
Chaplain to the Colonies.
Written in the year 1792.
London.
Printed for the Author
MDCCXCIV
To all the inhabitants, and especially to the unhappy prisoners
and convicts, in the colonies established at Port Jackson and Norfolk
Island, this affectionate address is dedicated and presented by their
very sincere and sympathizing friend and faithful servant in the
Gospel of Christ,
RICHARD JOHNSON
The address is remarkable as an unconscious revealing
of deep piety, leading to a genuine love for souls, and yet
quite frank in its condemnation of sin.
After twelve years of exile from England, Johnson re-
turned to his native land together with Governor Hunter
in 1800. Though only forty-seven years old, he had been
a good deal broken down in health by the privations of his
colonial life, and by want of support and sympathy in his
work. He received scant recognition from the Mother
Church when he asked for a post of duty, for all he got
was an Essex curacy at West Thurcock on the Thames,
and though he had made some money by his Australian
farm and orchard, he certainly had not secured the fortune
he is often said to have done. In 1810 he secured the living
of St Antholin's, London, which was afterwards merged
into St Mary Aldermary's, opposite the Mansion House
Station in Cannon Street, and on the wall of this
church there is this memorial : "To the memory of the Rev.
Richard Johnson, B.A., who died March I3th, 1827, aged
74 years. He was the first, and for many years the only,
Chaplain appointed to the extensive colony of New South
Wales, and afterwards 17 years Rector of these Parishes,
where he faithfully preached Christ and Him crucified."
AUSTRALIAN CHURCH HISTORY (1788-1829) n
Four years later a record was added of the death of his
wife at the age of seventy-eight. In Sydney Cathedral a
dignified tablet has also been erected to commemorate Aus-
tralia's first chaplain. But surely the finest testimony to
Johnson was that of some of the convicts who declared
that "they did not believe that there was so good a man
beside in the world."
Six years before Johnson left New South Wales he had
been joined, in 1794, by Samuel Marsden, as assistant-
chaplain to the settlement. It is noteworthy that he, too,
had been a pupil at the free grammar school of Kingston-
upon-Hull (Joseph Milne, the ecclesiastical historian, being
at the time head master) and, like Johnson, went as a sizar
to Magdalene College, Cambridge. He had been a Methodist
local preacher, and is said to have become interested in mis-
sionary work by reading Cook's Voyages Round the World.
Born at Horsforth, near Leeds, the son of a tradesman of
the village, he seems to have developed more than the
ordinary independence of the northern Englishman, for
when he was suggested for work in New South Wales,
some doubted his fitness on this ground. He had attracted
the notice of the evangelical Elland Society, which devoted
itself to assisting the education of candidates for Holy
Orders, and through its influence Marsden received help
towards his university course, which he felt disinclined to
give up. Finally he decided to take the Australian chap-
laincy, sacrificing his degree, and was ordained deacon and
priest in 1793. After marriage, he sailed for Australia
on i July of the year of his ordination. Just before the ship
entered Sydney Harbour a daughter was born to Mrs Mars-
den, and the child, upon reaching womanhood, became by
her marriage closely identified with the church life of the
colony.
Within a few years of beginning work in New South
Wales there was directly brought under Marsden's attention
the operations of the London Missionary Society in the
12 WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
South Seas. Under fear of an outbreak among the natives
of Tahiti, a number of the married L.M.S. missionaries fled
to Sydney, where they were kindly received by Marsden, and
one of them, Rowland Hassall, he put in charge of his
private farm. When Thomas, a young son of Rowland
Hassall, grew up he worked as a merchant's clerk in Parra-
matta, and helped the chaplain in his pastoral duties. He
formed in his home the first Sunday-school set up in Aus-
tralia, and Marsden, took it over as part of his parochial
organization. The chaplain encouraged his young helper
to offer himself as a candidate for ordination and go to
England for training. Thomas Hassall accordingly did so,
and Marsden commended him to William Wilberforce, who
warmly welcomed and helped the young man, who thus
became the first to go from Australia to prepare for Holy
Orders. He entered at Lampeter College, and after four
years as a student, was ordained deacon and priest in the
same year (1821) by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and
at once started for Australia for work as an assistant chap-
lain under Marsden, whose daughter, born as the parents
reached Sydney Heads, he married. In 1921 the Bishop
of Goulburn (Dr Radford) in his diocesan magazine, re-
ferred to that year as being the centenary of the ad-
mission to Holy Orders of Thomas Hassall, who as chap-
lain, faithfully ministered for forty years to a large area,
which included what ultimately became the Diocese of Goul-
burn. His son, who wrote In Old Australia, also took
Orders, and in his book has much to say of his grandfather,
Marsden, and of Bishop Broughton, who had visited him
when he was working his chaplaincy and whom he held in
high admiration and affection.
It goes without saying that Richard Johnson gladly wel-
comed the coming of a helper in his difficult and laborious
ministerial duties. Marsden in many respects was a 'con-
trast to the first chaplain, both in his physical vigour a!nd
his readiness to contend strenuously for what he held to
AUSTRALIAN CHURCH HISTORY (1788-1829) 13
be right. He settled down to work at Parramatta, and on
5 April 1797, the foundation-stone of the pioneer per-
manent church building in Australia was laid and became
the forerunner of the present handsome Norman church of
St John, one of the most dignified in Sydney diocese to-day.
When Johnson went back to England in 1800, Marsden
became senior chaplain, and went Home seven years later
to bring the needs of New South Wales under the notice
of the authorities. He took with him some Australian-
grown wool, and urged the suitability of the colony for pas-
toral purposes, he having made successful experiments with
sheep on his own farm at Parramatta. Thus through John-
son's cultivation of the orange, and Marsden's wool-grow-
ing, two most important Australian industries were con-
siderably promoted by the earliest chaplains. While in
England Marsden secured two clergymen, ordained specially
for New South Wales, the Rev. William Cowper, who
became the first Archdeacon of Sydney and the father of
Sydney's first Dean, and the Rev. Robert Cartwright. In
the ship in which he went back to the colony, at the end of
1809, the chaplain had as a fellow passenger a Maori chief
named Duaterra, 2 and became so deeply interested in what
he heard of New Zealand, that he took the chief to Parra-
matta as his guest for several months. As a consequence
of this intercourse, Marsden decided upon a missionary
journey to the islands, forming the present great Dominion,
but which were not then under the English Crown. On
15 December 1814, he reached the coast of the islands,
and after a few days, on the festival of Christmas, con-
ducted a service for which his friend Duaterra had made
the arrangements, and at which he acted as interpreter of
Marsden's sermon from the text so appropriate to the season
and the circumstances: "Behold, I bring you good tidings
of great joy" (St Luke, ii, 10). Ten Maori chiefs went
with the chaplain upon his return to New South Wales, and
2 S. M. Johnstone, Samuel MarsAen., p. 80f. (Sydney, 1932).
14 WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
subsequently he made six other trips to Maoriland, extend-
ing up to 1837, and upon this last occasion the natives are
reported to have said : "We wish to have a long and stead-
fast look at our old friend, for we shall never see him
again." Crowds of them went to his embarkation and wished
him farewell with tears and prayers. He well deserves
the distinction popularly given to him, "The Apostle of
New Zealand." After forty-five years of laborious ser-
vice, during which he had seen New South Wales advance
first to an archdeaconry, under the Bishop of Calcutta and
subsequently to an independent see, Marsden died on 12
May 1838, when seventy-four years old, at the parsonage,
Windsor, New South Wales, whither he had gone in feeble
health for rest, and he lies buried in the graveyard of the
parish of St John's, Parramatta, of which he was prac-
tically the founder. Bishop Broughton, in a public reference
to the veteran chaplain's death, spoke of him as his "aged
and faithful companion, whose genuine piety and natural
force of understanding I held in the highest esteem while
he lived, and still retain them in sincerely affectionate re-
membrance." A fine Celtic cross was placed in 1907 on the
spot at Oiki on the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, where
M'arsden held his historic service in 1814, an event com-
memorated by the Church in the Dominion with much
earnestness when its centenary occurred. Other memorials
of him are in the parish church of Parramatta, and in the
church of his native village in Yorkshire, and the Church
of All Saints, North Parramatta, is especially associated
with his memory.
With the death of Marsden an altered and more eccle-
siastical system of church administration was introduced
into the colony. There are still many people who think of
William Grant Broughton as the first Archdeacon of New
South Wales, but this was not so. When the affairs of the
colony had drifted into a parlous condition, mainly, it was
said, through the high-handed autocracy of the naval and
AUSTRALIAN CHURCH HISTORY (1788-1829) 15
military administrators who reigned supreme until 1824,
the Home Government sent out in 1819 J. T. Bigge, an
Oxford graduate and an English barrister who had been
Chief Justice in Trinidad, as a royal commissioner at a
salary of 3000 a year to report upon "the state of the
judicial, civil, and ecclesiastical establishments, revenue,
trade, and resources" of the settlement. Lord Bathurst's
orders to the Commissioner, inter alia, recited: "You are
to turn your attention to the possibility of diffusing
throughout the Colony adequate means of education and
religious instruction, bearing always in mind in your
suggestions that these two branches ought in all cases to
be inseparably connected." It would have been indeed
well for Australia if these sound views of the then Secre-
tary for the Colonies had become an unaltering part of
Australian policy. The Commissioner took with him as his
secretary, receiving 500 per annum, Thomas Hobbes Scott,
M.A. (Oxon.), a brother-in-law of the Earl of Oxford,
through whose influence, probably, he had seen diplomatic
service at one of the British consulates in the Mediterranean.
Scott's father was curate in charge of Kelmscot, a chapelry
in the parish of Broadwell in the Oxford diocese. The son
did not enter at St Alban's Hall until he had reached his
thirtieth year, in 1813. Bigge left England for New South
Wales with his secretary in 1819, and his task occupied him
for two years. He embodied its results in three separate
reports (in the compilation of which it is known that Scott
gave much assistance) and in, the one dealing with religion,
the Commissioner said he "found clergymen in Sydney, Par-
ramatta, Hobart Town, etc., acting without concert, subject
to no ecclesiastical direction, and under no spiritual head
but the Bishop of Calcutta in India, and His Grace the
Archbishop of Canterbury in England." He therefore urged
the, "nomination of an archdeacon in New Holland." The
English Government adopted the suggestion, and Bigge's
recommendation of his secretary, Scott, for the post also
16 WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
met with approval. The nominee, having returned to Eng-
land and been duly admitted to Holy Orders, served the
parish of Whitfield, Northumberland, for about a couple
of years, and then on 5 April 1824, received his commis-
sion as "Archdeacon of New South Wales."
The saintly Reginald Heber was Bishop of Calcutta when
the archdeaconry of New South Wales was founded, and on
his voyage out to India, writing of the influence of the sea,
adds : "on which so large a part of my future life must be
passed, more particularly if I carry my Australasian visi-
tation into effect." But Heber died at the end of April
1826, and as Archdeacon Scott did not reach Australia till
May of the previous year, there probably was little, if any,
intercourse between them. When the tidings of Bishop
Heber's death reached Sydney a memorial service took place
in St James's Church, which the Governor officially attended.
Archdeacon Scott voyaged to New South Wales in the
convict transport Hercules which carried 133 prisoners and
detachments of the 4ist and 46th Regiments. Upon his ar-
rival on 7 May 1825, the Governor, Sir Thomas Brisbane,
issued a commendatory proclamation. Letters patent had
been duly issued, together with a consequent dispatch of
Lord Bathurst to the Governor of New South Wales. 3
These documents deserve attention because of some of their
unique provisions as well as for their historic place in the
development of the religious life of Australia. The Arch-
deacon also became an ex officio member of the Governor's
Executive Council, and of the nominee Legislative Council".
A little more than a month after his landing the Arch-
deacon, in St James's Church on 9 June 1825, held his
primary visitation. Of the Archdeacon's charge the Sydney
Gazette gives what it calls a "bare epitome" as follows :
The interesting nature of the occasion the paramount importance
of the duties devolving on the clergy: the peculiar excellence of
the doctrine, the discipline, and the ritual of the hierachy. These
3 See Appendixes 1 and 2.
THE KING'S SCHOOL, CANTERBURY
FARNHAM PARISH CHURCH
AUSTRALIAN CHURCH HISTORY (1788-1829) 17
topics were discussed in an able manner and in a temperate spirit.
The Ven. speaker evidenced an entire freedom from shackles of
bigotry. He unreservedly conceded to others the rights which he
claimed for himself and his colleagues the rights of conscience.
He communicated the gracious intention of His Majesty to divide
the Colony into compact parishes, and to prosecute the work of
education on a more liberal and comprehensive system than that
which had hitherto been pursued.
The Archdeacon, as is evident from his reports and the
records of his work, was clearly a man of considerable
capabilities. His power of organization is shown in his
first report to the Colonial Secretary, made soon after reach-
ing Australia ; but within a year of entering upon his office,
he wrote a mournful account of his surroundings to the
Bishop of London, in which he says: "I will not hold out
vain hopes which I am confident cannot be realized in our
time, and the utmost I can expect is to lay the foundation.
The mass of the population here is vicious to an extreme,
and for some years past and even at this moment all society,
with few exceptions, is too bad and too horrid to have any-
thing to do with." Yet though the moral tone of the colony
certainly seems from contemporary records to have been de-
cidedly bad, the first archdeacon appears, mainly from his
want of tact and his autocratic temperament, to have been
ill-fitted widely to influence it. After only four years' tenure
he resigned the archdeaconry in 1828, and returned to the
incumbency of the Northumberland parish, where he began
his clerical career, and which he had left in charge of a
lo'cum tenens. He was dignified later on with an honorary
canonry in Durham Cathedral, and lived till 1860. A window
in Sydney Cathedral commemorates his association with
Australia.
CHAPTER II
WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON'S ENGLISH LIFE
first (and only) "Bishop of Australia," exercising
jurisdiction over the whole of the island continent, together
with Tasmania, and ultimately New Zealand also, came
from that great English middle class which has supplied
M much of power and leadership to all departments of our
Imperial life. His father, Grant Broughton, who had asso-
ciations with Hertfordshire, in which Hatfield, the ancestral
home of the Cecils, is situated, had won the esteem of the
Marquess of Salisbury. Of the future bishop's paternal
uncles, one held office as Paymaster-General at Bombay,
and another became an Admiral of the Fleet. His mother
was the daughter of Mr John'Rumball of Barnet, Herts,
and William Grant Broughton, her eldest son, was born in
Bridge Street, Westminster, on 22 May 1788, the year in
which the first white settlers landed on the Australian con-
tinent, where the Bishop did his life's work. At his bap-
tism in St Margaret's, Westminster, he had as sponsors
his grandfathers and the Countess of Strathmore. When
he was six years old his family removed to Barnet, his
mother's birthplace, and the boy received his early training
in the local grammar school, of which he spoke with affec-
tion when he visited the country town forty years later. At
nine years old Broughton went to the King's School, Canter-
bury, boarding at the house of the second master, the Rev.
John Francis, whose daughter he married in Canterbury
Cathedral twenty years afterwards. He became a King's
Scholar at the end of his first year in Canterbury, and stayed
WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON'S ENGLISH LIFE 19
at the school for seven years, when he gained an exhibition
at Cambridge and greatly desired to qualify for Holy Orders.
But financial reasons made this then impracticable, as the
death of his father had cast upon him some responsibility in
connexion with the support of his mother. He therefore ac-
cepted the offer, secured through his father's friend, Lord
Salisbury, of a clerkship in the treasury department of the
East India House. Writing to his aged mother from Sydney
in June 1852, just prior to his final trip to England, Brough-
ton revived his sense of obligation to the Marquess: "I am
going to-day to have a guest at dinner, whose name will per-
haps surprise you. It is Lord Robert Cecil, 1 second son of the
present Marquess of Salisbury. ... I could not help think-
ing how strange is the course of events which brings one
of that family to my house: and I think that my having
the honour of being able to receive and entertain him on
terms of equality may lawfully gratify you, and make some
little return for the exertions and sacrifices which you and
my dear father made to give me education, and to prepare
me for the situation in which I am." It is clear that Brough-
ton, like so many other distinguished men, had the advan-
tage of a good mother. In a speech at a S.P.G. meeting he
referred to her as "her to whom I owe all things." More
than ten years before he wrote to her the letter from which
an extract has just been quoted, in speaking at a dinner
to his friend, Judge Burton, on his return to Sydney from
England, where the Judge had realized one of the long-
ings of his life in once again seeing his mother, the Bishop
said : "I too have left a mother whom I am most probably
never again to see in this life. But I will add that I should
behold the dawn of each returning day with less tran-
quillity, I should enter upon the duties of it with less con-
fidence of fulfilling them with success, if I did not know that
three times in the course of every day the prayers of a
venerable mother, wholly devoted to the offices of her re-
1 Afterwards the great Prime Minister of England,
eo WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
ligion, were offered up for me and mine and for all the
undertaking that I am engaged in." But the Bishop was
granted the privilege which he did not dare to hope for upon
his reaching England in 1853.
After nearly ten years in the English Civil Service the
way became clear, through the bequest of 1000 from a rela-
tive, for the future bishop to follow the career he early
desired, and he returned to Canterbury to read with his
friend, the Rev. H. J. Hutchisson, a Fellow of Clare Hall,
Cambridge. In 1814 he entered at Pembroke Hall, at the
age of twenty-six, and came out sixth wrangler. Among his
university friends was William Hutchins, who in Brough-
ton's year graduated thirteenth wrangler, and when the latter
became bishop eighteen years afterwards he made his fel-
low undergraduate the first Archdeacon of Hobart. It was
while at Pembroke that Broughton contracted the lameness
that compelled him ever after to walk with a stick. An
undergraduate (who afterwards achieved distinction) played
some practical joke that caused Broughton to fall heavily
down a staircase, and did the lifelong mischief. The author of
the injury had to pay the penalty of rustication for eighteen
months, as appears from an entry in the college orders book.
Soon after he had graduated in January, 1818, Broughton, in
his thirtieth year, was made deacon by the Bishop of Salis-
bury upon letters dismissory from Bishop Tomline of Win-
chester (who ordained him priest in the same year) upon,
the title of the curacy of Hartley Wespall, Hants, and the
notable head master of Eton, Dr Keate, came to the incum-
bency of the living while the future bishop ministered there.
In the year of his ordination Broughton married Miss Sarah
Francis. They had three 'children, a son, who died in his
babyhood, and two daughters who went out to Australia
with their parents, and were the first two candidates the
Bishop confirmed at his primary Confirmation. They both
married in Australia.
While at Hartley Wespall, Broughton did some scholarly
WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON'S ENGLISH LIFE 21
literary work. Upon the appearance of the anonymous
treatise Palaeoromaica, which advocated the hypothesis that
the text of the Elzevir Greek Testament was a. translation
from a lost Latin original, he published a reply covering
more than 300 pp. oct. in support of the orthodox view
that the "Textus Receptus" comes to us through the Greek.
With much logical and close reasoning, bristling with quo-
tations in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and supported by
manifold references to patristic and classical writers, he con-
tends that the exploded conjecture of Hardouin that the
Vulgate is the first record of the Apostolic writers and
the Greek Text but a translation from it, is equalled in
temerity and unwarranted assumption by the hypothesis of
Palaeoromaica. Having finished his textual controversy,
in the next year, 1826, Broughton entered the lists in a
discussion then current as to the authorship of Ikon Basi-
like, that marvellous monograph published in 1648, which
went through fifty editions in its first year. The Hamp-
shire curate championed the view that the Caroline bishop
wrote the book, and so he joined issue against those who
contended that Charles I had himself produced it as the
result of his religious meditations while a prisoner in Caris-
brooke Castle.
Broughton's learned adventures in literary controversy
attracted the attention of his Bishop, who secured for him a
transfer from the curacy of Hartley Wespall, after eight
years' service, to that of Farnham, in Surrey, in 1827, and
is said to have designed him for further advancement. But
while in Hampshire he had also come under the favourable
notice of the Duke of Wellington (Strathfieldsaye being
only a mile from Hartley Wespall) through the Duke's
domestic chaplain, Mr Briscall, who formed a close friend-
ship with the scholarly curate. The first important conse-
quence of the friendship was the offer by the Duke of the
chaplaincy of the Tower of London to Mr Broughton about
a year after his removal to Farnham. Lord Phillimore in his
22 WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
Ecclesiastical Law, says: "The chaplain of the Tower of
London performs the duties of a parochial minister to the
garrison"; and he has a residence within the precincts, and
is "under the orders of the Constable of the Tower through
the resident Governor." Broughton's name appears in the
muster roll of the Tower chaplains under the year 1828, but
there is no further reference in the records to him. He .can
only just have entered upon the office, for before the end of
the year of his appointment, 1828, the Duke of Wellington
submitted to him the proposal that he should succeed the first
Archdeacon of New South Wales, Thomas Hobbes Scott.
Immediately the new sphere was suggested to him,
Broughton wrote the subjoined letter :
Farnham, October 27, 1828
MY DEAR MOTHER,
Mr Briscall (domestic chaplain to the Duke of Wellington)
came over this morning from Strathfieldsaye with a proposal to
me from the Duke of Wellington which has occasioned us very
great surprise, and conflict of feelings. The Archdeaconry of New
South Wales is vacant, and the Duke wishes to confer it upon
me as the person whom from his acquaintance with me he thinks
most proper to fill it. The salary allowed by Government is 2000
a year, besides other great local advantages. The period which I
should be required to be absent from England would be five years
after which, of course, a retiring pension would be allowed, or pre-
ferment from Government given for my future support in this
country. In point of pecuniary advantage it certainly is a most
noble offer on the part of the Duke, and such as I could never
have raised my thoughts to: and it would seem to be an opening
made to a scene of usefulness in my profession where I might
exert to the utmost such abilities as God has given me for His
service. At the same time, to leave one's country and to go to
such a distance from all that we honour and love, calls for a
sacrifice which we can neither of us make without almost breaking
our hearts. We wish very much for your advice and opinion. If
you can borrow the 73rd number of the Quarterly Review published
last January you will find in the first article a pretty full account
of New South Wales and its inhabitants. I am not to make up
my mind for a week, and earnestly desire before doing so to have
your advice and to act with your approbation. Pray let me hear
as soon as you have considered. It is a most important and serious
undertaking either to accept or refuse, and. as yet I cannot tell
WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON'S ENGLISH LIFE 23
which way my mind inclines. We are all quite well, and hope
to hear as favourable an account of you. God bless you, my dear
Mother,
I am,
Ever your very affectionate Son,
W. G. BROUGHTON.
Writing again to his mother on 2 November 1828, he
says:
After considering maturely the proposal of the Duke of Wellington
I have this day come to a decision that I ought to accept it; that
in point of duty I am bound to do so. In fact I find that if I
were to decline it merely from regard to our own case, I should
probably never be satisfied with myself again but I should always
reproach myself with having shrunk from an office of so much
importance as this is. To-morrow therefore I go to Strathfieldsaye
to intimate to the Duke my acceptance of the archdeaconry, and
to return him my thanks for the high honour he has done me. From
the Bishop of Winchester I learn that the great distance of the
Bishop of Calcutta, who is my only superior, will prevent his
interfering or superintending : so that I must have the entire direction.
In consequence of this, he says, I shall be obliged to return to
England before the end of five years to communicate with the
Government here, so that in reality our actual absence cannot be
above three or four years at the utmost. There is nothing, my
dear Mother, to prevent us hoping to meet at that time, under
the blessing and protection of God in Whose service I am going, in
health and happiness. In the meantime, my first call must be to
provide for your comfort while we are away.
Broughton, as the foregoing letter says, had consulted
his Bishop as to whether he should accept the post offered
him, and subsequently it was known that he made his final
decision in the episcopal chapel at Winchester after re-
ceiving the Holy Communion from the Bishop's hands.
From a letter of two days' later date, it is evident that his
mother concurred in his decision, for he writes to her :
Your letter was very gratifying to me as it informed me of your
approbation of my determination. I waited on the Duke at
Strathfieldsaye yesterday to communicate what I had decided, and
must say I was received by him in the kindest manner. He spoke
highly of the appointment and of the country, and appeared pleased
with my readiness to go. But he said that previously to determin-
ing I ought to be aware of every circumstance, and that he had
therefore written to ascertain what pension would be allowed me
04 WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
on retirement, or to my family in the event of my death, and he
would not consider my acceptance final, he said, till these points
were settled. Just now I have received a letter from him, which
he sent over by a messenger, to say that he learns from the
Secretary of State that there is no pension on retirement to be
allowed to me, or to my family in case of my death. In reply I have
told him that personally I should be as willing as ever to engage
in the office, and -to leave my own claims on retirement to the
consideration of Government but that having a wife and children
who must share in the difficulties and dangers, I am bound to
consider what their condition under the circumstances would be
were I to die at such a distance from home. I, therefore, hoped that
His Grace will pardon my asking for time to consider, and to
advise with my friends. My intention is to think well upon the
matter to-night, and to-morrow to wait upon the Duke again with
my answer. My present impression is that unless some arrange-
ments could be made on behalf of my family if I should die there,
I should be acting unjustly towards them in going on so distant
and perhaps dangerous expedition: and that I shall say to His
Grace that under the circumstances '1 must prefer holding the
chaplaincy to the Tower which he so obligingly conferred upon
me. I am sorry to throw you again into suspense but you shall
hear from me the very moment I can put an end to it. We ^ are
all well but of course much agitated and perplexed by these vicissi-
tudes.
Ultimately, Broughton agreed to take the archdea'conry
upon qualified terms laid down by the Government, but
that he did so with much anxiety appears from a letter in
reply to one from his friend, the Rev. H. H. Norris :
You are quite right in saying that there is no ground for congratu-
lation on my appointment. I see the whole extent of the prospect-
before me, and shadows and darkness rest upon it; but after the
fullest consideration I could give to the question, it did not appear
to me that I could decline a post to which Providence seemed to
have led me without subjecting myself to self reproach as backward
and fearful in our Master's service. Whether I have chosen rightly,
or have taken a step which prudence cannot justify, events may
to some extent determine: but I have always the consolation of
knowing that the final judgment to be passed upon it will be one
in which, I humbly trust, success or failure will not so much be
the points inquired into, as the motives by which I have been guided,
and the fidelity with which I have sought to fulfil the duties I have
undertaken.
You have taken what appears to me to be the truest view of
the relation in which the maintenance of the Church of England
stands to the present and future happiness of mankind: and it is
truly in the hope of recommending such views that I am going
WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON'S ENGLISH LIFE 25
to what I know and feel to be a banishment. On account of my
dear children I should have been thankful to have been spared the
necessity of removing to an untried country: but such being the
appointment of God, I say unfeignedly 'May His Will be done.
The Duchess of Wellington, in a cordial letter to the
archdeacon-designate, wrote: "I will begin this letter as I
conclude most of those which I write to my real friends
God bless you. Whether at a distance from your country,
or at home still and always God bless you."
The decisive determination having thus been reached,
there followed speedy preparations for the new life.
Broughton had been preaching to his Farnham parish-
ioners a series of sermons on the Apostles' Creed, and on
Holy Innocents Day, 1828, he concluded the course, taking
as his text I Cor. xv, 44, in a farewell address, in which
he made reference to his approaching departure from Eng-
land: "For myself," he said, "let me with truth of heart,
assure those whom I here, for the last time, call my friends
and brethren, that never shall I hear mention made of those
among whom I have ministered, without having the recol-
lection excited of many a cherished regard, and of a period
through which we passed in much true Christian fellowship.
Never will the name of this our dwelling place reach my
ears without reminding me that my supplications to the
Throne of Grace are due on behalf of all who continue
to inhabit here."
The Farnham people presented him with a piece of plate
as a memento of his ministry among them, and in acknow-
ledging the gift, to the chairman of the testimonial com-
mittee, its recipient showed his strong affection for the flock
he was leaving. "To the end of my life," he said, "I shall
contemplate their gift with pleasure and pride." His
diocesan, Bishop Richard Sumner, who had succeeded to
the See of Winchester, presented Mr Broughton with a
private set of silver altar vessels, which many years later
he gave for use in the little church of St Mary's Albyn
26 WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
River, some 150 miles from Sydney, where a married daugh-
ter, Mrs Boydell, had her home. It was from the Albyn
River estate that one of Bishop Broughton's rochets, now
in Sydney Cathedral, found its way to an official resting-
place in the diocese.
Broughton's work as a parochial clergyman having come
to an end, his thoughts must have centred upon the then
almost unknown land thousands of miles across the seas. It
is not easy in the twentieth century with its fast . steamers
that practically annihilate distance and thereby destroy much
of the sense of separation and exile, to enter into the im-
mense demand upon faith and courage made by the pros-
pect of working under such conditions; but it was charac-
teristic of the future bishop's Spartan-like devotion to his
conception of duty that having decided to undertake the task
he faced it with unflinching calmness.
There is preserved in the Diocesan Registry at Sydney
the original diary kept by Archdeacon Broughton from the
time he sailed from England until he landed in New South
Wales. Some extracts from this historic record will show
how cheerless were the surroundings of the Archdeacon and
his party as they journeyed to their new home. The diary
begins :
1829. On Tuesday May 26th I embarked from Sheerness on board
the John transport, 440 tons with my wife, our two children, and'
Samuel and Hannah Hatton, our servants. The ship was commanded
by Mr Robert Norsworthy; and had on board 185 male convicts,
besides a crew of 32 men and boys, and about 30 soldiers (detach-
ments of various regiments) under the command of Lieut. Forbes,
89th Regt. Mr Love, surgeon R.N., had the medical superintendence
of the prisoners. Our embarkation was delayed several days by
the prevalence of a very strong gale from the N.E. which had
little abated when we left the shore. By the kindness of Vice-
Admiral Sir Bryan Martin, Comptroller of the Navy, we were
furnished with a large six-oared cutter belonging to the dock yard,
which conveyed us safely to the vessel at the Little Nore though
the swell of the sea rendered the operation somewhat formidable.
Such indeed was the state of the weather that two steam packets,
one bound to Margate and the other the King of the Netherlands
to Ostend, finding it impracticable to proceed beyond the Nore,
ran into Sheerness Harbour, where we left them. We had not
WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON'S ENGLISH LIFE 27
been a quarter of an hour on board the John before we were all
affected with sea-sickness; and we retired to our first night's repose
dispirited and uncomfortable.
May 27th. At high water this morning we weighed anchor and
were under sail by about half past seven: The operations attendant
on this manoeuvre would, I have no doubt, be interesting in a well-
appointed ship, and with a crew of able seamen. But the crew
of our vessel were apparently without experience or concert many
of them ignorant even of the meaning of the orders that were issued
while the crowded state of the decks, the sight of the prisoners
in chains, and of the soldiers loitering about, neither able or willing
to render assistance, rendered our departure a scene of tumult
and confusion. Our pilot did not spare his reproaches, but he
understood his trade, and expressed himself well satisfied with the
performance of the ship itself. The wind was about E.N.E. and
our progress consequently slow. We came to an anchor in the
afternoon opposite a mark on the Essex coast, which the seamen
called "Black Tail Beacon." In the night the wind blew with much
fury, and the motion of the ship was very distressing. Our Captain
during the day had been speaking of the danger of losing an anchor
and cable and being obliged to put back, which I know had happened
to several vessels the day before. There was, I believe, no real
danger, but knowing that we were surrounded on all sides by sands
and shallows, I could not help considering, as I lay awake, what
I might expect my sentence to be if it should please Almighty God
this very night to require my soul. My mind was tranquil; and I
was in consequence somewhat dissatisfied with myself ; being dis-
trustful whether it might not be the effect of insensibility rather
than the fruit of a true faith and a well grounded hope.
May 28th. At high water this morning we again weighed anchor.
The wind still E.N.E and boisterous. It was nearly 2 o'clock before
we passed the North Foreland. As we ran along the coast, I had
distant views of Herne Bay, Reculver, Margate and Ramsgate,
places with which I had been familiar since infancy. Indeed had
the nature of the land allowed it, there was nothing in the actual
distance to prevent our seeing the towers of Canterbury Cathedral,
beneath the shade of which my early years were passed, and within
whose venerable walls I was united to the dear and excellent wife
who is my companion and comforter in this voyage. In the Downs
our pilot left us ; and we proceeded rapidly before the breeze, which
was now favourable. The view of Dover with its town castle, cliffs
and shipping in the Roads, seen under a bright afternoon sun, was
truly magnificent, more so, I believe, than anything I had ever seen.
We soon came in sight of and as soon passed by Dungeness Light-
house. It is either built of brick or is coloured red, which renders
it a very conspicuous object in the setting sun. As long as it re-
mained visible, I kept my eyes fixed upon it, and when it at last
disappeared in the waves, felt very acutely the taking leave of a
country in which I had both enjoyed and suffered very much; and in
which we left many dear friends and connections.
28 WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
May 29th. We had a rapid run during the night, having passed
by the coast of Hampshire, the birthplace of all my children, and
where the remains of our beloved and ever regretted boy are buried
at our sweet Hartley; where if it please God, and should be pos-
sible, I would wish to rest by him. In the morning we were
between St Aldate's Head and the Race of Portland, and we had
hopes of speedily clearing the Channel. Here, however, the wind
died away and our progress was at an end. The surface of the
sea became smooth as glass. The steersman lashed the helm fast,
leaving the ship to her own discretion. I cannot say to the mercy
of the winds and waves; for there were neither. There was how-
ever a continual bubbling swell from below, just sufficient to give
the ship a see-saw motion which we felt to be most distressing.
May 30th. The calm continued all night; and a very miserable
night we passed. Independently of the motion of the ship, the
noises which accompany this state of wearisome inaction are truly
harrowing to the feelings, and destructive of repose. Through
the live long night it appeared as if every particular board, spar
and rope was endued with the faculty of creaking, cracking, croaking
and groaning; and the complication of sounds produced, is indeed
"the variety of wretchedness." This day John Hunt, one of the
prisoners, having been found guilty of striking the officer of the
watch was sentenced to be kept in handcuffs, and to receive three
dozen lashes. I was happy in being able to intercede for the remis-
sion of the latter portion of his punishment. He is, I fear, a con-
firmed rogue as this, I am informed, is the second conviction he has
suffered, and he is in consequence transported for life. However,
my purpose was by this beginning to shew the prisoners I felt
an interest for them, and thus to acquire an influence which may be
turned to better purposes.
Under date 12 June, while the John was in the grip of
a dead calm, Broughton's entry is :
I will take advantage of this interval to describe a convict ship.
On each side of the poop, as well as in front of the binnacle, we have
coops containing fowls, ducks, and guinea hens, and abaft the cuddy
sky-light is a large pen filled with ducks and geese. The inter-
mediate spaces are occupied by sailors refitting yards and sails, and
in the front are four privates and a corporal on guard with their
loaded muskets lying near. Below on the quarter deck, opposite to
each other, are two unhappy wights, convicts afresh convicted of
having towed their clothes alongside for the purpose of washing and
suffered them to go adrift, which on the _ score of cleanliness, as
they embarked with only two changes of linen each, is much to be
lamented. For this offence they are set in handcuffs and fetters
and condemned to twenty-four hours bread and water. About the
deck lie the soldiers off guard, some asleep, others employed in
various occupations. Two sentries with drawn bayonets parade the
deck. From the barricade which goes athwart the ship just afore
WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON'S ENGLISH LIFE 29
the mainmast to the forecastle, the prisoners are situated, some sit-
ting idle on the spars and spare booms, others cooking, washing,
walking or sleeping as inclination leads. They appear neither dis-
contented, dejected, nor sullen, and are in general very far from
noisy. In their behaviour I find them universally respectful, though
their characters are in general very unfavourable, most of them hav-
ing been more than once or even twice convicted and sentenced. Add
to this four or five women belonging to the soldiers and intermingled
with them, the crying of a child or two, the quacking of ducks,
cackling of geese and fowls, and _ the harsh grating cry of the
guinea hens and you will have a fairly complete picture of all that
is to be seen and heard on board of a convict ship.
The diary is much occupied by Broughton's criticisms
of some of the books he had carried with him for his read-
ing on the voyage, but there is no space for these interesting
comments, The final entries, therefore, must suffice.
Septr. 7-10. Fresh breezes, afterwards more moderate and cloudy
with rain. No occurrence worthy of notice; but the expected ter-
mination of our voyage occasions us some anxiety. But I know
not how it is, separation from friends and country have so entirely
exhausted our feelings that we have none left apparently to be ex-
cited by whatever event. The prospect of being soon delivered from
a state of irksome confinement occasions no sensation of joy: where
we are going there are none of those whom we desire to see or
whom we have been accustomed to love and value. In all this country
there is but one person whom I have ever seen before, and that
only once or twice as a new acquaintance within the last few
months. Eheu: Deus a-dsit: Deus adjuvet.
September 12. The land about Jeryis Bay was this day visible, W.
about four leagues. Its appearance is inhospitable and the only en-
livening appearance is that of numerous columns of smoke arising
at intervals along the shore which seem to declare that we are
approaching the habitations of men once again though perhaps they
be not of civilised kind. At half past 8 this evening as we were
drinking tea the chief officer came down to report the welcome news
that we had made the .beacon light which is at the entrance of Port
Jackson. I went upon deck in the hope of also seeing this gratify-
ing sight but my eyes could not reach it though s^me more prac-
tised in observation professed that they could see it appearing and
disappearing at intervals. Not being able to sleep through the mul-
titude of thoughts which crowded upon my mind I rose soon after
midnight and looked towards the direction of the land. To my sur-
prise we had neared it so much during the last few hours that I could
accurately distinguish its long outline until it faded away in the dis-
tant darkness. We were now nearly abreast the South Head on
which the light-house stands. The light is revolving, exceedingly
regular, bright and steady. I looked at it a long time with a mixed
30 WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
and kind of mysterious feeling of wonder and thankfulness. It
seemed to be the first friend to welcome us to land and to assure
us that the perils of our voyage are concluded. The situation is
lofty and commanding and seems to imply that the people of the
country to which this light is guiding us are capable of making
great attempts and of succeeding in them. What an advance is this
upon the conception and performances of the savage who not more
than forty years ago perchance had his resting place upon that very
spot.
September 13th. This morning we were at the entrance of the
Heads but the wind first blew directly out of the harbour's mouth,
and then fell to a dead calm. We see a small boat now and then
passing to and fro within the port, but they pay no attention to
us, and the pilot has not come off, though his station is immediately
opposite to where we are lying. We have full leisure therefore
to examine the frontiers of our appointed land of sojourn, dis-
turbed only by the apprehension that as there is not a breath of wind
and a strong swell sets upon the shore we may have some diffi-
culty in keeping the ship off the rocks if the calm continues, the
water being so deep as to render it almost impossible to anchor.
The cliffs are lofty, composed of a yellow sandstone, with very
deep weather stains, and the foliage and herbage which grow upon
them appear stunted in growth and gloomy in colour. But for the
light-house tower, which is of stone, arid some adjacent white build-
ings scattered up and down the rock, the appearance of the whole
would be dreary and cheerless. A little before eleven the pilot came
on board, and took charge of the ship, with which however he can
as yet do nothing. Apprehending that in the event of a breeze
springing up there would be great interruption to the service on
deck through the working of the ship, I assembled my congrega-
tion below for the first time during the voyage and preached
from St Matthew vii, 13, endeavouring to make my sermon impres-
sive to them, as being the last I should deliver, and our arrival
and approaching separation effectual to awaken serious thoughts.
God grant my purpose may in some degree at least be answered.
As the service proceeded I perceived that the ship was making
way through the water and the bustle heard from time to time on
deck proved that the pilot was exercising his skill to bring us into
port. On returning to the deck I was nevertheless surprised at
the rapid progress we had made. A favourable breeze sprang up, I
was told, shortly before noon, when we entered the Heads. We had
now the town of Sydney directly before us, towards which we
continued to steer, and at half past i cast anchor in Port Jackson
opposite to Sydney Cove 108 days after our departure from Sheer-
ness.
CHAPTER III
AT WORK AS ARCHDEACON (1829-33)
So forty years after the founding of the colony its second
archdeacon, in his forty-first year, arrived to superintend
the Church's work. It may well be imagined that as they
sailed up the beautiful harbour of Sydney his heart, and his
brave wife's, must have been wellnigh overcome by the
strangeness of their new environment. They had left pleasant
surroundings and many relations and friends in the Home-
land, and Broughton seemed to have laid the foundation of
what promised to be a prominent career. Now they had
come to a country still in its infancy, without many of the
comforts of civilization and, worse than all, with by far
the largest part of its population made up of outlaws from
civilized soil. Fortunately for themselves, and especially so
in regard to the task to which he had given himself, the
new archdeacon and his wife were not of those who look
back, though the Archdeacon could not forbear from confid-
ing to the concluding entries in his diary an expression of
an intense sense of loneliness and anxiety as the ship
approached Sydney. But no trace of depression was allowed
to creep into the letter in which he, only a few days after
landing, reported to his mother some of the earliest incidents
of their Australian life. He writes :
You will be happy to hear of our having arrived through God's
good providence in perfect health and safety at this our destina-
tion. We left Sheerness, as you are aware, on the 27th of May,
and we arrived off the "Heads," Port Jackson, early on Sunday,
September I3th, 1829. We had therefore been at sea 108 days,
and after leaving the Lizard we saw no more land during that
32 WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
i
whole interval excepting what was said to be the island of Palma ,
at 30 miles distant (which I should have taken for a cloud) and
a distant view for a few hours of the coast of Van Diemen's Land
the Sunday before our arrival here.
I had written a long account of our voyage, meaning to forward
it by any ship we might fall in with bound to Europe. But
strange to say we never had an opportunity, not having seen
more than three vessels, within any moderate distance during all
the passage, and those all outward bound.
I write by the present opportunity which is the first that has i
offered, although the ship is going a circuitous course and not
direct to England, since there is a possible chance of you getting
this letter sooner than you would do if I waited for another ship
going direct to England. In the meantime I will only say that our
voyage was neither much better nor much worse than voyages in
general go. We had fine weather for nine weeks and a most
prosperous passage to the Cape of Good Hope, but during the
whole of the subsequent time I was very unwell and uncomfort- J
able, after that the weather broke up and continued to be tempestuous J
all the rest of the way. We had a good captain, a very steady 1
respectable surgeon, and a gentlemanly officer of the guard, and J
they were all of them particularly kind to the children. The con- 1
victs in general behaved well and gave very little trouble, but I t
think soldiers very much in the way on board ship, and our crew
was a very bad one. Sally and the children bore the voyage better
than I did, though all were occasionally sea-sick. i
We found every one prepared to receive us with the greatest
possible attention, and we had not been an hour at anchor before >
Colonel Dumaresq, the Governor's aide-de-camp and brother-in ,
law, came to congratulate us and brought a present of fruit,
vegetables, eggs, new bread, and fresh butter none of which we * <
had tasted for six weeks before. We found also an invitation from I
the Archdeacon to come to his house, and on the following day ]
(Monday) we came here where we now are, and have been enter-
tained by him in a most friendly and gratifying manner. I have f
engaged a house for a year only. We do not much like it, 'but *
there is no other to be had. The house is large and roomy enough
though badly arranged, but the approach to it is rather difficult }
and there is no garden but a little miserable enclosure that is more j
like a sand pit. However we had no choice, and it was necessary i
we should have a place for our furniture, which we found all safely i
arrived and apparently not at all damaged, and we hope to take \
possession by the end of this week. In the course of a year we -
may meet with something we like better. The house has one recom- ]
mendation, that of commanding the finest possible view of the I
grand sheet of water which you saw in the panorama, and indeed !
from a much more favourable point than was shown in that picture. f
On the Wednesday after we came on shore I went, by myself, |
on board again in order to make my public landing. I had the J
Governor's barge, and the instant I set foot on shore there was
a discharge of cannon from the forts (which for my own part
1
t!
AT WORK AS ARCHDEACON (1829-33) 33
I would much rather have dispensed with) and I was received by
the colonels of the regiments and their staffs, the Judges, Law
officers, members of the councils, and all the first people of the
colony. We went in procession to Government House where after
my patent had been read, I was sworn into office by the Governor.
On the Friday _ following the official installation, His Excellency
invited the principal State officers and others to meet me at dinner.
In short the attentions paid to us by every body are quite over-
whelming. I have also taken my seat as a member of the Legislative
Council, which is in fact the parliament of the country, and in the
Executive Council, which is the Governor's privy council. I found
them just entering^ upon a question which excites the greatest
interest here, that is whether persons who have been transported
to this country shall on the expiration of their sentences be capable
of sitting on juries. . . . Archdeacon Scott will go home in the
Success frigate, which is now gone to New Zealand but is expected
shortly.
Archdeacon Broughton's letters patent only covered about
a page and a half of parchment, as they principally con-
sisted of references to the letters granted to his predecessor
when the archdeaconry was founded in 1825. It has been
said of these and other official documents associated with
the founding of the Australian Church that they entirely
ignore church authority. This is not altogether so. Arch-
deacon Scott's letters patent declare, inter alia, "And we do
hereby signify to Our Right Trusty and well beloved The
Right Reverend Father in God the Lord Bishop of Calcutta
that We have nominated the said Thos. Hobbes Scott to be
Archdeacon of New South Wales and to be subject and
subordinate during our pleasure to him and his successors."
The dispatch of the Secretary of State for the Colonies,
Earl Bathurst, to Governor Sir Thomas Brisbane, dated
21 December 1824, more strongly suggests that it might
with greater propriety have been issued by the Archdeacon's
spiritual superior, the Bishop of Calcutta, yet even this dis-
patch recites that where the letters patent of the Arch-
deacon are silent "the Canons and Ecclesiastical Law of the
Church of England will furnish the rules by which his con-
duct will be guided."
The new archdeacon did not take part in the services on
D
34 WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
the Sunday following his arrival, which were probably
associated with the departure of his predecessor. It was on
Sunday, 27 September 1829, that Broughton preached his
first Australian sermon, in St Philip's Church, from St
John xv, 1-2, his predecessor saying the prayers. The
Governor and a large body of military and civil officers, to-
gether with a full congregation of citizens were present. On
Sunday, 4 October, the Archdeacon preached in St James's,
and so on these successive Sundays he connected himself
with the only two churches then built in Sydney. He then
entered upon an inspection of the schools and other public
institutions, including those at Parramatta, and afterwards
went on a tour of some of the country centres, dedicating
church buildings, consecrating cemeteries, and preaching ser-
mons, including the assize sermon at Windsor.
The population of New South Wales was estimated at
this time at 36,500 odd, of whom more than 17,000 were
convicts. There was also a convict settlement with 200
prisoners and a military and civil staff at Norfolk Island,
for whom no chaplain had been for many years appointed,
though it had been for long a penal station, and Chaplain
Johnson had visited it. One of the last acts of Archdeacon
Scott had been to address a letter to the Home Government
emphasizing the spiritual destitution prevailing throughout
the archdeaconry.
Broughton's account of his earliest colonial days was
given in an address at an S.P.G. meeting, after his final
return to England, in which he said:
When I first reached that shore, forty-two years, after the forma-
tion of the colony, there were eight churches and twelve clergy-
men in New South Wales. Melbourne was uninhabited, and South
Australia in a similar state. In Van Diemen's Land there were
four churches and six clergymen. The Rev. Samuel Marsden, at
the risk of his life, and counting all things but loss for Christ's
sake, had plunged into the darkness of New Zealand; and all that
has extended, and all that now extends, there of knowledge of god-
liness, yea, and all that ever shall extend so long as time is, owes
its beginning to his devotion.
AT WORK AS ARCHDEACON (1829-33) 35
In a few years, the wants and necessities of this rising world
became truly fearful, yet nothing was done in England to add to
the small number of officiating ministers, and the solitary superin-
tendent of Australia and all the surrounding islands was an arch-
deacon nominally subject to the Bishop ^of Calcutta. I cannot
give you a better idea of the size of this archdeaconry than by
asking you to think of an archdeaconry having one church at St
Alban's, another in Denmark, another at Constantinople with the
Bishop at Calcutta, hardly more distant from England than from
many parts of the archdeaconry of Australia, for indeed the case
is in many ways similar. In point of fact, no human strength
could bear the toil.
The Archdeacon held his primary visitation in St James's
on Thursday, 3 December 1829, when there were present,
in addition to the clergy, the Governor and a large con-
gregation. The Rev. R. Hill, incumbent of the parish, said
the prayers, and the sermon was preached by the Rev. Joseph
Docker, junior chaplain, from I Timothy iv, 6. The clergy
then ranged themselves round the circular rails which sur-
rounded the altar, at which the Archdeacon was seated dur-
ing the delivering of his charge. Those who have only
known St James's, Sydney, since it was transformed into
the beautiful church it is to-day by the late Canon Carr
Smith (afterwards of Grantham, Lincolnshire) during his
notable Australian incumbency, can hardly realize its
original Georgian dreariness. But the imagination of its
reforming rector happily suggested to him to preserve the
floor of the amazingly high pulpit, which was the church's
most striking feature, and place it in its smaller but more
artistic successor. And so preachers of later generations
in St James's stand on the same boards from which
Broughton and many others of the leaders of the early
Australian Church prophesied.
The Archdeacon's introduction to his primary charge de-
serves to be quoted as revealing the spirit that ever domin-
ated his life and work an awful apprehension of the re-
sponsibilities of the sacred ministry, and a keen sense of
the imperious claims of duty. He said:
36 WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
The ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God are
pledged by engagements so awful, that every one of us by whom
they are regarded with becoming seriousness must tremble, in
his attempts to fulfil them, under a sense of his own insufficiency.
Were we charged with only a personal responsibility, such a dread
of falling short of the glory of God must be the natural conse-
quence of due reflection on the disproportion subsisting between our
feeble powers and the duty of a Christian teacher. No elaborate
argument is _needed to demonstrate with how much greater force
this observation applies to the occupier of a station which imposes
on him, in addition to his own proper ministerial charge, the
superintendence of others in the fulfilment of their sacred duties.
I speak not, believe me, my brethren, the language of insincerity
or affectation in affirming that my own mind is even painfully
sensible of the weight of this twofold obligation; and that two
considerations alone enable one with any degree of confidence to
undertake the duties with which I am here entrusted. The con-
sciousness, I mean, of not haying myself desired or sought the
arduous post which has been assigned to me; and my assured belief
that God, whose providence has conducted my steps, will give
me grace and power, as I must earnestly and humbly beseech him
he will, faithfully to take the oversight of his Church and rightly
to divide the word of Truth unto all followers of Christ Jesus our
Lord.
The Archdeacon proceeded from his devotional exordium
to an insistence upon the cardinal necessity for religious
instruction to be based upon a definite doctrinal basis. "It is
in vain to expect men to make much advance in practical
Christianity unless they have a distinct comprehension of
the relation in which they stand to God in Christ ... a
relation to be so incorporated into all our teaching that the
savour of the doctrine may be discernible even when it
is not avowedly or specifically insisted upon."
Next followed admonitions to the clergy in reference to
the discharge of their pastoral functions, both public and
private, the practical suggestion being made that people
resident in the outlying districts should be assisted in the
observance of their religious duties by the circulation among
them of literature such as that provided by the Society for
the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. 1 Much emphasis
1 The local Government education policy was to introduce the Irish
non-sectarian system, with Bible reading without note or comment.
AT WORK AS ARCHDEACON (1829-33) 37
was laid by the Archdeacon upon the vital necessity for the
Church discharging her responsibility to the young by sup-
porting general education founded on the basis of revealed
religion. "Upon any other system," he said, "the popula-
tion of a country may acquire knowledge but not wisdom.
The only reasonable hope which we can entertain of diffus-
ing religious impressions and virtuous habits rests on the
continuance of those parochial schools wherein, while the
elements of instruction are liberally afforded, the youthful
mind is trained 'in the nurture and admonition of the
Lord'." In further commenting upon the education question,
the Archdeacon paid a warm tribute to his predecessor,
Archdeacon Scott:
From an extensive acquaintance with what he designed and what
he effected, I do not hesitate to express my persuasion that ajnan
of purer intention, stricter principle, and less under the bias of
self interest never trod these shores. I would wish, however, princi-
pally to connect his name with the praise of having designed, and
through many difficulties brought near to perfection, that system
of religious instruction in which I am persuaded the best hopes of
this colony repose. Let not those who are enjoying the benefits
of his labours grudge him a distinction which he has fairly and
thoroughly earned. You, my reverend brethren, will not, I am
certain, refuse to unite in this feeble but well deserved testimony,
and in the expression of a wish that the virtual founder of our
existing establishments for public education may to the end of his
life enjoy the gratification of knowing that his exertions are duly
appreciated, and that the monuments of his zeal in the service
of God and man are extended and perpetuated by ours.
The two closing topics discussed in the primary charge
were the possibilities for spiritual ministrations to the con-
victs, and to the aboriginal natives. As to the first, the
clergy were reminded that,
all day must your hands be stretched forth to a disobedient and
gainsaying people, under a conviction that as any human being is
more involved in the snares of vice, the more earnest and un-
remitting must be our endeavour to make him sensible of his slavery,
and to point out to him that only path by which he may return
into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. We must seek them
out, for they will hardly make the first advance, and endeavour to
convince them that we take an interest in their restoration to
38 WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
honesty and happiness; that we are solicitous for their eternal
preservation; that far from entertaining towards them any senti-
ment of neglect or contempt, we are disposed for their sakes to
labour if, peradventure through our teachings, God shall give them
a knowledge of the Truth.
Many of those unhappy persons have erred less through settled
malignity than pure ignorance or momentary weakness; many in
deep repentance have been made sensible of their criminality and
are ready upon the slightest encouragement to obey the call to
return into "the way of life." Blessed is that man to be accounted
the effect of whose labours as a minister of Christ is to give occasion
for the joy which is in heaven over one sinner that repenteth.
In dealing with the Church's relation to the aborigines the
Archdeacon threw out a vigorous challenge :
Shall we look on and see them perish without so much as an effort
for their preservation? Natural, and much more Christian, equity
points out that as in the occupation of their soil we are partakers
of their "worldly things," so in justice should they be of our
"spiritual things."
I am aware of attempts having been undertaken with this view;
and their abandonment from a sense of existing difficulties, and
despair of final success. But from the very nature of the under-
taking obstacles were to be anticipated. Every advancement of the
Christian religion, from its first origin to the present day, has been
effected in opposition to difficulties which, in a natural sense, might
be termed insuperable. Its excellency and its derivation from a
heavenly source, have been best demonstrated by surmounting such
opposition. It may be considered, after all, a very doubtful question
whether the erratic habits and inconsiderate disposition of the native
tribes are in reality more adverse to the reception of Christianity
than those propensities which its earliest preachers had to encounter
in the natives they addressed; the obstinate superstition of the Jew,
and the philosophic arrogance of the Gentile. But suppose them
to be so, what shall we say? Shall we therefore desist? Un-
hesitatingly I answer, No. Persevere as you regard the honour of
God, and as you value the souls of these your helpless and unhappy
fellow creatures. The very ground which we tread upon teaches
us this lesson. What does it exhibit but the sublime spectacle of
the triumph of civilized man over the ruggedness of the physical
world? And shall the Christian philanthropist despair of having,
in God's good time, an equal right to rejoice in the success of his
exertions to produce a moral reform, and by spiritual civilization
to reclaim this human wilderness which extends on every side
of us? The feeling which I derive from difficulties in such a case
and would communicate to those around me is animation and not
despair.
AT WORK AS ARCHDEACON (1829-33) 39
The Archdeacon certainly maintained this attitude towards
the problem of the Church and the aborigines throughout
his Australian career.
In forwarding a copy of the Archdeacon's charge to the
Colonial Secretary the Governor, Sir Ralph Darling, wrote:
". . . . It will be satisfactory to you to receive this earnest
assurance of the zeal with which he has commenced, and
with which his character affords the best assurance he will
continue, to discharge the duties of his sacred office. It
may not be altogether irrelevant to add, and it is due to Mr
Broughton that I should acquaint you, that he affords me
on all occasions in his several situations as member of the
Executive Council and of the Legislative Council the most
cordial assistance and co-operation in conducting the business
of the Government."
The official entrance upon his work having been com-
pleted by his primary charge to the clergy, the Archdeacon,
with characteristic energy, entered upon a programme of
pastoral visits in Sydney and its surroundings, and then
farther afield, of which he gives details in a letter to his
mother.
We are all, many thanks to the Author of all mercies, perfectly
well. The summer has upon the whole been very favourable, and
certainly not hotter than many I have felt in England, excepting
for an occasional day or two, and especially last Friday and the
four following days. We had what is called "a hot wind" from
the N. West, and certainly were nearly broiled. At the same time
I do not find that it actually disagrees with us, except ttiakjng
the children look very pale, but for my own part my appetite., and
general feeling of comfort are quite as great at such times as at
others provided I am allowed to sit still. We have had a very
plentiful supply of fruit of every kind and upon the whole I must
say better ripened and flavoured than in England. . . . Soon after
our last letters, by the VibiMa, were dispatched, I set out on my
visitation, and went first to Parramatta, fifteen miles from here,
where I was accommodated at a most clean and comfortable Inn.
. . . From this place I went daily to visit the male and female
orphan schools, to superintend the examination of the boys and
girls preparatory to the distribution of rewards and prizes which
takes place yearly in the church at Parramatta. After this I went
across the country as far as the River Nepean, and after that to
40 WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
the southward in the counties of Camden and Argyle. I was out
ten days and travelled more than 300 miles. The roads are for the
most part as good as those in England. Even those through "the
Bush" as it is called (that is where the native timber trees have
not been cleared away), are exceedingly good, and generally fit for
a four-wheeled carriage to travel on. The great defect of the
country is a sameness and tameness in its appearance, and a want
of water. The latter is really quite distressing. . . . Nevertheless
I was much pleased with what I saw, and can have no reason
to doubt that this will be some day or other a rich flourishing
and powerful country, that is if the people can ever be rendered
honest and respectable. I had heard much of snakes and bush-
rangers, but in all this distance I saw not one of the former, and
only heard of the latter.
In February 1830, the Archdeacon voyaged in H.M.S.
Crocodile to Van Diemen's Land for his first visitation of
the island. He delivered a charge to the small body of chap-
lains, and also went through the parishes or districts, with
St David's, Hobart Town, as his centre in the south, and
St John's, Launceston, in the north, preaching in St David's
on 28 February from the text St James i,' 12. He made a
second visitation three years later and on this occasion com-
municated, from Hobart Town, with the Rev. R. R. Davies
of Longford, in the north of the island, and subsequently
Archdeacon of Hobart for over a quarter of a century, that
upon his approaching northern tour he would be prepared
to admit to Holy Communion any who were "desirous" to
be confirmed. The Archdeacon wrote:
If there be any young persons, not under fourteen years of age,
willing to take upon them the "vows and promises made for them
in Baptism," and whom upon examination you shall deem properly
qualified, I shall be desirous, as I have before stated, of admitting
them publicly to that engagement. Immediately after the Nicene
Creed I should feel satisfaction in delivering an address to them,
and in receiving their promises according to the form directed by
the "Order of Confirmation" omitting only the imposition of hands
and the collect having reference to it. After this I should propose
to administer the Holy Communion to such of these young persons
as may have beforehand declared to you their disposition to become
partakers, and of whose fitness you may be satisfied. At the
same time, of course I am desirous that any others of the con-
gregation who are willing should also communicate. My address
to the young people, though not delivered from the pulpit, will be
in lieu of a sermon, as I conceive the service will be long enough.
AT WORK AS ARCHDEACON (1829-33) 41
This was in pursuance of an authority granted to the
Archdea'con by Bishop Daniel Wilson, of Calcutta, as fol-
lows:
The permission for the young to approach the Lord's Table when
"desirous" of Confirmation is allowed by the rubric. The examina-
tion of them privately and the decision upon their qualifications all
fall within the office and duty of a presbyter. Of course you would
not read the Confirmation service, nor proceed to imposition of
hands, nor pronounce the Apostolic Benediction which has ever
been accounted (with ordination, jurisdiction, correction of doctrine
and discipline, and superintendence) the peculiar spiritual province
vested in the office termed "Episcopal." Any solemnity which can
be given to your examination and admission to the Holy Com-
munion (short of these specified things) would of course be most
desirable at your distance from your diocesan.
It is of interest to note that Cardinal Moran in his
History of the Catholic Church { m Australasia, 2 when re-
ferring to Father Flynn, who ministered for a short time
to the Roman Catholics in the early days of the settlement,
says that an aged resident of Sydney had pointed out to
him "the place in George Street where Father Flynn ad-
ministered the Sacrament of Confirmation." The Cardinal
explains that the Propaganda of Rome had in 1818 appointed
Father Flynn "Prefect-Apostolic of New Holland, with
faculty to administer the Sacrament of Confirmation."
Probably the Roman priest used chrism as do the clergy
of the Eastern Church.
Archdeacon Broughton's letter of authority above quoted
is also noteworthy as showing that the relations between the
Bishop of Calcutta and his Australian archdeacon were not
altogether formal, as is sometimes said. And an earlier
communication in March 1833 had been received by
Broughton from Bishop Wilson encouraging the idea of
making their official relationship as practical as possible.
The Bishop writes:
I have long been intending to open a correspondence with you,
well knowing the impossibility of your hearing soon of my arrival,
s p. 64.
42 WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
and anxious to do the only part of my sacred office which it is
in my power to execute the part of friendly advice and consola-
tion. I am the rather inclined to write at this time because I have
some copies of a sermon which I have just published, which I would
beg you to accept for yourself, and send with my best compli-
ments to the clergy and persons of authority in your archdeaconry.
I need not state to you, Dear Sir, who are so well versed in all
matters of divine knowledge, that the charge and episcopal care
imposed upon me exceeds all human power to sustain. A visit
to New South Wales or Van Diemen's Land may indeed arise as
a refuge prescribed to infirmity or sickness, but can scarcely be
contemplated if health be continued. But I can wish you "good
speed in the name of the Lord." I can daily pray for you and
the clergy and flocks committed to your care. I can write occasion-
ally, as I now do, to exhort and to admonish and animate you
to make full proof of your ministry.
The Archdeacon in commenting upon the sermon for-
warded by his diocesan said he read it, instead of preaching
himself, in St James's, Sydney (the pro-cathedral) and
instructed the clergy to do the same in their parishes. It
comprised a summary of the chief doctrines of the Church
and a "comprehensive statement of the argument on behalf
of the episcopal form of government, in support of a national
established religion." 3
In his charge to the clergy in Tasmania the Archdeacon
urged, as he had done in Sydney, that one of his strongest
religious convictions was the imperative necessity for all
true education being built upon a spiritual foundation. It
must, therefore, have been a staggering blow when he found,
on reaching Australia, that he had been allowed to begin
his work as archdeacon without any notification that a re-
versal of the ecclesiastical and educational policy of the
Home Government as to New South Wales had been decided
upon. And the dispatch notifying this to the Governor was,
strangely enough, dated the day before Broughton sailed
from England.
It may be conceded that the reservation by the royal
charter of George IV of one-seventh of the lands of New
a Rev. Josiah Bateman, Life of Bishop Daniel Wilson, vol. i, p.
318 (London, 1860).
AT WORK AS ARCHDEACON (1829-33) 43
South Wales for the support of religion and education under
the direction of the representatives of the established Church
of England could not be expected to continue after the
population of the colony grew, and consequently differing
religious denominations formed part of it and had their place
in the working of the system of local responsible govern-
ment which ultimately was developed. But the decision of
the Home authorities in 1829 to revoke the charter, and
leave the Church dependent upon the revenue of the colony,
may well have caused the Archdeacon and his clergy much
anxiety. A notable dispatch, in 1833, from the then Governor
of New South Wales, Sir Richard Bourke, to the Secretary
of State for the Colonies further urged that the time had
arrived for official recognition to be given to Roman Catho-
lics and Presbyterians as well as to the Church of England
in the help afforded to church organization and public educa-
tion. 4 The subject having been ventilated in the Press was
widely discussed, and it will have been seen that in his
primary charge, a few months after his landing in Australia,
Archdeacon Broughton had declared his policy to be the
maintenance of the plan inaugurated by his predecessor,
Archdeacon Scott, of a combined system of definite religious
teaching with the secular training in the parochial schools,
under financial support from the Government.
Sir Richard Bourke's dispatch remained unanswered for
two years, but in 1835 Lord Glenelg, who had become
Colonial Secretary, replied to Governor Bourke approving
the proposals of the dispatch:
Attached as I am in common with other members of the Govern-
ment to the Church of England, and believing it, when duly adminis-
tered, to be a powerful instrument in the diffusion of sound religious
instruction, I am desirous that every encouragement should be given
to its extension in New South Wales, consistently with the just
claims of that large part of the community which is composed of
Christians of other denominations. . . . The plan which you have
suggested appears to me to be fully in accord with this view in
4 W. W. Burton, State of Religion and Education in New South
Wales, pp. 42f. (London, 1840).
44 WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
both its branches in that which relates to the places and ministers
of worship, or, as may be more briefly described, to public re-
ligion, and in that which concerns public education.
The Church and School Corporation Charter was accord-
ingly revoked, but the controversy continued, especially on
its educational side, and ultimately a local ordinance of New
South Wales was passed with the intention of removing the
educational control from the Church of England, and the
lands reserved to her in this connexion were to be resumed
by the Colonial Government under the direction of the
Imperial authorities. But the actual resumption was not at
once proceeded with, so Broughton and his co-trustees of
the Corporation continued to administer its affairs, though
they refrained from undertaking any new developments in
connexion with the property.
During the five years of the currency of his post as
archdeacon, Broughton visited all the more settled districts
of New South Wales and also covered many a hundred
miles of travelling through bush country in getting from
place to place. Writing an amusing account of one of these
tours he gives his early impressions of the Australian
aborigines :
I _have been a short voyage to Port Stephens, _ about a hundred
miles to the northward, where the Australian Agricultural Company
Establishment is, under the superintendence of Sir Edward Parry.
. . . The view of the Port from Sir Edward Parry's house, or
rather cottage, is very striking. I might even say magnificent,
and from Sir Edward and Lady Parry I received great civility and
kindness. I preached on the two Sundays that I was there at
the Company's two establishments, Carrington and Sitroud, and
christened or received into the congregation more than thirty children.
We had beautiful weather uninterruptedly during our stay, as
you may judge when I tell you that on the 21 st of June, our
shortest day and the depth of winter, we all lay down on the grass
in the open air to eat our luncheon, without any fear whatever of
damp or cold. It was on the banks of the river, a very pretty
sylvan scene, the greater number of the party had been hunting
and shooting, and the dogs and horses scattered about among the
trees made the scene very lively. To add to it, the natives who
accompanied us everywhere, being passionately fond of hunting
and very expert at it, had made their fire some thirty or forty
-^
LETTER OF WELCOME FROM GOVERNOR BOURKE TO THE
BISHOP OF AUSTRALIA
From the original in tlie possession o/ Mr William Dixson.
X ' -' ' ",
' u- .-** . r.
V
AT WORK AS ARCHDEACON (1829-33) 45
yards from us and were broiling their opossums, bandicoots and
other vermin which they principally live upon. Some of them quite
naked, others in a variety of clothes of all sorts and shapes and
sizes which they had contrived to beg or borrow from their
European friends, always lively, good humoured and obliging, but
very lazy, not willing to work after our manner; but when they
want meat, climbing in a most expert manner up one tree after
another in search of it, by cutting notches one above the other
just large enough to fix one of their toes in.
They lived constantly about the houses at Stroud, indeed while
there we spent almost as savage a kind of life as theirs. Three of
them used to sit round the fire on the ground eating their meals while
we had ours. On Sunday morning just before church I happened to
be alone with "Willim," a constable and therefore dressed in an
old regimental coat and carrying a staff inscribed "W.R.," quite a
very fine young man, and "Jacky," a boy, both unclad. I took out
my bands and put them on, a sight which they of course had never
seen before, indeed there had never previously been a clergyman
there. It was quite ludicrous to see their surprise. They stopped
short in the midst of eating, all of them having their mouths full at
the moment, and looked for some minutes with most earnest attention
as if they expected something very wonderful was to happen. When
they had a little recovered from their surprise they said something
to one another in their own language and broke out into such im-
moderate laughter, continued for such a length of time, that it was
quite impossible to do otherwise than join them. I thought it was
rather a strange thing for me to be sitting in that way in the midst
of three savages. Such things do not often happen to archdeacons, I
suppose. I gave a shilling to one of them, named "Micky," who upon
that shook hands with me .many times, and said I was a very good
fellow, and next morning sent me a present of a boomerang, a weapon
of wood in the shape of the blade of a scimitar which they hurl with
great force and very correct aim. We saw an old man named
"Billie," who standing as a looker ori at a great fight which took
place a few days before we came, had the top joint of his thumb cut
off by a blow of one of these weapons as cleanly as by a sword or a
knife. After my present to "Micky," however, I never saw him.
He would not come near me, I believe, fearing that I might perhaps
take the shilling away from him again. In their language "corbon"
means ^ "great," and at Bathurst they called me the "corbon parson,"
but this I concluded some of the white people had taught them. I
hope in the course of the present year to make an attempt at least
to instruct and civilise them, but to decide even how to begin it will
require infinite deliberation, and it is evidently only the hand of God
which can make the attempt successful. . . .
CHAPTER IV
BROUGHTON'S VISIT TO ENGLAND (1834-5)
THE two matters which the Archdeacon declared had been
forced upon his attention by his first tours through the
settled districts of New South Wales and Van Diemen's
Land were (i), the necessity for increasing his clerical
staff so as to minister to the population as it spread out
far beyond the centres of Sydney and Hobart Town; and
(ii), the need for a vigorous diocesan education policy, in
consequence of Governor Bourke's successful appeal to the
Home Government to disband the Church and School Cor-
poration, which had given certain educational advantages to
the Church of England, but did not attempt to coerce trie
scholars not of her fold, and to substitute an undenomina-
tional system of public education after the Irish pattern.
Ultimately the Archdeacon decided that the situation was
so grave that he must go to England and in person urge
immediate action upon the Home authorities, but before
leaving Sydney he held his second visitation on 13 February
1834 in St James's, Sydney.
In its introduction he referred to the death of Dr James,
the Bishop of Calcutta when Broughton succeeded to the
archdeaconry, and took occasion to express his own rigorous
view of the organization of the ministry of the Church in
apostolic times. He said:
'! /-'<
When we separated upon the termination of my last address to you
here, I did not anticipate that so long an interval would elapse before
I should have the satisfaction of meeting you collectively again. But
the great Disposer of events was pleased in His unsearchable wisdom,
BROUGHTON'S VISIT TO ENGLAND (1834-5) 47
to remove prematurely from his presidency over us the prelate under
whose jurisdiction you were on that occasion summoned to appear
before me. During the vacancy of the episcopal office, I hesitated
to assume or exercise a power which, agreeably to my views of the
constitution and polity of our Church, can devolve upon me only as
the representative among you of one who has been invested with the
highest of the ministerial orders. Let not this, I would entreat you,
be regarded as a scrupulous adherence to matter of form alone. My
own examination of the Word of God, and reflection upon it aided by
the study of Christian antiquity, have satisfied me that the subordi-
nation of various offices in the Church has not been appointed with-
out the wisest design ; and that in the propagation and final extension
of the Gospel throughout the World, the maintenance of that subordi-
nation will be found of more immediate and vital importance than is
now generally supposed. I deemed it becoming and advantageous in
the circumstances under which we were placed, to submit to a tem-
porary suspension of my visitorial powers, rather than to incur the
hazard of assuming a function incompatible with regularity of dis-
cipline. Such might have been the case if those powers had been
exercised during the vacancy of the episcopal seat upon which my
commission makes me dependent. Few duties, I would observe, are
more distinctly marked in Scripture than that of regulating all things
pertaining to God's service and to the exercise of our ministry with
"decency and order"; and therefore, for the promotion of that end
we must "obey them that have the rule" over us and "submit" our-
selves. A regulated connection and dependence among the several
members is a distinguished property of that constitution which the
New Testament exhibits as established in the Church of the Apostles,
which from them has providentially descended to us, and I have
deemed it proper to offer this explanation of my reasons for omitting
to hold a visitation at the regular period last occurring.
In the changes which are contemplated, and indeed are now being
carried into effect, with relation to the Indian churches, I trust that
it will be found practicable to bring these colonies (New South Wales
and Van Diemen's Land) into a closer connection with their proper
ecclesiastical superior, upon whomsoever that charge may devolve, or
wheresoever his seat may be fixed : and to confer upon them effectu-
ally what they have hitherto enjoyed but nominally the advantage of
episcopal superintendence, which is the crown of the whole system.
In the meantime I have derived much comfort from intercourse with
a diocesan, 1 who so far as the distance and difficulty of communica-
tion would admit, has afforded me upon every reference which I have
made to him the most prompt attention; who has entered into what-
ever concerns the spiritual welfare of this portion of his extended
diocese with an earnestness and anxiety truly paternal; proving him,
however widely separated, to be united with us by the closest of all
sympathies that which originates in unity of faith and fellowship
in the Gospel.
1 Bishop Daniel Wilson.
48 WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON
In reviewing the low moral condition of New South Wales,
the Archdeacon drew attention to the astounding quantity
of alcoholic liquor consumed in the colony:
Public attention cannot be too often directed to the fact that the
same official records which return a population of 60,000 souls within
the colony, prove also the importation and consumption of more than
275,000 gallons of ardent spirits within the year just concluded. Cal-
culating the numbers under the sentence of the law who are 'debarred
the use of spirits, those again who from inclination or principle totally
abstain or consume but an inconsiderable quantity, and also subtract-
ing the number of children included in the. population returns, we
have a proportion exceeding all credibility remaining to be consumed
by_ that part of the population which is addicted to the use of ardent
spirits. ...
Our chief dependence, however, for accomplishing that moral and
religious reformation, which is the object of desire among all good
men, must rest upon the effect to be produced, through the blessing
of God, by the general establishment of schools, in which 'the children
may be habituated from an early age to a decent regularity of con-
duct and, together with a sum 
